Chapter 3: Ever The Sun Sails West
Music for this chapter: Rounds, The Oh Hellos
Maglor is burning.
The trees are casting down great flaming boughs around him as he tears away uphill; the Balrog ahead is turning the very air to fire as it charges up towards the ridge, and Maglor feels as though every breath scorches him from within.
Beside him, Glorfindel's breath comes in gasps.
And yet Maglor sings, as they sprint westward up the hill with the forest coming apart around them.
They are gaining.
Six paces. Four. Two–
The Balrog is almost at the treeline, and beyond that–
Beyond the treeline, through the cascading ash and burning leaves, there is figure standing at the lip of the ridge – perhaps a little taller than Maglor remembers, with authority and wisdom in the line of his shoulders now, but still unmistakably Maglor's foster-son.
Elrond.
Maglor screams a single, blazing note; not a word in any language of Elves or Men, but a desperate, resounding cry of will and power and command.
Maglor thrusts his voice into the song of Arda like an instrument cleaving the melody in twain.
He commands the Balrog to stop.
The air trembles, the fires shiver, and the Balrog halts mid-step for the merest of heartbeats. Its flaming sword slips to the ground. The whip does not.
Maglor glimpses Glorfindel dash forward beside him and wrench the fire-whip from the Balrog's grasp. Glorfindel's hiss of pain lances through the air, but the next moment the whip unfurls in a graceful curve over the Balrog's flaming horns and tightens in a loop around its neck.
The Balrog roars, a singular, flaming note of terrible rage.
Maglor takes three more leaden steps uphill; three staggering steps that brings him almost out of the treeline, brings him within earshot of the sharp intake of breath on the ridge.
He turns to look into the fell, blazing face of the Balrog that snarls against the cord at its neck; at Glorfindel behind it straining at the whip in his hands, face pale with pain as the burning whip smokes against his gauntlets.
"Begone, Valarauka," Maglor hisses, and leaps.
His sword plunges up to the hilt in the Balrog's flaming chest, the full weight of Maglor's fury behind it.
The Balrog howls as it blazes anew, and Maglor feels his armour melting about him. His sword turns to blistering agony under his fingers, and almost weeps at the memory that brings, but still he opens his lips and sings– sings of the stars of Elbereth, the vanquishing of Morgoth, the light of the Trees in Eldamar long ago when the world was young and all songs of gladness.
A flaming gauntlet, sputtering in the throes of death, closes around his throat.
His song turns to an agonized gasp as the gauntlet clenches–
Maglor hears a familiar voice cry out, somewhere beyond the treeline, as the Balrog lifts him by the neck with the last of its strength and hurls him up towards the ridge.
Weightlessness.
Then something smashes into him with impossible force; Maglor feels his spine crack as his back first collides with stone, then his head snaps back and his helm slams into the ground with enough force to shatter.
Silence.
There is no pain, at first.
He lays there, shattered helm loose about his hair, warm, sticky blood pooling about him, and wonders if he should try to breathe.
It feels almost as though he is floating in the lucid moments at the end of a dream. It would be very easy to just close his eyes, and sleep.
His torn, bloody lips open of their own accord, and his chest rises and falls.
And with that breath comes the pain.
The breath turns into a choked gasp, and he would have screamed if he had the strength to do so.
He finds he cannot. His throat is one crimson swathe of agony, as is the rest of him; he cannot move, save to gasp.
The sky is very blue here, up on the ridge. There is no fire, and no smoke; what air makes it past his torn lips and into his shattered lungs is beautifully sweet.
A hand slips into his, urgently, amidst the blood and the filth. A familiar silhouette leans overhead, blotting out the sky for a moment; Maglor blinks slowly up at it.
A voice. "Atar? Atar!"
The fingers tighten around his; it is this new pain, this grinding of his burnt, broken fingers against each other, that causes Maglor's eyes to focus.
Maglor Fëanorion looks up into the familiar face of his son, and wonders why Elrond is weeping.
"Elrond," he whispers, his once-golden voice shuddering out of his broken throat. He tries to raise a hand to brush away Elrond's tears. He fails.
"Atya, please," Elrond is saying, a desperate plea in his voice. "Please." He sounds almost young now, though there is the wisdom of long years in his brow and sorrow in his gaze.
