REUNION: THE USURPER

The Fëanorians meet their betrayed kin.  Huan ponders familiar faces. Huan’s POV.

I. The Children. (Fingon, Turgon, Aredhel, Idril; Angrod, Aegnor, Orodreth, Galadriel, Finrod.)

We marched up proudly, among hostile looks, to where the usurper stood.  

The dark-heads were there: the Valiant, impassive; his brother, eyeing us with hatred and contempt; the beautiful maiden who should have been one of us, smiling at me. The child among them I didn’t recognize. 

The golden-heads stood to their right. Two were like my twins: lively, mischievous, dangerous. Another, unreadable and aloof. The maiden’s glare unnerved me for an unknown reason. The older one, the ever inquisitive and adventurous child who had once tried to teach me stealth, was leveling upon us his steady and compassionate gaze.

II. The King.  

He stood there.

This was a King we all would follow to the depths of Morgoth’s pits and beyond the walls of the world, if need arose. Proud and mighty, his stance asserted his birthright, his inner fire the strength to hold that claim. I shivered in anticipation, the display of authority and sheer power raking through my nerves. That was our King!  

Suddenly, one of his red plaits hit my muzzle, and I almost yelped in despair, as I looked up wildly and saw him kneeling before another, his bandaged stump to his heart, pledging loyalty to the usurper!  

III. Fingolfin. 

I stood in proud -if stunned- defiance, as he studied us all with his grey gaze. Never before had I noticed how much he resembled his half-brother. There was something in his eyes, though, that I could not wholly place. There was pain, compassion, anger, guilt, blame...

Under that piercing stare, I froze. I owed something to this one, I realized, for I, too, had ran away cowardly before Melko, leaving his sire to die aloneº...  

As my king had done before, and despite my master’s angry hiss, I bowed to the son of Finwë. The rest followed as one.

The End

ºI’m following the Silm, “...for Finwë alone had not fled from the horror of the Dark...” (Chap.9, of the flight of the Noldor) Of course, Huan sees himself as “standing” and “bowing,” he’s one of them!