Music for this chapter: Temptations, Austin Wintory

Chapter 2: The Better Father

Maedhros wakes to shattered agony in his right leg and the coppery taste of blood on his lips.

He wrenches his eyes open against the pounding ache in his head, but to his horror, there is naught but utter darkness about him.

Where is he?

His leg is caught, he cannot remember how he came to be here, and he is surrounded by shadow.

Horror drenches him in ice.

Angband.

No– there had been the precipice at Thangorodrim, but Findekáno had come for him, and cut off his right hand to bear him back to Mithrim–

The fingers of his right hand skitter over harsh rock, and Maedhros's heart lurches with despair.

No. Morgoth's trickery could not have– Findekáno had been so real–

His desperate inhale catches on a scream as his leg shifts. Maedhros shutters the noise into a soft groan between his teeth out of long practice, cringing against the bare rock in preparation for blazing light and fiery whips.

"Atarinya! Atarinya!"

A warm, familiar hand in his; another at his cheek, urgently wiping away his despairing tears. The sweep of hair over his brow brings with it a scent of lemon soap that so reminds him of his childhood home in Tirion; his mother used to make soap out of the lemon trees in her garden there, and all his family would smell of citrus after they washed with it.

The scent brings him back to the present, gives the voice that murmurs desperately against his hair a name.

"Elrond," Maedhros whispers. He takes another slow breath, and fights a groan. The air is very close here, and the pain in his leg rises each moment as he grows more alert. His fëa bond with Elrond flares dully in his clouded mind.

"Atarinya," Elrond says. There is something not quite right about his voice. It keeps catching on the syllables, as though hiding something; and the sound of his words seem overloud, as though they are in an enclosed space.

Maedhros blinks a little.

Ah. The workshop in Formenos.

His first instinct is almost to summon his blazing swords from his fëa for light, but the more he considers it, he had better not. There is no telling how much air has been trapped down here with them.

"You are unhurt?" Maedhros murmurs, raising his free hand up over his head and following his foster son's hair until his fingers reach Elrond's cheek.

A pause. Maedhros notes abruptly that Elrond's mind is firmly shuttered, and has been since he woke.

"I will be fine," Elrond says. His cheek leans into Maedhros's palm. "But you are injured, Atarinya. Try not to move."

The pressure about Maedhros's leg is slowly growing – it is as though his right leg below the knee has been caught in a vise that grows steadily tighter.

Maedhros shakes his head once, hissing against the spike of agony that produces, and attempts to reach for Elrond's mind – both to offer assurance and to ensure that Elrond is truly unhurt.

Elrond's mind slips out of his grasp like ice, and Maedhros grimaces in the darkness.

He opens his mouth to object, but memory catches up to him and turns his veins cold.

"Father," he gasps. "Did he–" Maedhros throws his thoughts outwards, seeking, but the pain in his leg and his skull flares anew and he cries out, the cool flare of ósanwe snapping back into his mind like a whip.

"Atarinya!" A shifting of cloth as Elrond curls closer; Maedhros feels his foster son speak urgently against his brow. "I have felt about us best I can. Your leg is caught within the fallen stone, and you took a blow to the head when you pushed me out of danger. Do not attempt ósanwe, and do not move. I have tried to find Grandfather, but the stone here is strange. My thoughts cannot easily pass through."

Maedhros grits his teeth as he leans his cheek against Elrond's, drawing long, shuddering breaths.

It does not surprise him that his father would have found a manner of shielding his workshops from prying minds – perhaps Morgoth would have gained even earlier entry if Fëanor had not done so – but in this particular instance, Maedhros finds himself cursing his father's meticulous wariness.

But he cannot believe his father is once more dead – not after so much.

He swallows against the taste of dust, and nods against Elrond's cheek.

"My leg," he says, hoarsely. "How bad is it?"

Elrond is quiet for a long moment. "It is difficult to say," he begins at last. "There is no light, and by touch alone I think your leg is caught in the stone from just below your knee. But this reminds me," he shifts, and Maedhros feels Elrond's hand against his shoulder. "This might hurt; tell me if it does."

