Disclaimer: All events and characters belong to Tolkien Inc.
Dedication: Happy birthday, Sothis!
Warnings: AU, Maedhros/Fingon slash.
Cinnamon
I will not die, Findekáno, Maedhros tells him one night.
No, Fingon says. No, of course not.
No, Maedhros repeats. That is not what I mean. I mean that – I cannot be
killed.
Fingon is silent.
I learnt it in Angband, he tells him. I learnt that I would not go unless I
chose it for myself.
Fingon moulds himself to the length of Maedhros' body, listening. And what of
me, he asks finally, in a small voice.
Maedhros turns, smiles, and presses his cheek against the black hair,
marvelling as always at the warm, boyish scent of it. You are me, he
says.
~*~
It begins in Aman, where they indulge in strange rituals. Love, they say. We
love. We love each other. It begins in a rainstorm, where they take shelter in
a cave. Then the beach, where their hair tangles together as they lie close,
and the sea-water dries off it.
Your hair, Maedhros says, curling it around his wrists. It smells like
cinnamon.
Fingon smiles shyly, trembles as his elder cousin runs a finger down his spine,
reverent, incredulous.
I love it, Maedhros says.
They walk hand in hand through the fields of Valinor, glowing with something
secret and animal. You are mine, Maedhros says, and Fingon nods. They go
swimming again, and this time Maedhros bruises himself against the rock bottom
of a shallow pool.
Fingon looks troubled, hurt; his lashes tremble with tears.
They are bound together when Maedhros says the words, the light in his eyes
silver and steady. And things are thought and done that become a spell,
powerful magic passing from one to the other. We are bound now, they say in
their innocence. Lying beneath the trees in Lórien, kissing and touching, each
revels in the echo of the other's pleasure that he feels within himself. Bound,
Maedhros says. Half my fëa is yours. Bound. And half yours is mine. Bound.
Our bodies belong to each other.
~*~
He is dead, Maglor says, his beautiful voice cracking, tired. Dead. We lost him
in Angband.
No, Fingon says.
What?
Maedhros is dead, Maglor says. But Fingon's fëa is whole, his body alert. He
wonders at the alarming pain in his body. Every day, the Ice made him feel
beaten, and frozen. Everyone else felt the same way.
He wondered at the welts the hailstorms raised on his skin.
And the Ice made manacles around limbs. Fingers, toes, lost to frostbite.
Ankles, wrists, chained with bitten iron. It hurts. It still hurts.
He would know.
Raising his head, desperate, angry, No! Fingon shouts across the tent. He is not
dead.
Maedhros on the rock, shivers uncontrollably, begs for warmth, any warmth.
~*~
Take my hand, he says, fighting for calm as Maedhros gasps, biting his tongue.
Give me your pain, he says, the blood roaring in his ears. Maedhros' face is
ashen. So is Fingon's.
There is another wave of pain, and Maedhros struggles to breathe through it.
His fingernails, broken and filthy, drive so hard into Fingon's flesh that he
thinks they will cut through to his bones. The blood oozes through the
punctures and drips to the floor, blackening gradually.
When Maedhros gets better, Fingon stays with him as much as he can, helping him
with simple things, learning to eat, dress, write. By and by they take up their
swords again.
Fingon begins to use his left hand.
~*~
Fingolfin dies, and Maedhros goes to Hithlum to pay his respects. There, Fingon
is wasting away, living from day to day in a haze of grief as all about him,
life goes on silent and fearful, stepping around him carefully to avoid his
sudden spurts of anger. With no one's permission, Maedhros goes to his room,
locks the door, and lies down next to him, holding him close. There, Fingon
weeps for the first time after the battle.
In the days after, he works slowly, determinedly, allowing no on else near
them, bringing him back to life. And Fingon responds, and allows himself to be
led, once again, back to the land of the living.
Why did you come, Fingon whispers into his neck. Because I had to, Maedhros
answers. Because your pain is mine. Half your fëa is in me.
In the baths, before Maedhros leaves, they lie together in a cloud of steam,
arms locked around each other. Bound, they think, and renew their
faiths. Bound, leaving their marks on each other's skin. Bound. Plunging
into the depths of their soul.
~*~
Maedhros' squire is an Avari, a small-breasted, long-legged woman, deadly with
her bow. She was found washed up on the river bank where they were hunting,
tortured by orcs and left to drown. Another one who did not die. He took her in
and had her nursed back to health. See, I too can save life, he smiled at
Findekáno when he came to Himring.
She came around slowly, and they stuck together, the one-handed prince and his
act of charity. Her name is Nellas, but no one knows this. Sometimes he calls
her Morwen for her hair, dark and oddly glossy for a Moriquendë. Sometimes he
calls her Duiníel, river maid. More often she is simply hína, child. She
speaks very little.
It is she who travels across the desert of corpses, past the high, smoking
mounds of disintegrating bodies, across to the remnants of the camp attempting
to flee to Balar. She finds who she is looking for, and beckons to him.
