Maglor

From a window on the second floor, Maglor watched Maedhros' horse rendered in miniature, riding with its master away over the gravel path and out of sight.

Even afterwards, the tension still lingered in Maglor's chest. Elros' eyes followed as Maglor's fingers drummed across the edge of the table at dinner. Maglor stopped. Elrond sullenly refused to touch the breadsnake even though Maglor thought it was his favorite.

After dinner as they lingered in his study, Maglor dug through the plain wooden chest he had kept hidden in the corner, under some rather ugly silks. Elrond, lying on his stomach doodling aimlessly on a scrap of parchment, perked up for the first time all evening when Maglor unearthed a bulky object wrapped in soft linens. The cloth tumbled down onto the stone.

Maglor brushed a speck of dust off the neck. The rich, dark wood still gleamed as if it had been polished yesterday. There were designs, too, inlaid across the entire frame with fragments of seashell that glowed iridescent in the firelight.

Abalone, from the beaches at Alqualonde. Feanor and everyone had crafted jewels for Olwe's city, thousands of them, until the shores glimmered red and silver and gold in the mingled light of the trees.

Even when they sailed away, the sands still shone red.

Maglor hung his head.

Elrond was watching. Maglor braced his hand against the side of the chest and straightened up. He forced a smile. "Just as I promised. Let's find out if Deary Old Maglor can still summon a tune."

Elros sat curled up on one couch with his arching bracer. Maglor settled on the other one and gave the harp an experimental strum.

Elrond set his stick of charcoal down. Elros paused in his task of poking holes in the leather.

Maglor frowned to himself. "Flat."

Elrond meandered up to Maglor as the bard fussed quietly with the tuning pins. Maglor generously adjusted his legs to allow Elrond some room on the cushions.

"Ah, that'll do." Maglor closed his eyes and tilted his head in concentration as his fingers plucked out a few notes. "Yes, that'll do quite nicely."

He cast around in his memory for a suitable song. There was one, to start with. His eyes flickered up to Elrond, patiently sitting cross-legged on the other end of the couch. "The farmers sang this in the fields as they sowed the summer barley. I remember hearing it as a boy, riding by with my brothers."

Maglor settled back into the pillow and began.

._.

It was later. Elrond had long since fallen irretrievably into a deep slumber, curled up like a cat into his cushion. Maglor would need to carry him to bed soon. Already he could see the little imprints left on Elrond's cheek when he shifted in his sleep, marked red from the rough wool weave.

Elros wasn't far behind. The arching bracer sat abandoned on the carpet. Elros lay with one arm flung over the side of the couch, breathing slowly.

Maglor, alone, plucked the first few chords of the Noldolante.

Elros grunted.

Maglor, not quite alone, stopped.

Elros wiped away some hair on his forehead but kept his eyes closed. "W'sat one?" he mumbled.

The fire had died down to coals. "Do you know it?"

Elrond was snoring softly. Elros' back rose and fell. Maglor waited for an answer, but didn't get one. Elros had evidently fallen back asleep.

Maglor ran his finger along the edge of one shard of seashell. Alqualonde. That name hadn't run across his thoughts in years. It wasn't that there had been no reason to. Rather, some force of will had pushed those memories down in his subconscious, buried in the murk and silt of centuries long past. That was long ago, he used to tell himself. Under Feanor, during those first few days of darkness when everything was in tumult. Things are different now. And then came the Ruin of Doriath.

As if moving of their own accord, Maglor's fingers strummed that first chord. He closed his eyes. "'Who is left to remember?'"

._.

His first battle.

Maglor had held a sword before that day, even swung it a few times, furtively in the privacy of his room back in Tirion. Hunting, no doubt, was what new weapons like these were intended for. Great beasts, shaggy and with jagged tusks, wandering the great unconquered lands of Middle Earth across the sea. Maglor could picture it so clearly in his head.

On that … morning? How could there be mornings anymore, now that the world was an endless night? … in his tent on the outskirts of Alqualonde, Maedhros shook Maglor awake. Feanor had ordered them to don their armor, he said. "'Just in case'," Maedhros quoted.

Maglor wouldn't let that pass. "'Just in case' what?" he shot back. "What else did Father say?"

Maedhros rolled his eyes and let out a puff of air between his lips. "You say that as if Father confides in me anymore."

Maedhros' features were difficult to see, illuminated only by a single slim candle and the stars visible outside the tent flap. In addition, Maedhros was half turned away, as if hoping that Maglor would take the hint.

Maglor chose not to. "He has to take counsel with someone," he insisted, hopping on one foot to tug a leg through his trousers, "And it's certainly not Mother anymore. There's simply too much happening right now. You'd go mad without it."

This time Maedhros really did turn away. "I didn't come here for your insights, Maglor," he snapped. "Ten minutes. Dressed, armored, sword. By the time the light – " he stopped himself. "By the time the candle drippings hit the next notch on the stick. You don't want to keep Father waiting."

Maglor, chastened, nodded.

Maedhros paused at the entrance to the tent and turned back, only slightly. "When we start moving, you stick by me, all right? I don't know how things are going to go, so just … just be sure you'll stay close."

Below the more articulate and rational regions of his mind, something more primal floated to the surface. An uneasiness, reflected in Maedhros' eyes that ran down from Maglor's half-buckled breastplate to the still-shiny sword sheathed at his waist. Maglor pushed the thought away. "What, for assigning the teams for shipbuilding? That's what Fingolfin said we'll have to do," he added. "Even if we're not supposed to listen to our uncles anymore."

Something glimmered in Maedhros' face, and he opened his mouth. In that moment Maglor thought his older brother would let forth some secret thought. Instead Maedhros shrugged.

"Don't know. Father didn't tell me. He never tells anyone anything, these days."

Maedhros let the tent flap fall and walked off, leaving Maglor alone in the darkness.