When the host from Aman arrives, Maedhros suggests that perhaps Elrond and Elros would be better off with Gil-Galad.
"Because things went so well the last time we tried something like that," Elurin says flatly.
That's pretty much the end of it.
The war rages on, but for once, they're winning.
It's hard to remember that sometimes as the ghosts struggle ever more visibly with the pain, but every step closer to Angband is a step closer to their Oath fulfilled, and that seems to help.
When that's not enough, the living do their best to sing them back to wholeness and it is almost, almost enough.
When the war is won and the Silmarils reclaimed, they send a letter asking for all of them, including Earendil's, to be returned. Among their reasons, they cite the unquiet dead.
Eonwe tells them they have no right to the Silmarils and that they must surrender to the Valar.
"Maybe," Maglor says desperately, "maybe if we do, Mandos can help them. Maybe we'll at least be better off in Aman."
"And Father?" Curufin spits.
"We don't know he's in there," Caranthir says wearily, voice tight with pain. "Although I'd feel better for checking."
"We can't go on like this," Amrod says.
Amras says nothing. He has no good days anymore.
"We've come too far to surrender now," Celegorm says. "Bargaining has never worked for us before. Why should now be different?"
"The Silmarils are still our best chance of ending this," Maedhros tells Maglor, and if he is holding the arm that ends in a stump protectively closer to his body as he does whenever his thoughts stray to his time being the prisoner of a Vala, no one mentions it.
Maglor bows his head and yields.
They need the Silmarils, but they still have people to protect, including the children, a term that includes Elrond, Elros, and Elurin, despite what Elurin thinks of that. They have to be careful.
They do not kill the guards. Amrod stays back with the people to watch Amras and help his brother as best he can. Curufin, Caranthir, and Celegorm, insubstantial as they are, are able to go through the back of the tent and then burst through the front. The guards see them speed by, assume a theft has occurred, and chase after them.
Maglor and Maedhros slip in behind them and take the chest.
The ruse is discovered quickly enough. They get further before they are surrounded, but the results are the same. They are allowed to depart with two of the three treasures.
In their haste, they do not head in the right direction to return to their camp, but that can be corrected later. For now, they are too eager to wait. They open the chest and pick them up.
They can feel their father. Wounded, desperate, but unmistakably him, and even now, they feel his love for them.
They also feel an uncomfortable warmth in the jewels and more pain from their father. They set them down quickly, but their hands are only pink, not destroyed.
They look at each other.
"We need the third."
Caranthir says it, and they all know he's right. Now that they know their father is trapped in there, they have no choice.
It is simply a matter of figuring out how to get it.
Or, rather, a matter of figuring out a way that doesn't turn all of their stomachs.
"About that," an unexpected voice says, and then Elurin is cresting the hill and tossing them something bright and shining.
It had been easy enough for Elurin to convince Earendil to throw down a rope ladder and invite him up into the air for a small victory celebration of their own since Earendil could not descend. Earendil was desperate for news of his sons and curious to meet his wife's brother.
Incidentally, it had also been easy enough to figure out where the Feanorians were going when they left camp and to figure out the hole in their plan.
Elurin ate and drank with Earendil, and if Elurin had also drunk something before climbing up that meant he was still wide awake as the food made Earendil more and more drowsy. Well. Earendil's lords had drugged him first, and turnabout was fair play.
Elurin was pretty sure the Valar wouldn't approve of him stealing their star while its pilot snored, but he had chosen his side, and this was the only way forward he could find.
Maglor catches it and stares at Elurin in disbelief. "What did you do?"
"No one's dead," Elurin says, and that's all he has time to say because Maglor has set the gem down and another spirit is rising from the reunited gems.
Feanor looks terrible. The hallowing of the gems has burned him, and the burns are greater from where he has been desperately trying to shield his sons from the same affect. He is not entirely sane, not after what he's been through, but he remembers his sons, and he remembers his Oath, and he knows now that it is fulfilled, and he can do now what he couldn't for the strength of the Oath and the fear of condemning them all to eternal darkness.
The other ghosts are already fading. The call of Mandos can reach them at last, and they are in too much pain to resist long.
They remain long enough to see their father smile.
And then their father takes back the spirit he put into his creations and unmakes the Silmarils.
The light from the Trees blazes into the eyes of the three living souls, and they stumble backward. That light can be seen in all the camps, and soon someone will come to investigate.
But for right now, it's just them.
Feanor is gone. With the Silmarils destroyed, he too is free.
Maedhros looks at the scorched spot where the Silmarils had been and then looks to where his brothers were. Fresh grief hits him all at once.
"It's done," he says dully. "We can rest now." And he takes a step back towards a gash in the earth.
Maglor is caught up in his own moment of grief and doesn't realize. Elurin does and dives forward, wrapping Maedhros in what is part comforting embrace and part restraint.
"We won," he says fiercely. "Don't you dare. Don't you dare."
When Eonwe shows up, he finds the three of them sitting there learning on each other, all of their eyes still blazing with that light. Elrond and Elros, who had been with the Ambarussa when they vanished, reach them at about the same time and immediately take up probably useless defenseless positions.
Eonwe looks stunned. "What have you done?" he demands.
"You already know what they did," Elurin reminds him. "The rest was me. And Feanor. But don't worry, he's Namo's headache now."
Eonwe does not look terribly reassured.
That's alright. They may pay for it later, but for right now, all that remains of their strange little family is together and the rest is either at peace or making sure Namo isn't getting any either, and Elurin can live with that.