This is the first of a series of oneshots that I plan on writing involving Maglor, Maedhros, Elrond and Elros, "The Care and Feeding of Partly Human Children." When will be there new oneshots posted? Who can say? Some of them will be direct sequels to each other, but most of them will be independent of each other, so I hope that will be alright. Look in my profile for more details, if you're interested.

I own nothing.

The home of the Lords of Sirion was easily identified; for its size and splendor it could easily qualify as a palace. Its location, however, was frankly bizarre, not in the center of the city where it could be defended with relative ease, but on the edge of Sirion overlooking the ocean, perched precariously atop the cliffs. It could potentially also be considered easily defended, as the cliffs were sheer and more than fifty feet high. If you were to jump from even the lowest window of the palace your body would break upon craggy rocks and gasping waves.

The city had fallen and its defenders and all inhabitants were fleeing east, though where they intended to go, Maedhros couldn't say. All that he cared for was the fact that Elwing, she who possessed that which he and his brothers had sought…

Brother. It was now he and his brother. Maedhros shook away the clammy feel of a spectral-cold hand on his back, and nodded to the second-in-command of the surviving men of his company (twenty, all told, a pitiful number and testament to how fiercely the defenders of Sirion had fought) to follow him as he made his way quickly towards the palace of Sirion, and through the gates where he found three of the survivors of Maglor's company guarding the entrance. The three, two neri and one nís, bowed awkwardly, weighed down with weariness in body and mind and heart, weighed down by their armor of iron mail and leather jerkins, weighed down by the blood dripping from their cloaks.

Maedhros swept past them without a glance, speaking only to his second, telling him to bolster the guard of the gate with five more, and for the rest to follow him and search the palace for Elwing and her stolen Silmaril.

And this is what it's all for? Maedhros wondered bitterly, as he began to scour the palace up and down. The ground floor looked ransacked already, littered with corpses, soldiers with their swords and civilians with their surprised, empty eyes. Was the Silmaril, taken from Morgoth by Beren, eventually passing down to Elwing, worth the lives of the Ambarussa, hewn this day? Was it worth the lives of Celegorm and Caranthir and Curufin, dead for more than thirty years now? Though he longed to carry out his father's last wish, though he longed to make the deaths of Fëanor and his five-youngest sons worth something, though Maedhros feared the alternative of living and dying without ever fulfilling the Oath (It is Darkness for me, ever-lasting, if I do not recover them), he found that he despised the jewels of his father's making.

But I will search, I find. I will scour the whole earth to find them, for the burning of the Oath Awakened is a pain I can not abide.

The second floor was ransacked as well, populated by the dead, and Maedhros moved on, up the winding staircase. On the third floor, he found Maglor's soldiers. Specifically, he found Maglor's second, a young nér named Astorion who had been ill at ease in his relatively new position ever since Maglor's last second-in-command had been killed in the assault on Menegroth. "Where is my brother?" Maedhros asked bluntly, without preamble.

Astorion wilted slightly under Maedhros's grim stare, but met his gaze and answered, "The Prince Makalaurë went to the top floor of the palace, in pursuit of the Lady Elwing."

Perhaps Maglor had found the beloved-accursed Silmaril, even if Maedhros had not—though personally, Maedhros wasn't feeling particularly optimistic. Maedhros swept past Astorion and up the final flight of stairs, to the fourth floor of the palace of Sirion. Here, the population of the dead was not quite so thick; Maedhros was only met with two or three corpses a hall, instead of two or three corpses for every square yard of ground. It was eerily silent; the searching soldiers had not yet reached this floor in force. And where was Maglor? Maedhros grimaced as he looked about the winding, marble-tiled halls. There was no sign of Maglor, no sign of Elwing (though to be fair, Maedhros was not sure that he would recognize her if they laid eyes on each other), no sign of the Silmaril, and no sign of the end to any of this at all. Where was Maglor? Had he been injured, or killed? Had he been taken captive and Maedhros just hadn't noticed? These were old worries, and were not always thought out in regards to Maglor, though given how absent-minded Maglor was, Maedhros had often been forced to take time out in order to worry over him.

At least say to me that he is not dead, that I still have one brother living in Endóre…

"Come away from the window."

