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Thank you, anons 1 and 2, for all corrections made!
For E.D.
Autumn
One night I burned the house I loved,
It lit a perfect ring,
In which I saw some weeds and stone
Beyond - not anything.
- Leonard Cohen.
Autumn is here, making it is easy to walk
through the leaves unnoticed. Grey, red, brown, and the unattractive dullness
of his cloak – Hithlum is made of these colours. And there is wind, poisonous
and sweeping, making ash rise off the earth like a swarm of insects. A wash at
the end of a long journey would be good, but the air has settled on the ponds
too, along with the weeds and snakes and slime. Maedhros needs to be careful,
or he might run out of drinking water. He is rationing the contents of his
flask, though. It is not very hard. He might be wrong, but thirst and hunger
seem to matter less than they did once.
The orcs are gone, finally. It took them about half the time it took for
Maedhros' body to heal, to overrun the kingdom and plunder it, and get bored.
There was hardly much, by the end; most of Fingon's treasures are in Balar, or
in what used to be Himring. There is really no need for camouflage any longer.
Hithlum is a wasteland. Besides, Maedhros would hardly stand a chance against
even a single orc patrol, alone as he is. But he is careful, all the same. Out
of habit, perhaps, or in some kind of practice.
Maedhros is only half-healed now. His right arm, where his shield hung and was
shattered, is now in a cast. He has to walk slowly, dragging one foot. Maglor
is afraid the leg may not heal at all if he does not rest it. But he feels it
getting better within him, he feels the bone and flesh knitting itself back.
His body, what he has of it, is replacing itself. His sword and knives all hang
down his right side, as always, concealed suitably along his clothes. He will
never stop taking himself seriously until the very end.
Maitimo,
Try not to wonder why I chose this, of all ways, to get to you. Put it down to
my having little opportunity to being there in person, and forgive the lack of
eloquence - your opinion, not mine - you are being subjected to. Be so kind as
to refrain rom judging my calligraphy, at least. I feel entitled to claim
superiority in that area ever since certain well-remembered events that I shall
not rehash here.
Yes, Maedhros takes himself seriously, to all appearances. His gravity keeps
his people grounded, focused on their task. Soldierly.
We were so careless about these things, you and I. I always reckoned that if
you, being who you are, could get away from scholarship and dedicated artistry,
then I could as well. Russandol, you have been a bad influence on me. Indeed,
who gave me my first hunting spear? Who made it a point to race me around the
city just to see how long it took me to beat him? Who first took me swimming to
the deep places of the sea?
By the Valar. If Káno were writing this, he would make certain to tell you that
that was where it first dawned on me that your eyes are exactly like the sea.
And that reminds me – who first taught me to swear? Too much, too many, these
sins. I demand rightful repayment, as a son of Nolofinwë, for being distracted
from my serious intellectual pursuits in order to follow you to the ends of the
world.
That is hardly
truth. Maedhros remembers long days and nights of argument and debate, measured
and carefully extracted reasons for the way the world was. He was also the
first to drag Fingon to one of their grandfather's councils. Maedhros has
always liked being one step ahead of the competition.
He glances up at the hill. Where the white tower was, once, there is now –
nothing. A charred foundation of stone, not more than twice Maedhros' own
height. The ash floats down from there.
He looks to the left. The army quarters are still there. Mutilated and ragged
beyond recognition, but there. Without a roof.
If someone were to look now, it would be the saddest sight in the world. An
empty landscape such as Hithlum is now is bad enough. And then there creeps in
a lone figure, as grey and silent as the picture itself, wandering with no
apparent direction, a leaf in the wind. The speck of life makes the desolation
worse, somehow. It defiles the death and absence in this place.
But Maedhros knows what he is doing.
Ironic, how even following you to the ends of the world has not quite
achieved what I had in mind. There have been times in the past years when the
pain of being separated from you has been almost too much to bear. It has even,
I will confess, made me angry with who we are. I've often wondered if it would
be so bad, after all, to just leave and live the simple life. Go back to being
unlettered and uncomplicated, like the Avari. We would wander, hunt down our
meals, find streams to drink at, sleep in trees. But then the orcs would come,
and then even we would be unable to do much. Oh, enough damage, I suspect –
your arrogance is highly contagious – but not for long. Not forever.
Of course I would mean for you to accompany me. Without you, I might as well
stay trapped in this howling chimney of a palace and be overlord of all the
Noldor in Beleriand.
Forgive me. If the circumstances are what I imagine they are, and Káno has not
made a terrible mistake, or you have not been snooping around in his room
again, then this must be hard. The thought almost makes me want to put an end
to the exercise and tear up this sheet. But who knows what is to be, Maitimo.
