#what happened on the helcaraxe one of my favorite topics

[alqualonde-s]

just keep chewing

TWs: implied cannibalism, body dysmorphia, disordered eating

Finrod had more body, once. Once, he had hips and thighs and stomach and breasts, had delighted in all of his body even when he began living as a nér. He dressed to show it off too, other than flattening his chest, had never felt an ounce of shame over any of it. When Amarië decided to begin crafting herself a changed body to better feel like a nís he had modeled for her, letting her feel up every inch to get her own body just right. Half of that ended with them in bed together, enjoying the beauty of their bodies.

On the Ice he had no body except to hurt. His body was a shell he was trapped in, one that tried to protect his fëa from the tearing wind and icy harsh. He tried to avoid thinking about it at all, else the filth of rarely being able to bathe, the chap of his lips and skin, the way every injury hurt more in the cold, the bite of hunger, overwhelmed him. To think was to fall behind and to fall behind was to be lost and he could not be lost.

This is what cold does: it deadens feelings and heightens all else. It demands attention to your body and when it no longer does the end is coming. Everything feels worse in the cold.

This is what the dark does: it makes every shadow into a monster, makes fear something that lives in your chest. Once, the waning light had meant they were leaving Valimar, were leaving Tirion, were going home. The dark had never been so complete.

In the dark, in the cold, things get blurry. The meat you are handed could be meat of the great white bears that lurk in the dark. The meat could be from the fish they spear through the ice. The meat could be… it all tastes the same, in the dark. It tastes like frozen blood and the force of chewing.

The mark of leadership, Finrod convinced himself, was self-denial. It was giving your share of the meat to your people, siblings, heart-niece. It was being offered the choicest pieces of liver and saying no, give it to those who need it, I will eat the cast-offs of tough, old fish, I will drink Song and eat ice.

Fingon would say the mark of a leader is to do as others do, to lead by example. For Fingon, that meant eating up. Licking his fingers clean of the blood. To make the sacrifice they do. To be as guilty as they are.

Finrod left the ice without an ounce of fat to his hips, to breasts he barely had to bind, to a stomach that couldn’t handle the fresh, bloody meat of rabbit.

The last time he could see himself was in Tirion, dressing for the day and pouting at himself in the mirror. He had been lush then, counted among the fairest of the Eldar. The light of Laurelin has burnished him gold. Now he looked at himself in the clear lake, the one he was told was called Mithrim, and saw a stranger. Not a prince but a coward. Not noble, self-sacrificial, but self-righteous and afraid. Shadowed, haggard, fair no more.

He never really regained himself. Meat he didn’t know the origin of sent him to the bathroom, eating politely and retching into the sink quietly. Food too rich he split with Edrahil. Seeing too much food on the table provoked an anxiety that others lacked, that he was taking food from his people’s mouths. He checked and rechecked their inventory, especially when winter approached.

Would Amarië still think his body beautiful, so gorgeous she could spend the day between his thighs, in his arms, against his lips?

It wouldn’t matter, of course. She would never see him again. How would she, when home has so thoroughly rejected him, when the Doom laid on meant he would never leave the Halls, when he had already Seen that his death would be in Beleriand?

-

Everything in his body rejected it, the hot blood in his throat, the fur in his teeth, the toughness of the flesh. Cartilage crunched between his teeth. Hunger panged in his stomach.

Fingon was right.

The mark of a leader is to just keep chewing.