High in the Clean Blue Air by StarSpray  

Late First Age
Beleriand

When at last the twins and the remnant of their people disappeared into the distance, Maglor turned back from the road. Maedhros pretended not to notice him wiping tears from his face. “You could have gone with them,” he said. “You could still, if you—”

“No,” Maglor said, not looking at him, “I could not.” A cold wind was blowing from the north, carrying a faint sour smell, and dark clouds were moving in; lightning flickered in them, sickly and pale. He passed Maedhros to grab his things. “We need to find shelter.”

“Maglor,” Maedhros tried again, reaching out to catch his arm. “If you—”

“Don’t.” He yanked his arm from Maedhros’ grip, and lifted his pack. He had given his harp to Elros, and it was strange to see him without it slung over his shoulder. 

“What if I ordered you to go?” Maedhros asked. The look Maglor gave him was withering, and he set his jaw. “I am still your liege—”

“Neither of us are lords of anything,” Maglor said, voice flat. He sounded exhausted, and looked it too, suddenly. His shoulders sagged, and his hair was coming loose of its braid. Strands of it blew across his face, momentarily hiding his eyes, which were red and still wet. 

“I am still your older brother, then,” Maedhros said. “I am asking you—”

“I will follow you to whatever end, however bitter,” Maglor said. “But I will not leave you. How can you ask it of me, now, after everything?” His voice broke on the last word, and fresh tears fell, dampening his hair and making it stick to his cheeks. 

“Do you think it is easy for me to ask?” Maedhros demanded, taking shelter in anger. He had no tears left to shed, and if he did not get angry he felt he would break apart, dissolve into dust or burn away into ash as their father had. Whatever happened, however the world ended, he would have Maglor safe. If there was any hope for the future it lay with Elwing’s sons and with Gil-galad, not with him. He knew with the kind of certainty that was rooted in his very bones that at the end of his road, whatever the outcome of the war in the north, lay his death. “If there is a chance for you to—”

“Stop.” Command rang through the word, never before directed at Maedhros. His voice died in his throat, and he took a step back, shocked out of his anger and left feeling empty and cold. When Maglor spoke again, it was quieter, and weighed down by grief. “There is nowhere for me to go that is safe. There is nowhere for either of us, after everything we have done. Do not ask me again, please, Maedhros. I will not leave you. I cannot leave you, and I could not bear it if you left me.”

Maedhros closed the distance between them and pulled Maglor in. Maglor dropped his head to Maedhros’ shoulder. His shoulders shook once, twice, and then stilled. “I am sorry, Cáno,” Maedhros whispered. “I will not ask again.”

The clouds were hurrying on ever closer, and the thunder rumbled, ominous, and heralding a great rush of wind that pulled Maglor’s hair entirely free of its braid to blow wildly around their heads. “We have to go,” he said, drawing away from Maedhros, but grasping his hand. “This way.”

They reached the shelter of a shallow cave in a crumbling outcropping of rock just in time. The skies opened and rain roared down just as Maedhros ducked in beside Maglor. He leaned against the stone wall, and Maglor leaned against him. Maedhros rested his hand on Maglor’s hair, wind-tangled and wild, as memories came unbidden to his mind, of all the times in their youth that Maglor had slipped away from company or just from the boisterous chaos of their household, and how it had always been Maedhros, and none of their other brothers, or their father, or even their mother, who had been able to find him when he hid himself away—in closets and under beds when he had been small, and later on rooftops or in the branches of trees, or hidden in the tall grass near the river behind their grandfather Mahtan’s house. Maedhros had asked him once why that was, and he had laughed—they had all laughed so easily then—and replied as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, “I will never not want your company, Nelyo.”

Somehow that was still true, though they never laughed now, and Nelyafinwë of Tirion was long dead, replaced by Maedhros of Himring who would have horrified his younger self, had he ever seen who he would become, and though Oath and Doom pressed on them so sometimes it was hard to even breathe under the weight of them. Maglor, too, was someone his younger self would recoil from, and the thought of what he had led his brothers to would have been enough to make Maedhros weep if he had any tears left. He watched the rain and was quietly, selfishly, achingly glad that Maglor had stayed.

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Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

- “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

- - 

Fourth Age 122

It was a small and somber party that passed through the Tower Hills and down the road to Mithlond. A ship waited there; one of the last that would depart from that place. The city was nearly empty. As Maglor followed Elladan through the silent streets he thought that perhaps Men would come here someday, as Arnor grew again. They would build up the walls that might crumble in the meantime, and plant new flowers in the abandoned gardens, and fill it with life and laughter and music. Maybe even some halflings would find their way down to the Sea, following old tales of the Ringbearer and his companion who had passed away over it.

Whatever they did, he would not be there to see it. 

Círdan greeted them at the dock, Maglor and Elrond’s sons and Lord Celeborn. Other elves had already boarded, and were going about the deck or settling their things in the cabins below. Maglor paused as the twins and Celeborn walked up the gangplank. It was only a handful of steps, but they felt like the most significant steps of his life. It was only the weight of his promise to Elrond that carried him at last up and onto the deck, for more than half his heart wished to turn away back toward the coastline, as he had before. The ship rocked gently beneath his feet, and he moved to the railing at the stern, out of the way of the sailors—and of Círdan, who had followed him up. At Maglor’s look of surprise he smiled, before moving away, toward the helm. No lingering looks back for Círdan, who had awaited this moment for years beyond counting. 

Maglor set his bag and his small harp case down at his feet. His full-sized harp he had sent ahead, and it was safe somewhere below in the hold. In his bag he had only a few changes of clothes, a bottle of miruvor, and a few knickknacks and keepsakes given to him by Arwen and Aragorn’s children before he left Minas Tirith for the last time. And, of course, a cat. The flap of his bag moved, and a small grey head peered out; Pídhres took one look around the deck and vanished back into the comfortable darkness. He had been long ago adopted by her foremother, who he had named Tári for her imperious ways; this last litter of her descendants he had taken to Annúminas to place into the care of Arwen’s grandchildren. Pídhres had refused to be left behind, however, climbing up his cloak and his clothes until she could curl around his shoulders, earning herself passage on this ship and her name. 

He watched as the gangplank was drawn up and the ropes were released. The tide was going out, and they went with it, drifting slowly away from the harbor, and the shore. They passed out of Lhûn and the wider coastline of Middle-earth opened up before his eyes. He had wandered those shores for centuries, and even now he felt the pull of that same wanderlust, and knew he would miss them for the rest of his life. Their wildness, the untamed waves, the rocky shores and the cliffs and the sandy beaches. The gulls, and the dunes, and the tide pools with their ever-changing denizens. Maglor took a breath, but exhaled slowly. Someone began to sing a song of farewell, and other voices took it up. He did not join them. 

“No songs from you?” asked an unexpectedly familiar voice at his side. Maglor turned to look into dark eyes lit with ancient stars. 

“Daeron,” he said, and smiled. “Where have you been wandering all this time?”

“Here, there, everywhere.” Daeron waved a hand back toward the shore as it slowly shrank behind them. Sunset painted the water golden. “As I imagine you have been also. But you have not answered my question.”

Maglor shrugged. He did not sing often in front of an audience these days—he had performed on occasion in Annúminas and Minas Tirith, but only when Aragorn or Arwen asked it of him, which they had only seldom knowing that he did not like to. “I have no songs for this parting,” he said. “I notice you are not singing either.”

“I will sing when the stars are out,” Daeron said. “Have you ever been on the water under a starry cloudless sky? It is the most marvelous, with stars above and stars below, so we might be sailing through the heavens themselves.” He leaned on the deck railing, his gaze drawn back to the shore, darkening now as the sun sank further, and the golden light deepened to something redder, that then turned to purple. In the eastern sky the stars flared up, one by one, pinpricks of diamond fire in the gloaming. The wind picked up, speeding them on their way.

“Namárië,” Maglor whispered to the shore just before it slipped from view entirely, swallowed by the horizon. He gripped the railing, and made himself turn to look into the west, where the horizon clung to the last vestiges of sunset. The Music of the world was not as loud out here as it was on the beaches, where the waves brought it crashing against the land, or carried it in gentler whispers over soft white sands. But he could still hear it, a steady rhythm and melody beneath them, carrying them onward and away.

He felt Daeron’s gaze on him. “You do not seem happy to be departing,” he said. “Why did you take ship?”

“I made a promise,” Maglor said. He looked at Daeron and saw his expression darken. “Not that kind of promise,” he said, offering a small smile. “That is over and done, long ago.”

“Good.” Daeron straightened, turning to look back out over the water. The sailors’ singing continued behind them, and Maglor heard Elladan’s voice joining with them, and the sweet notes of a flute played by Elrohir. The two of them stood in silence, watching the stars.

Elladan called to him after a while, and Maglor left the railing. Daeron followed him to where the rest of the sailors and passengers were gathered in the middle of the ship. Someone called to Daeron to sing them a song, and as Daeron obliged, singing of the starry waters of Balar long ago and worlds away, Maglor sat between the twins, who both leaned against him, reaching for his hands. Elrohir was weeping, silently. The tears fell onto Maglor’s shoulder, and he leaned his cheek against Elrohir’s hair. They listened to Daeron’s singing, which wound its way from ancient seashores to the wide waters of Belegaer, and back again up rivers and into deep woods and flowering meadows. It was a lament and a farewell to lands loved and lost and left behind. 

After a little while Maglor raised his head and joined his voice to Daeron’s, weaving a wordless harmony into his song. As they sang the wind kept up, filling the sails and carrying them ever westward, toward the Straight Road that would take them away from Middle-earth altogether. 

When Daeron finished his singing others lifted their voices to fill the silence. Maglor closed his eyes and let the music wash over him. The air smelled strange. Fresh and clean and faintly salty—but with none of the other scents that he associated with it, and had never realized before weren’t truly of the sea, but of the shore. Of seaweed and fish, dune grass and rain, and sun warmed earth. He sighed, and wished himself back again on the shores he knew. Except that he did not, truly. 

He did not know what he wished for. He was sailing because he had promised Elrond that he would, and later he had made the same promise to Elladan and Elrohir. His faith in Elrond eased some of the fears that lived in his heart of what he would find when they came to Avallónë, or to the mainland. But he was not the Canafinwë Macalaurë who had once sung and danced and laughed in Tirion with his brothers and his cousins. He was only Maglor now, no longer a prince or a lord of anything, still a singer but no longer a performer. Still Fëanor’s son—and that, since the Darkening, was not the source of pride that it had once been. He was a member of Elrond’s household, which was something—but they would expect more, those who had known him in his youth, that he was no longer able to give. 

The sun rose behind them; clouds were gathered on the horizon, limned with gold as the sky grew pale. When Maglor turned his gaze to the west he saw Gil-Estel hovering above the horizon. Did Eärendil know who was on this ship, he wondered? Would he take word back to his lady wife, and to his son? 

“I used to imagine that one day I would be permitted to join Eärendil upon Vingilot, even for a single voyage,” Elladan whispered beside him. Elrohir was asleep, lying now with his head in Maglor’s lap. “I suppose that might come true someday soon.”

“I think your grandfather would be glad to have you join him,” Maglor said. He had always imagined it to be very lonely, up there in the cold and unforgiving sky. Elladan smiled at him, but it was not his usual sunny grin. Grief lay heavily upon both him and Elrohir—as it lay on Celeborn, and on Maglor himself. He pulled Elladan in to kiss his temple, and with a sigh Elladan leaned against him again, closing his eyes. Maglor caught Celeborn’s eye; Celeborn offered a small smile before he disappeared below decks. After a few minutes Pídhres wiggled her way out of Maglor’s bag and disappeared down the stairs as well, doubtless in search of the galley and whatever morsels she could charm from the cooks in it. Maglor leaned back against the mast and watched the sun rise higher in the sky, as the twins slept, and he thought of other sunrises and other sets of twins. He hummed a quiet song, one of the first he had written after finding his way back to music again in Imladris, many years ago now. It was not a lament, exactly, but it was a song of grief, and the weight of it, and of that moment in the year when the world was strangely balanced between dark winter and burgeoning spring. It was full spring now; they had left Imladris when the flowers were all in bloom, and the air was fragrant with apple blossom and roses. They had stood for a long while atop the path, looking down into the valley where very few folk dwelt now, which was still as beautiful as it was the day Maglor had first seen it—also in spring, at the beginning of May. Ever since, he had regarded May as the kindest month of the year. 

He had been a frail and broken thing, then. Time, and Elrond, had healed most of his wounds. Many of the scars he had obtained in Dol Guldur had faded, but the worst remained—the brand upon his chest, and the needle marks around his mouth; the whip scar on his face just over his right cheekbone; the rings of scar tissue around his wrists where the cold iron manacles had rubbed them mercilessly raw for many years. Whenever he tried to imagine going to see his mother he remembered those, and he did not think he could bear her having to see them, having to learn what had happened to him—if, of course, she did not slam the door in his face. 

She probably would not slam the door. Nerdanel was kinder than that. How much he really believed she would be glad to see him depended on the day, and what other dark thoughts arose to haunt him. 

Time healed most wounds. But not all. Usually he could set aside old bitternesses and griefs, and it had been long since he had felt truly lonely. But he could feel the old hurts welling up again, like he’d scratched off a scab by stepping up that gangplank, already made tender by new grief. There were others, too, that he knew must be returned from Mandos by now. Cousins, friends. Perhaps his uncle. Perhaps even his brothers—and he did not know anymore whether he wanted to see them again or not, only that he hoped they would not be waiting with Elrond on the docks at Avallónë; he was not ready. 

Maglor shook his head, and looked at the white and puffy clouds drifting lazily over the sky. The water below was blue and flecked with white as waves crested and fell. Eventually the twins woke, and went to seek breakfast and perhaps a real bed somewhere in the cabins below. Maglor was not tired or hungry. He instead climbed his way up the rigging to the crow’s nest. There was nothing to see—no one really knew how long the voyage would take, but it would be days at least until they could expect the sight of land. All that meant in the moment was that no one else was up there, and he could sit and watch the horizon without fear of anyone coming to talk to him. 

Or so he thought. It was not long before the ropes creaked underneath him, and Daeron pulled himself up to join him, having scampered up the rigging with the ease of a squirrel through the trees. He sat on the edge of the crow’s nest, legs dangling out over the deck below, the wind catching his hair so that it floated out over his shoulder like a dark banner. Maglor looked up at him, and he looked down at Maglor, frowning slightly. “Should you not be down among everyone else, singing merry songs and making them all laugh? I remember at the Mereth Aderthad you were almost always at the center of something.”

“That was a long time ago,” Maglor said quietly. 

“True. And it is said that you never did some back among the Eldar after—after.” Even Daeron had not the words for it. He dropped down into the nest beside Maglor, leaning against the mast, shoulder to shoulder. “Though of course that has proved untrue.”

“It is said also that you vanished into the east to lament forever beside dark waters,” Maglor said. 

Daeron snorted. “I had many laments to sing, it is true. But I wandered more than I sat beside any meres, dark or otherwise. Did you never take up performing again even after you went to Rivendell?”

“Sometimes,” Maglor said, “but I lost my taste for it long ago. Besides,” he added with a smile, “there is a mightier singer on this ship than I, and you do not shun an audience.” Daeron laughed. “Why are you not down on the deck singing merry songs, then?”

“We were friends, once, for a short time,” Daeron said instead of answering the question. “Were we not?”

“I like to think so,” Maglor said. 

“And then for a very long time I hated you. For Alqualondë—and the lies afterward. I think I could have forgiven the one if not for the other. And then I heard of Doriath, and of Sirion, and of what you did to Lúthien’s children.” Maglor said nothing. “Knowing that you were there was the worst of all of it, I think. I cared not for your brothers. I did not know them. I did not sing with them, or teach them my writing, or learn anything from them in return.”

“Daeron…”

“I thought for a very long time that I should become a kinslayer myself I if I ever saw you again.”

“I am glad that it has not proven so,” Maglor said, “unless you are warning me that you intend to throw me into the Sea.” Daeron snorted. Their shoulders still pressed against each other, a point of warmth against the cool breeze. Somewhere below someone laughed, and there was the smell of something cooking drifting up from below decks. In the distance a whale broke the surface of the water, shooting a sudden spray high into the air before sinking back beneath the waves. 

“Time has dulled the edge of many hurts,” Daeron said at last. “And I would rather make music with you, as we did last night, than exist in unhappy silence. What do you intend to do when we reach Eressëa?”

“I will go with Elladan and Elrohir to their parents’ house,” Maglor said. “And from there—I do not know.” He would have to go to Alqualondë, to Olwë, and thence perhaps to whoever led the Sindar in Valinor if they had not joined entirely to Olwë’s people. To Elwing. To Tirion, and his uncle, whichever sat on the throne there. Eventually, he would have to go to his mother. “Where will you go?”

“I suppose I will follow Lord Celeborn to wherever he goes, and thence to—well, whoever rules our people in these days in these new lands. I hope to see Elu Thingol again, but I do not know. What can you tell me of where we are going?”

“I can tell you what it was like in the Years of the Trees, but so much time has passed that everything must be very different now,” Maglor said. “We will sail into Eldamar, and dock on Tol Eressëa, and beyond we will see the Pelóri, and through the Calacirya we may glimpse Tirion, the Mindon Eldaliéva rising above the other towers with its silver lamp…” 

Daeron was watching him, and as Maglor trailed off he frowned, and reached over to touch the scar on his cheek. “What is this?” he asked. “I did not notice it before. And what are these?” His fingers went to Maglor’s lips, tracing over the scars there. “It looks like—”

“They are old.” Maglor turned away, letting his hair fall between them like a curtain. There were streaks of white in it, also a gift of Dol Guldur, but Daeron made no comment on them. “Do not ask me more.” 

“One question more, and then I will leave it,” Daeron said. “Who was it? Who gave you these scars?”

Maglor did not want to answer. The name tasted like blood on his tongue, and burned when he whispered it. “Sauron.” He was no more—defeated for good many years ago now—but the memory of him still haunted Maglor’s nightmares. And he had only been a prisoner of the Necromancer, long before he had rebuilt the strength of Barad-dûr and nearly overtook all of Gondor. It could have been so, so much worse, he knew. He had seen the look in Frodo’s eyes after it all, and seen the damage to the walls of Minas Tirith and the ruin of the Pelennor.

Daeron asked no more, as he promised, but he also left the crow’s nest. To ask someone else, Maglor thought wearily, who would tell him the full tale. Lord Celeborn, most likely. He did not care, as long as he himself did not have to speak more of it. 

He would need to grow used to such questions, though. Daeron was not the last who would ask him about those scars. He rubbed his hand over his lips and grimaced. With a sigh, Maglor leaned back against the mast again and gazed out over the horizon, only a slight shift in the shades of blue marking the line between sea and sky. After a little while he started to hum, and then to sing—very softly, just to himself—a song that he had written long ago in Valinor all about the color blue. It had been a silly and merry song in those days, but he found a softer tune for it now, gentling the melody to one that felt more comfortable to him now, so much older and so much more tired.

At least he would find rest, he thought. Whatever else awaited him, Valinor’s promise to the Eldar was rest. 

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The place where Celebrían had made her home in Valinor was called, by the time Elrond came there, Imloth Ningloron, for the irises that grew wild throughout, in between the scattered streams and brooks that filled it with the music of flowing water. The Pelóri rose up behind them in the east, much as the Misty Mountains towered over Imladris, but not quite so close, for there were hills in between. The valley itself was also quite different from Imladris, a wide shallow bowl-shaped thing with a gentler approach than the sudden opening of a dell far below one’s feet. She had built a sprawling house in the middle of it, made by many of the same hands that had helped to build the house in Imladris, so that it was both familiar and new. Unlike its forebear, this house had been planned from the start to be a place of comfort and enjoyment, rather than built up haphazardly and quickly to house desperate soldiers and refugees, with comfort only a secondary concern and not much thought of until after the war had ended.

Elrond sat in one of the many gazebos that dotted the gardens, this one reached by a wooden walkway built over several streams and a pond, leaning over the railing of it to watch silver and gold fish dart about the water below. The water lilies were in bloom; so were all the springtime flowers, and the valley was filled with them, like a bright patchwork quilt, and bright with the sound of birdsong. It was a quiet afternoon, and a rare one without visitors. They had been coming in a steady stream ever since Elrond had set foot on the dock at Avallónë, and though he had expected them, any respite was something of a relief. 

There was always music in the valley, too, just as there had been in Rivendell. Elrond reflected, as he watched the fish, that it would not be long before his sons’ voices joined those singing out among the flowers nearby. Unlike Imladris, Imloth Ningloron was wide and sported few trees except the ones that Celebrían had planted—apples and peaches and other fruits that Elrond had never tasted before coming west. The sky was wide and blue overhead, and north and south hills rose up, wooded and wild, and the road wound lazily out of the valley and away, some days’ ride north toward the larger one that passed through the Calacirya and down to Alqualondë; they would take it, soon, and then sail across the bay to Avallónë, to await the ship bringing Elladan and Elrohir at last. And Maglor. He had promised he would come, but Elrond had still not gotten rid of the habit of fearing that he would disappear again. And the knowledge that both Arwen and Aragorn were gone from the world—that made everything harder. 

Imloth Ningloron was also the only little realm in Valinor—now a land of many little realms—that had a space set aside for the dead. There were three graves there, now: three hobbits given the honor and grace of healing from their long ordeals in the land of the Valar before they went to their final rest. They had built a garden around it, where elanor and niphredil bloomed, and snapdragons and laburnums and lilies, and forget-me-nots that had been Frodo’s favorite, and all three had been buried beneath a mallorn tree that Galadriel had planted there, from a seed brought back over the Sea from Lothlórien; a rose bush grown from a cutting that Sam had carried from the gardens of Bag End grew beside his grave, too. There were other little memorials scattered throughout that garden, for those the folk of Imloth Ningloron had known and loved in Middle-earth. There was one for Merry and Pippin set beside the graves of Frodo and Sam, and Elrond knew that something would soon be erected to honor Aragorn and Arwen. He had taken no part in those discussions; the grief was too near, still. He had refused the suggestion that Nerdanel be asked to make statues the moment someone—he couldn’t recall who, now—had spoken of it. Hers were so lifelike that he knew he could not bear it. Celebrían had agreed, to his relief. 

He left the gazebo, thinking he would make his way to that garden. It was always quiet there, and he could feel his mood dipping, his desire for music and even sunshine waning swiftly. He wanted the shade of the mallorn tree and the tall green hedges between him and the rest of the world. But when he stepped through the gate he found that someone had come there before him. 

Elrond had met all of Fëanor’s sons by now, mostly by chance meetings in Tirion or when Nerdanel brought them with her to visit Imloth Ningloron, and of course Celebrimbor was a frequent visitor. But he had seen Maedhros only once or twice in all the time he had been in Valinor. It was widely known though little remarked upon that Maedhros avoided most company. He dwelled still with Nerdanel outside of Tirion, and Elrond did not know how he spent his days. 

He had wanted to make some kind of overture, but Maedhros had always been a figure set apart, unapproachable in both memory and in life. As a child Elrond had feared him; as he had grown older that fear had not gone away, exactly, though it had lessened, little by little. Even that had faded by now, for Elrond had faced far more frightening things in his life that Maedhros Fëanorion, but that did not mean he knew what to say to him, or even how to fully understand him. He had come back from Mandos unhealed, and it seemed to Elrond that he had rejected it in life also. Grief and guilt lay on him like a too-heavy cloak in high summer, uncomfortable and doing more harm than good, no lighter than they had been in Beleriand long ago. Some of it Elrond knew—the pain of watching everyone you loved die, or leave, and being the only one left standing in the end without knowing why; he understood that all too well. But Maedhros’ brothers and kin were all alive again—or almost all—and still he seemed unable to leave the past where it belonged.

Maedhros was not who Elrond had expected to see, particularly in this part of the gardens. Maedhros turned as Elrond entered through the gate; he had been contemplating the memorial to Gilraen. Elrond had made it himself only recently, for she had been much in his thoughts of late—she and Arathorn and all the others who had come before. 

“You have no monument to Elros,” Maedhros said before Elrond could think of how to greet him. 

“We made this garden first for Bilbo,” said Elrond, going to stand before the small flower-covered mound. Sam’s roses were in full bloom, and the air was thick with the sweet smell of them. “The other remembrances have been added only slowly. And Elros has his monument in Avallónë.” Finrod had made it, and Elrond had seen it when he’d first come there. The likeness was not inaccurate, but Tar-Minyatar of Númenor was not the Elros whose memory lived in Elrond’s heart. It had been hard to look at, and anything he tried to make himself would only be worse. Were it up to Elrond alone there would be no memorial to Arwen or Aragorn, either—though he knew that was selfish, and in time he would come to appreciate whatever was done. He looked up from the roses at Maedhros, who had tilted his own gaze up to the mallorn tree, branches swaying gently in the breeze over their heads. Elrond wanted to ask why he was there, but he could not think of a way to do it that did not sound either rude or like he was unhappy to see him. Even if it was true, it was unkind.

“I heard of your daughter,” Maedhros said finally, lowering his gaze to meet Elrond’s. “I am sorry.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Will your other children come west now?”

“Yes. We expect to hear of it anytime now. Lord Celeborn is coming, too.” Elrond thought he understood now what had brought Maedhros there. His concern was not for Elrond or for Elrond’s children, not really. “I also expect Maglor to sail with them,” he said. 

Maglor had written to Nerdanel—a fairly short letter that he had entrusted to Galadriel. Elrond did not know what it had said, but he imagined that Maedhros did. What Maglor had done and what had happened to him over the course of the Second and Third Ages of the world was not Elrond’s tale to tell, so he had remained quiet, and no one had come to him to ask. Now Maedhros asked, “Why did he not come with you before? He was—” He turned away, hand balling up into a fist. “He was put to torment. I know that he was—I saw it in one of my father’s palantíri.”

Elrond had not known of that. If he had, he would have tried harder to speak to Maedhros before. “He was,” he said quietly, “but he was long ago brought out of that place. He found healing in Imladris.” 

“Some hurts cannot be healed in Middle-earth,” Maedhros said. 

“It seems that some cannot be healed even here,” Elrond said, and was rewarded with a glare, Maedhros’ eyes flashing with that fire that had once made armies flee before his coming. Elrond met it without flinching; of the two of them there, he was the mightier now, no longer a frightened child but a Ring-wielder and lord of Elves and Men in his own right. Grief weighed on him, too, but he knew how to carry it, rather than letting it devour him. He wondered if Maedhros wanted to be devoured. “Maglor sought healing, and so he found it. What will he think when he sees that you have done neither when he comes?” 

“Do you think I could so easily retreat to Lórien and let myself sleep the years away while my brother lay in darkness and in pain?”

“He has not been in darkness or in pain for many years now,” Elrond said. 

“How do you know? I have looked for him and I have not found him again. I have seen only mist over the shore.”

“Because he came to me after he was brought out of the darkness of Dol Guldur, and dwelled with me in Imladris until I left it. Because I know the world in which I left him, and there is no darkness left that could hold him. Do you think I am so poor a healer that I would have left him behind if he truly needed to come here?” At this Maedhros looked away, and Elrond took a breath, and softened his voice. “Maglor has long hidden himself from any who might seek for him. Even Galadriel could never find him. It does not surprise me that he has fallen back into old habits.” 

“Not from me,” Maedhros said in a low voice. “He never—he has never hidden from me.” 

Elrond swallowed a sigh. He did not know how to answer. He knew some of Maglor’s fears, and he could easily guess that his grief for his brothers, and Maedhros in particular, was far more complicated than merely missing them. Resentment and bitterness mixed up in love and grief made for a thick knot that would take time and pain to unravel. He would have been lying to himself if he tried to say that he had not dealt with some similar bitter feelings in the wake of Elros’ choice.

“Whatever answers you seek, Maedhros, I cannot give them to you.”

“I had thought perhaps the wisdom for which you are famed would offer some insight.” The words were almost sneered, and spoken with unmistakable bitterness.

