The Bluntness of Grief

by Quantumphysica

Or, the story of the black swords of Eöl Moriquendë. A character study.

2. Anguirel (Part I)

Mother-father-creator had once told them of shadow-pain, the unexplainable ache an amputee might feel in a limb that is no longer there. It was rather common among the dwarves apparently, as mining accidents occasionally resulted in loss of extremities. They had not really understood it then, unable to stretch their imagination of a flesh-sheathed nature that far.

They did now.

Anglachel was gone, and it hurt.

It hurt in their absence, in the silence where their resonance used to be, in the empty spot in a sword rack made to fit two. It was pain with a sense of disorientation, bewilderment, as if their being could not grasp they had been truly separated.

They had cried when mother-father-creator had told them, screamed and begged and pleaded, and it had not helped. It had not kept their brother-sister-mate with them; it had not brought them back. Now they were silent.

It hurt too much to speak.

… … … …

Mother-father-creator was… careful around them. He spoke softly, watchful of his words, and polished them with tender reverence. He talked of the preparations for leaving, the pieces he was finishing, the plans for the new house and forge, the people who had expressed interest in joining him… But not a word fell about Anglachel. Not a single mention. Anguirel didn't understand it. How could he so easily accept this? How could he so easily adjust to Anglachel's absence, make plans without them, as if they were nothing, as if they had never been there? Had nothing changed for him?

They would not speak. They refused to acknowledge this world that had no place for Anglachel. They would be silent forevermore, if they had to.

… … … …

Mother-father-creator moved, and an entire household moved with him. Anguirel let it pass them by. Once upon a time, they would have been excited, eager to see the world beyond the walls of the workshop, thrilled to be worn and possibly wielded by mother-father-creator… But now, all they felt was loss.

The old workshop was not home. Not anymore. But they didn't want to leave it. It was the only place they had ever known. The walls held memories. If they left, they might forget.

And everyone else seemed to have forgotten already.

… … … …

"I am a selfish being, Anguirel."

Mother-father-creator had them in his lap, but his eyes were fixed on the open window, where the gnarled branches and deep green leaves of Nan Elmoth all but twisted into the room.

"I would understand if you hated me for it."

He slowly stroked their blade like a blind man, tracing the engraved runes that formed their name.

"I separated you from your twin, when I could have let Thingol take you both. You were bound to each other more than to me. You… I know you would not have mourned me as you mourn Anglachel. I could have –should have– spared you that pain." They could feel his hand tremble. "But I didn't. I am selfish, and loath to be parted from the things I love." A dry, mirthless chuckle escaped him. "It is the greatest failing of my character, I'm afraid. My old master Gamil already used to say I was too much of a miser to really be an elf. He hadn't met Thingol at the time, but still."

Mother-father-creator sighed, looking down on them at last. His stern face was drawn in sadness.

"I couldn't bear to speak of it, before. You were so anguished, and whenever I thought too long on the reason for that, I had to force myself to not run back to Thingol and demand your twin be returned to me, consequences be damned." The words echoed with quiet sorrow. "So I concentrated on moving here, on the building of the house and finishing my commissions, and…" Another sigh. "And thusly I did you a double injustice."

Anguirel felt themself quiver. They had thought he had forgotten. They had thought he didn't care.

"You are well within your rights to hate me for what I did. Mahal knows people hate each other for less. But… " His voice faltered, and he looked out the window again. "I want you to know I am sorry."

They could have hated him. Loathed him, despised him. It wouldn't have been very hard, and maybe they even had, at some point. But now they could feel the grief that resonated in his being, Anguirel found they couldn't muster any hate for their mother-father-creator. They had thought they were alone. Not just alone in lacking Anglachel, but alone in missing them. To find that they weren't… The ache they had kept in silence for so long shuddered inside of them, fighting against its voiceless constraints. They… They wanted to cry.

It was only when they felt their mother-father-creator soothingly stroke their blade and whisper calm words of comfort that Anguirel fully realized that they already were. Pained, desperate sobs racked through them, breaking out of their being in sound they hadn't known they could make. It hurt, it hurt and they couldn't stop it. They wept without tears; half panicked, half relieved, shuddering under the strain of all the sorrow they had kept inside.

"Sssh… Let it out. Just let it out."

They didn't know how long it took, but eventually the pain lessened, and the sound of their crying died away until there was only mother-father-creator's familiar resonance, swathing them like a soft blanket.

"Better now?"

Mother-father-creator's voice sounded faint and faraway, and Anguirel didn't have the energy to answer. Suddenly overcome with tiredness, their awareness faded before their mind could formulate a response.

It was the first time they slept in months.

… … … …

Things did become better, afterwards. Without the bubble of silence to shield them, it was hard to keep from enjoying sword drills and careful polishing, or to stay disinterested in their mother-father-creator's new crafts, or to refrain from following the goings-on in the workshop. Slowly, Anguirel realized they were coming to terms with their loss.

It frightened them, at first. It almost felt like betrayal. But in the end, it couldn't be stopped. Anglachel's absence found its place in their life. And life went on.

But mother-father-creator never replaced their sword rack, with its empty spot. Not even when he remodelled the entire workshop. They never thanked him for it. They weren't sure if he did it for them.

