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They marched towards Amon Ereb.
It was unusually quiet. The weight of loss deafened all else.
Maglor rode beside Maedhros, keeping a careful eye on him. The tension and his concern was enough to draw Amras’ attention, who remained on their brother’s other side, turning his head between them both, confused and scared. Maedhros didn’t notice either of them, instead, he stared straight ahead, face completely empty.
The only words Maglor heard from Maedhros came three days into their journey.
“What became of Uldor?”
The break of silence startled Maglor, and he looked over to see Maedhros’ face twisted, dark with raw hate.
“After he turned ranks, I cut him down. He died during the battle.”
Maedhros barked out a laugh without mirth, and it was so starkly out of place from their eldest brother, the kindest of them, the best of them.
“I see, brother. You would rob me of mercy and justice both.”
Maglor was affronted. He had not intended it like that, it was a decision made in the midst of fighting. He had thought it was the right thing to do.
“That’s not what I—”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
They scattered their forces, not wanting to remain in one place for Morgoth to easily target.
With Fingon dead, their good relations in the west were all but spent. Turgon was grieving, angry, and hidden. No news came from Orodreth. Doriath was as silent as ever.
Maglor, as he always had, remained with Maedhros, continuing on south.
His brother did not speak for the remainder of the trip.
“I want to bury him.”
“Maedhros. We can’t… We can’t move him.”
Looking at his body, Maedhros’ head goes light and for a moment, he is confused. For where grey steel had melted and blue fabric had been torn away, pink skin peaks out. But that didn’t make sense, because Fingon’s skin was a warm brown, and soft to touch, and —
And Maedhros is going to be sick. Because Fingon’s skin hasn’t changed colour. It had just been peeled away by the heat to reveal what lay beneath.
Was he alive? When the fire came down upon him, did he feel it? Did he know? How much pain did he feel when he died? Why was he punished for my crimes?
“I want to bury him. Am I not entitled to even that?”
“I— Maedhros, look at the ground. Look at his body. Morgoth’s forces will be sent to search the field, we cannot tarry any longer.” Maglor halts, Maedhros barely hears him. Maglor turns to hold his brother, tears on the cusp of both their eyes. “It’s alright. He’s resting with his men, with his people. I know… I know that it’s not what you want, and it’s not what he deserves. But it’s enough.”
Maedhros turns to him, fire in his eyes, “How could this ever be enough for Fingon? He was so much better than any of us, and you would have me leave him to rot?”
“I would have you live.”
Maedhros turns back to where Fingon lay, defeated.
“You did not used to be cruel.”
To his shame, Maedhros left him still. The union had failed, and the Oath was all that remained.
(The last he did was to kiss Fingon for a final time upon his brow. The words whispered were for him alone.
“Know that the best part of me remains here with you both.”)
Maglor was sitting in their kitchen, replacing the strings on his harp when Maedhros slammed the door open to march in.
A roll of paper was thrown onto the table Maglor sat beside, rolling twice before coming to a stop.
“You know what this is?”
“By all appearances, a missive from Amras.” The snark wasn’t received well. He knew it wouldn’t be, but Maglor’s patience for his elder brother’s moods was almost exhausted.
“Yes, he and his men scouted to the north under my command, as far as Morgoth’s forces would allow them. They reached the southern boarders of Anfauglith.”
There was a long pause. A tension filled the room, and Maglor got the sense that there would be no right thing to say.
“They found something. Shall I describe it to you? Or would you prefer to read it from the page?”
“I think I should hear it from my brother.” And hear it he did.
“The orcs were not content to let the bodies of the Union lie. They piled them up, body upon body. Elves, Men, and Dwarves all indistinguishable from each other. Too many to differentiate. A mound, as a testament to our— To my failure.”
“Maedhros. I am–”
Maedhros’ voice frayed further as he leaned his strength on the table, as if tears were barely held at bay. “I told you, did I not? They have desecrated him. And you let them, you who could not muster the strength to carry one body from the field. One who you claim was dear to you and beloved by me–”
“Because there was nothing to carry!”
Silence, strained further, and for a moment Maglor thought his brother would strike him.
Voice shaking, he continued, “Maedhros, he wasn’t there. His fëa had long departed. He rests peacefully in Mandos’ halls.”
The table shook where Maedhros slammed his hand against it, a flame alight in his eyes as he spat the words out to Maglor.