“Even if I could, why should I?” Elrond asked, tiring at last of this. “Tell me, Maedhros son of Fëanor, why should I give you anything at all?” Maedhros looked at him, eyes widening slightly. “I have heard that you went to everyone that you once wronged, from Alqualondë to the court of Nimloth my grandmother to offer apologies and whatever restitution might have been asked of you—but when you come at last to my door—to this garden—you offer nothing but bitter words and thinly veiled accusations. Have you nothing else to say to Elwing’s only living son?”

“I came to learn what you would tell me of my brother,” Maedhros said after a pause, having recovered from his surprise enough to be angry again. 

“And you have learned it.” With that Elrond left the garden, knowing that even if it was Maedhros who left he would find no peace there that day, and knowing that staying longer would only cause his resentment of that fact to bubble to the surface, doing neither of them any good. He retreated inside instead, up the stairs to the bedroom he shared with Celebrían. It was open and airy, with more windows than walls, for she had chosen a place far enough south that the weather was warm year-round. The breeze was flower-scented and made the gauzy curtains billow and wave gently. Everything was warm in that room, pinks and reds and warm brown floors and walls. Elrond sank onto the edge of the bed and pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes. 

After a few minutes he heard the door open, and then the mattress shifted and dipped as Celebrían slid across it from the other side to wrap her arms around him from behind. “Maedhros is here,” she said, after kissing his temple.

“I know,” he said without lowering his hands. “We spoke.”

“Mm. Perhaps I should not have told him to join us for supper, then. What did he say to you?”

“Nothing—nothing awful, really.” Elrond allowed her to catch his wrists and lower them, and he leaned back, turning his face into her neck. Her hair was softer than silk against his cheeks. It was still a marvel, a miracle, such a blessing to be able to do this whenever he liked—to touch her and kiss her and just speak to her, to know that she was somewhere nearby even when out of his sight. “He wanted to know about Maglor.”

“Did you tell him?”

“That we expect him to sail with the boys? Yes. Now I think I should not have. I don’t even know if Maglor will want to see him.”

“That’s simple enough to fix,” Celebrían said. “I’ll have a word with my uncle, and if Maedhros appears on Eressëa and Maglor does not want to see him, Finrod will keep him away.”

Elrond thought of that glimpse of fire in Maedhros’ eyes. “I’m not sure that it will be so easy.”

“It will be,” Celebrían said. She slid her fingers through his hair, removing the circlet that he’d been wearing, and tossed it aside. “Maedhros can be quite determined, it is true, but so can Finrod—and these days Finrod is one of the few who Maedhros will both speak and listen to. And if it turns out that Maglor does want to see him right away, it will only be a matter of sending him to Finrod’s house rather than bringing him to ours, and no harm is done.” She had moved on to undoing the braids that kept the remainder of Elrond’s hair out of his face now that the circlet was gone, ridding him of that tension on his scalp. “I think, though, that you believe Maglor will not want to see him.”

“I know that he would not have, had he sailed with me,” Elrond said. He lifted his head to let Celebrían reach the other braids, and sighed. “He was healed, but he was not—he was still fragile in many ways. I fear he is still.”

“He may always be,” Celebrían said softly, as one who knew only too well of what she spoke. “But that does not mean he needs always to be wrapped in cotton wool, or that you need always take the role of his protector.”

“Old habits,” Elrond murmured, leaning back against her again. He sighed. “I spoke more harshly to Maedhros than I should have.”

“I know what it takes to provoke your temper, Elrond—and I am also sure that you did not speak nearly as harshly as he probably deserved.”

“He is not well.”

“And whose fault is that? If he is content to wallow in his misery, that is his business, but he does not need to drag us all down with him. And I will tell him so if he is unpleasant at supper.” When Elrond smiled in spite of himself, she added, “And let us leave tomorrow or the next day for Avallónë. I can pace the halls of our house there as well as here, and it will be a much shorter walk to the harbor.”

“You’ll have no argument from me,” Elrond said. 

“Of course not! When do you ever argue with me?” Celebrían laughed and kissed his forehead, and then his cheeks, and then at last his lips.

“Whenever you are wrong,” Elrond said. He sat up and kissed her back. “But that happens so rarely.” That made her laugh again, the sound sweeter than birdsong in spring. He felt better just hearing it. 

Before he could so much as reach up to thread his fingers through Celebrían’s hair, however, the clatter of hooves echoed up through the windows from the courtyard below, followed by cheerful calls and greetings from others in the household out and about. Elrond sighed, and Celebrían made a face as they parted and went to the window to look down. “Oh, it’s Celebrimbor!” Celebrían leaned out of the window to call down to him. “Well met, Cousin!”

Celebrimbor looked up and smiled from beneath a mess of dark windblown hair. His companion also looked up, though his expression remained more stern. As Celebrían drew back inside Elrond wondered aloud, “What is Curufin doing here?” Celebrimbor was a frequent visitor to Imloth Ningloron—so much so that he could almost abandon the title of guest—but his father had never before accompanied him.

“Looking for his brother, perhaps?” Celebrían said. “We’ll find out soon enough. Let me fix your hair.”

“My hair that you unfixed, you mean,” Elrond said as she picked up the circlet. 

“Hush, you.” She combed her fingers through the strands to set them in order, and set the circlet back over them. “There. Now you look like a proper lord and not as though you just rolled out of bed.”

“I rather wish I had just rolled out of bed,” Elrond said, just to hear Celebrían laugh again as she took his hand and pulled him from the room. 

Celebrimbor was not in the courtyard or the entry hall when they descended the stairs. Curufin was, and he bowed in greeting. “Lady Celebrían, Lord Elrond,” he said.

“Well met, Cousin Curufin,” Celebrían said, stepping forward to take his hands and kiss his cheek as he straightened. “To what do we owe this visit?”

“My brother Maedhros,” Curufin said. “I do not know where Tyelpë has gone—”

“To the gardens, I think,” Celebrían said. “We’ll follow after. He always goes to the memorial garden when he comes, to pay his respects.” She took Curufin’s arm, and Elrond fell into step beside them as they made their way back outside. They did not go to the little walled garden, but instead to the rose garden by the house, where there were benches and fountains aplenty. “Maedhros is here,” Celebrían said as she directed them to her favorite bench. “Though I am not sure where, at the moment.”

“Is something amiss, Curufin?” Elrond asked, watching him. There was something unsettled and almost nervous about him, which did not bode well. 

Curufin did not answer until Celebrimbor reappeared, with Maedhros in tow. Maedhros avoided Elrond’s gaze as he bowed over Celebrían’s hand, and greeted his brother with as much surprise as Elrond had felt upon seeing him. “Did someone send you after me?” he asked, sounding resigned and almost wryly amused. 

“Amil did,” said Curufin. “And she sent Caranthir to track down Celegorm and the Ambarussa.”

“Why?” Maedhros asked, voice sharp—something of the lord of Himring in it, Elrond thought. “What has happened?”

“A message came from Mandos two days ago,” Celebrimbor said when Curufin hesitated. “Fëanor is to be released from Mandos.”

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When Maglor made his way back down to the deck, Daeron was nowhere to be seen. It was something of a relief, though he knew he’d have to endure more too-keen looks and most likely more questions. He went towards the prow of the ship where he found Círdan leaning over the railing to speak to a figure in the water—a figure of water, with hair like streaming foam, keeping pace with the ship with ease. He stopped, and Uinen looked back at him and smiled, eyes glinting like stars before she said one last thing to Círdan and slipped away, dissolving like sea foam beneath the surface of the water. 

“I did not mean to interrupt,” Maglor said when Círdan beckoned him forward. 

“You did not. The lady has a fondness for you and your singing.” Círdan looked at him, his own eyes nearly as keen as Lady Uinen’s, with the light of ancient starlight in them. “Would you sing for us today, or tonight?”

“Yes, of course.” He summoned a smile. “It would not do to disappoint Lady Uinen.”

He remained at the prow as Círdan went back to the helm. Behind him elves walked or sat scattered across the deck; sailors climbed through the rigging to adjust the sails, singing lilting shanties and laughing with one another. The melancholy of departure had faded into the cheerfulness of the journey, and the eager anticipation of what they would find at its end. Maglor leaned on the rail and watched the water foam about the ship as it cut through the waves. He imagined what lay beneath the waves, the shattered remnants of Beleriand. He thought of the Gap and of Ard Galen, a sea unto itself of green grass and a rainbow of flowers, rippling in the wind, trembling under the hooves of their horses as they had raced one another, or charged into battle when the orcs crept down out of the north. He thought of Doriath, where Daeron had for so long made his music in glades of niphredil and hemlock umbels as Lúthien danced beneath the stars, and of the misty lands of Hithlum and the highlands of Dorthonion where his cousins had dwelled…

All of those lands were ruined and left behind so long ago, but it still felt strange to think that he passed above them again, with miles of ocean in between. Fish now made their home in the caves of Menegroth, and whales swam where once eagles had flown. One such whale surfaced quite close to the ship, shooting its spray high into the air. One large dark eye regarded Maglor for a moment before the great creature sank again beneath the surface. Some distance away another breached, leaping almost fully into the air before crashing back down with a great splash, to the delight of the other elves aboard the ship. 

After a time someone else came to stand beside Maglor. It was Elrohir, and he leaned on the railing too, and against Maglor. He had been very quiet ever since they had left Rivendell. “What are you thinking of?” Maglor asked. 

“Of my mother.” Elrohir did not raise his gaze from the water, and his hair fell forward, half-hiding his face from view. Maglor recognized that instinct, it being one he shared, and he did not move to brush it out of the way. It had been Elrohir who had first told Maglor of Celebrían and of her torment in the Misty Mountains. It had been a shorter ordeal than Maglor’s own, but perhaps the worse for it, and she had not been able to remain in Middle-earth. Maglor had seen how that weighed upon Elrond, and in turn upon their children. Arwen had wept bitter tears the day before they had arrived in Minas Tirith, grieving her mother’s absence on her wedding day.

“I do not doubt that she will be waiting for you on the quay,” Maglor said quietly. “Healed and whole again.” Elrohir nodded, and tried to smile, but could not quite manage it. “And your father will be beside her.”

“Yes, I know. But it still seems—here we are on the ship and it still seems like a dream, like I’ll wake up in my own bed at home and it will still be sometime far in the future.” Maglor hummed quiet agreement. He still could not quite believe it either. “Who do you hope to see at the harbor?”

“Elrond,” Maglor said.

“Is it really hope if you know that he’ll be there?” Elrohir asked. “Is there no one else?”

He thought of his brothers, and his parents… “Perhaps…perhaps my mother,” he admitted quietly. “But I do not expect it.” He’d attempted to write to her a few times since he’d sent that letter with Galadriel, but all of them had ended up scribbled over and in the fire. He had had better luck in writing to Elrond, but he’d never been a great correspondent. Elrond’s children had all been much more prolific; Maglor knew for a fact there was a chest full of letters collected over the years from Aragorn and Arwen, and even their children, written over the course of many years and finally ready to be delivered. 

“Why not?” Elrohir asked. “Will Lady Uinen not take word ahead of us to Eressëa?”

“Doubtless. But you forget how I left that land. It was not—I have no reason to expect any particular welcome from anyone except Elrond, and perhaps Galadriel.”

“Not even your own mother?” Elrohir looked at him askance, distracted from his own distress for a moment by exasperation with Maglor. It was familiar, that exasperation. He often found himself on its receiving end from both twins. Usually there was good reason for it, when he got caught up in shadowy thoughts and needless melancholy, but now he just shrugged. He truly did not know. That sort of hope was still beyond him. “What of your brothers?” Elrohir asked. “Or your father?”

“No!” Maglor surprised even himself by the vehemence in his voice. Elrohir blinked, and Maglor gripped the railing with both hands, though the edges of it were sanded to a round and silky smoothness that did little to ground him. “I do not think he will be there,” he said when he’d mastered himself again. “Nor do I wish it.” He let his own hair fall forward, shielding his face from whatever look Elrohir was giving him now. “And my brothers…they may not even have been released from Mandos. They or Fëanor. I suppose if anyone were to come to greet me it would be Finrod.” They had been friends, once upon a time, and if anyone would forgive him all his past deeds it was Finrod, the most openhearted of their kin. 

“Mm.” Elrohir bumped his shoulder into Maglor’s. “I think you underestimate how many people care for you, as usual,” he said. 

“You forget again—”

“I have not forgotten. But it has been a very long time, even for the Eldar, and I thought that it was all forgiven long ago after the War of Wrath when so many Exiles returned home.”

“Some of us didn’t,” Maglor murmured. He himself had not been there to accept or decline the invitation to repentance and homecoming—but the final theft of the Silmarils, he thought, had been answer enough to that. He looked down at his palm, still scored with the scars of it. Beside him Elrohir sighed, and though he couldn’t see Maglor knew that he was rolling his eyes. “Yes, yes, I know. Truly, I am not trying to be difficult. But one people reconciling with another is one thing. More personal wrongs—those are something else altogether. I am not worried about being dragged before the Valar to answer for all my crimes, but that does not mean there are many even among my own kin who eagerly await my return. Elrond will be there, and that is enough.”

“Very well.” Elrohir looped his arm through Maglor’s and leaned on his shoulder again. “I would be very glad if you remained with our household.”

“I have no other plans,” Maglor said. 

“Will you keep up your wandering?”

“Probably. I’ve never been content to stay still for too long—even when I was young—and I am curious to see what has changed and what has stayed the same; but I am in no hurry to go off on some long journey into the wilds, don’t worry.”

“Good.”

“None of us need hurry for anything,” Maglor murmured, as he watched the horizon. He remembered being told as a child and as a youth that he did not need to always be moving, that he could spend a year or a decade or a century studying one single thing or staying in one place and it would not matter, because he would still have all the rest of time to do everything else. It had not been true, in the end. Even as he spoke the words Maglor knew that he did not really believe them now, in the deepest parts of his heart. He had learned of fear and of danger and of endings too well, and even in Imladris there had been the constant awareness of darkness gathering outside of the valley. 

Maybe he would do well to visit Lórien, where Estë gave the gift of rest and healing, and Irmo brought peace to dreaming. He had other places to visit first—the Noldor and the Teleri were long reconciled now it was true, but he owed it to Olwë and to Elwing and to whoever led the Sindar now, and Turgon and the remnants of the Gondolindrim, to at least take a knee and try to apologize. No verses, no laments. Just plain words. Someone needed to, on behalf of his house, if his brothers did indeed still reside in Mandos—and even if they did not, he needed to for himself. But after all of that…perhaps he would emerge from sleep among Irmo’s poppies able to grasp at hope again. 

Elladan came to bring them both back to the rest of the company to eat lunch and tell stories. Most of the elves on the ship were from Mithlond, but a few had come from Ithilien and the Greenwood. It was a merry meal, with much laughter, and afterward there was singing, bright songs of the Woodelves, and older and stranger ones that Daeron had learned in his travels east of Rhûn. He spoke little of himself when asked about his travels, instead telling of cities and realms of both Elves and Men that he had visited, and of the great deeds done in the East in the fight against Sauron, of which those in the West knew little. 

Not unexpectedly, the talk soon turned westward, and Maglor was called upon to sing them songs of the Blessed Realm. Elladan fetched the smaller harp that Maglor had brought. “I will sing you some songs written by Elemmírë of the Vanyar, who was my teacher long ago,” Maglor said as he put his fingers to the strings. It took a few moments for him to recall the melody, for he had sung no songs of the Trees since the Darkening, but he found it and settled into it, playing through the first verse once without singing before starting again and lifting his voice in praise of golden Laurelin as the Sun passed high overhead, bright and warm and yet still only an echo of what had once been. That song passed into a paean to Yavanna Kementári, and as the Sun sank into the west and in the east the Moon rose, he sang of silver Telperion. The song he sang to the stars was still one of Elemmírë’s, but it had been brought to Middle-earth and sung in many tongues of Elves and Men since the exile, and when he began to play everyone joined with him as the stars came out, like a spill of diamonds across the black velvet of the sky. 

As the song faded away, someone asked to hear the Lay of Leithian. Maglor looked at Daeron, who had been watching the sky. “I will sing it,” Daeron said, turning to them with a smile. If it pained him he did not show it. “If Maglor will accompany me.” Maglor bowed his head and began to play. He and Daeron had performed in this way often at the Mereth Aderthad, one of them playing harp or flute while the other sang. 

Maglor remembered being amused at all the talk of Daeron, loremaster of Doriath, accounted the greatest singer of the Eldar in Beleriand. Many jokes had been made comparing the two of them, and everyone seemed to expect him to care. Even Maedhros had teased him, saying he would have no patience for Maglor’s sulking on the way back to Himring if Daeron did indeed prove the mightier. Maglor had only rolled his eyes. He had had his pride, in those days, but it had not been that great. Maglor had wanted to meet him so that they might learn from one another and, perhaps, forge a friendship through their music—meeting someone who had the same passion for it that he did had been his great hope in going to the Mereth Aderthad, and he had not been disappointed, though there had been little chance for that friendship to grow afterward. Certainly not after the truth of Alqualondë came out and Thingol issued his Ban; all hopes of anything more than a brief acquaintance had faded away after that. But it had been wonderful while it had lasted, and it seemed that now they had another chance at being something more than feast-time acquaintances. 

Many other songs were sung after the Leithian. Elladan and Elrohir sang many songs of Rivendell and of the Shire, and Círdan sang of the Sea, his voice clear and bright. The harp was passed around and played by nearly everyone at one point or another, as the ship sailed on. More than once Maglor caught the sound of Uinen’s voice on the breeze, as ancient and ever-changing as the Sea itself, harmonizing with them. 

Maglor slipped away back to the prow once he was sure no one would ask him in particular for another song. He leaned over to watch the water foam about the ship, silver under the starlight and moonlight. When he looked up he saw clouds on the distant horizon, like mountains in the distance. They would sail through rain before too long. He was not very surprised when Daeron came to join him. “I did not know you were a student of Elemmírë,” Daeron said.

“Did you imagine I sprang into being already a master singer?” Maglor asked.

Daeron laughed. “No. I suppose I imagined you had learned at the feet of the Valar.”

“I did learn much from them,” Maglor said, “but that came later. And…” 

“And?” Daeron looked at him. It was hard to see his face behind the shadows of his dark hair. 

“I feel that I learned the most from listening to the Sea,” Maglor said quietly. “But that came much later.” And then he had lost his way in silence and confusion and fear, and only slowly learned how to hear it again, the echoes of that Music that had made the world, and how to weave its lessons into his own voice and his own songs once more. Even now, he was not the singer he had once been. That in itself did not bother him, really, though he missed the ease that came with skill and long practice. It was a little surprising to him that Daeron had not yet commented on it. 

Instead Daeron said, “I can hear it in your voice—the Sea. And I, too, have learned much by listening to the waters of the world.” 

“I hear it in your voice, too,” said Maglor. “The songs of rivers and mountain streams.” He did not say that he’d recognized the song of the Esgalduin when he had finally heard it—muffled though it had been by sorrow and by the midwinter ices—because he had heard the echo of it in Daeron’s voice before. One more little grief to be added to the pile of greater ones that he had been making by then. He caught himself rubbing his thumb over the scars on his hand, and made himself stop. 

Daeron caught that hand and turned it over so the moonlight fell on the scars. “Does it hurt?” he asked. 

“No, except that it aches sometimes.” And on dark nights when shadowy dreams plagued him he woke sometimes with it throbbing, so when he turned on a light he was surprised to find scars there instead of raw and burned skin all over again. Those were bad nights, when the ghosts of his brothers came out of the shadows to stare at him, as they had for years in Dol Guldur. They had retreated for a time, after he had come to Imladris and begun to remake himself, but in the months leading up to their departure for Mithlond he had been dreaming of them again. He thought perhaps he’d left them behind on the shore—but then, it was probably foolish to believe he’d ever be entirely free of nightmares. Daeron released his hand, and Maglor let it fall to his side, gripping the railing with his other hand to stop himself rubbing at the scars again. 

Days passed. The rainclouds passed over them, and broke apart with rainbows arcing over the ship, which, rain-dampened, seemed to sparkle in the sudden beams of sunshine. Most of the days passed in song, and often in laughter, though sometimes in the quiet hours of the night the singing turned melancholy, quiet and somber, for this voyage could never be anything but bittersweet for all of them who had lived so long in Middle-earth—indeed, Maglor was the only one aboard who had not been born there. It was their home, though it was changing in ways that few Elves could stand to witness. Perhaps there would always be Elves in Middle-earth, Maglor thought, but they were a dwindling race now, and someday they would be nothing more than tales told around the fire by the children of Men. Even Arwen’s children’s children would someday forget from whom they were descended. They would forget what the Evening Star had once meant. He looked westward, though it was late enough that Gil-Estel was no longer visible over the horizon.

As he did the wind changed, and he caught a sweet scent on it—the scent of flowers, and of something else fresh and nameless that brought to his mind memories of towering mountains and wide green fields, and bells ringing in Tirion and in Valmar. Maglor stilled, and one by one the others noticed too, and everyone gathered at the prow except for Elladan and Elrohir, who scrambled up the rigging to the crow’s nest. “I see land on the horizon!” Elladan called down. “Mountains!”

“The Pelóri,” Maglor whispered. The moon rode high in the sky overhead, bright and full, and the wind picked up. The sails billowed, and Uinen’s laughter echoed around them as she sped the currents on. Soon those on the deck could see the mountain peaks, too, and they grew and grew—taller even than Maglor remembered, silver in the moonlight. He gripped the railing until his hands ached; Daeron stood on one side of him, Celeborn on the other. No one spoke. 

The moon set behind the mountains, and then the sun rose behind them in the east, leaping out into the sky to illuminate the lands before them, growing steadily larger, all green and gold, and the snowy mountain peaks blushing in the dawn. Someone burst into song, and all around Maglor everyone joined in, a song of praise for the sunrise and hope for joy as they came at last to the end of their journey. He did not sing; he had had no songs for departure, and found now that he had none for arrival, either. 

He was coming home, he tried to tell himself, but the word felt empty and meaningless. It was the land of his birth but it wasn’t home anymore. He had wandered Middle-earth for far longer than he had lived in Valinor, but even there he had never really called any one place his home. Unable to watch the mountains any longer Maglor looked down into the waves, and he saw Uinen there, keeping pace with the ship. She caught his eye and smiled before vanishing beneath the surface, speeding away ahead of them to herald their arrival. 

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Elrond and Celebrían were kind enough to excuse themselves after Celebrimbor’s revelation, and he went with them, leaving Maedhros alone in the garden with Curufin. They stood in silence for some time. A nightingale was singing in a nearby hedge, and bees flew lazily around them as they went from flower to flower. Finally, Maedhros said, “Maglor is coming back.”

“Is he?” Curufin looked at him, raising one brow. “I thought you did not know where he was. I suppose Elrond told you?” Maedhros nodded. “Have you not looked into the palantíri? I know Amil has them.”

“I did, once,” Maedhros said, unable to keep himself from shuddering at the memory of it. The image of Maglor chained and brutalized was seared into his memory, and he was glad none of the others had seen it. Bad enough their mother had. “But it was long ago, and ever since I have seen nothing but mist.”

The nightingale ceased its singing; somewhere else in the gardens elven voices burst into song, though it was not as merry as Maedhros might have expected after all he had heard of Elrond and Celebrían’s home in Middle-earth. They were all in mourning in this place, in spite of the bright sunlight and the merry music of the rivers and streams. He knew it had not been a good idea to come here now, knew it was unkind, but not knowing anything of Maglor had been eating away at him and he could not rest until he learned something. 

“That is not right,” Curufin said quietly after a moment. “He has never hidden from you.”

“He does now.” Maedhros turned his gaze to the nearest flower, tracing its many petals that seemed to glow in the bright sunlight. It was a deep red color; the color of blood, his mind supplied, and he tried to push the thought away, for it had no place in Lady Celebrían’s garden. “Have you looked into the palantír?”

“No. What would be the point? If he hides from you he hides from us all. But Maglor is not yet here, and our father is—or will be soon. Amil does not yet know what she wants to do and wants all of us with her when she decides whether she will see him again.”

“Will you? See him again?” Maedhros turned back to Curufin, who looked away in his turn. He kept his hair cropped short, as he had when he’d been younger and too impatient to always be braiding it back out of the way of his work. It had grown longer in Beleriand. Since his return to life he’d thrown himself back into making, as he’d fallen away from it before his death, but this time focusing all his energies on making what he wanted to make, and not what he thought their father would approve of, or what might be thought Great. He had no work to compare to the Silmarils or to his son’s Rings, but at last Curufin seemed content with that—like he did not need it anymore. Maedhros was glad of it, but now that their father was returned, he found himself fearing they would all fall back into old patterns—the patterns of the darker days, the unhappy time even before the Darkening, when Fëanor’s fire had been all rage and jealousy instead of love and joy. 

Finally, Curufin said, “I don’t know. I have only just…I need to speak to Arimeldë.” Their reconciliation was still a new and fragile thing. “I will not abandon her again—and going to him if she does not wish it would be an abandonment.” 

“Good,” Maedhros said. 

Curufin smiled, but it was unhappy and short lived. “Will you see him?” he asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I remember he tried—in the Halls. I did not think before that anyone could burn too hot for Atya, but you…” Curufin was watching him almost warily now. “You still burn. Have you truly found no rest, not anywhere?”

“If I could not find it in Mandos, why does anyone think I will find it outside?” Maedhros asked. He’d asked the same of Estë herself, and of Nienna, and he would have demanded an answer of Námo if he’d ever been able to find him. Both Estë and Nienna had told him that he had not found it because he refused to look. “I don’t want to see him, but if Ammë asks it of me I will go with her. Or stand by her when he comes.”

“She won’t ask. You know that. We’ve all—we’ve all sacrificed enough for him.”

They had sacrificed everything. Their freedom, their lives, their very selves. It was more than a father should have ever asked of his children, and Fëanor had not asked but demanded. They had all stepped forward willingly to swear the Oath, not knowing to what they were condemning themselves. But as he lay dying Fëanor had demanded they swear again even after Alqualondë and Losgar, binding them to it even more tightly, knowing that it would be fruitless and end only in grief. Maedhros hadn’t seen it then, but he did now, and he could not forgive Fëanor any more than he could forgive himself for what he’d led his people and his brothers into. All of his baby brothers, destroyed before their deaths and then cut down in bloody battle in pursuit of a gem none of them even wanted. 

“It was not all your fault, you know,” Curufin said after a few moments of silence. “You did not want to go to Doriath. You were our liege lord and you are our eldest brother, but when did that ever stop us disobeying or overriding you?”

“I did not want any of it,” Maedhros said, “but I still did it.”

“Maedhros—Nelyo. You can’t keep going like this.” 

Were it anyone else Maedhros would have bristled, and probably left the conversation entirely. He knew that Curufin was right. But he could not shake the thought that if he went long enough, if he kept refusing, if he kept burning, either he would burn out and dissolve into ash on the wind, or else the Valar would take pity on him and just send him back to Mandos. It would not work any better the second time but maybe they would at least let him stay there. There were plenty of others who would not return—why could they remain there until the world’s ending and he could not?

Finally, Curufin relented, and asked, “When is Maglor returning?”

“Soon, I think. With Elrond’s sons.”

“Will you go to Eressëa to wait for him?”

“I…” That was the question, wasn’t it? He would not be welcome to go to Avallónë with Elrond and his wife—Elrond had made that quite clear—and now he did not even know if he should. Once he had been the first to whom Maglor would turn when in need of comfort or even just companionship. But now, after all he had endured—the centuries of lonely wandering, the decades of torment—Maedhros wasn’t sure that still held true. He did not think he could bear that particular rejection. It might send him to Mandos again whether the Valar wished it or not. “No,” he said finally. “No, I won’t go.” 

“One of us should,” Curufin said. “He can’t come back to no one at all.”

