Faint
"We would make you a hand out of ivory and silver, stained with petals of crushed roses."
"There's no need to kill for my hand. It is dead."
The craftsman looked at their lord. His eyes were very sad.
"Even a single rose..."
"Do not deprive it of its petals. I see how everything has become more precious now."
"But milord..."
"Would you begrudge a lord without a hand and an ill-suited name?
"You are yourself still...yet..."
"Well?" The glance was terribly keen.
"Lord Fingon bought the flowers over but they were already dead, for he carried them through Helcaraxe." Maedhros could not betray his astonishment. The craftman continued to speak. "He said, he brought them for you, they had been part of your begetting day present."
-=-=
Maedhros fainted they whispered. He was standing then he fell. He had not stirred in three days.
"What was he doing?" Some asked.
The mention of the pain of a missing hand, of pride, the mention of flowers...
"No," the craftman said, coming amidst them, "I mentioned Fingon."
Look, here he comes, Fingolfin's son. Look how pale his face is, look how his lip bleeds.
"Maedhros," Fingon said, sitting by Maedhros's bedside, idly stroking an empty sleeve, "I am sorry."
Maedhros opened his eyes at the voice, and closed them again. "I am sorry," he said.
A tear slid down a still perfect cheek.
"You remembered me on the Helcaraxe, I could not save you, I could not stop my father."
Fingon leaned close to hear the slight voice.
"I remembered you as you remembered me," answered Fingon, smoothing a hand over the smooth brow, his fingers tangling in the soft red hair.
"I can't. I can't." Repeated Maedhros. The scent of Fingon's hair, the weight of a missing hand hurt him, and he was so tired being hurt.
Fingon did not ask what because it did not matter. He took off his boots and his tunic, and slid into the space beside Maedhros, his right side.
Gray eyes looked into each other, rimmed with glittering tears. Maedhros' left hand fell across Fingon's waist. Fingon brushed a tear away from the Feanorian cheek, cool and white like the snow.
"Shush now, dear one, let us sleep, let us dream."
-=-= "We are growing up," Maitimo says, looking pale and sharp.
Telperion light spills down upon the grassy knoll, so on silver they sit with no trace of gold in sight.
Findekano rests his head on Maitimo's shoulder, just the right height for him.
"I know."
And they are silent for a while.
"It's not that..but..." Maitimo starts and stops. Frustrated, he takes a long copper braid, which is dark in the light, and begins to unweave it with his fingers.
"Not that..." Findekano hesitates, and he can feel his heartbeats. Maitimo looks like Feanor when his hair is dark, but he is not Feanor. The wind carried Feanor's voice from the square of Tirion until it lapped at the border of Fingon's hearing.
"Let's go somewhere." Maitimo stands, topples Findekano and extends a hand. "Here," he offered. Their eyes meet, Maitimo's eyes: gray and cool like the mist.
"Where to?" Findekano stretches, the grass tickles his face. There's a faint warm breeze and the ground is soft. "I'm tired."
"Anywhere," Comes the lofty reply. Then Maitimo bends down, his face hovering just so, "Let's go somewhere more comfortable then." Feanor's voice met Fingolfin's, the sound of Finwe's drowning both out.
"I'm comfortable here," Fingon mutters, and suddenly, sits, before the other moves out of the way." Their breaths meet: warm and comfortable puffs.
"I'm not going to leave you," He says, "They can quarrel their hearts out if they wish."
"Right," Maitimo whispers back. His arms wraps around his cousin's form in a close embrace, something desperate. "And I shall not leave you, my own house or no."
Findekano would never know what Maitimo means to speak, but Maitimo head dipped slightly and their lips meet, ever so briefly, enough that they look away from each other: only to stare again, a little later, at the soft blush upon the other's face. -=-=
When the clouds of his dreams wandered apart Maedhros found Fingon's eyes staring curiously at him. A bead of something bright gleamed at the end of an eyelash. He reached up. Fingon started, but did not move away.
"You were crying," Maedhros said.
"I had to." Fingon replied. He drifted a finger over Maedhros's cheek. "You were crying."
Maedhros sighed. "My eyes are old and dull without tears to paint them with light."
"Isn't this," Fingon smiled sadly, "The story of our lives hereafter?"
"I've always been prodigious."
"Only of looks," Fingon ghosted a touch down the curve of a cheekbone to the pale distracting lips.
Later they would say, Noldor's hearts turned when their humor turned: tears named as crystals and diamonds and other precious, lavish things.
There was a harsh rustle at the entrance. The air's brisk outside.
"Milord. Milords. Your father, your brothers await. "
And then all is silent and warm.
Another rustle, far softer now, an arm moving down a little under the blankets. Fingon's fingers upon Maedhros chest, a fingertip at a time.
"Dear Fingon."
"Dear Maedhros."
"You will leave."
"I shall, but I will it not."