Maglor smiles, despite the pain. He has missed him so much. "Whatever you ask," he whispers, as warm, scarlet liquid bubbles up past his lips. "Anything."
Elrond's sleeve brushes past Maglor's cheek. Wipes away the blood. His lips begin to form the first words of a song of healing, but then he seems to hesitate a moment, his sharp healer's gaze moving over Maglor's form, assessing. Then something seems to break in Elrond's expression, and Maglor finds himself being lifted into the circle of his son's arms.
For an instant, the pain is almost blinding as Maglor shifts; but then he is suddenly very warm, and much more comfortable here in his son's hold then he had been on the shattered stone.
Maglor realises, leaning there against his son, that they are just within the borders of the valley; below, in a great swathe of silver water and evergreen trees, lies Rivendell in its full beauty.
Not a poor place to die.
"I am sorry," Maglor whispers into Elrond's shoulder, where his cheek presses pliant and nerveless against Elrond's armoured pauldron.
Elrond makes a terrible noise, something like a choked-off gasp. Hearing it, Maglor hums a low, calm note deep in his ruined throat, as he used to end his songs when Elrond had been the one curled in Maglor's hold, slowly falling asleep to his foster-father's voice.
As the note thrums through them both, Elrond gives a single, strangled sob, and gathers Maglor closer, so their fëar almost touch; Elrond's blazing hearth, and Maglor's fading embers.
The pain is rising, now. Rising like Ulmo at the shores of Beleriand, rising to swallow Maglor whole.
He cannot stop the trembling when it comes, and shuts his eyes tightly against it. There is a hand in his hair, mindful of the white lines of pain that spear across his skull, and a warm cheek presses against his.
"It is well," Elrond is whispering now into his hair. "I am well. Go. Go to the Halls of Mandos. Heal and be content."
Maglor smiles bitterly into Elrond's collar at that. To rest in the Halls – a wonderful, impossible dream. The Oath moves about his fëa, cold and unforgiving.
"I cannot go the Halls," he murmurs faintly. "I am the last. To the everlasting Darkness doom us, if our deed faileth…"
Elrond's horrified intake of breath at that almost makes Maglor wish he had stayed silent, so Elrond could live the rest of this song of Arda to its utter ending in blessed ignorance.
"No," Elrond is saying, and shifts now so his forehead is pressed against Maglor's. In his gaze there is burning defiance, an alarming shadow of Maglor's father. "I will not allow it. I–"
"No oaths," Maglor says, his breath ghosting over his son's cheek. He closes his eyes briefly again before blinking them open. He is so tired.
Lips press against his forehead, gently. "No oaths," Elrond says, and somehow there is steel in his voice, even as it is breaking. "But I give you my word, as the last scion of the House of Fëanor, that I will not rest until the Valar grant my plea at the Ring of Doom, when I sue for your release from the everlasting darkness. You, and your kin."
That is the Fëanorian in Elrond speaking, and Maglor wonders for a moment why he ever thought his son wished never to see him again.
"The Valar…are past mercy," Maglor manages, each breath coming slowly now, like waves on the shore. "Not for me. Not for Fëanor and his sons."
He feels Elrond's head shake once in disagreement, and Maglor smiles into his son's temple.
"I thank you nonetheless," he whispers. "I…will tell…Maedhros...of your accomplishments. He will be…so very…proud."
"Atar," his son says, voice shaking. One hand finds his cheek. The other slips into Maglor's hand.
Maglor wishes to apologise one last time, and to tell Elrond how much of a blessing he is – how Elrond and Elros had been his only joy all these long years after the felling of the Trees.
But the sea is here, and Ulmo's wave breaks over him at last to bear him away to the judgment of Námo, and the eternal darkness beyond.
(:~:)
Elrond feels his foster-father's fëa slip away in his arms.
He finds himself suddenly able to stop weeping. There is no longer any point in doing so.
"My lord Elrond."
He looks up at the clear blue sky of the winter morning, at the furled concern in Erestor's gaze.
Elrond takes a breath, and finds himself able to speak.
"How fares the battle?"
Erestor nods sharply. "Very nearly won. The orcs quailed when the Balrog was slain; they are being routed towards Bruinen."
Elrond nods once, and feels the ache in his throat like a burn. He swallows. "Glorfindel?"
