Chapter Text
"There would be no healing, and no release."
The words echoed as they fell from Fingolfin's lips and reverberated through the hollow shades of halls. Everyone looked unsteady at the pronouncement, sickened expressions as they glanced around at the spirits congealing around them or folded inwards towards themself. Revulsion was snaking up Fingolfin's throat too, tying his stomach into knots. If someone could not heal, if there was simply no chance for them - it was a hideous notion. A failure. Another failure. One that should not possibly be true but was, oh so likely was, and that was enough to make them want to shy from it. They did not, for they could not forget now, could not wind back time, but that did not mean they did not wish to.
Briefly, angry and absent in halves, Fingolfin wondered if it was the case for those who withered from their grief. Terribly, he thought of Míriel. It would explain many things.
Elenwë shifted, uncomfortable. The same nausea was reflected on her face as Fingolfin felt within him, deadened by the ice and the far-off abstractions of grief. "Is that not the job of Nienna, and her maidens? They will not be left to forget and wither away; they could not."
"They shouldn't be," Fingon answered, any humor absent. "Perhaps they are trying; perhaps they have been successful, with some. These may not be all the unfortunate souls trapped within that fate, only the ones that we can sense. The ones that - haven't been gotten to yet, or are worse."
Aredhel pursed her lips and Fingolfin could see her stifle the impulse to argue, to curse out the Valar and swear nothing would be done. Vaguely (and for he felt everything vaguely, else he would scream and vomit and find another power to fight), he felt the same urge within him, they had been left to freeze and suffer and for what, the pride of the few, the Valar's persistent indifference, refusal to be wrong, but not here. Anger had never suited him well. His children needed something to cling to, some hope, something to deliver them from this awful world of pain and breaking, the twisting of the soul, and Fingolfin refused to deny them that. They needed this. They needed this, needed the faith. Not the faith of the Valar, the shaking contradiction that divided them between loyalties and lines, but something material - or as material as it could be, them all being dead. And, because Fingolfin knew his death and could be terribly pessimistic about it, perhaps it would be better to not challenge the Valar deep within their seat of power, deep within the Halls of blind judge Námo, inside his realm. It was for the best. Neither he nor his daughter would challenge it.
A cry ripped through the air and Argon was turning, eyelashes slightly immaterial from all his peering. "It's - well, it can't be good, but there's people here. Close." He took another breath none of them needed to take and said, "It's Findarato and Orodreth. Orodreth's closer."
They needed another thing to think about, desperately. A less depressing puzzle to solve. "There is little point in waiting. We should search for them."
And find out if their hypothesis was correct. The last part went unsaid.
"Perhaps we should," Fingon agreed, springing back into his usual cheer. "They may be able to tell us why, better than anything we will get from speculating."
Aredhel nodded, her dark hair loose. "It would be best, to get answers from the source. We can work from there."
"Yeah," Elenwë muttered, quiet, disturbed. Her eyes fluttered down upon the sea of ghosts before her. "Well, I suppose we should. Orodreth is closer?"
"He is." None of his children had been very close with the boy, shut up with his books and studies. Turgon had fostered some sort of friendship with Orodreth - shared interests - but he was not here, mercifully alive, though Fingolfin had little hope that he would stay that way. Fingon had not been wrong, when he said that few, if any, would survive this dire strait. That was...acceptable, for there was little they could do, here. Regardless, Fingolfin reached for his memories of who Orodreth had been, an Age ago; shyness and tired eyes, pale hair and a protective streak, little smiles and bright laughter, little pets cared for with the most compassion. The soul-spark fluttered into existence underneath his fingers, cupping around the shimmer. "Come."