“Where we are damned never to go! Or have you forgotten? ‘To the everlasting darkness doom us if our deed faileth.’ I will never grace the halls where he stays. I will never see him again.” He turned, paced to the lone window in the room, thumb running over some material grasped in his hand. “And now my own family is left broken and disgraced on the field where they died. Denied even the respect of rest.”
Maglor was silent, there was nothing to say in response. Yet Maedhros remained, the silence growing heavy between them, before Maglor again broke it. “It is unwise to speak those words.”
“And yet they remain, binding us forever.” Maedhros turned, leaving the room as if condemned. His next words were hollow. “Darkness or not, we are never to return to Aman.”
One gold ribbon had been saved, but it never sat right, nested amongst copper locks.
It was more than a wound. A wound implied that it would heal.
It was a wound in the same way that his right hand was a wound; gone forever without hope of its return. A void. Yet he could make do without his hand. But this was beyond even grief.
A white flame had sprung up, and with it, he had caught alight and his heart was rent to ash. There was no relief from the pain, there was no refuge from his loss. That too had been stolen.
He thinks that this was what his mother meant when she had said Fëanor loved them too much. It was insanity, burning in his mind. No one was made to be loved in such an all-consuming way. No one was made to survive being without it.
Yet Fëanor loved his sons as Maedhros had loved Fingon. Wholly. Completely. And, like Fëanor, Maedhros had committed his greatest sin. He was bereft of what he loved through no one’s fault but his own. Through his arrogance, through his belief.
And still, Fëanor was the greater. For he had held his child.
Maedhros spent days locked away in his study. Anytime Maglor went to check on him, to ensure that his brother still drew breath, Maedhros’ gaze always seemed to remain fixed at the window, gazing out, northwards across the vast grassy hills. He always was so far away.
Occasionally, he would break the reticence, voice speaking less to Maglor and more at him. “I should have sent him away.”
Magloe had assumed the role of a nursemaid, cleaning away empty glasses and untouched food. “He was the High King, he would not have gone. More than that, he was Fingon, and could not have been ordered.”
Maedhros’ head may have turned towards Maglor, may have ignored him entirely. “And I was the father of his child. He would have hated me, but he would have lived. They would have lived.”
“Not necessarily. Hithlim would still have been overrun, the battle would still have been lost. At best, he would have died regardless but you would continue on, not knowing.”
“Even that would have been preferable to holding his body, knowing that he would never smile again. Knowing that he died in pain.”
“Nevertheless, what happened has happened, and you cannot change it. Don’t be so arrogant as to blame yourself.”
Maedhros' last words would always be to condemn. “Ever the minstrel. How easily those words slip from your mouth.”
He wants to fade. He needs to. The pain haunts his every step; the ache of it, the knowledge. There is no escape, no matter how many orcs he kills, no matter how much he burns, he is still left with cold ash and a colder bed and it tears at him. Words of comfort fall hollow, for they cannot bring his family back. He can’t abide another more day without his hope.
But the Oath echoes within his head, and so he remains.
Ever since Nargothrond had fallen, there was a foul air surrounding Celegorm and Curufin. It had only worsened following the Nirnaeth and caused Amon Ereb to become like someplace haunted.
Humiliation and shamed dogged the footsteps of Celegorm wherever he went, his temper rising even quicker from one misspoken word.
Curufin was worse. He had taken Tyelpe’s absence as a betrayal, and his son was not to be mentioned, lest they call down the cruel wrath of Fëanor’s fifth son.
Maedhros kept to his room, hardly dignifying any of them with his presence and so, for the first time in his life, Maglor was left to reign in his brothers.
It was an arduous task. Amras would disappear for days, far beyond the feeble borders they held and would dodge all questions when he came back, to the point where a fight broke out between Amras and Celegorm that ended with teeth clattering to the stone floor. Amrod was little help in reeling in the impulsivities of his twin, residing in the forest more days than not, escaping his brothers or seeking death. Since Losgar, he had always danced too close to fire.
Where, in years before, Maglor would rely on Caranthir for stability and reason, he too appeared haunted by a familiar grief, and Maglor had neither the heart nor the strength to query him on it.
One day, it came to a head with a sly remark made by Amras on the loyalty of the Haladin, a remark which was then snarled as a curse by Maedhros and ignited something dark in Caranthir.
The resulting fight was a mad thing, and Maglor didn’t know to fear more the cruelty of Maedhros or the tears Caranthir had failed to hide.
The words spoken were dark things and that day, what good will that remained between Maedhros and Caranthir ended, and both died without the forgiveness or love of the other.