Maedhros remains still as Elrond's hands check his skull, neck, arms, chest, and abdomen with the quick efficiency of a healer, even without the benefit of sight; there is no pain when Elrond's palm pushes against his stomach, and his arms and left leg can move well enough.

Elrond exhales. "Your spine and your hips are uninjured. For that I am grateful."

Elrond's hand has halted at the edge of the stone – at the edge of the shattered mess of pain that is Maedhros's lower right leg. Though strangely, it is not so bad as before, having slowly grown number since he woke.

Maedhros is suddenly aware of the coolness of Elrond's fingers there – much cooler than strictly normal.

"Your calf is warmer than it should be," Elrond says quietly.

"Infection?" Maedhros murmurs.

"Infection is the least of our worries," Elrond says. His mind is still veiled closed, but Maedhros senses his foster son's thoughts whirling there just behind the veil, alight with urgency.

"Don't worry," Maedhros says. "The pain isn't anywhere near how bad it was when I first woke."

Elrond shifts abruptly. The sound of it breaks off in a gasp and shifting sleeves, as though Elrond has wrapped an arm around himself.

Faintly, behind the shutters of Elrond's mind, Maedhros senses pain.

"Elrond," Maedhros says, alarmed, but his foster son has seized his hand.

"Atarinya, you need to listen to me very carefully," Elrond says. There is a terrible authority to his voice that Maedhros has not heard before, and it strikes a chill into his heart.

Elrond speaks urgently. "Can you move your leg at all behind where it is caught in stone?"

"No," Maehdros says. "I believe it is broken."

"Can you feel it?"

"Yes," Maedhros says, then pauses to reconsider. "Well. Most of it. It has grown steadily numb."

Elrond hisses.

"I should not have stopped singing," he murmurs. "I was singing before you woke, keeping the pain and the swelling down as much as possible. I cannot reach your broken leg through the stone, but I believe it might have helped. I will begin again."

"Wait," Maedhros whispers, flinging out a hand and feeling about the stone until he finds Elrond's fingers. "What are you not telling me, pityo?"

"We must stop the swelling," Elrond says, the words coming quick and in haste. "If the pressure within your leg grows too great, it will further impede your blood from finding its way to your foot. The muscles and tissues will be deprived of blood; you might lose your leg."

A moment, where Maedhros considers the thought of losing his right leg below the knee.

He had once survived five hundred years without his right hand, and yet, he had been able to ride a horse, had been able to run; he had learned to wield a sword with his left hand better than his right.

Part of him knows that Curufin might make him a leg of metal should he require it, and perhaps in time he might learn to run and to ride with it; but the greater part of him is still quietly terrified.

"I see," Maedhros whispers. "Would it be easier if you had light by which to work with?"

"Yes," Elrond says. "But it would not be wise to bring flame into this space. There has been enough air so far, but I do not know if it is limited."

Maedhros thinks of the small, flameless lanterns his father once made by the dozen when Maedhros was a child.

He is unsure if he would know how to make one with a full workshop at his disposal; he is even less sure of his ability to sing one into being, with his head still pounding and dust in his throat.

But he must try.

"I will attempt to sing up a lantern," he whispers. "Thank you, Elrond."

"There is no need to thank me," Elrond says, and his voice is like steel; his Fëanorian stubbornness rising in his words. "You need not be concerned, Atarinya. Whatever horrors you may be thinking, I will not allow it."

Maedhros smiles in the darkness and tightens his hand on his foster son's; then, as Elrond begins to sing, so does he.

(:~:)

Elrond sings carefully and calmly, no matter the fear that churns in his stomach, the thirst in his throat, or the pain of the broken rib that shifts in his side.

He begins with a song to lessen his foster father's pain; then he pushes his power of his fëa through the hand he has pressed to his father's leg, and sings to bring down the swelling; sings to push blood through the collapsed vessels, and life to the tissues and muscles that had been deadened by pressure.

It helps Elrond as well, to sing. There is a part of Elrond's mind that continuously blurs the edges of his awareness, like water washing through ink; it murmurs that the darkness about him is the Void, and that a little ways off Morgoth is laughing still.

Elrond shakes his head vehemently to clear it, and pours ever more of his strength into Maedhros's trapped limb.