Perhaps you will even look over this in time and be able to laugh at the
admittedly wan humour. No, I don't mean that hurtfully. But things like that
happen. Mortals in all their unpoetic, taciturn way remark, "life goes on", and
it strikes me as strange that we, who have had immortal life at our disposal,
did not consider this obvious wisdom first. Perhaps it was because we never
needed to know it before.
And you have life in you. Life of the purest, fiercest kind, like everything
else about you. Allow a warrior his moment of sentimentality, and let me say it
– I have never known anyone so wonderfully alive, as you. Everything you
do and touch and so much as look at, seems to overflow with the simple power of
your will. That is worth saving, Maitimo, no matter what happens to the rest.
Keep that safe. Keep that burning.
He has direction. He remembers every turn, every corner, even the spot where
one of the cobbles had a slight chink in them. Now it is all a straight line.
But the long way is important. He must step around the erased landmarks, even
if they are nothing but stray bricks now. He is a Noldo. Obeisance must be paid
to the works of the hand, including those that did not fulfill their immortal
destiny.
Even through the poison, the stench from the barracks is palpable. Maedhros saw
the mortals who had been burned on the other side in huge, communal pyres. He
passed them on the way. Not many elves remained here – most were at the battle,
and the few who survived are in his ranks now. He thinks the women mostly
escaped to Balar, and wherever else mortal women go when fleeing from home.
Some of them probably jumped on the pyres to save themselves from the looters.
Curufin still dreams of the Battle. He has the most violent nightmares imaginable,
even though, strangely enough, none of the others do. But then, Curufin has had
an overdose of violence. Everything is catching up on him now. Celegorm tries
and stays the nights with him as much as possible.
Maedhros knows that there are withered bodies in the building. He enters,
taking in what there is to see. Nothing much has been left to look at. The
bodies have decomposed quickly. The guards were probably ushered in here to
make it easier. There are signs of a struggle - the dried blood stains, the
quickly rusting, twisted armour, and then the fervid, rotten air. No elf ought
to die this way. But then, no elf ought to die.
He bends his head and thinks fiercely. Not the words – not the dumb, slight
words the elves evolved to speed the souls of fellow-warriors from Beleriand to
the Halls of Waiting. There are names Maedhros will never utter again, not
after everything he has been through. He does not know what to feel, at first.
But the dark behind his shut eyes squeezes and emits a sudden flash of light.
He directs anger and strength and life around him from his thoughts. To mark
what these people once were.
That is all. He has done what needs to be done.
He continues to walk through the rooms. The walls are crumbling, but are
recognisably walls. There are still rooms.
You do not need this to remind you of me. I do not write with that end in
mind. No, merely a wish to leave you something tangible, something to hold and
recognise as my marks. Because there is nothing I can say, Maitimo. There is
nothing I can write that will not look bald and utterly inadequate, and will
not take away from the things that have passed between us. Words are cheap, all
said and done. Sometimes it occurs to me that we might have overrated ourselves
on being Quendi. And in the time I have been with you and touched you, breathed
you in, felt your presence in my mind, and yes, looked into your eyes that are
like the deep parts of the sea, no matter what they held in them, I have known
for certain that I don't care too much for words. Consider this a gift of touch
and sight, then.
Maedhros can breathe the scent of the parchment he holds, in the big, dank room
at the very top. The sun is trying valiantly to cut through the smog, and up
here, thanks to the creatures that blew up the roof, it succeeds slightly.
A final token, then. I wish I could offer you something more – some heart's
ease, some rest. But exhaustion is a luxury I cannot afford, and that you may
not even begin to consider. Hence this, and the sentiments attached. You
probably have every idea of how I feel right now. You always know. Never mind
that, Maitimo. It likely matters very little to me.
The winds are swirling between the walls, grey and very cold. Mortals frighten
their children with stories about dead spirits that look and feel like these
winds. Maedhros fumbles a little, and find his tinderbox. It is rather a neat
little construction, another one of Curufin's handy inventions for him. A
person need use only two fingers to snap it alight. Sometimes it functions less
than perfectly though. It needs to be clicked twice or thrice to set up sparks.
The parchment flutters precariously between his other two fingers. He needs to
be careful. He has burnt his fingers like this before.
Click.
Click.
Look at this sometimes, and hopefully you will find a little of the writer
in between his lines. At this last, I want you to remember that everything that
you will recognise is a thing of your making. Everything you know and love, is
because of you, and what you have been to me.
Thank you.
Yours,
Findekáno.
Click.