Maglor sat with Maedhros at dinner in a hall which the nearby fire could not warm, neither of them eating, when Celegorm and Curufin entered.
As usual, Celegorm spoke first.
“Lúthien and Beren have died.” There was a finality to the words.
Maedhros scowled up at them, “This affects me how?”
Curufin chimed in, his tone seeming to contradict his words, as was his way. “Come now, brother, surely it was only your hand you lost and not your wits.”
Maedhros’ face darkened, words coming out as grinding stone. “Careful now, Curvo. You remain in these halls due only to my hospitality. Now tell me plainly what you have come to seek permission of.”
Celegorm grew antsy, biting back, “With Lúthien dead and Thingol gone as well, Doriath is relatively unprotected. We should claim the Silmaril now, there will not be a better chance.”
“Why should I care?”
Curufin glared, his proud look an exact copy of their father’s.
“Maybe because of the Oath you swore? The promise you made to atar?”
Maedhros turned back to his plate. “Get it yourselves, I will not start a war because you could not hold your own.”
The younger two glanced at each other, and Celegorm nodded at Curufin who leaned closer to Maedhros, hand resting on the back of his chair.
“We offer you more than just the Silmaril, brother This is a chance for your vengeance.”
Maedhros had stilled, scar tissue pulled tight. Maglor grew uneasy.
“Curvo…”
“Who was it, that failed to answer your call to war? Who left us alone during our darkest hour? If Thingol had brought the full might of Doriath to bear, if they had gathered from where they had hidden away, maybe the day would not have been lost. Maybe Fingon would not have been lost.”
Maglor’s stomach dropped. “Curufin! Enough!”
Curufin ignored him, carrying on as Maedhros shook in rage, gaze fixed to the far wall.
“I know you lost much that day, brother, and believe me when I say I mourned with you, for you. But now, here is your chance to pay Thingol back. Burn his realm, rent it to ash, the same that was done to us” He paused, and Celegorm seemed to know what was coming next, for he moved, only a fraction, but enough to warn Maglor of what would come next. But Curufin continued on, appearing earnest, vulnerable. At that moment, he spoke as a brother. “I have heard your cries at night, Nelyo. I know if it were Tyelpe taken from me—”
The chair scraped back and Curufin jumped away as Maedhros stood, drawing all eyes.
The back of his hand struck across Curufin’s face. The younger fell against the table, hands braced against the wood.
“Leave me, now!” His words were a torn thing, spat out as a poison.
Maedhros’ anger was slower to wake, but much fiercer when roused. Celegorm and Curufin all but fled. Maglor remained, but took a number of measured steps back.
The remnants of their dinner fell to the floor as Maedhros swiped his arm across the table, letting out a roar of fury. Nails dug into the bench and he looked close to madness.
Maglor approached him tentatively, yet desperately. He saw the words begin to take hold.
“Maedhros, they don’t know what they speak of. Their business with Lúthien was poorly done, and now they must carry it forever. Not only that, but they are shamed because of Nargothrond. Because of Finrod. But there is no need to make it worse. We do not need to march on Doriath.”
Maedhros was silent, eyes staring down at the table, but mind clearly elsewhere.
“Not if we write them first.”
He sees a vision of Angband. Of the dark lord sat on his throne, the lieutenant approaching him.
He finds that he cannot move. Once again, he’s forced to watch the scene play out, to whatever bitter end he knows will come.
The architect and lord of Maedhros’ torture, the sculptor of all his cruellest wounds. At least, the ones that he did not inflict upon himself.
Sauron walks slowly. But then, that was expected considering the weight that he drags behind him by the hair.
In four hundred years I have not forgotten a second of what either of you inflicted upon me, and now you have taken what I never thought you could. Hate is too mild, death is too kind.
“And what do you bring before my throne, dear lieutenant?”
“Our plans have come to even greater fruition than we had hoped, my lord.”
The body is thrown in front of the dais, an offering to Morgoth.
No. Eru, please. If there is any mercy left for me, I cannot watch this.
“Here lies Fingon, the so-called High King of the Noldor. Fingolfin’s son.”
A grin that seems to break apart the Vala’s face. “A fine catch indeed. You have done well, my precious.”
Crimson hair forms a shroud as Sauron bends in reverence. “With your permission, I will mount his body on the peak of Anfauglith’s new hill. A message to all other elves who would again think to cross you.”
“So it will be.” The words are a dismissal. However, the Maia pauses, causing Morgoth to cock his head in question. “Clearly, that is not all.”