… … … …

Noldor. Mother-father-creator didn't like them. From what he said Anguirel understood it had something to do with them being murderers, but the undertone was never quite that simple. They couldn't shake the feeling that these Noldor's ostensible murderous exploits were the least of what made them so despicable in mother-father-creator's eyes. More weight in the scale seemed to be their (apparent) conceitedness, their (apparent) disparagement of all not like them, elves and dwarves alike, their (apparent) lording over lands and people they had lost claim to many long years ago, and the gall they (apparently) had to present themselves as "saviours" and "bringers of culture" to the "backwards" population of Beleriand. Or so they learned from mother-father-creator. There might have been a touch of envy involved as well. Just a touch.

All in all, Anguirel wasn't certain what to think of it. They had never met any Noldor, and for all that they trusted mother-father-creator's judgement, his opinion on them seemed to be a lot more complex than his opinion on the fell beasts of the Enemy. In the end, they decided they'd just have to wait and see on what side of their blade the first Noldo they encountered would find himself. That would probably clear things up.

… … … …

One night, mother-father-creator Sang. They woke up from light slumber to see him standing at the window of the workshop, staring outside with a strange, atonal melody on his tongue. It was no song for them; no song even, they realized then, for living ears. It was an old song, a song of Craft, and mother-father-creator's voice was at once the heat and the hammer. It rung through their metal, twisting and turning; a net, a trap, a thousand convoluted paths of possibility becoming one. Anguirel wanted to scream, but even their mindvoice was smothered by the song's oppressive power, stifled within the iron of their being. They had never needed to breathe… but they thought this must be what suffocation felt like.

It frightened them, as only their dreams ever had, and as they curled in on themselves, Anguirel decided they wanted nothing to do with this.

... … … …

The morning brought a woman, ill-kempt and dirty, with a wild, frightful brightness in her eyes only dimmed by exhaustion. She fell at the doorstep, and mother-father-creator carried her inside, unperturbed as one who had expected such a thing to happen. He laid her down on the soft furs by the fire, and gently wiped the dirt of travel from her face with a moistened rag. He touched her as if she might cut him, like the edge of a blade he was testing. When she tried to speak, he calmly laid a finger on her lips.

"Sleep," he told her. "You are safe now."

There was no command in his voice, no fell song of old, and yet she sighed and obeyed, hiding the bright fire of her eyes behind weary lids. Against all their intentions, Anguirel was quietly fascinated. They knew how it felt, to be in that warm, reassuring place close to mother-father-creator, to be held in a sure, steady hand and to be cleaned and polished carefully... they couldn't begrudge this woman, spoils of that dread song, the comfort. She looked as if she hadn't had any in far too long.

… … … …

"You're wondering why, aren't you?"

Mother-father-creator had been polishing them, but his attentions had been distracted. Anguirel sent a quiet ripple of resonance back, the slightest nod. The smith smiled, wryly.

"I thought you would. You were always perceptive like that."

The woman's name was Aredhel, and she was Noldor. She was wild and uncouth, and yet there was pride in her bearing, and a touch of arrogant confidence so natural to her it must be inborn. The way she held herself betrayed a deep awareness of her surroundings and the impression she made in them, and there was a certain vanity in how she physically presented herself. Noble blood and courtly training, too innate to be hidden completely. Anguirel had seen enough nobles of Doriath to recognize it, and knew that the woman's race and obvious highborn descent wouldn't have escaped their mother-father-creator either. They didn't understand why he had snared her with his song and brought her here, knowing all that.

"She is everything you hate."

Mother-father-creator sighed.

"Hate is a large word, Anguirel, when one is all alone."

They felt no hurt at those words, at being discounted so, because there was truth in it. Mother-father-creator was no blade like them. No blade like Anglachel. And while there were many things about being sheathed in flesh that they would never, could never understand, this much they knew. Aloneness. To live without the warmth of one who resonates just right with one's being. It was for him as it was for them. They were quiet for a while.

"She is not… brother-sister-mate."

Now there was a smirk on mother-father-creator's face, one that Anguirel had come to associate with them missing a nuance of something.

"Indeed, she is not."

Anguirel felt that this nuance had roots deep in the flesh they found so hard to comprehend, and an explanation would only bring more questions. So they asked nothing.

… … … …

The woman –Aredhel- was strong. She had steel in her voice, fire in her eyes, and Anguirel found they grudgingly came to respect her. But they didn't like her. There was something cold inside her, a shiver of icy resonance they felt whenever she was near. It disquieted them. They suspected that if she touched or spoke to them, they might come to understand, and perhaps even learn to like her. Yet she never did, and as mother-father-creator never asked her to, they never learned more than what could be gleaned from observation alone. It was enough though, in a way.

Mother-father-creator would share wine with her, and soothingly thread his fingers through her hair as they sat by the fire. She would leave food in the workshop when he forgot to eat, and knead the tense muscles of his back with her slender hands. He forged her a new set of hunting knives. She mended his leather apron. Things of the flesh may have been strange, but Anguirel knew the quiet warmth of a shared resonance when they saw it.

Perhaps being alone makes us indiscriminate in where we take our comfort.

… … … …

The fire in the workshop had already died down to embers when they came in, stumbling, ripping at each other's garments. It was unlike anything Anguirel had ever seen. They fought for dominance like beasts, snarling and panting, claws out, fangs bared. Aredhel's eyes were bright and fey, like glistening gems in the darkness. Mother-father-creator threw her on the largest anvil, and she wrapped her legs around him, dug her nails deeply into the pale skin of his back, struggled against him even as she kept him from leaving. He held her down and pounded into her, grunting, wrenching wild cries past her clenched teeth. Soon enough their fight became less erratic, a flowing, rhythmic thing underneath the hungry moans and the metallic smell of blood. Their resonance was as one, minds lost in the movements of their flesh. It was… mesmerizing. Anguirel let it touch them, sweep them up in its violent, fiery current, knowing that they might never feel something like this again.

