Picking Up The Pieces by Grundy  

How The Light Gets In

Maeglin understood that Elrond meant it when he said everyone in the room cared about him. He knew that. It didn’t make the idea of telling them what he’d only told Tindomiel any less intimidating.

Do you want me to insist they all back off? she asked urgently. I’ll do it.

I don’t think it will get any easier for waiting, he replied.

“Fine,” Tindomiel said flatly. “You all want to try the therapy thing, that’s great. But it’s on hold until after dessert.”

Maeglin might have said something had he not been utterly thrown at the sight of Rillë losing a battle of determined looks. Tindomiel won easily.

“Very well,” Elrond nodded.

It’s a reprieve at least, she told him. And of course I won – Gran Itarillë is nothing compared to fighting with Anariel or Arwen.

All the same, Maeglin couldn’t say he actually tasted much of the last course. Tindomiel tried to get him to sample more of dessert, Mastacarmë had come up with something magnificent in chocolate, but he was far too nervous.

It’s going to be ok, she assured him.

Unfortunately for her, he caught the thought she hadn’t meant to share – just don’t look at your grandmother when you say it.

Apparently it was his mother’s mother that would be horrified.

When everyone else was finished eating – Maeglin had done his best, but was fairly sure all he’d done was push things around on his plate – Tindomiel led the way into their sitting room and settled him in his favorite spot.

She curled up next to him, making it clear by both position and posture that she was not just at his side, but on his side. He took her hand gratefully and waited until the quiet meant everyone else had also found places.

“You wanted to know about the Halls,” he began quietly, looking at his own knees to avoid having to meet anyone’s eyes.

“I think we should begin a bit before that,” his father interrupted. “Tell us more of your life in Gondolin, that we may understand how you came to be in the Halls in the first place.”

“He nearly died from grief,” Itarillë put in unexpectedly. “After… after he was orphaned. We couldn’t get him to eat, and he locked himself in his room. Laurefindil had to go in the window to open the door.”

Maeglin tried not to blush. He usually did his best not to think on that miserable time. But it was something his parents would want to hear about.

“I did not mean to worry everyone so. But it was a very bad time,” he murmured.

“Was there no one you trusted enough that you could turn to?” his father asked worriedly.

“I trusted Aunt Irimë and Itarillë,” he admitted. “But I wasn’t sure who else I could or should trust.”

“What about Turvo?” his grandmother asked quietly.

He hesitated, reluctant to answer that question honestly. How was he supposed to explain it?

“Uncle Moryo said his brother believed you were frightened of Turukano,” Elrond observed.

He looked up at that – had Uncle Curvo told his brothers that he was to go with Uncle Finno after the battle? And why?

Elrond’s expression was not neutral – it was one of great concern.

He’s on your side, my love. Truly, Tindomiel whispered.

“How…?” he asked in confusion.

“Your uncle has already been brought before the Noldaran for his misdeeds once,” his grandmother said flatly.  Her tone softened. “Is it true?”

He swallowed, wishing anyone else would have been the one to ask that question, but nodded.

“Yes,” he said quietly. “Of course I was frightened of him – how could I not be? He killed my father, and claimed it was because my father killed my mother. But I knew that could not be.”

“Oh, my little mole…” his mother murmured. “It was, but not as your uncle told it.”

“Tindomiel has explained it to me,” he replied. “But I did not know it then. I only knew that you and Ada were both dead. Uncle had Ada thrown from the city walls, but before he did, Ada told me to watch for my opportunity to get away. I nearly did at the battle – what did you say it was called?”

He looked to Tindomiel.

“The Nirnaeth,” she reminded him.

“Yes, the Nirnaeth Arnoediad,” he nodded. “I met Uncle Finno there, and he told me I might go with him to Mithrim after the battle. But the day went against us, and I was lucky to manage a retreat with Uncle’s forces, reaching Uncle Finno’s people or Uncle Curvo’s was impossible. And Uncle Finno was killed…”

“That was not your fault,” Elrond said firmly.

It feels like it was, though, he told Tindomiel sadly.

“A great many people died in the battle,” Aunt Galadriel pointed out, speaking up for the first time. He’d nearly forgotten she was there. “Unless you spoke to each of them beforehand, your feeling that taking an interest in you somehow was the end of Finno doesn’t hold much water.”

Oddly, irrefutable logic made him feel better than sympathy would have.

“But you saved Atto,” Itarillë whispered. “He told me he would not have made it back if not for you and your company!”

“I did not see where you also losing a father was going to help anything,” he explained.

Saving his uncle had nothing whatsoever to do with his uncle and everything to do with keeping his best friend happy and safe.

