A/N: Strange, and very different to my usual Maedhros and Maglor. Not particularly Maglor-friendly, either.

Oh, and I know that I said I'd never write another Maedhros fic, but we all make silly Oaths sometimes... ;)

Innocence and Insanity

We lie next to each other on a grassy hilltop and watch cloud formations, as if it were the most natural thing in all the world to be in possession of two stones in which the fate of Arda is trapped and to have them burning our hands off.

You shift slightly and turn to look at me. I know what you're going to ask.

"Russandol? What do you dream of?"

"I'm not asleep."

I cannot dream. Or will not. I have not done for a long time, anyway.

"What do you think of, then? You cannot tell me that you do not think."

"I try not to."

"Is it too painful?"

Pain. Yes, that's what is it. Deep and endless. Fëa-pain.

"No. Not too painful."

Never enough.

"What then?"

"I don't like it."

Pause.

"It makes me feel..."

Lost. Weak. Powerless. Frightened. Sad. Angry. Scared.

"...wrong."

"Wrong?"

"Yes. Wrong."

Wrong. Like I'm intruding on my own thoughts. And it scares me. I thought they'd gone. I thought I was clever enough, strong enough to push them away, lock them up.

I've had to learn. It's them that find me, not the other way around.

Fool. Stop thinking.

"Russandol?"

"Yes?"

"I dream."

I know you do. And I know what you dream of, little brother. Please, do not make me ask.

"I know. It's alright."

You think I dream of the same thing. You don't believe me when I say I don't dream. You think I'm just being proud. Being the older brother. Being strong for both of us.

I'll let you think that. I don't have the heart to tell you it's not true.

But I know it's not that. I just don't want to have to look after your broken mind as well. I've had enough of all that.

And then, uncertain:

"Russandol, we are murderers."

You have only just realised? But then you always were a dreamer. A dreamer whose been pretending to himself for too long and has finally come to the false realisation that he's living in his own make-believe world and so anything outside its boundaries does not affect him.

I used to tell myself that I wasn't a murderer, because a murderer was someone in possession of his reason. And it's been a long time since I could lay any claim to being such a person.

But I never had as good an imagination as you, so I gave up.

"I know."

'Russandol,' you called me. Why do you call me that now? You haven't called me that for years. No one has. Anyone else who heard you may think you are being affectionate. But I know the real reason. You think that children are innocent; that's why you do it. You think their innocence with make you innocent. It's just another thread in the tapestry of falsities you're weaving to keep away the truth. You should know by now, after all we've done, that children are probably as far from innocence as it is possible to get, without becoming one of us.

Alright, little brother. Do you want to know what I dream of?

Nothing.

Not blood and swords and white swan-ships. Not trees with leaves of flame and jewelled halls stained with blood and children frozen in endless snow. Not burning towers and bloodied waves and gulls with living fire upon their breasts. Not everlasting dark. Not even nothingness. Just nothing.

Make of that what you will.

But I know that you dream. I can see it in your eyes.

That is the price you pay for being a dreamer, little brother.

To look at us, people would say you are the innocent, with your musical speech and half-awake movements and far-away eyes. But I am not the one who dreams of it every night and can speak and think of nothing else. And I'm not the one who knew what he was doing and was in possession of his reason and still killed, and made songs to death after it all and sung them in a deceptively sweet voice. Very innocent, brother.

"Where will you go?"

You look slightly confused at this, but I already know the answer to my own question. You're going to try and get back, even now, after everything. In your own foolish mind you've deceived yourself into thinking that you can. You think that you're innocent enough to do so.

"To the Sea. And you?"

"I go to find rest."

To sleep. And dream. At last.

I know that you've been listening to my thoughts all along, brother. You always do that. You think I don't know, but I do. And I know that you know that I'm lying to myself, and to you, and to everyone, and have been doing so for years. But that's what innocence is. Lying to yourself about being guiltless and managing to believe it, but knowing that in the end that it's never really true. Because nobody is really innocent, and you're a fool to think they can be.

You never accepted that. You, who managed to convince yourself and everyone around you that lies are true, are actually mad, and you know it, though you try to deny it. And you know why you're mad? Because you've tried so hard to put everything out of your mind, but you pushed it too far and it all came flooding back on you. You think it would make you innocent again. But you never understood that you were never innocent. None of us were. It was all a lie.

You've looked inside my mind many times, and you think I'm mad. Everybody does. They call me fey, witless; they think they can see the flames of insanity dancing in my dark eyes. But all they're really looking at is their own eyes reflected in mine. They don't realise that. But I do. They may lie to themselves, but I see the truth, because I have accepted it and not just tried to forget or think that I can change things that are already written. Because, in the end, we're all just fools caught up in something too big for us, something we'll never understand.

And that's why we're here, brother. That's why I had to persuade you to do this, though it's finally broken your mind and left you shattered and ruined and empty.

If only you had realised all this sooner. But you won't. Not for many Ages yet, anyway.

And so we part; the innocent and the pretender who thinks he is; and I know it is for the last time as I watch you fade from view. And even now, as you leave, you're convinced that I'm lying. Maybe I am. Maybe I've lied to myself so much that I don't even know what the truth is anymore.

Notes:

o Russandol - Maedhros's childhood nickname, given to him by his brothers and other kin