Once it subsided, there was only fatigue. It was written on their faces, on the way they clutched each other for support more than anything else. They didn't make it out of the workshop, letting themselves fall on the furs on the floor instead, a warm tangle of weary limbs and dazed minds. Sleep came quickly after that, weighing their lids shut and calming their breathing to a relaxed, synchronous cadence.

There was no sleep for Anguirel. Not after that, not when there was still such a torrent of feeling echoing through their metal. They weren't sure what they had witnessed, but they knew with a foreboding sense of core-deep certainty that it had been important.

… … … …

Anguirel had never given elven reproduction much consideration before. They had simply assumed -building on the base assumption that everything had to come from something- that elves had an origin and that there was a mechanism to their creation. Whatever that mechanism was hadn't been prominent in their thoughts. In retrospect, the sword supposed, it was fitting that mother-father-creator and his woman had done what they did on the anvil.

The child was terrifyingly small. They were several times the length of the tiny bundle, and that simple fact made it very hard to imagine that one day the child would be a man grown, capable of wielding them. In fact, the thought was almost alarming. Something about the concept of growing, changing flesh was deeply discomforting to them.

Usually the child was with its… mother, for it needed constant care and attention. It would wail incessantly when she wasn't around, and sometimes even when she was. When it grew a little older though, mother-father-creator would often bring the little one into the smithy while its mother was otherwise occupied, and put it in a small crib right next to their sword rack. He would only work on small items and detailing during these times; nothing dangerous, nothing he couldn't put away in a moment's notice to check on the child. Still, Anguirel kept a silent watch on it while he worked. It had black hair, small pointy ears, and large, dark eyes, just like their mother-father-creator… but unlike his, the child's eyes hid nothing in their black depths but honest curiosity. Anguirel barely remembered being that guileless, that new to the world…

Everything was new, but I wasn't frightened. Anglachel was there, and that was enough.

The pain was sudden and unexpected, crashing into them and clanging through their form, sending echoing tremors through their being. Anglachel! Ah, how they missed them, their brother-sister-mate. Their comforting resonance, their mindvoice, their advice. How they wished for them to be here now, to speak with them, to drift in dreams with them. To not be alone. For a single moment they were in agony, and the loss felt as fresh as it had the first day. Anguirel would have wailed like the child they were supposed to watch over… but right in that moment, just when they were teetering on the edge, said child did something extraordinary. It reached out to them. It was no random twitch, no unwitting movement. With its black eyes unblinking the child looked at them, holding up that little hand as far as its tiny body could manage. As if it wanted to touch them. And Anguirel could feel it, the slightest hint of mental presence where they had not thought to look for it. The pain over Anglachel was pushed back by wonder.

"Hello, tiny one. Can you hear me?"

There was no coherent answer, but they could feel the child somewhat acknowledging their presence. Perhaps it was not capable of more.

"I am your… sibling."

The word seemed like it fit for the relationship. Still they added,

"That means I'll take care of you."

Now the child let out a gurgling little laugh in response. Hearing the sound, a small bubble of something warm and giddy burst up in Anguirel.

"Grow quickly, tiny one. I can't wait for us to talk."

… … … …

The child was still small –smaller than them- but it could walk on its own now, and speak in halting sentences. It was generally quiet but ever intrepid, and dangerously curious after everything that went on in the forge. Mother-father-creator had eventually found himself obliged to replace the crib the child had outgrown with a pen to keep his offspring out of harm's way. It was not a very dignified solution, yet despite having its explorations thwarted, the child wasn't too bothered by the confinement. It would busy itself watching mother-father-creator at work, and neither the heat nor the harsh clanging and hissing that came with that work seemed to unsettle it.

Anguirel had tried to talk to the child, explain it about metalwork, the methods and materials their shared parent used… but though the elfling had begun using language, it had given no signs of understanding. There was no clear resonance, no communication; the child was merely a mental presence on the edge of their being, occasionally blinking up in bright flickers of emotion. They had thought it over, and finally concluded that it wasn't so strange; the child wasn't a finished work after all. It changed and learned and grew so much… It was still becoming, like a blade glowing hot on the anvil, coming closer to its being with every hit of the hammer. It couldn't be yet.

Still, they believed the child must have heard them when they had passed on the only real advice they had with regards to flesh rather than metal.

"Observe, tiny one. Observe and learn."

… … … …

They weren't surprised when the child learned how to open the latches that kept the pen closed. Mother-father-creator didn't berate the child, nor did he put it back in the enclosure. Instead, he helped the small child on a high seat next to his workbench, and began explaining what he was working on.

If swords could smile, Anguirel would have done so.

I'm proud of you, tiny one.

… … … …

One day, mother-father-creator took them out of their rack, and held them out to the child, gravely stating,

"This is Anguirel."

The child reached for them, as it had done all those years ago… but this time it managed to place its little hand on the flat of their blade, and the moment it touched them, something sprung to life. Another being, a new being… velvety warm and dusky, searching for contact with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation. It was a wonderful, if somewhat uneasy feeling. Mother-father-creator smiled knowingly, and it was at them as much as at his offspring.