"Burns to both hands," Erestor says. "I am sure you will want to examine him yourself, but I am told his gauntlets took the worst of the damage."
"I will see to him," Elrond says calmly. He looks down to the body in his arms. In death Maglor Fëanorion looks at peace; eyes closed, a faint smile on his weary features.
If only his fëa were at peace.
Erestor's hand is on Elrond's shoulder, now.
"Could you–?" Elrond says, still not quite able to look away from his father's face.
"Of course." Erestor drops to his knees to help lower Maglor to the ground and arrange his hands on his chest. "I will arrange it."
"Thank you," Elrond says. He takes a breath, and releases Maglor's hand.
When he stands he is almost surprised his legs bear his weight; but he scrubs his face clean of tears, steps over the crest of the ridge and begins to slowly work his way down the hillside towards Glorfindel, who has been propped up against an untouched tree some distance from the ashen remains of the fallen Balrog.
Glorfindel looks up as Elrond approaches, and offers him a tired smile. "So I'm never doing that again," he rasps, somehow managing to convey all the curses he means without actually saying them. He lifts his blistered hands out of the bucket of water in his lap for Elrond's inspection.
Elrond kneels gracefully by Glorfindel's side, and takes up the burned hands gently in his own.
Glorfindel does not seem perturbed in the slightest by the pain as Elrond probes the burns. "I was fortunate in that I chose my winter gauntlets," he says. "These do not look quite so bad. I have seen far worse on the Anfauglith."
Elrond nods once, beginning a song to ease pain. He is drawing on the focus of healing, but the part of him not absorbed in examining Glorfindel's burns is quietly screaming.
The same scream that had wanted to erupt from his lips when he heard of Maedhros's death; when Elros passed; when Celebrían sailed.
"How fares Maglor?" Glorfindel says, and Elrond takes a sharp breath, breaking off the song. "That looked like a hard fall," Glorfindel says, clear eyes skirting over the blood on Elrond's shoulder. "I couldn't see where he landed over the ridge."
Elrond waits until he can exhale again, and raises his head in the silence to meet Glorfindel's eyes.
"Oh," Glorfindel says. There is no pity in his fair face – only understanding and sorrow, one warrior to another. "I am sorry."
Elrond nods his thanks, takes a breath, and finishes his song, feeling the thrum of Glorfindel's pulse calm under his fingers as the pain fades. When that is done, Elrond begins to another song to draw out infection, and then one to cool in inflammation of the tissues beneath the skin.
By then there are wounded warriors coming up the hillside, in twos and threes and small groups, singing softly as they come, so that above the smoldering of the forest there rises song; a prayer for rain.
And rain comes at last, a gentle, silvery fall, like Nienna's tears watered the Trees at their flowering long ago.
Elrond moves to the first wounded Elf, then the next, and the next, and the slow scream behind his temples fades deeper and deeper as he goes, until it is nothing but a curled, hidden thing in the core of his fëa.
(:~:)
They lay Maglor to rest with great honour two days after; cloaked in midnight velvet, arrayed in splendor, his hands clasped forevermore over the silver star on the hilt of the sword that his father had once forged for him.
Elrond remains quiet throughout, dry-eyed and composed. He is seen smiling gently later in the evening when the songs of mourning turn to triumph, when many gather the Hall of Fire to celebrate their victory in the Battle of Bruinen, as the resident musicians of the valley now call it.
Elrond sips his wine, and converses with his daughter; he shares greetings and kind words with all the familiar faces of the Hall, and attends to Bilbo's poetry; he offers a smile to Glorfindel, who salutes him with a cup of wine held carefully in a bandaged hand; he listens to the new songs with an air of keen appreciation, and perhaps he would have successfully reached the end of the evening without incident, if Lindir did not choose that moment to step out of the circle of performers.
"Hear now a new song!" Lindir calls – ever more comfortable as a composer rather than a soldier. "Harp-song from the West it is named, where the gold-cleaver sang, and the fires of Angmar were quenched with his sword!"
The murmur that rises within the hall is first uncertain; then there slowly rises cheering. The cheering begins mostly from those that had ridden out with Glorfindel and heard the harpsong at Bruinen themselves; but voices join in, one after the other, until the hall shakes from within.
