Beneath the starlight they stood together, side on side, steadying each other. The velvet sky was beautiful and traces of cloud made it seem like a winter blanket, fringed in snow fox fur. But Maedhros and Fingon questioned the pretty thing between them and knew the night to be cooler than those in Valinor.
Neither realized it before. On all accounts, they should not be able to compare coldness and warmth of the wind so easily, nor, more importantly, remember old winds with a tingling on their skin.
Many, many, many. Times beyond count of all the stars they had ran into the wilds of Valinor and watched- everything-together. The birds, the waves, the stars the waning and waxing light of the Trees. Finwe's house is never quiet, nor Fingolfin's, nor Feanor's. They had many sons and many competitions. Fingon and Maedhros found pleasure in the silences they felt together.
They're remembering it all differently now. The memory pass over them like water upon the parched. It had been the balm upon their childish wounds, feather soft upon the flesh when the world was so young . They had never looked at it. Glimmering and shimmering, now it raised naked and beautiful against all the other thoughts in their minds.
Ice or the high winds upon a cliff be damned. Experience could not leave its terrible mark when the warmth of the past sailed back in such floods.
The winds of Middle-Earth were not as warm as Valinor. Maedhros did not turn his head. Fingon held Maedhros's hand, scarred and a little less shapely than in Valinor, just a little tighter.
-=-=
"A message for you, milord." Fingolfin turned, and raised his hand to shield his eye from the sun. The silver star of Feanor came into view, embroidered on the tunic of a young elf. He cradled a box under one arm. In his other hand was a letter. He handed the latter to Fingolfin, bowing slightly.
Fingolfin smiled when he broke the seal. Fingon's curious closed hand with its letters going stiffly up and down brought him a certain reassurance. It begged forgiveness for abandoning camp in the middle of the night and mentioned that Maedhros and he had spoken together. "Peace," Fingon wrote, "Will prevail at the end, father. I have faith, and my cousin has promised his support. We shall cleave our people together as it were."
He looked up, and noted that the Feanorian messenger was still there.
"Does he require a reply?" He asked, an eyebrow arched. The messenger blushed, his pale face was suffused with a faint rush of pink.
"No, milord, but I have another message. And I am to give this box to you." The elf said. Fingolfin reached out his hand for the letter. Instead, he felt the weight of the box balanced on his hand. Fingolfin glanced at the youth, who seemed to be looking at the grass. He thought of a reprimand, and decided that perhaps it was not his place after all. The elf bore a remarkable resemblance to one of the Feanorions. Dwelling upon the matter for only a little while, Nolofinwe opened the box and blanched.
Finwe's crown sat resplendent with rubies set within silver and gold. Feanor had fashioned it when he was very young. Nolofinwe remembered his brother being displeased with it later on, but Finwe had been loath to change it. He had never imagined that he would see it again. They brought it here?
The youth fumbled in his pockets and drew out another letter. Wordlessly, he hand it to Fingolfin, who, in his hastiness, broke the elaborate red seal into pieces.
Greetings to Nolofinwe, son of Indis and Finwe,
We are cousins, and pressed for time in this place, so allow me speak plain. Brother of Curufinwe my father, I, Nelyafinwe, am of the eldest House of the line of Finwe and the heir to the authority of that House. The kingship, let us not avoid that word, is my birthright. Should you wish to challenge my claim, then by whatever you hold dear, do so. Do not stir the trouble from the seething unease our circumstances have forced upon us. I have a name that I do not wish to sully by the weight of a hollow crown, nor do I desire a kingship without substance.
Here is the crown our king wore when he walked upon the Valinor. I offer it to you freely now, and all that you think should come with it. I have never ruled the debates of the court nor sat in the hall of judgement in Tirion, but I have seen how eyes glitter when near their heart's desire. Though I may not know the duties of those who sit on thrones, nor the proper dignities of one, let me remind you, there had never been a Noldor king in Middle-earth.