"Here's the story, of our lives ever after."
And they laughed, Fingon's hand upon Maedhros's chest, and Maedhros's hand clutching it tight, they laughed.
"We are so foresighted together."
-=-=
"Take heed, dear child," The elf said, and laid a slender perfect hand upon a copper head, "The world is different now, nothing is as it seems. NOTHING!"
Startled out of a nightmare, Maedhros found his breath weak and rapid. He draws one deep and exhaled. He found Maglor's hazy eyes odd.
"Where is Fingon?" He asked Maglor, whose newly awakened face suddenly seemed very worn.
"Here." Fingon walks from the bed by the brazier and sits down on Maedhros bed. "How do you fare?"
"As well and as ill as can be."
"Then you must be better to answer me so. Dreams?"
"Oh yes..dreams. "Maedhros mumurs, and brings Fingon's right hand against his face. If his cousin thought the gesture strange, he did not voice it. "Did you dream, upon Helcaraxe?" Maedhros traced the detail of the fine fold of skin between the thumb and forefinger. His own was quite awkward now. Feet and legs, arms and torso and face saved except for that mark of the house of Curufinwe..hands..hand...mutilated and distorted, and perhaps, the mind as well.
"I held you to my dreams." Answered Fingon, though he could not tell Maedhros why. No one speaks of the madness of the ice, when emotions waver between passionate extremes. "They were dreams." Yet still only Valinorean dreams, the only kind they knew then.
"I could not dream of you." Maedhros said. Though I tried. And now I do not wish to taint you with mine. He had learnt to dream differently upon Thangorodrim.
-=-=
Maglor slipped out and found Ambarussa listening intently outside, ears cocked to the night wind.
"Will they be all right?" Maglor lifts a querulous eyebrow. "What do children know?"
They?
"Findekano and Maitimo," they replied, as if it is a natural thing, "As we are Ambarussa."
"Brothers, that is an illusion of time. Maglor said. Think, will our Nolofinwe's people allow it?
"They let him come." Ambarussa said pointedly.
"Ah, but he was visiting a wounded friend, not a Feanorion."
"When does a friend cease to be a Feanorion, when did a Feanorion cease to become a friend?" Maglor shrugged, aiming for nonchalance and failing. He knew it was true however. Feanorions will no longer have friends.
There are some things that exist without being answers.
"We are skeptical." Ambarussa replied, "Are not our bonds deepened through our deeds and should we not share our hearts?" Maglor shook his head sadly.
"Those who you sacrifice for ultimately hates you at the end. It has always been so." He looks up, and decides, no, they shouldn't know that yet.
-=-=
Maedhros grimaced as lifted his legs out of the bed and stood, joints and muscle humming discordantly. The pain pulled sharp and fierce on his right arm. He had been sleeping on that side, forearm under the pillow.
There was a food on the table, something thick and steaming in a bowl. I must be all right, he thought to himself as he ate, smiling wryly, tunic half-draped over bare chest, when food and warmth are had and enjoyed.
"Russandol?" Fingon's voice came with the sound of his footsteps while his person arrived in time to see Maitimo wiping the corners of his mouth with a napkin. "He had finished it, and you may hold a sword again." The morning light pushed into the room as the breeze fluttered the loosened flap.
"You are cheerful this morning," Maedhros remarked, turning around. A still silence met him. Fingon's mouth had fallen open, a bit staringly "I..." Under touch, many and raised as they may be he knew they were part of him, alive. Scarce paces away, they seemed alien, sitting upon the healed familiar body. The last time he saw them, he remembered thinking that they would disappear when the blood stops flowing.
Scars.
White and purple parasites crawled upon pale skin leeched of color. Fingon remembered Maitimo unscarred flesh looked almost exactly like his own, a subtle rosiness tingeing the skin, different from the cool pallor of his father, his mother, and his brothers. There's small ancient strain of shared Vanyarin blood between Nerdanel's and Indis' families.
There was a gleam of perspiration on Maedhros's forehead. The face was so pale. He had not expected that neither. The poisonous air, he thought, and almost cursed Manwe.
Maedhros laughed, and the sound interrupted. The light is not kind, and he knew what Fingon saw and made him angry.
"Scars, what of it?" He asked, "There's one on your chin when you fell headfirst from the tree in your tenth year."
"What of it?" Fingon asked himself, but he held Maedhros' gaze in challenge.
"He should have spent his time better building dwellings." Maedhros said.
"He should have," Admitted Fingon bitterly. Against a wrist so white, it would not do...at all...
Maedhros's expression softened. "I shall learn to wield a blade with my left, I shall write with my left, I shall dress with only my left. I have my arm to carry a shield still."
At that, Fingon approached, the tip of his nose touched a stray strand of hair, more red than auburn now. Even this was scarred, bleached by the sun into a color oddly similar to dried blood.
