A/N: Welcome! This fic is compliant to events in The Ransom Of The House Of Fëanor, where Elrond ransoms the house of his foster fathers from the Void beyond Arda, but also can be read standalone.

Music for this chapter: Nascence, Austin Wintory

A Song In Stone

Eirian Erisdar

Chapter 1: The Northwest Road

Elrond sings.

Maedhros's fingers are ice in his; Elrond holds his foster father with hands and fëa both, singing strength into Maedhros's blood, even as his own fëa shudders with exhaustion.

He has been a healer for over six millennia.

Death will not come for his foster father again. Elrond will not allow it.

Námo will not claim Maedhros; not now, not until Arda is remade. Between Elrond's will and that of Námo, there is no contest.

So he sings on, despite the taste of coppery blood on his tongue and the pain that blazes in his side; he will accomplish this, even if it should cost him his life.

(:~:)

It begins with a cordial argument, one clear winter morning as Fëanor's house sits down to breakfast.

"As touching as your concern is, Nelyo, I do not require an armed escort," Fëanor says as he scoops a generous amount of coddled eggs onto Elrond's plate. "I am quite acquainted with the architecture of the city; I designed it myself, after all."

"You may have designed the place, but surely seven thousand years of wind and rain will have had some effect," Maedhros says, shoveling a small mountain of bacon onto Elrond's plate beside the eggs. "I am not wholly convinced it would be safe."

Having just arrived at the table, Elrond looks down at his overflowing platter with some alarm. He has visited Fëanor and Nerdanel's house several times in the months since he ransomed Fëanor and his sons from the Void; but this is the first instance where Nerdanel has gone to visit her father, and so is not here to act as buffer between Elrond and his well-meaning foster father and grandfather.

Some ways down the table, The Ambarussa stifle their laughter; Celegorm hides a grin as he stirs honey into his tea.

At the very least, Elrond muses, Fëanor's married sons are not present. Curufin and Caranthir would no doubt find it all hilarious, and Maglor–

Footsteps in the corridor. Fëanor breaks off his argument with Maedhros to call a greeting.

"Káno!" Fëanor exclaims delightedly. "Join us for breakfast!"

Elrond hurriedly pulls his plate closer to himself. "Atar," he greets. "Do come in. Atarinya and Grandfather are arguing about Formenos, but the rest of us have only caught the latter half of the argument. Perhaps you can convince them to share."

"Good morning," Maglor says, pulling up a chair beside Elrond. "The jewel-smiths were murmuring that you were planning something, Father. I thought I'd better walk over to investigate."

"Father wishes to visit the old house," Maedhros says. "Something about an unfinished work he wishes to retrieve."

"Surely what works remain there cannot have survived all these years?" Maglor says, piling his plate with fresh berries and placing a handful beside Elrond's coddled eggs, despite Elrond's protestations.

"As I recall, I left this particular work in one of the lower workshops, out of the rain and wind," Fëanor says. "And it is wrought of stone. I have hope that it might have survived; I could start anew, but shaping the stone took six months the first time, and I would rather not sing something up out of memory when I can work with something I recall shaping with my own hands."

"That sounds sensible enough," Elrond says, carefully guarding his plate with an elbow so none may further add to it.

"That isn't the argument," Maedhros says, pouring Elrond a long glass of gooseberry juice and ignoring his foster son's look of exasperation. "I rather thought the structural integrity of the old house should come into question. Nobody has been singing any repairs to Formenos for seven thousand years, unlike Tirion and the rest of Aman. Father needs an armed escort."

"If you put it that way, I quite agree," Maglor says, nodding at Maedhros. "Or at least if not an armed escort, at least do not go alone, Father."

Maedhros's face settles into the satisfied expression of one who has been proved right by a sibling.

Fëanor frowns. To anyone else it might have been terrifying, but Elrond knows his grandfather well enough by now to understand that Fëanor is only contemplating.

"Very well," Fëanor says, and smiles sharply. "Elrond."

Elrond pauses, spoon halfway to his lips. "Yes?"

"Would you like to visit Formenos?"

Elrond blinks.

