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The Place Where Young Children Play
When he was very young, his mother used to sing to him. This is the only thing he remembers from his childhood; from that childhood. She would hold him on one knee and his brother on the other and sing to them, always lullabies. She was not a good singer. His brother, so different in so many ways, remembers this too. If he concentrates on an image he can see a vast blue ocean in front of him, waves lapping at the shore as mariners hauled in catches of fish. The mariners, he thinks, are a figment of his imagination, added from concentrating on the memory for so long. He has learned from an early age that there is no sea without the mariners.
This is his only memory of his family before, and his father is not in it, only his mother and the sea.
After a haze of terror and smoke and his brother's cries (and the sound of rushing water, although Elros does not remember this, which scares him, because they may be very different but they have always remembered the same), he can remember a fireplace and the chopping of trees to build a cabin and someone holding him close and whispering, "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
He has always pretended he does not remember this, and Elros does the same.
Maglor was never much of a mother to the twins. Any time they would come crying after falling out of a tree or slipping in the river, he would tell them that they had better buck up, because he didn't know how to deal with such things. If Maglor had thought about it he might have played them some music, but Maglor had been raised to play music for special occasions only and never, ever flaunt his talent. The Noldor had thought his singing was nice but not useful and so he thought the same.
On the other hand, the twins never thought to go to Maedhros, because he was so quiet and said so little. If they had thought about it, they would not have mistaken his quietness for stoicism and realized that he was a kind man who had raised six brothers and knew more than a little about elbow scrapes and bruises.
But Maglor did not think about it, and neither did the twins, so they learned to comfort each other.
When Elrond was young, but not young enough to still be falling out of trees, he read. If it was Maedhros who was hunting, then he read by himself. If Elros and Maglor were gone, then he would find Maedhros and sit by him, looking up from his book every few pages to see if he was still there.
He was fascinated by Maedhros, as all young men are fascinated by things they know little about. He was fascinated by the long red hair that had refused to be tamed by Angband and still grew long past his shoulders, healthy and still quite beautiful. He was fascinated by the staggering height of this strangely adopted relative of his. He had once (only once, but he treasured the experience) ridden on Maedhro's shoulder and had tried in vain to look at everything, see everything, experience the world from this strange new height before Maedhros put him down with a one-handed grip.
He was fascinated by Maedhros' scars most of all. The large one that ran from the top of the left side of his forehead to his right eyebrow. The thin, jagged one that started under the left side of his jaw and went all the way to his hairline. The thick one that started at his chin and nearly split his lip in two before stopping mid-cheek. The small, hardly noticeable one under his right eye that, Elrond learned, had come from a riding accident when he was young in Valinor.
When Maedhros told Elrond this, Elrond expressed the opinion that Maedhros had never been young and small.
"Maybe never small," said Maedhros in his rasping, cracking voice caused by a thick scar straight across his throat, "But young. We were all young in Valinor."
It was this conversation that caused Elrond to think of Valinor, despite his common sense, as a place where young children played until he was much older and wiser.
When they found out the truth about their parents, Elros raged for what felt like days. He smashed cups and plates and threatened Maglor and Maedhros. He screamed until his voice was hoarse and tears rose like vomit in his eyes. Maglor shouted back, but Maedhros sat and stared into the fire, his gloved left hand massaging the stump of his right.
Elrond wasn't angry. He only had one memory of his old life, and his father wasn't even in it. It seemed that he had traded his sons to sail a ship across the sky every night, and Elrond was even proud of him in a detached sort of way. Maglor and Maedhros had done the opposite; they had traded their kingdoms and their pride to raise a set of twins that were so very like the ones they had lost at Doriath.
Even if they had killed to do so, Elrond could not help but love those who had loved him.
When Elros would make his decision, he would remember the pain in Maglor and Maedhros' eyes as they recounted their bitter quest for the Silmarils, the countless lives taken at their hands. He would think about the way Maglor couldn't meet his eyes and Maedhros' poorly disguised tears and he wept for the twins he couldn't saved. He would grind his teeth and curl his fists for Elves who believed that they were in the right, whether they were Fëanorians or the Noldor or the Sindar or anyone else and he would decide not to take part in that power struggle, that he did not want to be part of a race that drove good, strong Elves who had suffered to do terrible things. He chose what he believed to be the nobler race, not because he hated Elves, as many later tried to convince themselves, but because he pitied them.
When Elrond would make his decision, he would remember, not the pain in his foster parents' lives, but the strength with which Maedhros stood. He would remember listening at the door to hear Maglor play his harp, ear against the grains to catch every note. He would, instead of being disgusted by what Elves had done, decide to change it, decide to make a world where Elves were not driven to do what Maglor and Maedhros had done.
When Elrond does make his choice, he stops concentrating on that first memory by the sea and on all his memories with Maglor and Maedhros every single one, so that he may come back to them when he is done on Middle-earth and is playing with the children in Valinor. And Elros, who is so different in so many ways, does the same thing, only for different reasons.
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