Elros

Maedhros appeared in the doorway of Maglor's chambers before he was done braiding our hair and outfitting us for the feast. I'd only seen Maedhros in travelling clothes before or simple practical outfits that seemed to belie the fact that he was the Lord of our fortress.

Maglor wore more noble clothing than his brother regularly did, but he had still surprised me when Elrond and I had come to his chambers earlier. He was already arrayed for the feast when we arrived dressed in more impressive attire than I'd ever seen him in before, unless you can count his armor on the day he attacked Sirion. Tonight Maglor wore deep red robes with sleeves that cut off at the elbows in the front but almost dragged to the ground in the back, lined in rich grey silk and black boots that that went up to his thighs. He wore his long sword at his side, hilt polished into gleaming even though he'd had to promise us it was just for show and that we were in no danger in his halls. Dangling from his shoulders was a long cloak that dragged behind him woven out of shining gold material pinned in place by two gemstones set in glittering gold, even deeper red in color than his robes, almost black unless the light hit them in a certain way. On his chest was embroidered the star of FĂ«anor, stitched out in bright gold thread ignited by the cloak he wore, and even if I wasn't fond of seeing that particular sigil, I had to admit that he looked very impressive.

Maedhros was another matter altogether. Where his brother was darkness in his crimson robes, Maedhros was light. His garments were bright ivory edged in honey-colored silk with just a few touches of red worked into the embroidery. Enough that it gave mind to the colors of their house but not enough to clash with his hair, which for once was brushed into a gleaming waterfall of red over his shoulder. Over his right arm he carried a decorative cloak that matched the ensemble, the same light colored silk trimmed with golden fox-fur and I could see another eight-pointed star peeking out from between the folds. He wore the same highly impractical but formal riding boots that Maglor did, but in a dark tan color rather than black. I'd never seen him dressed thusly, and I was taken aback by how different he looked, less like a raging storm clouds and more like sun that has broken through them to reveal a landscape cleansed by rain.

My brother and I caught one another's eyes through the mirror while Maglor's hands stilled in my brother's hair, open wide in surprise and I guessed that his expression imitated my own. I shrugged slightly. We'd learned things about these killers in the past few days that I had never expected.

"Is this suitable to you?" Maedhros asked his brother, ignoring us. Looking at Maglor I could see that he was similarly surprised, almost looking taken aback at his sibling's appearance. But he soothed his features and turned back to Elrond's hair.

"Yes, that's perfectly fine. Thank you." He answered dutifully, but even I could see he was masking his stifled smile behind careful words.

I was sitting on Maglor's bed, feet dangling off the edges, my legs not yet long enough to touch the ground. Maedhros approached and flung his hulking form down, sending me skyward several inches as the mattress was disrupted by his weight and dropping his cloak between us.

"Be careful not to wrinkle your garments, please." Maglor said in a practiced tone, not looking up. He'd given us similar warnings shortly before and I stifled a smile that he would chastise his grown brother in such a manner.

"No, of course, Mother, I won't." Maedhros replied as he pinched the bridge of his nose. I had to stifle another smile at that, only just catching Maglor's tight lips and uplifted eyebrow before staring down into my lap, suddenly wishing my hair wasn't so neatly braided into place and I couldn't hide behind a curtain of hair like I often did around them.

There was silence for a moment, while I felt the vaguely unpleasant sensation of fondness for Maedhros creeping over me. He seemed dry and humorless, but he'd just made the appearance that wasn't entirely correct. That something lurked beneath his gloomy manner.

"Did the servants come for your harp already or do you need my help with that?"

Maglor shook his head, concentrating on the last inches of my brother's hair. "No they brought it down to the hall this morning."

"You play the harp?" Elrond ventured. He was trying much harder than I was to make strides with our captors, and I knew he'd seen something he could seize upon. He'd been moved by Maglor's singing. I knew because he has whispered to me the past few nights, pestering me for what I had thought about it and asking a whole slew of questions about what I'd seen and what I made of it. I'd brushed him off, feigning disinterest, a bit more harshly than I really wanted because I'd been moved too and didn't want to admit it. I guessed that Elrond was eager to hear Maglor sing once more. Beneath the ever-present anger directed towards our captors, I wanted to hear him sing again as well.

To my shock, for any sudden movements of the brothers startled me, Maedhros sat upwards quickly with a snort of laughter although I couldn't think of any reason why my brother's comment would have been amusing.

