To pass some time, Maedhros looked around on the tapestries. She felt a small hint of joy when she found the tapestry showing Elrond's wedding to Celebrian, the silver-haired daughter of Galadriel and Celeborn. Seeing the images of them raising their own twins, Elladan and Elrohir, brought up many memories of Maglor fostering Elrond and Elros for her.
"Twins are indeed special. A blessing, to have two children for the price of one pregnancy." smiled Miriel as she came up to her granddaughter, who was crying by the memories. Offering her a handkerchief so Maedhros would whip away her tears, Miriel turned to see the scene where the Imladris' family was meeting the newborn Arwen for the first time.
"Elrond and Elros reminded me so much about their uncles, even if they did have a different hair colour…and I did not want to see another pair of Elflings lose their lives because of what we had done…
Maedhros swallowed hard at remembering how difficult it had been for her to let go of Eluréd and Elurín's dead bodies when Amrod and Amras had found her in the woods, still holding the two small bodies to her own in a failed attempt to give them warmth.
"You did your best, Maedhros. And don't forget that little Eluréd and Elurín is trying their best to defend you from rude people. Remembering what happened yesterday?"
The memory of the two six-year-old twins managing to trap several Doriath Elves by using nothing else than a ball of yarn and her as bait, made Maedhros smirk.
"Nimloth complained about Aredhel's daughter Maeglin teaching her sons a bit too many ways of using traps before she was Reborn, especially after that Thingol got caught as well."
"Well, with that height of his, the boys can barely reach up to his knees, small-grown as they are beside him even if they were rather tall for their age at their death. Elwing turned out to be short in height as well."
Looking closer at her granddaughter as she spoke, Miriel began to braid Maedhros' hair so it did not hung loose around her shoulder.
"Now, where is your own boy hiding this time, sweetheart? I have not seen him around here in a while."
"Rûsa is with lord Námo for that routine inspection everyone here in the Halls needs to do before we can be Reborn. I overheard him say something about that my son is one of the hardest cases he had seen…"
Miriel nodded, understanding that Maedhros had not been wanting to see the total damage done to her son in Angband.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Inside a chamber, Námo was carefully checking on the state of Rûsa's face and head. Rûsa himself tried to keep still when he had been asked to open his mouth for a look.
"Three missing teeth on your left side and four on the right side. And then there is some straight scars on the inside of your cheeks. Did they pull out your teeth as part of the punishment for helping Maeglin escape from Angband?"
"Yes, and the scars on the inside of my mouth are old ones, mainly coming from a so-called scold's bridle that Sauron created especially for me because, according to him I "never learnt to keep my tongue still". Not that I ever cared, I never liked to obey him and even freely took punishment meant for someone else."
Námo mentally rolled his eyes as he remembered how Maedhros could be at times. Like mother like son, it seemed. Then again, he would not be a descendant of Feanor otherwise. Writing down what Rûsa had said about how the scars had been caused, the Vala then checked on his ears and eyes.
"Your hearing…a growing loss of hearing over the years, from all the noise in Angband, right? And the way you move your eyes…partly a loss of vision from not being used to light. I have seen similar cases before in those who had spent a very long time in Angband. Your mother never recovered her full hearing, but lucky her eyesight recovered to almost its full power."
When Námo touched the V-shaped scar along Rûsa's jaw line, Rûsa covered the scar with his fingers.
"Is it possible to keep this scar somehow? I have seen how similar my twin uncles can be to my mother at a far distance, and then with some of my older half-siblings also inherited my father's dark red hair…"
Námo nodded, understanding what Rûsa tried to say. It was a rather big possibility that several of Taurion's 15 baseborn children would be mistaken for each other thanks to sharing their common father's hair-colour, so if they were able to distinguish each other in different ways, the lesser risk of misunderstandings when they all was to be living in Aman.
"I shall tell my brother about that. Your father did actually request something similar when he got the chance to see exactly how many of his children had inherited his dark red hair. His wife Atara was less amused."