“Not quite, my lord. Merely an observation, a certain poetry that is to be had.”
“How so?”
Sauron’s face darkens with his smirk. “Because this is dear Nelyafinwë’s lover. And, if I have seen correctly, he all too recently carried a child.”
My child, oh how I loved you even for all the brief time you were mine. I will never be sorry enough for what I’ve done.
Morgoth roars in laughter. “He was precious to the Fëanorian?”
“My lord, he cried for his Findekáno daily.” Sauron stands on the remains of Fingon’s hand, grinding it into the floor. “Finno this, Finno that.”
Let him go. You don’t get to touch him. I promised myself that you would never touch him.
But Sauron only continues, “It is amusing. He thought brave Fingon would be haven enough from the torture. That all would be well if his cousin-bride was kept safe. Rest assured that I made sure that was not the case. And now Nelyafinwë is left with nothing, as I once promised him.”
I will kill you. I will see you dead for this. You took everything from me.
Morgoth smirks. “The line of Finwë falls quicker than I had thought. The day is truly won for us.” He leans back into his throne. “At Anfauglith’s peak hang him, and let Fëanor’s sons look at the sum of their works.”
Let me die.
Blood spilled endlessly across the halls of Doriath.
Maglor knew that it wasn’t what Maedhros wanted, not truly.
He sent missives, requests and demands, but at the end, he was more than happy to let Celegorm rile their brothers up. Their little brother who ran barefoot in Oromë’s woods, clever and funny, who fell against Dior, over a jewel that was, again, lost.
The Sindar were not kind to Celegorm, in the end. They found him in pieces, clumps of silver hair turned red.
Maglor sat with Amrod, holding vigil over Curufin’s body (he made Maglor his favourite harp, it was a present after his first public performance, it was one of the few processions that came to Beleriand with him), when he heard it.
“You fools! You fucking idiots!” The venom in Maedhros’ voice was enough to startle him from grief.
“Where were they left?”
A body hit the floor, someone cried out.
Maedhros strode past him, a flurry of anger.
“Maedhros? Brother, what has happened?”
Not turning back, Maedhros responded, “Our brother’s valiant men have taken the princes. I am going to find them.”
Maglor’s stomach turned. Little children, left in the snow to die. (Little Idril, left in the snow. Argon, weakened by the frost. Bodies upon bodies piling up because of the cold that couldn’t touch them.)
A weak moan stole his attention back. Caranthir gasped around an arrow wedged between his lungs, Amras weeping over him. There was no medicine, no cure, only the surety of death.
Four hours passed before Maedhros returned empty handed.
Maglor held Caranthir’s hand as he greeted death. Celegorm’s men were made to dig empty graves for the Sindar princes. Maedhros stood over them, watching as quaking hands dug uselessly against the frozen ground.
The tombs were completed, white stones marking the hollow earth, before Maedhros killed them.
It was by his own hand. It was always by his own hand.
He didn’t mean for the princes to die. He didn’t even mean for Doriath to burn. But evil comes of all his works.
He knows that Fingon would be ashamed.
It was even quieter after the loss of their brothers.
Even though the Ambarussa moved with them back to Amon Ereb, the missing presence of the three of them felt like an open wound.
Despite that, Maedhros seemed less volatile, if not still foul-tempered and cold.
Yet each day that passed saw darkness spread further across the land. Where before green pastures had grown was instead turned to ash under the march of Angband’s troops, relentless in their quest to purge the Eldar from Beleriand. Rivers had dried up, animals fled or died under the unbearable heat. Storms became commonplace, the land turning on itself, hostile to any life which tried to flourish.
And still, the Oath sang to them. A haunted, broken song. Their father’s last scream, the spill of their grandfather’s blood. Teleri mariners howling for vengeance and the empty halls where their gods watched them.
Amrod rode back after a day’s hunt. All he had to show for it were two half-starved hares.
Their blessings were fewer and fewer.
Maedhros never tells anyone of the dreams that haunt him at night.
They are relentless, keep him from rest, and are exactly what he deserves. Visions of fire, of death. Blood and ruin and all he has wrought.
But the worst ones are those that appear under a sweet guise. And when the morning breaks, the loss of them is all the crueller.
“I’ve been thinking of names,” the mirage of Fingon tells him, sitting on his bed and working tangles out of his hair. “Unconventional, I know, but most everything about us is. I have a list in my head of the ones I like, even some that I don’t.”
In Himring, overcast skies paint Maedhros’ bedroom in a soft, grey light. It only makes the gold in Fingon’s hair all the brighter.
