#(in my head canon lalwen’s the only one of the children of Indis and Finwe who went to middle earth who managed to last it out) | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

ibrithir-was-here · 3 years

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The Tale of Tanwen Part 2

Thank you for your patience! I hope this proves worth the wait! (Also the style may be a little different since I’m too tired to try and imitate Tolkien at the moment and I wanna get this put up)

Tanwen’s sojourn with the Feanorians must end eventually. And the difference between the strange sense of peace and ease she felt there only seems to have aggravated the sense of displacement she feels everywhere else. Especially when the next family function happens to be a month long festival, to take place at the palace of Finarfin, with all of Indis’s children and grandchildren in attendance.

She’s never been very close with her relatives on Indis’s side, apart from Andavare. None f them has ever said anything unkind to her of course, but she has always felt the odd looks they think she cannot see. And now there seem to be more then ever. She doesn’t know if it’s due to the time she spent with the Feanorians, if they feel this has tainted her somehow, or if it’s simply the same undercurrent of tension she’s always felt when around the Children of Indis, but somehow this time it feels more pressing, more intense. It seems like she’s always saying or doing something they find wrong—or at least concerning. And she can’t figure out why.

After all, she’s the same as she’s always been. Grandmother Nerdenal and her uncles never seemed worried, neither did her parents or their’s—at least, not as much as they worry now. The longer they stay at the palace in Tirion the more she finds herself wishing she’d stayed away. Luckily though, she manages to find a spot no one else seems to know of, a place where she can be alone with the thoughts swirling around incessantly in her head. The dreams have begun to come back. Dreams that hover just beyond the sharpness of true memories. Dreams that have plagued her on and off for as long as she can remember. If she could simply have time alone to work through them, figure out what they mean then maybe—

“Feanaro used to hid up here all the time. I wondered if this is where you’d been disappearing to, you remind me so much of him. Would you mind accompanying me back? It is a long walk alone...”

Lady Indis is kind, kinder then Tanwen expected—though, she does not know why she should have expected otherwise, she has never spoken more then a few times to the Queen before this month...hasn’t she? And yet how well Indis seems to know her. She knew where to find her on her hidden spot on Tuna, knows enough to give her a gift she would certainly treasure—

If only it was given by someone else. But why? Why does she feel like this? What is this stinging feeling under her skin that grows day by day? Everything about this place seems to rankle her, especially the people. But why?? Finarfin, Lalwen, Findis, Fingolfin, Indis. The longer she spends with them the more they seem to grate upon eachother. And the more the tension grows, the more her dreams intensify. Night after night she wakes to find those same diamond shapes, drawn over and over again.

Finally, after one particularly tense day, with frustration of her waking life and the confusion of her dreams broiling inside her at a fever pitch, Tanwen escapes once more to the spot of solitude she found weeks ago, furiously scratching out the diamond shapes as the diamond stars of Varda brighten above her.

And then, as the Star of Earendil rises above her, though she has seen it rise and set hundreds of times before, for the first time, she truly sees it—

And the confusion that had surrounded her from her earliest moment, crawling into her dreams, seeping into her speech, catching at her very skin burns away at last, as all becomes clear—

And that night, Curufinwë Fëanáro, eldest of Finwë, only child of Míriel Serindë, Rightful King of the Noldor returned to Tirion, and in scilence unheard, the Oath was renewed.

And that’s part two! Never fear this is definitely not the end of Tanwen’s story, we’re just getting started. But for now enjoy speculating on the Great Big Mess everyone is in.

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sweetteaanddragons · 3 years

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Here am I again bc apparently the Silmarillion™️ now lives in my head rent free and I like ur interpretation of the characters (some of ur fics also live in my head rent free) ... Do u think things would improve or go more horribly wrong if Feanor was the youngest Finwean? Like if Miriel was the second wife? Idk if everything is less or more of a disaster bc in one hand I think Fingolfin is a tiny bit more well adjusted than Feanor at least when his mother is the one living (Unless he like Feanor would feel a lil bit threatened by his lil brother genius? Is he being replaced here?) and there’s also the fact that I hope that Feanor would be a little less of a disaster If his mother lived (Unless he convinced himself that he has to be better than everyone if he wants her to stay or something like that) but on the other hand that family is a powder keg waiting to explode no matter what u change

Ps: Is Feanor still Finwe favorite child or does this change bc he’s not the only living reminder of the wife he loved and lost? Bc if he’s still the favorite I don’t think that would help with the feelings of “is dad replacing us?” That could possibly arise in his other children.

If Feanor is still the favorite I suppose there’s a little more protectiveness now that he’s the youngest...