The air was cold - felt cold, though Fingolfin knew it was not - when he plunged into the crowd of shades, following the trail beneath his fingers. Vaguely, he heard his children shuffling behind him, making their way through the doorway and into the mass of souls. It was hard to focus on that, compared to the faint ethereal unreal touches all around him and the soul clutched within his mind. Still. He could not lose himself. Not now. Focus on his nephew or his closer kin, those were his two choices, and so Fingolfin slowed, straightened. Those bright essences sat lightly in the back of his head, even as the soul-thread beneath his fingers began to unravel, oh so slightly. That could be fixed, still leading straight ahead. Fingolfin would rather not do this all over again, would rather not fade back into the Halls alone once again. This little lapse could be afforded, if it kept him here.
His steps were slower now, more purposeful, simply ignoring the spirits around him instead of trying to avoid them; they were not here, not truly. There were few that mattered to them here, few that they could act upon; there was only so much they could do and Fingolfin had spent all his life trying to fix what was broken, smoothing over issues and fighting for attention, recognition. He knew there was always a too far, always a limitation of what could be done. Even in Mandos, it seemed. It would be better to focus on their own kindred, here, and Orodreth was closer.
Quite close, in fact, shades fading into the background as they reached almost the pinnacle, almost the end of this hall but not quite, leaving just one glowing faintly. "Artaresto."
The soul startled, Fingolfin watching as cracks pulse through his spirit for a moment, great and breaking him apart before disappearing once again. Even so, his form was clear now, face filling and features defining and great pale coils of hair becoming observable, sharp against the blood soaking through his cloak. "Ñolofinwë?"
"Whatever happened to you?" Fingolfin asked softly, looking Orodreth over. Blood, mostly, with little else; likely killed in battle, then. The details could be found later. Even so, he hadn't seen something like that fear before, but Orodreth was...here. Worse than the rest, if their hypothesis had been correct.
"I died," Orodreth answered listlessly, tucking trembling fingers into flowing gore-incrusted sleeves. "It's...it's complicated. Hard to explain. But it's good to see you again, uncle. It has been quite some time since..."
"Since my death," Fingolfin provided plainly, finding little value in micing words here. They were already dead, it was a known factor for both parties; there was little good to be found in avoiding saying just what. Orodreth had always struggled with saying what he meant, even long ago.
"Since your death." Orodreth sighed, morose, brushing a pale lock out of his face. "Yes. Still, it has been a long time. Do you know of what happened after? Can you, in this place?"
Fingon's voice rang like morning bells when he jumped in, finally reaching them in this unreal world of death and little else. "I've told him a bit, but I fear you know more upon that topic than I. Also nice seeing you again, Arto."
Orodreth smiled, thin and weary. An age that did not fit him - did not fit Elves, as a rule, but that had been broken too many times to be acknowledged, Fingolfin himself well acquainted with the burden of responsibility and choice and sorrow - hung down upon him with the almost immaterial gray hidden within the ivory-gold, a heavy weight upon his shoulders. Even so, Fingon's presence cheered him, and for that Fingolfin was glad. "It is good to see you again, Finno."
"It really is," Fingon agreed, that same bittersweet sadness in his smile. "But we do not come alone. Please, welcome Argon, Aredhel, Elenwë, too; we are all kin here."
"A pleasure." Orodreth sketched a bow at them as they drifted closer, once again more than shades at his acknowledgement. "But neither do I come alone, and - for that I must ask your aid. My daughter Finduilas is...unwell, even here. I would like to see you do what you can to help her."
"Of course I shall." Fingon, his father noted, was unblooded now, unsinged and composed in a way his fëa would fall into and out of while transversing the Halls. Even here, their deaths could not be hidden, not fully, even as their souls have fled their bodies and exist unclothed, imitating their often-form. Fingolfin knew they all did the same, had watched his daughter's poisoned veins come and go like the cycles of the Sun, had seen Elenwe pale and freeze and drip water wherever she went, had found Argon consumed by the cold swirling around him and find again. He knew he did the same, knew the freeze of his heart and melt inside his non-existent flesh and a gaping wound would find itself across his chest and then disappear again; that, he always would try to suppress. His children did not need to see that, even grown up, even after death. "How have you been, Orodreth? What has happened, since this death of mine? And what of her, your daughter?"
