In Avallónë by the Sea

by cycas

Maglor, having returned to Tol Eressëa with Elrond, catches up with Finrod, discussing poetry, harp manufacture, first age Beleriand, Mandos, the political situation in Tirion, hobbits, & whether kinslayers can be trusted. [Return to Aman 3: Follows 'Across so Wide a Sea'].

Celebrían's house in Avallónë was low, red-roofed and white-painted, more like the houses of the Teleri than the towers and colonnades of the returned Noldor of Middle-earth that clustered around the great tower in the centre of Avallónë, the City of Exiles. The walls of the house were set with patterns of old sea-glass, coloured with translucent blues and greens.

Had whoever had gathered the pieces up and set them into the walls known what they were? They were crazed and pitted and chipped from all their many years in the sea, but there was no question that they were of Noldorin make. They were gems that the Noldor had made for their friends the Teleri, to pour out freely onto the sand and make the long white strands of Alqualondë shine and glitter even brighter in welcome, when the Teleri had come at last to the light of Aman.

That was before anyone had thought of hoarding jewels, or of valuing a gem above a handful of seashells.

Before anyone had thought to pour their own spirit and being into the making of any jewel.

Maglor wondered if any of them had been made by his grandfather.

The house looked out east across the sea towards Middle-earth. You couldn't see the other shore, of course. It was too far for even elf-eyes to see, even if the world had not been bent away to separate East and West forever, connected only by the old Straight Road, which came to life only for those ships which had been given authority to travel it.

All you could see, now, from the shore of Avallónë on the coast of the Lonely Isle was the sea stretching out until it met the distant sky. Ulmo's realm, reaching out until it joined with Manwë's, and the white gulls wheeling over it, calling.

Maglor sat on a bench by the wind-bent plum tree outside the house, looking out at the morning across the shimmering sea. It murmured to him with a voice that was almost like music.

He wondered if the gulls could get out. Probably they could. The Eagles did.

This land of Aman, floating alone in an endless world of water, inhabited by Elves and by the Ainur, was not really a trap. It was a place of peace, a refuge from the horrors of the world. Maglor told himself that, and very nearly believed it.

"Mind if I join you?"

Maglor looked up at Finrod, and shook his head. At least it was Finrod. He was not sure that he could manage the necessary reassuring, cheerful face for anyone for whom he and his family were a blood-stained legend, just at the moment.

"Surely you haven't tired of the hobbits already?"

Finrod laughed. "Rather the opposite: they are tired of me. Elrond says neither of them is well, and the older one, Bilbo, is very old, too. I didn't know Men lived so long, apart from the Edain. Not that they are Men, exactly. Anyway, Elrond has shooed me away because he says they need a rest, so I came to bother you instead. Do tell me to go away, if I'm being annoying."

"How could you be annoying?" Maglor said, indifferent.

"I'm told I manage it, on occasion. Is it still Maglor? Or should it be Makalaurë, again, now?"

"Maglor. Makalaurë died long ago, at Alqualondë. Makalaurë was talented and proud and didn't kill people. Makalaurë had six brothers and many friends. Maglor is quite different."

"Oh dear," Finrod said and sat down on the other end of the bench.

"I'm sorry," Maglor said, making an effort. "I am not very good company just now. I'm sitting here wondering what I am doing here... Are you Ingoldo again now then, or Findaráto?"

"Finrod. Particularly for an old friend."

"And you consider me one of those, do you?"

"I seem to remember crossing the Sirion and riding endlessly across East Beleriand to visit you on a number of occasions," Finrod said mildly. "I must have had some reason for it. Not that you ever repaid the favour. I never did get to show you Nargothrond."

"Some of us were holding the front line," Maglor said, nettled. "There wasn't much leisure for going on adventures or social visits."

"No, there wasn't. And if you really had died at Alqualondë, there would have been a whacking great hole in our defences that someone else would have had to fill. Not to mention a shocking shortage of outrageously rude and terrible songs. Maybe even the odd good one. Only the odd one, of course."