May Eru keep you, Nelyafinwe Maitimo
He folded the paper again. Drawing a deep breath, Nolofinwe sighed. He regretted sending Fingon now. He should have known. Any matter between his son and Maedhros, always turn personal be they matter of court or family. They saw each other as principle characters when placed upon the same stage. Nolofinwe turned to the messenger. He thought he knew him, but he had been a babe in his mother's arms when Fingolfin last saw him in Formenos.
"Did he say that aught about the box, Tyelperinquar?" The youth blushed a deeper red before meeting Fingolfin's even gaze.
"He said, milord, that you may keep whatever's inside for as long as you wish." The grandson of Feanor hesitated, "Yet you may not keep the box."
The man's perverse! Fingolfin nearly cried. He looked at the woman and the child who glanced curiously in their direction, then at this scion of Finwe, who seemed to be studying him. A little way off, members of his entourage approached from the side of the open sward. Fingolfin looked down at the crown again, gleaming in the sunlight. He turned to Celebrimbor.
"Tell your lord, I cannot accept so dear a gift."
-=-=
Fingon lay with his head upon Maedhros's breast and searched for a song, poem, or verse to sing. The thought was older than grieves and joys, more boundless than the heavens or the sea.
Maedhros's hand smoothed through Fingon's hair. He unwound the golden threads and the thick plaits until Fingon's hair flowed over his skin like water. Down his bare shoulder ran a rivulet of a russet strand twined within a pale finger.
Tabards or surcotes abandoned, endearments worn thin and vanishing, the stars looked down upon the entwined figures and thought it to be marble or ivory hewn
The stars were high and faraway. They were wrong. (Here on the mortal earth)
Thigh against thigh, arm on arm, chest upon chest, the small spaces between them were for living, fighting, kisses of skin pressed against skin. Maedhros's trembling hand smoothed down Fingon's quiet back. The flesh of their bodies quivered with each shaky touch, each uncertain caress. Fingon's warm lips brushed across Maedhros's scarred legs. Fingers tightened upon hips as body arched, and their elaborate graces threw a reflection upon the starlit waters: an image out of smitten recollection.
They were not stone, and better than stones could form. No hammered form nor enameled finish could stand natural to peerless desire.
The perfect unchaste kisses to burn perfect unchaste passions ...Fingon's gasps and Maedhros's sighs...
O nameless pleasure...nameless love...
The breaths of the world were Fingon's breaths.
And the breaths followed the rhythm of Maedhros's heart.
Here lay beauty, matchless and strange.
Here lay sorrow in the sweet, crumpled grass. Fingon found no song for them to sing. Nor poem, to mark the moment.
"But lay your hand upon my eyes...."
"Bind my hands behind me..."
"Beneath the dark stream, or in the darkest dream..."
"My soul will find your soul."
And in the echoes near the holy fire, there gathered eternity.
-=-=
He said many things of the fighting form, the dancing form, and the courtly form. He taught the little children and wrote the Book of Manners: Revised Edition.
"Well, Maglor, tell me of the grieving form."
"What for? You glow." Maedhros shrugged. But he did glow, luminous, bright, a magnificent beacon in the shadowy tent. Outside, the sun had begun its slumber.
"Maglor, I only have one hand." Maglor looked askance at his brother and noted red highlights of his hair mingling with the red sun. The eyes no longer seemed feverish, and yet, nor do they seem to be fully at peace.
"We have little used for grieving forms," Maglor finally said, glancing at the empty end of a sleeve before turning and dipping his pen into the inkwell, "Besides, I have nothing to teach you brother mine."
"On the contrary, dear songbird, you who loved and married have everything to teach to one such as an I, bereft of grace and dignity." There was something in the voice, perhaps a slight hitch of breath that drew Maglor's attention. He sprinkled a dash of salt on the glistening manuscript before standing up and surveying his brother in detail. Maedhros seemed better in mood and body. The flesh Melkor froze had finally thawed and Maedhros walked only a mite unsteadily. Maedhros, who learned early to enjoy attention, preened a bit under Maglor's scrutiny.
"You look as graceful and as dignified as I left you this morning." Said Maglor finally, though a bit facetiously and looked at the sundial on his desk. He made his usual graceful sign for Maedhros to excuse himself. Maedhros did not move.