“He isn’t. Elrond will be there.”

“Elrond is not his family.”

Maedhros gave Curufin a look. “Do not start that nonsense again. The line of Fingolfin—”

“You know what I mean,” Curufin said with a roll of his eyes. “He is kin of course, but he is not—”

“Maglor raised him. He is the only family Maglor is sure to want to see,” Maedhros said flatly. He knew that he was not hiding the hurt well, but it didn’t matter. Who was Curufin going to tell about it? And Curufin did not know what Maedhros knew. Neither Maedhros nor Nerdanel—nor Finrod, for that matter—had ever shared what they had seen in the palantír. There had been no point except to cause unnecessary pain. Better that the rest of his brothers did not know. Bad enough that he did, when there was nothing to be done about it. Elrond now claimed that Maglor had healed, but however great a healer and however wise he was said to be, Maedhros still could not see him as more than a half-grown child with more nerve than sense, and doubt lingered. 

Have you nothing else to say to Elwing’s only living son? 

A bell rang, and Celebrimbor came to find them. “That is the dinner bell,” he said. “Aren’t you coming?”

“Yes, of course,” Curufin said. Maedhros said nothing, but he followed after them into the bright and airy dinner hall. Woven hangings adorned the walls, all scenes of Middle-earth that Maedhros did not recognize. There was nothing there of Beleriand. He saw Celebrimbor pause by one bearing the image of a shining door between two great holly trees, and brush his fingers lightly over the symbols of Durin before he went on. Beyond the seats of Elrond and Celebrían was an enormous tapestry showing a view of another valley, tucked at the feet of mighty mountains, all shades of green and blue with rivers and falls and trees of many kinds, and in the midst a rambling house that was both like and unlike this one. Every detail had been woven with care and with love and with the melancholy of homesickness. 

“That is Rivendell,” said someone at Maedhros’ side. He turned to see an old Man, bearded and clad in silver and white, with knowing eyes. “The Last Homely House east of the Sea, it was called. How was it that Bilbo put it…? Ah, yes, a perfect house, whether you like food or sleep, or story-telling or singing, or just sitting and thinking best, or a pleasant mix of them all, I believe it was. He was quite right.”

“Gandalf!” Lady Celebrían swept across the hall to embrace the old man. “We were not expecting you! Welcome, welcome. What brings you here?”

“Need I have a reason beyond visiting old friends?” Gandalf replied, eyes twinkling. There was something odd about him, but Maedhros did not know what it was. Something like the Maiar, but also not. The name, too, was familiar, but Maedhros had not cared enough to keep up with all the tales and rumors coming back from the east with every ship. “I hear that your sons are coming at last,” Gandalf was saying to Celebrían. “I am very glad to hear it. And I think your father, too, is coming with them.”

“Is he?” Celebrían’s whole demeanor brightened. “Oh, I hope so! Does my mother know? Of course she does. She is probably already in Avallónë waiting for him. Do come sit down! And Maedhros, your seat is also this way.” She graced him with a smile and swept away with Gandalf on her arm, both of them laughing together. Maedhros trailed after them, having lost sight of Curufin and Celebrimbor as the rest of the household filed in. Everyone seemed happy to see Gandalf, whoever he was, and he was taken to a seat of honor beside Celebrían at the table on the dais. Elrond greeted him in the same bright manner. Maedhros had to stop himself staring, as he realized that he had never seen Elrond so happy before. 

Maedhros was seated near the head of the main table, across and up a little from Curufin and Celebrimbor, who was speaking to those around him like they were old friends. As food was brought out, Maedhros’ right-hand neighbor turned to him with a smile. “Well met, my lord. I am glad to see you again.” He looked at her, startled, and was surprised to recognize her.

“Dringil,” he said. “Well met.” And looking past her he saw others that he had once known, in Valinor before the Darkening and in Beleriand, who had followed him to Himring, or Caranthir to Thargelion, or even Curufin and Celegorm to Himlad. Now that he was looking, he saw that there were many who had once followed the sons of Fëanor scattered throughout the hall, mingling with those who had served the House of Fingolfin or Finarfin. 

“It is a long way from Himring,” Dringil said. “Did you know it still stands? It is an island off the coast north of Lindon, now.”

“I did not know,” Maedhros said.

“We rescued a great deal from it after the storms settled,” Dringil said. “It was taken to Lindon and much afterward to Imladris.” She nodded toward the tapestry. “I know that Master Elrond has copies of the records too in the library here.”

“I didn’t know that, either,” Maedhros said. He also did not know how he felt about it, that of all Beleriand it should be his fortress that had survived everything that came after. “Thank you.” Dringil smiled at him, and then was distracted by someone across the table calling for her opinion on something related to the forges. Others stopped by Maedhros’ seat to greet him, or smiled at him from down the table, and it felt very strange to be so warmly welcomed by all of the members of Elrond’s household while Elrond himself sat close by looking anywhere but at him. 

It was Maedhros’ own fault, and he knew it—he’d gone about it all wrong. He watched Elrond from the corner of his eye, as he leaned in to speak into Celebrían’s ear, both of them sharing secret smiles, all sweet softness. When they were not caught up in each other they were laughing with Gandalf, who seemed to laugh more than he spoke, and whose ease with them spoke of long, long years of friendship. 

“Who is he, Gandalf?” Maedhros finally asked Dringil when he could catch her attention again.

“Gandalf? Why, he is—he is Gandalf! He was one of the Istari sent to Middle-earth long ago by the Valar to aid us against the Enemy,” Dringil said. “He has many names—Gandalf, Mithrandir, and Olórin that was his name here before he went back over the Sea. There were other wizards, too—Radagast has not yet returned to the west, and Saruman…” A shadow passed over his face. “Saruman is no more. There were two others, but I never met them. But it was Gandalf who led the Company out of Rivendell, and it was due to his councils that the War of the Ring was won at last.” She smiled. “He bore also Narya, though of course none of us knew anything about it until after it was all over. He was a dear friend of Bilbo and Frodo and Sam—the Ringfinder and the Ringbearer and his companion. I do not think you ever met them…?”

“No,” Maedhros said. Even he had heard of them, of course. Their names were honored throughout Valinor. But he had thought it better to keep away; they had come to Valinor to heal, not to be beset by ghosts of the ancient past. 

“That is a shame,” Dringil said, to his surprise. “Bilbo would have been delighted to meet you—he was certainly very happy to meet Lord Caranthir.”

“He sounds…rather singular, this Bilbo,” Maedhros said, unsure what exactly he meant and not quite sure that it was a compliment. But Dringil laughed and agreed, and so perhaps Bilbo would have taken it as a compliment. Perhaps Maedhros should have paid closer attention to the tales of the War of the Ring. 

After the meal ended there were calls for music, and someone began a song of the deeds of the Three Hunters, who had raced unceasing over many leagues in pursuit of their comrades taken by Uruk-hai. It sounded like a thrilling tale, but Maedhros saw a spasm of grief pass over Elrond’s face before he whispered something to Celebrían and got up from the table. As he turned he caught Maedhros’ eye, and nodded toward a door at the back of the hall. Surprised by the summons, Maedhros did not hesitate in rising and following. 

In the hallway, Elrond said, “It is a good story, that of the Three Hunters, but I cannot hear it tonight.”

“Does it end badly?”

“No!” Elrond smiled briefly. “No, it ends well.” He did not say more, instead leading Maedhros up a staircase, past an enormous library, and to a smaller more private study. “There is something I’ve been meaning to give to you, only I have not yet had the chance,” Elrond said as he stepped inside. The furniture was sturdy and plain, made of warm golden-brown wood. A braided rug covered the floor, and the bookcase held more trinkets than books, several of which had the clumsy but earnest look of something a child had made. Maedhros stood by the door as Elrond went to a chest in the corner. It was by far the oldest thing in the room. 

“Elrond,” Maedhros said. 

“I do not want to revisit our earlier…conversation,” Elrond said as he opened the chest. 

“You were right, though. I am sorry—I should not have come here as I did. Not now. I should have come long ago.” He just had not been able to bring himself to do it. He had avoided Elrond as much as possible through the entirety of his childhood, and it was only easier now that they were not forced into close quarters by the dangers of living in the wilds of war torn Beleriand. His feelings about that time were nothing, of course, to Elrond’s, but Maedhros knew that he was too much caught inside his own mind these days. He just did not know how to step out of it. 

Elrond drew a satchel out of the chest, and laid it on the desk. Maedhros looked into his face, really looked, and saw the weight of years, saw the bright joys and sharp sorrows that Elrond bore with such astonishing grace, saw the wisdom there, and the power—he was Eärendil’s son but also a child of Melian, and Maedhros knew that it had been a mistake to ever forget that. This was not the frightened child that Maglor had carried out of the wreckage of Sirion, or the stubborn youth who had insisted that neither he nor Elros could stay back any longer from the fighting in the north. Maedhros wondered if he knew how that parting had broken Maglor’s heart. 

That was an unkind thought; it was Maedhros’ fault that it had been so. Maglor could have—would have—gone with them, had it not been for him. If not for the Oath. 

“This was yours,” Elrond said, and Maedhros looked at the satchel. He almost did not recognize it, one of his last remaining possessions at the end. If anyone had asked him he would have said he’d taken it into the fire with him. 

“Where did you…?”

“It lay near the casket that had held the Silmarils.” Elrond was the only person to speak of the Silmarils so frankly before Maedhros. Most avoided the subject of them entirely, or tried to at least avoid saying the name. Even his mother never spoke of them.

“You…” Whatever Maedhros had expected, it was not to learn that Elrond, and presumably Elros, had gone after them. The thought had never crossed his mind. “And you kept the satchel.”

“We thought you might want it, if we ever found you. We learned the truth later, and then we thought Maglor might want it. After a time, keeping it just became habit; I have so few things from that early part of my life. Still, it isn’t mine—and there are some things inside I thought you would want.” 

Maedhros stepped forward, feeling like an intruder in this small and private space, and flipped open the satchel. There were only a handful of things inside, all carven wood. Maglor’s work. He pulled out two combs, a horse, a spoon, and a knife handle. They were not as brittle as he would have expected by their great age, but that was Elrond’s work, he thought. “Thank you,” he said softly, running his fingers over the details carved into a horse’s mane. “Did he…did he still carve things, after…?”

“Sometimes,” Elrond said. “He found most joy in clay, after Dol Guldur.” He spoke the name of that place so easily, almost carelessly, that Maedhros flinched. “That place is gone,” Elrond said, because of course he noticed. “It was toppled and its pits laid bare; Galadriel herself sung down the walls with the same songs that Lúthien used to topple the towers of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. By now the Greenwood will have overtaken that hill again, the spiders all driven out, and life brought properly back to the forest. The fear there was in that name is ended.”

“Is it?” Maedhros said without thinking, his head full of other pits and other dungeons—the name of Angband still tasted bitter on his tongue, though it was even longer gone than Dol Guldur. “For those who were there—”

“I was there,” Elrond said, voice suddenly sharp. “Not at Dol Guldur, but I have stood upon the slopes of Mount Doom and seen the might of Barad-dûr, and felt the heat of Sauron’s gaze. Do not tell me about fear, Maedhros son of Fëanor. I learned the taste of it as I watched you drive my mother into the Sea.” Maedhros met his gaze for a moment, but had to look away. He was cursed to always say the wrong thing to Elrond, it seemed, even when he did not mean to wound. After a beat, Elrond said, “Dol Guldur and Barad-dûr and all that Sauron ever built are now no more than rubble, with moss and grass and flowers slowly creeping back in to cover them. The fight against Sauron was long, and grievous, and some scars will never fade, but it is over.”

“If you know about fear, you know it does not end with the crumbling of stones,” Maedhros said quietly. 

“Fear of a name fades with time, and with the using of it. Once we avoided the use of Sauron’s name for fear that he would hear it. That danger is gone, and by naming him as he was I reject the hold that name might still have upon my heart or on the hearts of those who hear me speak. And I will say the same of Angband, and of Morgoth,” he added, and Maedhros did not flinch only because he had anticipated it. “If you truly came seeking my wisdom, Maedhros, I will give it to you. My counsel is to go to Estë, or to Nienna. Your spirit burns hot in you but you do not have to keep fueling it. Listen to what they have to tell you.”

Maedhros looked down at the carving of the horse in his hand. His mother would like to see these, he thought. He slipped it and the others back into the satchel, and picked it up. “Thank you for this,” he said, raising his gaze to meet Elrond’s, though it was hard to look at him. His eyes were soft grey and starlit, but his gaze seemed to pierce through to Maedhros’ very core, and it was not a comfortable feeling. “I am sorry,” Maedhros said. “For all of it.”

“I know,” said Elrond. His eyes softened, just a little. “I forgave you long ago.”

“Did Maglor?”

Elrond hesitated, which was answer enough. “He loves you,” he said finally. “But more than that, I cannot say. I do not know.”

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Evening was coming on as they entered the Bay of Eldamar, and the shadows of the mountains were lengthening over the bay and Tol Eressëa. Alqualondë glittered on the shore, surrounded by its rainbow beaches. The towers of Avallónë rose up from the green mound of the island, gleaming in the light streaming through the Calacirya from the sun sinking westward on the other side of it. It was strange to see, Maglor thought, both like and unlike the golden light of Laurelin long ago. Boats and ships of all sizes and kinds drifted about the bay, some racing each other and zipping across the water, others moving more slowly. Their sails were dyed all rainbow colors, and the silver-haired mariners call called out in merry greeting. 

A crowd was gathered in the harbor at Avallónë—a larger crowd than Maglor had anticipated, and he stepped back from the railing. It was for Círdan, of course. Círdan and Celeborn and Daeron, all come West at last. He glimpsed Galadriel near the front of the crowd, and someone with bright silver hair beside her. Celeborn leaned over the railing, his eyes trained on them as though everyone else had ceased to exist. Elrond must be with them also, but Maglor did not see him and he did not want to linger to look.

“There is Elu Thingol,” Daeron said, sounding startled. 

Someone laughed at him. “Did you think you could slip unnoticed into Valinor, Daeron? Especially coming with Círdan!”

Daeron laughed with them, before retreating back toward the middle of the ship with Maglor. “I did think that,” he admitted ruefully. “Or at least I did not expect Thingol himself to be waiting on the dock!”

“I was not expecting such a crowd, either,” Maglor said.

“Stop that.” Daeron reached out to catch his hand, where Maglor had been digging his nail into the scars. “Doesn’t it hurt you when you do that?”

“No.” It had once upon a time, before the burns had healed, but Maglor didn’t think he could explain why he’d developed the habit. “I’m going to get my things.” It would take him into the cabins and away from searching eyes, and if he lingered perhaps the crowds would disperse, or at least thin out a little. 

“I’ll come with you.” Daeron followed him down into the hold. “Was that small harp all that you brought?”

“No. I have a larger one as well. I suppose someone will come to get the big luggage after we disembark…”

Daeron picked up the small harp from the bunk that Maglor had not really used. “Driftwood?” he asked. Maglor nodded. “I like it. The shape is interesting.”

“I have long favored driftwood for making things,” Maglor said as he picked up his satchel, and took up his cloak. It was the one Galadriel had given him long ago when he’d left Lórien. It would do little to hide him in Avallónë, he thought, but at least it had a hood—and at least the breeze off of the mountains had been cool, and an excuse to wear it. “Even when I could get other wood,” he added, looking over at Daeron. “Driftwood is—the sea changes it in strange ways that I find I like.” Daeron hummed agreement. “You do not have to linger down here with me.”

“I know. Is your other harp also made of driftwood?”

“Yes. But I’m not going to get it out now to show you.”

Daeron laughed. “Of course not. I will see it later.” Someone called to him from on deck. “Are you not coming back up?”

“I will. Don’t wait for me.” He didn’t know how to explain the sudden suffocating anxiety that so many faces, so many eyes, had caused in him. He needed a moment to breathe, somewhere he could at least know who was coming through the door. It was not unlike how he had felt upon leaving Lórien and crossing through the wide and empty lands of Eriador with Elrond’s sons, so long ago now. He was not that fearful anymore—or at least, he had not thought that he was. The way he couldn’t manage to fill his lungs all the way spoke otherwise. Before he’d feared being noticed by someone in particular; now he just did not like to be noticed at all. Daeron was watching him, and Maglor tried to pretend nothing was wrong. “They are waiting for you. And anyway, I have to find my cat.”

“All right.” Daeron set the harp down. “Farewell for now then, Maglor. I am certain we will meet again soon.” Maglor offered a smile, and Daeron went away back up the stairs. Once alone Maglor leaned against the wall and counted his breaths. Then he picked up his harp and slipped it into its case, and began the search for Pídhres.

As he passed the stairs, he met with several silver-haired Teleri coming down, who started in surprise and then laughed at him. “What are you waiting for?” they cried. “Go on, go on! We’ll take your things where they should go, have no fear!”

“Thank you,” Maglor said, trying to smile at them, and glad that the shadows in the passage hid the scars on his face. “But there is a cat hidden away on this ship—small, grey, and prone to climbing, and I cannot find her.” They found this highly amusing, but were eager to help, and before long one of them discovered Pídhres on top of a stack of crates in the hold. 

“Now, go! Surely there are folk awaiting you.”

“Thank you!” Maglor said again, accepting Pídhres into his arms, where she meowed plaintively, and made his way back up to the deck. It took some convincing, but she went back into his satchel and curled up atop his extra shirt with only one more grumbling sound at being disturbed in her explorations of the ship’s hold.

There were still plenty of people in the harbor, though less than before, and they did not pay any attention to the solitary figure making his way down the gangplank. Maglor stepped off of the wooden dock onto solid ground and stood for a moment, gazing down at the stones and letting it all stop tilting around him. A part of him had been worried that something would happen, that the Valar would come swooping down to clasp him in chains or something. And now, of course, nothing at all strange had happened and no one was looking at him and all the fear was just foolishness. He took a breath and lifted his head, walking a little way farther from the dock toward the road that everyone else seemed to be taking into the city. There were statues along it—depictions of the Valar in poses of welcome. Maglor stopped before Nienna’s and gazed up at her veiled face. Her hands were held in front of her, and he found himself thinking of her statue in the courtyard of Imladris, far away. That one had often had small offerings in her hands, pebbles or flowers or leaves. This one did not, and on a sudden whim he reached into his pocket and drew out a small white stone that had once sat nestled among the heather in Eriador, part of a larger stone that marked the path to Imladris. It had cracked and broken over many years, and Maglor had taken a handful of the pieces as he’d last passed it without really knowing why. Now he placed one in Nienna’s hand, and a murmur of thanks for the grace that had allowed him to return at last.

He looked up at the sound of his name, and relief made his knees weak at the sight of Elrond, striding toward him through the growing twilight. “Elrond,” he said, stepping forward to meet him. They embraced, both of them holding on tight. “Oh, it is so good to see you again.”

“I’ve missed you,” Elrond said, stepping back to look into his face. There were tears on his cheeks, a remnant of other earlier reunions. He did not ask why Maglor had been so long in disembarking. “I am so glad you came.”

“I promised I would,” Maglor said. This was a much gladder meeting than when he’d first come to Imladris. There was no fear or pain to overshadow it. Elrond was as Maglor remembered him, though he no longer wore Vilya, and the weariness that he had been suffering after the power of the Rings ended was gone. It was worth coming just to see that, to see how easily he smiled and how many lines of care had been smoothed away from his face. 

“I remember.” Elrond slipped his arm through Maglor’s, in the same way Elrohir often did, and they fell into step down the road, away from the harbor. “Our house is not too far. It is in a quiet part of town.”

“You live here then?”

“We have a house here, but Celebrían made her home in the south, where it is warm all the year round, and we spend most of our time there.”

“A second Imladris?” Maglor asked, smiling.

“Like and unlike. The valley is wider and flatter, and there are few trees but for her orchards. It is beautiful, though, all filled with flowers. And the house was fashioned after the one at ho—the one in Imladris.”

Maglor slipped his arm out of Elrond’s and put it around his shoulders instead. “I cannot wait to see it,” he said, and was rewarded with a warm smile. “Or to meet Lady Celebrían, of whom I have heard so much.” Elrond’s smile brightened even more, and it was astonishing to see just how much grief he had been carrying for her on the other side of the Sea—such a part of him then that it was only noticeable now that it was gone. There were other griefs of course—Arwen, Aragorn, Middle-earth itself—but being with Celebrían again had taken such a weight off of Elrond’s shoulders that Maglor was almost surprised he could remain on the ground. 

“Uncle!” The quick patter of footsteps behind them made both Maglor and Elrond turn; Elrond did not look surprised, but Maglor froze at the sight of Celebrimbor racing down the street toward them. He only barely slowed down before he barreled into Maglor, throwing his arms around him. Maglor’s arms came up on reflex as he staggered under the force of the embrace—for Celebrimbor was not small—but he couldn’t do anything else, too shocked to speak. When last he had seen Celebrimbor in life, before the Dagor Bragollach, he had been so young—and when he had last seen him in the nightmarish visions shown to him in Dol Guldur, he had been bloodied and broken, mutilated and murdered. Yet here he was, alive again, whole and solid and not broken in the slightest. 

And somehow he was glad to see Maglor. His embrace was crushing, for he had the broad shoulders and the muscles of a smith and apparently little concern for what that might do to Maglor’s ribs. He drew back to look into Maglor’s face—and when had he grown so tall? They were of a height when Maglor would have sworn that Celebrimbor was shorter than he, closer to Curufin’s height. “Tyelpë,” he said, feeling ready to burst into tears at the sight of his smiling face. The echoes of his last screams echoed in the back of Maglor’s mind. 

“Welcome home,” Celebrimbor said, but then his smile faltered. “What’s the matter?”

“You—I thought that you—”

“Oh—you mean Eregion. It’s all right—now, I mean. I was long in Mandos and returned rested and well.”

“After the War of the Ring,” Elrond said quietly. After Sauron had been defeated forever. 

“Everyone is returned,” Celebrimbor added. “My father, all of my uncles—and now you too are back at last!”

Maglor couldn’t stop himself flinching, and he knew that Celebrimbor saw it, but before he could say anything Elrond stepped in and reminded them both that Celebrían and the twins were waiting. Maglor found himself caught up between the two of them, each holding onto an arm or a hand as though he was a child with a tendency to run off into a busy street. It was absurd, but with Elrond there at least he did not have to speak. He watched their feet instead, letting his hair fall forward to hide his face. 

All of his brothers, alive again. Their faces flashed through his mind, the ghostly visions that had haunted him in Dol Guldur and afterward imposed over the youths they had been before the Darkening. He was no closer now to reconciling all of the thousand things that he felt than he had been in Imladris when he and Elrond had spoken of seeing them again—whether he ever could, whether he even wanted to. He hadn’t known, then. He found rather abruptly that he did know now: he did not want to see them. He did not want to see them all made whole and fair again, healed of all hurts and weariness while he was still—

Stop that, he told himself, and looked up as they approached Elrond and Celebrían’s house. It was a large and fair place, made of white stone as were so many of the buildings in Avallónë. Climbing roses twined about the pillars, and golden lamplight glowed in the windows and flowed out of the door when it opened. Inside Elrond led the way to a large parlor where others were gathered. Elladan and Elrohir sat with a silver-haired woman between them—that must be Celebrían. He had expected someone like Galadriel, but Celebrían was smaller and more delicate looking, with bright eyes that sparkled when she looked up to see Elrond. Her silver hair was woven with sapphires and pearls, and if he had not already known what had befallen her in Middle-earth, Maglor would have never guessed at it. 

Galadriel and Celeborn were there also, and Galadriel came forward to greet Maglor as Elrond went to his family. “It is good to see you, Maglor,” Galadriel said, taking his hands and leaning in to kiss his cheek. “Welcome.”

“Thank you,” he said, grateful that she had not said welcome home. But then, if anyone understood how strange it was, it would be Galadriel. She had planted roots in Middle-earth even deeper than he had. “I am glad to see you again, too.” She smiled at him, and led him farther into the room where Celebrían rose to embrace him, greeting him as a long lost friend rather than a stranger.

The room was filled with laughter and conversation as stories were exchanged and questions asked and answered. Maglor sat near Elrond, and Celebrimbor sat beside him. He was aware of Celebrimbor watching him, and aware that in Celebrimbor’s memory he was not nearly as quiet as he was now. And in the bright light of the room all of his scars would be visible, so he did not turn to look at his nephew. He didn’t know how much Elrond had told him—how much Elrond had told anybody—and he had already endured Daeron’s scrutiny and questions. It would be worse coming from Celebrimbor. 

They were called in to supper before too long. Maglor had little appetite but he ate anyway, knowing Elrond would be watching. The joyful conversation continued into the dining room. Even Celeborn was merrier and more lighthearted than Maglor had ever seen him, seated between Celebrían and Galadriel. Maglor, too, felt his spirits lifting as the wine flowed, though he still spoke little and only when called upon. It was not out of the ordinary for him these days, and Elrond and his sons knew it, but Celebrimbor down the table kept frowning at him during lulls in the talking. 

When at last Maglor managed to excuse himself in a way that wouldn’t cause undue worry, it was Celebrimbor who rose and offered to show him his room. Elrond glanced at him, and Maglor smiled agreeably, and followed Celebrimbor from the room, down a wide hall and up the stairs. There were many others coming and going, members of Elrond’s household that Maglor remembered from Rivendell, and others he did not know who had come with either Galadriel or Celebrían. As they passed a large workroom where many women were gathered around working on some large sewing project Maglor heard his name, and turned to see Eleryn rising from her place. 

“Welcome!” she told him with a bright smile, taking his hands in hers. “I am so glad to see you! You look very well.”

“Thank you,” Maglor said, smiling back. 

“You’ve arrived earlier than we thought.”

“We had fair winds and weather all the voyage.” 

“Good!” 

“When did you get to know Eleryn?” Celebrimbor asked a few minutes later, after they left her to return to her work and went on up another flight of stairs. 

“I spent a winter in Lórien. I was…not well. Eleryn looked after me.” Celebrimbor looked at him—at the scars on his face—and Maglor ducked his head, hair falling forward to hide it again. “Please do not ask me more.”

“Elrond never told me of this. Nor Galadriel.” Celebrimbor sighed, and then said, “Here. This is the room that has been waiting for you since Elrond sailed.” It was a spacious, airy room with a view of the garden that sloped down to a small private stretch of beach, where the water washed gently up onto the white sands. The sound of it was quiet and soothing, and the air smelled of the roses that Celebrían grew. Maglor went to the window to admire the view before looking around at the rest of it. There was no hearth; none was really needed on Eressëa. The rugs on the wooden floor were soft, and everything was a shade of green or of warm brown. It was not much like his room in Imladris, but it was lovely. He could see Celebrían’s hand in it, he thought. His bag sat atop a chest at the foot of the bed; the flap was open and Pídhres was nowhere to be seen. Doubtless she had gone in search of the kitchens, and would make her way back to his bed later in the night. 

“Where is your room?” he asked Celebrimbor.

“Down the hall,” Celebrimbor said. “I stay often with Elrond and Celebrían when I am not with my mother in Tirion.” He paused, and Maglor knew he was waiting for him to ask after Curufin, or the others. The words stuck in his throat. Finally Celebrimbor said, “You do not want to see any of them, do you?” It was impossible to tell whether he was surprised or disappointed or if he felt any way about it at all. 

“No,” Maglor admitted. “I do not.”

“Not even Maedhros?”

Especially not Maedhros. “I cannot—”

“He came too soon from Mandos,” Celebrimbor said. “He is not…he is restless and unhappy, and I think he has been trying to look for you for years in the palantíri that Grandmother Nerdanel still keeps. We have all missed you, but none more than he.”