That voice wafted down the corridor, soft and coaxing though it had the strange tongue of Sindarin to flavor the words, and Maedhros instantly knew it for his brother's voice. He followed the voice towards it source, pace quickening until he was running and not realizing it. A door stood slightly ajar, darkness spilling into the sunlit hallway. Maedhros shoved the door open with his right arm, and heard two tiny yelps in response.

The scene that greeted him in the dim room was that of Maglor, crouched on the floor, looking up to glower with unusual ferocity, and two tiny children huddled by the curtained window of that room, eyes round and large as dinner-plates as they stared at him, horrified, transfixed. Maglor's glare lessened after a moment, and he looked over Maedhros's shoulders and saw only empty air. "Maitimo… Where are the Ambarussa?"

"In the streets below."

"They did not accompany you?"

"No. They do not hear my words now. Nor will they hear yours."

Maglor stared huge-eyed up at him, silent in his grief and silent in the face of Maedhros's stony stoicism. Slowly, he nodded, long, thin hands white upon his knees.

"What of Elwing and the Silmaril?" Maedhros asked shortly, breaking the silence.

"Gone," Maglor replied, just as shortly. "You will find neither of them here."

So she escaped with her prize.

"Brother." Maglor stared up at him with a pleading look on his face. "I think these two are her sons." He turned to the tiny boys, twin brothers, it seemed, nearly identical in appearance, who had been sitting forgotten by the windowsill, tears dribbling down their puffy, swollen cheeks. "Is Elwing your mother, little ones?" he asked them, very gently.

One of the boys nodded, saying nothing.

"And how old are you two?" Maglor's tone was close to wheedling, and Maedhros had to wonder just what his brother thought he was getting at. They had agreed to kill all who crossed their path, soldier or no, and children were no exception. His hand curled around the hilt of his sword, sheathed for the moment, but easily drawn. Children… The thought of killing children brought unpleasant memories to Maedhros's mind, memories too close to him and to these children.

The boy who had nodded blinked at Maglor with bloodshot eyes. He hesitated for a moment, before answering "Six" in a raw croak. They looked younger than six, Maedhros thought, perhaps closer to four. But did not both of their parents have human blood? Perhaps that accounts for their stature.

And once I again I find my fate intertwined with the children of my enemy. Twins like the Ambarussa. Twins like…

"And what are your names?"

The brother who appeared to be spokesman, the only one who had responded to Maglor's words while the other curled as close to him as he could, whispered, "I am Elrond, son of Elwing." Interesting, that he names his mother, but not his father. Elrond swallowed, trying to force himself to speak more clearly, without any hint of a quaver in his voice. He reached for his brother's hand. "He is Elros, son of Elwing."

Maglor nodded, a smile that only came across as slightly forced upon his face. "I am Maglor, son of Fëanor," he said, using the Sindarin names that these boys were more likely to understand. "This is my brother, Maedhros." That smile faded, replaced by a significantly more obviously forced expression of cool detachment, as he looked up, not at his brother's face, but at his left hand, still gripping the hilt of his sword. The two boys were looking there as well. "They would make good hostages."

Yes, they would. The children of the Lord and Lady of Sirion, the children of she who held the stolen Silmaril, they would certainly make good hostages. There was another layer to that, though, the knowledge that Maglor, who had always been soft where children were concerned, was giving Maedhros an excuse not to kill them. Maglor was giving him a reason to spare these two, despite the Oath driving him, and though he was tired and weary of political games, Maedhros was grateful. He relaxed his grip. "Take them, then," Maedhros said, deliberately avoiding the gaze of his brother, avoiding the stares of the children. "We need to leave this place before a counterattack can be staged."

Elrond and Elros's faces were nearly blank with terror as Maglor drew nearer to them, and they shrank against the wall, clutching each other's arms. "You must come with me now," Maglor told them, softly still, but with a trace of finality that couldn't be mistaken by anyone listening to him. Though it had been many years since Maedhros had last heard his brother lift his voice in song, it seemed as though all the old power Maglor had once had returned to his voice. The twin sons of Elwing looked no less petrified now than they did then, as Maglor stood, stooped again, and raised them into his arms, but despite the wordless whimpering protests they made at being held to Maglor's hard, cold, bloodied breastplate, they seemed a touch more relaxed. They soon grew sticky with the blood on the hands and chest of the one who held them, and said nothing as the armies of the remaining sons of Fëanor left Sirion.