"I have given the kingship to Nolofinwe." Maglor froze in mid-gesture. His flourish crumpled; language was lost. He found his thoughts transcribed in music notes.
"What?"
"Worry not, brother mine, he did not accept." Maedhros waited with a bored expression as Maglor started humming.
"No..." Maglor snatched back his thoughts and rendered it into speech, "Of course not." He paused, felt his face warm, and waited for a particularly intricate measure to arrange itself into words again, "He did not dare."
"It is better, isn't it, that I remain king?" Maedhros seemed hesitant. Maglor still found difficulty speaking. "Isn't it?"
"Of course it is." Maglor answered, attempting to deny an obvious undercurrent from asserting itself in Feanorian elocution. You have tempted him. Else, you were tempted. It's not something one says to one of his brother's temperament or experience.
"Good, I just wanted to know." Maedhros said, the words oddly clipped. He walked over and placed his hand on Maglor's shoulder. Maglor almost jumped as it landed heavily. Maedhros looked at his brother sternly in the eye, "I trust you with this, you understand."
"You trust Fidekano." Too late. The words were out. Maglor felt a violent jerk upwards and gasped as Maedhros grasped the collars of his shirt. Maglor had no doubt that if Maedhros was what he was, he would find himself bodily lifted off the ground. He stared at the tips of Maedhros' boots, grass stained and slightly muddied and, unrepentant, wondered whether Findekano tied Maedhros's boot laces that morning.
"He's Nolofinwe's son. I am Curufinwe's." Maedhros said. Maglor did not look at him. After a moment, and a long sigh, he felt the fingers loosen. He could breath again, but he could not speak. When he finally looked up, notes pounding in his ears, Maedhros was gone and the sky had darkened with thick black clouds.
-=-=
The slim adolescence of his form has been stripped, a certain graceful severity of the flesh replaces it. Curufin thinks, with a little sadness in his heart, that his son is ready for war.
"He's not." The voice belongs to Maedhros.
"He needs to be." Curufin says bitterly. On the practice field, Celebrimbor's wooden practice sword meets his opponent's with a terrible ease. Curufin remember upsetting crucibles in Feanaro's forge when he was Celebrimbor's age. He does not need to turn around to know that Maedhros now carries his sword on his right.
"He's not ready." Maedhros says again. His eyes misted over as Celebrimbor successfully bore the other to the ground, blunt, wooden sword point on another's throat, "We won't always have war."
"He shall fight in the ranks before you learn to wield your sword with your left as easily as you do with your right." Curufin turns around and smiles at his brother, "Don't attempt to comfort me, Russandol, I am already resigned."
"To what?"
"All this, Russandol, all this." Curufin sweeps his hand across the field below them. Wrestling matches, sparring matches, archery matches, competitions of horsemanship were filled with the usual motley of excited voices. There's no wind today and the air hang thick with the smell of pine. Maedhros closes his eyes and allows the sounds of laughter and cheering to wash over him. "All this," Curufin whispers, eyes upon the occasional starlike gleam of metal on the tip of a lance or on the point of a helmet. He wishes to weep, to remember his own childhood, his brother standing beside him, saying: "Don't worry, all will be all right, all will be forgiven. Father can make another."
Meanwhile, Celebrimbor pulls his friend up before they took their position again. Bow, arrows, sword and dagger, these are their playthings.
-=-=
There's was string between them now. No, a string is flimsy, too weak. Perhaps it's some sort of metal, but that seemed harsh, uncouth. Fingon searched for a word. One was never invented because it would be blasphemy, he decided, and cherished the secret joy the knowledge brought.
The poison of Mithrim had lay ponderous and dense, coiling above its waters. They had prayed for the West Wind to no avail until Thorondor came among them, parting the thick black fog with each beat of its wings, bearing their princes in a swoon on its great back. Those that questioned Fingon's quest became silent, but when he woke, Maedhros was gone. His brothers had taken him, the healers told, and bade him to drink something bitter that made him sleep. Rest, they called it, and he had heard a sound like small feet dancing on the roofs before he fell to dreams.