Itarillë knew him well enough to know what he meant. Much like her great-granddaughter, she expressed herself with actions, not words. He found himself being hugged by his tearful cousin, who then settled into the just sufficient empty space on his other side, radiating support.

“And once you returned to the city?” Elrond prompted.

“I was terrified for everyone,” he said slowly. “We thought ourselves so well prepared for that battle, but it was nothing compared to what the master of Angband had in waiting.”

Their ranks had melted under the onslaught like butter, done in by sheer numbers. He hadn’t known there were so many orcs in all the world, let alone that they could all be collected in one place.

He could feel that Tindomiel was prepared to back him if he wanted to stop, and Rillë would probably be just as fierce about it. But having gotten this far…

“Our armories were badly depleted afterward. It was all we could do on the retreat to keep those that remained alive and in some semblance of order, stopping to salvage anything from our fallen comrades wasn’t even a thought. Both the Mole and the Hammer set to work to rearm all the Houses, because it was clear that any further battle was likely to be still more desperate. We began to think we might be safe when the city remained undisturbed for several years, but the work did not stop. It was not long after Tuor came to the city with Ulmo’s message that Rog and I realized we had a grave problem. The iron mines within the Echoriad, the parts of it that counted as the environs of the city, were nearly exhausted. We were using what we could from the tailings, but we couldn’t rearm without some fresh source of iron.”

“You never said!” Rillë protested.

“I didn’t want you to worry,” he explained quietly. “If you ask Rog, he will tell you the same. We also weren’t sure how to approach the king, particularly not when he had just decided against abandoning the city. Perhaps if we had, things might have gone differently. Instead, we agreed that I would try prospecting in the mountains. I found what became Anghabar, after all. If I could find a new source, or a more accessible path to where we believed there ought to part of the Anghabar seam we hadn’t touched yet, all might yet have been well.”

“This is when you were captured?” his mother asked worriedly.

He looked up to find her clutching Ada’s hand tightly, and nodded.

“I don’t know how far I strayed beyond whatever protection Ulmo had drawn around the valley, but clearly I must have, because there were orcs.”

He steeled himself. Maybe it would have been better to tell this part on an empty stomach – the glee of the orc captain still made him sick when he recalled it. Not to mention everything that came after that…

“They realized very quickly what they had stumbled onto, and took good care to bring me to Angband alive and relatively unspoiled.”

There was a stifled sob from his grandmother’s direction, but he didn’t dare look. If he did, he would lose his composure and they would have to start again later or tomorrow or some other day.

“Sauron was delighted when he discovered I was not just any man of Gondolin, but its prince.”

At the time, he’d hoped that he might dissemble, convince the Enemy’s right hand that he was only a lowly miner. Sauron had let him carry under that delusion on for several days before revealing that he knew who his prisoner was. At least, Maeglin thought it had been days.

But now that he had seen his grandfather – properly, alive – and knew what Nolofinwë looked like, it must have been obvious from the moment Sauron laid eyes on him who he was. Letting him believe he hadn’t been recognized had been just one more form of toying with him.

“When I finally broke, I thought it would be over, that he would kill me. But he did so much worse – he sent me back, but under his control, unable to warn anyone. I did try!”

Rillë’s sympathetic squeeze of the hand Tindomiel wasn’t holding said that she at least believed him.

“But every time I tried, Sauron would punish me, and it became harder and harder to do anything at all. Toward the end, I was barely even conscious most of the time, and it was worse when I was, because the last time he punished me, Sauron told me when the attack would come. When I was myself, I knew time was running out, but I could do nothing to prevent it.”

“And no one noticed?” his father demanded, aghast. “Not even your dearest friends?”

“I drew back from Rillë as much as I could,” he confessed. “I knew she had a secret and that I had managed to keep quiet. I didn’t know where, but I knew of it, and that might have been enough for Sauron to take more drastic steps to discover it.”

He suddenly realized he didn’t know if it had worked.

“Did your secret stay safe?” he asked Rillë urgently. “Did it work?”

“It worked, though Sauron may have guessed. We were able to make our way out of the city, but we were attacked in the mountains. I don’t know if it was ill luck, or if it was just plain that the Eagles’ Cleft was the only route left to escape the valley. Laurefindil died slaying the balrog, so we were able to reach the Vale of Sirion.”

His mouth worked soundlessly for a minute at the thought of Rillë and little Eärendil facing a balrog before Tindomiel restored him to something like a mental balance.

They lived, she reminded him. If they hadn’t, I wouldn’t be here and neither would you.

“This is perhaps a foolish question,” Aunt Galadriel said. “But when did you make the sword?”

“Which sword?” he asked in bemusement. “I made a good many swords, both before and after the battle.”