Maglor snorted. "Thank you!" he said. "Oh, I'm being foolish, I know. I'm far too old for self-pity, and it's all over long ago anyway."

"Leaves a scar though, doesn't it?" Finrod said, making a face. He picked up the end of a golden braid from his shoulder and began fussing with the jewelled clip that held it in place.

"I wanted to tell you that I don't blame you for what your brothers did in Nargothrond. Oh, I know you all went around acting as if you were one person in seven bodies half the time, but things would have been very different, if it had been you there, and not Curufin, when Beren came asking me for help."

"Would it?" Maglor said. "It was our father's Silmaril, not Beren's, and certainly not Thingol's! And my Oath as much as any of my brothers. It wasn't Curufin who attacked the Havens of Sirion."

"I know," Finrod said. He seemed to be making a great mess of the braid. "It was your Silmaril though. And you're easier to talk to than Curufin or Celegorm. Particularly Celegorm... I feel bad about the whole thing, anyway."

"You do?" Maglor said in amazement. He looked at Finrod and the disastrous mess he was making of his hair, and came to a realisation.

"Finrod, are you actually trying to apologise to me? To me? For doing what I was sworn to do, and going out to attack Angband and take back the Silmarils? That's ridiculous!" Maglor could not help laughing.

"Well, when you put it like that, it does sound a bit silly," Finrod admitted, beginning to laugh as well. "But yes, I was."

Maglor caught his breath. "Your apologies are worse than your poetry! If the person you are apologising to has to guess wildly what you mean, then something has gone horribly wrong." He shook his head "Finrod, if you ever, by some unlikely chance, do anything that you need to apologise for, I'll have to give you some lessons. I've had a fair bit of practice by now."

"As it happens, I have had some practice, too," Finrod said. He looked despairingly at the braid, gave up on it and began to pull the whole thing apart to start again. "But my last apology wasn't so complicated."

"Did she take you back then? Amárië?"

"She did. We married soon after I returned. We have a little girl. Faniel. Well, not so little any more, of course. She lives in Valmar, now, near Amárië's parents. She sings in one of the choirs there."

"That is good to hear." He looked sideways at Finrod on the bench, wisest of the Noldor and an expert with words in many languages, fiddling with a braid like a clumsy child. "You did that terrible apology deliberately, to make me laugh."

"Well... all right. Maybe a little." Finrod gave him a guiltily amused look and began to neatly re-plait his braid. "You looked so miserable, I thought it might cheer you up. I might have known you'd catch me out. But in all honesty, I did want to speak to you about it, now I have the chance at last. It has bothered me, on and off, what I did at the end, in Nargothrond. There were more sensible options! I could have spoken diplomatically, waited and sent a message to Fingon about the whole disastrous situation. Or, even better, I could have gone and quietly talked to Thingol and his daughter about Beren. Thingol did come around to the idea later, after all. And he really wasn't a monster, once you got to know him. He was just very worried for his daughter. Instead, I threw the crown at them all and stormed out."

"Did you really? I always assumed that was poetic licence! It didn't sound like you."

"They were being quite appallingly aggravating. All of them, your brothers, my people..." The ghost of remembered frustration was clear in Finrod's face.

Maglor grinned at him. "Curufin could be like that."

"Edrahil had to grab me and make me at least appoint Orodreth as steward. Terribly silly of me. I should have walked away and come back later. The thing was though, I could see it all ahead of me, the darkness and the wolves waiting for me. That was the terribly awkward thing about it all. I knew it was the path I was going to take, and I was absolutely, completely terrified. I couldn't take my eyes off it, or think clearly at all. It was all very well for you. You were never scared of anything..."