Rûsa swallowed hard at hearing that. He had met his father's lawful wife a couple of times, and for being an Elvish woman of such a short stature as she was, Atara had even managed to scare Thingol in her anger when her two daughters had run into the former king of Doriath and gotten scared by his stern face.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
It had been one of her old nightmares about Angband. The one where she was forced to see Sauron take her newborn son away from her and she was unable to stop him from doing so.
"N-no…please…d-don't! Don't take…!"
"Aunt! Aunt Maedhros, wake up!"
"I do not think she is hearing us…Elros, wait! Squeeze out the rag first!"
Two young voices that did not belong in the nightmare. Celebrimbor? No, he had been a grown adult for several hundred years now. Something wet landed in her face and forced Maedhros to wake up. Sitting up in the bed in pure surprise despite that her damaged back and right shoulder protested against the sudden movement, she looked around and saw that Elrond and Elros, dressed in just their night robes, was standing at her bed.
"What are you two doing here in my room…?" she asked, still trying to catch her breath and holding up the dripping wet rag with her remaining hand, feeling how the cold water ran down along her face.
"We was about to go to sleep, just like Ada Maglor told us…"
"Then we heard something from your room, aunt Maedhros! When we came to check, you were moaning and tossing around in your sleep. Did you have a nightmare, aunt?"
Naturally Elros would go straight to the point. Elrond was the more quiet sibling, always trying to find a way to explain things without being insensitive towards someone else.
"Yes…thanks for waking me up before it got worse. Just…follow Elrond's suggestion next time and squeeze out the wet rag first, ok? I got a small shock when the wet rag landed in my face like that…"
She was very tired, it had been a bad sleeping period for her under the past nights. Much to Maedhros' surprise, the dark-haired twins suddenly climbed up in her bed, trying to find a way into the nest of many blankets that covered Maedhros because she could not sleep on something hard as it reminded her about the breeding cells in Angband.
"Then it will be our duty to chase away these mean nightmares of yours. Ada Maglor did ask us to look after you while he was away on the hunt, after all."
Maedhros mentally rolled her eyes at Elros' childish yet so simple logic, sighing deeply as they laid down on each side of her.
"I swear to the Allfather that I have one adult nursemaid in my remaining brother and two future ones in you two…"
"I am no nursemaid, I am a future healer." answered Elrond somewhere on her right side under the blanket as he tried finding a comfortable sleeping position without causing discomfort to Maedhros' right shoulder. Once both of them were laying still, Maedhros herself laid down and quickly fell back into sleep with the boys close to her.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Outside the Halls of Mandos, the years had passed on and it had now become to early summer in Year 241 in the Third Age. In the house forge belonging to Tuor and Idril, Maeglin kept herself busy with what she could fix and repair for them. To work in a forge again, to hear the rhythm of the hammer of what she was working on…
"This is my life. This is what I am good at. I do not need a husband or the rank of a princess…yes…"
Turgon had not been very pleased with how Maeglin had been raised in Nan Elmoth. Sure, she could read and write in Quenya along with being taught the art of blacksmithing by Eöl, survival skills by Aredhel and some general basic social skills in both the Noldor and Avari cultures, but that had not been enough for the king of Gondolin. Far, far from enough. At the age of 80, only 20 years away from her coming of age and barely had studied anything serious at all in favour for a more work-oriented upbringing since Nan Elmoth was not that big, Maeglin had needed to study so much intently to catch up in what she would have learned if she had been raised in a full Noldor family. Such a culture crush the first lessons had been. Maeglin still shuddered at the memory of these lessons. In Nan Elmoth everyone had been required to live in the dark forest, even her parents who were the Lord and Lady of Nan Elmoth. Eöl had been the main blacksmith while Aredhel had been hunting birds and animals for food.