Maedhros had been humming trickling melodies in the indecipherable way of Fëanor and his sons when they work fëa into form in the manner the Ainur and Maiar of the Void taught them; but as Elrond's song continues, Maedhros's voice breaks off in a muffled groan of agony.

"Atarinya," Elrond exclaims, pressing his free hand to his side as his broken rib protests his sudden movement.

Maedhros's dark chuckle is wet with new tears. "I think your song is working as intended," he gasps. "The numbness is gone, and the pain is back. It seems a dozen times worse. I suppose that is a good thing?"

"Yes," Elrond says, hating the word even as it escapes his lips. "Can you move your foot at all, now?" He uses the short moment afforded by his question to carefully feel his broken rib. To his relief, it does not seem to have shifted, though it throbs with every beat of his heart.

"No," Maedhros says, after a pause. "I think my ankle is trapped, as well. I– I am sorry, pityo. But could you– could you do something about the pain?"

Elrond notes with alarm that Maedhros's voice is trembling.

All thoughts of his own hurts instantly flee from Elrond's mind. His free hand darts from his side to fumble for his foster father's wrist.

The pulse there is thready and fast – far too fast.

Elrond opens his mouth and sings.

He sings of cool, snowy winters in Imladris, where the crisp winter wind had seemed to drive away all hurts; he sings of warm hearths and miruvor, and the seep of the Elven liquor into blood, driving the crimson lifeblood around his foster father's form.

Maedhros's ragged, desperate breathing slows, and settles into deep, steady breaths.

Elrond finishes his song with a hacking cough; the stone dust has gotten into his throat. His rib blazes with pain as his diaphragm spasms, and he buries his face into a grimy sleeve to muffle the low murmur of agony that hisses between his lips.

"Pityo?" Maedhros's voice is hoarse, but far steadier than before. "Elrond, what was that? Are you hurt?"

Elrond takes a slow breath. It comes out as a thin wheeze, and his Maedhros's mind flares with concern.

"I am fine," Elrond says, quietly, placing a hand against his ribs and folding the other in his foster father's fingers again. "The dust."

Careful examination determines that his rib has shifted, but only slightly. There is no gurgle of blood in his breath. Elrond rests his brow against the uneven surface of the fallen stone beside him, and strives to steady his shallow breathing.

When he is sure he can speak without gasping, he tightens his fingers on Maedhros's hand. "Has the pain improved, Atarinya?"

"A little," Maedhros says, wanly. "Will you have to sing again soon?"

"In a short while," Elrond says, pushing down on his dread at singing again with the renewed agony in his side. "But I think we have a little time until then."

They rest awhile, the two of them, with only the sound of their breaths for company. Elrond finds his awareness blurring at the edges again, and runs his thumb over Maedhros's knuckles to ground himself. This is not the Void, and he is not alone.

"I am sorry," Maedhros whispers. "I do not think I will be able to sing up that lantern."

Despite himself, Elrond chuckles, and winces at twisting in his side. "That is quite all right, Atarinya. Rest. Tell me if your leg begins to grow numb again, or if the pain grows too great. I will sing then."

"Very well," Maedhros murmurs.

"I must say," Elrond says, attempting to liven the mood, "I am glad Atar chose not to come with us."

Maedhros shifts, hissing with pain, and settles again, both hands clasped tight around Elrond's fingers.

"I too am glad," he whispers. "Better I than him."

Elrond frowns, and fumbles in the darkness with one hand until he finds Maedhros's shoulder. "Atarinya," he says. "None of that."

"No," Maedhros says. There is the sound of cloth shifting against stone, and his cheek presses into Elrond's knuckles. "It is the truth."

"Atarinya–"

"No," Maedhros repeats, and his voice is grieved, but plainly determined. "It will be a few days yet before we are expected back, and few more until they find us, if they send out search parties. I think you will survive until then, but I am not so sure I will, given the state of my leg. Perhaps Námo will be merciful. He was overruled last time."

"You will cease this line of thought immediately," Elrond hisses, surprising himself with his voice; he finds himself suddenly sounding very much like Fëanor. "I am a healer. I will decide whether your chances of survival are too slim."

Something about Maedhros's fëa suggests he is smiling.