Maedhros climbs back onto the bed, moving behind his husband to wrap his arms around his growing middle. The spark of his child’s fëa rushes to meet Maedhros and fills him with a peace he never thought to have.
“Tell me of them. I want to hear them all.”
Fingon laughs, it is a kind sound. “You would! I could name this child Lumbë and you would claim it was the greatest name among the Quendi.”
Maedhros smiles and lays kisses down the side of Fingon’s jaw. “Of course it would be, it came from you.”
But the image soon slips away, and Maedhros is left not in Himring, but in Amon Ereb, where there is no light, no Fingon, no child.
Maedhros digs the heel of his hand into his eyes in an attempt to stop the tears.
The Oath did not sleep for long.
A map of Sirion sat beside a short letter penned by Elwing. It refused the ransom. It promised battle.
The fire roared in Maedhros’ study. It was seldom that Maglor was allowed in, but the urgency of the situation forced him into the dark room. To the grand desk that his brother once penned diplomatic missives from, now turned to a grim throne used to bring death.
Maglor felt sweat bead at his neck from the room’s heat. From the glare that bore into him. “We cannot do this.”
Maedhros’ face betrayed nothing. An empty, desolate void.
“We can. We have done so before.”
“It was different before. We had the others, we did not seek death. We did not wage war against refugees.”
Maedhros’ gaze darkened further. “If you believe it was different then you are a bigger fool than I took you for.”
He felt his teeth grind together, biting back a retort, smothering his self-righteous anger. His grief. Instead, Maglor’s speech ebbed, turned to pleading. “What if we lose the twins?
A short laugh, brittle enough to cut.
“What of it? Is what waits for them in death worse than what they live through now?”
Maglor would rather Maedhros have struck him. He would rather anything that was not that dark pit of fear and nothing, and his little brothers doomed to it.
“It is death.”
“And they are murderers. Can your pretty songs change that, brother?”
They were at a stalemate, Maglor meeting the glare of his brother’s eyes, one grey and one pale, both unblinking. A cold, cold gaze.
Then, Maedhros did the worst thing Maglor had ever seen him do. He started to laugh.
It began small, a chuckle, as if Maglor had just told an awful joke. But soon, it escalated. It rose in volume, Maedhros’ chest heaving under the strain of it, head thrown forward in his chair and Maglor would rather have his sobs.
“We are murderers! Can you believe it, Maglor? We who were princes!” His head jerked upwards so quickly Maglor thought it broken. And still, his face was painted with a savage grin, teeth bared, sharpened to points. “They fear us! We came as allies and now they would rather have Morgoth. All this time, I longed for death, but now death is at hand and I would rather live, and suffer, and cease this pounding in my skull that demands these worthless rocks. Anything so I am not forgiven of my actions! These deaths I shoulder I will carry forever; this hurt I caused will be mine alone. How could I face them otherwise?” The wood of his chair creaked under his grip, a fey look about him; eyes rabid and face broken open by madness. “Husband of a murderer. Child of a murderer. It aches. Every day it aches. I cannot live without them, but our doom compels me. Even if were able to see Fingon again, I could not face him. Not when children have died for this cause. Not when I took our child from us.” He sank back, diminished, empty. Voice a ceaseless, grating rasp. “And so we will chase down the Silmaril, whether by words or sword, we will seek it, for it is the only thing that is left. And when we once again bring evil down upon those who oppose us, I may only pray that I carry the worst of it.” A dry laugh, resounding off the stone walls. “It is my punishment, is it not? To become what I have always loathed, always feared.”
He pushed the chair back and it clattered to the floor as Maedhros reared up to his full height. Maglor shrank back in fear, in defeat.
“Come, let us see what the Lady Elwing has to say.”
And so the third kinslaying begins.
For the second time in his life, sea air was heavy with death.
Salt and iron mingled as Maglor searched for Amrod, to tell him his twin had died.
The corridors of the place twisted and turned, until he entered a hall where two children were pulling at a door handle at the far side.
They heard him enter, and turned to him, eyes widening in fear when they saw the blood painted on his clothes, on his face. The smaller of the two started to cry. And because Maglor was tired from death, from grief, from loss, the wails tore at his heart and he lowered his swords to the ground, kneeling with his arms stretched out passively. He was not the eldest, but he had five younger brothers (when they lived, yet was he not still their older brother?) and the cavern in him softened his voice.
“Peace, children. You have nothing to fear from me.”