"Unfortunate," Orodreth answered. "Plenty has happened, Fingon, and little of it good. The Men have grown more numerous and more powerful, and of that there is some strength, but they are not wise. Nargothrond has fallen, I fear, due to their council and their foolishness, and I think not that it will be the last. Of Finduilas, she was...captured by the Orcs before her death; you see now why I ask you for assistance, I am sure."
"Ah." Fingolfin did, and so had Fingon, from the look upon his face. It was not a reassuring thought - the similarities drawn were not reassuring, but they were not meant to be. Regardless, it had meant they were correct, upon entering this place. This hall was not reserved for those who were well. The thought invoked their discovery again, and Fingolfin pointedly forgot it."I see. Do you know where-"
"I can bring you to her," Orodreth provided. "It is simply that- She can little determine what us real, and she thinks this - me - not."
Fingon grimaced, and Fingolfin had half a mind to tell him that there was no need for him to do so, but that would be an untruth, would it not? There was a need. Perhaps he need not push himself too far, too soon would be better; Fingon had always liked to give too much, to try until he simply could not any longer. In Valinor, it was of little issue. In Beleriand- "Then let me see her, so that we may see what I can do."
That was settled; there was little more Fingolfin could do about it now. He turned instead to his other children, focusing upon Elenwë. "You were able to assert your will over the Halls into shaping them upstairs. Do you think you would be able to do that now?"
Elenwë chewed on her lip, considering it. "Maybe. It should be the same principle, but before it was part of the more or less intended experience, and it's not, here." She looked at him for a moment, softening slightly. "Are we planning on staying here?"
"We are," Fingolfin confirmed. "Until they have figured that out. I would imagine that it would be better to wait in something of more interest than an empty hallway."
"Yeah." Aredhel's dark heart had begun pulsing again, though the poison had stayed confined within her body instead of spreading out underneath her feet. "If you can make this into something different, great. But if we're settling down for now, you shouldn't expect me to stay here the whole time."
"I wouldn't." Fingolfin knew she wouldn't, had known from the very beginning; it would not matter what he said here, if he gave her leave or not, and he did not want to be the one to deny his daughter the right to go where she wished, even if there was little to see, here. Wanderlust had always called to her, greatest for her above all elves; he had no wish to try and fail to curtail that now, but neither did he want to lose her forever. Not to speak of whatever had happened to her. Her death. Fingolfn did not push. "Drift as little as you can and return intact, but go when and where you desire, yelya."
"With that figured out, what exactly are they speaking about?" Argon asked and Fingolfn caught Aredhel exchanging a look with him, the only other person present for the topic at hand. Not entirely, he would give her, even if his heart melted a little at the warmth rolling up in him from the inclusion.
"It is," Fingolfin stated, tired and heavy-hearted, not unwilling but hesitant, grudging, "a long story."
"Fingon finally got with Maitimo," Aredhel said instead, all dark eyes and sharp angles and a crooked, knife-like smile. Ah. Well, that was a simpler thing, that explanation, even if did not fulfill what was asked. Better, in these times, Fingolfin thought, surrounded by the question of mercy, the impossibility of change, of cruelty and cruelty abound. A lighter, easier thing, that. They did not need more suffering now, nor more tales of it, nor the pain of speaking what had been done. They had enough of that bitter, acquired taste.
"Really?" Argon asked, grinning now, bright-eyed and enthusiastic.
"It took this to get them together," Elenwë repeated, a smile gracing her face even as she sounded almost doubtful, checking once and then again. "A war and theft and death and armies."
Aredhel shrugged. "I guess we should have just done this sooner, then. Save everyone a lot of sappy unsubtle nights."