Lindir waits until the tumult has quieted, raises his harp, and begins to sing.
Elrond hears not a word, nor a note.
It is fortunate the Hall of Fire is as packed full as it is on this evening. It allows him to make his escape mostly unnoticed, and he treads away with long, unceasing strides, without any particular aim or direction, until he finds himself up on the cliff beneath the starry sky, standing before two matching graves.
The one on the left, far more worn by wind and weather, reads Maedhros Maitimo Nelyafinwë Fëanorion. The other, newly hewn, reads Maglor Makalaurë Kanafinwë Fëanorion.
One of the graves is empty. The other is not.
It occurs to Elrond, as the first tear draws it way down his cheek, that Maglor would have loved this place – here beside his brother, looking out west over the valley of Rivendell, with the rushing water below and stars above.
Sounds of revelry and singing drift up to him that long, long night as he stands weeping quietly before the graves of his fathers. He is a father himself now, and master of this Homely House for long years of the sun; and yet he feels orphaned at last – with one father buried at his feet, one buried in the heart of Beleriand in the west, and one almost forgotten in the faint memories of childhood, who now sails the skies above.
When the dawn comes he gathers himself up in the light of the sun; he wipes his face clean of tears and becomes once more Elrond Halfelven, Master of the last Homely House west of the mountains, steady in wisdom and quick to laughter.
(:~:)
Barad-Dur falls. In the east, over the Misty Mountains, Galadriel tears down the walls of Dol Guldur, and Celeborn and Thranduil meet in gladness under the leaves of a new greenwood.
Elrond makes the journey to Lothlorien with Arwen, and from there south; into the golden fields of Rohan, where Elladan and Elrohir ride laughing up to meet them; across Pelennor and up to the white city of Minas Tirith.
There he sees Estel– Aragorn and Arwen wedded at last, their joy a shining hope for the ending of this Age at last, and for a moment Elrond brushes away his grief at what will be he and his daughter's final parting, in favour of sharing in their bliss.
To all around him, Elrond remains kind, and smiling, and full of joy.
And yet, those closest to him see him changed.
Aragorn sees a deep, longing sorrow in his foster-father's soul that no healing hands can reach, where Peredhil becomes Eldar and is lost beyond the vision of Men.
Arwen returns her father's last embrace up in the hills of Rohan with grief and sorrow; bitter is their parting indeed, sundered by the gift of Men, and the binding of the Eldar to the song of Arda. She sees, as her father rides away north with the rest of the company, that his face is already turned west.
A handful of months; the land of the Shire scoured clean, even as the woods past Rivendell turn golden with oncoming winter.
In other circumstances, Elrond might have waited a year or two, to rest in a Middle-Earth at peace, the last foul breath of Morgoth washed from the lands to the east of the sundering sea. Bilbo and Frodo might come to Aman in time, and Galadriel and Mithrandir as well, but not in such haste as Elrond.
One quiet morning, he rides out with a few of his house about him. He bids Elladan and Elrohir farewell at the lip of the valley, and clasps arms with Glorfindel, who looks at him with an understanding smile, as though he knows already where Elrond has set his mind.
Down to the Bruinen, with the new saplings of spring and summer growing young and strong between the blackened trees; the Great East Road through to the Chetwood, and Bree; through the green hills of the Shire, and on until the Havens, where a white ship awaits.
The ship puts out with the tide at dawn, with Elrond at its prow, watching the whispering waves.
Elrond looks upon the star of Eärendil in the brightening sky, and knows that it marks the circle of the world, where his birth-father keeps his watch on the Door of Night; beyond that, the void.
His gaze drops to the horizon. There, beyond the Sea, past the straight road that leads to Aman, rests Valimar at foot of Taniquetil; and past the western gate of Valimar, there lies the Ring of Doom, where the Valar hold council on the governance of Arda.
West, west he will go.
West, to the Ring of Doom, to plead for the House of Fëanor.
Next up: Elrond nearly throws hands with the Valar, and Maglor discovers the eternal Darkness is quite a bit louder than he thought it would be.
If anyone's interested, that note that Maglor hummed was a tonic; half of the perfect cadence he would end all his lullabies with, where his children were safe, and he could pretend that musically, at least, he was complete.
I also want to remind everyone that this is also posted to AO3! Find me there as EirianErisdar!