Then why did he leave me? Maglor bit his tongue to keep the words from escaping. It wasn’t a fair question to ask Celebrimbor, of all people. When he mastered himself he said, “I need time, Tyelpë. Yes I know how much time has already passed,” he added when Celebrimbor opened his mouth. “And I am glad to see you. But I—I’ve only just come here, and until—for a long time I did not expect to be allowed back. Let me at least find my footing. Please. And—I do want to see my mother. I will see her. Soon.” If she wanted to see him. And he was painfully aware that that jumble of clumsy and disjointed words was as unlike his old self as the scars on his face or his new habit of remaining quiet in company.

“I was not going to argue. Of course you must take the time you need. You could not have known who would be waiting for you. Grandmother Nerdanel lives near her father’s house, on the other side of the plum orchard,” said Celebrimbor. “It isn’t hard to find—when you’re ready.”

“The orchard is still there?”

“Yes, it’s still there. And the river with the willows beyond it. On the other side of the river it’s all woodland now.” Celebrimbor came farther into the room and joined Maglor by the window. “Maedhros lives with her still. Cousins Finrod and Fingon keep trying to take him to Tirion but he never stays long. But—there is something else. You should know, before you go to see her…”

“What is it?” Maglor asked. 

“Grandfather Fëanor is to be released from Mandos. Word came of it only just before Elrond and Celebrían and I came here to wait for you.”

Maglor felt himself go rigid, and his hand throbbed with the sudden memory of searing pain. “I see,” he made himself say past the sudden roaring in his ears, after the silence outside of his head stretched too long. His heart was pounding and his lungs did not seem able to fill all the way. 

“I don’t think anyone has decided yet whether they want to see him,” Celebrimbor said ruefully. “I would like to, I think—but it is less fraught for me.”

Of course it was. Celebrimbor had sworn no oaths, and slain no kin. Whatever his faults, Curufin had always shielded Celebrimbor from the worst of Fëanor, and the worst of the rest of them. Maglor looked out of the window at the moonlight on the water. “Galadriel told me once that you kept a place for me in Eregion,” he said after a moment, needing to speak of anything except his father. “I am sorry that I did not come there.”

“I am, too,” Celebrimbor said. “It was—it was wonderful, what we made there. Until it all went wrong.” He sighed. “In trying to avoid the mistakes of the past I made new and worse ones.”

“His deception and treachery were not your fault.”

“No, but I had warnings. Galadriel distrusted him, and so did Elrond and Gil-galad. I just—” Celebrimbor shook his head. “It doesn’t matter now, I suppose.” He rubbed one hand over the other, as though recalling old hurts. Maglor remembered again the visions shown to him of those hands broken and bloodied, of Celebrimbor’s face swollen and bruised almost beyond recognition. He swallowed and pushed them back. That place should not still be haunting him, all these years and all these long leagues later. Dol Guldur was long thrown down and left to be overtaken again by the forest. He had seen it himself, and had joined with Celeborn and Thranduil and Radagast and others to sing songs of green and growing things, of trees and of birdsong and flowers under sunshine and spring rain, to speed the healing of the land. He had looked down into the pits laid bare by the power of Galadriel, opened to the skies so they might never hold such horrors again. 

“I am leaving in a few days,” Celebrimbor said after a few moments, “to return to Grandmother Nerdanel’s home; they are all anxious for me to bring news of you. Is there any message you wish for me to take?”

“I…I might write a letter to my mother, if you will carry it for me.”

“Of course,” Celebrimbor said immediately. “Anything you like.”

Maglor managed to smile at him. “Thank you. And—thank you for coming here, Tyelpë. I missed you very much.”

“Thank you for getting on that ship,” Celebrimbor replied. “I have missed you, too—we have all missed you.”

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After supper Galadriel and Celeborn disappeared, and Elrond and Celebrían took Elladan and Elrohir outside into the garden. They sat together on the grass in the twilight to talk of all the things that felt too close and too fragile to speak of in front of others. Elladan and Elrohir had hardly moved from Celebrían’s side since they had tripped over one another in their haste to get off of the ship, but now they lay on the grass, Elrohir with his head in Celebrían’s lap, and Elladan’s in Elrond’s. He ran his fingers through Elladan’s hair, catching on a few tangles every now and then and working them loose as both of his sons spoke of the rebuilding of Annúminas, and of Arwen and Aragorn’s family. None of them had dry eyes, but the tears were of a cleansing, healing kind. It helped to hear from her brothers that Arwen had been happy, truly and deeply happy, and that her son and her daughters were thriving, with families of their own, more than capable of continuing the work that their parents had begun. 

It was a grief also to know that Rivendell now stood nearly empty, visited only by wandering elven companies as they drifted through the world, but such was the way of things. It had served its purpose, and now the world was changed, and so the valley would change too; the roses would overtake the walls as they slowly began to crumble, and moss would grow over the hearth in the Hall of Fire. The path down into the valley would be worn away by wind and rain until it was gone entirely. Only the trees would remember, for a time, the elves that had once lived and laughed and made music there. 

Elrohir fell asleep after a time, while Elladan grew restless. He and Elrond left Celebrían and Elrohir to walk down to the water. A glance up toward the house told Elrond that Maglor was in his room; he could see someone moving about, and the lamps were lit. “How is he, really?” he asked Elladan, who had followed his gaze. 

“He is well,” Elladan said, “but nervous I think. We were not paying much attention but I think he retreated below deck as soon as he saw how big the gathered crowd was.”

“He does not like large crowds, still?” 

Elladan shrugged. “He performed sometimes at court, in both Annúminas and Minas Tirith, and never seemed troubled by it—though it was always only when Estel or Arwen asked him. But it’s different, isn’t it, when the audience is unexpected, and there are such figures as Elu Thingol in it?”

“Well, when you put it that way…” Elrond turned away from the house, and wrapped his arms around Elladan. It was such a relief to be able to do so again, after so long. “And how are you, and Elrohir?”

“We are…it’s hard. Even knowing what was coming.” Elladan rested his head on Elrond’s shoulder and sighed. “Seeing you and Naneth again has helped. Especially Naneth.”

“We have both missed you,” Elrond said. 

“There are several chests and crates of things that Arwen wanted us to bring to you,” Elladan said. “And many letters—from them both and from their children.”

They could wait until they returned to Imloth Ningloron, Elrond thought, looking out over the water. The moon shone bright in the sky overhead, turning the bay silver. Ships still drifted out over it, for the night was fine and cool and the waters calm. “Eärendil came back to port this evening also,” he said after a while. “I expect he and my mother to come sailing into Eldamar tomorrow or the next day—they are eager to meet you.”

He felt Elladan smile against his shoulder. “We are eager to meet them, too.”

After they returned to Elrohir and Celebrían, and roused the former enough for him to stumble upstairs with Elladan to bed, Celebrimbor came outside, looking troubled. Celebrían kissed Elrond. “I will be upstairs,” she said. He smiled at her, and waited until she disappeared inside, and Celebrimbor joined him on the lawn. 

“Something terrible happened to him,” Celebrimbor said. “What was it? He said that he was not well when he spent a winter in Galadriel’s realm, but would say nothing else. Not how he came there or where he went afterward.”

Elrond grimaced. Not well was such an understatement it was nearly painful. “Come with me,” he said, and turned back down toward the beach. It was quiet there, though he did not go all the way down to the water. Instead he turned into a stand of trees where they could speak without being either seen or heard, or worrying about their voices carrying over the water. Once there he turned to face Celebrimbor, who fidgeted, agitated, his weight shifting from foot to foot as he crossed and uncrossed his arms, leaves rustling under his feet. “You have heard of Dol Guldur?” Elrond asked.

“Yes, but—no.” Celebrimbor’s eyes went wide. “No, he wasn’t—”

“He was. He was there for many years until the White Council drove Sauron out. Sauron knew who he was…” 

Celebrimbor turned away, hands coming up to grasp at his hair. Of all people he knew best what Sauron was capable of, the lengths to which he would go in pursuit of what he wanted, and what Maglor had endured. Elrond could only imagine the memories this had conjured. “Celebrimbor,” he began, though he wasn’t quite sure what he was going to say. 

“There are scars on his face. Around his mouth. If I did not know better—” Celebrimbor turned around again. In the scant moonlight that reached them through the trees Elrond could see his eyes, bright with unshed tears. “What am I to tell my grandmother?”

“She already knows something of it,” Elrond said. “As does Maedhros.” Celebrimbor looked away, jaw clenching. He looked as though some things about his uncle at last made sense to him. “He was left alone in the dark for a very long time,” Elrond said quietly. “That was the worst of it, I think—that is what haunted him the longest.”

“He was alone for too long even before that,” Celebrimbor said. “I should have looked more. I could have. After the city was built—”

“So could I,” Elrond said. “But he is here now. He left that place long ago. There is no use in dwelling on what might have been.”

“If I had not made the rings,” Celebrimbor said bitterly, tears escaping to trace pale lines down his cheeks, “Sauron would not have survived the Last Alliance and returned to capture him.”

“Celebrimbor.”

“I know. I know. It’s only—he does not want to see his brothers but he is glad to see me, who—”

“Who has always been the best of us.” Maglor stepped through the trees, making Celebrimbor jump. “It was not your fault, Tyelpë.”

“The blame lies with Sauron, and Sauron alone,” Elrond added as Maglor folded Celebrimbor into his arms. “And he is gone.”

“He is gone,” Maglor agreed, “and we are here. Do not weep for me, Tyelpë. I do not like to speak of it, but the scars don’t hurt anymore.”

Celebrimbor drew back to look at Maglor. He reached up to touch the scar on his cheek, and one of the smaller ones about his mouth, where the skin had been torn away with the cords after his rescue, leaving a small divot behind. Then he turned and left the trees without another word, shoulders hunched. Maglor watched him go before turning back to Elrond. The white strands in his hair shone like silver in the dappled moonlight. “I did not want him to know.” It was not an accusation; he just sounded sad and weary. “I still do not know what I am going to tell my mother.”

“She knows you were held in Dol Guldur,” Elrond said. “She has palantíri—”

“Oh, those.” Maglor grimaced. “I had forgotten those. They were made so our parents could more easily us when we were young. I wish she hadn’t…”

“Maedhros saw you, too.” The sound of Maedhros’ name had Maglor flinching. “But you’ve been hidden from their sight since you were brought out of there. I suppose you weren’t doing it on purpose.”

“Yes and no. I have always been able to hide if I wished to—and I often wished to, if only to get some quiet once in a while.” His mouth quirked in a small smile. “Six brothers makes for a noisy household.”

But he had never wished to hide from Maedhros before, Elrond thought. So Maedhros had said, and it was easy to believe. Even as a child he had seen the bond between them, almost as close as the one he’d shared with Elros. Always Maglor had been turning to look for Maedhros, and always Maedhros was keeping watch over Maglor. That more than anything had eased Elrond’s fears of him, little by little. It still grieved him that after Maedhros’ death Maglor had not believed anyone else would look for him, or care what happened to him. 

“Did Celebrimbor tell you…”

“Of Fëanor? Yes.” Maglor leaned back against a tree, arms hugged across his stomach. “It was not what I was hoping to hear when I came.”

“I know. It has been a surprise to all of us.”

“I cannot see him. I cannot even see…” Maglor looked away. “But if he wishes to see any of us, I do not see how to stop him. There was never any stopping him when he wanted something.”

“Well, now there is me,” Elrond said mildly, startling Maglor into laughter, though it faded away quickly, absorbed by the trees and the leaves blanketing the ground under their feet. “You are a part of my family and my household, Maglor. That puts you under my protection.”

“I know.” Maglor’s smile was wry. “But I do not like to think of you having to protect me from my own father.”

“What can he do except shout at me?” Elrond asked. “If nothing else I can give you time to slip out of a window and away.”

“I did that one time, Elrond.” But Maglor was laughing again, the tension in his shoulders easing. 

“You never did explain why.”

He shrugged. “I just did not want to see anyone, or be seen, and it was easier than trying to creep through the hallways.”

“Well, I wasn’t wholly joking,” Elrond said. “No one in our household will help someone find you if you do not want to be found.”

“I know.” Maglor smiled at him. “Thank you. When I flee unwanted visitors I’ll be sure to use the proper doors.” 

They left the trees together and walked down to the water. Elrond was tired, but not yet ready to go back inside, and though Maglor might have been he did not seem like he wanted to sleep. “Is the idea of seeing your father so bad?” Elrond asked after a little while. He had been anxious before seeing his own father again, but he had wanted to see him—desperately, as he had as a child whenever Eärendil had sailed away and Elwing had turned her back to hide her own tears. 

“I am not afraid of him, if that is what you are asking,” Maglor said. “Or at least…I don’t think I am. But I think I might…I don’t know if I hate him or if I miss him so much it just hurts in the same way. If I were to see him I know I would say things I would regret.”

“I wonder if he does not need to hear some of those things,” Elrond said. 

“I do not want to be the one to say them. I don’t…I don’t like being angry.” Maglor’s shoulders were hunched a little, not unlike Celebrimbor’s had been. “But I am angry. I am so angry I could scream, and I don’t know how I never realized it before.” He did not sound angry, only tired and sad—but then, he was not angry at Elrond.

“It’s different when the objects of our anger are far away and beyond our reach,” Elrond said, “when there are other things closer at hand to worry about or to occupy us.”

“It’s been so long,” Maglor said. He stooped to pick up a pale seashell from the sand. “I thought I’d left it all behind me, all the ghosts of the past, only to find them come back to life ahead of me here.” He sighed. “I meant to ask you whether you think I should go to Alqualondë, or to whoever rules the people of Doriath these days, or…”

“All of your brothers did,” Elrond said. “There is no hurry. You do not need to make any public declarations either—in fact I think most would prefer if you didn’t. You can speak to Olwë here—he came to meet Círdan—as well as Thingol, if you want to get it over and done with.” He’d had a few somewhat awkward conversations about it with both Thingol and Olwë, and he thought they would appreciate a briefer, private meeting sooner than later. Thingol in particular seemed determined to mend the rift between himself and Finwë’s children, even with the House of Fëanor. 

“That’s a relief, at least,” Maglor murmured. “I do not have any grand speeches or fair words in me.”

“I would not be surprised to see my parents here as soon as tomorrow afternoon,” Elrond said. “They are eager to see Elladan and Elrohir. I think you should speak with them, at least.” It was difficult to articulate just how badly he wished that the most important people in his life all at least tolerated each other, even if they could never be friends. “Even if just for a few minutes.”

“Whatever your mother wishes to say to me, I’ll listen without complaint. I’m sure I deserve it all.”

“Maglor, don’t.”

“I’m not trying to—it’s only the truth.” Maglor looked up and smiled ruefully. “Not everyone is as forgiving as you, Elrond. I do not know where you got it from.”

He hadn’t really had a choice, Elrond thought. Maglor let the shell drop back into the surf and they turned to walk back to the house. He was not someone who could use grudges or old hurts like fuel on a fire to keep him moving. They felt like weights instead, and if he had not learned forgiveness he long ago would have suffocated under them. Forgiving was letting go, and letting go was the only way he had found to keep putting one foot in front of the other. 

That did not mean it was easy. And it could only be even harder when those who had hurt you had been far away and were suddenly not. He had spoken at length with Elwing about Maglor, about his childhood and about what had come afterward, but he did not know what she would say when she and Maglor met at last. As for Eärendil—if Elrond had inherited his ability to forgive from anyone, it must have been from him. He had no temper to speak of, and Elwing had spoken with exasperated fondness of his inability to even be annoyed for more than an afternoon. Eärendil had retorted with something about weighing anchors—following Elrond’s own thoughts of shedding weights.

“Should I not have asked you to come?” he asked abruptly as they drew closer to the house. “If you were not ready—if you did not wish—”

Maglor caught him and embraced him. “If I had not wanted to come, I would have said so when we spoke of it in Imladris,” he said into Elrond’s hair. “I would have sailed with you, but for Arwen. I’ve missed you, and I am glad to be here with you. I only regret that you’ll be caught up in whatever mess my father makes next.”

“I am not afraid of Fëanor,” Elrond said. 

“You have not met Fëanor,” Maglor muttered as he drew back. 

“No, but I am married to Galadriel’s daughter.” That, at least, made Maglor laugh. Elrond had never thought Galadriel terribly fearsome or even very intimidating, and he knew that made him the exception rather than the rule. He still did not find the idea of Fëanor, even in his wrath, all that frightening. What could scare him after the War of Wrath, after the Last Alliance, after Angmar? And he did not truly believe that Fëanor would really come rampaging into his house demanding to see Maglor; if he was likely to do such a thing he would still be in Mandos. Most likely he would not come at all—if he had any sense, he would wait for his sons to come to him.

Maglor sighed as they stepped inside. “There is one I would dearly like to see, and cannot,” he said.

“Who?”

“Finwë. But it is said, isn’t it, that he remains in Mandos so that Míriel could return to life?”

“That is true. But it was also said that Fëanor would not return from Mandos until the ending of the world.”

Maglor’s mouth quirked in a small smile. “True.”

“There is always at least a little hope,” Elrond said. 

“I’m afraid you’ll have to keep hoping for me, at least for now. I have not yet relearned how to fully grasp it.” He turned to smile more warmly at Elrond. “My room is wonderful. Please thank your lady wife for me.”

“I will. Good night, Maglor.”

“Good night, Elrond.” Maglor kissed his forehead and they parted. 

Elrond retreated to his room in relief. Celebrían was there, propped up on pillows with a book on her knees. Her sleeveless nightgown showed the scars that still marred her arms and crossed over her chest, but they did not trouble her any longer, and Elrond was learning to ignore them too. He slid under the cool blankets and sighed as she put her arm around him and he leaned against her shoulder. “All is well?” she asked, fingers catching in his hair.

“As well as it can be. I promised Maglor we would keep any unwanted visitors from him.”

“His brothers, you mean.”

“And his father.”

“I confess to a great curiosity about Fëanor, but I do not blame Maglor for wanting to keep his distance.” She set her book aside and turned to kiss Elrond. “It has been a long day.”

“It has.” The waiting at the harbor had been the hardest part in the end, watching the ship get ever closer—inexorably but so slowly. And they had known who was aboard; he could not imagine the toll it took on those who waited for every ship to come in, hoping for a loved one’s face at the railing, only to be disappointed each time. “But a good one,” he said.

“Yes, a very good one. And tomorrow will be better.”

“Maglor wished for me to pass on his thanks for his room.”

“I’m glad he likes it. I hope he will like the one in Imloth Ningloron even better.”

“I have no doubt.” 

“By the way, I noticed a little cat making herself at home; she seemed very sweet, but I haven’t the faintest idea where she came from.”

“I think she is Maglor’s. Or he is hers.” Elrond had not seen her, and Maglor had neglected to mention a cat, but ever since his first summer in Imladris had had one at his heels or draped across his shoulders more often than not. It would have been strange for him not to have one follow him across the Sea.

“Ah, I should have guessed. You told me about the cats’ fondness for him.” Celebrían turned the lamp off, and the room plunged into gentle darkness, softened by the silver moonlight through the curtains. The windows were open, and the sea scented breeze swept over them, soft as a caress. Elrond closed his eyes and sighed, drifting into sleep as from a nearby room came the quiet music of a harp. 

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Maglor had not expected to sleep well his first night on Eressëa, and he didn’t. He tried, but soon gave up and unpacked his harp instead. It was one he had made himself, of driftwood like the smaller one Daeron had admired. He had other pieces of driftwood tucked into the bottom of one of his trunks; he had no real plans for them, he just wanted to have them, little bits of Middle-earth’s shores that he could bring with him. It seemed less absurd than a jar of sand, although he did also have a small box of shells and sea glass. And the bits of broken Rivendell stone.

Pídhres, as expected, made her way into the room eventually, after her own thorough investigation of the whole house and, doubtless, the garden as well. “There you are,” he said as she climbed up his arm to drape herself over his shoulders. “I wondered where you had gone.” He set his fingers to the harp strings and began a quiet melody, making it up as he went along, keeping time with the steady wash of waves he could just hear outside of the window. The house was quiet; not everyone was asleep, but the excitement of the day had passed.

A soft knock heralded Celebrimbor, slipping in and coming to sit at Maglor’s feet the way he’d done when he’d been a child. “Where did the cat come from?” he asked, looking up at Pídhres in surprise.

“Imladris,” Maglor said. 

“You did not have it at the docks.”

“She was in my bag.”

Celebrimbor huffed a quiet laugh and leaned against Maglor’s side. Maglor dropped a hand briefly to his hair. “I like this,” he said, reaching out to run a hand over the harp’s frame. “You always made such lovely things from wood. I could never make it work for me.”

“What do you work with now?”

“Glass, lately. I am working on a series of stained glass window panes for the palace in Tirion.”

“Which windows?” Maglor asked. 

“The council room. They do not depict anything in particular—I have been experimenting with the patterns, but Fingolfin seems pleased. He rules the Noldor, now,” Celebrimbor added, a little unnecessarily. “He did not take up the crown immediately upon returning, but my mother tells me it was sooner than everyone expected.”

“I’m surprised Finarfin held off more than a few days,” Maglor murmured, changing the melody to an older one that he’d played often when he visited Himlad during the Long Peace. Unless a great deal had changed in his absence, Finarfin must have been very unhappy as High King. 

“Only because Fingolfin did not go immediately to Tirion, I think,” Celebrimbor said. “But things are—there is peace again, and though there are still factions they all different from before, and they all get along more often than not. It helps I think that many of the Noldor do not live in Tirion anymore. Turgon has his city in the west, and there are some settlements on the coast, south of here—a little like Vinyamar—and of course there are those that dwell with Elrond. Even my father and my uncles’ returning did not cause more than a brief stir.”

“Good,” Maglor said. “I’m glad. Do they dwell in Tirion again?”

“My father does now. He and my mother are…” Celebrimbor waved a hand. “I’m not sure what they are, but it’s better than it was before. Celegorm and Ambarussa rejoined Oromë’s hunt some years ago, and are away in the wilds more often than not. Caranthir comes rarely to the city; he and Maedhros live with Grandmother Nerdanel.”

“So you said before.”

“You really will not see them? Not even…?”

“Not yet, Tyelpë.”

“Is it because of—of Dol Guldur…?”

Maglor stopped playing and let the notes fade away into the quiet of the evening. “No,” he said. “Or—not entirely. I don’t…” He looked down at Celebrimbor, who looked back up at him somberly. Maglor had never been one to trip over his words before, he knew, but how could he explain to his nephew the complicated and ugly tangle of feelings lodged in his chest that throbbed whenever he thought of seeing his brothers again? All they had been through together, all they had done—they had all gotten to escape it in Mandos, to find rest and healing and maybe even peace. His own peace was still such a fragile thing—more fragile than he’d realized before stepping off the ship—paid for with blood and tears unnumbered. “Do they even want to see me?”

“Of course they do. Were it not that Fëanor…were it not for that, it would have been Maedhros here to meet you instead of me.”

“I am glad it was you,” Maglor said before he could stop his tongue. “I knew what had happened to you, Tyelpë, and I am so, so glad to see you alive again and whole.”

Celebrimbor looked down at his hands, flexing his fingers. “For a very long time I did not think I could be,” he admitted. “It wasn’t until—until I saw the tapestries of his final defeat, of the One going into the fire—that hope returned to me. It was still some years after it all that I came back. I am glad I was in time to meet the Ringbearers, and to know them a little.”

“I am glad, too,” Maglor said. It would have been good for both Celebrimbor and Frodo, he thought, to speak to one another. He had been Sauron’s prisoner, but he had never known him, not in the way that the two of them did, in their different ways. “I too am grateful to have known them.” 

With a sigh, Celebrimbor leaned his head against Maglor’s thigh. Maglor rested his hand on his nephew’s broad shoulder. “Sometimes I find myself thinking that I miss Tirion, even when I am there,” Celebrimbor said softly. “It is the same but it isn’t. The districts are all rearranged, and parts of it are empty still. Grandfather Fëanor’s house stands empty. I think Grandmother Nerdanel has gone back a few times, but never to stay. It’s falling down now, and the gardens are all overgrown. And I can’t…I cannot quite remember what it looked like before.”

Maglor could, all too well. “Time passes, even here,” he said softly. “There is no turning it backward.”

“Or stopping it,” Celebrimbor said. 

“Do not regret your rings, Tyelpë. I would not be here were it not for them.”

His nephew sighed, a sound so mournful that Maglor’s heart nearly broke. “Most days I do not regret them,” he said, “but they would not have been without Annatar, and I cannot…he was my friend. Or at least I thought that he was. I believed in him. I thought he must have some secrets in his past, some shadows, but did not we all? And he made such lovely things—we made lovely things, working together, and we laughed and we sang and—I still cannot make sense of it. That he was lying all that time. I cannot believe it. Or maybe it is only that I do not want to think myself so easily deceived.”

“I cannot say,” Maglor said. “But you were not the only one to be deceived. No one knew the truth of him until it was too late.”

“But others suspected.”

“That he was Sauron? I doubt it. Galadriel sees much, but if she had seen through to the full truth she would not have stayed silent. Do not forget what Sauron was. And do not forget that all of us, even the Valar, were deceived by Morgoth once. He walked among us in Tirion in fair guise, with fair words, and it was not until far too late that we realized that the unrest and discord had its roots in him.” Maglor could not speak to Sauron’s intentions in going to Eregion in the first place. Maybe he had wanted to change. Maybe it had been a lie all along. It was impossible now to tell, and in the end it didn’t matter. All he could think of was his journey through that land with Elladan and Elrohir, going from Lothlórien to Imladris. They had crossed the Redhorn pass down into Eregion and there had been nothing. No ruins. No sign that anyone had ever lived there. Sauron had erased Ost-in-Edhil and its surrounding farmlands and outlying towns and villages from the face of the earth so that only the stones afterward remembered, quietly lamenting the Elves who had once lived there. Nothing in Middle-earth now remained of the beautiful works of his nephew’s hands. Not even the doors of Moria remained. “You could not have known, Tyelpë. Not if even Galadriel did not.”

“I’m sorry. We already spoke of all this earlier.”

“I’m no stranger to circling thoughts,” Maglor said.

“Will you play me something?” Celebrimbor asked after a moment, sounding very young.

“Anything you want,” Maglor said, and put his hands to the strings again. 

He played most of the night, sometimes singing, sometimes not. Celebrimbor listened, and by the time the sun peeked over the waves in the east he was more cheerful. Maglor glanced out of the window as the sky brightened. Already there were many boats flitting about on the bay, and the bells in Avallónë were ringing to welcome the new morning. As he watched, Uinen rose up suddenly out of the waves, laughing with the mariners, her hair all pale streaming foam. It startled him into missing a string, and the song he was playing ended on an abrupt and discordant note. 

“What’s wrong?” Celebrimbor asked. As Pídhres jumped to the floor and vanished under the bed. 

“Nothing. I just forgot how the Ainur are, that’s all.”

Seeing Uinen out of the window, Celebrimbor smiled crookedly. “It takes getting used to,” he agreed. 

They went down to breakfast, where Celebrían greeted them both warmly, kissing Celebrimbor and clasping Maglor’s hand. “I am very glad to meet you at last,” she told him as Celebrimbor went to pour himself tea. Up close and in the morning sunshine Maglor could see the resemblance she bore to Celeborn, not only in her silver hair but in her light green eyes. It was she from whom Elladan and Elrohir had inherited their freckles, too. “I also wanted to thank you,” she said, smile fading into a look more grave and somber, “for staying with our children. With Arwen.” 

Maglor squeezed her hand. “I was glad to do it,” he said. Celebrían kissed his cheek and turned away. There would be time later to speak of Arwen, and of her family, but the grief was still too near for all of them.

Elladan and Elrohir came down next, followed by Elrond. Breakfast was a casual affair, with the household members coming and going, chatting and laughing, some only staying long enough to grab an apple, others lingering over full plates and cups of tea. There were many foods and fruits that did not grow in Middle-earth—things he’d eaten in his youth and some that he had, once, dramatically lamented the lack of in Beleriand. He had been only half serious about it, putting on a show to make his brothers laugh more than anything. But he really had missed the spiced teas that had been popular in Tirion before the Darkening—and were still popular, or popular again, on Tol Eressëa now, to his delight. He was perfectly content to sit near the window and watch everyone come and go and listen to the talk flow around him as he sipped his tea and relished the familiar-and-not warmth on his tongue. 