The healer is an old elf, Fingolfin's most trusted confidant, the one who saved
the most lives on the Ice. He follows her, fearing her silence, across the
plain to Maedhros' camp, past tents and shacks to a dark room in the very heart
of the place. There Maedhros kneels in silence.
Heal him, she says. Her voice is deep and pleasant, the Quenya accentless. Heal
our lord, that we may honour him.
My lady, he begins, trembling, sickened. There is silence. She lays cool
fingers on his wrist, and then a sword gleams before him. Do your work, she
says quietly.
Maedhros watches, crazed with pain, as the healer begins his work, murmuring
his prayers as he sets to with shivering fingers, peeling off the silk and
metal scorched into the skin, cleaning the wounds, setting broken bones.
She brings him clothes, water, herbs. A comb. Name anything else you may need,
she says.
After the elf, two men enter, doubtful, intimidated by the mighty presence. Now
Maedhros, fever cooling, is able to speak more clearly, and tells them what he
needs. They comply, not daring to ask why one of the Eldar should be so
treated.
Great lord, one of them interposes, great lord, forgive us, but are not the
hröar of elves useless without their fëar?
He nods, slowly. Correct, he says. But the fëa is cared for, do not worry. And
you are the most skilled at the care of the hröa, or so we have heard. You will
give us cause to believe it.
The men work through the night, creating magic like the greatest of artists,
painting, smoothing, scenting. The room is cleaned, slowly, of the metallic
blood-smell, taken over by a faint scent of cinnamon, pleasant and unobtrusive.
At last, their task is over. Taking leave, they set off for their camp in the
grey dawn, bursting with gossip, just as two arrows come flying through the
air, and they are fallen, dead on the road where the elf-healer's hröa has
already crumbled, a little farther down.
~*~
Maglor blanches at the sight of the chest that accompanies them from camp to
camp. He pleads with his brother. It is unnatural, he says. No use. He begs and
reasons, then becomes angry. Fool, he says, enraged. Pervert. You disgust me,
he says, tears running down his cheeks. I love you, please don't. Please don't.
Maedhros travels from one camp to another in silence, his body heavy, leaden.
Tired. He never engages his brother in these quarrels.
The woman Morwen bathes herself and puts on a dark robe. Standing before her
mirror, she raises fingers to her shadow-like hair and threads strands of gold
into it. She stands before herself, staring. Then she goes to her bed and curls
herself into a corner, rocking back and forth, alone.
In the next room, Maedhros sleeps the sleep of oblivion, sleeps in utter
dreamlessness.
I am sorry hína, he tells her, as dusk sets over the blood-ruin of
Doriath.
She continues to scrounge for arrows, saying nothing.
~*~
One day, the twins run into Maedhros' chambers accidentally, looking for a
place to hide from their playmates. It is an old, disused house by the shore,
hung with the remnants of Fëanor's finery. They look around, at the rich drapes
that will not quite hide their small ankles, at the bed that is too low, and
their impatience grows.
There, Elros points to the large box on a stand, maybe that will open.
As their chubby fingers try and prise open the lid, a shadow falls over them.
They look up in fright, and realise it is Morwen.
What are you doing, she asks, her smile bright.
We need a place to hide, they tell her.
She shakes her head. Not there, she says. There is no place.
Their faces fall, but she produces a black cloak, long and trailing, and,
draping it over herself, billows it so that they can hide, one on each side of
her.
Come, she says in a stage whisper. Let us begone.
They leave the room on tiptoe, stifling their giggles.
~*~
The last burst of splendour, this fall of the mighty. The end of all things
beautiful, the watching Noldor think.
He maintains a spark of his coherence even through the Silmaril-ache. At the
last, he neither slides nor falters. His fall into the chasm has the air of
premeditation, of inevitability. It is over before they know it.
From the ragged crowd on the nearby hill, the woman utters a single, sharp cry,
makes as if to run down. They turn and hurry down the opposite side, try, and
fail, to take her arms and drag her away.
She waits at the top, her keen eyes watching the fire rise out of the chasm,
and spread across the surrounding plain.
Later, back in the deserted camp, someone finally breaks open the lock on the
chest. The sea wind blows into the room, diffusing the faint tang of cinnamon
in the air. Under the lid there are only scattered ashes.
Author's Notes:
So I was thinking about Tolkien's idea that elvish bodies disintegrate very
soon after the fea flees. And then the vaguely-canon-more-fanon notions of
souls bonded in marriage. Both the ideas got me wondering if there was any way
they could be reconciled; this is the result of that. Feel free to disagree
with this. My grasp of Noldorin metaphysics is admittedly none too firm.
Thank you to Tehta for a most stimulating beta. :) All mistakes are mine.
Celebdil will recognise some elements from her poignant and compassionate view
of these characters; Thank you, C.! And, yes, at the very end, thanks to
William Faulkner. For the basic idea.