"I am so very proud of you, my Mírëfinwë," he murmurs, turning his head to press a kiss to Elrond's hand there on his shoulder. "And I love you very much. But 'Laurë– Maglor was always a better father than I was to you. I am glad you will still have him with you when I am in the Halls."

Elrond cannot believe what he is hearing. His breath is coming quicker, now, and the broken rib in his side screaming with pain where he refuses to raise his voice.

"You cannot be serious," he says, hearing his own voice from far away. "You were always a good father. You and Atar, both. I never thought of you as lesser than him. I care for you both equally."

Maedhros remains silent at that. His mind flutters closed, but old grief seeps through the cracks.

Horror drenches Elrond like an icy rainfall.

"No," he whispers. The pain in his side is nothing. He cannot accept– Maedhros could not possibly think–

"You do not have to protect me, you know," Maedhros says. There is a tremble in his voice now, and Elrond suspects it is not entirely due to his leg. "I have known for a long time. 'Laurë was always so kind to both of you. I tried, but I could never – the Oath was always lurking in my thoughts. 'Laurë sang you your lullabies, embraced you when you were afraid. I know why you care for him more than you do for me. I do not begrudge it."

Elrond cannot breathe.

It is one thing to realise his father thinks Elrond does not love him as much as he does his other parents.

It is quite another to hear it said so plainly, when said father might be dead in a few days' time.

Elrond lifts his hand off Maedhros's shoulder to press to his mouth. Moisture seeps over his fingers.

He is weeping. He is not sure when he began.

His foster father's fingers around his other hand had loosened, as though expecting Elrond to let go; but when Elrond's choked breath at last escapes in a sob, Maedhros's fingers scramble to close around his.

"Elrond?" Maedhros says, alarmed. "El–"

"You will be silent," Elrond says, the words of power burning up out of his lips and tearing a gasp of pain with them – his rib has shifted further.

Maedhros halts mid-syallable.

Stars and iridescent lights blossom in Elrond's vision as his ribs scream in his side. One of the lights does not fade; it grows brighter, and brighter, until suddenly Elrond sees it for what it is – a blossom of yellow luminance shining from a fissure in the stone.

The fissure grows wider as stones tumble from its edges; and then suddenly a grimy hand thrusts through the gap in the stone, grasping a small, compact crystal contraption with the soft glow of candlelight caught within it.

Elrond blinks away the spots in his vision; when his sight clears he finds himself looking into Fëanor's grime-streaked face, framed by fallen stone. Fëanor has shouldered one arm out of the narrow tunnel the rest of his body is in, and the light of the flameless lantern within his fingers casts luminance on the small hollow where Elrond and Maedhros rest.

"Grandfather," Elrond says, numbly.

"Father!" Maedhros exclaims gladly. By the light of the lantern, his face is a horrible shade of bleached white, but he smiles nonetheless.

"Nelyo. Elrond." There is a line of dried blood where Fëanor's grime-smeared hair meets his brow, but his gaze is sharp as he takes in the dust on their faces. His eyes narrow as it alights on the rubble around Maedhros's leg, and narrow further as they land on Elrond's tear-stained cheeks.

Elrond hurriedly wipes at his face.

"Grandfather," he says. "Are you injured?"

"A few minor scratches here and there, but no broken bones," Fëanor says, eyes glittering as he looks to Maedhros. "Nelyo?"

"Broken leg," Maedhros says quietly. "I am indebted to Elrond. He has already saved my leg twice."

Elrond breathes shallowly through the ache in his side, and compresses his anger and his sorrow at his foster father's earlier words until it is a sharp, tightly furled shard within his chest.

His grandfather's sharp gaze turns to him. It is almost unsettling in its intensity. "Elrond?"

"I am well," Elrond says. He turns his attention back to his foster father's leg, examining the swollen edge of skin that where the rubble meets Maedhros's shin.

"You were weeping," Fëanor says pointedly. He places the flameless lantern on the floor of the small space and begins to extricate himself from the narrow passage with difficulty.

"I was weeping because I was attempting to convince Atarinya he would not die here," Elrond says, with more bite than he intended.

Maedhros flinches against the ground, and Fëanor's gaze blazes into flame as it turns upon his son.