"This is Maeglin."

In that moment, the child stopped being the child. As Anguirel heard the truth in the name, it settled in their metal, burned into their being like a brand, so they would forever know their sibling's presence from any other. Maeglin. It was a good name. Fitting. They accepted the tentative mental touch, embraced it in what they hoped was welcoming resonance.

"You Are now. Do you feel it?"

And after a moment of hesitant silence, there was an answer. Bright, childlike amazement bounded through them.

"I feel it!"

… … … …

Outgrown, the high seat at the workbench soon made place for a small step-stool; by the time that lost use as well, Maeglin had changed from a small child to a lanky youth.

He was his father's student. No, not student. The word didn't quite fit. Disciple. Robed in black and leather, they laboured side by side in the forge. Mother-father-creator was a patient but relentless taskmaster; he set no unattainable goals and never minded explaining or demonstrating something multiple times, but neither did he let his son rest until he had mastered it. They didn't speak much outside of metalwork… but Anguirel didn't think they needed it. There was a warm, simple understanding between them that didn't seem to require much in the way of speech.

Like Anglachel and me.

The thought hurt… but for the first time in a long while, Anguirel realized it was a good hurt. Not bitter. They were happy mother-father-creator was no longer alone.

… … … …

Occasionally, Maeglin polished them. The boy's resonance was nothing like mother-father-creator's, too young and uncertain to have that same grounding presence… but he was careful and thorough when he took care of them, and as they grew more familiar with him, Anguirel found that with familiarity came a deeper fondness. They liked him. (Perhaps even loved him.) However, that didn't blind them from the strangeness in Maeglin. His being was always tinged with nervousness, full of restless echoes that reminded them of the fire in Aredhel's eyes. There were secrets fidgeting under his skin. Sometimes Anguirel caught shards of them, unintentionally. Stories full of brightness not found in Nan Elmoth, and songs in an unfamiliar, lilting tongue. And a name, that somehow didn't quite fit, didn't quite resonate right. Lomion.

They would never have mentioned it, if not for that name. That name… There was something foreboding about it, and it didn't sit well with Anguirel.

… … … …

"Aredhel named him before you did."

Mother-father-creator's expression held nothing but weariness.

"I know."

"Do… Do you not mind?"

A sigh.

"Do you know why I only named him when I did?"

Anguirel considered how to word the feeling he had had about that.

"He wasn't finished yet, before. Not ready."

The smith slowly nodded, lips twitching in a small, pleased smile.

"Perceptive as always." A shiver of pride ran through Anguirel at that. "A name should be what you are, not what you must become. Names have power. Truth. If they don't resonate with what you are, they become a doom rather than a description. This is why we do not give them lightly."

It must be difficult, Anguirel thought, to name something so subject to change as an elfchild, to pin down a truth about their being that was constant. It was no wonder that it had taken mother-father-creator some time.

"Why did you not tell her this?"

"What makes you think she didn't already know?"

There was a biting cynicism in his voice. Internally, Anguirel recoiled at it.

"Surely she wouldn't…"

"Noldor have only knowledge. Not wisdom." He disdainfully shook his head. "And they have an unfortunate habit of bringing doom on themselves."

… … … …

There was a dissonance between Aredhel and mother-father-creator. It was almost unnoticeable at first, so slight and immaterial it was… but it was there. Anguirel noticed, even though they themselves seemingly did not. Something about what had previously been an oddly harmonious concord now seemed out of sync. A bit too fast, too restless on one side, a little too heavy and grasping on the other. Just not quite right anymore.

Aredhel was always staring out of windows, faltering in doorways. Mother-father-creator made her jewellery, too heavy to wear on hunts. She spoke to Maeglin in that strange Noldor tongue of hers. He wouldn't speak to Maeglin at all. When he left on long trips she would sleep in the workshop, and curl up like a child in his furs. When he came home she would jump her horse and ride off into the woods with nary a word. He raised his voice against her. She raised her voice against Maeglin. It was a discord that grew slowly, like hairline cracks in fatigued metal.

It was strange to them. How people could change, how what had been companionable resonance could become more and more like the clanging of enemy blades as time went by. They couldn't understand it.

… … … …

"Anguirel… what does it mean to be brother-sister-mates?"

They had told Maeglin about Anglachel, wanting him to know of his other sibling, and how much they meant to them … but of all the questions the boy could have had, that one surprised them. They hesitated to explain, trying to find the right words.

"Brother-sister-mate is… one you are one with, even though you are two. The same make, the same material. It is a feeling of… belonging." They halted for a moment, cringing internally at the pang of longing they felt. "A kinship of sorts, closest kin. No one will ever understand you better. You will never know anyone quite as well."

Maeglin frowned at them, putting his polishing cloth aside.

"Are mother and father like this?"

"No."

Not even close. Maeglin raised an eyebrow.

"Then what are they?"

"They're…" Anguirel didn't know what they were. After a moment of indecision, they settled on, "Complicated."

At that Maeglin picked up his cloth again, a smirk on his lips that didn't quite reach his eyes.

"I know."

In that moment, despite his still-small stature, he looked almost exactly like his father.

… … … …

"You will stop filling the boy's head with that nonsense!"

There were heated words in the forge, tangible anger. Aredhel stood by the window, mother-father-creator by the largest anvil. The woman nearly growled at him.