"They don't know you play the harp?" Maedhros asked pointedly, eyebrows lifted high and staring at Maglor, who did not choose to look back. "They've been here a year and don't know you play the harp? All those lessons you've insisted upon and they still don't know?" He snorted again. "Boys," and fixed me with the gaze of one who is about to educate me on the most basic of concepts that I had somehow failed to grasp. "Maglor plays the harp, and every other instrument for that matter, and he plays them all better than anyone. And he knows all the best songs because he wrote most of the ones worth knowing. And," he pointed a finger at me, just to drive his point home, "and he sings all of those impressive songs he wrote better than anyone else. Much better, in fact, than that obnoxious upstart Daeron that your forefather liked so much and everyone else loves to carry on about." Fine, Maedhros, I thought, annoyance tampering down the affection I'd just felt. I shouldn't have been chastised for not knowing. I'd never seen Maglor even in the proximity of a harp, let alone playing one, how was I supposed to know all this? All I'd known about them had come from our people's tales, and those just recounted the bloodshed and horrors they'd committed, never any talents they might possess.

Maglor seemed indifferent and said nothing, fixated on binding the end of my brother's braid into a silver clip that matched the one I now wore. He quietly ushered Elrond up from the chair he'd been sitting in and called his brother over. Before Maedhros could sit though, he locked eyes with him even though Maedhros stood a head taller than him and he had to look upwards to do so. "There's no need to mock me, brother." His voice was acidic, but I could sense a tone of hurt underneath it, harsh words used to cover a wounding blow.

Maedhros' brow furrowed for a moment before his brother shoved him down onto the chair and began roughly combing his fingers through his brother's tangled fiery hair. "Maglor, I wasn't." and that manner contained more hurt than Maglor's had, all the haughty tone draining out of his words. He craned his head around to look backwards at Maglor while Elrond and I shared a quick glance of worry.

"Sit still." Maglor spat, tugging his brother's head back into place by his hair, Maedhros wincing slightly at the rough movement.

"Maglor, I wasn't. Really, I wasn't, I meant it."

"Dareon wasn't an 'obnoxious upstart'. He was very talented." Maglor said in a terse tone as he began at his brother's braids. He was obviously angry, and I felt a sense of apprehension that this night we had been told was going to be a respite from the hard lives that we lived was going to cast under a shadow by hostility between our captors.

"Fine, he was very talented, I'll grant that. But he wasn't as talented as you. And I'm looking forward to hearing you play tonight. It's been too long. I've told you that." When Maedhros finished speaking his voice was softer than we normally heard. Timid almost, and his chin tilted downwards as his brother braided his hair.

Maglor

My brother appeared in the doorway before I was finished with the children.

"Is this suitable to you?" he asked, words just slightly too drawn out, a bit slurred so that I knew he'd been drinking before coming to me. Maybe since that morning. He did look suitable, more than I'd expected from him even. I'd half expected him to imitate our father, coming to this feast in simple travelling clothes. So his raiment was a bit of a surprise to me, although not an unwelcome one. And when Maedhros spoke he smiled the tiniest bit, and it eased my mind and I smiled back at him, choosing to forget his somewhat debaucheries proclivities.

He poked his fun at the boys' ignorance of my harp playing, which made me realize how negligent I'd been at my practice, and made his quips about Daeron, which he knew was a sore spot with me, but I did my best to ignore them. But even my best attempts at diplomacy with family seem to always end in angry words. They have forever. This is not some new trend, my home was often filled with furious and bitter sounds, but we came to understand them as fleeting and not to take those intonations to heart in a house filled with tenuous tempers. They were woven into the fluid movement of conversation always, and I at times forget that it is not that way with all families.

I attempted a smile at the boys trying to build some apology, but I don't think either of them were looking. No matter, I felt I had years with them to attempt to make things right.

Maedhros was unable to do anything with his own hair but simply pulling it away from his face so I was tasked with taming it in situations such as this one.

Maedhros' hair was perfect, of course, soft and slick and it always stayed exactly where it was contoured, with not a single strand sticking out of place, so my task that day was easy. Even in those days, so many things about Maedhros remained styled in the model of perfection, and I still thought that my mother named him well, even if he denied it. When one ignored his scarred flesh and his missing hand and the way that he consumed wine and the way that he reveled in his failures, he surely was well-made. And that may seem like a great deal to ignore, but through the sometimes distorted lens of love those slight incongruences hardly seemed to matter. They seemed to barely disturb the pristine surface of my beloved older brother, loved all the more for the horrors he's endured that I could not even begin to imagine. He taught me that calm water can belie the turbulence that is lurking under the surface. Hidden under the deep layers of his torn and reknitted skin I knew he was filled with brutal love and flame and duty and honor and that he battled daily with the living horror that needled its way through his brain. He was, and always remains in my mind, a better man than I could ever have hoped to be.