His foster fathers are instantly on their feet.

"Father!" Maedhros exclaims.

"When I said not to go alone I didn't mean take Elrond," Maglor says, alarmed.

Elrond lowers his spoon. Fëanor takes another placid sip of tea as his eldest sons splutter over each other.

"It's only been a few months–"

"He's only just recovered–"

"Armed escort, I said–"

"Have you considered there might be flooding–"

"Structural integrity–"

"Absolutely not–"

"Thank you, Grandfather," Elrond says calmly. "I would very much like to come."

Maglor and Maedhros halt mid-syllable and swivel in place to stare at their foster son.

"Elrond," they exclaim in unison.

Silence. Elrond stares up at his foster fathers, startled; he has not heard that tone of voice from them since he was an elfling.

Down the table, Ambarussa are watching, fascinated. Celegorm grins beside them.

"I would like to go," Elrond says. "I have read the histories, of course, but you spoke such stories of the place, Atar, Atarinya. I would like to see it for myself."

"Excellent," Fëanor says, spreading cheese onto a slice of bread with verve. "Pack for a week's journey; the city is three days' easy ride north. We will ride out in an hour."

"You cannot be serious," Maglor protests. His hand rests on Elrond's shoulder.

"Atar," Elrond says. "I give you my word we will be careful. And Grandfather knows his craft well. I am sure we will take no unnecessary risks."

"Oh, I know you won't, pityo," Maglor says. "But I am concerned about your grandfather. Caution does not run in his blood."

Elrond fights a wince.

"Káno," Fëanor says exasperatedly, but has the grace to offer a chagrined smile when his five present sons all stare pointedly at him.

Maglor and Maedhros turn from their father to look at each other, the sharp flicker of ósanwe passing between them. Elrond senses an argument – Maglor scowls, and Maedhros's eyebrow rises ever higher.

Fëanor sips at his tea, entirely at ease.

Maedhros glares at Maglor. Maglor, conversely, looks suddenly pleased.

"Very well," Maedhros growls, taking a seat and jabbing a spoon violently into the honey pot. "We will not protest to Elrond accompanying you, Father. But I will be coming as well."

Fëanor smiles. "Then it is decided."

Maglor's hand leaves Elrond's shoulder, and he sits with an air of satisfaction. "I would come with you myself, but I must lead a lecture on musical composition on the morrow."

Elrond looks briefly at Maglor, and in doing so takes his eyes off his plate for a mere instant; when he returns to his breakfast there is a neat fan of sliced goat's cheese on the edge of his plate, and Fëanor has just lowered the cheese knife.

"Don't stop eating on our account, Elrond," Fëanor says. "It will be a hard ride north against the winter wind. You will need a full stomach."

Elrond breathes a sigh, and picks up his fork.

He can only hope that the limited size of their saddlebags will do away with any such repetitions on the road north.

(:~:)

The winter wind is indeed bitterly chill on the ride north, but Elrond is warm in his new new fur-lined cloak sewn with the star of Fëanor at the collar, one of many gifts the people of the Fëanorian district have lavished upon him since he returned the House of Fëanor from the Eternal Darkness.

They ride easy the first day, trotting northwest with the crisp crunch of winter grass under their horses' hooves, the sky a brilliant arch of unbroken blue. The white-capped peaks of the Pelori rise to their right, and to their left the river plains run lush and green to the forests to the west. Elrond has a sword at his side out of long habit, but both Fëanor and Maedhros go unarmed. It is no trouble for them to sing their own swords of flame from fëa should they require it, as the Ainur and Maiar of the Void had taught them.

Fëanor is plainly delighted to travel with his eldest son and youngest grandson. Maedhros is more subdued, but Elrond thinks nothing of it; even in Beleriand, Maedhros had always been the graver and quieter of his foster fathers.

They halt for the evening by the banks of a burbling stream. The setting sun washes the foothills of the Pelori with brushstrokes of gold as Elrond and Maedhros move into the trees a bowshot away to gather firewood; Fëanor remains behind to tend to the horses.