"It's well." He said, but could not prevent the formation of a tear. The reason for grief was suddenly clear: everything had changed. Desperate, he had expected Maitimo to stay the same because this was how it always had been, tall as he was, Maedhros's growth were slow in Fingon's eyes in Valinor though he grew to be tall. Every change had been imperceptible, until now. It was unfair.
"As well as can be, for things we cannot change." Came the voice, half-a whisper. Maedhros understood then. Perhaps he thought Fingon would be the same when his eyes were cleared and the sun rises above the horizon. Yet Fingon knew even his voice had changed, hoarse and harsh after the oft calls of names in Helcaraxe.
"No," Fingon looked up, unflinchingly into the strange gray eyes of his childhood friend, "All's well."
"And why is that?"
"Because, now, as before, we can only look to the future, and we will have one."
"Such faith..", Maedhros murmurred, but in his heart saw that Fingon's words were true and wondered whether their hopes made them so.
-=-=
Maglor was sullen when they sat down together for the meal. Brothers' faces wearing hunger as they wont: smiling, scowling, nonchalant, licking lips, looking the other way, gorging themselves on wine first... Why must we be only familiar to each other, he wondered.
He looked at the eldest.
"You are king now, Nelyafinwe." Maglor said bitterly, and knived the meat in front of him.
Maedhros started.
"Cano.." he begin to say, laying a hand on Maglor's arm. "What is the..."
But before he could finish, "Pity our uncle does not agree," Celegorm's voice spoke. Maedhros turned his head sharply.
"Why would he not agree?" Maglor stared at the hand on his arm, and continued to eat with a certain savageness.
"Did you know that he would not agree? He asked in between bites."
"No." Maedhros said, and thought it ill that Maglor should broach the subject while they are at the table.
"Nolofinwe consider you tainted by blood and torment," Amros said, "And thus, unfit to rule a people pure from the trials of the ice," continued Amrod. Cut, fork, eat. The motions're identical, repetitive, Maedhros thought he could become dizzy if he looked too long.
"His people would not follow, and he would have us dispossessed of even the loyalties of our own house." Curufin said quietly. "He is moving them with words, and our father is not here..."
"Findekano to ascertain it is true that you are alive, and only that." Caranthir looked at Maedhros, and Maedhros noticed that his face was worn and expression tired. The angry flush he expected instead was across his own cheeks.
"No, he came because.." Maedhros trailed off. He cared? He dared not to voice a question, so instead, "Lord Nolofinwe is helping us, we must remain together."
"Our cousin has poisoned your ear." Celegorm said simply, "He came to see you and you would not know the difference between a friend and a spy."
"Enough!" Maedhros shouted.
"What?" Six mouths with the same question, six mouths he fed in another lifetime.
"Why must you do this to me? Here and now?" Maedhros's eyes flashed, He stood. The chair, pushed back, fell on the carpet with a soft thump.
"We are gathered here for our subsistence, in all. ways."
"Our cousin would have nothing to do with this..." Maedhros continued, weaker now.
"We tended your wounds. You are our brother, we do not touch you less because of them."
"Because you are my brothers.." Maedhros wished to say, but it made no sense.
"He does not consider you, all of us, as those they knew of old." Maglor said gently, a grievous tale in his voice, "Everything, and everyone change. Our deeds...." he trailed off. Quiet was at the table, even the cutlery were silent as they moved.
Maedhros sank down in his seat and grew troubled. Somewhere in his secret heart, he thought it might be true. After all, everything had changed.
-=-=
For all his stature, Maedhros never took up extra space like Celegorm or the twins who are used to open spaces and sprawled postures. Nelyafinwe sits proper and straight, like a child someone's showing off, which he is, and always has been: the example for all to follow. But Fingon know, seeing him sitting there, Nerdanel's hair, Feanor's face, Finwe's eyes, that though he is no longer "Maitimo", "Maedhros" has its own legacies.
And of course, there is Nelyafinwe.
"You do not wish me to be king." Nelyafinwe says to him without ceremony., the glitter of the circlet on his brow very bright. Fingon stood in front of him, finding his cousin oddly young and terrifyingly old at the same time.
He is silent. Maedhros waits for a reply, his glance unwavering.
They were different in the court of the Noldor. Different. Hah! It took the Ice and the Cliff and Morgoth for Maitimo hair to burnish from a subtle auburn to the uneven colors of a flame, for his skin to leech of color. Did Fingon knew him to be the same? Preternaturally white beneath the perpetual fever?
"You do not wish me to be king." Maedhros repeats.
Fingon's hands clench into fists. No time to play coy.
"I do not."
"Why?" The question comes in quick pursuit. Fingon makes one more step closer.
"You were wounded." Says he. Maedhros makes an impervious gesture with his hand and smiles, almost smiles at his cousin. Brothers, you are wrong. He cares.
"I am healed."
