b2mem | o72 - AU fic - how might a journey have gone differently?

B2MEM Challenge: Card o72
AU Fic - How might a journey have gone differently?
Format: Ficlet
Genre: Gen
Rating: G
Warnings: None
Character: Feanor
Pairings: None
Title: Justifying
Summary: Feanor struggles with madness while crossing the Helcaraxe.

It is bitter cold and everywhere I look is blue - the sky, the ice, the water where I can see a bit of the ocean between and beneath the floes. After so long a journey they all become the same. We trudge on nonetheless, making our way across the unforgiving, grinding crags.

I am impatient and lead the way, my footsteps more rapid than the rest. Rage yet drives me onward, and despite the cold I feel hot. Throwing off my cloak, preferring to carry it over my arm until the frigid air succeeds in making me succumb, I wrap it once again over my shoulders. I do not know how long it's been. The nights run into each other - there are no days. People fall and there are cries for help but I do not respond to them. I am the only one who matters. I drive on, relentless.

Few words I exchange with the others on the journey, yet I hear voices in my head. I see my sons casting glances at me. I do not recognize their individual faces. I hear myself snorting with derisive laughter. I feel I have been divisive. I have alienated almost everyone by my actions. My rage turns to regret. The voices ask me why I burned the ships and drove away Finarfin and his people? But I bear no hatred toward any of my kin and did not mean them any harm. It was all done because it needed to be done. I have done nothing wrong in theory.

Why do I not feel remorse about it? It was their own fault - how dare they stand in my way? I feel I must stop myself from dwelling on it or my rage could return and that is not what I want. But my rage turns as bitter cold as the ice. The voices speak louder: they're mine. HE - my hated enemy - must not have them - I will chase him to the end of time - to the end of the world.

I see her face in the parting of the clouds. The voices become lost on the wind. The bright stars prevail in the stillness. She looks upon me with something I have never seen in her before. Pity. Gone is the anger, her fear of me. She looks at me as she would upon a drowned kitten or helpless puppy. Her face crumbles away like so much dust. No matter, because all is clear in that moment. The stars shine bright. I see all I have done. My sons! My sons! My screams are lost in the howl of the wind.

We have reached the other side. My surviving sons have built a fire and sit around it huddled in their cloaks. I join them. The wind bites into us like a hungry wolf. We turn the cold sides of our bodies toward the flames.

My anger is gone. It is replaced by an unbearable remorse. I begin to cry. Great, wracking sobs shake my body. My sons turn to me. In their eyes, despair, bewilderment, anger and sorrow fight for domination. I realize that I need them. I need them with me, to rebuild, to help atone for what we - I - have done. We could have a new life here. I am sick of fighting and war.

"Help me," I hear myself say.

I feel their arms envelop me. I feel their strength. I am warm. They love me. My rage is gone, left somewhere on the ice.

I realize that I need my family. I know now that I am not alone. At last I realize that I love them.