The children stared up at him. They saw the star painted across his breast, they were old enough to know who he was. But they were small and they were frightened, surrounded by death. Hesitantly, they came closer.
The taller spoke, “Are you going to hurt us?”
“No. I swear, no harm will come to you from me.”
The boy’s gaze hardened, “You killed everyone else. I saw. You came and Naneth… And Naneth…” He started to cry, small hands wiping at his face. “Naneth left, and she didn’t tell us where she went and… I’m scared! I want Naneth to come back!”
Maglor reached out tentatively, placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder which the child unconsciously leaned into.
“There child, don’t cry. Come away from this place, both of you. It is starting to grow cold.”
The smaller boy stepped forward first, starting to reach out for Maglor before stopping and pulling back.
“Do you promise you won’t hurt us?”
Maglor knew too well the danger of oaths, but he promised the boy regardless. They were small and completely alone. They were alone because of him.
They hesitated, so Maglor moved to pick them up. The taller, Maglor guessed the older, jumped away, wary. But the younger held on tight, burying his face into Maglor’s hair to avoid looking at the carnage a moment longer. Seeing his brother picked up unharmed, the elder reached up to be lifted too. The three made their way from the darkened hall.
(They passed red hair, and Maglor had to turn away from the sight of his second youngest (second last) brother, lying dead against the wall. It was too much to hope Amrod still lived.)
Maedhros stood with the pitiful remainder of their forces, watching over the burning of the Fëanorian dead and the burial of the others. His arms were folded tightly, expression stern but resigned. Ash coated his hair, grey streaks mingling with the red. He looked as much of a ghost as he ever had.
Maglor held the twins tighter, “Maedhros.”
His brother didn’t turn. “Amras?”
Maglor’s throat swelled closed. The grief hit him all at once like a wave. His little brother was dead. What did he last say to him? When had Maglor last told him he loved him? Had told either of them? When was the last time Amrod slept without dark dreams haunting him? How painful was Amras’ death? Why did he and Maedhros lead them to it?
“Dead.”
Maedhros made no sound. He didn’t move at all. He was an aching, painful hush.
One twin hiccupped in Maglor’s arms, holding back either hysteria or sobs. Likely both.
“Brother. I– ” He switched to Quenya, praying the twins didn’t know their father’s native tongue. “I believe I have found the Peredhil. Elwing’s children.”
If possible, Maedhros grew even more still. Turning slowly, he took in Maglor, and the crying children clutched into his chest. His scowl was a frightful thing.
“Why did you bring them here?”
“They are children, Maedhros. We cannot leave them here, alone. Not when we have killed any other who could care for them, protect them from Morgoth’s hosts. They need us.”
Maedhros turned his back, again watching the fire dance. “Elwing will not return, they are little use as hostages.”
“I will not leave them.”
Maedhros spun around, striding up to Maglor to tower over him, face snarling in anger. “These are not two elflings for you to adopt in some perverse version of fatherhood. They will grow, and then come to surely despise you for what you wrought on their home. Leave them and spare yourselves both the heartache.”
Before, he might have yielded, might have fled. But there was no one else to protect, none left to hold their family together for. It was Fëanor’s two eldest, and the valley of grief that lay between them. It made him brave.
“And have you no love, no mercy left in your heart for two children? Blameless and alone?”
They were at a stalemate. Maglor’s grip tightened around the twins. He would not leave them.
“You know what he would want.”
Whether it was the loss of their own twins, the loss of the Silmaril, a past memory, or sheer weariness, for the first time in years, Maedhros seemed to consider what his brother said.
He took one last look over the twins, expression grave, but something bitter to his eyes. Something that could have been love, once.
“Do what you will to ease your guilt. Do not involve me.”
He turned and left Maglor alone with his two wards.
The older is Elros, the younger Elrond.
Maglor loves them more than life.
They ran away but once, and a short search revealed their hiding place in a close-by waterfall.
Maglor embraced them, ignored how they trembled in fear, put himself between them and the cruelty he knew his brother was capable of.
When Maedhros spoke, his voice was drawn, empty.
“Where do you think to go?”
He turned, Elros started crying, and that was everything said of the matter.
He is standing once again in the halls of Menegroth. Blood pools around his feet.
“Maitimo.” A distant voice calls, “Maitimo!”
Maedhros turns. Only one was still brave enough to call him by his mother-name.
“Fingon!”
Back and forth he walks, the corridors of the castle become longer, their ends becoming clouded.
