Sleep, by Senalishia

[senalishia]

B2MeM Prompt, Card and Number: “Feanatics!” - G48: Indis: History’s First Wicked Stepmother
Format: Double Drabble
Genre: Family
Rating: General
Warnings: No warnings apply
Characters: Indis, Feanor
Pairings: None
Summary: The only time Indis gets to hug her stepson is when he's asleep.

Indis looks on impassively as the child's shrieks turn to sobs and finally decay into soft, shuddering breaths. When he lays still, she waits a few minutes more to be sure, then creeps forward on silent footfalls, kneels beside him, and ever so slowly, inch by careful inch, gathers Finwe's son into her arms.

She promised her husband that she could manage while he was away. Begged him, even, for a chance to spend some time with the boy, just the two of them. To make another try at winning, if not his love, then even his tolerance.

This has become their routine for the last four days; Laurelin rarely reaches its peak before something she says, or does, or is makes him flash over from smoldering resentment to incandescent rage. Stern exhortations and soothing pleas have both proven useless. But his little body can only contain so much for so long before he exhausts himself. Then, at last, she gets to hold him and pretend for a little that they are a family.

“I'm not her,” she tells him as he sleeps. “I know I will never be your mother. But won't you let me at least be something?”

Comments

[kayleearafinwiel]

Oh, this is how I see Indis and Feanor too! Wonderfully done.

Kaylee

[erulissedances]

Oh yes, the acrimony between the two of them certainly didn't start immediately, but Feanaro will never let his mother's memory shift to the back of his mind and Indis will never be able to supplant it with newer memories. How sad for both of them.

- Erulisse (one L)

[zdenka]

Aw, this is sad! I like this.

[mybluerose]

Poor Indis,nothing she can do to win over Feanor.

[isilloth]

Aww, so cute! Indis at least is trying

[oloriel]

Oh, very nicely written! That's how I see their relationship, too. She just can't win. The last sentence was heartbreaking!

[elleth]

Okay, something just got in my eye, brb a second while my heart is breaking - which is to say, fantastic ficlet, it says so much about complicated dynamics in so little, and it's sympathetic to both of them. ♥