"No wonder Mother grew restless over the years before she managed to leave Gondolin…having to sit inside and doing embroidery, reading or just trying to pass on time with other "feminine arts" while listening to the other unwed maids talking nonsense about who they would like to marry, I hated it as well…"
The work in the forge, and later the duties of being named the Lady of the House of the Mole, had been her sanctuary in Gondolin. There was the work she was used to do, where she felt that she actually was doing some form of benefit.
"Mom, dad! Guess what! Something important happened in Imladris yesterday…ai!"
The cheerful voice was quickly put off in surprise, followed by the sound of someone falling down the short staircase. Maeglin did not look up from her work as she called over her shoulder:
"Do you never learn that you should not enter the house by using that wooden staircase, kiddo?"
Earendil only groaned loudly in pain as answer from the front yard, having landed rather hard on his behind this time.
"Ow, ow…why is it always this staircase that I end up tripping down for…?"
He was firmly convinced that the staircase in question were not a normal one. But it had belonged to the house even before Idril and Tuor had moved in, so it was not easy to just take it away.
"Earendil? Did you trip on the staircase now again?"
By now, Idril had came out from the kitchen. At this time of the day Tuor normally would take a short afternoon nap, his body still being that of a older Man after all, but it was very likely that his son's crash landing had woken him. And indeed Tuor looked out by the open window:
"What is going on out here?"
"Your son and the wooden staircase again, nothing else." Maeglin informed as she walked past under the window, her arms filled with repaired kitchen pots that Idril had needed. In a quick attempt to reclaim some decency from the fall, Earendil said:
"Ehm…well, as I was about to say before I tripped…I have gotten my seventh grandchild! My second granddaughter, named Arwen, was born yesterday to Elrond and Celebrian!"
As the deeper meaning behind his words sunk in, Idril looked like her begetting-day had come five months early.
"This must be celebrated indeed! A granddaughter! Honey, bring out the finest wines we have in the basement, I will cook something really nice to lunch and dinner!"
"As you wish, Idril." called Tuor as he moved away from the window. With Idril dragging her son inside the house for more information about the newest little family member, Maeglin hid a small smile on her lips as she carried the repaired kitchen pots into the kitchen.
~X~X~X~X~X~X
Námo carefully put his hand on Rûsa's head, being mindful of how tense Rûsa could be if someone touched him without warning.
"There, it is finished now. You have done well, Rûsa. Even if you were afraid at being touched, you were brave in letting us check on you."
"…I…was?" whisperedRûsa in confusion, his spirit having taken the shape of his child-self after the routine inspection. Námo picked up the small fëa in one of his hands to carry him back to Maedhros.
"Yes, it went much better than I first believed, given that you do not have the best views of the Valar and Maiar thanks to the two Dark Lords…on the other hand, unlike in life, here you have your mother if you feel that you needs the support of someone."
Rûsa seemed to be unsure about Námo's words, but chose to keep quiet about it. Sure, he had long learned that Námo, Vairë and their Maiar never would harm any of the fëar here in the Halls, his old habits from living under Morgoth and Sauron refused to leave so easily. If there was one thing Rûsa had learned under his life in Angband, so was it that you never ever should trust the two Dark Lords. He had seen the result many times over his lifetime and knew that it would only end in bitter tears of despair.
"I wish that Mother and I could have managed to reveal our relation much earlier…"
Námo gave Rûsa a small, sad smile at hearing that. The words reminded him a lot of what he and the other Valar had felt ever since Morgoth's painful betrayal of their trust.
"So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. A lot of things would be very different, indeed, if so many "what ifs" would have happed. But everything will be all right in the end according to the will of the Allfather. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us."
Handing over Rûsa to Maedhros, Námo made a mental reminder to his brother Irmo in the Gardens of Lorien that Rûsa's new body would need a strengthened skeleton because of the serve case of rickets he had been suffering from in Angband. While Rûsa had been strong physically, his lack of nutritious and healthy food had given him weaker bones that would break easier because of how tender his skeleton had become over his life from that unknown and unseen illness.