"You must be joking," Maglor said, in blank amazement. "Or you have got me muddled with someone else. The nearest I ever came to courage was pretending very hard that I wasn't afraid. And copying my father, and Maedhros, of course. If I wasn't a coward I'd be dead many times over. We had hundreds of years to attack Morgoth, and I spent every one of them carefully not looking at my Oath, or thinking about it, telling myself the peace was worth keeping, and knowing it had to end. And then, after that, I could have said to my brothers at any moment, no, there are two Silmarils in Angband. We should attack Angband. Not Doriath. Not the Havens. I never said it. I was afraid. I left Maedhros hanging on the mountain, because of fear, and then I followed him blindly, without ever asking if he was well enough to take command, because I was terrified that if he wasn't, I would have to... Caranthir used to say, we could have rescued him, if we'd only tried harder. But it wasn't true. I could never have done what Fingon did."

Finrod raised golden eyebrows in surprise. "You do a very convincing impersonation of courage, then. I honestly had no idea... I could see it ahead of me, my death, and I was terrified. Well, it was terrifying. The... the teeth, tearing. Being defeated. Being stripped and chained in the dark. Hearing them die around me and knowing that I'd brought them to it."

"And yet you battled Sauron, then killed a werewolf with your hands and teeth? And you thought my impression of bravery convincing!"

"I didn't have much choice by then. I could only go down fighting, and I didn't want to let Beren down. But before that, I was so very afraid. And so I walked straight into my doom without even trying to find a way that didn't drag anyone else after me. You'd have suggested we have a drink and try to find a way to wriggle around it. And you wouldn't have been so appallingly rude to poor Beren. Or waved your sword at me."

"Oh, Celegorm!" Maglor said, and put his face in his hands for a moment. "No wonder Nargothrond refused to join our union against Angband. You'd think he didn't know the word 'diplomacy'. But, you know, Curufin was afraid as well."

"He was? I was under the impression that he wanted Nargothrond, thought that everything he fancied should be his by right as Fëanor's son, and had decided he would take it. Just like at Alqualondë."

Maglor shrugged unhappily. He preferred not to think too much of Alqualondë, now it had been set safely into song, and he could think of the song and not the reasons why. He thought about Curufin, instead. "Why do you think Maedhros set Celegorm to look after Curufin in Himlad, and put him behind Himring where he wouldn't have to face the first assault? Why do you think he set fear in Nargothrond so effectively? The fear he gave them was his own fear. Curufin always had far too much imagination. And he never quite mastered the art of pretending the fear wasn't there by not looking at it, or joking around it, not to himself. He could give a good performance to anyone who didn't know him well, of course. I would hazard a guess that's why he really wanted Nargothrond. He thought it would be safe. For Celebrimbor as much as for himself. In strategic terms, setting fear loose in Nargothrond was a disaster for us, later. It disabled one of our key allies. Maedhros was furious with him. So was I."

"Well, I really had not thought that I would spend any time today feeling sorry for Curufin! If he'd only told me that..."

"He never would have said it out loud, and certainly not to you. The problem of constantly trying to live up to our father and always finding himself a little lacking... You might bear it in mind, if you ever see him again."

Maglor paused to consider the situation in long-ago Nargothrond, and what he might have done if Finrod had told him that he was setting off to win a Silmaril, following an oath of his own. "If it had been me, I could have managed to be polite, at least," he said at last. "But given what we did to Beren's son and his grandchildren, later, Beren might have preferred Celegorm's honest rudeness."

"Elrond has forgiven you," Finrod observed.

"I had an advantage, there. It's not so hard to be loveable to a six-year-old! Elrond and Elros were the best thing that came out of the entire mess. But... the Silmaril burned me. There's no question we lost any right to them. The Oath twisted us around... by the end we were very nearly serving Morgoth instead of taking revenge on him. I think you and I might still have ended up on opposite sides. But not by any fault of yours."

He looked across at Finrod, sitting there gravely on the bench, with a wry smile. "Even leaving aside burning the ships at Losgar and leaving you to cross the ice, I'm sure I should be apologising to you for something, not vice versa. Doriath, perhaps. Or the Havens. There were people at the Havens from Nargothrond."

