~*~

"Are you asleep?"

"Deeply."

Smiling at the jest, Elros turned sideways to face his brother, lying quite awake and looking out of place as a fish in a tree. "Have you not slept upon a mattress such as this before?"

"I have yet to sleep upon one still."

"It takes getting used to, I grant you. Well, I am glad you consented to share mine, nonetheless."

They lay quiet for a while, until a horn, then bell, echoed through the night. "Is that of importance?" Elrond asked.

"To someone; it announces that a sailing race has been won."

"At this hour?"

"The Teleri sleep by day, if they can. Now is to them as noontime is to us." Elros watched as his brother tried once more to abandon wakefulness, before staring again into empty space. "I cannot sleep either."

Unable to think of aught else, Elros went on, "I know you wish not to speak of it, but if you must depart tomorrow our time is short. Please hear me. In good conscience, I could not leave my command on the march through Beleriand; nor in good judgment could I march alone into a world that was changing before our very eyes - I did not look for them as you asked, on either side of the Mountains. Forgive me."

Elrond knew this already, and cringed no less to hear it spoken. Yet his reply was unaffected, even calculated, "How did it feel, doing what seemed right despite knowing what I wanted of you differed?"

"Horrible," Elros did not hesitate to say. "Alas that a shadow should lay over our reunion; even as I had anticipated your arrival for years, I dreaded this moment also."

"Then forgive me, for I am at cause, and purposefully." Elrond met his brother's astonished gaze without sharing in his surprise. "When I asked you to look for them, it was a false request. My thought was only to teach you what it meant to be true to yourself, and that it is seldom painless."

Elros sprang upright at this revelation. "You knew I would disobey?"

"Aye, and worse, I knew also how you would feel in doing so. 'Tis the same way I felt, leaving as I did though you asked me to stay. It seems so long ago... Do you remember?"

Elros calmed with the memories. "Of course. Also you said you were bound by your word, not choice." Here his voice became hopeful, "Has that not proven worthless? Alas for Maedhros' fate, but might you now reconsider continuing this quest? You were nearly a child, Elrond, giving your word with bravado, not discretion. Maglor would not hold you to it."

"Nor did I consider consequence at the time – even so, I will not break any promise already made."

Looking upon his twin, Elros perceived more than what was said. He deems this is all he has that is his own. After long thought, Elros laid back down, beyond anger - instead he laughed. "Well, serves us both right. I will leave you lastly, in the end; I do not remember which of us left the other in the first place."

Elrond remembered without doubt; but he took the hand Elros offered, and held his own tongue as the silence lengthened.

"Unfortunate that Cirdan is not here, at least; he would rejoice to meet you, and doubly to see us both together, I think. He fussed over me like a newborn when we met at Nenuial, glad to tears that I was well, and bore him no ill-will."

"Why would you?"

Hearing that those words were drowsy, Elros looked to see his brother's eyes half-closed at last. He spoke softly, "Because of coming too late to the Havens' defense. Gil-galad feared the same, that I –or we- would be blameful towards him."

"Never blamed aught but Morgoth."

"No," Elros reached over to brush errant hair from the other's face, "you never did." Closed eyelids barely flinched when he asked, "Are you asleep?" Still he waited a moment, ashamed that the courage was not there to speak otherwise. "I hope you find what you are searching for, brother. I hope you find yourself, as I have." He moved to place a kiss upon still lips, then slipping into sleep wished for kind dreams and an endless night, that the morning would never take his brother away.

~*~

Hope drove him onwards, though the starless night sky was comfortless and uncertain. Faith sustained him, though rain fell not and the land was barren. The waybread in his pack was reserved for dire need, the water in his canteen even more precious. Foraged roots were a delicacy, fungus better than starvation, rabbits and birds spotted only when dreaming. Thrice he had happened across running streams clean enough to drink from, and thrice he had found the footprints which marked his path.

Outpaced was the cold which first greeted him upon this quest; now all was hot and dry and desolate. Rocks sharp as whetted blades, air stifling as heavy fog – but he walked on, each day less confident that his search would not prove to be in vain, each night longer and darker than the last.

Finally the trail was new, footprints uneven but unending. Smitten with joy of triumph he ran, following that path wherever it would lead. It climbed and veered and sloped, but while the ground remained so would the hunter pursue his prey. This is not a game, he told himself, yet he had won. Eyes to the earth, he stopped only to wipe sweat from his face, not seeing the crevasse ahead, nor that the trail met its final end therein.

Foot for foot he matched the prints, until the heat was unbearable – wondering at the source he looked about. In that moment there was a great tremor, like a falling mountain in the distance, or a wrathful ocean surging below. On hands and knees then he crawled forth, and peering over the precipice at last understood: a river of fire was the chasm before him, and into that abyss Maedhros had fallen, in madness and agony to death and beyond.

There was no time to mourn the loss of Maedhros Feanorion or the Silmaril he bore, for the gorge shook again, and the fire rose in anger, lashing its staining red tongues upon the ledge, smearing Maedhros' last footprints on this earth. Now in dread Elrond fled, hope crushed in the clutches of failure, and he did not look back to see the ground crumbling behind him.

~*~