Elrond pauses to greet the forest as he reaches the treeline. This forest is ancient, older even than Fangorn, and every thought of the woodland is as slow and ponderous as the shifting of a mountain.

"I am sorry Maglor could not come," Maedhros says abruptly.

Something about Maedhros's expression strikes a chord of disquiet within Elrond.

He frowns. "Atarinya?"

Maedhros moves carefully past Elrond to crouch amongst the undergrowth, gathering deadwood in the crook of one arm. "I know you would have preferred it if he could accompany you. I hope it did not disappoint you too much that he couldn't."

"Well, I would certainly have liked it if he came," Elrond says as he kneels to gather dry branches into his cloak. It is the truth; he would have liked to have both his foster fathers by his side on this ride up to Formenos. "But I am enjoying the ride north nonetheless; I had little opportunity to travel in such safety in Middle-Earth, and your father is excellent company."

Elrond had intended to soothe any concerns his foster father might have had over Maglor being unable to accompany them; instead, Maedhros's expression only seems to grow more closed.

"Atarinya?" Elrond repeats, faint alarm growing within him.

"It is nothing," Maedhros says quietly, rising with an armful of deadwood. "Do not concern yourself, Elrond, only–" He pauses. "You do know how very much I have enjoyed this day, riding out with you?"

Elrond blinks. "Of course."

Maedhros smiles in the faint, unreadable way Elrond knows so well from his childhood.

"Good," Maedhros says, and steps closer to press a kiss to Elrond's brow. "Now come, pityo. We must see about supper."

Elrond stares after his foster father as Maedhros moves past him. The light of the setting sun sets Maedhros's cloud of crimson hair afire.

But there is nothing but ease in the line of Maedhros's shoulders, and so Elrond pushes down on his concern and hefts his own bundle of firewood to follow.

Supper is waybread and a fragrant stew of salted pork, and although Elrond watches his foster father carefully, Maedhros seems quite unaffected – he laughs as easily as Fëanor does, and determinedly makes sure Elrond has more than enough to eat.

They lay out their bedrolls after supper under a sky misted with countless stars, and Elrond falls asleep to the warmth of his foster father's back to his, and the sound of Maedhros's steady breathing.

(:~:)

Their road takes them through more of the wild beauty of Aman the next day; Elrond marvels at the ancient, towering forests the north-south road takes them through, even though the road itself now is nothing but a long, sunken strip of grass that spears northwest through the trees.

Maedhros explains that it had once been paved in marble and shining silver-white in the dappled light of the trees, running unbroken from the southern gates of Formenos to the northern gate of Tirion; but seven thousand years of wild growth have done away with that.

Elrond spares a few assessing glances at his foster father as they ride northwest, but Maedhros appears quite at ease, and knot of concern that had remained within Elrond since the previous evening slowly unravels.

Elrond would have been content to trot along beside his foster father and grandfather for the rest of the morning without comment, enjoying the cool, dappled light, and the lush, dark green of the towering sequoias; but as the morning passes to afternoon, both Fëanor and Maedhros lapse into a tense silence, staring ahead into the distant stretches of the road as though bracing for something.

"Atarinya?" Elrond ventures, releasing one hand from the mane of his horse to rest on his sword-hilt.

Maedhros looks to Fëanor. "I think this is the stretch of road, Father. The trees have changed, but the stone is familiar enough, even through the grass."

Fëanor's eyes burn with furled flame, and bitter memory. "Yes," he murmurs, hands white in the mane of his horse. "Just ahead."

Ahead, the trees begin to thin. Beyond, the winter sun shines with piercing, painful luminance.

Elrond raises a hand to shield his eyes as he emerges from the treeline, calling his horse to a halt.

At first, he does not understand what lies before him.

The forest ends on the brink of a sheer cliff of barren stone that that plunges at least thirty fathoms downwards; Elrond looks to his right and left, and sees the edge of the cliff and the treeline behind it extend as far as he can see to the north and south, fading towards the horizon in both directions.