Finrod made a helpless gesture with one hand, and his twisted silver bracelets rang like bells. "We did Losgar long ago. I was given that rather nice dapple-grey mare, and three swords made from Curufin's special alloy as compensation, if you remember. And some gold armrings, too. I'll leave Doriath to Dior and Elwing."

"Those armrings! Of course. Curufin made such a fuss about those. He had plans for them. I practically had to sit on him to get him to give them up. Probably a good thing they ended up with you, all things considered. But I hope you aren't hoping for a new horse, for the Havens. I've nothing left to pay any kind of weregild."

A hopeful look came onto Finrod's face. "Ha! But you can give me a song! You must have some interesting new ones by this time. That would be much better than a horse."

"I've got some dwarvish ones you won't have heard," Maglor suggested. "In Sindarin, and in a few dialects of Taliska and Westron, not in Khuzdul, of course. They don't sing in Khuzdul where outsiders might overhear. But the melodies are very distinctive."

"I was hoping for one of yours — appalling though they are, of course — but very well, a dwarvish song would be entirely acceptable."

"Mine sound better with harpsong, on the whole. They might be just a little weak without any accompaniment. I thought of dwarf-songs because their accompaniment is often largely percussive..."

"You don't play the harp any more?" Finrod looked startled. "I didn't realise your hand was so badly burned."

"It wasn't. I dropped the thing at once. When I threw the Silmaril into the sea, it was in a bag; I don't go looking for pain. But I don't have a harp any more. They don't last centuries, even with songs of preservation around them. Particularly outdoors in the winter. You can't make a harp just from wood with a knife. The strings are complicated. You need metal and the right tools. I tried hair and gut, and various resin treatments but the tone was awful, I couldn't get used to it... I can sing up a harp out of memory, but it feels very odd and circular to play music on it. Uncomfortable. I do have a flute. One can make quite an acceptable flute with the right kind of reed. But of course one cannot play and sing together, with a flute."

Finrod looked appalled. "But surely, Elrond..."

Maglor made a face. "I am wearing Elrond's clothes. Otherwise I'd be sitting here in my own amateurishly-cured deerskin. I am living in his house. Elrond has already asked the Valar for a pardon for me, and, although he has had ages of the world at war and richly deserves to be able to live at peace now with his wife, he still feels he has to watch me in case my many enemies should decide to revenge themselves, or possibly in case my Oath is less dead than I hope it is: I am not sure which. I don't think he knows either. Oh yes, and I have begged him to intercede for my brothers with the Valar. All this from someone who I stole from his mother as a small child. I refuse to go to him to ask for a harp. I don't have much pride left, but I do have that."

"Will you let me give you a harp?" Finrod said, urgently. "Please! It upsets me to think of you without one."

"I'd be delighted. Thank you! Why do you think I mentioned it? I told you, I'm Maglor now. Maglor isn't proud."

Finrod looked at him with an expression that mingled hilarity with scepticism. "But Maglor does criticise my poetry and my skills at apologising, then gets me to give him a harp anyway! Maglor may be less proud than Makalaurë, but I am not sure that even his old friends would call him humble." He laughed. "I have several that you are very welcome to choose from, or would you prefer to have one made? Or several, if you like. I know your standards are exacting."

Maglor laughed. "Oh, was I so very fussy? My standards are much less exacting than they were. I'm sure all your harps are excellent. I had one for a long while, that I took from Doriath, after I lost my own in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. It was a little on the small side, and so a little shrill, but that meant it was easy to carry in battle. There was a time when I had not thought of that as a criterion for selection."

He looked over at Finrod and made an apologetic face. "That gibe about your poetry is a very tired old joke. I should stop making it."

"But that would mean I'd have to be polite about your songs! I'm not sure I can change the habit of a lifetime now. The old jokes are worth keeping hold of... Also you are one of the few people I can actually trust to tell me honestly if my writing doesn't work. In fact, I was rather hoping that you might be persuaded take a look at some of them, now you have finally reappeared."

Maglor looked at him in alarm that was only slightly exaggerated for effect. "Finrod! It's been what, six thousand years? You aren't going to ask me to critique six thousand years of poetry?"

