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The flagstones of Sirion were painted with bright, garish blood, scarlet jarring against snowy white. It could have been beautiful, like red paint splashed against a canvas, the first layer of paint before a landscape painting of some alien red background. Maedhros almost lulled himself into thinking that, at first, a frenzied calm amidst the copper-drenched air. Then, he saw the raw, discolored viscera baking on the stones, hot and churning despite the weak Sun of early spring.
All around him was the rising stench of the corpses, despite the fact that most were freshly hewn, only a few hours old at the most. The Sun might have been weak, but they were cooking in their armor nonetheless, Elves and Men, Doriathrin and Laiquendi and Gondolindrim and People of the Havens of Sirion. They were cooking, cooking, hot and fast, and the air was saturated with the stench of burning flesh as dead blood evaporated in dead veins. The fires burning might have done the Sun's work for her, Maedhros supposed.
Amrod's hand curled around Maedhros's left wrist, his fingers possessing less strength than the long rotted, turned-to-dust fingers of Maedhros's long-gone right hand, carved from his body to save his life by another whose flesh had long since melted and rotted, whose bones had likely turned to dust. Amrod looked much the same as Fingon had, broken and bloody and burned, and as his brother tried to smile at him, eyes fast emptying, Maedhros heard a hollow clang in his hollow heart.
Amras was already dead. His broken body lied ruddled with blood in the street, and Amrod was collapsed against a shaded wall. Four brothers dead, soon to be five, and where was Maglor? Maglor had volunteered to lead his men to the palace to search for Elwing and her stolen Silmaril there, but there was no word from the second son of Fëanor, and Maedhros had no assurances of his safety, nor of the jewel's return—though Fëanor's jewels were no longer anything precious to him, and it was only the Oath eating out his heart that drove him onwards.
"Do you…" Amrod's voice was cracked and faint, and he ignored Maedhros's attempts to hush him as he spoke "…do you remember when Mama named us?"
"Yes." Maedhros thought that his voice sounded like a voice belonging to another Elf, like a stranger had taken root in his breast and was using his mouth to speak. Too calm, too measured, too much like their grandfather who had died on the steps of his house, because they hadn't been there.
"Mama wanted to give us both the same name, but Father said no." A thick gurgle rose in Amrod's throat, blood spilling from his mouth. Blood from the spears of the defenders that he had thrown himself on when Amras had fallen, and Maedhros had dragged him away from, but blood all the same. "He said… He said…" Amrod might have smiled, but all Maedhros noticed that his teeth were like the flagstones, steeped in blood "…it would get confusing. So she tried to name one of us Umbarto."
Umbarto. Fated. Most thought that while Fëanor had never shown much creativity in the naming of his children to start with, but most thought that while Nerdanel had first shown more inspiration in the naming of her sons, all that inspiration had flown out the window after the naming of her fourth child—Curufin might have adored Fëanor, but even he didn't want to go around being called 'Little Father.' Trying to name one of her two youngest children 'Fated' probably capped all. Fëanor certainly seemed to think so; he'd pretended to mishear what Nerdanel had said, and nodded his consent to one of the twins being called Ambarto. Nerdanel had looked decidedly peeved at that, but after a moment, frowned, shook her head and said
—"Oh, do as you will. Umbarto I named him, and I know that you understood me. In time, Umbarto will become apt. For now, they'll both answer to Ambarussa. That will suffice."—
"I was just thinking, Nelyo." Amrod's eyes flickered to his twin, lying sightless on the ground, and for a moment his eyes were possessed of a grief Maedhros could neither pierce nor comprehend, but then he became something unknowable, and Maedhros had never felt further from him. "She should have named us both Umbarto."
She could have named us all that, and it would not have been any less apt, Maedhros wished to say, but for the moment it was as though Fingon had torn out his tongue as well as cut off his hand on the mountain, and he was silent.
There was a prickling on the back of his neck. There was a prickling on his arms, on his face, on his eyes. Maedhros wondered if houseless spirits prodded him with their spectral swords and spears, and that this was all he could feel of it. He wondered if there had been ghosts following him all this time, just waiting for their chance to do to him what he had done to them, at Alqualondë, at Menegroth, and now here at Sirion. With the three Kinslayings, the Kinslayers had drawn the everlasting hatred of the Teleri, the Sindar, and now every Elf who walked Arda, for Elves of all tribes and ancestries had been here. There must be an army of ghosts just waiting for their chance to wreak revenge.
Maedhros thought to share this idea with Amrod, sure he would find some value in it (for when they were planning to attack Sirion, Amrod had looked on in hesitation), but when he looked at him, he was met with empty eyes, and he closed them, so that he would not have to see his image engraved in Amrod's deathly eyes. The clanging in his heart sounded more like a discordant scratching on a harp.
Once Maedhros had been the oldest of seven brothers. He had been caretaker and protector even when they had not wanted it, and he had always thought that he would be able to keep them alive. The corpses of his two youngest brothers, and the memories of three more whose bodies he had never seen, and the specter of one who was lost somewhere in this city now, they all told him how wrong he was. Celegorm and Caranthir and Curufin and Amrod and Amras were dead. So too were Fingolfin and Lalwen. So too were Fingon, Aredhel, Finrod, Turgon, Argon, Angrod, Aegnor, and Orodreth. Of the grandchildren of Finwë, only he, Maglor and Galadriel were still living. Celebrimbor was not dead, but may as well have been, for all that he had been out of contact with his father and uncles for decades. Idril Turgon's daughter had vanished back to Aman. Finduilas Orodreth's daughter had died upon the spears of Angband. Maeglin Aredhel's son had fallen to the corruption of his own heart, and brought a kingdom down with him. Ereinion, called Gil-Galad, last-born of Finwë's great-grandchildren, was High King over the Noldor, and Maedhros had no contact with him.
He recalled all his dead, beloved and otherwise, all those whom he had been close to, all those whom had not been close to, and he only felt more hollow in his breast. He felt as though he was burning as Fëanor had burned, cooked from the inside out by the fire of his spirit (For well had Míriel Þerindë named her child 'Spirit of Fire'). He felt as though battered by wind and rain and screams, felt as though he was still on the mountain, starving and cracked in his throat, but unable to die. He felt as though he had been cast into a dark forest in winter, left to freeze or be eaten alive by wolves and other scavengers. He felt like the dead soldiers all around him, cooking in their hollow, beaten shells. All that was left was ruined.
They were all fated, Maedhros supposed, and for what seemed now all too clear.
Nelyo-Maedhros
Ambarussa, Umbarto, Ambarto-Amrod and Amras
Note: As you can probably gather, I go by the published Silmarillion as to the fates of Amrod and Amras.