There is something very wrong with the way the stone of the cliff is shaped; it is as though it was clawed into the ground. Elrond peers over the edge, and glimpses green moss and wildflowers growing on uneven mounds of shattered stone. The crushed stone and its blanket of bright flowers extends west a full quarter-league until it comes up against a distant face of rock, with a similar dense green forest to its eastern twin coming to the lip of the westward cliff.

Maedhros's horse whickers as Elrond's foster father draws even with him.

"Nienna and Yavanna have been here," Maedhros says quietly, gaze flicking over the moss and wildflowers of the shattered stone below. "I did not think anything could ever grow here. I am glad I was wrong."

"Nienna wept for us all," Fëanor says on Elrond's other side, his lips pressed into a thin line as he gazes at the wide rent in the forest. "She has washed away any darkness that remained in this place. For that I am grateful."

Elrond frowns. Something tugs at his memory; something out of the histories.

Darkness, and an ancient tear through the forest, running from south to north.

Both Fëanor and Maedhros are looking at him now, and both appear pained.

Elrond considers what maps he has seen of northern Aman. Formenos is not directly north of Tirion; it lies three days' ride northwest. If one should draw a line southwards from the city of Fëanor, it would pass just west of Valimar, past Máhanaxar, to–

"The Hill of Ezellohar," he whispers, horror growing within him with each syllable. "The Trees."

Ungoliant.

Maedhros closes his eyes as he catches Elrond's thought. Fëanor's expression carries the echo of fury, even after so many Ages.

Elrond looks at the deep, long wound that Ungoliant carved into the northern forests of Aman seven thousand years ago on her foul crawl north after feasting on the Trees.

His stomach clenches with nausea.

"The road once turned due north here," Fëanor says, his voice like death. "We could smell the foul darkness on the wind long before we reached Ungoliant's path. It had been a mere four days after she passed this way. The messengers from Formenos had ridden south without pause for rest after my father fell, and we did not halt for rest either, riding up from Máhanaxar."

The memory is fresh in both Fëanor and Maedhros's minds; the bite of the newly sworn oath clawing at their hearts, the grief of father and grandfather lost, the despair of the darkness after the fall of the Trees.

Fëanor speaks on, his eyes burning fell with remembered rage. "The stars were still veiled by the dark smoke of Ungoliant's passing. By the light of the torches we saw the trees had withered back from her foul breath and melted like candles from the dark flame of Morgoth, which burned still amongst the fallen trees in the trench below. We followed this tainted path of darkness north, until we reached Formenos at last."

Fëanor does not speak further. He does not need to; Elrond can well imagine what they found there – flame and ruin and Finwe's bloodless, cold body laid aside by what survivors there remained.

The three of them remain on the cliff edge for a long moment, there in the birdsong with the winter sun shining clear above, and the crisp fragrance of the wildflowers below drifting up to them.

Then Maedhros wordlessly turns his horse northwards, following the tree line at the edge of the cliff, and Elrond nudges his horse to follow.

Fëanor turns last, and the shadow on his face only fades when Elrond begins to sing – a riding-song Maglor taught Elrond long ages ago in Beleriand, which Maglor had composed as a child.

Maedhros takes up the song first; and then slowly, so does Fëanor, his voice rising rich and golden in counterpoint to Maedhros's crisp baritone and Elrond's clear vibrato.

And with their song, the flowers bloom anew at the foot of the cliff below.

(:~:)

"Elrond," Fëanor inquires conversationally as he ladles steaming soup into three wooden bowls, "Was there any particular reason you and your brother chose to call Nelyo Atarinya as children? Atarinya is such a formal term; why not call Káno Atya or Atto, and Nelyo the other?

They have laid out their bedrolls well back eastward from the edge of the canyon as night fell; the three travellers now sit across a merry fire with the scent of fresh leaves all about them.

Elrond accepts his serving of supper from Fëanor with a nod of thanks. "There wasn't any particular meaning to it," he says. "We chose to call Maglor Atar, because Adar in our minds was always our birth father. When we came to accept Maedhros as our father as well, we chose Atarinya, because we thought we had outgrown the use of Ada, Atya or Atto. It was only the childish illusion of being grown, of course. We were still quite young."