"Nonsense? It's his heritage! He deserves to know!"

Mother-father-creator clenched his fists, but somehow kept his voice steady.

"I have been lenient with you in this. Or do you think I don't know you taught him your Quenya?" He spit out the word as if it tasted bad. "Do you think I don't know about your bedtime stories, or your history lessons, or that family tree you drew him? Do you think I am that stupid?"

Something in Aredhel's eyes told Anguirel that yes, a part of her had thought her little insurrections had gone completely unnoticed. The smith saw it too. His expression oozed contempt.

"I know everything that goes on here, Aredhel. Everything. You'd better remember that." He glared at her. "I have been lenient exactly because I did not want to deny our son whatever knowledge you could pass on to him. I didn't want him to grow up ignorant of the world. But he must know his place in it, and that place is here! I will not have you teach him to disrespect me or scorn the life he has!"

"That's not what I do!"

"You fill his head with tales of towering palaces and noble titles, endless feasts and infinite richness, and you don't think that sends a young boy's head spinning?"

Aredhel held her head high, her fiery eyes sharp.

"None of it is a lie. He could have all that, if he wanted to. It's his birth right."

Mother-father-creator was barely containing his anger now, gripping the anvil before him as if he might smash something otherwise.

"Tell me, Princess." The title was no less than the foulest expletive. "If your white city was such a paradise of light and beauty, why did you leave? You braved the spawn of Ungoliant just to get away from it; you even swore you would never return! You loathed the place! And now you're painting it as some kind of dreamland for our child?"

Aredhel clenched her teeth.

"You don't understand!"

Mother-father-creator slammed his fist into a half-finished project lying on the anvil, scattering bits of precious metal over the floor.

"Damn right I don't! But I do know one thing. If I hear one more word of that filthy kinslayer's tongue in my house, you are going to regret it! I will have no more of this insolence!"

The woman trembled in fury. Her face was like a mask when she whispered,

"I hate you."

With that, she swept out of the workshop. After the door slammed close behind her, mother-father-creator stared at it for a while, his entire being still shuddering in anger. Yet as the rage bled out of him his shoulders slumped, and he hung his head in a rare display of defeat. He looked… miserable. Anguirel wished there was anything they could say, anything at all to comfort him, but words failed them.

Words are hard.

People rarely communicated clearly. They used words to cloak what they meant rather than to elucidate it. Much like their beings were covered in flesh, their truth was always covered in layers of speech and things left unspoken, like an immaterial puzzle box. It was deeply frustrating.

I'm sorry I don't have anything better to offer.

… … … …

Time passed, and still they didn't speak to each other. They talked, yes, and they fought, and occasionally they mated, but they never really spoke, and while Aredhel slammed doors and mother-father-creator smashed unfinished crafts, the cracks between them widened, slowly and irreversibly.

Mother-father-creator was quiet and purposeful, grounded and sharp, and very much like a blade in how he expected his resonance to carry meaning more than his words. Anguirel had simply assumed all elves were like this. It seemed a natural, logical way to be. But Aredhel was different. She was cold and hot and restless, and she seemed to want proof, want reassurance, want speech in a manner that felt distinctly illogical and unnatural to them. She was different in such a way that Anguirel was starting to think that perhaps mother-father-creator was an exception, and elves were much stranger than they had initially assumed.

If anything, they learned that beings of flesh were very good at twisting the obvious into something convoluted. Like an animal caught in thorny vines, they tended to flail about in panic, all the while only tangling themselves up further. It was not a very flattering image… though the most tangled up in this whole mess was undoubtedly Maeglin. The boy often sat down to polish them when his parents were screaming at each other in another part of the house, his mind a distraught muddle of questions. Why is father so cruel to mother? Why did they marry if they hate each other so much? Does my father hate me too because I have Noldor blood? Do I even really belong here? Would it that they had better answers than they did. Anguirel often despaired about it. It wasn't easy to explain to someone so young and inexperienced the trappings of loneliness and cruelty born from frustration, especially since they didn't fully understand it themself. They didn't know how to put in words that cruelty wasn't just stern refusals and silence and fists smashed into table tops, that it was also subtle disregard and avoidance and secret Quenya lessons. Maeglin was very much like his child-self in these moments, more emotion than communication, so in the end they always just tried to comfort him, foregoing explanations.

Where would you belong if not here? You are mother-father-creator's son. My sibling. Never doubt that you are loved, tiny one.

They wished they could make him feel that this was home. But it was hard to convince someone of something you weren't sure of yourself.

… … … …

Occasionally, mother-father-creator took them on trips, to the dwarven kingdoms where he had grown up. Anguirel had tasted their first blood on one of these journeys, halfway between Nan Elmoth and Belegost when a band of orcs had crossed their path. Victory had been swift then, but sometimes they still felt echoes of the heady rush of battle that had overtaken them. It had been glorious. They were happy that mother-father-creator usually stayed safe, but a part of them –the part that had sung at the feeling of death on their edge- thought it was a pity they didn't get to fight more often.