Ps 2: Does Feanor being younger affect the age of his children by much 🤔

Thank you! This one took some thought.

Okay, so the initial change is easy enough. Finwe marries Indis, Indis dies in childbirth . . .

And that brings up the first question.

Which child?

Fingolfin? It’s certainly a possibility, but then we have to consider what’s going to happen without Finrod and Galadriel. (And his other sons, but they’re less impactful.)

Findis or Lalwen? Do they even exist in this AU?

Or Finarfin?

If it’s the last, then we also have to consider what the age gap between all these kids is in this AU and how their feelings about little baby Arafinwe are complicated by this.

We also have to consider how the political situation gets even trickier.

Because Indis wasn’t just the Queen of the Noldor.

She was also a princess of the Vanyar.

Which means that while the Vanyar may not get a direct say in what goes down with a potential remarriage, they are definitely going to have an Opinion on it.

I feel like there is probably at least one frosty offer to foster the children that Finwe immediately turns down.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that Findis is on the cusp of adulthood. She is politely present at the marriage ceremony and stays a very precise, very respectable length of time afterward before going to visit her relatives indefinitely.

Nolofinwe, as the crown prince, stays. He has a lot of feelings about the collapse of his once happy feeling, but he’s well into his adolescence and used to hiding things at court. He mostly reacts by emotionally shutting down and very politely refusing to talk to his father about it. He daydreams about storming the gates of Mandos and demanding his mother back.

Lalwen is just on the verge of adolescence and would prefer to spend as much time in the trees in the gardens as possible. She is torn between wanting to play with her baby brother and wanting to avoid him.

Arafinwe is old enough that he is aware that Miriel is not his mother but young enough that most of what’s going on is flying over his head. He warms up to Miriel almost immediately and then spends a few weeks avoiding her out of a vague idea that if he’s around her too much, she’ll die.

That eventually gets more or less cleared up.

So then Miriel has Feanaro! And Miriel - what?

Is fine?

Dies? (Finwe is pretty sure he’s cursed. Arafinwe figures baby Feanaro is like him and they should stick together. The gossips are going wild.)

Survives but is unwell?

Let’s go with that one.

So the thing is, Feanaro is not Feanaro if he does not have something to throw himself against. In canon, it’s his determination to not be replaced in his father’s affections. Here, it’s his determination that he be considered worth it. Worth all the gossip about marred marriages and what comes of them; worth all the trouble with the Vanyar; worth the fractures between his half-siblings and his father; worth his mother’s illness and pain.

What he has going for him, though, is that his mother is still alive and supporting him. He still loves language and still has Opinions on the language shift, but he’s not as ride-or-die about it as in canon; his mother is still alive, queen, and perfectly capable of insisting on whatever pronunciation of her name that she likes, even weakened.

The thing about his relationship with his siblings is that in this AU, they get to set the tone. They’re the ones establishing that tone when he’s still too young to have an opinion on it.

He has almost no relationship with Findis. She sends very polite notes and very respectable gifts on all appropriate occasions; his mother reciprocates on his behalf until he’s old enough to do it, at which point the gifts get a little half-hearted or pointed, depending on the year.

Nolofinwe is . . . fine, but distant. Feanaro doesn’t understand him at all and doesn’t really care to try.

Nolofinwe is also established as the crown prince, and it doesn’t occur to Feanaro to try to take it from him. Politics are boring, court is infuriating, and his projects are much more interesting. Sure, Feanaro is convinced he’s the smartest person in the room, and he wants to be listened to, but in his father’s court, he mostly is already. He’ll poke at Nolo, sometimes, but he has no interest in trying to usurp him. Of course, if something ever does happen to Atar and Nolo does become king, then the distance between “not willing to fight you for the throne” and “actually willing to treat you as an authority figure I should obey” is going to become apparent very quickly.

As long as Nolo doesn’t tell him to do anything he wasn’t going to do anyway, they’ll be just fine.

Lalwen is fun, but, due to the age gap, is more of an impromptu babysitter than a playmate. As they get older, they’re genuinely affectionate, but it’s complicated by the family mess and made more so by the political one; Lalwen always takes Nolo’s side, and Feanaro has no patience for it.

Arafinwe . . . Arafinwe is a different story.

Arafinwe is a lonely little kid who latches onto his new little half-brother and takes him everywhere and shows him everything in the early days when everyone is still really unsure whether or not Miriel is actually going to die. This closeness remains even after those concerns mostly pass.

What happens from there is . . . I have no idea. Probably not worse of a disaster, but maybe not notably better either.

#long post #headcanon #silmarillion #au

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