“She means Anariel’s,” Tindomiel snickered. “Which, by the way, she adores so much she refuses to use Gran Itarillë’s sword. She claims she’s afraid of destroying family heirlooms.”

“Really,” Itarillë snorted from his other side. “Swords are meant to be used. She’s hardly going to destroy on of Lómion’s.”

“Tell her that when she gets here,” was Tindomiel’s suggestion.

“Oh,” Maeglin said mildly. “That one. That was the last sword I made. I would work on it when I was myself, when I could… break  is not the right word, he was always there, but crack Sauron’s control, perhaps?”

The look on Aunt Galadriel’s face was of satisfaction.

“She’s going to adore it even more once she realizes her sword’s very existence is an annoyance to Sauron,” Celebrían sighed.

That was a pleasant thought. Though her using it to end Sauron would be even more pleasant.

Bit late for that, Tindomiel sighed. Remember that thing about rings?

“But all this does not explain why no one could find you in the Halls,” Itarillë protested.

Tell them, Tindomiel encouraged him.

“I did not know I was in the Halls,” he blurted out.

At least it’s out there now, she soothed him.

“How could you think you would be anywhere else?” his mother asked in confusion. “You died.”

“I did. But I didn’t realize that either – Sauron had me right until the last, and told me he did not intend to let me go so easily. I thought I woke up in Angband.”

The sound his grandmother made was far worse than a sob.

Perhaps we should have had my grandfather here for this?  he asked Tindomiel worriedly.

NO. That would not have made it any better. You do remember how he died, right? Because I can assure you he didn’t leave the temper in the Halls when he came back, and there’s no Morgoth here for him to go stab to work his feelings out.

He wasn’t certain about her logic, but he was relieved to see that Aunt Galadriel had moved to support his grandmother. His mother wasn’t capable, caught in her own horrified reaction.

“When did you discover your true circumstances?” Elrond asked softly.

“When Tindomiel told me,” he replied honestly. “I did not know I had been dead and safely in Mandos until I had already left.”

“But surely they explained to you in Lórien!” Rillë protested.

“He didn’t return by way of Lórien,” Tindomiel said, with the air of one getting the worst over with. “And before everyone asks again, it was not my doing. Uncle Namo has apparently finally figured out how to be sneaky, or at least creative. He just kinda booted Maeglin out after me when I left.”

“I had seen Tindomiel leave, but I hadn’t the faintest idea where she had gone thereafter,” Maeglin said, eager to exonerate his mate. “I simply picked a direction and started walking. It was a surprise to me when I came upon her and Anairon, and a bigger surprise that Tasariel and Califiriel were Laurefindil’s daughters.”

There was a smothered giggle from Rillë.

I bet you were so confused when they mentioned their mothers…

I was, he replied. You know perfectly well who I thought he was interested in!

He is, Tindomiel assured him. They’re just being slow about making it official.

I could always suggest they follow your fine example, Rillë offered sweetly.

GRAN.

“That does not sound much like Namo,” his grandmother said with a frown. “He is if anything overly careful with the dead – which is why it took Tinwë to bring Aiko back.”

“I believe I was a special case,” Maeglin said reluctantly. “I did not know where I was, or that he was Namo.”

Who did you think he was?

His father did not wish to ask the question aloud – too much risk of upsetting both Rillë and their grandmother – but he had to know.

Belegurth, Maeglin admitted.

He was prepared for his father to be disappointed in him, to think him foolish for having been so taken in, to be upset that he hadn’t been braver – anything but the wave of righteous anger for him, not at him.

“Of course your dad is angry for you,” Tindomiel said aloud. “Sauron deserves anything Anariel did to him and worse, and given the unusual situation, Namo could have tried the equally unusual step of asking somebody to help.”

“I think he did,” Maeglin told her. “There were voices, at first. But I didn’t trust them. And they weren’t Namo. So he must have asked, but it didn’t work. You were the only one who brought light with you.”

There must have been some puzzled looks, because Tindomiel explained further.

“He was in the darkest, oldest parts of the Halls, where nobody goes, not even dead orcs. I had to take light with me, otherwise I’d have run into walls.”

“You can walk through walls,” Galadriel pointed out.

“Not if I don’t know they’re there,” Tindomiel snorted.

“The light is what made me think it might be safe to follow,” Maeglin continued. “It was not like anything in Angband.”

I should hope not, Tindomiel said.

“This doesn’t explain why Namo did not tell anyone!” Ammë exclaimed indignantly.

“No,” Tindomiel said in a voice that promised he was going to hear about it. “It does not. You’re welcome to come with me when I have that conversation with him.”

There was utter silence in the room for a second.

“Of course, darling, I would love to,” his mother beamed.