"Perhaps they should have." Fingolfin did not think he would phrase it like that but it is not entirely inaccurate; he could see how his son looked at Nelyafinwë and how he spoke of him and how his son's first concern upon dying was he. He was not oblivious; Fingolfin simply saw little issue with it. Feanor would not. That love may not be harmless, can hardly be with that Oath, but it was not like Nelyafinwe could drag Fingon into wrongdoing now, once he is dead, and before there seemed to be little consequence, with Nelyafinwë in the...state he was in. Fingon's presence helped him recovery, Fingolfin knew, and was grateful for, for with Nelyafinwë's recovery came Fingon's, bouncing back from the Ice once he had something else to focus on. Like a lover, or patient in need of care. Nelayfinwë served as both. And so how could Fingolfin deny him?
Elenwë shook her head, a grin upon her face even as she did. "Well, I certainly don't know how to follow that up, apologies. Ñolofinwë, are you still interested in the," she waved a hand idly, "manipulation of all this, or no?"
The girl did not back away when Aredhel took her hand, obscuring her pale snowy skin with a darker, dusky wrist as the other nís held her tightly, reassuring. "Trust me, none of us are expecting you to. But are you still interested, atya?"
"Most certainly," Fingolfin replied. "Do not let it worry you, Elenwë. Of this, I am quite interested to know."
"Great," Elenwë told him, slipping out of Aredhel's grasp with nary an issue and beginning to walk with him, leaving the other two behind to exchange their gossip. "Well, first, you have to start with-"
*
It was no easy to thing, to shape walls and Halls dark and deep and immobile, inflexible. Fingolfin soon found a respect for Elenwë's skill in this work and her inshakable patience with all of his attempts, explaining to the best that she could and guiding him softly, easily.
The problem was this: the Halls of Mandos were not reality, and that meant they could be altered. However, these were not any gardens, not any part of Irmo's domain, where dreams could shape the world and the flowers with little thought, with little resistance, for that was their purpose, in its unreality. The Halls did not want to be changed; did not want the change to be an easy, unearned thing.
And so it was not, darkened memories bubbling up inside him at every attempt to shift, to focus his will into something else. How peaceful his daughter-in-law had looked, laying still in the snow, blue-lipped and lashes frosted together and unmoving; his people's quiet despair upon the Ice, lips chapped and breaking from the cold, starved thin but with determination still burning within their eyes, a refusal to stop but an inability to survive, the knowledge that they would not be able to continue on like this but also that nothing could be done, lifted to Fingolfin for a solution; looking for his brother after it all and finding only ashes on the wind, long since blown away; his son's desperate grief even as he could not cry, could not waste the water or risk freezing his eyes once more, great and hurt and yearning; watching his nephew's bruised bandaged chest raise and lower all so slightly, barely even alive, and remembering Findekano sobbing into his chest, whispering that he had asked to be killed and that Findekano almost had done it, would have done it if there was no other choice, that he was still unsure that saving him was more of a mercy than just ending it then and there. Looking the rest of his kin in the eyes and wondering when the lights had gone out, when they had become so cruel and cold, and already knowing the answer to that; hearing reports of his almost-children's deaths and all other's losses and that there was nothing they could do but lose, that this was their duty, their fate, nothing but death and destruction and not even spite, not even enough to resist it, that perhaps this was all that they were made for, that this was their role in the great Song and nothing could be done.
Fingolfin understood this, of course; changing the Halls yielded their control over him, even for a moment, and took a vital part of them, and so he had to face all that he might to create that change, that healing through confrontation, refusal of avoidance, that Mandos itself was made for before he could. Elenwë understood too, a soft consoling smile upon her face as she watches him reel once again, gathering back into a physical-enough form. "Sorry; I had much the same, up there, but it didn't look quite as bad."
He nodded, tight-lipped as he tried to piece his mind back together, anchor himself to this present moment. "You were here longer; you had more time to process."
"I did," she agreed, offering him a hand as Fingolfin straightened, stable once again. He took it gladly, frigid fingers soft beneath his own calluses. "It is not such a bad thing, to wait, but I can certainly see your point; it would be nice, to have somewhere comfortable, homey, here. Especially with her," Elenwë added, glancing back at the doorway that Fingon and Orodreth had disappeared through, worry creasing her features for but a moment.