“Where were you Maitimo? I looked for you on the field, you weren’t there.”
“I tried— Finno, please believe that I tried. I marched and marched, but I couldn’t reach you.”
“I saved you. Is this how you repay me? Stealing the lives of innocents to make good on your debt?”
Fingon is standing opposite him. The blood surrounds him too. He looks as he did when Maedhros last saw him. The face is complete enough only so that he can see the anger, the tears on it.
“Were our lives not enough? Do you demand this payment wherever you go?”
Blood now pours from Fingon’s stomach, out of his mouth.
The floor starts to heat, fire licks at the sides of his vision.
“Why did I die? For your pride? Your glory? Your Oath? What did you cherish over me? Over us? He struck me down and you watched as it happened. There was pain. Oh, Maitimo. There was so much pain when they broke my body, when they killed us both.” His eyes melted away, his arm fell to the floor. “I didn’t want to die. I didn’t want to lose her.”
A wall of flame descends and Fingon cries. Maedhros cries. The hallway collapses.
A familiar voice is all that is left.
“This is the sum of your works, son of Fëanor.”
Maedhros is awakened by his own screams.
Amon Ereb was more like a ruin than a fortress.
Constant assaults with an ever diminishing host left to defend it chipped away steadily over the once strong walls. It was hardly safe anymore, and they would have to move on sooner rather than later.
In addition to the lack of protection, the structure was also deteriorating, leaving the castle less and less habitable. The wood had begun to rot, rooms were filled with fungal moulds which irritated Maglor’s lungs, and holes in the ceilings and walls let in both the rain and the cold.
And the twins were half-mortal. Everything Maglor felt, they felt doubled.
Maglor sat in the room they had placed aside for the Peredhil, the most whole of those available. It was late into the night, Tilion gazed down on them, Eärendil sailing past the stars with a light that taunted them.
The room was cold, and the chill kept Elrond and Elros from sleep, tremors racing through their small frames. Elros seemed to feel it more keenly than his brother, and grey eyes kept peering up at him with something like desperation. Maglor had tried to keep a small fire fed, but it was like beating out water from a sinking ship. (Teleri ships still haunted him. Those grand wooden structures Ossë had crushed in his rage. Drowning their host who had defied his maters.) He thought of other twins who had been left to the elements and the frozen bodies they had never found.
A voice startled Maglor from his thoughts.
“The child, Elros.” Because, of course, despite everything, Maedhros would learn to tell these twins apart. “He is freezing. The cold will kill him”
Maglor’s eyes didn’t move from his wards. “Eventually, yes.”
There was movement in the dark, and a pile of fabric was thrown at him. “Give him this.”
Elrond’s trust of Maglor warmed slowly but gradually. Elros venomously hated Maedhros until, with a tattered and aged cloak, it turned to love.
Sometimes even grief cannot kill the nature of an eldest brother.
Or a would-be father.
Where Elrond remained wary of Maedhros, Elros took to following him around like a lost pup.
Maglor didn’t think too long on how apt the description was.
Anytime Maedhros trained, Elros was watching from a semi-safe distance. After, he ran to find his brother, making Elrond move through the stances with him.
He did so poorly. And eventually, Maedhros turned during one of these sessions to snap at him.
“Come here, boy. The only harm you’ll do striking like that is to the sword.”
Thus began the Peredhil’s sword training.
While Maglor privately mourned that they lived in a time where children were taught swordplay over music, he nonetheless had nothing but words of encouragement for the boys when they returned to bed tried but excited from a day’s work. Even Elrond slowly began to warm to Maedhros during the lessons.
Besides, in the evening Maglor taught them the harp regardless.
Sometimes he looks at one of the twins and it becomes painfully difficult to breathe.
Because he sees grey eyes (like his) and dark hair (like his) and looks at where his child might have stood. But then he blinks and the illusion shatters.
It is the wrong nose, the wrong jaw, the skin is too pale.
Most times, Maedhros knows that this is for the best. Elrond and Elros are individuals, and they deserve to be treated as their own people, not as a ghost of what might have been.
But there are a few times Maedhros wishes the illusion would stay for a few seconds more. Just enough to pretend.
Maglor woke one night to the sound of objects crashing against the stone floor and roused himself from bed.
He never moved anywhere without a slim, silver dagger his father had made, before the exile and their doom was all that was left. Maglor held it tightly in his left hand, and hoped (he no longer prayed) that the intruder was nothing more than an Edain robber, looking for a rich prize.
