Sing me the Moon
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Summary: 'I will teach you a song,' Maglor says. 'Sing it, and the moon will answer. And you shall know that you are never alone.' 'Never?' Elrond asks, clutching the sheets in his little hands. 'you will never leave?' 'That, I cannot say,' Maglor whispers, silver-grey eyes sorrowful like the light of the moon. 'Yet there is always light.' / Two times Elrond sings after Maglor's departure, and the one time he is answered.
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A/N: Could be considered AU, because I think Elrond didn't ever meet Maglor again in canon. But I love Elrond and Maglor and this piece just demanded to be written.
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"Don't go, Atar," Elrond whispers, clutching at his father's cloak. The dream-fabric is rough under his young hands, the stinging sea-wind whipping his hair relentlessly about his face. Ëarendil turns, and no, that isn't his father, grey eyes so cold, emotionless, lips twisted into a taunting smirk.
"And why should I care about you, little prince? You are naught but a spoiled little child."
"Yes," his mother, eyes dark and cruel and brittle, red lips sweet but terrible. "We have better things to do."
They laugh, a brutal cacophony that jars against his ears, and a rough hand detaches Elrond's hand from the cloth. All Elrond can see is their backs, one strong and broad, the other slender, sailing joyously across a sea suddenly red with blood.
"No!" Elrond wakes with a gasp, heart thudding away in his chest. He presses the back of his hands against his eyes, letting the welcome blackness calm his racing mind. He opens his eyes and starts. He is not alone.
His small room is washed in silver, toned greys and blues and shadow, the late summer air cool against his sweaty skin. Above all, there is another figure draping a long shadow across his bed – silver-grey eyes lit with the light of the trees meet his, dark hair pinned haphazardly up tumbling down to frame a mellow, angular face. Maglor.
Elrond lets out a long breath. Maglor's long-fingered hand comes to rest on his forehead. "Another dream?"
"Yes." Elrond averts his eyes. He wishes this elf – this kinslayer, with the blood of kin fresh upon his hands – were not so gentle, not so soft and melancholy and warm. Already he cannot bear to lie to his face. Every passing moment feels like a betrayal to his mother, his father, his people whose screams still haunt the cursed harbor of Sirion.
And yet, this is all he has left. Guilty, stolen moments, almost like snatches of a dream – lullabies in the deep of the night, long evenings spent by the crackling fireside, both elves content without nary a word said. A wondrous voice raised beside his, teaching a young, scarred elfling what it means to truly Sing.
Maglor sighs.
"They loved you, you know." The faintest of quivers in a voice that could cleave gold. Bitterness rises in Elrond, sharp and black, and his fists clench almost of their own accord.
"They left." And that is all that matters. Because they made their choice, and it was not him. He never quite mattered enough. Not in the big picture of things. He thinks of a hallowed light high in the sky, shining bright and brilliant, yet so far away, cold, untouchable. Bile rises in his throat.
"Ai, pen-neth. Such sorrows you have seen." A rustle of fabric, the brush of a fëa against his own, like waves breaking upon a sheer, white cliff. Ancient, soft, compassionate, with an undercurrent of sorrow and regret so strong it threatens to drag Elrond under and never let go. Elrond's eyes sting and he blinks. He refuses to cry. He won't.
Maglor leans in to brush a stray strand of hair from his forehead. His fingers leave a sliver of heat behind, a prickle like the barest thrum of electricity, and Elrond shivers.
"I cannot take away your fears. That much is beyond me."
"I understand."
"How about this," a hand, absentmindedly tracing patterns upon Elrond's cheek. "I will teach you a song. Sing it, and the moon will answer. And you shall know that you are never alone."
"Never?" Elrond asks, clutching the sheets in his little hands. "You will never leave?"
"That, I cannot say," Maglor whispers, silver-grey eyes sorrowful like the light of the moon. "And yet there is always light."
Elrond bites his lip until he tastes the bitter tang of blood. Maglor is limned in silver in the cool light of the moon, grey shadows dusting his cheekbones and chin. Elrond thinks of a blinding white light in the sky - fire and blood and smoke, Maglor's back, tall and straight and desolate, as he strides away from Elrond, never to return.
"Teach me," he says.
And so the two elves raise their voice in song, Elrond's voice young but sweet and clear, Maglor's voice silver and gold and haunting, shimmering light, an incomprehensible beauty lost ere it is ever found. Elrond watches, rapt, as Maglor's voice weaves power into the very words of their Song, and the air itself seems to titter and lift in dizzying currents of light.
The moon sings back.
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Gil-Galad's funeral passes by in a blur. It is almost as though all the elves are terrified that they will slay him once and for all by pausing to acknowledge their death, and the hands that brush their beloved kings' in farewell are soft, hesitant, disbelieving. It is all over before he knows it, and Elrond watches, too numb to even shed tears, as the last of the smoke spirals up from the pyre of his liege's unmoving body.