Mother-father-creator didn't always take them along –more often not, actually. They suspected the covetous looks many dwarves threw at them had something to do with that. Mother-father-creator was nothing if not possessive. Still, those times they did get to go, they enjoyed tremendously. Dwarves were different, but different in a comforting, understandable way. Their resonance was deep and rumbling like the stone that surrounded them, and they had a tendency towards gruff bluntness that Anguirel could appreciate. Mother-father-creator's old master Gamil Zirak was long since dead, but his former student Telchar, now a master armour-smith himself, still lived in Nogrod to welcome them. He was the only one who mother-father-creator allowed to touch them. Kin, by choice if not by nature. The dwarf was stoic and taciturn, but he had a biting sense of humour that drew even from mother-father-creator the occasional laugh. Anguirel had decided they liked him the first time they had heard the usually so austere elf-smith break out in uncharacteristic guffaws at some dryly delivered quip. Nogrod was a good place for their mother-father-creator. (If he had been a little less tall, they didn't think he would ever have left.)

Nogrod was also a good place for Maeglin. The first time he had come along he had been taut with nervousness bordering on fear, but it hadn't taken long before his insecurity had turned to wonder and excitement. Now, no day of their stay passed without him being covered in soot from the craft halls or dust from the mines when he returned to their quarters, excitedly talking about some new technique he had learned, some beautiful gem he had dug up, or some wonderful cave he had explored. In his free time he let dwarven children ride on his back, and he dutifully played a monster of the Enemy in their valiant play-battles. And in the rare moments that neither his crafts nor the little ones were occupying him (usually around dinnertime), he showered the more indulgent inhabitants of Nogrod with questions about life under the mountain. It was all in all plain to see that Maeglin was happy here. It almost hurt, to see him like this and to realize how rare this bright happiness was for him when they were in Nan Elmoth. (If only he was a little less tall, he could have stayed.)

They thought Nogrod was a good place for them as well. Any place that made their family happy was a good place for them.

… … … …

It was one of the times that mother-father-creator took Maeglin along to the dwarves, but not them. The workshop was empty, the fires extinguished, the worktables clear. Especially at night it felt… desolate. Abandoned. Or maybe that was just them.

They didn't expect to see anyone until mother-father-creator and his son returned from their travels with new ores and stories… they certainly didn't expect to see Aredhel in her nightshirt. The time she would keep the fires lit and sleep in the workshop in her husband's absence had long passed, and nowadays she rarely set foot in it anymore. Still… there she was, wandering between the tools and tables like an underdressed apparition. She absently walked through the room, touching everything, trailing her hand over the furniture as if to commit it all to memory. Then, when she almost stood before them, she suddenly pointed those unsettling fire-eyes straight at them.

"My husband told me once that if you speak to metal often enough, in time it speaks back." There was an accusatory glint in her eyes as she raised an eyebrow at them. "He's probably said more to you than he ever has to me. Do you speak back yet, sword? Or was that just another figure of speech of a man who can't handle conversation with a living being?

Her words dripped bitterness and contempt, and Anguirel was sincerely tempted to simply hold still and let her wallow in her anger until it ran out. However, curiosity got the better of them, and they reached outwards, to the cold fire that was Aredhel wife of Eöl. They weren't sure she would hear, as she wasn't touching them, but they couldn't stop themself from trying.

"My name is Anguirel. And I am very much a living being, I'm afraid."

Her eyes widened.

"What demon craft…"

Aredhel had instinctively set a step back at hearing their mindvoice, but after her eyes darted through the empty room, confirming there was no other who may have touched her mind, she reached out and lifted them out of their rack. There was wonder in her gaze, despite her obvious distrust. She shook her head, staring at their blade.

"How is this possible…"

"Your husband made me."

She shook her head again, more resolutely now, and Anguirel could feel how something in her mind steeled itself as if in preparation for an onslaught.

"This is a dream. It must be. I am dreaming."

They could try to convince her, might even succeed, but they decided it wasn't worth the effort. Mentally, they shrugged.

"If that's what you want to believe. But you're here now. You might as well have a talk with me."

Aredhel smiled lopsidedly, her confidence returning in the conviction this was only a strange reverie.

"I might as well, huh?" She snickered lightly to herself. "What gives. Anguirel, was it?"

"Indeed."

She sat down on mother-father-creator's favourite chair, laying them in her lap.

"Are you ever lonely, Anguirel?"

They hadn't expected that question. Yet after a moment of silence they acquiesced,

"Sometimes."

She shook her head again.

"Tssss. You're almost as monosyllabic as my husband. You were the one who wanted to talk, you should at least put some effort in it. Make conversation."

There was something jarring about the way she joked about it. Anguirel felt the need to retaliate.

"Very well. What about you, lady Aredhel? Are you lonely? You must be, to come here like this."

"Touché." Her smile had something dejected now, as she stared down at them. "And yes. I am lonely. If you can call it that. I am… so very lonely."

"Why?"

"I miss… something. I always miss something." She tiredly closed her eyes for a moment. "I don't know. I don't know what I want. Just, something."

They shivered. Aredhel's entire being felt cold, and her words concealed a hopeless, aching need… a need that they recognized all too well. She might not know what she wanted… but they did. They would know that feeling anywhere.

"Home. You want to go home."

Anguirel could honestly say they had never seen anything quite so broken as the look in Aredhel's eyes then. Her voice cracked when she spoke.

"But home is gone."

And they understood. For all that they wished they didn't, they understood. They didn't even need the shards of memory that drifted in Aredhel's mind, didn't need to see shining white towers and golden light and groaning ice and choking darkness to comprehend that home was gone. Because home wasn't a gleaming white city or a wealth of golden radiance. She could have had all that back and it wouldn't have been home. Home was a family that was whole, and eyes that had never seen death, hands that had never been stained red, skin that had never felt cold in more than passing. Home was the absence of that tightly coiled ball of anxiety in the pit of her stomach that made her want to run until she collapsed in exhaustion.