"Elrond is right," Fëanor says, in a tone that brooks no argument. "None of us will be perishing here." He has crawled fully into the cramped space now, and despite his torn tunics and dust-spattered hair, he appears every inch still the High King he once was.

Fëanor moves over to Maedhros, shuffling under the low ceiling of fragmented rock, and bends to press a kiss to his son's brow.

Maedhros exhales, a low sound of relief, and leans into the brief touch of Fëanor's hand to his cheek.

Elrond makes the mistake of meeting his foster father's gaze as Fëanor sits back. Elrond looks away sharply, drawing the shutters of his mind tightly closed; he dares not look back to see Maedhros's expression.

Then Fëanor moves to Elrond, and Elrond allows himself to be held, and feels the gentle pressure of Fëanor's lips against his hair. It takes every mote of strength Elrond possesses not to bury his face into his grandfather's shoulder and weep.

He will do everything he can to ensure his father keeps both his leg and his life, and address his howling grief later – when he can find some cool, solitary chamber, and weep that his father should think that Elrond does not love him.

"I must continue to sing," he says, and is surprised by how steady his own voice is. "We must keep the swelling down, and the blood flowing."

"A moment," Fëanor says, settling beside Elrond and Maedhros. "I presume both of you attempted to breach the stone with thought?"

"We both did," Elrond says. "To no avail."

"As did I," Fëanor says. The solitary light of the flameless lantern casts his face in deep shadow, and yet is smiling, a cunning smile of challenge. "But I designed these walls myself. I have reason to believe we might find more success if we pooled our strength."

"I would advise against Atarinya making the attempt," Elrond says, glancing carefully at Maedhros and looking away immediately; there is a wealth of pain and regret in his foster father's gaze.

"I would agree," Fëanor says. "It will likely take no little effort, and you should not exhaust yourself further, Nelyo. Now, Elrond, we must choose a particular subject. One that either of us preferably already shares a fëa bond with."

Elrond exhales slowly, hand drifting towards his side and lowering again before his grandfather can catch the motion.

"Atar, then," he murmurs. He grimaces at the thought; Maglor would likely go half-mad with worry upon receiving such a message.

Fëanor nods. "I concur." He holds out a hand to Elrond without preamble.

Elrond takes a shallow breath, binds the pain of his broken rib behind mental walls of iron, and takes Fëanor's hand.

It is like thrusting his mind into fire. Fëanor's spirit burns like a forge with everlasting fuel; it sears the cool waters of Elrond's mind even gazing into it. But Fëanor's will melds with his own, a lance of blazing fire and crystalline water, and together they spear through the darkness of collapsed stone and crumbled marble, up through to an evening sky studded with icy stars, crashing through the shadowed forest branches, racing southeast on the breath of the winter wind from the north, down in a dizzying spiral to the white city of Tirion on the hill of Túna, and plunging through the white marble roof of the great opera house of the Finwëan district to leap directly into the widening eyes of the dark-haired harpist who stands stunned before his silent audience.

(:~:)

Maglor Fëanorion drops his harp.

It clatters across the stage, a priceless thing of gold set with gems. Several strings snap.

Gasps from the audience. In the front row, Glorfindel, Lord of the House of the Golden Flower, stiffens, and places a belaying hand on his friend Ecthelion's wrist.

Maglor does not move. He is breathing far too quickly.

Then, as murmuring rises from the crowd, Maglor twists on a heel and sprints off stage.

He slams his shoulder against the door of the side-entrance and lunges onto the torch-lit evening streets of Tirion; he races up the long avenue towards the King's house and shoulders his way past the guards, his unraveling hair a long pennant of shadow behind him.

Only then does Maglor open his lips; his shout shakes the rafters of the King's house and sends every roosting bird in the King's gardens shrieking for the sky.

He screams Arafinwë, then Nolofinwë, then simply Uncle, and when Finarfin appears, Maglor curls shaking hands into his uncle's sleeves and speaks.

The wine glass tumbles out of Finarfin's hands and smashes across the marble, like watered-down blood staining smooth white bone.

The messengers sprint out of the house minutes later, and scatter the news like quicksilver to the many members of the house of Finwë as the King's stables erupt into frenzied activity.

Next up: Maedhros takes a turn for the worse.