"Oh, I am quite familiar," Fëanor says, smiling. "It grew worse with my younger children. Nelyo and Káno were already grown, and Tyelko nearly there, when Curvo was born. I had to prevent him from stealing sips of their wine during feasts when he was little more than tottering babe."

Elrond and his grandfather share a laugh at that, but when Elrond lifts his head he notes that Maedhros is carefully focused on his own supper, and has yet to speak.

"Have some more waybread, Atarinya," Elrond says, unwrapping a fresh square.

Maedhros blinks sharply, and raises his head as though startled. "Thank you, pityo."

Fëanor's gaze glitters perceptively. "I gather you and your brother warmed to Káno first? I've heard a few tales of your childhood from Káno's songs, of course, but I must admit I am intrigued."

"Atar was always very gentle with us," Elrond says. "We found it difficult to sleep, those first few weeks. He would sing us to sleep in the evening, and in the morning his face would be the first we would see. Eventually we realised he meant to keep us safe rather than as prisoners. The fëa bond helped."

Old pain enters Fëanor's gaze at Elrond's words, and Maedhros's hands twitch around his bowl.

"I did not realise Káno had bonded your fëar so soon," Fëanor says, brow furrowing in thought.

"We both did," Maedhros says quietly, staring intently at his bowl as he scrapes waybread about its rim. "They were so very young, and their parents long gone. 'Laurë and I– we were terrified they would fade, if there was none to nurture their fëar."

"And nurture them you did," Fëanor says.

"Yes," Elrond says, smiling. "They did. We had a happy childhood, all things considered, even with war always looming on the horizon. I have both you and Atar to thank for it, Atarinya." He reaches out deliberately to take Maedhros's hand.

Maedhros's eyes glisten in the light of the fire. "'Laurë is more deserving of your thanks than I," he says wryly, fingers tightening on Elrond's. "But I am grateful for it nonetheless, my Mírëfinwe."

Elrond looks sharply at his foster father, but there is nothing but warmth in Maedhros's smile, and the rest of their meal passes without incident, with the warm weight of decent fare in their bellies and the cool stars wheeling above.

(:~:)

As the evening deepens into night, Fëanor leaves his grandson brushing down the horses and goes to find his eldest son.

He finds Maedhros rinsing out their bowls and spoons in a small, fast-flowing stream a little ways into the forest, and settles beside him on the stony bank.

"You think he cares for Káno more than he does you," Fëanor says without preamble.

Maedhros pauses in his scouring for a moment, before rinsing out the bowl.

"I am not angry with him for it," Maedhros says calmly. "It has been so since he was a child."

"And yet you are grieved," Fëanor says, taking up a cloth to dry the bowl.

Maedhros shakes his head. His eyes are quite dry when he raises his gaze to meet his father's. "It is only the foolishness of my own heart that causes me to grieve so, Father. I do not doubt Elrond cares for me. But 'Laurë is the one that comforted him best in thunderstorms when he was child; the one he seeks even now should he require an embrace, or consolation. What am I to that? A counselor, perhaps, and a protector. Both good qualities in a father, I am sure, but 'Laurë is deserving of the greater part of his love. I do not begrudge either of them for it."

Fëanor considers his eldest son for a moment. "I think you are mistaken. I loved Elrond as a grandson even before I met him; I have loved Elrond since I learned of him from Káno's songs in the Void. But now I have become better acquainted with him, I can see he gives his love too freely to favour one parent over another thus."

"He does give his love too freely," Maedhros murmurs. "Those first few years after Sirion, when I threw myself into shoring up our defenses in Amon Ereb, doing anything I could to take my mind off the Oath and the blood on our hands – I taught Elrond and Elros the sword, the histories, anything they wished to learn. I gave every moment of what little spare time I had to them. They thought it was for their education. I did not have the heart to tell them it was because I wanted them to be able to kill us if the Oath ever turned us against them."

The starlight is painfully bright on the silvery water of the stream. Maedhros is scrubbing so harshly at the iron pot now his fingers are raw at the edges.

Fëanor waits for the old ache at the reminder of his Oath and its consequences to fade.