"I haven't been writing non-stop! But there are, now you mention it, a couple of things that I've been working on recently..."

"I'm delighted and relieved to hear you have found other entertainments. Anyway my taste must be terrifyingly out of date, and I'll have no idea of the conventions. Do I even know the language you are writing in now?"

"Pick it out of my mind," Finrod said, callously. "You won't have any problems with that."

"Hmph. Does anyone in the world, even me, deserve six thousand years of Finrod's lousy verse inflicted on them, I ask myself? Very well. I'm going to need some wine."

"Excellent!" Finrod said, with considerable satisfaction. "I have a rough draft with me, as it happens. You go and find wine while I send a message for someone to bring my harps over from Tirion. Then I'll read it to you."

They were half-way through the flask of wine, and some way through the draft as well, when some matter of translation brought up the subject of oaths again.

It seemed to have been bothering Finrod. "Do you really not know if your oath still holds or not? They could probably tell you, if you went to Lórien."

Maglor winced. He had almost managed to forget that they were in Aman, not long-ago Beleriand, for a little while. "That might be all very well if they told me that it didn't hold. But they might say it does, and then what? I'm not eager to take up permanent residence in the Halls of Mandos, and it would be mad to knowingly let that run loose. I think it's gone. I did throw the Silmaril away. And the Oath hasn't spoken to me since."

"But wouldn't you rather know for sure?"

"I'd rather live in hope, than rely on a ruling that might not be real," Maglor said, wary again. "I don't trust the Valar overmuch, I'm afraid. In any case, if there is an expert in this field, it is Elrond, not Irmo. Poor Elrond learned the lesson of mistrust early and repeatedly. He has far more experience of the tricks and shadows of Middle-earth than any of the Ainur, save perhaps Gandalf, and he's here, not in Lórien. The Oath had a lot of shadows, by the end. But I think I can trust Elrond, if I can't trust myself."

"So you aren't coming back home to Tirion?"

"Home? Where is home, after so long? I came to Aman because Elrond wanted me to. I've let him down enough already... I could hardly refuse, not when he had to leave Arwen until world's end, and perhaps his sons too. Anyway, I'd have missed him. But beyond that, I have no plans, save perhaps for seeing my mother." He looked curiously at Finrod. "Surely your father won't want me in Tirion anyway, will he? I assume Finarfin is still king? Or did Fingolfin resume the crown when he came out of Mandos?"

Finrod's face fell. "Fingolfin and Lalwen are still in the Halls of Mandos. Fingon, too, and Turgon and Aredhel. And Aegnor, though I expected that all along; it's not so much that he's unable to leave, than that he needs the rest and peace and has no particular wish to return. My father is still the king."

"But surely Fingon and Turgon would wish to return? And Fingolfin, most of all."

"They have only just agreed to lift the Ban from my sister," Finrod pointed out. "Even though my father led their war against Morgoth. Not that Galadriel was tactful about not wishing to return! But still, one must have some family solidarity. That was one reason I decided to remain Finrod. If my sister was a leader of rebellion banished to Middle-earth, then my name from Beleriand seemed only appropriate."

"But... Celebrimbor?"

Finrod shook his head. "None of the House of Fëanor. That's why I was so surprised to see you. I hope it means that Turgon will be allowed to return."

"Surely it must!" Maglor said. "I'm sorry Finrod, I had no idea. I thought, Celebrimbor, at least... I suppose he was at Alqualondë, but nobody could have called him a leader then, he was barely grown! But I know you and Turgon were good friends."

"I can take some comfort that Elenwë has not returned either, so it might be that she and Turgon are together and don't feel the need of life so urgently. But one can't help feeling for poor Aunt Anairë; she's never given up hope Fingolfin will come home one day. And I honestly can't imagine him resting content in Mandos, can you?"

Maglor thought of Fingolfin's restless, competent energy and shook his head. "What were the Halls of Mandos like?"

"Odd." Finrod said, succinctly.