A soft hand moves to rest upon his shoulder. Elrond spins, instantly wary, then sags at the familiar golden features.
"Go," Glorfindel says. "They will survive without a leader for a fortnight. I will beat some sense into them all if I must, but you need time to come to terms, to rest, to grieve. Go."
There is a hint of steel in his old friend's voice that Elrond knows to mean no quarter will be given. Elrond opens his mouth to protest, then closes it again. He is tired – too tired to argue. He feels like the slightest nudge will crack him open to show his bleeding insides for the entire world to see.
So he goes.
There isn't much to call private space, here on the accursed plains of doom, every last corner steeped with the stench of blood and the rot of dead bodies. Elrond manages to find a secluded space behind some bushes, and stays there, clutching at dirt with hands long gone numb to pain.
Ithil washes everything with a wan, white light, and unbidden, a tune half-forgotten rises to the forefront of his mind. A dream-memory, almost, of sorrowful eyes as deep as the sea and silver as the moon, a voice that laced through the very music of the world and called the moon down to his side.
Sing it, and the moon will answer. And you shall know that you are never alone.
Elrond's voice is hoarse from many grueling hours of shouting commands across the battlefield. He opens his mouth, and, trembling, forces out the first opening notes of Maglor's song.
But there is no voice to match his, to take his up and spirit it to heights he had never thought to reach before – no slender, musician's hand to rest, reassuring, upon his back. There is only Elrond, and his voice falters before he is halfway through the tune.
The moon is silent.
Elrond closes his eyes and leans against the brush behind him. When the tears come, they burn.
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Elrond had once thought he had nothing more to lose. That the Valar had taken so much from him, kin and friend and father, that there couldn't possibly be anything more they could rip from him.
He was wrong.
The gardens of Imaldris are as beautiful as ever, elegant arches shimmering with veins of silver under the moon, sweet blossoms hanging in clumps from vines that twine upon the sleek pillars and softly flowering trees. Elrond wants to rage and beat his fists upon the gates, wants to command then to cease and fade away, because they should not be so full of life and wondrous; not when they have lost their mistress this very day.
He will see Celebrían again before Arda's end. That he knows.
But when he closes his eyes, all he sees is her pale, wan face, hollow like a flower left too long in the sun, the lively glint in her eyes dimmed to mere embers – perhaps forevermore.
'I cannot find healing on these shores,' she had said. 'Do not leave me to grow bitter. I will go.'
'Then let me go with you, meleth,' he had cried, 'for you hold the key to my soul.'
'I shall keep it well,' the lady of Imaldris replied, and smiled.
She had never seemed so beautiful.
And Elrond felt the fractures grow just a little wider.
He sees the moon, now, shining pale and unfeeling from afar, and before he knows it he has opened his mouth in song. His power has grown with his age, and he can coax ithil into listening, now, to shed silver tears in answer to his sorrows. And his sorrows are great indeed.
The moon listens, but it does not sing back.
Elrond lingers, palm resting upon the silvery bark of a young tree, then turns away.
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Elrond pauses.
"Go ahead, my ladies, my lords," he says, inclining his head. "I have yet – one more thing to do."
The lady Galadriel, blue eyes bright with the light of the trees, holds his gaze for a long lingering moment. Elrond feels the brush of her fëa against his, bright and unyielding as adamant, questioning, seeing – then she draws back, and nods. "Stars light your path."
It is the last sunset he will ever see in middle-earth, and it is beautiful. Golden-pink blends into swirling oranges and reds, until it dips below the horizon, setting the sea ablaze with a glittering array of colors like a cloak woven by the Valar themselves. The graceful arches of Mithlond are limned in copper, yellow light dappling gently across the slope of their roofs, and Elrond feels tears prickling at the edges of his eyes.
He has seen so much. Lost so much.
And now he is going home.
Yet –
It is not nightfall yet, and they will be long gone by then, but Elrond closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and Sings.
It is a song meant for the moon, but he does not sing for the moon alone, now – he sings, with all his heart, with all the power of his considerable fëa, for one who had been like the moon – wanderer, minstrel, sinner, thief, kinslayer, gold-cleaver, prince.
Father.
It is not long before another voice joins his.
It is exactly as he had remembered and yet entirely unlike it – gold and silver blend in that wondrous voice, the wonder and light of an age long gone past kept alive in those haunting tones, and their voices twine, soar, reach the very skies and fly beyond.
And the world sings back.
Ai, you old wandering fool.
Even after all these years I have yet to match that voice of yours.
Elrond lets the tears fall, and he sings with salt on his lips, warm liquid tracking down his cheeks. He turns.
Silver-grey eyes lit with the light of the trees; wild dark hair tumbling down to frame a haggard, mellow face. Right hand clenched loosely by his side, fingers never quite meeting the palm, tattered robes swaying ever so slightly in the wind.
The song stops.
"Elrond," Maglor whispers.
"Atar." The one word he had always wished to say, the only word he never quite managed to push past his lips. "Atar. Come home with me."
[fin]