"You will never be." Fingon hesitates, "The king must lead his people, his people must trust him. A king," He halts again, only to hear his own voice moving in the otherwise still air, "Will protect his people." A king, Fingolfin also says, will never be from Feanor's line for their oath is their master. A king must have no other oath to Eru than to his people. How else, he asks, can we have a king we call our own?
"Very well." Maedhros answers. Fingon, who watches Maedhros carefully, cannot understand how the expression changes so quickly. He takes one step closer. Maedhros puts a hand in front of himself, the palm only slightly lined. Fingon stops and says: "But I would still follow you."
So it is someone else's words that he speak, and that must be the purpose of his presence all along. Maedhros laughs, bitterly and without any trace of fey. For a moment, Fingon thinks himself martyred. His heart is rent to pieces.
"Leave." Maedhros says, standing up, "I hurt from reason, I am sorry I cannot change."
"I..." Fingon's fists clench tighter. There is a blur in front of him.
"Leave." The blur is Maedhros and Maitimo looking down at a piece of paper on a desk.
"Russ..."
Maedhros looks up, and a sudden fury from the unsubtle face swept the pieces of Fingon's heart away.
"Leave."
Fingon left.
He covers his face as he walks past his retainers, fearful that they'll see the anger in his face and think something's amiss. Yet nothing is amiss, the truth is told, is it not? That is his father's message, finally delivered, though late. His palms stung. When he looked, aching even as the rest of him is, there is blood on his hands.
-=-=
It is perverse perhaps, to cradle another's present. Fingon found the wooden box embossed with silver on his table when he returned. He looked at it, thought of opening it, then of throwing it into the fire. He did neither. It had lain there on the wooden surface until he could no longer look at it.
It would be monstrosity to look within now, after all, it is not his, nor in fact, anyone's upon the Hither Shores except perhaps Morgoth's. Another trophy...Look at what you've done!
There shouldn't be politics between friends, between two who only wish the best for each other.
But there are.
Fingon has no heart, so he did not care that it might be Morgoth's trophy rather than a gift between heartfelt once-friends. He pressed the box against his chest until the corners made dents in his skin. The nail marks in his palms are healing too rapidly.
And of course, pain, the tents, the fire, dwindles into nothingness when he wanders the twilight paths. There is Fingon saying to Maedhros "Don't let go" and Maedhros saying to Fingon "Let it end"...
And Maedhros is right, in that bitter Feanorian manner. Everything has ended.
Over what? Led from what? What was a box and another work from a skilled pair of hands? Fingon's brother is Turgon, his uncle Feanor, his cousins Finrod and Curufin. He has seen enough art and art's work for any life time.
But he is Fingon, and he said, "Don't let go."
If he has to run, if he has to sneak past the guards of two camps in full martial array, he will. If he has to elude the shadows without Manwe, so be it. Dressed, placing the box deep within the belly of a chest, Fingon left, silent as his tears were silent.
So Maedhros wakes from a heavy sleep with a warmth on his chest.
"How do you wish me to prove my loyalty?" Fingon asks, his face very close to Maedhros's. He leans back slowly as the other sits, relinquishing his arm's place across Maedhros's chest.
Maedhros looked hard at his cousin, who has his eyes downcast.
"Findekano."
"Yes?" Fingon looks up again, beside the soft ambers, pale face is shaded desperately fierce, eager, "I do not wish you to be unhappy."
"I do not want your loyalty." Maedhros answers softly.
Fingon blinks, and a bitterness welled inside of him, threatening to spill.
"But only that is mine to offer." You can demand no more of me..
"To have known you, that is happiness enough." Maedhros says. His hand ghosts down the side of Fingon's face, as if trying to memorize it for some rendering. Horrified, Fingon's turned his head slightly, and his lips met Maedhros's fingers with a terrible tenderness.
"But we live." Fingon says, catching and pressing Maedhros's hand against his chest, "Here I am. Know me still."
-=-=
See the elf over there, with the two thick braids down his back and those bright clothes? He is Fingon, he is his father's son though right now if you ask, he would deny it.
See the elf standing beside him, so close that their shoulders are touching almost? Yes, the one with the fiery hair and the lanky stature. (Just don't repeat it to either of them) He is Maitimo, Fingon's best friend.
Child, don't mutter so. Say it out loud. Yes, he is our King, Feanor's son you know, one armed our not. Valinor loved his father enough to have come here. Imagine, yes, a people whose wives leave their husbands and vice versa. We did not leave Feanor or his sons to wander in the dark wild alone even afterwards. We love them so...
What are they doing? Why, they are watching the stars. The sky has cleared so few times since we're here.
Their heads lean together, I know. Are their hands clasped? I do not know.
But don't let them see you, Finwian tempers are quite terrible, quite quite terrible.
We're not supposed to see even this.
"Why, Lord Fingolfin" (quick, child, bow), "I did not know you would come here so late."