"You spent every moment that you had away from your duties teaching them and opening their eyes to a larger world," he says gently, reaching out to still his son's hands. "Little wonder they loved you, when you plainly so loved them."

Maedhros bows his head over his hands. His shoulders rise and fall in a harsh breath.

Fëanor takes the pot from his son, rinses it out, and begins to wipe it dry.

"It matters not that Elrond and Elros sought out Káno first during thunderstorms when they were children," Fëanor says. "Did you not do the same as a child and first seek your mother when you were frightened? Do you think I ever thought you loved me less?"

Maedhros's hair flares crimson in the starlight as he looks to his father, plainly aghast. "Of course not!"

"Nor did I think anything of it," Fëanor says mildly, piling clean dishes into the dried pot and standing. "Children look to their parents for different things, my son."

"I still think things are different where Elrond is concerned," Maedhros points out stubbornly as he rises. "You did not lead an army to sack my childhood home and drive away my mother."

Fëanor raises an eyebrow. "Surely that reasoning would also apply to Káno. This is foolishness, my son."

Maedhros still appears unconvinced, and Fëanor slides an arm out from under the weight of the travelling pot to pull him close.

Maedhros's arms come up around Fëanor's back, holding tightly in return as he once did as a child, plainly seeking comfort.

"Do not be troubled, Nelyo," Fëanor murmurs into his son's hair. "Speak to Elrond. I think you will be surprised if you do."

Maedhros nods as he steps back. His gaze glimmers suspiciously misty in the starlight. "I'll speak to him on our ride back," he says. "I don't know if– I would like to hope."

"In two days' time you will be relieved and think yourself extraordinarily foolish," Fëanor says, smiling. "Now come. We must ensure Elrond takes another travelling blanket. I do not like the look of his bedroll. It is too thin."

"On the latter we are agreed," Maedhros laughs, as they move back through the trees to the camp, where Elrond is banking the fire for the night.

(:~:)

The trees thin away to a great plain of wildflowers, and there, on a golden hill and surrounded still by lofty white battlements, lies Formenos.

The first thought that occurs to Elrond as he beholds the city is that Formenos was built to be a fortress, while Tirion was not.

Tirion is walled, but the battlements there have none of the cunning design that Elrond sees before him now. The jutting of the merlons over the edge of the walls to allow archers to aim directly downwards; the angling of the city walls so that any besieging force would be hard-pressed to find cover from the arrows above. Here and there on the walls Elrond glimpses rusted ballistae and the rotting wood of catapults.

The rent in the earth that marks Ungoliant's path tears straight across the field of wildflowers and up to the walls. There is a gaping hole in the city wall where the gates must have hung; shattered stone and great beams of hardened wood still scatter the ground there.

And yet, despite the wear of years of rain and wind, and the ruin of the city gates, Elrond can see the grace and pride in the design of the walls and the roofs beyond.

"Well, Elrond," Fëanor says somberly. "What do you think?"

"I think it must have been beautiful," Elrond says. "I am sorry to see it abandoned so."

"As am I," Fëanor sighs. "Curvo and I designed it, from the roots of its very walls." He looks to Maedhros. "Neylo, if you would?"

Maedhros nods, and nudges his horse up the hill and through the ruin of the gates. Elrond and Fëanor follow.

If the walls of Formenos had been an echo of its former grace, its streets are haunting and eerie. Ungoliant's path cuts a wide swathe of fallen buildings and shattered steel across the city, but beyond the path of destruction the streets are fair but silent – as though someone might emerge from the darkened doorways at any moment. Save for the slight fading of many of the finer designs in roofs and walls, the stonework has kept remarkably well. Any banners have long rotted away, but Elrond sees countless eight-pointed rayed stars of Fëanor etched over doorways and engraved in paving stones.

"This way," Maedhros says to Elrond. Fëanor has already ridden ahead, the clatter of his horse's hooves echoing like thunder among the empty streets.

Ahead, there is a fair house, larger than the rest, with a gaping hole in its front, where something had smashed through stone and steel with impossible force; the stone is pooled in pitted black clumps about the courtyard as though it had melted in blazing flame and cooled in rain.

