For Daw’s birthday (though quite late) and Bodkin’s (a bit early).  

A Ring of Words.  

A certain ring stands between Finarfin and his reborn son.  

For many turns of the new lights Finarfin had endured stoically the numbing grief of his own losses and those of his people, the heavy burden of a kingship marred by kin strife and the shameful legacy of rebellion and kinslaying.  

And now, all of a sudden, happiness unforeseen was tearing his soul apart. Or, more accurately, the fear of losing that unexpectedly gained happiness gnawed at him like Ulmo’s tides against the foundations of Olwë’s palace. He had become a hostage of his own joy, an anxious bundle of conflicting emotions in the hide of a serene, composed king –and he did not like it.  

There was no actual cause for fear or concern, and that irked the baffled king as he wandered his own halls at night, chased by unwanted visions that came to haunt him when the duties of the day gave way to rest and silence.  

“There is no reason to worry,” he chided himself, sitting at his desk shuffling parchments idly, trying to shake off his restlessness and bury it among the mundane concerns of tomorrow’s tasks. 

There was no reason indeed, he reminded himself quietly as his trained eye examined the closest document. Findaráto –Finrod, now- was back, whole and full of joy as he had always been, and his fear that his son might suddenly decide to return to Mandos was irrational –and yet present. 

“Then why do you insist on fretting so regally, my lord?”  

His show of unconcerned brow raising did not fool his wise wife, and he did not regret it. She glided across the room, flooding it with her presence, and settled lightly, like a tired wave, on his welcoming lap. 

“Why do you worry?” she whispered, tracing his face with tender fingers. “Why do you hurt so badly?”  

As the tale went, the eyes of the King of Alqualondë’s daughter changed colour with the depth of her feelings. But ever since he had first met her by the shores -and except for just one time in their long years together- Finarfin had always found that they rather coloured his own feelings and offered him what he needed at every moment: peace, love, joy, forgiveness, compassion, understanding, connivance, trust, strength…Right now, they shone emerald green dappled with gold, like the deep pools in Lórien’s gardens, where the Firstborn and the Valar alike found peace and contentment when the grief of the world wearied them. Lórien…he thought, and again fear gripped his soul in its cold claws. 

“He is safe, and hale and hearty,” she crooned. “Returned to us by the grace of the Valar…What do you fear?”  

She was right, Finarfin sighed, resting his head under her chin and closing his eyes for a while, finding comfort in her steady heartbeat. Since his return, his son seemed the same joyful elf they had known, touched by the wisdom of his experiences and yet renewed and full of curiosity and enthusiasm. With grave solemnity he had met friends and relatives, and exchanged memories with them. He had travelled then to Alqualondë and had knelt before his grandfather with stern determination…  

Of course, Olwë’s generous welcome and quickly granted forgiveness had been made possible by Elwing, who plied and charmed the Swan People with her tales of Lúthien and Finrod’s role in her final success while Eärendil coaxed the powers into sending help to the beleaguered peoples of Middle-earth… And before that by Finarfin, who had once humbled himself before his father-in-law and his Telerin subjects, and had begged forgiveness for the Noldor. And later, when he stood firmly as Olwë raged, braving the waves of sorrow and what ifs washing over the Telerin king’s sad eyes after Finarfin dared ask for ships to sail his people –and Ingwë’s- to Middle-earth to fight the War of Wrath…  

The Teleri had received what reparation was possible along the years, Finarfin reflected, and the feud had been laid to rest. But still that must surely be a sour trial for an Exile, and yet Finrod had come out of it unscathed, still wearing his understanding, compassionate smile. 

Finrod had sailed to Eressëa with Ingil after that, and had reportedly met there with old friends from Beleriand, some of who still regretted their role in his dreadful death, and still he showed no sign of being afflicted by such encounters… His son was a strong elf and a generous one, Finarfin reminded himself to appease his fears.  

And Mandos would not err. 

And yet the bliss of Valinor had been marred once, and his own father had refused re embodiment… and there were also other minor signs that troubled Finarfin deeply.  