-=-=
"We would make you a hand out of ivory and silver, stained with petals of crushed roses."
"There's no need to kill for my hand. It is dead."
The craftsman looked at their lord. His eyes were very sad.
"Even a single rose..."
"Do not deprive it of its petals. I see how everything has become more precious now."
"But milord..."
"Would you begrudge a lord without a hand and an ill-suited name?
"You are yourself still...yet..."
"Well?" The glance was terribly keen.
"Lord Fingon bought the flowers over but they were already dead, for he carried them through Helcaraxe." Maedhros could not betray his astonishment. The craftman continued to speak. "He said, he brought them for you, they had been part of your begetting day present."
-=-=
Maedhros fainted they whispered. He was standing then he fell. He had not stirred in three days.
"What was he doing?" Some asked.
The mention of the pain of a missing hand, of pride, the mention of flowers...
"No," the craftman said, coming amidst them, "I mentioned Fingon."
Look, here he comes, Fingolfin's son. Look how pale his face is, look how his lip bleeds.
"Maedhros," Fingon said, sitting by Maedhros's bedside, idly stroking an empty sleeve, "I am sorry."
Maedhros opened his eyes at the voice, and closed them again. "I am sorry," he said.
A tear slid down a still perfect cheek.
"You remembered me on the Helcaraxe, I could not save you, I could not stop my father."
Fingon leaned close to hear the slight voice.
"I remembered you as you remembered me," answered Fingon, smoothing a hand over the smooth brow, his fingers tangling in the soft red hair.
"I can't. I can't." Repeated Maedhros. The scent of Fingon's hair, the weight of a missing hand hurt him, and he was so tired being hurt.
Fingon did not ask what because it did not matter. He took off his boots and his tunic, and slid into the space beside Maedhros, his right side.
Gray eyes looked into each other, rimmed with glittering tears. Maedhros' left hand fell across Fingon's waist. Fingon brushed a tear away from the Feanorian cheek, cool and white like the snow.
"Shush now, dear one, let us sleep, let us dream."
-=-= "We are growing up," Maitimo says, looking pale and sharp.
Telperion light spills down upon the grassy knoll, so on silver they sit with no trace of gold in sight.
Findekano rests his head on Maitimo's shoulder, just the right height for him.
"I know."
And they are silent for a while.
"It's not that..but..." Maitimo starts and stops. Frustrated, he takes a long copper braid, which is dark in the light, and begins to unweave it with his fingers.
"Not that..." Findekano hesitates, and he can feel his heartbeats. Maitimo looks like Feanor when his hair is dark, but he is not Feanor. The wind carried Feanor's voice from the square of Tirion until it lapped at the border of Fingon's hearing.
"Let's go somewhere." Maitimo stands, topples Findekano and extends a hand. "Here," he offered. Their eyes meet, Maitimo's eyes: gray and cool like the mist.
"Where to?" Findekano stretches, the grass tickles his face. There's a faint warm breeze and the ground is soft. "I'm tired."
"Anywhere," Comes the lofty reply. Then Maitimo bends down, his face hovering just so, "Let's go somewhere more comfortable then." Feanor's voice met Fingolfin's, the sound of Finwe's drowning both out.
"I'm comfortable here," Fingon mutters, and suddenly, sits, before the other moves out of the way." Their breaths meet: warm and comfortable puffs.
"I'm not going to leave you," He says, "They can quarrel their hearts out if they wish."
"Right," Maitimo whispers back. His arms wraps around his cousin's form in a close embrace, something desperate. "And I shall not leave you, my own house or no."
Findekano would never know what Maitimo means to speak, but Maitimo head dipped slightly and their lips meet, ever so briefly, enough that they look away from each other: only to stare again, a little later, at the soft blush upon the other's face. -=-=
When the clouds of his dreams wandered apart Maedhros found Fingon's eyes staring curiously at him. A bead of something bright gleamed at the end of an eyelash. He reached up. Fingon started, but did not move away.
"You were crying," Maedhros said.
"I had to." Fingon replied. He drifted a finger over Maedhros's cheek. "You were crying."
Maedhros sighed. "My eyes are old and dull without tears to paint them with light."
"Isn't this," Fingon smiled sadly, "The story of our lives hereafter?"
"I've always been prodigious."
"Only of looks," Fingon ghosted a touch down the curve of a cheekbone to the pale distracting lips.
Later they would say, Noldor's hearts turned when their humor turned: tears named as crystals and diamonds and other precious, lavish things.
There was a harsh rustle at the entrance. The air's brisk outside.
"Milord. Milords. Your father, your brothers await. "
And then all is silent and warm.
Another rustle, far softer now, an arm moving down a little under the blankets. Fingon's fingers upon Maedhros chest, a fingertip at a time.
"Dear Fingon."
"Dear Maedhros."
"You will leave."
"I shall, but I will it not."