-0-0-0-

Little did Elrond and Elros speak in the first few days after their departure from Sirion, and after that, if either of them spoke, it was always Elros. Elrond, though he had seemed the spokesman when cornered in their home, had now fallen completely and utterly silent, fidgety and pale. Maglor would try to get him to speak, whenever he came to put them down to bed or bring them food—he was always the one to do that, never delegating the tasks to a soldier as might have been more appropriate.

That was it. Maglor was always near the twins. During the day when they were traveling back to Amon Ereb and Elwing's boys, small as they were, were put in a wagon rather than made to walk. At mealtimes, when everyone, from highest to lowest in the ranks ate military rations and drank old, stale water or even older mead (And Maedhros supposed it was a testament to how nervous Elros and Elrond still were that they made no complaint, at least not in his hearing, about what they were being given to eat, considering that they must have eaten significantly better in Sirion). When night came, it was time for the bedraggled remnants of Maedhros and Maglor's forces to bed down for the night, and Elrond and Elros themselves needed their sleep.

There Maglor would be, fussing over them, trying his best to put them at their ease, trying to coax a sentence out of Elros or a single word out of Elrond.

Wait, brother, I know you think it will calm them, but you can't give them that with the way it is now, Maedhros said to him one day, stopping Maglor before he could give the two boys cups of mead. Maglor stared blankly at him and Maedhros bit back a sigh. You have to water it down first, Kano. Do you not remember what would happen when Turco or Moryo would drink a cup of Father's mead by mistake? Maglor's persistent blank look told Maedhros that he did not, but he watered the mead down nonetheless, and as it turned out, the lesson stuck, for Maglor did not need to be told again to water down the mead before giving it to those two.

Maglor was always trying to put them at their ease, and Maedhros did not understand why. Valuable hostages the two boys were, it was true. Eventually, Maedhros and his brother would perhaps be able to buy the Silmaril from the mother of these two, in exchange for her children being returned to her breast. It would certainly go better if they were treated well; Elwing would be more inclined to treat with the surviving sons of Fëanor if she saw that her sons had not been mistreated while in the enemy's care. But Maedhros kept his distance, and from that distance, something about the situation between Maglor and Elwing's twins seemed… off. The way Maglor would wheedle with them to eat a little better or sleep soundly or say something to him seemed just a little too pleading.

Despite this, though, neither Elrond nor Elros seemed to warm to him, and Maedhros couldn't say that he was surprised.

-0-0-0-

The wind and rain battered the tent canvas over his head. Thunder left the tent poles rattling, and the lightning was so close and so bright that when it flashed, to Maedhros it seemed as though it may as well have been the middle of the day, even within the confines of his tent. There had never been storms this fierce in Valinor, but then, there had not been sunlight or moonlight in Valinor either. And sometimes, they were forced to hunker down and wait for the worst of the storms to pass. One adjusted.

However, it was more noticeable that Maglor was not in the tent with him.

They had slept in the same tent when on campaign ever since Maglor's wife died. Maglor was painfully unused to being alone at night (though he never complained of it when they were at Amon Ereb), and frankly, Maedhros didn't mind the company. The rough weather of Beleriand and the rising of Rána and Vása as seen through a tent and an encampment made Maedhros long for home in ways that nothing else could, and the presence of a familiar face from his life in Valinor. Couple that with a lifetime of keeping an eye on six younger siblings, and Maedhros was on his feet, sweeping his eyes about the tent to be sure, and then pushing the flap back, intent on finding his brother.

Thunderstorms in early spring were probably the most severe, Maedhros thought sourly, pulling his cloak close about his shoulders as he looked around the encampment. At least in summer the rain would be warm, and if the wind was humid, it would be balmy and not cold and damp. Unfortunately, Maglor wasn't so un-fond of the rain that he wouldn't go out to get something in the middle of a thunderstorm. Hopefully, he'd just gone for water, or something like that…

Maedhros frowned, all thought trailing slowly off, when he heard a voice through the pounding rain, singing softly in Quenya, and realized that it was Maglor's.