“…He will sit for long hours studying his hands, Eärwen…Doing nothing but stare,” he sighed in a tormented voice. That his lively, inventive son had not created a single work of craftsmanship since his return disturbed Finarfin greatly, even if he had spent some time in Mahtan’s forge. He would not mention the other fact, the visit he knew Finrod had not yet made. “What if he… he has not...if he is not cured completely? If he suffers, and decides…”  

“Then perhaps he was sent to us so he could heal wholly, my love. Would you not help him, if you could?”  

If he could… That was the core of it all, Finarfin thought fleetingly. He barely felt Eärwen squirming and shifting on his lap, and suddenly found himself facing her deep eyes again.  

“Would you, my lord?” she demanded in a voice that sang like the wind on calm waters. He nodded unhappily.  

“If only I knew how…”  

“Talk to him.”  She could be as merciless as the sea. And as relentless, too.  

“He needs time, space…”  

His futile resistance was swept away by an all-pervading tide of certainty. “He needs words,” she sentenced. “Before any other thing, our child is a Noldo, Arafinwë… he needs words to shape reality and bend it to his will. He needs words to toy with, to turn the tides of doom… and build and rebuild the world, and turn it into something bearable… and then start again. He needs words, my husband, and you are giving him only silence…”  

Finarfin gasped like one drowning, sought for an escape, relented and sunk in her knowing glance. Defeated, he lowered his head, ashamed of what she could read in him.  

“I will talk to him. When he returns.”  

Sweet lips sought his and he surrendered willingly, drinking strength from her. Too soon, she pushed back and traced cool fingers across his mouth.  

“He is back.”  

“What?”  

A spark of golden amusement glinted in her deep eyes. “He is back. He arrived after dinner, straight from Lórien…”  

“From Lórien? But...” She slid from his embrace and began putting out the candles. From her sweet, amused smile, he knew that he was making a fool of himself, a far cry from the composed, always-eloquent High King of the Noldor -but he did not care.  

“He is in the forge. Go, my lord, and talk to your son. I will be waiting…”  

***

Obedient to the will that mattered, he crossed torch-lit corridors, moonlit gardens, slumbering yards. He pushed open a creaking wooden door and climbed down an old stone stair whose flagstones were smoothed by time. He passed by almost forgotten storerooms and tack rooms and workshops, and finally found the door to his father’s forge.  

The place was unusually tidy, but it was long since it had been used, he reminded himself. The fires were out, and the furnace clean, except for the old bellows abandoned there. Fullers, swages, tongs, chisels and a wide range of custom-made tools for different delicate tasks hung neatly on the walls. A big hammer rested on the anvil, as if someone had just left it there while busy reshaping a stubborn piece of iron. Finrod sat at a long desk at the end of the room, close to the door that led to the backyard. He seemed to be studying a piece of parchment under the unsteady light of tall candles –a quill in hand, suspended, as if waiting for inspiration. A brief frown marred his face, but it disappeared quickly as soon as he felt his father’s presence.  

“Atar!” A sincere smile brightened his features as he tried to get up and bow at the same time. Finarfin motioned for him to remain seated and sat himself on a workbench, still studying his son’s face.  

“You naneth said that you had arrived… It was a short trip. Did the horse behave?” 

“Oh, yes, of course. She is swift and well-mannered…But Lord Irmo seemed not thrilled to find me there.”  

“Oh?”  Somehow that comforted Finarfin greatly, though his son seemed honestly puzzled.  

“He muttered something about intrusions, and was very insistent that I should not touch anything, and when I told him that Ingil might probably join me there…he just…dismissed me from his gardens saying that anyway I would not find there what I had been looking for on the first place… Why are you chuckling, Ata, what is this all about?”  

“You should ask Ingil, son…it is not my tale to tell!” Finarfin was laughing so helplessly that for a while he did not take notice of anything else. Then reacted.  

“He...dismissed you?” he frowned.  

“Quite discourteously, yes.”  