"Here's the story, of our lives ever after."
And they laughed, Fingon's hand upon Maedhros's chest, and Maedhros's hand clutching it tight, they laughed.
"We are so foresighted together."
-=-=
"Take heed, dear child," The elf said, and laid a slender perfect hand upon a copper head, "The world is different now, nothing is as it seems. NOTHING!"
Startled out of a nightmare, Maedhros found his breath weak and rapid. He draws one deep and exhaled. He found Maglor's hazy eyes odd.
"Where is Fingon?" He asked Maglor, whose newly awakened face suddenly seemed very worn.
"Here." Fingon walks from the bed by the brazier and sits down on Maedhros bed. "How do you fare?"
"As well and as ill as can be."
"Then you must be better to answer me so. Dreams?"
"Oh yes..dreams. "Maedhros mumurs, and brings Fingon's right hand against his face. If his cousin thought the gesture strange, he did not voice it. "Did you dream, upon Helcaraxe?" Maedhros traced the detail of the fine fold of skin between the thumb and forefinger. His own was quite awkward now. Feet and legs, arms and torso and face saved except for that mark of the house of Curufinwe..hands..hand...mutilated and distorted, and perhaps, the mind as well.
"I held you to my dreams." Answered Fingon, though he could not tell Maedhros why. No one speaks of the madness of the ice, when emotions waver between passionate extremes. "They were dreams." Yet still only Valinorean dreams, the only kind they knew then.
"I could not dream of you." Maedhros said. Though I tried. And now I do not wish to taint you with mine. He had learnt to dream differently upon Thangorodrim.
-=-=
Maglor slipped out and found Ambarussa listening intently outside, ears cocked to the night wind.
"Will they be all right?" Maglor lifts a querulous eyebrow. "What do children know?"
They?
"Findekano and Maitimo," they replied, as if it is a natural thing, "As we are Ambarussa."
"Brothers, that is an illusion of time. Maglor said. Think, will our Nolofinwe's people allow it?
"They let him come." Ambarussa said pointedly.
"Ah, but he was visiting a wounded friend, not a Feanorion."
"When does a friend cease to be a Feanorion, when did a Feanorion cease to become a friend?" Maglor shrugged, aiming for nonchalance and failing. He knew it was true however. Feanorions will no longer have friends.
There are some things that exist without being answers.
"We are skeptical." Ambarussa replied, "Are not our bonds deepened through our deeds and should we not share our hearts?" Maglor shook his head sadly.
"Those who you sacrifice for ultimately hates you at the end. It has always been so." He looks up, and decides, no, they shouldn't know that yet.
-=-=
Maedhros grimaced as lifted his legs out of the bed and stood, joints and muscle humming discordantly. The pain pulled sharp and fierce on his right arm. He had been sleeping on that side, forearm under the pillow.
There was a food on the table, something thick and steaming in a bowl. I must be all right, he thought to himself as he ate, smiling wryly, tunic half-draped over bare chest, when food and warmth are had and enjoyed.
"Russandol?" Fingon's voice came with the sound of his footsteps while his person arrived in time to see Maitimo wiping the corners of his mouth with a napkin. "He had finished it, and you may hold a sword again." The morning light pushed into the room as the breeze fluttered the loosened flap.
"You are cheerful this morning," Maedhros remarked, turning around. A still silence met him. Fingon's mouth had fallen open, a bit staringly "I..." Under touch, many and raised as they may be he knew they were part of him, alive. Scarce paces away, they seemed alien, sitting upon the healed familiar body. The last time he saw them, he remembered thinking that they would disappear when the blood stops flowing.
Scars.
White and purple parasites crawled upon pale skin leeched of color. Fingon remembered Maitimo unscarred flesh looked almost exactly like his own, a subtle rosiness tingeing the skin, different from the cool pallor of his father, his mother, and his brothers. There's small ancient strain of shared Vanyarin blood between Nerdanel's and Indis' families.
There was a gleam of perspiration on Maedhros's forehead. The face was so pale. He had not expected that neither. The poisonous air, he thought, and almost cursed Manwe.
Maedhros laughed, and the sound interrupted. The light is not kind, and he knew what Fingon saw and made him angry.
"Scars, what of it?" He asked, "There's one on your chin when you fell headfirst from the tree in your tenth year."
"What of it?" Fingon asked himself, but he held Maedhros' gaze in challenge.
"He should have spent his time better building dwellings." Maedhros said.
"He should have," Admitted Fingon bitterly. Against a wrist so white, it would not do...at all...
Maedhros's expression softened. "I shall learn to wield a blade with my left, I shall write with my left, I shall dress with only my left. I have my arm to carry a shield still."
At that, Fingon approached, the tip of his nose touched a stray strand of hair, more red than auburn now. Even this was scarred, bleached by the sun into a color oddly similar to dried blood.