Barely breathing, and no longer feeling the rain that pounded on his shoulders and the wind that whipped his already-disheveled hair back and forth, Maedhros tracked the source of the singing back to a nearby tent, the leftover possession of a dead soldier, where they had been keeping Elwing's boys during the waning nights. The tent, smaller and snugger than the one Maedhros and Maglor slept in, trembled in the wind, and there was the flickering of an oil lamp burning inside, visible through the gap in the tent flap. Maedhros drew a deep breath (finally realizing how his lungs had begun to scream), and pushed back the tent flap, staring inside.

Elrond and Elros were both quite awake, and sure enough, Maglor was there with them. Elrond sat huddled in his blankets, staring silently with wide, solemn eyes at his brother and the nér with them. Elros was not silent; tears were trickling down his scarlet face and his chest shook with hiccupy sobs, though he was probably calmer now than he had been, judging by just how red his face was. He sat in Maglor's lap, huddled against his chest, and instantly Maedhros could guess how this had come to pass, for vividly could he recall the days of their childhood, when his brothers would have nightmares, or become frightened of storms (though the storms of Beleriand were fiercer by far than the storms of Valinor in the days of bliss), or were simply distraught and in need of comfort. Though Elrond was keeping Maglor well within eyeshot and looked uncomfortable still, Elros seemed to have forgotten his fear of the younger of his two kidnappers in the face of his greater need to be soothed and comforted. All this was interesting, but ultimately Maedhros only had ears for the sound of Maglor crooning softly over the child's head.

It had been so long since Maedhros had heard Maglor sing that he had almost forgotten the way the air grew warm and sweet around him when his brother sang, but despite that, Maglor had lost none of his skill, only gained in sweetness of voice. He'd forgotten how painfully lovely the sound was, and the nakedly tender expression on his face and the content of the song only deepened the pain. It was an old Quenyan lullaby, commonly sung to the children of Valinor, one of the first songs Maglor had learned as a child. Elrond's shoulders sagged. Elros's ragged breathing smoothed out, despite the fact that he likely didn't even understand the words of the song being sung to him. Maedhros swallowed hard on the growing lump in his throat, struggling to keep a neutral expression despite the fact that the other three were utterly unaware of his presence there. His heart ached.

All too soon, the lyrics of the lullaby tapered off, and Maglor turned his eyes from Elros to Elrond. "Elrond?" he asked uncertainly. "Are you well?"

Elrond hesitated, eyes flickering from Maglor, to Elros, and back to Maglor. "I want Mama," he declared, speaking for the first time since leaving Sirion, sinking further down into his blankets. Elros, still sitting in Maglor's lap, looked up at him and nodded his agreement, sniffling.

Maglor's face crumpled, and suddenly, Maedhros understood more than he wanted to about his brother's feelings for their two hostages. "Oh, little ones." His voice cracked. "Your mother is…"

Maglor trailed off helplessly, his silence punctuated by the howling wind, and never finished that sentence. While the twins did not seem to understand why he would not tell them what had happened to Elwing, Maedhros did, and chose now to make his presence known. "Makalaurë." Maglor and the twins all jumped at the sudden sounding of his voice; Maglor's eyes snapped to his face. "Can we have a word?" Maedhros asked quietly, arms folded about his chest.

Wordlessly, Maglor nodded, setting Elros back on the ground and sweeping out of the tent past his brother.

-0-0-0-

"Makalaurë, what happened to Elwing?"

Maglor barely had any time to step back inside the tent, light their shared oil lamp and take refuge in the shelter from wind and rain before Maedhros asked the question, with a voice like a death knell, deadly serious and unwilling to brook any avoidance. Maglor sighed and turned to face his older brother, who was frowning deeply at him. "I didn't kill her, if that's what you're asking," he snapped. Though why would you be so surprised if I had? he wondered bitterly. We who are counted Kinslaying monsters by all who walk the earth can not afford to split hairs over exactly who we kill, can we? We kill indiscriminately and do not care for the identity of those whom we kill, be they Atan, Quendë, foul creature of Moringotto, male or female, from the elderly down to the tiniest babes. All for a jewel. All evil that we have done in this land has been for a jewel now out of our reach.

Maedhros's eyes narrowed. "Then what happened to her?"

"She… She took the Silmaril and jumped from a window in the top floor of the palace, overlooking the sea."