"Yes." Fingolfin sighed, running his free hand through his hair unconsciously, then almost startled by the ease of it, dark strands free and braidless. "We should be careful, with her - she is your niece, Finduilas, though I'm sure you know that. I fear times have been, bad, shortly, and she seems to have received the brunt of it."
"I would have loved to meet her, when she lived." There was no sadness in Elenwë's face, no anger, no bitterness at her own untimely death, no accusation at Fingolfin's part in it, that he could have saved her if only he had known more, if only he had done better, if only he had done nothing at all; only a wistfulness, faint and fair upon her features. Her eyes fluttered closed for a moment, frost clinging to her lashes sparkling even in the dim light, and then opened again, the blue of bright Sun-lit sky. "I will, atar; I will make sure of it, for from the little that I know she already seems to have gone through far too much, but I do have one question, of this. Why Findekáno?"
Atar. Fingolfin had to brush by it, questions asked and demanding, but he still tucked it away for later. The situation was that there was little point lying to her; for Elenwë would just ask again, would continue asking until she found a satisfactory answer, and Mandos would be more than happy to provide her with one, grim and grisly. Better to spare them all that, here. Fingolfin wanted no tapestries. "Findekáno has experience with work of this type; he has done it before, and been successful enough."
"Who?" Elenwë asked, not softly this time, grimacing.
"I fear that Aredhel may have been overly simplistic earlier," Fingolfin said, keeping himself anchored, keeping him from drifting too far; cannot, already. He can speak without remembering, can speak without being there once again. He has already done that once today, and that is already too much. "It was Maitimo. He had been taken by the Enemy long ago; Findekáno was able to rescue him and helped him recover from all that entails."
The nís nodded, sorrow lining her features once again before disappearing, and perhaps that was what it was like, to exist inside Mandos for so long, with nothing to do but think and learn and heal, to find a way to put sadness in a box out of sight or work through it slowly, purging a poison from the inside out. Fingolfin admired her capability. "But they did admit it this time, correct?"
Fingolfin chuckled, lighter than he thought he would, all things considered. "Make no mistake, they did."
"Some good came from it, then." Elenwë smiled, rosy-cheeked but sad-eyed, and she gently guided Fingolfin away from the wall, ice melting under his warmer touch and beginning to run down his sleeves. "I think that's enough for now, but we didn't get nothing done; it's lighter in here now and this wasn't stone before."
It had not been, a fluffy dark blue against the grayness of Námo's Halls. That was a reassuring thought, that even in their failure they had managed to exert a change, managed to shift what was and what might be. "How did you learn to do it?"
His daughter-in-law shrugged, slipping down to sit upon the altered floor, her back leaning against the stone. It was not cold when Fingolfin joined her, allowing his shoulders to slump; their cold was an aberration here, a deviation from the norm, not a continuation of it. There was no cold here, no heat, nothing but the bare ambient temperature that was of here, could not exist outside it, striped of any being except what it was not. It, notably, carried no frozen chill - could not, except in his memory. "I didn't learn it, really. I was lost, yes, and confused, but I had enough time to just...think, think about things and how it was, think about what I wanted and I regretted, and that helped." She laughed, soft and hushed. "As I got better, so did the world around me. I realized, at some point, once I had gotten up that far, that perhaps I could change them too, if I really wanted, since it all went off my mental state, what I thought. I was right."
"The sooner that we manage it here," Fingolfin started, soft but firm, "the sooner we can be safe."
"The sooner we can be safe," Elenwë repeated, eyes wandering away into the darkened ceiling. "Yes, I suppose it will be. But the Halls don't want to us to be safe, not really. They're a tool to help us heal, and none of us can heal without being hurt, here. Not when it's us, not when we're just...trying not to think about it, really, because it makes us suffer, to face it truly. That doesn't work."