After breakfast Maglor heard visitors arriving, and upon hearing Olwë’s voice he prepared to make himself scarce. He went to his room for his smaller harp and then retreated into the garden, where there was a tree he could climb and find a good place to sit and play to himself and to the birds. Pídhres followed after him, meowing plaintively until he scooped her up to perch on his shoulder. She purred and rubbed her head against his ear. “Hold on, then,” he told her as he came to the tree. She made a small disgruntled noise when he jumped up to grasp the lowest branch, digging her claws into his shirt and the strap of his harp case. “You can climb yourself if you don’t like it, silly cat,” he said, and swung himself up onto the branch. As he hooked his leg over and hauled himself up he caught a glimpse of a small boat pulled up onto the beach, and saw the couple who had brought it there making their way into the garden from it; in his surprise he over extended himself and instead of swinging onto the branch he tipped over the other side, and lost his grip. Pídhres jumped from his shoulder at the last minute to land safely on the branch, while he hit the ground hard enough to leave bruises, though he at least managed to avoid landing on top of his harp case. “Oh stop it,” he said when Pídhres meowed at him, as though asking what he was doing lying in the dirt when he could be up in the tree with her. She meowed again, sounding positively judgmental, as though she would not be crying to him within ten minutes because she could not get out of the tree by herself.

Then an amused face framed by golden hair appeared above him, along with an extended hand. “Are you all right?” Eärendil asked. 

“Yes, thank you,” Maglor said. He accepted the hand up; it was not how he had expected this meeting to go, and he wasn’t sure if it was better or worse. Eärendil obviously knew who he was, and Elwing too; she stood a little distance away regarding him as though she did not quite know how to reconcile what he was now with what he had been. The resemblance of Elrond to his mother was obvious and striking, both of them dark haired and starry-eyed in the manner of Lúthien’s children. What Maglor had not realized before was that Elrond’s smile was Eärendil’s—perhaps it was Tuor’s, or Rían’s, or some other forebear among the Edain. Perhaps it was all their own; it did not look like Turgon. 

He still did not know what to say. He did not want their enmity, especially for Elrond’s sake, but there was nothing he could say now to make better what he had done so long ago. 

Eärendil stepped back, still looking amused, though that was fading. “I confess,” he said, “this is not how I expected to meet you.”

“Nor I,” Maglor said, glad they could at least agree on that. “I beg your pardon.” He bowed, though he wasn’t sure it was at all graceful. “You are wanting to see Elladan and Elrohir. They are inside, I think with King Olwë and Elu Thingol.”

“Thank you,” Eärendil said. Elwing, though, did not move.

“Why did you do it?” she asked suddenly. He had heard her voice before—shrill and harsh with fear and fury, just before she had cast herself into the Sea. He did not know if she had seen him; he had hung back to keep others from following up the cliff face after Maedhros. It had been an awful night, and it was worse now in memory, filled with sick shame and grief all tangled up together. Ambarussa had died that night, and they hadn’t even been able to take their bodies for burial. And Elwing had fallen into the sea and Maglor had not seen, then, that she had been saved. 

“The Oath,” he began.

“No,” Elwing said, shaking her head. She stepped forward so they came face to face. She was not as tall as he had expected her to be, a daughter of Thingol’s line. He looked down into her eyes, which Elrond and then Arwen had inherited, grey and shining with the light of stars. “I know why you did that. Why did you take my children?”

Oh. That, at least, had an easier answer. “I did not know whether other help would come for them before orcs did,” he said. “I did not mean to keep them—but there was no way back to Balar after.” 

Elwing searched his face; he watched her gaze linger on the scars there. She did not ask about them. “Is it true what is said of your brother?” she asked then. “That he looked for my brothers—to save them, not to slay them?”

“Yes. That’s true.”

“Did you look for them?”

“I did—but he looked longer, and was nearly lost himself.” Doriath had been a dangerous place, even in Melian’s absence. Her Girdle had been broken but not fully dissolved, and Maglor and the twins had dragged Maedhros out of it before any of them could be ensnared forever in the lingering enchantments. “I am sorry, Lady Elwing,” Maglor said. He met her gaze. She had the same starlit eyes as her sons. “I wish there were better words to say how sorry I am, but if there are I do not know them.”

She did not smile, but her expression softened. “You love my children,” she said, “and for their sake I can forgive much. I am glad that you are here, for Elrond’s sake.”

“I too forgive you, for their sakes,” Eärendil said. He reached out to take Maglor’s hand again; his grip was firm, his hands covered in sailor’s callouses. His smile was warm. “And we are, after all, kinsmen. I watched you wander for a very long time. I am glad you found your way to Imladris in the end.”

Maglor had not expected this, to have been noticed by the Mariner in his voyaging, and he did not know what to say. Pídhres chose that moment to woefully remind them of her presence and the fact that she was now stuck in the tree with no way to get down. Eärendil looked up and laughed. “Is that your cat?” he asked.

“I am hers, rather,” Maglor said, glad of the excuse to step back. “And I had better rescue her.”

“Goodbye for now, then,” Eärendil said as he and Elwing left the tree to head up to the house. “I am sure we will be seeing each other often.”

Once they were away, Maglor swung himself up into the tree—successfully this time—and picked up Pídhres. “You absurd little animal,” he said as she curled around his neck. “Did I not name you climber?” He hoisted himself up a little higher until he found a comfortable spot where the trunk split, with a space just big enough for him to sit with his harp on his lap. Comfortable again, Pídhres purred as he took it out and set his fingers to the strings. Heartened by his encounter with Elrond’s parents, he chose a more cheerful tune than he had been thinking of earlier. 

“Maglor, is that you?” a bright voice called out, and Maglor fumbled the next notes. As they died away he leaned forward to see none other than Finrod looking back up at him from beneath the tree, hair gleaming gold in the bright sunlight, bound up with ribbons and strands of emerald beads. “I thought it must be,” he said, and sprang up the tree with much more grace than Maglor had managed. “Well met, Cousin! You certainly took your time, didn’t you?” 

“Finrod,” Maglor said, and didn’t know what else to say, how to meet this cheerfulness. “What are you…?”

“I came to see you, of course! And Elrond’s sons,” he added. “I do not say I have come to see Celeborn, for I expected that he and Galadriel would be shut up somewhere, and I was right. Move over, then, let me join you!” He wedged himself into the tree fork alongside Maglor. “And who is this sweet creature?”

“Pídhres, though she is not living up to her name today,” Maglor said as she accepted the scratches that were her due. “It is good to see you,” he added, and was rewarded by one of Finrod’s bright sunbeam smiles. 

It faded quickly, though, as Finrod reached out to touch Maglor’s face. His thumb traced over the scar on Maglor’s cheek, and his gaze passed over the smaller scars about his lips. He did not look surprised at the sight of them. “Maedhros saw you after this happened,” he said, his thumb tracing down over one of the more obvious scars by Maglor’s lip. “In one of your mother’s palantíri.” Maglor looked away. “I feared for a time it would send him back to Mandos, especially when the stones clouded over again and no one could find you.” 

“I’m all right now,” Maglor said.

“Are you?” Finrod asked, disbelieving but kind. 

“I am certainly better than I was,” Maglor said, thinking of those first months after he had been freed, of the fear and the pain and the resurgence of all the things he’d buried within himself in the centuries prior. Of being too afraid to even try to play the harp, lest he somehow draw the Enemy’s attention back to him so he might be snatched up again, and this time too broken to resist. He had taught himself again slowly how to hear the Music of the world in everything from the Sea to the quiet patter of the rain. His voice did not hold the power that it once had, but he’d long ago stopped caring. And the fear was gone—it had died with Sauron, crumbled with the stones of Barad-dûr.

He looked back at Finrod, who searched his face solemnly. He was no less keen-eyed than Galadriel, but he was also more open. Maglor could see in his eyes the memory of his own captivity long ago, in the dark of Tol-in-Gaurhoth. “I thought of you when I first came to Dol Guldur,” Maglor admitted quietly. “When I first saw the place I thought of your fair Minas Tirith and what it became afterward.” 

“It makes it worse, doesn’t it—that he took our towers and made them into places of horror?” Finrod sighed. “But they are gone, and he is gone, and we are here.”

“Yes. I said that to Tyelpë last night.”

“Will you say it to Maedhros, too? Your other brothers do not know what happened, but he and Aunt Nerdanel have suffered greatly from the uncertainty.”

“I wrote to my mother,” Maglor said. “Galadriel was to see it delivered.”

“I am sure she did—but you know that isn’t the same. But Aunt Nerdanel is not who I worry for.”

Maglor didn’t answer. Was he to have this conversation with everyone? Frustration bubbled up in his chest and made his fingers clumsy on the harp strings. Pídhres butted her head against his ear, and he reached up to pet her. A burst of laughter drifted down the garden from the house. From the other direction came the gentle sound of the waves on the sand, and the rhythmic sound of them lapping against the wooden hull of Eärendil and Elwing’s boat. Somewhere above a few birds sang to one another—a familiar sound in the way that so much in Valinor was familiar, something stepped out of his long-ago youth that felt like it belonged to someone else. 

“Maglor?”

“I do not want to speak of Maedhros. Please do not ask me again.”

“Will you at least tell me why?”

Maglor sighed, and let his hands fall to his lap. Finrod’s shoulder pressed against his; the emerald beads in his hair clicked together as he tilted his head forward to peer into Maglor’s face. Maglor tried to think of how to say it that would not just sound awful, but could only shake his head. There was no good way to say all the things that were true at the same time: I miss him too much, and it hurts, and I love him, and most of all: it was easier not to hate him when I thought I would never see him again. 

“I just—can’t.”

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Nerdanel’s house had not been built with seven grown sons in mind; only Maedhros and Caranthir lived there still, with Curufin having returned to Tirion with his wife, and Celegorm and the twins spending most of their time in the wilds with Oromë’s folk. Now all of them were there, and the place felt crowded, though not precisely uncomfortable in spite of the tensions running between them all. It had been days since they had all gathered, and in that time they had spoken of everything except the reasons they had come there. No one seemed to know how to start. Maedhros certainly didn’t. 

Now the six of them were gathered in the dining room. It was the only room where they could all sit around and see each other clearly to speak, and they had all arranged themselves as they had long ago in Himring or Amon Ereb, with Maedhros at the head of the table and his brothers in order of age down it, with Celegorm on his left. It was far more orderly than the chaotic and unpredictable seating arrangements at dinner in their youth, and it was only after everyone was seated that they realized a space had been left at Maedhros’ right hand, where Maglor should have been. 

No one moved to fill the gap, and Maedhros tried not to look at the empty chair. Maglor was in Avallónë by now, at the house of Elrond and Celebrían; word always spread quickly when a ship came out of the east, and this one in particular was of note with Círdan himself come west at last. There was a chance Maglor would appear on the doorstep alongside Celebrimbor, but Maedhros thought at best they would receive a letter. At worst, he would have refused to see even Celebrimbor. 

Finally, Celegorm broke the silence. “Which one will we speak of first? Atar or Cáno?” He looked at Maedhros. “Why did you not go with Tyelpë to Avallónë?”

“Elrond advised against it,” Maedhros said, though it was not strictly true—Elrond had not said the words aloud, but he’d made it very clear that Maedhros was not welcome, but that Celebrimbor was. Celebrían had been kinder, but no less firm in her farewell to both Maedhros and Curufin. 

It seemed strange to be sitting around a long table with his brothers with nothing on it but mugs of tea and a plate of jam-filled pastries that someone—he thought perhaps Caranthir—had baked that morning. There should have been a scattering of papers and parchment, maps and lists and notes. But of course they needed no such things now—they were not at war, there were no battles to plan, no defenses to manage, no supplies to source or inventory. Only a father no one was sure they wanted to see, and a brother no one was sure wanted to see them. Though a meeting with Fëanor might as well be a battle, Maedhros thought sourly. None of them were happy to know that he was returning, and he would not be happy in his turn that they did not welcome him. 

“I didn’t realize you were lately in the habit of taking advice from anyone,” Celegorm said. Maedhros did not reply; there was no sting in the words, only truth. “But why? What does he know that we do not?”

“Maglor is a member of his household,” Maedhros said, “or he was in Middle-earth. It seems to me that Elrond knows him better than we do, now.” An uncomfortable silence fell over the room. It had once been that no one knew any of them better than the other six—good and ill, better or worse. For almost all of their lives they had been united—not only outwardly, but inwardly too, with no squabble or fight ever big enough to break them apart. That unity had fractured and broken in the end, unable to hold up under the weight of their Oath and what they had done in its pursuit both separately and together, and now none of them quite knew how to talk to one another. Maedhros had yet to see Celegorm and Curufin exchange more than a handful of words, and never outside of other company. Caranthir spoke little to any of them, and Maedhros knew himself to be nigh unapproachable. He did not want to be, but did not know how to be otherwise. Only Ambarussa remained as close as they had always been.

It was Amras who broke the silence next. “What about Atar?” 

What about Atar, indeed. Maedhros looked at all of them, and realized the question had not been a general one, but directed at him. “I do not want to see him,” Maedhros said finally, sighing. “But that should not dictate what the rest of you do. This is not Beleriand.” And Fëanor was, after all, still their father. 

“Our loyalty is to you, Nelyo, not to him,” said Amrod, as Amras nodded. 

“I’ll not see him, whatever anyone else does,” said Celegorm, voice low and fist clenched on the table. “I know I cannot blame the Oath for everything, but I hate what I became in Beleriand, and I would not have come there if not for him.” 

“I miss Cáno more than I have ever missed Atar,” said Caranthir quietly. “I will follow you in this, Nelyo.” 

Maedhros made himself unclench his own fist on the table, and to take a sip of his cooling tea. It was the spiced tea that had once been Maglor’s favorite, and he wished whoever had made it had chosen something else. “I am not your liege lord,” he said, catching Curufin’s eye as he spoke, receiving a there-and-gone-in-a-blink smile in return.

“You are our brother,” said Caranthir. 

“You had the wisdom to give the crown away after all he did trying to take it,” added Curufin. 

“You hated me for that,” Maedhros reminded him. 

Curufin shrugged. “I was wrong.” And that was no small thing for any of them, to admit error so frankly. “What good did the crown ever do anyone, in the end? And anyway,” he added, picking up his own mug with an affectation of carelessness that fooled no one, “I never hated you, Nelyo.”

“I might hate him,” Celegorm added, “but I could never hate any of you.” 

“Are we united in this, then?” Caranthir asked. “That none of us want to see him?”

“If he comes to Tirion, I will not refuse to speak to him,” Curufin said, “but I will not seek him out, and I will take no part in whatever quarrels he wants to start with Fingolfin this time.”

“Surely they would not allow him to leave Mandos if he was going to do something like that,” said Amras. 

“I don’t think even Námo can tell what he will do,” muttered Celegorm. 

“Whatever Ammë decides,” Maedhros said, “she at least deserves our support. Whatever she decides.”

“Thank you!” said Nerdanel, coming into the room. “Goodness, is this what it looked like when you call came together to plan battles in Beleriand? It’s too grim for this house. You did not need to form a war council just for your father. But I am glad to have you all here. It gives me the strength to meet with him when he comes.” She came around to the head of the table to drop a kiss on top of Maedhros’ head. “I have not decided whether I wish to reconcile with Fëanáro, yet. I cannot, until I speak with him.” Her gaze strayed to the empty chair, and her expression softened into something wistful and sad. “I do wish I could have you all under my roof again,” she said. Maedhros put his arm around her waist, leaning his head against her chest as she stroked his hair. “Even your father—though what I suppose I am really wishing is to turn the years back.” 

And that was impossible, even for the Valar. 

“Is there any word from Mandos, or from Eressëa?” asked Curufin. 

“Not yet,” said Nerdanel, “but I came to tell you I saw Fingon and Finrod coming down the road.”

“I asked them to come,” Maedhros said, seeing eyebrows rising and wishing to forestall any remarks from his brothers. If the tension between Curufin and Celegorm was bad on a normal day, it was even worse when Finrod was nearby. “I will speak to them.”

“About Atar?” Amrod asked.

“Yes. If Finarfin and Fingolfin have not been told, they should be.” 

Maedhros rose from his seat, and heard his brothers following suit as he left the room. When he reached the courtyard he found Fingon and Finrod just dismounting. “Well met, Russandol!” Fingon said, grinning at him, as bright and exuberant as he had ever been. “To what do we owe this rare honor?” 

“Walk with me?” Maedhros said rather than answering. 

“Of course,” said Finrod, and the three of them fell into step together, walking around the house and out past the orchard. “I have just come from Avallónë,” Finrod said after a few moments. “I spoke to Maglor.” 

Maedhros felt his fist clench and made himself loosen his fingers. “Is he well?”

“Oh, yes. I found him playing music in Elrond’s garden with a cat purring on his shoulder. Celebrimbor was there as well; I think he will bring a letter to Aunt Nerdanel.”

“Did Maglor not send any messages with you?” Fingon asked, sounding surprised. 

“No, none.” Finrod glanced at Maedhros as he spoke, and Maedhros kept his gaze on the ground. “But I do not think you called us here to speak of Maglor.”

“No.” Maedhros stopped beneath one of the trees. They were heavy with pink flowers, the fragrance of them almost sickly sweet. “Word came to my mother from Mandos a few weeks ago. Did messengers visit your fathers?”

His cousins looked at each other before shaking their heads. “No,” said Fingon. “Or at least none that my parents have spoken of.”

“Nor mine,” said Finrod. “But why would Mandos—oh.” His eyes widened slightly. “Fëanor?”

“He is returned?” Fingon exclaimed.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not yet,” said Maedhros, “but soon. That is why I wanted to speak to you.” They’d met like this before, the three of them—in the early days of the Noldor’s unrest, the eldest of each house trying to hold everything together between the three of them. It had not worked. Maedhros had had no influence on his father in those days, and his and Fingon’s failures to be heard had contributed to the rift between them in turn, and Finrod had been caught in the middle before giving up entirely. Maedhros did not like to remember those days. But they were older now, knew themselves and their people better, and Fingolfin at least would heed Fingon better than he had in the past—especially with Finrod and Finarfin there too. “I do not think he will try…I do not think he will seek to cause trouble, else the Valar would not release him. But beyond that I do not know what to expect. Your fathers at least deserve a warning before he makes his way to Tirion.”

“Do you think he will want the crown, still?” Fingon asked. 

“I hold to my decision in Beleriand,” Maedhros said. “It has passed from our house.”

“Fëanor might not see it that way now that he is back to speak for himself.”

“Then he will stand alone.”

“Do you brothers feel the same?” Finrod asked.

“Yes,” Maedhros said, and saw the surprise on both of their faces. He did not repeat Curufin’s words, however true they were. The high kingship had never been an enviable thing—not to those who knew what it really meant. It was not a symbol of Finwë’s love or approval; it was not a gift. It was a burden. Across the Sea it had been a death sentence—for Fingon, for his father, for his son. It was not so in Aman, but Maedhros would tell anyone who cared to ask him that Fingolfin was better suited to it than Fëanor had ever been. Fingolfin understood it for what it was.

Fingon sighed. “Thank you, Russo,” he said. “I will return to Tirion to speak to my father.” He glanced at Finrod, who nodded.

“I’ll catch up to you,” Finrod said. 

“Come to Tirion yourself,” Fingon added before leaving, catching Maedhros’ hand. “Stop hiding away. And do not only say perhaps and then never come!” he added when Maedhros started to reply. “If you wish to avoid your father, where better to go than to Gilheneth and me?”

“Perhaps,” Maedhros said. Fingon rolled his eyes, but he was smiling as he went back to the house, the golden ribbons in his hair shining in the sunlight. 

Maedhros waited until he was out of sight before turning back to Finrod, who fiddled with the necklace he wore, an uncharacteristically simple pendant on a chain. “How is he really?” Maedhros asked. 

“He is well, as I said,” Finrod said. “He kept mostly to himself while I was there, but that I think was due to the stream of visitors coming and going from Elrond and Celebrían’s house, all wanting to see Celeborn or to meet Elladan and Elrohir. He is quieter than he used to be, but when asked to after supper he sang many merry songs for us.” It was a relief to hear that. Maedhros had dreamed the night before—again—of Maglor in the dark, alone and silenced. There had been no reason to disbelieve Elrond when he had spoken of Maglor’s healing, but it was different to hear this clear evidence of it—to know with certainty that he still sang and laughed and lived. After a moment Finrod went on. “He bears the marks of Dol Guldur, however. Scars on his face. I think—I do not think he is ashamed of them exactly, but no one likes having such things stared at. Elrond tells me that Maglor knows that you and your mother looked into the palantír and saw him, and that the fact distressed him, especially when he heard that your mother had seen it. I don’t know what has passed between him and Celebrimbor, but he would not speak of you at all with me.” 

It was said so gently, but the words still felt like a knife between his ribs. “So it was…” His voice came dangerously near to breaking, and he had to stop and clear his throat. “It was for the best, then, that I did not go to Avallónë.”

“Celebrían had asked me, if you did come there, to keep you away,” Finrod said, only half-apologetically. 

“Would you have done it?”

“Of course I would have. What sort of uncle would I be if I did not indulge my beloved niece’s every whim?” Finrod affected an insulted expression before softening and saying more seriously, “Yes, I would have. What good would it do for you to barge into Elrond’s house when Maglor did not want you there? He is healed—healing—but he is not who he was.”

“Are any of us?” Maedhros asked. 

“Of course not. But do not mistake him for you, Maedhros. You did not break in Angband—”

“No, that came much later,” Maedhros said. 

“—but I think that something in Maglor was broken in Dol Guldur,” Finrod said. Maedhros turned away, unable to look at him as he said such things so frankly, no matter how gentle his voice. “I say was, for he is not broken now. But the scars remain, and there is something fragile about him.” Finrod paused for a moment, as though in thought. “There is something about him that reminds me a little of Frodo Baggins. Frodo too found healing and peace, but he was not entirely whole, even after he came here. The marks of his torment remained, even if they did not trouble him any longer.”

“I never met Frodo Baggins,” Maedhros said without turning back to Finrod. He fixed his gaze on a low hanging branch, laden with flowers. Bees crawled over them, dusted with golden pollen, seeking the sweet nectar. 

“But do you understand what I mean?”

No, Maedhros didn’t know. He was unable to comprehend Maglor as broken, or has ever having been broken. He had always been a pillar of stability, the one constant that Maedhros had been able to count on. He had also, Maedhros thought with a sudden sinking feeling, always been a performer. I can do almost anything in front of an audience, Maglor had said once. He’d been laughing, and Maedhros couldn’t recall what it was they had been speaking of when he had said it, but now he thought there had been more truth to that than he’d realized at the time. And he had been the audience, hadn’t he? What if Maglor had been performing all along—putting on a mask of strength that he did not really possess? And Maedhros, who of all people should have seen through it…hadn’t. 

“Is he happy?” he asked finally. “With Elrond—is he happy?”

“Yes, I think so. But do not forget that house is one of mourning, now. There is much laughter and joy in the coming of Elrond’s sons, but grief lies over it all.”

“All the more reason for me to keep away, you mean.”

“Wait at least for Celebrimbor to come back to hear what he has to say,” Finrod said. “He was preparing to leave Avallónë when I departed after receiving your note; it should not be long. We may return to the house to find him there already.” He paused, and then shifted the subject abruptly back to Fëanor. “What will you do when your father comes?”

Maedhros turned away from the flowers and sighed. “I do not know,” he said. “Curufin is the only one of us willing to speak to him at all, but even he won’t seek him out. Ammë will speak to him when he comes—we are all assuming he will come here first, I suppose; it’s what we all did—but I do not think she will welcome him so quickly back into her house.”

“Of course not,” said Finrod. “Just because the Valar have seen fit to release him from Mandos does not mean anyone else has to welcome him back with open arms. Though if he does not stay here I suppose he will have to go to Tirion.”

“There is still a house there,” Maedhros said. Crumbling and overgrown, now—no one had set foot in it at least since he had returned from Mandos. He had only seen it at a distance, a glimpse of a forest of vines and crab apple trees over the garden wall, and climbing roses taking the place of roof tiles. Let Fëanor return there alone. If anyone could rebuilt it, it was him. If anyone could want to, it was him. 

“Maedhros,” Finrod said, and then fell silent, as though he wasn’t sure what else to say. That was not like him, to be either silent or uncertain. But, Maedhros thought again, looking up at him, they were none of them who they had once been. Maglor was not the only one who had been held in torment by Sauron. “Maglor did not expect to find any of you returned from Mandos,” Finrod said finally. “Elrond told me that. Give him time.”

He didn’t have a choice, did he? Elrond and Celebrían and all their relations would conspire to hide Maglor away if he tried to go to him. Maedhros sighed, suddenly exhausted and sick of company. “I will,” he said, because it was what Finrod needed to hear. 

“Thank you.” Finrod stepped forward to lay a hand on Maedhros’ arm. “And listen to Fingon and come to Tirion.”

“You and he are the only ones who want me there,” Maedhros said. “I think you misplaced some of your wisdom in Mandos.”

“If disdaining a beloved cousin is wisdom, then I don’t want it,” Finrod said. “At least think about it. Please.”

When at last he was left alone Maedhros slumped against the tree and pressed his hand to his face. His eyes burned, but no tears fell. He’d wept after seeing Maglor in the palantír, and that had been the first time since before the Nirnaeth, but afterward his tears had dried up again. Somewhere behind him he heard a brief rush of raised voices. His brothers. Hopefully they weren’t directing whatever it was at Finrod. Maedhros thought that he should go back to see what was wrong—but he couldn’t make himself do it. Instead he went forward, making his way down to the river. Clouds were gathering in the distant west, and the wind from there smelled of rain, but it would not reach them before nightfall. Maedhros sank down into the tall grass and rested his arms on his knees, staring at the sun-spangled water as it flowed along over the stony bed, and at a heron picking her way through the shallows by the opposite bank. 

It was peaceful there by the river. He kept coming back to it and hoping some of that peace would stay with him when he left. It never did. 

That peace was shattered when Celegorm appeared like another storm cloud; the heron took flight, winging away upstream to find more peaceful hunting grounds. Caranthir was just behind him, and when Maedhros looked back he saw their other brothers too, alongside Celebrimbor in the distance. “Why did you not tell us what happened to him?” Celegorm demanded as Maedhros got to his feet. 

“What good would it have done?” Maedhros replied. 

“What do you mean—we deserved to know!”

“Ammë and I agreed—”

“Of course Ammë would not tell us,” Caranthir said. “But you should have.”

“I ask again, what good would it have done?” Maedhros said. “There was nothing any of us could do about it.” 

“You cannot tell us not to follow your lead and then deny us something like this!” Celegorm was close to shouting, and visibly holding himself back from doing so. “You just said today that you should not dictate what we—”

“What would you have done, then?” Maedhros snapped. “If I had told you that Maglor was locked away in torment—what difference would it have made except to make you—”

“He is our brother too!” Celegorm did shout then, voice ragged and every line of him drawn taut with something horribly like anguish. “You are not the only one that loves him, Maedhros!”

“We would have known,” said Caranthir more quietly. “Nelyo, It was not a burden you needed to carry alone.”

“I will not apologize for protecting you,” Maedhros said. Their upset now was only confirmation that he had chosen right. Celegorm snarled, baring his teeth before storming away, back toward the orchard. Huan melted out of the trees when Celegorm reached Curufin and the twins, and all of them retreated to the house together. Caranthir, though, lingered. Maedhros turned away, looking back toward the rainclouds. 

“You said earlier that this is not Beleriand,” Caranthir said finally. “You were right—and if we no longer have to follow your orders, then you no longer have to protect us. We are not at war, and we are no longer children.”

Maedhros did not answer.

