Chapter Text
Pennants of white embroidered gold snapped and fluttered and shone in the moonlight and a stiff breeze. The streets rang with cheers and song and laughter and weeping and feet tapping out the rhythm of dancing both joyous and grieved. The Royal Pavilion was already thronging with crowds, nobles and courtiers and craftsmen and bards and artists jostling shoulders and full wine-cups. The coronation would not start for another hour, and there was no sign of the King or his siblings and most of the Royal family, but the Eldest Princes moved among the crowd in easy amity, smiling and reassuring and chatting with all and sundry.
Singing rose in the streets and the budded garlands there burst into full bloom. Gems winked and glittered in hair and clothes and jewelry and between the alabaster paving stones of the street. Wine flowed free and tears freer yet and all eyes turned towards the Palace or away down the Calacirya to where the Sea shone like silver-brushed glass.
A roar went up from the Pavilion as the King appeared at last, only to stop as though cut off with a knife as he held up one regal hand. This coronation was to be far more elaborate – more festive and more stately both – than the last. After all, the King was not dead. The King was willingly – gladly, joyfully – handing over his crown to his heir.
He had removed the diadem from his brow, and now Lord Erestor stood behind the Royal family with a solemn expression and an exquisitely carved wooden box chased in gold. The Elves in the square all watched avidly as the King – as Fëanáro – turned, solemnly and with great majesty opening the lid of the box.
The fire-hearted rubies that had sat glowing like coals in the diadem during Fëanáro’s reign had been removed, replaced with diamonds bright as starlight. Arafinwë knelt before his elder brother, head proudly erect, as Fëanáro lowered the crown slowly and deliberately to those bright golden curls. He reached down, raising Arafinwë to his feet, and pressed a kiss to the younger Elf’s brow before they both turned to face the crowd.
“Behold your king!” Fëanáro cried in a voice great and terrible, ringing through streets and shaking columns and setting birds a-flight.
Cheers erupted once more, redoubled in fervor. Two-thirds of the Noldor had chosen to follow Fëanáro across the shining sea, and would depart on the morrow for Alqualondë. But today they cheered for the King who would lead the Noldor who remained to beautify Aman.
King Arafinwë took his throne, Queen Eärwen at his right hand and young Prince Findaráto at his left. Prince Nolofinwë and Princess Anairë stepped forward and did their obeisance, receiving the King’s blessing, before departing the dais to melt into the crowd.
Fëanáro appeared at their side, having vanished off the back of the platform when Arafinwë took his throne. “Is all in readiness for our departure, brother, sister?” he asked, eyes shining with the familiar intensity. He had donned his own crown, the rubies of his House glowing hotly in silver fine and pure.
“My House is ready,” Nolofinwë avowed, off hand dropping casually to rest upon the blue pommel-stone of the sword he wore always at his hip. Fëanáro had made and gifted it to him as soon as he was strong enough to wield it, against the day of their inevitable departure from Aman, and Nolofinwë could rarely be prevailed upon to part from it. Now he grinned wolfishly at his elder half-brother. “A grand adventure awaits us, Náro.”
Fëanáro’s ever-bright eyes brightened further with fervor. “Not an adventure only, Nolofinwë. We shall have our revenge upon Moringotto, and cleanse the lands of our parents’ births from his taint.”
Nolofinwë reached out to clasp his brother’s arm above the wrist. “In this as in all things I will follow you, brother.”
“Good,” Fëanáro said briskly, giving Nolofinwë’s wrist an affectionate little squeeze and then releasing him. “I will have need of your sound tactical mind and cool logic. Now, let us go and make sure there are none reluctant to follow a King so visibly half-Vanya and a Queen of the Falmarin people.” So saying, he forged his way through the crowd with regal nods and forbidding mien.
Anairë laughed softly, watching him go. “As if any would dare say to his face that they will not accept his choice of heir,” she murmured.
Nolofinwë patted his wife’s hand where it lay in the crook of his arm. “You are correct, my love, none would,” he agreed, amusement coloring his voice. “Thus we will follow with calmer heads and less menacing demeanor to ensure their claimed fidelity is true.”
Moon and stars shone bright above a city twinkling with a thousand golden stars of its own. The revelry continued in the streets and public buildings, but in the green parlor, the sounds of celebration were hushed. It was a somber group that gathered, all together again for both the first and the last time for a while.
Four pendants lay blazing upon the table in the center of the room, golden and pearl-white and true-silver and white as the heart of a forge. Four figures huddled around them.
“These are the gems you have been working on this last sennight, then, Fëanáro?” Arafinwë asked, fingers hovering above the gold-medallion, with its many rays emanating off a jewel that shone bright as the gilded vessel over which Fëanáro had so recently labored.
“Yes,” Fëanáro confirmed curtly, “and yes, that one is yours, Aro.” He lifted it, turning to fasten it about his brother’s neck. “A drop of the juice of the last fruit of Laurelin. Keep it well, for there shall never be its like again.”
He turned next to the pearl-gem, strung on a chain fine as water. “This is yours, Nolo. Nectar from the flower of Telperion.”
Thus disposed, he lifted the silver-jewel. “And this is yours, Irimë. The purest starlight from the north tower of Taniquetil.”
The gem twinkled as it landed on his sister’s bosom and she laughed in delight, fingertips ghosting across it. “It feels alive; it laughs with me!”
“It is and it does,” Fëanáro confirmed briefly.
“And yours, Náro?” Nolofinwë asked, glancing at the remaining jewel.
Fëanáro fastened the necklace about his own throat without ceremony. “A spark of the fires that forged the chariots of the Sun and Moon.”
“So these were your price for aiding in the crafting of the Vessels,” Arafinwë mused. “I have wondered what you might ask of the Valar.”
“And now you know,” Fëanáro said with his customary brusqueness. “These are the greatest jewels I shall ever craft with my own hands, for their kind cannot be replicated. For as long as you wear them, I shall be with you in spirit if not in body.”
He stepped away from the table and folded his three Bonded siblings into a tight hug. They no longer fit in his arms the way they had as children, when they would come to him for comfort in the night. But they all stood now, in the fullness of their own strength, and they embraced him now as peers.