Fingon thought of this because it rained today, and the rain reminded him of Maedhros who loved the perfect gentle droplets in Valinor. He wondered if Maedhros loved the rain of Hither Shores equally. They were three days journey until Fingolfin's camp, and three days from Maedhros's in a forest path. The water fell from the sky unpitying. The wind aiding them, Fingon and his group soon felt what felt like ice shards hitting them from all directions.
"We are going ahead." He told them, cursing under his breath, "It'll end soon."
But it did not. Cold rain turned to ice, bouncing off their armor with heavy sounds. They were one day's journey from Mithrim before they reached the mountain path and found it blocked. Fingon astride his shivering horse suppressed a shudder going through him. Neither ice nor snow were in the way. Dead things littered and piled high. Small animals, larger animals, their carcasses showed cruel deaths and their frozen blood formed an impenetrable blockade. Seeing strips of cloth, Fingon did not wish to speculate whether there were elvish bodies as well.
"We cannot pass." Someone said dully behind him. "It would wash away when the mountain lakes thaws fully in the summer." No one wished to say it. They must wait for another two months. Wordlessly, Fingon turned his horse and headed back to Hithlum.
The Feanorians welcomed the weary travelers if not with warmth, then at least with hospitality. Fingon could only hope that his father, five days ahead of him, reached Mithrim in safety.
"You are bruised!" Said Maedhros with some alarm, seeing the cuts and other wounds on their faces.
"Not orcs," Fingon replied with a wane smile, still chilled despite warm soup and hot water, "Though the weather proved a potent, and unassailable enemy."
Afterwards, alone in Fingon's tent, Maedhros noticed more bruises on Fingon's body in the shape of small rings, more on his shoulders and arms and less on his back and chest.
"Horrible, isn't it?" Fingon said, slipping off his shirt, white chest marred by the occasional purple, "Wet clothes do not dampen the effect of the hauberk well." He winced as the collars of his shirt caught. Maedhros eased the shirt off of him, brushing past stiffening nipples, before he noticed all of Fingon's fingers, and the backs of his hands were gray.
"Wonderful bruise," Maedhros remarked wryly, carefully balancing one of Fingon's hands on his own, "I'm sure this beats all your past records. How in Arda did you change from you wet things?"
"It does." Fingon answered easily and sat down beside Maedhros, "I was half- frozen when we entered your camp, and quite insensible to the pain of unbuckling and whatnot. Other dressed me before dinner." Maedhros raised an eyebrow.
"And now?"
"It hurts." Fingon admitted, shrugged, and winced. Maedhros smiled, slipped down onto the ground, and kneeled before Fingon between his legs.
"Say a word, and you can go to sleep in them." Fingon nodded, and Maedhros proceeded to take Fingon's light shoes off. When he was finished and looked up again, Fingon's eyes had gone dark. Smirking slightly, Maedhros placed his hand on Fingon's waist.
"I've been thinking.." His hand slipped a bit lower.
"Yes?" Fingers on the beginning of Fingon's breeches.
"Of you," Now over the laces, "And maybe you should sleep."
Fingon laughed, and bent down to kiss Maedhros's mouth.
"Undress me first. It's too warm in here."
"No other reason?" Maedhros asked, deft fingers unraveling the strings, "Maybe I can just extinguish the fire." He places his hand over the tumescence he uncovered, not moving. Fingon would've clenched his hands somewhere on the flesh of the other elf if they did not hurt so much. Instead, he gently patted Maedhros's copper head.
"But you know I like to sleep with my skin touching the sheets, especially when you made such a fine bed for me." The last word trailed into a gasp as Maedhros begin to move his thumb slowly.
"Always the finest bed for you," Maedhros said, hand moving away to strip Fingon of his breeches, "The finest sheets as well, the gentle pleasures. Did you know I kept the best room for you in Formenos even though you seldom visited? No one else slept in there." He looked up at Fingon with adoring eyes, palm against the inside of a thigh.
"Touched," Fingon said, and groaned when Maedhros did just that: with his mouth.
-=-=