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Maglor sat at a writing desk in Elrond’s library and stared down at the blank paper in front of him. He had told Celebrimbor he would write to Nerdanel, and Celebrimbor was set to depart that afternoon, so here he was—and with nothing to say. In his last letter he’d avoided speaking of—well, of everything important. He’d described Rivendell and had assured her of his safety there and his happiness, trying to sound like the son she remembered. He had written a little of the War of the Ring and of Gondor, and of music. 

Now, though. She knew more than he had anticipated, but he could not tell her the full tale. It would only break her heart. He could not promise to visit her soon, because he did not know if that was a promise he could keep. He could tell her of the voyage and that he was safe, but she deserved more than a single paragraph about fair winds and maybe a description of his cat. 

At least it was quiet in the library. He’d had a painful and awkward conversation with both Olwë and Elu Thingol that morning; he’d stammered out an apology and they had accepted it, and Thingol had said something about wishing to mend the rift between himself and Finwë’s children, and then something about Maglor’s friendship with Daeron, but Maglor had been looking for any excuse to flee the kindness on Olwë’s face by then and wasn’t sure what he had meant by it. 

And now he was here, almost wishing himself back to face Elu Thingol instead of a letter to his own mother. “Ridiculous,” he muttered, rubbing his hands over his face. 

“What is ridiculous?” Galadriel had appeared from somewhere, moving soundlessly across the floor. He started, and she smiled at him. “I am sorry. I did not mean to startle you. May I?” She gestured to the chair beside the desk. 

“Of course.” Maglor leaned back in his own seat as she sat down. She had pearls woven through her braids, pinned up that day instead of falling down over her shoulders. “Where is Lord Celeborn?”

“With Celebrían. How did your conversation with my grandfather and my uncle go?”

Maglor grimaced. “It…went. At least it is over.”

“There is truly no ill will left,” Galadriel said. “It need not be awkward forever.”

“Yes, I know.” Maglor picked up a pen and spun it in his fingers. “It was less embarrassing at least than my meeting with Elwing and Eärendil.”

“Eärendil thought that was very funny,” Galadriel said. Indeed, Elrond’s parents were still guests there and Eärendil kept grinning whenever he caught sight of Maglor, especially if he had Pídhres on his shoulders. “I hope you weren’t hurt.”

“I’m not so fragile as all that.” Not anymore, anyway. Maglor tried to smile, but it didn’t work very well. “And Tyelpë is to return to my mother’s house, and I had intended to write to her, but…” He gestured with the pen at the blank paper. “I don’t…what do I say?” 

“Only an assurance in your own hand that you are here, and you are safe, and well,” Galadriel said. “Nerdanel will expect nothing more.” 

Maglor glanced at her. “You sound very sure.”

This earned him a smile. “I see her often when she comes to Tirion to visit Aunt Anairë and my mother. She often asks after you. Fortunately, my grandsons are more prolific letter writers than you are, so I have usually been able to give her tidbits. Celebrían has been kind enough to copy out the songs that they have sent so I could pass them on to Nerdanel.”

“My songs?” Maglor did not know why he was surprised. He had long known that Elladan and Elrohir sent batches of letters with almost every ship that had set sail from Mithlond between Elrond’s departure and their own. He had sent one or two over the years, but always only to Elrond. He had been so uncertain of his mother’s reception of that first letter that he hadn’t dared send more. Now he dropped his gaze back to the paper, which now had an ink blotch near the top where he had rested the pen. He set it aside. “Thank you.”

“You need not thank me. I enjoy gossiping about my cousins as much as anyone,” Galadriel said, startling him into laughter. “And I have a great deal of it if you would like to hear.”

“I would,” said Maglor, surprising himself. It was something he had not missed until that moment, all the messy and silly and amusing stories that circulated through Tirion, whether about his own family or about others—the harmless tales, the ones that had made them all laugh before the unrest, when gossip and whispers had taken on a darker edge. “Only I need to write something to my mother.”

“Later, then,” Galadriel said. “I’ll tell you about this past Midwinter and the rounds of parties in Tirion. Even your brothers made an appearance.” She had to notice the way his smile froze at the mention of his brothers, but she said nothing of it. Instead she rose and paused to press a kiss to the top of his head. “Do not fear your mother, Macalaurë. She misses you and will treasure whatever words you choose to send.”

“Thank you,” he said. Galadriel disappeared into another part of the library, and he picked up the pen again, this time refusing to allow himself to think any more about it. He wrote a short description of Mithlond, and of the voyage, and of his cat, and told her of his plans to go to Imloth Ningloron with Elrond and his family when they departed from Eressëa. 

I miss you, he wrote at last. I will come to see you, if you do not choose to come instead to Imloth Ningloron. He paused again, adding another ink blotch to the paper before he made himself write of the past. Elrond has told me that you know something of what befell me in Wilderland. I wish that were not so. Please do not worry any more about me, Ammë. I am well, and I found much joy in Imladris and in the wider world afterward. He should have added, he knew, that he expected to find joy there in Valinor too, but he couldn’t bring himself to write it out. It wasn't untrue, but it wasn’t true enough to commit to paper. 

The worst part, he thought as he signed his name at the bottom—scratching out Maglor to write Macalaurë instead—was that his memory of Nerdanel’s face remained fuzzy and distorted. Sauron had used it only once in Dol Guldur to try to break his will, and it was that memory that came to his mind every time he tried to imagine her. He hated that. Hated that Sauron still had that much power over him even in memory. 

He took the letter to his room, realizing suddenly that he should send something else—a gift, something he’d made with his own hands. That would reassure Nerdanel better than any words he wrote. He had not brought many such things with him; almost all that he made he gave away. But he had a cup that he thought Nerdanel would find pleasing. It had been broken by one of Tári’s clumsier kittens, long ago, but he had repaired it with gold and lacquer and the help of Ifreth, who had taught him how to do it. She had taught him many things of the Avari, and in return he had carved many beads for her, for she preferred wood to metal or gemstones for her hair, and had brought back pearls and seashells from his wanderings. Ifreth had left Imladris long before he had, though he did not know if she had taken ship with Dringil and others who had departed at the same time, or if she had made her way back east to find any who might remain of her clan beyond the Sea of Rhûn. They had been friends, but she had always liked to be mysterious. 

The cup itself was big enough to hold a large handful of brushes or pens. He had glazed it a dark green color which complimented the golden repairs nicely. Maglor turned it over in his hands for a moment, rubbing his fingers over the cracks and filled-in chips, and then wrapped it back up in the soft leather he’d used before. Then he dug out a stick of wax and his seal, which he used so rarely that he’d almost forgotten that he had it, and sealed the letter before taking it downstairs in search of Celebrimbor. 

“What is this?” Celebrimbor asked as he accepted the wrapped up cup.

“A gift. She always used to be wanting places to keep her brushes and pens, and I thought…”

Celebrimbor laughed. “She does still.” He tucked the letter and the cup into his bag and looked back at Maglor. “Are you sure there is no other message you want me to take?” he asked. A message for Maglor’s brothers, he meant. Maglor shook his head. He hated that his nephew was caught in the middle of whatever strange mess was brewing in their family, but he had had enough trouble finding the right words for Nerdanel, who he did want to see again. “Can I…can I tell them about…?” Celebrimbor gestured at his own face. 

“Yes,” said Maglor. “Yes, of course. It isn't a secret, Tyelpë. Do not burden yourself with it.” He embraced Celebrimbor, and the two of them held on very tight for a few moments before Maglor kissed his temple and drew back. “Safe travels,” he said. 

Celebrimbor smiled. “There are few other kinds, here,” he said. “Farewell for now, Uncle.”

After Celebrimbor departed, Maglor retreated back to his room. The house was bustling; he heard Elladan laughing somewhere outside of his window, and when he peered out of it Maglor saw him with Eärendil; Elwing and Elrohir were nearby, sitting among flowers and speaking more quietly. It was not a bright and sunny day; the clouds had moved in, but Maglor did not think it would rain—at least not that afternoon. Maglor sat by the window and drew a knee up to his chest, looking out over the water. Celebrían had chosen her house in Avallónë well; it had a view of the whole bay and Alqualondë across the way, as well as the open Sea beyond. The breeze off the water was cool and fresh smelling. The bells in Avallónë tolled the hours, but little of the other noise of the bustling city reached this part of it. 

A knock at the door heralded Elrond’s entrance. Maglor turned to smile at him, and saw the flicker of relief in his eyes as he did so; old worries faded only slowly. “Did you write to Nerdanel?” Elrond asked as he crossed the room.

“Yes.”

“Good.” Elrond paused by the harp. “This is new. You made it?”

“Yes.”

“What became of the other harp?” 

The other harp was one that had sat in a storage room of first Lindon and then Imladris for years uncounted before Maglor had come there. It had been rescued, as best anyone could guess for the records were lost, from the slowly crumbling halls of Himring after the War of Wrath; his brothers Curufin and Caranthir had made it, though Maglor still did not know when or why. “I left it with Halbarad in Annúminas,” he said. “Arwen’s grandson, the Steward of Arnor.” He had taught all of Arwen and Aragorn’s children and grandchildren to play music at one time or another; Halbarad was the only one who had taken to the harp, so it had seemed fitting to leave it with him, to become an heirloom of that house. 

It was also something, Maglor thought, to leave a work of his brothers’ hands in Middle-earth, something of beauty and joy rather than destruction. For that same reason he had gifted the little porcelain dancing figure that Elrond had given him to Eldarion on his wedding day. It had been made by Nerdanel and given to the House of Andúnië in Númenor long ago, and Maglor had thought it only right to give it back. 

Elrond smiled a little wistfully. He would never know his grandchildren, and Maglor could only imagine what a grief that was. “We have not yet spoken of Arwen,” Elrond said. 

“We need not, not yet,” said Maglor. “There is no hurry.”

“I would rather be at home when we do.” Elrond shook his head, and this time his smile was stronger. “You have a visitor downstairs.”

“Me?” Maglor said, surprised. “Who?”

“Your grandmother. She is in the front room.”

Of all who might have come to see him on Eressëa, Maglor had to admit that Ennalótë was one he had least expected. He rose from his seat. “I’d best not keep her waiting, then.” 

But it was not Ennalótë who was waiting for him in the front room. Instead there was a small and slender figure, silver hair caught up in a silver net dotted with diamonds that glinted in the sunlight coming through the window. She was clad in a gown of a rich deep red color, the sleeves richly embroidered with flowers and butterflies so lifelike that they almost seemed ready to rise out of the fabric to flit about the room. Maglor almost stumbled as he came to a halt just inside the doorway. She turned, and he found himself staring into his own eyes, soft grey shot through with just a little bit of green. 

Míriel smiled at him. “Macalaurë,” she said. “Or should I call you Maglor?”

“Whichever you like best,” Maglor said, glad that she had not offered up Canafinwë. 

They sat together by one of the wide windows. Maglor did not know what to say. Míriel had always been so very present in her absence throughout his childhood, the grief of it a thing that his father and grandfather had carried with them always. He had heard the tales, come to Middle-earth by way of Númenor, of her return to life and of Finwë’s fate to remain in the Halls in her stead. But still he had not expected ever to meet her. 

In her turn, Míriel gazed at him as though committing every small detail to memory. “I will not ask what you have been doing all this time,” she said at last, “for I have woven and stitched much of it.” She reached out to touch his face, her thumb gracing one of the scars at the corner of his mouth. “This we did not render into thread, but I knew of it all the same.”

“I am sorry,” Maglor said. “You should not have had to…” To see any of it, really. The fire and the death and the blood. He wondered if it had been Míriel to take up the needle and red-dyed thread every time one of them fell. Or killed. 

“I would not have seen those things recorded by any other hands. The tale of our family was mine to weave, as the tale of the Noldor was yours to sing.”

“I have not sung the Noldolantë in a very long time.”

“I am glad. I hope you have been singing of happier things.”

“I have.”

She lowered her hand from his face and took his hand again—his right hand, her fingers closing over the scars on his palm. “Your father followed your wanderings through the tapestries of Mandos,” she said. “It grieved him deeply to see you walk alone for so long.”

Maglor did not pull his hand away, but only with great effort. “I don’t…I cannot—I am glad to meet you at last, Grandmother, but I cannot speak of my father. Please.” He braced for her disappointment or disapproval, but it did not come. 

“There are few who can,” she said, and sighed. “It grieves me, but he has earned it, and I played no small part in the shaping of him.” Maglor wanted to protest; he was no stranger to the pull of death on one’s spirit. Had things been different, had he not been so afraid of what would stop him, he might have followed Míriel’s path to Mandos—and he would not have been the first or the last. But he did not know how to say it without also saying something worrying. But she seemed to trace the direction of his thoughts anyway, and her smile was soft and kind. How unlike Fëanor she was, he thought as she spoke again. She did not say more of Fëanor, instead turning the subject away. “I do wish that my return to life did not mean that Finwë had to remain. You would rather he were here to greet you, I think.”

“I don’t!” Maglor protested. “I would rather both of you were here.”

She laughed. “Yes, but if you had to choose one it would be Finwë. I do not take offense. He has also grieved for your long exile in the Halls.”

Maglor dropped his gaze to his hands. “I do miss him,” he said softly. Even when he was young he had known not to take for granted those hours spent in his company, for any time alone at all with the King was precious. Especially when he cast aside the trappings of his office to instead be only a grandfather and teacher, storyteller and woodcarver. He had just not known how precious—none of them had, until it was too late. And now…

“There is hope yet for his return,” Míriel said. “Ours is not a singular case—his and mine and Indis’. There are many others who desire their spouses returned to them, yet who found love after death.” She squeezed his hand. “But we do not need to dwell on such things. It it too fine a day and I am too happy to be speaking with you. Tell me of your voyage here. Who else was aboard the ship?”

They spoke of the ship and of the Sea, and of Daeron and Círdan and others that Maglor had known in Middle-earth, until Celebrían came to find them for supper. It was a quieter affair that evening than it usually was; the guests were limited to only Elrond’s parents and Míriel—a reprieve from the flood of kinsfolk and acquaintances who wished to meet Elrond’s sons. In turn the formality of the meal dropped away, and there was much laughter and teasing. Maglor was still in the habit of speaking little, but Elladan and Elrohir knew how to draw him out and make him laugh, and he let them. The wine was sweet and light and flowed freely, and after the meal they retreated to the large parlor where Celebrían called for music. Maglor fetched his harp, and Elrond his own, and Elladan his flute, and as a soft light rain fell outside they sang many songs and told many tales. Celeborn and Galadriel sang songs of Doriath, and Maglor joined with the twins to sing songs from Gondor. Elrond played the song of Eärendil that Bilbo had written long ago, to make them all laugh, and then Eärendil told them of how he had taken Bilbo with him on one of his voyages through the stars, and of the old hobbit’s delight in it. 

Míriel spoke little and did not sing, but she listened intently, her eyes bright and hands busy with a hook and some fine yarn. Maglor sat on the floor near her chair with his harp. Pídhres eventually made her way into the room, and Elladan and Elrohir burst into a song about the many cats of Imladris that followed Maglor around. Maglor laughed as he picked her up and scratched her behind the ears. She purred and shoved her face against his chin before climbing up to curl around his shoulders.

It was very late when he made his way at last to bed. As he undressed he heard laughter coming from other rooms down the hall and from out in the garden, heedless of the rain. When someone burst into a merry tra la la lally he almost felt he could be in Imladris again, but for the scent and sound of the Sea underneath it all. He was smiling as he fell into bed. 

At first his dreams followed the track of his thoughts, winding through the paths of Imladris as birds and elves sang in the trees. But unbidden the paths turned darker, and the trees closer together, dense and black and hung with tattered remnants of thick spider webs. The singing turned into jeering and cursing, and he was no longer alone on the path. Orcs were coming up behind him, and sudden fear made him trip before he could catch himself and start to run—but the path split and twisted and he did not know where he was going, which way led out of hate wood. Roots and stones rose up before him to catch at his ankles and trip him up, and always the orcs drew closer, taunting now as they shouted at him and laughing at his fear. And then the trees ended abruptly, and he did fall then, on his hands and knees on bare and pitted earth, sharp stones digging into his palms. The sky overhead roiled with dark clouds, and the tower of Dol Guldur rose up before him, windows glowing red. The Eye within focused on him with an almost physical weight. 

He woke with a start, choking on the ghost of a hand around his throat. Pídhres had fled his thrashing, and when he finally pushed himself up he found the sun peeking over the edge of the sea in the east, the rainclouds all gone to leave behind a sky washed clean and pale. Maglor raised a hand to his throat, half expecting to find bruises there. But of course there were none. “Only a dream,” he whispered, and dropped back onto the pillows. It had been a long time since such a nightmare had come to trouble him. He felt wearier than he had when he had gone to bed, and if he had been back in Imladris he would have allowed himself to linger, letting the warm breeze and the sunshine ease the bone-deep cold that such dreams always left in him. It was tempting to do it anyway; he would be awful company if he dragged himself down to the breakfast room, and he would worry both Elrond and Míriel—and the twins, and Galadriel, and others—regardless. He sighed, closing his eyes. Pídhres crept back up the bed to curl up at his side, and he dropped his hand down to sink his fingers into her soft and warm fur. 

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Míriel did not stay long. She never did, when she came back among the Eldar. That first day Maglor had been bright and merry, but something had happened to make him withdraw again, though Elrond could see the effort he put forth to hide how poorly he was sleeping. He spoke little and played no music. If he held to old patterns it would pass before long, Elrond knew, but he still hated to see it, especially when there seemed to be no reason for the old shadows to come creeping back. 

Then he remembered the news of Fëanor, and thought perhaps it was not only Dol Guldur that was haunting Maglor. 

Before she left, Míriel came to Elrond in the garden, where he was thinning some unruly athelas plants. “I am no healer, as you know,” she said, sitting on the bench beside where Elrond knelt. “But I can tell that my grandson is not well.” Her face was grave as she looked down at Elrond. “I recognize the shadows in his eyes, for they once lived in mine also.”

Elrond sat back on his knees. “I long ago ceased to fear that he would fade away,” he said. “The shadows are only memories; we all have them. You need not fear for him.” 

“Fear is perhaps not the right word. But I am worried. It is, regrettably, not the habit of my line to seek help or healing.” Her gaze strayed away from Elrond across the garden; Elrond followed it and saw Maglor sitting under a tree, legs stretched out and crossed at the ankle. Pídhres lay on his lap, clearly purring as he scratched her behind the ears. At a distance it might seem that there was nothing troubling him at all, except that he was not smiling.

There was no point in telling her that she need not worry, either. “Maglor is not Maedhros,” said Elrond. “The past comes back to haunt him at times, as it does us all, but the dreams and dark thoughts do not linger as they once did. If they do, I have no doubt that he will tell me. And if he needs more help than I can give him, it will not take much to convince him to go to Estë in Lórien.”

“And if it does?” 

“It will not,” Elrond said. Maglor had confessed to him once that he had been desperately afraid to go to Imladris from Lothlórien, and that he had more than once thought of fleeing on the way, and hadn’t only because Elladan and Elrohir would have caught him immediately. It had never been stubbornness that held him back in those early weeks and months, only fear. But that had been many years ago. If Maglor needed to go to Lórien he would likely be the one to tell Elrond of it. Indeed, he might decide to go without any great need. And most importantly: “He is not alone.”

“No,” Míriel agreed, and smiled at him, though only briefly. “I am glad of it. But my son—he is alone, though it is no one’s fault but his own. I have seen and spoken to him both in death and in life, but my home now is with Vairë, and he could not stay long in those halls even if he wanted to. Maglor would not speak of him to me, and I fear that his other sons will not see or speak to Fëanáro either. He loves them, you know. Desperately.”

“It is not my place to pass judgment on Fëanor,” Elrond said. 

“He loved his father,” Míriel said softly. “Loves him still—but he lost both of us as no child should lose their parents, and Finwë’s death was a far worse thing than mine. I do not defend what he did—the bloodshed in Alqualondë, the ships burning—but that madness is passed. He is not Maedhros either, coming from the Halls unhealed.” 

“I am glad of it,” said Elrond, truthfully. “But he—it was his own children that he harmed most of all.” Elrond understood grief all too well. But he did not understand that. No matter what happened, he could never have bound his children to such an oath, not only for what it drove them to do, but what it promised if they failed. “If he comes to my home seeking Maglor, he may not find me an accommodating host.”

Míriel sighed. “Fëanáro is too stubborn to be put off by a simple no.”

“He will have to learn, then,” said Elrond. “The world is very different from the one he once knew. Fëanor will have to find a new place within it—and to learn to live with the lasting consequences of his deeds. Fëanor is not my concern, but Maglor is. Many of the shadows you perceive in him are of Fëanor’s making.” 

It was not long after Míriel’s departure that his own parents prepared to leave. They went walking along the beach, just the three of them, as was their custom at the end of every visit. Elrond was always reminded of the walks they had taken in his early childhood. Eärendil had been little at home then, too, and those sunlit afternoons of laughter and sandcastles had been more precious than gold—more than the Silmaril—for his return was not guaranteed. Elrond and Elros had understood that even when they were very small. Now, of course, there were only three of them, Elros’ absence a presence in itself, though they did not often speak of him. 

“Elladan has asked if he may go up in Vingilot with me,” Eärendil said, pausing to nudge a crab in the sand with his toe. 

“He has dreamed of that since he was small,” Elrond said. He and Arwen had both dreamed of it, but of course Arwen had long ago set that aside. Elrohir had been afraid of heights as a child, and thought his brother half mad for the desire. If his mind had changed in the years since, he’d never spoken of it. “He is not going with you this time, is he?”

“No, not this time. I told him he had best consult you and Celebrían first, but I will be very glad of his company in the future.”

“I have no objections,” said Elrond. He wanted to keep his sons close for now—but in time the two of them would be off to explore every inch of this new land, and he would rest much easier knowing that they would be safe doing so. “Nor will Celebrían.” The wind picked up from off the water, blowing his mother’s hair out of its braids and lifting his own off his neck. It carried the distant sound of horns. 

Elwing slipped her arm through Elrond’s. “I know you have been worried about having us and Maglor in your house at the same time,” she said. “You know now that you do not need to, I hope.”

“Yes, and I’m glad of it,” Elrond said. Even if they were not friends, it was a relief beyond words that he could have all those he loved most in the same room without awkwardness or tension. 

“Seeing him fall out of a tree at the sight of us did much to dispel old fears,” Eärendil said. “It’s hard to be angry at or afraid of someone when they are lying on the ground being scolded by a kitten.”

“He isn’t very fearsome any other time, either,” said Elrond. 

“Perhaps not,” Elwing agreed. “But Elrond, you are hardly the best person to judge that.”

Elrond felt his eyebrows go up. “What does that mean?”

“That you are the hardest person to intimidate in the world,” Eärendil said, grinning. “I do not know where you get it from. Certainly not me.”

“Did you not stride into Valinor to face all of the Valar on their thrones by yourself, then?” Elrond asked, and both of his parents laughed. “And was it someone else who flew Vingilot into battle with Ancalagon the Black? I was there, and quite afraid of him.”

“Well, I suppose after facing all of the Valar at once it is hard to be frightened by much else,” said Eärendil. “Even dragons.” He grew serious, then. “But I was terrified, walking into the Ring of Doom. I shook so badly I still cannot believe I was able to speak at all. I could only do it because—well, because I had nothing left to lose except Elwing, and whatever my fate was she would share in it. I do not even know that I had any hope left when Eönwë brought me there.”

“Speaking of Maglor again, though,” Elwing said, “I suppose I found it as easy as I did to see and speak with him here because I had not seen him before, not really. I heard him, at Sirion, but it was not he who chased me up to the cliff.” 

“Did Maedhros ever come to you?” Elrond asked. 

“Yes,” said Elwing. “Long ago. I shut the door in his face and would not hear him. Even for you, Elrond, I do not think I can speak to him with civility.”

“I did fear him, for a very long time,” Elrond admitted. “But now—I have faced far more frightening things since, and it is hard to be frightened of very much when all of the worst things you can imagine have already happened to you.” He had not actually meant to say that out loud, and bit his tongue afterward. Both of his parents stepped in to wrap him up in their arms. “I’m all right now,” he said. 

“And not afraid of Maedhros at all, I would wager,” Eärendil said.

“No, all his fire its turned inward.” And speaking of fire… “There is something I need to tell you before you go.”

“What is it?” Elwing drew back first, brow furrowing. She pushed her dark hair out of her face, only for the breeze to blow it back again. “What is amiss?”

“I do not know if amiss is the right word,” said Elrond, “and I don’t think that this news should yet be spread widely—but Fëanor is to be released. He may have been already.” 

“Well,” said Eärendil after a few moments of silence, broken only by the waves and by a gull wheeling over their heads. “That is…unexpected news, certainly.”

“You will be caught up in whatever happens next more than us,” said Elwing, reaching out to take Elrond’s hand. She smiled at him. “Will you tell us now that you are not intimidated even by Fëanor himself, mightiest of the Noldor?”

“Yes, I will. I do not fear Fëanor, or what he might do or say. But he is still Fëanor, and I am glad to have been given a warning of his coming at least.”

“True,” said Eärendil. “And I suppose I should also be grateful, since it is I who bear the Silmaril. The Oath may no longer drive his sons, but who is to say that Fëanor won’t still seek to take back what is his?”

“The Valar would not release him if he meant to do that,” said Elwing. 

“He may have no intentions now,” said Eärendil, “but he might change his mind. The last thing we must expect is for Fëanor to be predictable. But you can all sort it out while I sail the skies, safely out of his reach!”

They walked back to the house where Elladan and Elrohir were sitting in the grass outside with Maglor, whose quick fingers were weaving dandelions together into a wreath. Both twins already wore crowns of them, the pollen falling into their hair to leave golden streaks in the dark strands. All three greeted Elrond and his parents with smiles, though Maglor’s was quicker to fade away and he dropped his gaze back to the flowers in his hands almost immediately. There were dark circles under his eyes still that Elrond did not like. Eärendil laughed at the twins with their golden-green crowns, and the two of them sprang to their feet to walk away into the roses with Elwing and Eärendil, to say their own farewells. 

Elrond sat on the grass beside Maglor. “You aren’t sleeping,” he remarked. Maglor shrugged. “Is there anything I can do?”

“No.” Maglor offered him another smile. “It will pass. It always does.”

“Which ghosts are the ones that haunt you now?”

He shrugged again. “Dol Guldur. I don’t know why.”

“I thought perhaps…”

“My father?” Maglor shook his head. He wore his hair in a loose braid that was already starting to come undone, and strands fell forward in front of his eyes. When he brushed them away he left a smear of dandelion pollen on the bridge of his nose. “I do not think that is the cause. I haven’t dreamed of him.”

“Perhaps not. Are you ready to leave Eressëa? Celebrían was talking this morning of returning home, since everyone who is on the island has come to see us already.” 

“Yes, I’m ready. I think that I know what valley you mean when you talk of Imloth Ningloron, and I want to see if I am right.” 

Elrond kept forgetting that Maglor had wandered almost every inch of Valinor in the years before the Darkening. “I think we will leave in the next few days.”

“I should seek out Daeron, then, to tell him I am leaving soon,” Maglor said. “Unless Thingol has already returned to the mainland?”

“I don’t think so,” said Elrond. He had heard that Daeron had come on this last ship, but at the docking his attention had been elsewhere. “I did not know that you were friends.”

“Only briefly—at the Mereth Aderthad. I did not see him again after that until I boarded the ship. Probably for the best,” he added, like a confession. “I am…I am very glad that he did not stay in Doriath.” He finished the wreath in his hands and set it on Elrond’s head with a sudden grin. “It’s only fair that you match your sons,” he said. Then someone called his name, and he turned toward the path leading around the house to the road. “It seems I do not have to seek out Daeron after all.” 