“And…” he tried to sound cool and unconcerned, “what were you looking for in Lórien, son, if I may ask?”  

Finrod grimaced slightly and shrugged, his glance suddenly unfocused, lost first on the wall behind his father, then on the parchments scattered on the desk, finally settling on his long, slender hands spread before him. A shadow crossed his fair features and clouded his bright smile.  

Silence spread a cloak of dread over the king. “Son?” he managed in a tight voice.   

Slowly, Finrod lifted pained eyes to him. “I…Mahtan banished me from his forge.”  

“Ah?” For the second time that night Finarfin had the distinct feeling that he was not exactly honouring his long apprenticeship with Elemmïre, the Vanyarin master of the spoken word, what with all that unexpected information thrown at him while unawares. Finrod seemed not to notice, his attention still fixed on his hands.  

“He told me to go away and return not until I had something worth of his fires..."  

The quiet despair in his son’s voice shook Finarfin from the contemplation of his failing abilities for articulate speech. He was right, then, and Mahtan had noticed, too. Finrod had lost his talents. “Actually Mahtan told me: ‘Bricks without straw are more easily made than creations of the mind without memories, young one, so go and return not to my forge until you have made peace with your past,’ so I thought that perhaps in Lórien I might find…”  

Pity overcome Finarfin’s panic. “He's been bitter since Fëanor and Nerdanel parted, Finrod,” he explained, distraught by the unhappy expression on his child’s face. “And the loss of his grandchildren still weighs heavily on him… But he should have been kinder to you…he should understand that your memories are… cannot…But you will find them in time, son,” he said, trying to sound reassuring. The sad look that his son turned to him almost froze his heart.  

“It is not…” Finrod looked away, uncomfortably, shifted on his chair, shuffled the parchments on the desk avoiding Finarfin’s glance. “My memories are there, Atar, most of them, and they do not hurt,” he finally explained in a soft, almost inaudible voice. “Except for a few that…” As if coming to a painful decision he breathed in, frowned, gathered the parchments together, shuffled them again and finally handed one over to Finarfin with a strange look, half hopeful, half ashamed in his grey eyes. “Perhaps you will understand better this way,” he sighed.  

Finarfin studied the drawings. The same design cluttered the entire available surface, in different states of completion, drawn by an obviously talented hand that was uncertain of its final purpose. He lifted questioning eyes to his son and waited. Finrod was again studying his hands unhappily, but when he finally met his father’s eyes, his face shone with decision.  

“I found that Mahtan was right, Atarinya,” he began in a soft, sad voice. “I would look at my hands and try to recall how it looked like…to no avail. I wanted to return to you the ring that you once gave me… and the commission that went with it…but, for the life that I have been granted, I cannot remember how it was, less make a replica…”  

Finarfin nodded slowly, eyeing the sketches again. He recalled it only too clearly, the ring of his house and the dark and windy night on their road to Araman, when he had bestowed it on Finrod’s hands. If he closed his eyes, he could repeat the whole conversation in his mind eye: How he thought his heart would break when Finrod, full of youthful enthusiasm, had chosen the road of exile, and the hurt, stunned expression in his son’s face when Finarfin had refused him his blessing… and the many nights that he had spent awake, blaming himself for that harsh rebuke. 

“…I said terrible things to you that night, and you were right that there was nothing that we could do against the Morgoth…I made poor decisions, and failed you thoroughly in protecting and defending your people and your children… I even gave away the emblem of your House…I fear it is all still festering within,” he added with his accustomed honesty, placing a hand on his heart.

Finarfin shook his head, busy sorting out his emotions. The pain was still there, and would always be, pain and impotence –and shame- that he had not been able to prevent all that suffering…but also the pride with which he had heard about the deeds of his children in Middle-earth…What if Finrod had remained, after all? How would have things turned out, then? Was there not some sort of deeper design that not even the Valar had controlled?  