When their eyes first met, they both froze, eyes locking fatally. Maglor's breath caught in his throat. Elwing, swathed in white dress and gauzy white cloak, looked like a deer surrounded on all sides by hunters bearing spears. The Silmaril, set into Finrod's Nauglamír, gleamed at her throat, brighter than the sun, and Maglor's chest began to ache as he saw the object he had shed so much blood over, saw the specter of the Oath fulfilled.

Elwing recovered first, and fled down the hall and up the stairs, unnaturally quick even for her Elven blood. Maglor gave chase, and weighed down as he was by his armor she quickly gained the lead over him. Up the stairwell they went, footsteps pounding in Maglor's ears. Elwing ran down the halls of the top floor, down the winding corridors, with Maglor increasingly close on her heels, until she came to a dead end, and was trapped.

Maglor approached her slowly, sword drawn, but not held in any way that could purvey aggression, as Elwing unlatched the hinged glass panes of the tall lancet window before her, back turned to him. "Elwing." Maglor hoped he sounded calm, for he did not feel calm. Every bone in his body screamed at the Silmaril so close, and yet still in danger of being lost. "Give me the Silmaril. You will not be harmed; just give me the Silmaril."

Elwing turned to face him, her long black curls blowing gently in the morning breeze. How small she is, Maglor realized numbly, as small as a child. Is she really supposed to have two children? Elwing's bare arms were disproportionately slender, the bones jutting out of her wrists and elbows; her skin looked as though made of paper. Wrapped up in white as she was, she resembled nothing so much as a corpse in it shroud. Her small, fluttering fingers clutched possessively at the Silmaril, the sunlight caught in her hair and on her stark-white skin, and she looked as though on fire.

She smiled a sick, triumphant smile.

And fell backwards out of the window.

"Are you sure she's dead?"

"I saw her fall, Maitimo. I saw her body hit the water. I saw it sink."

And then, he had heard small voices whimpering from a shut door not far away, and he'd gone looking for its source, his mind distracted from the Silmaril as it had not been for days. He found two tiny boys, alike enough in countenance to Elwing that these could only be her twin sons. He looked at them, abandoned by their father, who had long disappeared at sea, abandoned by their mother, whom he himself had just driven to jump to her death, and felt his heart fill with pity.

Maedhros glared tiredly at him, his lip curling in a scowl, casting his cloak from his shoulders. "So, Kano. What you are telling me is that Elwing is dead, the Silmaril is out of our reach forever, and Elwing's sons are in actuality completely worthless as hostages."

A sharp surge of anger rose up impulsively in Maglor's throat. "Brother, if you try to hurt them, I'll—"

"Calm." Maedhros held up his hand to quiet him, and glared at him again. Do you really think I would propose that we kill two small children, when we have not even the thin veil of the Oath to justify it? he seemed to ask, but did not say. "No harm will come to them on my account."

The worst of Maglor's anger dispelled at that, but he still felt it coursing in his veins, and he didn't look at Maedhros as he started out the tent again. "I'm going to check on the twins," he said shortly, and left.

-0-0-0-

Maedhros considered calling him back.

Do you honestly think that they will ever trust you? he wondered, feeling more tired and weary than the foundations of the earth. I know what you want, brother, even if you do not, for I know you better than anyone this side of the sea still living. You want something to love—you have always wanted something to love—something pure, that you have not ruined and can not ruin. But they will never see you without the blood of Sirion on your hands, I am sure, and they will never trust you.

Besides, even if Elwing was dead, Eärendil was not. Eärendil lived still, and when he learned what had become of his wife and children, he would return to claim his sons, and would surely lay waste to the entire earth if he had to, in order to rescue his children. Perhaps Maedhros was biased, but would not any father do the same? Fëanor would have, and Curufin, for all that he had spoken ill of Celebrimbor once he disowned him, would surely have done the same for his son. Maedhros could not imagine Eärendil behaving otherwise. Maglor would not have those twins for long, for the amount of time he did have them they would fear him, at best they would tolerate him, see him as a kindly kidnapper, but still a kidnapper (and would do so rightly), and Maedhros dreaded the inevitable moment when their going would break his brother's heart, again. He could barely grapple with his own grief. He would not be able to help Maglor.