"I am aware." He was, he knew; he just wanted to have some slight little more control over it, this hurting healing, who and how and when. To be sure no one would be lost, consciousness ripped apart and pasted back together; to be sure that they would not be separated again by the pain that had split them apart in life. "That is not my goal; I know it is unachievable. I just want to create something kinder, here, something to cling to so we will not be lost."
Elenwë did not speak for a long time after that, cold shoulder brushing against his own, both faint spirits silent and unmoving, watching for something to happen - Fingon and Orodreth to return, Aredhel and Argon - or perhaps nothing at all. When she did again, it was soft, even softer than she ever had before, private as a secret or a hope or a confession, some tiny crime done and regretted but unable to be changed, accepted but fearing that another would not. "I will be going, soon. I'm not going to wait for my love - I've done too much, accepted too much done. I cannot stay. It has been too long, this death."
"I cannot fault you for that." Fingolfin could not; she had died and she had learned from it, in the manner they were supposed to. He was not going to tell her to stay, to wait for them, to keep her from life and Valinor a like, an eternity of peace even in waiting after a painful trip, a painful trick, of suffering and fear and biting cold, of panic and desperation and betrayal. He would not rob her of that, if she wanted to go. He refused to; she had a right to happiness, they all did, even as they froze and sobbed and died, even if it was ignored, and now there was nothing keeping her from it. She should be allowed to be happy, to live again if Mandos would let it; and the Halls would, he was certain. He would not keep her from that. "You may go, as you wish. I cannot keep you, nor would I wish to."
"I miss it," Elenwë admitted, eyes glazed, far-off, the eyes of the distracted or the dead. In Aman, there was little difference between the two. But this was not Aman, could never be, and they both knew that, even as she drifted, reached for it desperately and found herself wanting. "The Trees, the light, the wind upon my cheek, the grass beneath my fingers. I miss living, and I'm so sorry for it, because I had it and I good as well threw it away, we all did, but I just got to die and the rest of you had to live without those things, just with the pain and the rage and everything else that was left. But I want to live, and I know I will be able to, soon, but I just didn't want to leave you, without any sort of reason or explanation. It wouldn't feel right. I didn't want you to wonder what happened to me, if I chose or was chosen. I didn't want that."
She let out a laugh, low and wet. "And half of that isn't even there anymore! The Trees are gone, and the light, and the better part of my family. I'd call it foolish if I did not know I wanted it. If I did not know I wanted it so bad, despite knowing it."
"There is the Sun now," Fingolfin told her, "and the Moon. There is still light. And there is a life that you can live, beyond this place - little would come of you waiting here, when the Halls already see you healed. You had no choice to die, and yet you now have one to live; take it. There is not nothing remaining, of what used to be; we did not chose that destruction either, not any more than you chose to rest. We still have it, and we still chose this, chose to go. It is not selfish to die, not selfish to live once more; I wish you had been able to, before, wish you had been able to live longer, see more. You have always been good, and this changes nothing about it."
A sad smile played across Elenwë's lips as she turned to him, bright with sorrow, with a faint hope for something better, something better just around the horizon and just having to make it to that. Fingolfin would like to see her happy, would like to see that hope fulfilled, and he will, no matter what it will cost. "Thank you; you are kind, for it. I will wait until the spring comes again, bright and beautiful, fair as Yavannah's breath, until it is time for me to rejoin that place, until Námo speaks to me, but I will not wait for any other, not my kindred in you, not my husband himself. Not here, apart from what I love, lingering where I have no place. I cannot; you understand.
"But when Turukano comes, all of us ending in this place- tell him that I love him, even still, and that I am waiting for him on the other side. Tell him I want to see him again, there." She took Fingolfin's hand carefully, hands cold as ice against his frigid own, dripping water into her lap. Her eyes were large, intent, a brilliant blue almost as bright as the sea or the gnashing Ice, where it broke and the water came rushing in, taking all in its path. "Please. Tell him, once I'm gone. Please."
"Of course," Fingolfin breathed. "Of course I will."