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Arafinwë paced in the small dressing room. His formal robes had never felt so heavy on him before, the collar and cuffs never so tight as now. He wished he could run, to flee from all of this, but then— he had already had his chance, and had willingly turned back instead.
Manwë’s words, said not seven days ago yet, still echoed in his mind: “Hear then, all ye Noldor gathered here, that your plea for forgiveness has been heard, and the Valar grant you pardon, and no further penance shall be placed on you than the weight of your own regret. Ye may dwell freely in Aman as ye have dwelt before, under the hand of Arafinwë who shall henceforth be your king.”
There was nothing in those words that should disturb him. He had been given the forgiveness he wanted, and more. But he could not help feeling uneasy.
“Arafinwë”, a voice called, low and soft but resonating with power that could not be concealed.
He had not heard anyone enter. He whirled around on instinct, although he knew the voice.
“My lord Eönwë”, he said, bowing slightly.
He realised all of a sudden that he no longer knew where they stood with each other. Since his return, he had only seen him once, when Eönwë had come bringing Manwë’s summons to him. Was he angry, betrayed? Would he ever trust Arafinwë again? Had Arafinwë utterly lost yet one more of the rocks that had steadied and anchored him for so long? Why was he here, what news would he bring?
“Did Lord Manwë send you? Is there something I ought to know?”
“No”, Eönwë said, “no, I came of my own wish.” He hesitated. “Would you rather I left you be?”
“No!” Arafinwë said quickly. “Please— please stay? It is only that— I did not expect you would wish to see me again, after…”
“You made a mistake”, said Eönwë, taking Arafinwë’s hand gently in his own. “Who can say truly that they never have made one? Not even the Valar. And you have come back, and sought to make things right. Why then should I be angry with you?”
Tears welled unbidden in Arafinwë’s eyes. He looked up at Eönwë, struggling to find the words for his gratitude, for his relief. Eönwë drew him nearer, wrapping an arm around him. Arafinwë found that he was trembling, and leaned gratefully into the offered support.
“What are you afraid of?” Eönwë asked softly.
Afraid? Arafinwë opened his mouth to argue, but realised he could not, not without lying. And what good had lies ever done? He drew a slow breath.
“I do not know if I can do this”, he confessed, half-whispering. “If I can do my duty as— as the King of the Noldor. To my folk, or to your lords.”
Eönwë led him across the room to a chair and made him sit down. He made to step back, but almost without thinking, Arafinwë laid a hand on his arm to stay him. He could hardly look at Eönwë, he could hardly raise his head through the shame to face another person, but neither could he bear to be alone.
“None of this should have happened.” Arafinwë was surprised by the bitterness of his own voice. “I was never supposed to be here. Father was supposed to be the king, or even if not him, others. Not me. Never me. And they know it, all of them. The only reason the crown was given to me is that no-one else is left.”
“Not the only reason”, said Eönwë. “But even if it was, why should they have anything against you?”
“Do you still understand so little of elves?” Arafinwë flinched at his own words, and sighed. “I am sorry, I— I do not know what has gotten to me.”
“Maybe I do not understand elves as well as I believed”, Eönwë said. “I am beginning to think that perhaps neither do our lords”, he added thoughtfully.
Arafinwë dragged a hand across his face. For a while he toyed with one of his rings, seeking the right words, the right way to explain.
“Do not think that because Fëanor and those who followed him are gone, all our unrest is quieted, or the shadow upon us chased wholly away”, he began at length. “It is not. It may be a long time before we find our ease again. It may be that some never will. Even for those who value Valar the highest, or who love the land of Valinor the best, who were the least drawn by my half-brother’s words— even for them, there are questions. Questions that will gnaw the heart, questions that can never be answered, because they stayed. For a moment, there was another path open at their feet, and they passed it by, and shall never know what they might have found upon it. That question is heavy for some. It may be it grows only heavier as time passes.
“Our grief and loss is heavy also. There is not one among us who has not parted from at least someone beloved. Most of us from more than one. As far as we can see, that parting is for ever. How can the heart find true peace when it has been so torn?”
“All this I have seen”, said Eönwë gravely. “But I do not understand why that should mean they would turn against you as their king.”
“Because… I do not know how it is with your kind, but with mine, people who are so hurt or weighed down do not always act… entirely according to reason. Sometimes they may lash out, to hurt others because they themselves are in pain. Or they may seek someone to blame, even if the blame is only wishful thinking and hindsight turned bitter by grief.
“Now, they cannot blame the Valar and yet believe they made the right choice in staying. And they will not wish to think they made the wrong choice. Fëanor they could blame, or the Morgoth, but they are both out of reach. Blaming them will not satisfy my people, because it can change nothing of their immediate world. But I am within their reach, and not of the Valar; therefore I am to blame for not somehow stopping all this.” Arafinwë sighed again and looked down, staring at the patterns woven into the hem of Eönwë’s robes as though he might somehow read the solution to his troubles in the cloth. “For the ones who stayed here the whole time and never left at all, it is all the easier to blame me because I left at first, although I turned back. It will be easy to call me faithless, easily swayed by rash words, lacking the wisdom and firmness of a true king. And even those who, like I, left and returned, will find reasons to hold it against me. They feel ashamed — whether because they feel they were faithless, or because they wish they had gone onward but dared not, and my half-brother’s words about cowardice still sting their hearts — and so they will place that shame on me tenfold. It will be easy to call me a coward, too weak-willed to be king.”
“There may be some who say so, at first”, Eönwë admitted reluctantly. “But they should come to see sense, in time. And there are others who trust you and follow you.”
“Maybe some. But what if there are not enough of them?”
Eönwë stooped and took Arafinwë’s hands in his again. His great wings rustled softly as he spread them a little, curving them around Arafinwë. It seemed as if everything became slower and more quiet, as if those wings all by themselves were enough to shut out the outside world.
“I think there will be. You are wise. You are the best person they have to mend things with the Teleri. You have the approval of Manwë. And—” Eönwë smiled softly. “— I think you are better-loved by your own folk than you believe.”
Arafinwë stood up. Before he could stop himself, before he even quite understood what he was doing, he had pressed himself against Eönwë’s chest. The wings rustled again, drawing nearer around him, enclosing him in dim, quiet warmth.
“I am still afraid”, he whispered.
“Arafinwë”, Eönwë said, voice solemn but gentle. Arafinwë looked up, and met his eyes, steady and deep and filled with a softly glowing, enchanting power. “Who does your fear serve? You? Them? Or the same Enemy who wounded us all?”
Arafinwë turned his eyes away. Eönwë was right once more, he had to admit it, but he could not help but shy away from Eönwë’s eyes even so. His fear might be useless and serve him ill, but he did not think he had the strength to chase it away by himself.
“My coronation”, he said after a long silence. “I know it is only some hours away now, and I have no right to demand anything of you, but— could you stay with me for it? To have you standing near would comfort me.”
Arafinwë still could not make himself look back to Eönwë’s face, but he heard the gentle smile in his voice when he answered: “I would be glad to do so.”