"It's well." He said, but could not prevent the formation of a tear. The reason for grief was suddenly clear: everything had changed. Desperate, he had expected Maitimo to stay the same because this was how it always had been, tall as he was, Maedhros's growth were slow in Fingon's eyes in Valinor though he grew to be tall. Every change had been imperceptible, until now. It was unfair.
"As well as can be, for things we cannot change." Came the voice, half-a whisper. Maedhros understood then. Perhaps he thought Fingon would be the same when his eyes were cleared and the sun rises above the horizon. Yet Fingon knew even his voice had changed, hoarse and harsh after the oft calls of names in Helcaraxe.
"No," Fingon looked up, unflinchingly into the strange gray eyes of his childhood friend, "All's well."
"And why is that?"
"Because, now, as before, we can only look to the future, and we will have one."
"Such faith..", Maedhros murmurred, but in his heart saw that Fingon's words were true and wondered whether their hopes made them so.
-=-=
Maglor was sullen when they sat down together for the meal. Brothers' faces wearing hunger as they wont: smiling, scowling, nonchalant, licking lips, looking the other way, gorging themselves on wine first... Why must we be only familiar to each other, he wondered.
He looked at the eldest.
"You are king now, Nelyafinwe." Maglor said bitterly, and knived the meat in front of him.
Maedhros started.
"Cano.." he begin to say, laying a hand on Maglor's arm. "What is the..."
But before he could finish, "Pity our uncle does not agree," Celegorm's voice spoke. Maedhros turned his head sharply.
"Why would he not agree?" Maglor stared at the hand on his arm, and continued to eat with a certain savageness.
"Did you know that he would not agree? He asked in between bites."
"No." Maedhros said, and thought it ill that Maglor should broach the subject while they are at the table.
"Nolofinwe consider you tainted by blood and torment," Amros said, "And thus, unfit to rule a people pure from the trials of the ice," continued Amrod. Cut, fork, eat. The motions're identical, repetitive, Maedhros thought he could become dizzy if he looked too long.
"His people would not follow, and he would have us dispossessed of even the loyalties of our own house." Curufin said quietly. "He is moving them with words, and our father is not here..."
"Findekano to ascertain it is true that you are alive, and only that." Caranthir looked at Maedhros, and Maedhros noticed that his face was worn and expression tired. The angry flush he expected instead was across his own cheeks.
"No, he came because.." Maedhros trailed off. He cared? He dared not to voice a question, so instead, "Lord Nolofinwe is helping us, we must remain together."
"Our cousin has poisoned your ear." Celegorm said simply, "He came to see you and you would not know the difference between a friend and a spy."
"Enough!" Maedhros shouted.
"What?" Six mouths with the same question, six mouths he fed in another lifetime.
"Why must you do this to me? Here and now?" Maedhros's eyes flashed, He stood. The chair, pushed back, fell on the carpet with a soft thump.
"We are gathered here for our subsistence, in all. ways."
"Our cousin would have nothing to do with this..." Maedhros continued, weaker now.
"We tended your wounds. You are our brother, we do not touch you less because of them."
"Because you are my brothers.." Maedhros wished to say, but it made no sense.
"He does not consider you, all of us, as those they knew of old." Maglor said gently, a grievous tale in his voice, "Everything, and everyone change. Our deeds...." he trailed off. Quiet was at the table, even the cutlery were silent as they moved.
Maedhros sank down in his seat and grew troubled. Somewhere in his secret heart, he thought it might be true. After all, everything had changed.
-=-=
For all his stature, Maedhros never took up extra space like Celegorm or the twins who are used to open spaces and sprawled postures. Nelyafinwe sits proper and straight, like a child someone's showing off, which he is, and always has been: the example for all to follow. But Fingon know, seeing him sitting there, Nerdanel's hair, Feanor's face, Finwe's eyes, that though he is no longer "Maitimo", "Maedhros" has its own legacies.
And of course, there is Nelyafinwe.
"You do not wish me to be king." Nelyafinwe says to him without ceremony., the glitter of the circlet on his brow very bright. Fingon stood in front of him, finding his cousin oddly young and terrifyingly old at the same time.
He is silent. Maedhros waits for a reply, his glance unwavering.
They were different in the court of the Noldor. Different. Hah! It took the Ice and the Cliff and Morgoth for Maitimo hair to burnish from a subtle auburn to the uneven colors of a flame, for his skin to leech of color. Did Fingon knew him to be the same? Preternaturally white beneath the perpetual fever?
"You do not wish me to be king." Maedhros repeats.
Fingon's hands clench into fists. No time to play coy.
"I do not."
"Why?" The question comes in quick pursuit. Fingon makes one more step closer.
"You were wounded." Says he. Maedhros makes an impervious gesture with his hand and smiles, almost smiles at his cousin. Brothers, you are wrong. He cares.
"I am healed."