I loved my brother so much that it as if a fire burned deep within me that nothing could extinguish. There was some deep bond between us, so profound, so enduring, that I think our father must have welded in his dark furnaces. Maybe something that he even cemented into permanence after his death. Imitating his greatest creations, it felt eternal and unbreakable. It's true that I hated Maedhros' choices at times. I hated the cold and hard person that he had become, knowing how he used to be. I hated the way that we spoke to one another and hated the bitterness between us. I hated knowing that I had some choice in the actions that led us to our present state. Many choices, really. But I loved him still and knew without any doubt that I always would. Even if I was free to decide whether or not to love him, I could choose no other way because he was all that was left to me who remembered who we used to be, remembered the times and events that I also recalled. I abandoned him once, and I refused to do so again. I've sworn my own private oaths, mouthed alone in quiet dark rooms, that would prevent me from leaving his side.

If I could have mustered the courage to do so, I might have spoken to him of better times. Of the summers we spent in our grandfather's orchards, picking peaches so ripe that they nearly burst under our touch. He would remember the way that our teeth closed over the juicy flesh, dripping down our chins and staining our tunics. He would remember closing our eyes to sleep in warm breezes and waking after we had been long missed. Only to return to a house that rang with laughter and smiles and joy. Maybe our late return would be met with a reproachful look from our father, but it would have been more for the benefit of the younger children rather than true discipline towards us. He might have recalled that as well, and those were the memories out of which I created a protected fortress to ensure I didn't sink too far into the evil that our Oath had wrought.

"Maglor?"

It was my brother's quiet voice that disrupted my thoughts. Everyone in the room was staring at me. The boys looked frightened, and Maedhros looked vaguely concerned (the most reaction that I could hope from him) and I realized that my fingers had stalled in my brothers hair because of the memories that so often plagued me.

I shook my head, trying to brush off the demons of long held thoughts. Those memories might have been nice, but they were a world away from the fractured and broken place that I lived in. Truly, they had no place being recalled in Beleriand.

"Makalaurë, did you think you could escape those memories?" whispered my youngest brother, a twin voice scarcely echoing the words, but still audible.

No, I took an assessment of the room, none of those voices could have come from anyone but Maedros and he had only spoken my present name. I might hear things, but I should still be able tell when they shouldn't be there.

"Yes?" I replied continuing the braiding of my brother's hair as if nothing had happened. I interrupted him before he could say any more. "I have three things to ask from you."

Maedhros was quiet for a moment, not so easily distracted from my moment of stillness as I would have hoped. "I've already agreed to your feast and I'm in a good mood. That's two."

"That's two." I agreed. "I was thinking about three more." Maedhros knew the things that I was going to ask, but he still quirked his eyebrow up and stared at me through the mirror with a questioning gaze that was meant to put me on edge. It didn't. I was too used to it for it to have much effect. All the same, I still pretended it did.

Carefully (sudden movements startled him still) I draped my arms around his shoulders and let my chin rest on the top of his head. Even after all this time, playing the sweet and docile brother tugged at his heart a bit.

"The chain, and your crown, and a speech. Please." That 'please' was really such a nice flourish on the needy and little brotherly tone I'd let seep into my voice.

Maedhros sighed and I felt his shoulders sag a bit under my arms. He'd known already that I was going to request those things of him, I was sure of that.

"The chain, the crown and a speech. Yes. If you wish. The chain is foolish, as is the crown. And I had already worked on a speech so you didn't have to worry about that. But it's nothing though, don't get your hopes up."

I could see why he objected, of course. Maedhros was no king anymore, and to wear ornaments that indicated such a title might be viewed as presumptuous. All the same, the chain was not foolish at all, I thought, one of the few treasures brought out of Valinor that still remained in our keeping. My father had forged it, when he was still only the crown prince, a beautiful work of art, the stars of our house dangling from each shoulder set with rubies and garnets and diamonds enveloped in gold. In truth it was heavy (I'd worn the piece when I'd ben king) and it was a bit ostentatious. But it recalled an easier time and looked supremely regal and every time I had seen Maedhros wear it before he looked more like a king than Fingolfin or Fingon ever had.

And his crown, more of a circlet really, was at first made by our grandfather Mahtan out of delicate copper wire. Curfufin had reforged it when Maedhros had been returned to us, reworking the charred remains that we had found on the battlefield where he had been captured. It was made of more new material than old, but it still held the distinction of being partially brought from our homeland. And furthermore, when Maedhros wore that crown he looked like the prince of the Noldor that he was, and I thought he more fully captured the adoration and respect of his followers. He would be revered tonight, I believed. Dressed in finer clothing than he ever wore and dappled in gemstones and finely wrought metal. He may ignore such things, but I had not forgotten them.

"Thank you." I whispered to him, unraveling myself from his neck. Despite all the wrongs we had done, despite all the hardship we endured, tonight we would play at being princes again, looking the part for once, and would command the love and attention of all who followed us.