Fëanor has dismounted just within the threshold of the house itself. Elrond watches as Fëanor crouches to press a hand to the stone, lowering his head.

"That was where grandfather Finwë passed, holding the door against Morgoth," Maedhros whispers to Elrond as they both dismount. "The attendants had already moved his body before we arrived, but the blood was still visible then."

Breath catching in his throat, Elrond moves forward to Fëanor's side. For a moment he believes his grandfather is weeping; but Fëanor only smiles faintly as he rises, and holds out a hand to Elrond.

"Come," Fëanor says. "I will show you where your great-grandfather is buried. Or your great-great-great grandfather, now I think about it."

They move through many half-collapsed corridors, through others still standing strong despite the years of mildew and damp, where half-rotted tapestries still hang on white marble walls. Great fissures run through the stone floors.

Finwë's grave is in the garden, which has bloomed in a riot of colours after so long unattended; and yet the flowers respond to Fëanor's hummed song, and part to allow him passage.

The stone slab has grown dark and stained with millennia of rain, the elegant letters barely visible; Elrond gathers up a handful of moss to help his father and grandfather scrub the stone clean. Fëanor draws a set of tools from his belt, and a short while later the letters are once more visible.

Here lies Finwë, High King of the Noldor.

Elrond steps forward and crouches before the grave.

"Great-grandfather," he murmurs. "I am glad to have come at last."

Fëanor's face is wet in the winter sunlight, and Maedhros's eyes are shadowed.

Each of them pays their respects quietly, but they do not dwell too long there before Finwë's grave; Fëanor has spoken to his father in the Halls, and what remains here is only a memory.

Both Maedhros and Fëanor are contemplatively silent as they reenter the house. Elrond looks at their shadowed faces, and takes a steadying breath

"Come, Atarinya, Grandfather," he says. "We will search for what we came to seek, and then we will go home."

Maedhros's stony expression softens.

Fëanor's gaze clears, and he smiles fondly at Elrond.

"Yes," he says, and steps forward to press a kiss to Elrond's brow. "Come. Let us make short work of this, and then we will go home, as you have said."

(:~:)

Lantern in hand, Maedhros follows his father and foster son down into the cool darkness of the workshop.

Millennia of pooling damp have hollowed out the stone steps; Maedhros descends slowly, boots slipping on a thick layer of mildew.

Ahead, Elrond inhales abruptly in wonder.

The lamplight pools over the constellation of gems scattered over the workbenches; dusty rubies still set in minute clamps, a tray of sapphires with their velvet cushioning rotted away to nothing, diamonds dotting a mesh of silver so fine that it almost seems like thread.

"Morgoth emptied our vaults," Fëanor says to Elrond. "He did not know about this place. I left my work here as it was when we rode East; there was a more pressing need for armour than there was for fine gems and necklaces."

Elrond responds with an intrigued query, but Maedhros does not listen; he has spotted something concerning.

Maedhros takes a few steps further into the chamber, and raises his lantern to better examine the ceiling.

He frowns.

The stonework is riddled with fine cracks; there is fine dust falling from the largest.

"Father," Maedhros calls. "I think you should see this–"

"Ah, there it is!" Fëanor exclaims.

Maedhros turns sharply to see Fëanor leaping eagerly across the chamber towards a small, intricately etched block of stone, and hears the warning snap of shattering rock above.

Fëanor halts, lantern swinging.

Both Maedhros and Fëanor stare up at the spiderweb of widening cracks above Elrond's head; Elrond looks up, eyes widening, as the snapping of stone turns to thunder.

Maedhros throws down his lantern and leaps for his foster son.

He collides with Elrond's chest, and by the swinging, frenzied light of Elrond's lantern, Maedhros glimpses a slab of stone detach from the ceiling directly above them.

"Atarinya!" Elrond shouts.

Agony erupts in Maedhros's right leg, so sudden and so blazingly bright that Maedhros's vision flashes white.

He opens his mouth to scream.

Then his head smashes into stone, and he knows no more.

Next up: Maedhros wakes to pain unimaginable, and Elrond wrestles with the darkness.

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