"You will never be." Fingon hesitates, "The king must lead his people, his people must trust him. A king," He halts again, only to hear his own voice moving in the otherwise still air, "Will protect his people." A king, Fingolfin also says, will never be from Feanor's line for their oath is their master. A king must have no other oath to Eru than to his people. How else, he asks, can we have a king we call our own?
"Very well." Maedhros answers. Fingon, who watches Maedhros carefully, cannot understand how the expression changes so quickly. He takes one step closer. Maedhros puts a hand in front of himself, the palm only slightly lined. Fingon stops and says: "But I would still follow you."
So it is someone else's words that he speak, and that must be the purpose of his presence all along. Maedhros laughs, bitterly and without any trace of fey. For a moment, Fingon thinks himself martyred. His heart is rent to pieces.
"Leave." Maedhros says, standing up, "I hurt from reason, I am sorry I cannot change."
"I..." Fingon's fists clench tighter. There is a blur in front of him.
"Leave." The blur is Maedhros and Maitimo looking down at a piece of paper on a desk.
"Russ..."
Maedhros looks up, and a sudden fury from the unsubtle face swept the pieces of Fingon's heart away.
"Leave."
Fingon left.
He covers his face as he walks past his retainers, fearful that they'll see the anger in his face and think something's amiss. Yet nothing is amiss, the truth is told, is it not? That is his father's message, finally delivered, though late. His palms stung. When he looked, aching even as the rest of him is, there is blood on his hands.
-=-=
It is perverse perhaps, to cradle another's present. Fingon found the wooden box embossed with silver on his table when he returned. He looked at it, thought of opening it, then of throwing it into the fire. He did neither. It had lain there on the wooden surface until he could no longer look at it.
It would be monstrosity to look within now, after all, it is not his, nor in fact, anyone's upon the Hither Shores except perhaps Morgoth's. Another trophy...Look at what you've done!
There shouldn't be politics between friends, between two who only wish the best for each other.
But there are.
Fingon has no heart, so he did not care that it might be Morgoth's trophy rather than a gift between heartfelt once-friends. He pressed the box against his chest until the corners made dents in his skin. The nail marks in his palms are healing too rapidly.
And of course, pain, the tents, the fire, dwindles into nothingness when he wanders the twilight paths. There is Fingon saying to Maedhros "Don't let go" and Maedhros saying to Fingon "Let it end"...
And Maedhros is right, in that bitter Feanorian manner. Everything has ended.
Over what? Led from what? What was a box and another work from a skilled pair of hands? Fingon's brother is Turgon, his uncle Feanor, his cousins Finrod and Curufin. He has seen enough art and art's work for any life time.
But he is Fingon, and he said, "Don't let go."
If he has to run, if he has to sneak past the guards of two camps in full martial array, he will. If he has to elude the shadows without Manwe, so be it. Dressed, placing the box deep within the belly of a chest, Fingon left, silent as his tears were silent.
So Maedhros wakes from a heavy sleep with a warmth on his chest.
"How do you wish me to prove my loyalty?" Fingon asks, his face very close to Maedhros's. He leans back slowly as the other sits, relinquishing his arm's place across Maedhros's chest.
Maedhros looked hard at his cousin, who has his eyes downcast.
"Findekano."
"Yes?" Fingon looks up again, beside the soft ambers, pale face is shaded desperately fierce, eager, "I do not wish you to be unhappy."
"I do not want your loyalty." Maedhros answers softly.
Fingon blinks, and a bitterness welled inside of him, threatening to spill.
"But only that is mine to offer." You can demand no more of me..
"To have known you, that is happiness enough." Maedhros says. His hand ghosts down the side of Fingon's face, as if trying to memorize it for some rendering. Horrified, Fingon's turned his head slightly, and his lips met Maedhros's fingers with a terrible tenderness.
"But we live." Fingon says, catching and pressing Maedhros's hand against his chest, "Here I am. Know me still."
-=-=
See the elf over there, with the two thick braids down his back and those bright clothes? He is Fingon, he is his father's son though right now if you ask, he would deny it.
See the elf standing beside him, so close that their shoulders are touching almost? Yes, the one with the fiery hair and the lanky stature. (Just don't repeat it to either of them) He is Maitimo, Fingon's best friend.
Child, don't mutter so. Say it out loud. Yes, he is our King, Feanor's son you know, one armed our not. Valinor loved his father enough to have come here. Imagine, yes, a people whose wives leave their husbands and vice versa. We did not leave Feanor or his sons to wander in the dark wild alone even afterwards. We love them so...
What are they doing? Why, they are watching the stars. The sky has cleared so few times since we're here.
Their heads lean together, I know. Are their hands clasped? I do not know.
But don't let them see you, Finwian tempers are quite terrible, quite quite terrible.
We're not supposed to see even this.
"Why, Lord Fingolfin" (quick, child, bow), "I did not know you would come here so late."
-=-=