"Odd? That's the only word you've got from all your hoard?

"I could give you thousands of words, but I'm not sure any of them would really get the idea across. I suspect it's different for everyone, anyway..."

Finrod took a swig of his wine, and tilted his head on one side, considering. "Let me give it another go, then. Mandos is huge, and old and complicated and it seems to get bigger all the time. I think the corridors and halls shift around so it is hard to know where you are or find anyone in particular, or have any sense of direction. They are all clad in tapestries from high ceiling to floor. The light is dim, and the place is very quiet, unless you are near the looms of Vairë or the stables... I'm fairly sure the hounds and horses see it differently to how we see it. And for the cats, probably different again. Sometimes they'll wander through a wall as if it wasn't there, or you'll see hounds running in the distance and there's a light and a wind blowing on them that you can't see close at hand or feel touching you... There are a lot of Maiar around, though often not in any form you'd recognise from the flesh. And there are your thoughts and memories that wind around you..." He shook his head. "None of this is even close. Let me try to show you."

Finrod opened his mind again, with a kind of deliberate guarded caution that spoke of closed gates behind the open ones, as he had done when reading poetry in the modern dialect of Tirion, and let him feel a series of memories running across the surface of it. Maglor looked, and then quickly shook his head, feeling a little dizzy. "I can't make any sense of that! I suppose it must be as you say, that the experience varies... You didn't see my brothers while you were there?"

"No. I left before they died. I was only there long enough to get past the defeat and guilt. It wasn't so hard, because I'd seen it ahead of me anyway. Well, that and the... teeth. And that was such a... fleshy experience. Not really much to do with the spirit.

Finrod grinned at Maglor deliberately, showing his own teeth. "I wondered if they would insist I forgive your brothers before I left, but I suppose they felt that being annoyed at Fëanorians was only to be expected."

"On the House of Fëanor the wrath of the Valar lieth from the West unto the uttermost East," Maglor told him solemnly and raised his cup in salute. "It would have been odd for Mandos, of all people, to demand you forgive us. Have some more of Celebrían's excellent wine. Are all our people still in the Halls of Mandos too, then? "

"Oh no, not at all," Finrod said, topping up his cup. "The Valar were very forgiving with those who could be said to have been led astray, all things considered. I haven't seen any of your people who were in the attack on the Havens of Sirion yet — not anyone who admits to it apart from you, anyway — but most of the rest are back in Tirion, living in the old Fëanorian quarter."

"There's still a Fëanorian quarter, after all this time? You didn't re-organise?"

"Is there still a Fëanorian quarter, he asks!" Finrod buried his golden head in despairing hands. "Of course there is a Fëanorian quarter. The very idea of trying to stop the Fëanorian quarter from reforming... utterly impossible. Utterly! It's the bane of my life! Most of Fingolfin's most prominent people settled here out of the way on Tol Eressëa and got on quietly with their lives, but was that good enough for the people of Fëanor?"

"I am guessing not?"

"Of course it was not! They started coming back to Tirion after the War of Wrath. Those that were in Mandos, first; there weren't too many of your people who lived and came back by ship, but there were some. And then much more recently, those who went to Eregion, and died there began to return, too. And they came to my father and to me, with detailed plans of exactly which workshops and smithies and buildings should belong to them, and six thousand reasons why any change that had been made since they left should be reversed."

"Alas, poor Finrod," Maglor said, amused.

Finrod gave him a look that mingled horror and laughter. "Some of them turned up in ordered companies, marching, if you can believe that, in step, barefoot, from Mandos back to Tirion. Singing. Obviously, every time it happened they were always singing one of yours, usually that ridiculously triumphant thing you wrote after the Dagor Aglareb. It was terrifying! Particularly the first time those already resident came out to sing them home. I thought there would be a riot. Fortunately my father managed to calm our own people down and mother persuaded the Teleri to see the funny side, while I got them settled in somehow. And that was really the most enormous mistake, because after that I got landed with dealing with them! They are still the proudest, loudest and most obstreperous people in the city. And, all right, probably the best craftspeople too, but don't they just know it!"