As though summoned by their conversation, Daeron of Doriath appeared around the corner, with pearls and amethyst glinting in his dark braids. Elrond rose to his feet alongside Maglor, and watched as Daeron looked at him once and then again—very briefly and with only a slight widening of his eyes, before he covered his reaction with a smile and a graceful bow and a greeting of fair words. It was not unexpected; Elu Thingol had nearly turned around and left the room again upon first seeing Elrond. It had long ago ceased to trouble him, his resemblance to the grandmother he had never known, but he knew it was hard for those who had known her. “I am glad to meet you at last, Master Elrond,” said Daeron, his smile flashing across his face. In person he was not much like the tales and songs that spoke of a melancholy or jealous singer lurking in the shadowy glades of Neldoreth, or wandering the wilds lamenting for Lúthien. This Daeron did not seem as though he lamented very much at all these days, or made music for the breaking of the heart. His voice, however, did live up to the songs. Even only speaking Elrond could hear the power that lay behind it, both like and unlike Maglor’s. 

It was also clear that he had not come to see Elrond. After the necessary pleasantries Elrond excused himself and went inside. Celebrían was with her parents, and so he went to their room where a small but growing pile of letters awaited him. Everyone from Finarfin to Ingwë had sent invitations to Midsummer festivities. Elrond wrote notes of thanks to each of them but declined them all; they would be spending Midsummer at home this year. Gandalf had promised fireworks, and already a feast with all of Elladan and Elrohir’s favorite foods was being planned; it was to be as much a welcome party as a holiday celebration. There were other notes from the loremasters of Tirion who were forever asking Elrond questions about all kinds of things, and who could never seem to wait long enough to compile a list of them in a single missive. There would be even more waiting for him at home. 

“Why do you suppose they keep writing to me about Bandobras Took?” he remarked when Celebrían joined him a few hours later. “I haven’t the faintest idea of the color of the horse he rode into the Battle of Greenfields, nor why it would matter.”

“Someone must have taken it into their head to illustrate it,” said Celebrían. “They keep writing to you because a letter is surer to reach you than Gandalf.” 

“If I ask Gandalf to go to Tirion to answer all their questions in person, do you think he would do it?” 

“I think,” Celebrían said, laughing, “that he would give different answers to each asker and cause even more confusion.”

“Perhaps I should do the same,” Elrond said. “They might stop asking me, then. I have been a loremaster, but the Shire was never my focus of study.”

“Was not Elladan just telling us last night about their friends among the hobbits?” Celebrían said. “When we go to Tirion, introduce our sons to the loremasters, and they shall never write to you about the Shire again.”

Elrond laughed. “How cruel you are to your children, Celebrían. If we take them to the loremasters of Tirion we may not see them again for a thousand years.”

“Oh, nonsense. We raised clever and courageous sons; I’m sure they’ll escape before then. Five hundred years at the most. Are you coming down to supper?” 

“Is it time already?” Elrond glanced out of the window, finding that the sun had nearly set. “Is Daeron still here?”

“He and Maglor went off some hours ago to explore a little of Avallónë,” Celebrían said. “Your flowers are wilting.” She helped to lift the dandelions out of his hair—he had forgotten all about them—and she laughed when she ran her hand down his back, holding it up to show him her yellow fingers. “Golden hair does not suit you, my love. Let me comb this all out before we go downstairs.”

Elrond caught sight of one last letter that had been nearly lost in the chaos of the rest, and as Celebrían combed out his hair he turned it over to see Fingolfin’s seal. Curious, he opened it and read the short letter—written in Fingolfin’s own hand, a request somewhere between a kinsman asking a private favor and a king requesting aid in a serious matter. “What is that?” Celebrían asked. 

“Fingolfin wishes to visit us at home after Midsummer.”

“He must know that he need not ask permission,” said Celebrían. “Especially not if he only wants to greet his nephew. Our doors are always open.”

“It isn’t only that,” Elrond said, sighing. In fact, Fingolfin had not mentioned Maglor at all. Elwing had been right: he would be caught up in whatever happened next. “He wishes to speak with me of Fëanor.” 

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At Daeron’s suggestion, they left Elrond’s house to walk through the streets of Avallónë. It was a market day, and the streets near the main square of the city were filled with people and with open-air stalls in addition to the more permanent shops. Daeron plunged into the crowds without hesitation, pulling Maglor along in his wake. He paused at different stalls and tables to admire the wares or to greet the sellers if he happened to know them of old, and by the time they emerged at the other end of the street Daeron had a small basket of trinkets, and two cinnamon and sugar filled pastries in his hands, one of which he handed to Maglor. It was still warm from the oven, the sugar sticky and the cinnamon fragrant. 

“Have you seen much of the city yet?” Daeron asked as they walked down a quieter street lined with flowering trees, ambling slowly to enjoy the quiet and the pastries. 

“No,” said Maglor as he swallowed the last bite of his. “I have…” he trailed off as they came to a small square where, instead of a fountain in the center, a monument stood. There were sculptures of many familiar faces and others that Maglor knew only by description—beloved Elf Friends among the Edain, from Bëor and Hador and Barahir to Haleth and Bór, to Húrin and his family, to Andreth and Rían, and, at the forefront facing them as they entered the square, there was King Tar-Minyatar, holding Aranrúth in his hands with the point resting before his feet, his chin raised proudly, a crown upon his head emblazoned with the Star of Eärendil, the Ring of Barahir upon his finger.

Daeron looked at Maglor, and then at the statue. “Is it a good likeness?” he asked. “I wondered if they just used Elrond as a model, but it does not quite look enough like him.”

“He wouldn’t pose for such a thing,” said Maglor, unable to look away from it. “It is not a good likeness of the Elros that I knew,” he said finally, “but we parted long before he took up the crown—long before the war was ended.” He hated to think of that last parting, which had been bitter, and of the years afterward, which had been a steady downward spiral of misery and destruction, culminating in… His hand clenched into a fist, nails digging into the scars. The twins had been adults, but only barely, half-wild with having grown up in the wilderness while dodging orcs and worse things, having not had a permanent home since they were six years old. This glimpse of Elros as the king he had become was a mixed blessing—he was glad that he could see it, glad to know that Elros had risen so high, but grieved that he had never seen it in life, had not gotten to say a proper farewell before Elros had left Middle-earth forever.

He was aware of Daeron’s gaze on him, and he tore his own away from Elros’ face to look around the square. The buildings were all public ones: a library, a hall for meetings and audiences, and others he could not immediately identify. They were all relatively small, not meant for any great ceremonies or gatherings, and made of that strange and lovely mishmash of styles, Sindarin and Noldorin, mixed together with other newer innovations. On the side closest to the harbor, which lay just the width of a street away, is a plain tower of white stone, its door standing ajar, though no one was coming or going from it. The top of it stood open, like a lighthouse or a watchtower. Maglor found it curious, but not curious enough to venture inside.

Daeron led the way past the monument to the Edain away from the harbor, and they came soon to a lush garden filled with spring flowers. “I am leaving with Elrond and his household tomorrow or the next day,” Maglor said as they passed under a flowering cherry tree and sat beneath a maple, lush and green overhead. The ground was cool under his hands, and the tree rustled its branches in quiet delight at their choosing it for their rest. “Most likely tomorrow; he and Celebrían are eager to be home.”

“And I am leaving with Elu Thingol tomorrow morning,” Daeron replied, laughing. “Which is why I came to find you today.” He leaned against the tree and stretched his legs out in front of him as he began to sort through his purchases. “I heard about your meeting with Thingol and Olwë.” Maglor grimaced. “Nothing bad; you were not the only one to feel awkward. It has pained Thingol from the beginning to be at odds with your and yours, you know.”

“He said something of that to me,” said Maglor. 

“He’s heard that you were especially close to Finwë,” Daeron said.

“I was the only one to take much interest in woodcarving,” said Maglor. “Finwë did not have much time for other crafts, but he always made time for that. And to teach me.” 

Daeron hummed. He slipped the baubles and trinkets he’d acquired in the market back into the basket, and bent one knee to wrap his arms around it. “Beleg taught me woodworking when I was young,” he said. “I wanted to carve my own flute.” 

Maglor smiled. “I wanted to make my own instruments, too,” he said. “I can make them out of most things: metal, wood, clay—once I experimented with glass—but wood was always the most satisfying.” 

“I was too particular about what I wanted for anyone else to make something satisfactory. Well, no, that’s not quite right. I had friends among the dwarves that made me lovely flutes and viols and drums. What in the world did you make out of glass?”

“Nothing useful,” Maglor said. “I think I just wanted to see if it would work. It didn’t, but I don’t know if that was because I lacked skill or if it was just a ridiculous idea.”

“You could try again,” Daeron said. 

“Maybe someday,” said Maglor. “If I am feeling ridiculous. Or perhaps Celebrimbor would take up the challenge.”

“I have not met him,” said Daeron. 

“He was here only briefly to see me.” And now he was gone back to Nerdanel’s house, bearing tales of scars and torments that Maglor wished he did not have to. Maglor tilted his head back to watch the leaves dance in the breeze above their heads. “What do you make of Eressëa?”

“It’s lovely, but too small,” Daeron said. “Ask me later what I make of the mainland, after I have had a chance to explore it.”

“Do you intend to? Go exploring, I mean.”

“Yes, of course.” Daeron looked over at him and smiled. “Are you going to return to your own wandering ways?”

“Yes,” said Maglor. 

“Would you object to a companion? You know these lands better than I.”

“I did once, perhaps.” Maglor returned the smile. “I would like that.”

“Come find me at Thingol’s court, then,” said Daeron. “Or perhaps I will come to you.”

“You’ll find me easily enough at Imloth Ningloron,” said Maglor. “Even if you do not come to drag me off on some journey.” Daeron laughed, and Maglor grinned, and for a moment he felt as light and easy as he had at the Mereth Aderthad when they had slipped away from the feasting to talk in private. They had spoken of all kinds of things—mostly music, but also of writing and of trees and flowers and of Maglor’s many cousins, of the Gap, of Doriath, of a possible future of letters passing between their realms, and perhaps occasional visits. That had not happened, of course. Word of Alqualondë had spread before the first letter could be sent by either one of them, and fate had laid out their roads in very different directions. But there was no reason they couldn’t exchange letters now. Letters and visits, songs and stories and gossip and jokes. Daeron had said on the ship he would rather they make music together than exist in unhappy silence. They made no promises or plans that day, but the knowledge that they would, someday—perhaps someday soon—was as pleasant as the cinnamon pastries.

Before they parted, Daeron caught his hand and pressed something into it. “Here. To keep your hair out of your face—doesn’t it bother you, the way it is always falling forward?” Before Maglor could answer he was gone, striding away into the evening, hair swinging behind him, whistling a cheerful tune. Maglor looked down into his hand to see a hair clip, silver, adorned with a row of purple enameled aster flowers. He slipped it into his pocket, glancing once more at Daeron’s retreating back before turning to make his own way home.

It was late before Maglor returned to Elrond’s house. The stars were out and the pale crescent of the moon was rising over the water in the east. He found his things all neatly packed and a note by his bed telling him they intended to cross the bay to Alqualondë after lunch the next day. “Are you ready for another boat ride, Pídhres?” he asked as the little cat jumped up onto the bed beside him. She made a disgruntled noise, and he laughed. “Last one, I promise. I imagine you’ll be very happy about that.” She purred and butted her head against his cheek. “I thought so, silly thing.” 

The cat fell asleep quickly, curled up by his side. Maglor lay and stared at the ceiling for a long time, thinking of the Calacirya and what lay beyond. They would likely pass by Tirion rather than entering into it, and take the road south. Seeing Tirion again…he thought that he was prepared. He was less prepared for what lay on the road beyond, for his grandfather’s estate was south of the city, less than half a day’s easy ride. Celebrimbor had said that Nerdanel lived just beyond Mahtan’s house, on the other side of the plum orchard. Maglor closed his eyes and could see the orchard, see the house and the workshops of his grandfather set back from the road, reached by a long lane through his Grandmother Ennalótë’s gardens. They were always changing, and so he knew that his memories of the flowers and the shrubs was inaccurate. There had not been a house beyond the orchard when he’d been young. In his mind he pictured a smaller version of his grandparents’ house, and a large workshop beside it, bright and airy the way his mother liked. 

His imaginings took on the slant of dream and memory, and for a moment he was back in the vision Sauron had conjured, with his mother smiling at him and looking all wrong from across the room lit by Treelight just a few shades too dark, slightly blurry and with her freckles in all the wrong places. 

Maglor sat up, inhaling deeply the smell of roses and lilac and the sea breeze, fisting his hands in the blankets to stop himself rubbing the scar on his chest, which burned with fell memory. Sleep would not find him that night. 

He slipped back out of the house and went down to the water. The waves were gentle and cool as they washed up over his bare feet as he sat in the sand, and with the starry sky wide open above him he felt like he could breathe again. He listened to the water and hummed along with it, weaving a lullaby around the soft whispers of the water. It soothed him, alongside the lingering warmth of cinnamon on his tongue, and though he did not sleep that night he found something like rest. 

It was Celebrían that came to find him in the morning. She was dressed for travel, in simpler clothes and a single long braid down her back, though it was adorned with green ribbons that matched her eyes. “You seem better this morning,” she said, dropping onto the sand beside him.

“I am,” Maglor said. The sunrise over the water had chased away the last of the night’s ugly and dark thoughts. He was still tired, but he thought that the dreams would leave him be.

“They never really go away,” said Celebrían after a moment. “The memories. But it does get easier—and if it does not you must go to Lórien.”

“I will,” Maglor said, and she looked at him a little skeptically. He didn’t know whether to be frustrated or worried that everyone except Elrond seemed to expect him to give them difficulties. “I don’t like being haunted by old horrors,” he said. “They come and go and don’t stay long, these days, but if they grow too dark of course I will seek help.”

Celebrían’s smile was exactly like Eldarion’s. “Forgive me,” she said. “I keep imagining that all you and your brothers share the same sort of stubbornness.”

“You mean Maedhros,” Maglor sighed, looking back out over the water. 

“Well, yes. He is the most egregious example, certainly. He spent so much time in Mandos but would not allow himself to rest, or to accept any kind of comfort, and so he was released. I suppose the Valar hoped he would find in life what he would not in death, but it has not proven so. I never quite understood what the stories meant when they said that his spirit burned like white fire in him, until I saw him here. And he is one of your brothers that I have met most recently. He came to visit Elrond just before we left home to come here; Curufin came too, seeking him. He seems much more settled.” 

Maglor shivered. It was one thing to see his brother’s spirit flare, fiery and bright, in the midst of battle, when the force of it was directed outward at the enemy, when it was a beacon to all their own people, a rallying point—the sort of thing to praise in the histories and songs. It was another to watch that same fire eat away inward. “I am not my brother,” he said quietly. “I have been as guilty as he is of punishing myself, but it was not like that.” 

“Good,” said Celebrían. She laid her hand on his arm. “And I hope you are not punishing yourself anymore.”

“I am not,” Maglor promised. “And—I really am fine. The dreams will pass. No one needs to treat me like I am made of glass.”

“Oh, believe me, I will not!” Celebrían laughed suddenly. “I know all too well how that feels, to feel so much better but to not quite look it, and have no one really believe you when you try to reassure them.”

Maglor laughed, as much in relief as in response to her own laughter. “That is exactly it,” he said. 

“Just tell me when someone tries to coddle you,” Celebrían said. She got up and dusted the sand off her skirts. “I shall set them straight. Or Elrond will, but he himself is inclined to coddle.”

“He isn’t that bad,” said Maglor, also getting to his feet. 

“Who isn’t that bad?” Elrond asked from a little ways up the path. 

“You,” Celebrían said, springing up it to kiss him. “You are perfectly acceptable and we have decided to keep you. Come on, both of you! Breakfast is on the table, and we are leaving before noon!” She swept away toward the house, leaving Maglor to shake the sand off his bare feet while Elrond gazed after her fondly. 

“I will be very glad to be home again,” Elrond said at last, as Maglor stepped up to wrap an arm around his shoulders. “You received a few letters this morning.”

“Letters?” Maglor said. “Me?”

“One is from Nerdanel, by the seal. I think the others are from your brothers but I cannot be certain; I do not know their writing.” Elrond was watching Maglor’s face carefully, and Maglor didn’t really know what it was doing. “You don’t have to read them.”

Yes, he did. Eventually. “Maybe when we reach Imloth Ningloron.” 

He did open the letter from his mother, though, when he got back to his room to make sure nothing had been overlooked in the packing, and to find Pídhres. His name was written neatly on the front of it, but inside was a more familiar, nearly illegible scrawl. It had been so long since Maglor had had to decipher a note from his mother that he was half afraid he had forgotten the trick of it—but he hadn’t, and the mere sight of his name in her hand brought him to tears. He blinked them away and sank onto the bed to read it. 

Dearest Macalaurë,

I was so happy to receive your letter, to know you are back again! Forgive me for not being there on the quay when you arrived. I am sure you know by now that your father has returned from Mandos, and I have been trying to decide what to do. Your brothers have all been here and holding war councils in my dining room about it. I’ve laughed at them for it, but it really isn’t funny. Nor is the way they keep a seat empty by Maitimo’s right hand, every time, no matter where they are seated, whether at the table or out in the garden. They are all united in not wanting to see Fëanáro, which I expected but which also grieves me too deeply to describe. From the way you did not write about either him or any of your brothers, and from what Telperinquar has said, I must suppose you do not want to see any of them. I wish it were not so, but I am not going to try to mediate. There is too much between all of you that I do not know about, and it all goes far too deep to be fixed by locking you in a room together until you make up.

Of course, that is the only thing that unifies your brothers. When Telperinquar brought back the tale of what happened to you—well, even as I write this there is shouting going on somewhere outside. They are not angry with me for keeping the secret, because I think they are all being very careful not to be angry with me about anything, but they are furious with Maitimo, and he is furious right back. At least they have not come to blows.

You have asked me not to worry about you, but I am still your mother and I do not think I can ever stop worrying. But it is a great relief to know that you found joy after everything. I do not know Master Elrond well except by reputation (I know Lady Celebrían a little better, for she has commissioned a few things from me over the years), but I have spoken of you often with Galadriel and I know that he loves you dearly. 

You also spoke of coming to see me, or of me coming to see you, but I will make no plans until I have seen your father and know what it is he intends to do. Of course, I may only be flattering myself in thinking that he intends to come here first. He might go to Aulë’s halls, or to Tirion, or somewhere else entirely. All your brothers are very reluctant to leave me alone until he does appear, wherever or whenever that may be. I don’t need their protection, but it is a comfort to have them all close. 

Whatever happens, I hope to see you very soon. 

Oh! Your gift! I have it here in my workshop with me to hold my brushes. It is beautiful, and Tyelpë tells me that you made it. I will always treasure anything made by your hands, whether it is pottery or a woodcarving or a letter. I love you so very much, Macalaurë. 

Ammë 

Maglor read it through again, and had to put it down so he didn’t drip tears onto it and smear the ink to make it truly illegible. He pressed the heels of his hands to his eyes and took a few breaths. Then he folded the letter up and slipped it into his satchel. He had a box in a trunk somewhere probably already on its way south that held other equally precious letters; he would add this one to it when he was settling in there. 

The other two letters…Elrond might not recognize his brothers’ hands, but Maglor did. One letter was from Caranthir, and the other from Curufin. They were not as thick as the one from Nerdanel, but he couldn’t bring himself to open them, not even when he felt something small and hard tucked into the folds of Curufin’s. He slipped them into the satchel beside Nerdanel’s, and then went to coax Pídhres down from the wardrobe. By the time Elladan came looking for him he was dry-eyed and able to smile again. “All is well?” Elladan asked.

“Yes,” said Maglor, as Pídhres curled herself around his neck. 

The trip across the Bay was short, and horses were waiting for them. Maglor sprang into the saddle after tucking Pídhres safely into one of the saddle bags so she could nap in the cozy dark, suddenly eager to be on the road, to see again the lands that lay beyond the Calacirya in spite of the way his heart rose into his throat as they made their way up the pass, many in the party already singing a merry traveling song. Soon Tirion came into view, its towers gleaming under the bright sun. At a distance it looked exactly as Maglor remembered it, though of course the light was different. Up close he knew it would be much changed, the districts shifted around, many buildings still empty, perhaps some of them slowly crumbling as he had been told his own family’s home was. He allowed himself only a few moments to stop and stare at the sight before turning away to follow Celebrían toward the southward road. Elrond caught his eye, but seemed reassured by what he saw. It was not as overwhelming as he’d once feared. 

Worse was when they came, after only a few hours, to the lane turning off the main road to his grandfather’s house. The land was aglow with flowers and flowering trees. Maglor saw the buildings beyond them, saw the smoke rising from the forges and heard voices calling to one another over the distant ring of hammers. There past it was the plum orchard, also all in bloom, pink and fragrant, and he saw figures walking through the trees—one of them a very large hound. His breath caught and his horse tossed her head as his hands tightened on the reins. He saw the hound’s head go up—damn Huan and his nose—and saw the figures with him turn towards the road; one of them was very tall, and he thought that he saw a gleam of copper-colored hair. 

Maglor urged his horse forward, coming up between the twins. “Care to race?” he asked them, and did not wait for an answer before breaking into a canter and then a gallop. The orchard passed in a pink blur, and then he had a brief glimpse of a house, and then nothing but fields and little patches of wood, and the river gleaming in the distance. 

A shout from behind him had him looking back to see Galadriel swiftly catching up and then passing him, her hair coming loose of its braids to fly in the wind behind her. Elladan and Elrohir were just behind her, and Maglor forgot all about his reason for starting the race to begin with as he laughed for the sheer joy of it. With the wind in his hair and the sun on his face, and a swift horse beneath him, Maglor felt almost like the Lord of the Gap again, racing across the plains careless and bold. 

It was many miles before they slowed—the horses could have gone even farther, being born and bred there in the Undying Lands and surpassing even Shadowfax in endurance—and Maglor found himself laughing again as he and Galadriel argued over who had won while they waited for the rest of their party to catch up. Elladan and Elrohir were breathless with the thrill of the race; Pídhres meowed plaintively in her saddlebag, having not quite enjoyed the sudden burst of speed, but she was placated when Maglor drew her out to lay across his shoulders instead. 

“Did you always have a fondness for cats, or is that new?” Galadriel asked. 

“I don’t think I thought about them one way or another until I came to Rivendell,” said Maglor as he scratched behind Pídhres’ ears. 

“One adopted him, and he has since been passed down through the generations like a very strange family heirloom,” Elrohir said. “Pídhres is one of Tári’s descendants, isn’t she?”

“Yes,” said Maglor. “I left the rest of the litter in Annúminas to terrorize the royal court there.” Galadriel laughed. She was busy combing her hair out with her fingers and tidying it into a new braid. “I had not intended to bring one with me, but this little one refused to be left behind.”

Galadriel’s fingers stilled as she looked back up the road. “Does she do well with dogs?” she asked. 

“Well enough,” said Maglor. “Why?” He followed her gaze, and his mouth went dry. “Oh.”

“What?” Elladan twisted in his saddle. “Where did that hound come from? It’s huge!”

“That is Huan,” said Galadriel. 

Huan reached them just ahead of Elrond and Celebrían and the rest of the party. He trotted up and laid his great head on Maglor’s knee with a soft woof of greeting. Maglor held very still, but for the hand he made himself lay atop Huan’s head. “Hello, Huan,” he said softly, and earned himself a lick up his entire arm. “Ugh, Huan!” 

Celegorm must have sent him, Maglor thought as Elladan and Elrohir laughed and dismounted to make the great hound’s acquaintance. He licked them all over their faces, doubtless recognizing them for Lúthien’s children. Maglor didn’t know what to think or feel about it—about his brother sending his hound to—what, keep an eye on him? Drag him back to Nerdanel’s house? He wouldn’t put such a plan past Celegorm, though he doubted whether Huan would really go through with it. 

“I think,” Galadriel said quietly beside him, “this means your brothers are worried about you.”

“I wish they wouldn’t,” Maglor said. It had been easier when he could imagine them as resentful and angry, like the ghosts and dreams that had haunted him in the dark—easier to justify to himself, in the privacy of his own heart, why he did not want to see them, if he could believe they did not want to see him either. It was one thing to be told that wasn’t true—by Celebrimbor, by others—but another to have two letters and a dog in front of him, like an admonishment for racing past on the road. He glanced back up it, but no one else was following. 

When their party continued on, he did not look back again.

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There was nothing of particular note about the merry company heading south down the road until Huan lifted his head, sniffing the air and letting out a short whine. He was looking toward the riders, and as Maedhros followed his gaze he saw one horseman break away from the rest of the group, letting out a cry of challenge as he sped into a gallop, dark hair lifting behind him like a banner as he leaned forward in the saddle. Another three sped after him, two dark and one fair, who called out an answer to the challenge. 

Maedhros knew both of those voices, but it was the first that took his breath away, not heard for so long but forever unmistakable. He had to brace himself against the nearest tree before his knees gave out entirely. Beside him Celegorm went very still, and Curufin, having not at first noticed Huan’s actions, spun around, eyes going wide. They all watched the horseman disappear into the distance, chased by the other three. The remainder of the party burst into bright laughter. 

“Huan,” Celegorm said, breaking the silence so suddenly that Maedhros started. “Huan, go after him.”

“And do what?” Curufin demanded. “Drag him back by the scruff of his neck like a wayward puppy?”

“Just—just stay with him,” Celegorm said. He did not look at Curufin, or answer him directly; he never did, these days. “Make sure he’s all right.” Huan butted his head into Celegorm’s shoulder, and obeyed, loping away through the trees. 

“You did not have to send him,” Maedhros said. If Maglor was well enough to race Galadriel like that, surely he was well enough not to need constant watching. Celegorm did not answer. Instead he watched the rest of the party—Elrond and his household, returning from Tol Eressëa—until they too were past the house. Then he stalked away through the trees, back toward the river, the beads in his hair clicking together with each step. 

Curufin remained where he was. “Do you think it was coincidence that he decided to start a race just there, or do you think he wanted to put as much distance between himself and us as he could?” he asked. Maedhros didn’t answer; they both knew it was not coincidence. Maglor would have recognized the orchard and Mahtan’s house instantly. He may even have seen them from the road. Huan was difficult to mistake, and they had not been hiding. 

It hurt, even having known to expect it after what both Finrod and Celebrimbor had said. Maedhros breathed through the feeling—remarkably like being stabbed—and pushed himself off of the tree. “At least we know he’s happy,” he said. Curufin was still watching the road, though even the last of Elrond and Celebrían’s party had disappeared from sight by now. Maedhros turned away. He did not follow Celegorm, but took a slightly different track, away from the road and toward the river. Once there he followed it upstream until he came to one of the willow trees, with its thick curtain of leaves that he could slip behind and pretend that the rest of the world outside did not exist. The tree knew him well by now; he came often to sit between its roots to bathe his feet in the cool water, or to sit with a sketchbook because his mother insisted that he do something with his hands, and at least a drawing could be ripped up or burned afterward if he hated it. 

He hated most of his drawings. But he had found that he did like the act of drawing. 

His sketchbook was back at the house, though, and he did not want to go get it. Instead he drew his knees up and rested his head on his arms. He did not look up when someone else slipped through the willow fronds to sit beside him. “Curufin told me you saw Maglor,” Caranthir said, leaning his shoulder against Maedhros’. 

“At a distance.”

“Mm.” Caranthir sat back and moved behind Maedhros, picking up his hair to finger comb the tangles out of it and begin braiding. Maedhros lifted his head then, unable to deny that it felt nice, and unable to deny Caranthir anything, let alone this simple kindness. Neither of them spoke. They’d spent more time together since Caranthir had returned to life than they ever had in their previous lives, with the two of them lingering in Nerdanel’s house while their brothers went off into the wilds or back to Tirion, but it was most often like this—speaking little, both of them following the track of their own thoughts while glad of company that demanded nothing else. 

“Why haven’t you returned to Tirion?” Maedhros asked after a while. 

