"Maitimo," Maglor said softly. "You should go to sleep."
"I'm not tired."
The deep shadows under his eyes said different. Maedhros had not slept since the Nírnaeth, save in fitful bursts inspired only by the barest necessity for remaining lucid. Long legs folded tightly, he smoothed an oiled cloth across the steel breastplate in his lap, hand moving across the metal in a constant circular motion.
A breath of chill wind lifted the wayward strands of hair falling across Maedhros' forehead. But though the grey clouds shrouding the sun made the atmosphere darkly electric, no rain came forth to cleanse the blood from the earth, to wash away the hill of the slain on Anfauglith.
The bodies. Piled, bloody carcasses left to be picked at by shuffling, muttering crows. The sharp caws - the sight of beaks ripping into decaying flesh, gnawing, tearing - and who was there? Perhaps Fingon's body was there, rotting, crushed under the weight of a thousand bloated corpses.
Or perhaps had he been dragged into Angband to endure further humiliation before the throne. Maedhros closed his eyes and turned away.
"Let's go," he said shortly.
"You need to sleep."
The pale silver gaze flicked up to meet Maglor's eyes for only a moment before returning to the armor resting on his legs. Maedhros said nothing, continuing to polish the already shining steel of the chest plate.
The regular movement of cloth on metal was hypnotic, as was the defiant concentration shining in the hollows of Maedhros' eyes. Maglor sat down beside his brother with a sigh.
"Maitimo... You must rest," he said. "The tent is already set up. Don't you want to have your full strength when we set off tomorrow?"
"My strength..." He paused as if pondering the word, tasting it on his tongue. As he thought, another cool breeze rushed in to rustle their clothing and hair, and spread the icy cold of impending winter. Maglor shivered, but Maedhros did not react. The tips of the fingers that clasped the oiled cloth were pale as though already numb.
"I do not need to sleep," he said at last. "Strength comes from without. Or it fails to. Either way, there is nothing I can do to influence it." His voice was dull, emotionless as the cold glitter in his eyes; Maglor could not decide if it was better or worse than the fell passion that sometimes consumed him.
He put his arm around his brother's shoulders tentatively, grasping the tense muscles in a comforting gesture. "All the same, everyone needs rest. If you want, I promise I will stay by you the whole time. You need not fear the quiet of sleep, Nelyo."
"I do not fear the quiet," Maedhros said harshly, voice angry and loud in the chill air, throwing Maglor's arm from his shoulders and fixing burning eyes upon him. "I fear the voices in the darkness, the judgment that comes with silence. I fear our father. I fear Findekáno. But I do not fear the quiet. Indeed, if I should ever encounter any I would hold it a blessing."
The roar of battle around them filled his ears with a wash of screams and gurgling howls and the ring of iron; Maglor plunged one of his long knives into an orc to his left, felt the warmth of blood splatter on his face and was already ducking to avoid the sword of the next enemy. With a swish of his knife, the orc crumpled to the ground to be trodden on, face-down in a mix of dust and bloody mud. Sensing a motion behind him, Maglor turned instantly to see the crude and lethal axe of a troll bearing down on him. He met the downswung axe above him with both crossed blades, but the force of the blow hammered him to his knees - ringing through the metal and reverberating into his arm and sending a spray of numbing pain up towards his heart. He might have cried out in pain, but he could not be sure - the scream of battle drowned out all individual agony. Against his will, Maglor felt his right hand - the arm that had taken the brunt of the axe-blow - slacken on the hilt of his blade.
Turning again and pulling free from the locked weapons before his inferior strength and broken arm allowed the axe to find its mark, Maglor ducked under the upheld arm of his enemy and spun back, slashing with the knife in his left hand - but the foe was strangely motionless, and crumpled to its knees before the grotesque head rolled from its shoulders.
"Watch yourself, Kanafinwë," Maedhros shouted, teeth bared in a feral grimace as he cut down an Easterling that had come between them. Drops of blood and smears of grime marred the perfection of his face, blasphemous marks hiding the tenderness and caring and love to leave only the harsh edges of violence where a soft smile should have been. Maglor paused for a split second, cradling his broken arm, and Maedhros' eyes flicked suddenly over Maglor's shoulder, coming alive with renewed urgency. He let out a yell of warning as his blade swept upwards - narrowly missing Maglor's damaged arm - to clang against the rough scimitar of another foe. He leaned into the locked blades, set the orc off-balance with a mighty thrust - then, in one smooth motion, he cut the orc's legs out from under him.
He half-turned to face his brother, a wry smile oddly out of place amongst the carnage of the battle and his own obvious numbness. But Maglor did not hear whatever his brother was going to say. He lunged forwards, and impaled the orc about to cut down Maedhros.
"You watch yourself, Nelyafinwë," Maglor said, only half in jest, and Maedhros laughed, throat tight and rough and the resulting sound not of mirth but of hopelessness.
Maglor recoiled at the outburst, brows furrowed. "Very well," he said, "I apologize. But you do need to rest. ...Please, Maitimo."
The tense line of Maedhros' jaw relaxed reluctantly at the gentle tone and the use of his old name. But he looked at Maglor with something dead in his eyes - something Maglor would have expected to see in Curufin; but not Maedhros, never Maedhros - pale silver somehow grown dark and hungry like a wolf in the winter.
"I... will be alright," he said hoarsely, breaking eye contact to return his attention to the armor in his lap.
He took the cloth back into his hand and smoothed it over the breastplate, polishing the gleaming metal until it shone in the weak sunlight. The same metal that only days ago had been encrusted with the matted blood and gore of the battlefield.
"Are you alright, Russandol?"
Lips pale and tight, he did not answer. He threw the sack containing his armor down beside the tree and sat, taking out one gauntlet encrusted with red.
"Can I help?"
A minute shake of the head. He bowed his head over the armor, allowing a curtain of grimy red hair to conceal his brother and started to work, picking insistently at the chunks of gore in the creases of the gauntlet.
"Please... Don't do that now. We need to set up camp." Maglor's voice caught in his throat, betraying the frayed nerves and exhaustion of the last couple days, and he cursed inwardly.
Silence, save for a chill wind that tasted of a coming storm, whispering through brittle leaves. Maedhros picked at a piece of flesh caught in the shallow groove of one of the gauntlet's elaborate carvings - their father's work - seemingly unaffected by the long, infected gash on his thigh.
"What about your leg?"
"It will heal."
What about your heart? Maglor wanted to ask, but Maedhros might have attacked him.
So they sat in silence at the edge of the wild, under a sky covered by clouds that would yield no rain.