Misinterpreting his father's silence, Finrod launched into another string of soulful considerations. “I know I have hurt you greatly, Atar,” he continued in a low, pained voice. “I know that my words were prideful, my actions thoughtless and the consequences too grave to be forgiven or forgotten lightly but… I hoped… if you could just forgive me, if not my deeds, Atarinya?”    

Even Finrod had to stop to regain his breathing, and Finarfin took advantage of that. He would have sworn that forgiveness was taken for granted between them, but apparently -and not surprisingly, after all- Eärwen was right. “Words,” her voice echoed in his mind, “your son needs words and you are giving him only silence.”  He had been pouring them out, like a waterfall, but he would also get some in return, he vowed to himself, drawing his son to his feet as he got up and crossed the distance that separated them.  

“I forgive you, my son,” he said simply but solemnly, placing both hands on his son’s shoulders and searching his eyes carefully. That was his brave child, but also a powerful king whose name was revered in Middle-earth…and also the wise, curious, inquisitive youth he had raised and helped grow into Felagund the Faithful…He smiled openly then, basking in the feeling of accomplishment, and pushed Finrod into a tight embrace. “I forgive you, and give you my blessing, son, that I grudged you then…do you think that will be enough?”  

Judging by the way his son tightened the embrace, Finarfin considered that, after all, he had given Finrod words enough to start rebuilding his world, placing each deed and blame in place and, hopefully, to retake his artistic pursuits, which completed his full joy in life. And perhaps…  

“Thank you, Atar,” his son said in a low voice full with gratitude. He pulled back and grinned. “I think I now know what had been missing…” 

With swift grace, he sat back at the desk and traced fluid scratches on a new piece of parchment. He eyed it critically then showed it to Finarfin.  

“There it is. The crown of flowers, how could I forget? What do you think? It looked like this, did it not? Tomorrow I will check the furnace and bellows and start making charcoal…I would like to forge it here, Atar, if you do not mind. Mahtan will have a fit when he…”  

Finarfin nodded distractedly, delighted by the enthusiasm that rang at last in his son’s voice now that he was again embarked on a creative project. Then his eyes caught sight of another parchment full of outlines, and he frowned briefly. 

“That ring is now a valued heirloom and a relic in Middle-earth, Finrod,” he interrupted, placing a hand on his son’s arm as if to stop the flow of words that were now taking him away from the direction Finarfin considered safest. “I do not want it replaced. I have rings aplenty, anyway, and I can give you another as a reminder, or in sign of your station…but if your memories are fully unlocked now and you have made peace with them, perhaps you would like to devote some time to this?” he suggested softly, pointing at the parchment. His son blushed and stumbled on words most awkwardly.  

“I…well, yes… but I still have to work on the design…” 

“It is a betrothal ring, Finrod; it is round, it is silver, it is plain. What design is there to be in it?”    

“And I still have to clean the forge, and start the fire, and surely mend the bellows…”  

“She is waiting for you, my son, since word of your return reached her…Actually since you left.”  

Finrod sighed and opened his arms helplessly. “I felt I needed to settle things, before even start thinking…”  

“I would say this is the most important thing to settle…the one that will remain with you for the rest of your immortal life, son…” He pulled Finrod to his feet gently. “There is a roan mare in the stables craving a long ride. If you start now you could be in Valmar by sunrise…”  

“But the ring…”  

Finarfin laughed quietly and pushed him towards the door. “Go and make your peace with all your memories and start living your new life, child, you deserve it! And forge her a ring of words while you ride, that is what you are best at!”  

Chuckling as he heard his son’s hurried steps fading up the stairs, Finarfin picked up the parchments, cast a last look at the silent forge, put out the candles and closed the door.  

“Perhaps I should have told him how skilled a blacksmith Amárië has become in these yéni,” he pondered thoughtfully as he ran to Eärwen’s loving arms, his soul at last at peace and his worries laid to rest. 

The End.

A/N Inspiration is elusive, but intent counts, I hope. Happy birthday to both of you, and a very good year full of muses.

Mahtan is quoting Lord Dunseny –loosely.