Anguirel remembered that once, in the early days, they had believed that if only Aredhel would touch them and speak with them, they would come to understand her, and learn to like her. Now, they wished the thought had never crossed their mind.

They thought of oppressive silence. Of an empty spot in their sword rack, and a smithy full of memories. Of uncertainty, and the core-deep knowledge that nothing could ever be as it had been. They thought of Anglachel.

Understanding hurt.

Aredhel returned them to their sword rack without another word. There were unshed tears in her eyes, and Anguirel knew there would be no more conversation that night. It was just as well. They didn't think they could have spoken anymore.

… … … …

Mother-father-creator and Maeglin returned the next day, and unexpectedly Aredhel came to greet them in the workshop, smiling at her husband, wrapping her son up in a hug. In-between the pleasantries they felt her eyes on them, as in question. They held still. Soon enough she stopped looking, and they could almost feel the tension clear, the memory of their conversation being filed away as nothing but a product of her imagination. It was just as well. They didn't think they ever wanted to speak to her again.

… … … …

Anglachel was in the forefront of their mind more often now, as if awoken by the touch of Aredhel's chaotic being. Thinking of them still hurt, but the pain was different now. Less… self-centred. They thought of Anglachel being torn from them and sold out to their enemy, and the more they considered it, the more they realized how deeply betrayed their brother-sister-mate must have felt. By mother-father-creator. By them. They all too well remembered the bewildering agony of losing Anglachel, and finding that they couldn't even imagine what it must have been like for the other blade sent shivers of anguish through their metal. They may have lost their brother-sister-mate… but Anglachel had lost everything.

(How had they not realized this? Who would have thought their pain had been so selfish?)

Anguirel had thought they had forgiven mother-father-creator, but now they understood they had only forgiven him for what he had done to them. They doubted they would ever be able to forgive him for what he had done to Anglachel.

(They doubted they would ever forgive themself.)

… … … …

"I feel like maybe I don't belong here, Anguirel."

Maeglin sat on the floor of the workshop, with his back against the wall in the exact spot where once his crib had stood. He polished them almost automatically, his mind elsewhere. A deep sigh passed his lips.

"I don't know. I mean, it's like, maybe there is a place I would fit better."

Unspoken, there was the thought that maybe that place was one of white towers and sunshine and freely spoken Quenya. Ondolindë. The name was one of the many jittery secrets in his mind.

Anguirel thought about the halls of Nogrod and the halls of Menegroth, and that it wasn't because one place didn't fit you perfectly that another place would fit you better. But they weren't sure how to put that in proper words. (Maeglin had a proclivity for words they suspected came from his mother's part of the alloy, and he didn't listen half as well as his father did.)

"And mother might be happier if she could go back home. You know. Put a bit of distance between her and father."

The boy resonated with sad wistfulness when they gently reached out for him.

"I'm not sure your mother can be really happy anywhere."

Aredhel carried her past with her wherever she went, and she could no more escape it than she could outrun her own shadow. For all that mother-father-creator certainly had his hand in her current unhappiness, Anguirel knew he wasn't the root cause of it. And neither was Maeglin, for that matter. Their sibling had never fully let go of the strange idea that somehow he was a mistake, his creation an accident that had tied two completely unsuitable people together. That it was his fault that his parents were stuck with each other. Anguirel sincerely didn't believe it was possible to create a new life by accident and had told him so often enough, but the thought had its claws deep in Maeglin's anxious, secret-riddled being, too deep for them to dislodge. Maybe it was because they couldn't help but agree with the notion that Aredhel and mother-father-creator were wholly unsuited for each other. Maeglin shrugged.

"Even then. Surely she'd be happier if she had her family, and her freedom."

They doubted it. Whatever there was in Ondolindë, whatever it was Aredhel had left there, they sincerely doubted it was freedom. And as for family…

"You and mother-father-creator are her family."

Maeglin wanted to retort, but was interrupted by the sound of raised voices and breaking crockery, deeper in the house. He winced.

"I just don't understand why… why they are as they are."

Neither did they, and the more they learned, the less they felt like they wanted to. Anguirel sighed.

"People are difficult."

At least that they could agree on.

… … … …

The silence between mother-father-creator and his son, once so warm and full of mutual understanding, had become a poisoned, bitter thing; a device of cruelty on one side, an act of rebellion on the other. It was like a wedge being driven between them, slowly working apart what had once been thoroughly meshed. Anguirel had never wished more for a form that needed no hand to wield it, or a voice that resounded at their own behest. They had never felt so powerless.

Mother-father-creator and Aredhel had fallen apart in much the same way, but it hadn't struck them so badly then. They had been so unsuited to each other from the start that it hadn't been all that surprising, when it eventually happened. But mother-father-creator and Maeglin were kin. They were similar in make and material, meant to resonate in sync. They had almost been like them and Anglachel. The way that intended resonance became more dissonant with every day their silence grew more indomitable was just… wrong. Something deep inside them churned and rebelled against the notion that even so strong a bond could unravel, made them sick with anger and grief and their own inability to stop it from happening. Anguirel wanted to yell and scream at them, make them speak, make them listen, do anything just to put an end to this... but it seemed that they too were doomed to silence.

Words are hard, but it's harder without them.