"They always did," Maglor said, trying not to laugh.

Finrod shook his head in comical despair, but Maglor thought he caught a hint of consideration in his glance, and became quietly alert. "I wish I'd had a chance to write a poem for every time I've heard the words 'Our lord Fëanor used to...' Sometimes, for variety, I get 'Maedhros used to' or 'Maglor used to'. And I have been told at great length how Celebrimbor's administration in Eregion was superior to mine, of course. You would think I had never been a king, for the lectures I've had from weavers, jewellers, potters and smiths. At least they draw the line at 'Curufin used to' when they come to me."

He gave Maglor a thoughtful look over his winecup. "I wondered if you might want to take charge of them."

"You think that would be a good idea?" Maglor asked, very cautiously.

"I wondered what you would say, if I asked you."

Ah, so that was it. Inevitable that the question should come up, and Finrod had at least handled things delicately, using words not thoughts and careful not to leave a scar. Galadriel had not been so considerate, but then Galadriel's husband was from Doriath.

"I've spent the last six thousand years wandering alone, I killed a lot of people — including Men, I can't even apologise to them — and I still can't be sure the Oath has let me go." Maglor said. "I am hardly qualified to be anyone's lord."

Finrod gave him a very level look. "What will you do, once they know you are here? You are Maedhros's heir, and Maedhros was your father's..."

Maglor carefully opened his mind and took down all his usual defenses. Finrod was skilled enough that he would be very hard to hide thoughts from anyway, but the gesture of holding nothing back might count for something. "I am his heir only in the most technical sense. Maedhros waived his claim to the crown on behalf of our entire House. When Maedhros was captive, I had to act as king. You know how badly I did it. Believe me, I don't want that again. The people who owed allegiance to the House of Fëanor long ago should be grateful to have you: I can only thank you for being so patient with them. And I can't see the Valar allowing it anyway, can you?"

"Perhaps not, after all." Finrod took a sip from his wine and glanced back at him, very casually.

"You can tell your father I am not a threat to peace in Tirion," Maglor said, still holding his mind open. It felt vulnerable and exposed. Strange to think such openness had once been habitual. "Not, at any rate, by my choice. If they come to me, I will send them back to you, unless the Oath comes back to me and I am unable. I can't promise to be strong when I know I'm not. I can only promise to try. If I fail, you will have to rely on Elrond."

Finrod smiled, a smile bright and warm as the sun. Maglor had a sense of a complex set of shining gates folding one by one out of the way, and to his surprise, realised that Finrod had taken down his defenses too. "I couldn't help but wonder what Elrond had brought back to us, even after I spoke to Galadriel. I am so glad. I truly am. I wanted to, but I could not quite believe it, that you had managed to come back, beyond all hope and having gone so very far away. Even when you seemed so like your old self. Forgive me?"

"There's nothing to forgive," Maglor told him sincerely. "Your sister came to the same conclusion, but she was less delighted about it. I can't blame her. Nor you for wanting to be sure."

Finrod sighed. "I will have to pin my hopes on Celebrimbor returning from Mandos to rescue me from the complaints of the smiths and weavers of the House of Fëanor, I fear. At least for now. But at least I can inflict my terrible poetry on you. It's a start."

"It is." Maglor found it a rather unfamiliar feeling, to be trusted. He was not sure he liked it. It might come with obligations that he would be unable to meet.

"Your hobbits will be waking again, I expect," he said. "They very much like a mid-day meal, I learned as we were travelling here."

"My hobbits? If they are anyone's hobbits, surely they are Elrond's?"

Maglor laughed. "I get the impression Bilbo considers it the other way around. He feels he discovered Elrond, and indeed all of us. It reminded me of you, a little, coming back to tell us that you had met Bëor and his people, and that we must find suitable lands for him to settle in right away. The expression of delight was very similar. Though lower down, of course. Shall we go and see if he would like to hear your poetry too? I think you'll find him less critical than I am."