Caranthir didn’t answer immediately. He finished one braid and began another, fingernails scraping lightly over Maedhros’ scalp. It felt like he was braiding ribbons into it. Finally, he said, “Nearly everyone who died in the Nirnaeth is there.”

For a moment Maedhros didn’t understand. Then he turned to look at Caranthir; the half-finished braid fell from his fingers to unravel. “That was not your fault, Moryo,” he said, horrified to realize that he’d never said it before—not aloud, not to Caranthir himself. 

The smile that Caranthir offered him did not reach his eyes. “I know that, truly. I would not be here if I didn’t. But it’s—I still failed to see it in time, and it’s hard to see now everyone who suffered because of it.”

“Moryo…” Maedhros had two twist even further to put his arms around him. “You know I never blamed you. Don’t you?”

“Yes,” Caranthir said, voice muffled where his face was pressed into Maedhros’ shoulder. “Yes, I know. Maglor—he made sure that I knew, afterward.”

The days and weeks after the Nirnaeth were a blur of pain and grief and fear. They had all been wounded badly—and Caranthir the worst. Had Maglor not been there, Uldor would have killed him. They had all trusted Ulfang and his sons. They had all failed to see the treachery in front of them until it was too late. 

And of course then, as had so often been the case, it had been Maglor that kept them together, kept them moving, kept them breathing, teasing and cajoling and singing until they had gone far enough south into Ossiriand that they could stop—stop and figure out what had happened, and what to do next. Stop and mourn. Maedhros had been unable to find any tears by then, and so Maglor had shed them for him. Maedhros had been the eldest, the leader, but of course it had been Maglor to step in when he had been unable to even put together a coherent thought, let alone a plan of action.

“I’m sorry,” Maedhros whispered. 

“Their treachery wasn’t your fault, either.”

“I know.” That wasn’t what he was apologizing for. 

Caranthir drew back, and reached for Maedhros’ hair again, retrieving the ribbon that had fallen out. “I hate that we are all at odds,” he said, as Maedhros obediently turned around again. “Hardly any of us speaking to each other. Maglor staying away entirely. It feels wrong. Just like it felt wrong to—to have to sit and discuss meeting Atar again like were were planning for a battle.”

“I know,” Maedhros said. The willow fronds swayed in the breeze; somewhere a lark burst into bright and joyful song.

“We loved him once,” Caranthir said, very softly, as he tied off the second braid. 

“Do you not still?” asked a quiet voice. Maedhros went still, immediately recognizing the twist in his stomach and the tightening of his throat for fear and hating it, hating that it was Fëanor’s voice that caused it. Hating that he was there and that they had not heard his approach. Behind him Caranthir shifted, and Maedhros turned to see his hand falling away from his belt, where he had been reaching for a weapon that was not there. 

Maedhros hated that, too, because his hand had also gone to his side, seeking a sword that no longer existed. He dropped it to the ground and pushed himself up, Caranthir following, and they both turned to face Fëanor, who had ducked under the willow to join them. He was clad in the familiar plain robes given to those returned from Mandos. Like the ones Maedhros had been given, his bore small bits of subtle embroidery along the sleeves and the collar. By instinct, without thinking about it, Maedhros had stepped forward, putting himself between his brother and danger. He saw the moment Fëanor realized it, saw the hurt flash across his face before it was masked again. 

This was not the Fëanor that haunted their memories. The manic fire in his eyes was gone, restored to the bright candle flame it had been in their youth. Why was that worse? Fëanor met his gaze and Maedhros was suddenly glad that they had met this way, glad—not to see his father, but to have his father see him, to see what he had wrought. 

He did not want witnesses to this meeting, though. It would be painful enough without someone watching. “Caranthir,” he said, “return to the house.” He spoke in the tongue of the Easterlings, the first one he thought of which Fëanor would not know. 

“But you…” Caranthir began to protest, in the same tongue, but Maedhros looked at him and the words died on his lips. His face was flushed, the sadness from just a few moments ago replaced with anger. He did not like being startled or taken unawares any more than Maedhros did. He set his jaw and said, “We just spoke of this, didn’t we? You do not have to protect me.”

“That isn’t why I’m asking,” Maedhros said. That wasn’t entirely true, but it wasn’t the whole of it, or even the biggest reason. “Go back to the house, tell the others he’s here. Please.” 

They stared at each other for another few seconds. Finally, Caranthir took a breath and nodded. “I will warn the others,” he said, and reached out to grip Maedhros’ arm. Maedhros returned the gesture, trying not to think of how it was one they’d used when parting before battle. Caranthir glanced at Fëanor, who opened his mouth to speak, and then left, passing away through the willow and down the river before another word could be said. 

Maedhros looked back again at Fëanor, who watched Caranthir until he was out of sight. “That was no elven tongue,” Fëanor said finally, looking back at Maedhros. In this, at least, he had not changed—anything new and strange would catch his attention and interest without fail. Or maybe it was not that he hadn’t changed, Maedhros thought, but that he had changed back. Everything about him was now like who he had been before it had all gone wrong; as the tension had ratcheted ever higher in Tirion before the exile to Formenos, and then the Darkening, Fëanor’s focus had narrowed and narrowed—to jealousy and anger and fear—and would not be swayed. That had resulted in the forging of their first swords, and culminated in the drawing of one against Fingolfin, before the king and before all of Tirion.

It should have been a relief to see this glimpse of the father he’d once loved so dearly. Instead it felt like the twist of a knife deep inside him, because Maedhros was not and could never be again who he had been before it had all gone wrong. 

“It was spoken by Men,” Maedhros said after a moment in which he made himself take a breath. “By the Secondborn you scorned ere ever they woke under the first sunrise.”

Fëanor grimaced. “Nelyafinwë—”

He could not bear the sound of that name in that voice. “Maedhros.”

There was a flash of temper, however brief. “Nelyafinwë,” Fëanor repeated, doggedly. “So I named you, and you are still my son, whatever—”

“Yes,” Maedhros said as his hand throbbed with sudden, searing pain. His father’s eyes widened as he took a step back, though whether because of his tone or whatever his face showed, Maedhros could not be sure. He tried to bring forth the manner and speech of the Lord of Himring, but he could feel it cracking already as he went on, a tremor belying the hard and flat tone he strove for, lest he loose all control and begin shouting. Or weeping. “Eldest and leader of the Sons of Fëanor I have been, dispossessed and accursed, Kinslayers and thieves. That is our legacy, Atar.” He held out his hand, showing the scar pattern on his palm. It was no real scar tissue, only a memory of the wounding; it was usually unnoticeable except up close, but now it was pink and livid on his skin, tender and painful. Fëanor looked at it, and his face grew pale. 

“I did not want this,” he said at last into the silence that fell between them. The singing lark had departed, and no other birds dared take its place. “I did not want any of you—”

“It doesn’t matter whether you wanted it. It is what happened.” Maedhros dropped his hand, and saw his father’s gaze go to his right arm, which ended before the sleeve of his tunic did. “All I have ever been is your son,” he said, the words spilling out of his mouth before he could stop them, voicing a hurt that he had not even known he had until Curufin had been born, and had not known how to name until years and years later. His voice broke on it now, like falling on a blade; he wasn’t the Lord of Himring or even the leader of Fëanor’s Sons anymore. He was just—Maedhros, broken so far beyond repair that even the Fëanturi had despaired of him. “From the moment of my birth, that is all I was. Nelyafinwë: the third—not strong, nor clever, nor swift, only the third. A point to make, a shot taken at your brother. Were you pleased that Nelya happened to sound so like Nolo?” 

His father’s face had been pale before; now it was ashen. “That is not what I—”

Maedhros found that he did not care what his father thought he had been doing. “Of all my deeds in Beleriand there are only two that I do not regret.” It was not the full truth—he had done many things he didn’t regret, but none of them were as important. “They were the two things that went against the path you chose for us. I gave the crown to Fingolfin.” He paused for a moment, but Fëanor said nothing. “And I gave myself to the fire.” Something passed across his father’s face at that, but Maedhros was done trying to read his father’s moods. It didn’t matter anymore. “Wait here. Amil will come to speak with you.”

“And your brothers?” The question was spoken softly, almost whispered, as unlike Fëanor as ice was unlike fire, and after such a long pause that Maedhros had almost turned to leave without expecting any reply at all. “Will they speak to me, or do they all feel as you do?”

“Wait here,” Maedhros repeated. He took a step backwards, wishing there was something else he could say. Something that would make Fëanor really understand. There wasn’t. Or rather: there was, but Maedhros could not bring himself to be so cruel as to invoke Finwë. Instead he just turned his back and walked away, keeping his pace deliberate as he made his way back downstream toward his mother’s house.

He met Nerdanel halfway back. “He is under the willow,” Maedhros told her when she stopped. 

She took his face in her hands and kissed his forehead when he leaned down. “I am sorry, Maitimo,” she said. 

He shook his head. “You have nothing to apologize for, Ammë.” He kissed her in return, but did not linger to watch her go to meet Fëanor. She had not come with any of his brothers; like him, she surely did not want witnesses. 

Maedhros made it to the garden before the twisting in his stomach turned to something sharp, clawing its way up his throat. He could hear his brothers inside, all talking over one another—about their father this time, instead of Maglor. He couldn't face them, and slipped in and upstairs to his small bedroom. It overlooked the garden and the way to the river beyond but he did not look toward the window. Once the door latched and he had something truly solid between him and the rest of the world his knees buckled, and he slid to the floor, back against the wall, and buried his face in his arms. He couldn’t stop shaking. His palm still hurt.

Part of him, he realized, had hoped that he would see his father and feel differently. That he would want to run to him as he had when he’d been young and the name Nelyafinwë had not sounded like a curse, when his father had been a source of comfort and protection, of love and warmth. Now, though, even after all this time, resentment and fear won out, tangled up in shreds of that old love dug in like barbs, nothing now but a source of pain. The dashing of that hope he hadn’t even known he harbored was the worst thing that he had felt since his return from Mandos. 

It wasn’t until the door opened and his brothers all slipped inside, one by one, to join him on the floor that Maedhros noticed the tears soaked into his sleeves. No one spoke; they just all piled onto him, hands on his legs or his arms, arms around his shoulders, someone’s head resting against his. 

“What did he say?” someone asked finally. One of the twins. 

“Nothing,” Maedhros replied, voice thick. “I spoke. I did not want to listen.”

Silence fell again. Maedhros tried to stop the tears, but failed. This wasn’t the awful storm of grief and horror that had accompanied his glimpse of Maglor in the palantír. This was a steady river of them, tears that he should have shed many years ago but didn’t. Tears that seemed to take some of the heat of him away as they fell, leaving him feeling empty and desolate. 

Curufin spoke next. “Come with me and Moryo to Tirion, Nelyo. Don’t stay here alone.”

“Or come with us into the wilds,” said Celegorm. 

He wanted to protest. “If Ammë…”

“Ammë told us to take you away somewhere,” said Curufin. “If you don’t want to stay with me, go to Fingon like he’s always asking.”

“Or,” said Caranthir, very softly, “you could go to Lórien.”

“Or we could all go—anywhere. Somewhere far away to leave all this mess behind for a while,” said Amras. “We are strangers to each other and—and that should not be. Maybe we can fix what is broken if we are away from Tirion and from—everything.”

Once again the gap was left. No one spoke of going to Maglor, even though it surely took no great insight to know that where Maglor was, was the one place Maedhros wanted to be—and the one place he did not dare to go. How could he bring his misery there when Maglor had so clearly found joy and laughter again? But there would be no fixing what was broken between the rest of them without all of them coming together, and they all knew it. Still. Maybe Amras was right. If they could not fix it they could at least patch it, glue it together so it might hold until Maglor came to them.

Finally, he raised his head. Five faces looked back at him solemnly. Curufin’s eyes were red, and Celegorm’s face was very pale. Maedhros sighed. “I do not want to go to Lórien,” he said, “but beyond that—I don’t care. I’ll go wherever you want.”

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Imloth Ningloron was in fact the valley that Maglor had thought it was—a wide bowl-shaped thing filled with flowing water in between the green grass and yellow flowers. Under the bright spring sun it sparkled and seemed to glow, all emerald and gold. He’d visited it before in his youthful wanderings, but he found he liked it better now, with the sprawling house in the center and the outbuildings and workshops beyond. The gardens and orchards lent a splash of bright rainbow color, and though it was quite different at first glance, the feeling of it was so like Imladris that following the road down into it felt like coming home. 

Elladan was the one to say so, and Celebrían laughed. “Good!” she said. “I tried very hard to make it so.”

“It’s perfect,” Elrohir said.

Huan trotted along beside Maglor. Pídhres lay over his shoulders, watching Huan warily. She did not usually mind dogs, in the little time she had spent in their company, but Huan was no normal dog. Maglor scratched her behind the ears as he looked around, drinking in the flowers and trees and the streams and ponds. He might have missed the forests of Imladris more keenly, except that the hills beyond the valley, between it and the towering Pelóri, were thick with trees, and there was nothing stopping him from slipping way into their cool shade if he ever desired it. 

Everyone in the household had turned out to greet them, all of them more than eager to welcome Elladan and Elrohir at last. Maglor dropped out of the saddle and found himself also surrounded by old friends, though they were taken aback by Huan’s presence—especially since he refused to leave Maglor’s side, to Pídhres’ clear dissatisfaction. “No, I don’t know why he is here,” Maglor said more than once. “But I can’t very well make him go home if he does not want to.”

His things had been taken to his room already, and his clothes and harp unpacked for him. The room itself was similar in size and shape to his room in Imladris, and similarly decorated in shades of blue. The wooden floor and the furniture were of a different, lighter colored wood, and the hearth was smaller, but there would be little call for warm fires here except in the very heart of winter. Likewise the windows were bigger, letting in the fragrant breeze. He leaned out of one to look out over the valley. Pídhres had vanished as soon as he’d set foot inside the house, off exploring and making herself at home. No doubt she would acquaint herself with the kitchen and the cooks, and charm them all into slipping her treats and tidbits at all hours. Huan, of course, had followed at Maglor’s heels. 

“I really don’t need you watching my every move, you know,” Maglor said to him, turning away from the window. Huan ignored him, nosing instead at his satchel until it tipped over and opened, spilling some of the contents over the rug. “What are you doing, you ridiculous animal?” Huan raised his large head and woofed at him reproachfully. “There’s nothing in there that needs immediate unpacking.” Maglor went to pick up the satchel, and felt the crinkle of paper under his fingers. “Oh.” He glared at Huan as he sat down on the floor. “You want me to open these, don’t you?” He pulled out the letters—the ones from his brothers. Huan lay down, pressing against Maglor’s leg. That head would rest on his legs if he tried to get up, Maglor thought. He sighed, and stared down at his name, in Curufin’s neat script and Caranthir’s scrawl, which was not unlike Nerdanel’s except that it was a little neater. “And if I don’t want to?” he asked Huan. “If I want to toss these back into the bottom of my bag and forget about them?” Huan only looked at him with that same reproachful expression.

There was a knock on the door. “Come in,” Maglor called, glad of the distraction. Elrond came in, and raised his eyebrows at the scene. “I think Huan might be plotting to kidnap me,” Maglor said. 

“I hope not,” said Elrond. He joined them on the floor and said to Huan, “Please do not kidnap Maglor. We are all very fond of him here.”

“I hope he listens to you, son of Lúthien,” Maglor said, “but if I disappear without a word, I suppose you’ll know where to look for me.”

“I’m glad you can joke about it,” said Elrond. “Are those the letters you received on Eressëa?”

“Yes.” Maglor sighed. 

“Well, if Huan will allow it, set them aside for now and come walk with me. I want to show you the gardens.”

Maglor gladly tossed the letters back onto his bed and got to his feet. Huan huffed and butted his head into Maglor’s back, nearly knocking him over. “Enough, Huan,” Elrond said. “The letters are not going anywhere.”

Huan relented, but still followed them outside. The gardens were as large and sprawling as the house, and there were many bridges and stepping stones laid out to cross the myriad streams and little rivers that flowed through the valley. Gazebos and benches were scattered everywhere, offering places to sit and rest, or to gather, or to seek solitude. “Celebrían thought of everything,” Maglor said as they stepped over a bridge over a series of tiny falls down which water foamed and churned. 

“She did,” Elrond agreed. “There is the path that leads to the workshops,” he added, pointing to a white gravel pathway that vanished between two enormous lilacs.

“I shall go explore them as soon as my chaperon allows it,” Maglor said, earning himself another head butt from Huan. 

Elrond smiled, but only a little. “Here, this is what I wanted to show you.” They came to a hedge, unexpected in the midst of the wider open gardens, where the view was blocked only by occasional shrubs or trees. Beyond it a mallorn tree grew, almost entirely finished shedding its golden flowers in favor of dark green and silver leaves. Maglor followed Elrond through the gate and found himself in the midst of a memorial. It as not like the grand monument that the Elves of Eressëa had erected for the Edain; it was instead a collection of small and personal remembrances—devoid of historical meaning but filled with meaning of a more important kind. There were a handful of statues, but more stones with symbols or names engraved on them, or sculptures of something more abstract but made with great love, nestled gently in among flowers and bushes and small trees. 

And there were graves: three of them, there under the mallorn tree. “The hobbits?” Maglor said quietly. Elrond nodded, and Maglor stepped forward to kneel before them. They had no markers, but they needed none—not here. Snapdragons grew around Bilbo’s small mound, and forget-me-nots over Frodo’s, and Sam’s was shaded by a rosebush. Maglor remembered visiting him in the Shire before he sailed, as he trimmed his rosebushes and talked of maybe taking a cutting or two with him, if he could be sure they would survive the voyage. At least one had, and Maglor was very glad of it. 

“Did Frodo find the healing he sought?” he asked, looking back at Elrond. 

“He did.”

“Good. I’m glad.” Maglor rose, and looked around further. One of the few statues in the garden was of Gilraen, hands clasped together at her breast as she gazed upward toward the sky, or toward the branches of the mallorn tree. 

“Gilraen has been often in my thoughts, lately,” Elrond said softly, coming to stand by Maglor. 

“And in mine,” Maglor said. 

“Celebrían cannot bear to ask you, but…were you there, at the end?”

“Yes.” Maglor held out his arms and Elrond stepped into them, trembling a little. “Her grave lies atop Cerin Amroth, covered in niphredil and elanor and simbelmynë. Her grief was bitter, and she could not bear the thought of being buried under stone in Minas Tirith, but she found peace in the end. And her children and their children are strong and fair, and wise and kind.” Elrond wept, and Maglor stroked his hair. Tears pricked his own eyes. “Estel rests in Rath Dínen, with Merry and Pippin on either side. He passed beyond the Circles of the World in a time and manner of his own choosing, and he was entirely at peace.” 

“As Elros did,” Elrond whispered. 

“Yes.”

“Thank you. Thank you for staying with them when I could not.”

Maglor tightened his arms just a little. “They were happy, Elrond. So very, very happy.” 

They sat on the grass beside the hobbits’ graves, and for a time Maglor spoke, and Elrond listened, of all Aragorn and Arwen’s children, and their children, and the things they had built and the deeds they had done. Huan had not come into the memorial garden with them, perhaps realizing at last that his presence would not always be wanted. Elrond leaned on Maglor’s shoulder, weeping quietly, and when the tears stopped he straightened, refreshed from the release of them, rather than wearied. He turned his gaze up toward the mallorn tree as the breeze picked up, sending the branches waving and the leaves dancing. A few flowers drifted down onto the grass before them. Maglor reached out and caught one in his cupped hands. Like the month of May, he had a particular fondness for mallorn trees and their flowers, and the golden winter leaves—almost the very first thing he had seen upon his waking after being rescued from Dol Guldur. There was no other shade of gold that he thought so beautiful as a winter mallorn leaf. He was both unsurprised and very glad to find such a tree here in this place. 

“Galadriel planted it,” Elrond said after a little while, his voice steady again. “From a seed she brought from Lothlórien.” 

“The one in the Shire still thrives,” said Maglor. They had stopped by Bag End on their last journey west to leave little gifts underneath it for the Gardner family. Celeborn had laid his hands on the smooth silver bark and sung a quiet song of growth and resilience, though the tree hadn’t really needed it. The soil of the Shire was rich, and its roots ran deep and strong. “As does the White Tree.”

“I am glad,” Elrond said in a low voice. He ran his fingers over a few small forget-me-nots. “I am glad that Celebrimbor returned to us before Frodo left. They spoke a great deal and I think it helped them both.” He took a breath and said, more lightly, “And now Gimli too is come. No one was expecting that—except perhaps Gandalf, but you can never quite tell with him.”

Maglor laughed. “They made it then, he and Legolas? I’m glad, though I told them it was a mad idea.”

“Gimli was welcomed with great honor, when we all got over the shock, and they are currently guests of Aulë.” Elrond rose to his feet, and Maglor followed him out of the garden. “It is always quiet there,” Elrond said as the gate swung shut behind them. 

“Thank you for showing it to me,” said Maglor. 

“There will be something placed there for—for Aragorn and Arwen, sometime soon. I do not yet know what it will be.”

“There is no hurry,” Maglor said.

“I know.” 

Huan reappeared, muzzle and feet wet from whatever stream he had been splashing around in. Maglor ran his hand over Huan’s head, scratching behind his ears the way he did for Pídhres. “What else have you got to show me?” he asked Elrond. 

Elrond smiled. “The courtyard by the library, to start,” he said. “It was Bilbo’s favorite spot to read—and where he drank many cups of tea with Finrod.”

“Of course he did,” Maglor laughed, as he followed Elrond down another path lined with white and grey stones. “Terrible gossips, the both of them. It surprises me not at all that they were friends.”

As Maglor and the twins and Lord Celeborn settled in, preparations began in earnest for Midsummer celebrations, which would double as a welcoming celebration for all the newcomers. Fewer guests were expected than Maglor would have thought, but then he recalled the festivals held in Tirion and in Valmar and Alqualondë, and was relieved that Imloth Ningloron would be smaller. 

Huan continued to follow at Maglor’s heels as he went about the valley. It was the subject of many jokes and silly songs, and the source of much frustration for poor Pídhres, who as it turned out did not like to share. Maglor was her person, and Huan was an interloper and usurper. This provided even more material for Lindir’s songs, which were not only teasing but catching, so Maglor even caught Celebrían humming them as she tended to her orchards and her roses. He didn’t mind—the songs were very funny—though he would have preferred it if Pídhres could keep her claws sheathed when she sat on his shoulder. 

A few days before they expected anyone to arrive for Midsummer, Finrod appeared with Celebrimbor in tow, and several bottles of wine in hand. They found Maglor in the pottery workshop, where neither Huan nor Pídhres were permitted, at last digging his hands into a lump of clay and humming one of Lindir’s sillier songs about dogs and cats. He was alone that afternoon, and did not notice anyone coming up the path until Finrod’s shadow fell over his wheel. “Hello, Cousin,” Maglor said, looking up in surprise and letting the clay collapse beneath his hands as the wheel wound down to a stop. “What brings you here?”

“You do, of course,” said Finrod. He held up a bottle of wine. “We are going to get drunk, you and I and Celebrimbor.”

“We are?” Maglor leaned over to look past Finrod at Celebrimbor, who leaned on the door frame and shrugged. “Why?”

“Because Finrod says so,” said Celebrimbor. 

“So put that away and wash your hands,” said Finrod. “We’re going off into the woods so as not to disturb my niece and her husband.”

“You think no one else gets drunk in this valley?” Maglor asked even as he rose from his seat to obey. The clay went back with the rest, his plans of an afternoon shaping a vase dashed. 

“Not like we will,” said Finrod, following Maglor outside to a nearby stream. “There is one thing the three of us have in common, and I think I am going to burst if I do not talk about it soon with someone who understands.”

Maglor knelt to scrub the clay off his hands, and frowned into the water. “What do we have…” His hands stilled, and he watched the pale cloud of clay sloughed off of them float away downstream. “No,” he said. 

“Yes,” Finrod replied.

“No, Finrod.”

“Do you know who the last person who successfully said no to Finrod was?” Celebrimbor asked. Maglor glared at him. “Right, I don’t either.”

Maglor made himself rub the last bits of clay off his arms and stood to face his cousin. “I am not going to get drunk and talk about—about that,” he said. 

“Have you ever spoken of it?” Finrod asked. 

“That isn’t—”

“Because I haven’t,” Finrod went on, “except once to Nienna, while I was still dead. It helped, of course, but even she cannot truly understand. Come on—what is Huan doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Maglor said. Huan trotted around the corner of the workshop. “But he won’t leave me be.”

Finrod frowned at Huan, who sat down and scratched himself. “…Well, I suppose he won’t go telling tales. Come on. There’s a small glade up in the hills that is quite pleasant this time of year.”

As Finrod strode off, Celebrimbor looked at Maglor. “He won’t leave either of us alone until we go along with it, you know.”

“I can’t, Tyelpë.”

“That’s what the wine is for!” Finrod called over his shoulder. “Come on!” He was at his most imperious, missing only the Nauglamír and the crown of Nargothrond upon his head. He wore a circlet of jade instead, and strings of jade beads around his neck and rings of emerald upon his fingers—resplendent and princely, and clearly prepared to be insufferable. 

“I can’t believe I ever missed you,” Maglor said as he and Celebrimbor followed after. Finrod only laughed. Huan, of course, kept pace with them, coming up between Celebrimbor and Maglor so they could both rest their hands on his head or his back. Maglor was glad of his company in that moment, rather than merely resigned. 

“My father and uncles have left Grandmother Nerdanel’s house,” Celebrimbor said quietly. “They have gone on some journey out into the west, as you all used to when you were young.”

“Really?”

“Yes.” Celebrimbor took a breath. “Maedhros met with Fëanor. It was not planned and it…did not go well.”

Maglor halted, all kinds of horrible things coming into his mind. “Define not well, Tyelpë.”

“No one was hurt,” Celebrimbor said, “but Maedhros had words with him and then—well, I didn’t see him afterward, but I have not seen my other uncles so united in anything since returning here as they were in getting him somewhere far away.”

“Are you coming?” Finrod called from far ahead of them.

“Yes, we’re coming!” Celebrimbor called back. They started to walk again. “But—well. Fëanor is back. Grandmother has spoken to him. I don’t know how that went, but he did not come back to the house with her. I went back to Tirion then—and then Finrod came to drag me out here.”

Wherever Fëanor went, Maglor thought as they left the paths of the garden and struck out across the meadowland beyond, he was sure to end up at Imloth Ningloron sometime. Maglor’s return was no secret. He could think of a few reasons his father might want to come find him. None of them were good. Last and least of Fëanor’s sons, he had been called, and it was still too easy to imagine those words in Fëanor’s own voice, as he remembered the arc of the Silmaril as it soared through the air into the Sea. 

By the time they came to the glade that Finrod had spoken of, Maglor was a little more willing to take a large swig when the first bottle of wine was presented to him. He was not willing to talk, however. Not about Sauron, and certainly not about Fëanor. They sat beneath a large beech tree, and Huan lay with his head on Maglor’s lap. “I am still shocked to see him away from Celegorm’s side,” Finrod said, pointing at Huan with the bottle.

“It was Celegorm that sent him,” Celebrimbor said. He took the bottle and took a sip. “All right, Finrod, this was your idea. I do not want to talk about it any more than Maglor does.”

“I don’t want to talk about it, either,” said Finrod, “but if I do not I will burst, and at least I know neither of you will pity me for it.”

“We cannot be the only ones you can talk to,” Celebrimbor said. “You were not alone—”

“I led them into that place once,” Finrod said, uncharacteristically sharp—but sharp like broken glass, jagged and pained, rather than sharp like a blade. “I will not take them back in memory just for my own comfort.”

Maglor drew a knee up to his chest; the brand there hurt. “At least he did not know who you were,” he said before he could bite his tongue. 

“He knew enough, after I was foolish enough to challenge him.” Finrod took the bottle back. “Did you try? You would have done better than I.”

“He challenged me,” