Chapter Text
Fingon did not sulk as he sat in a chair before his father with his sister beside him.
He was the crown prince, the oldest and a father himself— he did not sulk. He was sulking. He was sulking so much.
His father's intervention had stopped the fight from becoming a bloody mess, one where someone would have gotten seriously injured because Fingon had felt his patience thin as his sister kept talking, kept arguing for his ex-wife.
He really wanted to know what fantasy world his sister had been living in.
She knew their rules and laws, knew the consequences of Líssel’s choices and yet still defended her like he had been in the wrong.
It stung, to be painted as the one in the wrong by his little sister. The sister he would raise hell for— the one whose choice of learning to hunt he had defended when others spoke against it. When she wanted to learn how to wield a sword.
‘She has stayed away for nearly a century, with naught a letter to either atar or me, yet now she comes for a visit? All because I finally let atar do what he had wished to do ever since she walked away. Annulling our marriage’
It was funny, in a humourlessly way that she finally comes to visit and it is only because he got his marriage annulled. He was sure that she would have had no thought to visit otherwise.
How long would it have been until she visited then? Would it have been when either he or their Atar was on the road to somewhere and happened to stop in the area?
Is that what his family has become? Estranged strangers that sometimes saw each other. It certainly felt like it.
‘Not to mention that I should not have dropped the info about Líssel like that, Lissënor did not react well to it— I had planned to tell him when he had reached a hundred. Not now, not because of an argument I had with my sister’ he’d have to make it up to his son later—he would.
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Aredhel was in the right. She had done nothing wrong. She had done a lot of things wrong. Starting a fight with her older brother whom she knew was already on edge was just at the very top of it.
She didn’t get why she had to sit in a chair before her father like a misbehaving elfling. Though she couldn’t handle the disappointed look her Atar levelled her with every time she opened her mouth or just looked like she wanted to say something.
Silence was truly the worst thing for a someone of the Finwë line. Why? Because none of them did well with silence. Well, that was untrue— they could handle silence.
Just not the kind that came when their parents and older siblings were so disappointed in them that their eyes alone told you; hold your tongue for I do not want to hear you speak a vocal, least I lose what is left of my patience.
‘It’s not my fault that my brother is so tense and on edge— how was I to know he would react like that?!’
She had been warned, by her atar, by the soldiers, by Lissënor her nephew, by Ereinion, by the stewards. She had been warned and had still turned a blind eye and a deaf ear to their words. What a fool she had been. This was her fault, no one else’s.
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Fingolfin was wondering why the hell he ever thought having children was a great idea. Because looking at his eldest and third eldest argue whose fault the fight was, really made him wonder that choice.
He wasn’t even mad the fight had happened; it was expected by that point. But it couldn’t have been one of the more secluded training grounds? It had to be one of the main ones. One of the most public ones?
Not to mention Lissënor had not looked great when Ereinion had tugged him inside— he hoped his grandson did not get so cold that his joints would flare with pain again. They had managed for the last while to not have too many, or too bad flares happen.
He had a feeling that would not be the case, his grandson was not known for being lucky.
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Lissënor wasn’t exactly sure how he ended up in the main sitting room, cloak still around his shoulders, blankets thrown over his lap and with a steaming cup of tea in his hands.
His mind was still replaying his father’s words on a loop. He had never known his own mother had wanted to leave him on the ice. Why? Had she felt it would have been a kinder fate? He didn’t know, nor did he want to know.
But it gnawed at him, made him numb to everything else. The tea, the blankets, everything.
He barely registered Ereinion’s concerned voice, or that the older elf removed the teacup from his shaking hands.
The salty tears that rolled down his cheeks, the way Ereinion hugged him. He registered none of it.
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Ereinion was concerned, worried and a tad bit angry. He was concerned and worried for Lissënor who sat unresponsive on the couch.
He was angry at Aredhel and Fingon for the fight, for the words that had left the younger elf in the state he was currently in.
‘It’s at times like this that I wish I was at home and not surrounded by crazy noldor elves who are more dramatic than the sindar, and those elves are dramatic enough.’
Ereinion did not like the glassy look in Lissënor’s eyes, or the way his hands shook.
It was clear that nothing was getting through to the younger elf— he was too stuck in his own head to hear anything.
It was even more obvious when he didn’t even give a small hiss at the hug— something he had learned Lissënor tended to do.
The younger elf tended to give half hearted hisses when those he was particularly close to or cared for hugged him.
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Austëwen
Austëwen sometimes felt like she was the one thing that was keeping the royal family together.
‘I swear this family is as self destructive as the feanorians can be, if not more so!’ She thought as she bustled around the healing wing— though she was thankful no one had been seriously injured because she would have scolded their ears off.
“Children, the whole lot of them!” She grumbled as she went to check on Lissënor and Ereinion who was in the royal wings main sitting room.
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For months, he had been keeping an eye on the royal family, more so its youngest member. He still remembered the way the prince had humiliated him. He hated the young elf and wanted to see him humiliated in turn. It had nearly worked too— but the elves he had hired to kidnap the prince failed, failed! And now he was stuck, stuck and unable to do anything least someone catches wind of his plans!
But there might be something or rather someone who could help him— there was someone else who had been humiliated by the royal family not too long ago. A family who was only now starting to show their faces again at court. A family whose heir had been banished from court for a century.
Yes, they would help him. That he was sure of. And hey at least the arrogant prince had been injured.