Tentatively and silently, he inched closer to the source of the noise, and his stomach dropped when he realised it was the corridor where he and Maedhros slept, where the twins slept.
(He would not allow them to be taken. They were his sons. He would not allow it.)
But the noise came from Maedhros’ chambers, the door opened only by a fraction, soft noises coming from it as there had never been before.
When Maglor peered inside, it was only to see Maedhros standing with Elrond cradled against his chest. Right arm holding the Peredhel up while his left hand rubbed circles against the boy’s back.
Their conversation was lost on Maglor, but he could just about make out the deeper, grating voice of Maedhros in a tone he knew from a lifetime ago.
“There, little one. It was only a bad dream. It will pass.”
His eyes burned, and Maglor sheathed the dagger before returning to bed.
Much of Maedhros’ life had been marked by the death and finding of children.
The twins are small. Despite everything, they trust easily and love fully. They deserve better than him.
He could not protect his own child, it is foolish to think that he could raise these two.
And yet he loves them. They are not his blood but that matters little. They are bright and kind and he loves them, fiercely. That scares him most of all.
He knows what becomes of those he loves.
The first time Elros called Maedhros atya, the older nér went pale, and his eyes took on a very glassy look.
Elros turned to Maglor, panicked, fearing he had said something wrong.
Maglor led the twins away, back inside, pretending he didn’t see Maedhros’ breaking down in gentle sobs. He sat them together in his own room, one on each side of him, arms curling around them protectively. As if Maglor was enough to protect them from the world. From himself.
He squeezed the twins to his side, bracing when Elros dug small fingers into him, gazing up desperately.
“I’m sorry, Atto. I only– I didn’t mean to upset Maedhros!”
Maglor kissed his brow. His gentle sons.
“Hush, Elros. You did nothing wrong.” He bent down to meet Elros’ stare. “Maedhros, he— Once, for a brief time, he was a father. Not anymore.”
Elros looked as if he had killed someone. “I’m sorry! I won’t do it again!”
It was impossible, after how much blood and death Maglor had witnessed, been the cultivator of, it was a child’s dull eyes meeting his own tree-bright ones that tore something fundamental within him.
“Elros, you couldn’t possibly have known. My brother… He has been grieving for a very long time. But that does not change how much he loves the two of you.” He turned to look at Elrond as well. “He loves being your Atya. I should know, I’m his brother after all.”
He leaned in to tickle them, and only left them when they were again smiling and happy.
Instead, he walked slowly to where Maedhros was still sitting outside, shoulders slumped over and staring intently at the ground.
Maglor bent, gently sitting beside his brother. They sat in silence for a long time before he finally spoke.
“Maedhros, it is not a betrayal of him. You cannot tell me that he wouldn’t approve, wouldn’t want this.”
Maedhros didn’t move. “How many have I killed? How many elves, how many innocents? How many children have now died as a direct cause of my actions? He would not stand the sight of me and he would be right to. ‘Well-formed’. He called me that, right until his last. Maybe I was well-formed, but not for this. Not for fatherhood.” His head tilted back to watch the distant lights of the stars. “I was created for death and ruin, and the capacity for anything else has long been burned from me.”
Maglor’s hand met his shoulder. “But it matters to Elros! Elrond too, if you let him. These boys…they have not had easy lives. The least we owe them is love.”
Finally, Maedhros turned to him, pleading. “I do love them, but do you not see how that is the problem? They do not deserve me, and I most certainly don’t deserve them.”
“That doesn’t matter. It was never about deserving. Fingon knew that too. He would think that you should be happy, should seize any opportunity for it,” and Maglor couldn’t resist continuing in humour, “but he was ever the optimist of us.”
Maedhros gave a watery laugh. “Yes, he was.”
They sat together, for the first time in an age, content with the other’s company.
When Maedhros spoke next, it was very hushed. “I… I know now. Death. I would rather have death.”
“Nelyo–”
“I will not have forgiveness. They will not grant it and they are right to.” His eyes slipped closed and he seemed so very small. “My legacy is failure. I will never again be Maitimo. The weight is too heavy, and the void is merely a welcoming call.”
“Stop it. Do not speak of this.”
“Peace, Maglor. The Oath still binds us, our boys still need us. You will be burdened with me for a while yet.”
Maglor felt his heart strain in his breast and fled back inside, away from Varda’s witness.
They spoke no more of such matter, but the next time Elros called Maedhros atya, he smiled and bent down to help.
It was the closest Maglor ever felt to home.
For a time, the Oath is silent.