I can protect you from injury and death in battle. I can protect you from fire and poison and Orcs and Elves and Men. But I can not protect you from this. All I can do is tell you that you should not grow too attached to either of them. No more than you already have.

But then, Maedhros remembered the way Maglor had seemed himself as he once was when he held Elros and soothed the little boy's fears. He remembered the Ambarussa when they had been children, how they would run about the house in chase of each other and of anyone else they came across. He remembered the way he had searched for Eluréd and Elurín that snowy night, how he would still sometimes dream of them becoming frozen corpses, then bones picked clean by scavengers, would dream of crows coming and prying out their sightless eyes, and imagined those eyes staring at him from the crows' beaks.

Most of all, Maedhros remembered that this night was the first night he had heard his brother sing, since after Fingon had rescued him from his torment in Angband, and he had lied, feverish, slipping in and out of consciousness, in his sickbed, and his one clear memory of those first few terrible days was of Maglor hanging over him, smoothing what was left of his hair out of his face and shakily singing.

So he said nothing, sighing heavily in the silence, listening to the rain and deciding that if Maglor wanted to love these two boys, then there was nothing he could say to stop him.

-0-0-0-

The weather cleared after a few days, and they carried on through Taur-im-Duinath, towards Amon Ereb. After that night, there did not seem, at first to be any change in the way either of Elwing's boys behaved towards Maglor. Maedhros watched from his horse as Maglor would try to communicate with them. Things seemed no different than they had been since the first day the boys had been with them, the only exception being that Elrond had finally begun to speak again. They would blink shyly, timidly, at Maglor when he would bring them food, but did not open up.

Maedhros would watch the boys, watch his brother, see the latter's face fall every time his attempts to reach them failed. He would draw a deep breath, wince on Maglor's behalf, and look away.

Then, just a little bit, things changed.

When they sat down for the midday meal, Elros would lean into Maglor's side and start fiddling listlessly with the gold wedding ring Maglor wore on his left hand—Maedhros supposed it was a good thing that Maglor was right-handed—running his small, short fingers over the cool metal. Elrond would still sit a ways away from Maglor, careful to keep his brother and the nér he sat next to well within his range of vision at all times, a very solemn, serious expression on his face.

Soon after that, the twins revealed themselves to be full of questions. Elros would ask for stories about old battles, having apparently heard a little bit about Fingolfin's duel with Morgoth (and Maedhros wasn't surprised that he'd heard of it, considering that Fingolfin was Elros's great-great-grandfather), and wanted to know more about that, as well as about the other famous battles of the Noldor against the forces of Morgoth. His wariness would melt away in those moments, he would smile brightly, and Maglor would smile back, delighted to see Elros behave less like a hostage and more like a child on an outing.

Or so Maedhros supposed. He didn't ask Maglor about the children anymore, kept his distances from this whole situation as best he could, knowing that if Maglor could not stay objective, than he needed to in his place.

Elrond did not chatter so much as Elros, nor ask nearly so many questions. When he did, it would be about the nature of a tree or shrub or, once they left the forest and reached the high and lonely plains, of a rock or flower or small plant that he was not familiar with. He did not smile like Elros did, did not and would not meet Maglor's gaze, nor would he let him touch him or pick him up to get a better look at trees in the forest—he would always squirm away from Maglor's hands, and refuse to do anything but nod or shake his head choppily in response to his words for the rest of the day.

Maglor's face always fell when Elrond responded this way, and Maedhros supposed one morning on the plains that his brother was setting his sights too high. He thought it significant that neither of the twins asked about their mother any longer, but then they topped a hill, and Elros's gasp at the sight of Amon Ereb in the distance left them all suitably distracted, so Maedhros did not think on it any further.

Ambarussa—Amrod and Amras
Makalaurë, Kano—Maglor
Maitimo—Maedhros
Turco—Celegorm
Moryo—Caranthir
Moringotto—Morgoth

Neri—Men (singular: nér)
Nís—woman (plural: nissi)
Endóre—Middle-Earth (Quenya)
Rána—the name given by the Noldor for the moon
Vása—the name given by the Noldor for the sun
Atan—Man (plural: Atani); the name for Men given in the lore of Valinor
Quendë—Elf (plural: Quendi) (Quenya)
Taur-im-Duinath—'The forest between rivers'; the wild region between the rivers Sirion and Gelion