… … … …

It was only when they saw Maeglin pack his tools and his things from the workshop with the look of a man haunted, his mother in the door opening with her travel cloak on, that they understood what was happening. They were leaving. Running. And as soon as their sibling had packed all he wanted from the workshop, he turned to them.

They could have stayed, easily. They considered it. He wouldn't have acted against their wishes; one word, and he would have put them back in the sword rack and left them behind. Yet when they felt his hand around their hilt, the resonant conviction in his mind, their refusal died unspoken.

It was part resentment; the simmering anger for what had been done to their brother-sister-mate. (The sickening shame of what they had allowed to be done to them.) Part was the unspeakable terror that gripped them whenever they looked at Maeglin and mother-father-creator and saw all what had held them together crumble. But the greater part of it was hope. A broken hope, that they would all find what they were looking for.

Aredhel ran because she needed someone to run after her (with her) and catch her when she fell.

Maeglin ran because he needed to see the world to recognize where it was that he belonged in it.

And they ran along with them, because –and it was only now they fully realized this- they needed to find Anglachel.

They might not find them; in fact, they most likely wouldn't. The world was a frightfully big place. But Anguirel didn't think they would be able to live with themself any longer if they didn't even try.

Author's Notes

I intended to write Anguirel's story in one part, but the fact remains that Anguirel had a lot more happen in their life than Anglachel, and this chapter would have become humongous if I had kept it in one piece. So, hence the "part one" situation.

Now, prepare for feels, because I have a lot of them.

In my idea, Eöl wasn't the complete creeper most people depict him as. Sure, he's not the most lovable character, but I honestly believe he gets a lot more hate for what he did to Aredhel than he deserves. Yes, magically trapping Aredhel in Nan Elmoth until she ended at his door was extremely dubious as far as ways to get a date go, but I don't think he raped her or magically coerced her to stay.

To me, Aredhel is a very flawed and damaged character, who was probably traumatized by the kinslaying and the crossing of the Helcaraxë. She desperately wants to come home somewhere, but every time she finds such a place, it is not the home she misses (the one that is irreversibly gone) and she can't help but feel trapped and need to run. She wants to feel safe, but her anxiety is an internal thing that always rears its head eventually, and then what felt safe becomes like a trap she has to escape. (And this is the main cause of her unhealthy relationships. You can't tell me there isn't a pattern in how she keeps ending up in sheltered, closed off environments under the care of a dominant man, only to break out and run away from them.)

You can tell, I have a lot of thoughts about this, and I tried my best to sketch it out, but it's very possible that I failed.

I wanted to show that she did love Eöl, and that he loved her, but that they both had too many underlying issues for their relationship to work out. In short, I think he certainly did Aredhel wrong, but she did him wrong as well, and I don't believe he deserves all the blame for the utter shitshow that was their marriage and their raising of Maeglin.

As for said raising… Anguirel thought it completely logical that it took 12 years for Eöl to name Maeglin, because they didn't consider him a "finished" being until that time. Aredhel sadly didn't agree with that notion.

Noldor believe in the tradition of insight-names that predict something about the child's character or eventual fate, and they don't always see that sometimes, the name is not so much a prediction as a doom. (Remember Nerdanel, who wouldn't give her twin sons separate names because she felt that there hung a doom over them, and that if she named them separately said doom would solidify itself?) Eöl refused to name Maeglin for so long because he wanted to avoid placing such a doom on his child. (In retrospect, that is painfully ironic, no?) Aredhel didn't understand this -mainly because Eöl never tried to use his words and explain it- and gave Maeglin a name of her own, which became the start of a lot of misery. (This is only one example of how their inability to properly communicate destroys their relationship, by the way.)

Further, I could fill a book with all the ways Eöl and Aredhel fail at family life. Seriously. So I'm not even going there.

Now, being a sword, Anguirel doesn't understand a lot of the things that come natural to people with fleshy bodies. Like sex (morbidly fascinating, yet mystifying), growing bodies (extremely disconcerting), and incest (I don't think they know it's a thing, and they would probably find it nonsensical if they did.)

Alongside from them being an observer to Eöl's train-wreck of a family, they also have problems of their own. Mainly, Anglachel. In opposite to said sword, who as we saw in chapter 1 never managed to come to terms with their grief, Anguirel actually does a commendable job at dealing with it and giving it a place in their life. But, as it turns out, it's not enough. In the end, they feel like they did Anglachel wrong, and that they need to make amends for it, somehow. They can't stand the thought that their bond might crumble and turn spiteful like the bond between Eöl and his son. And so, they leave… (oh, if only they had stayed… just consider that!)

You may have noticed I mentioned Telchar, who is responsible for several meaningful artifacts, like the sword Narsil, the nameless dagger that cut the Silmaril from Morgoth's crown, and the dragon-helm of Dor Lomin. As said before, in this story Eöl was fostered by the dwarves of Nogrod. The one who taught him metalwork was the dwarven smith Gamil Zirak (who has the epitaph "the old", so for the purpose of timeline I assume he became quite a bit older than the average dwarf), who also taught Telchar. (I'm not sure at all this works with the timeline whatsoever, but I liked the idea so I went with it. Forgive me. If it is any solace, canonically Eöl must have known Telchar for sure.)

So, that's it for part one of Anguirel's life story. The worst is yet to come, of course. Please review! I honestly want to know your opinions on this piece of strangeness I wrote. I'll try to answer questions to the best of my ability.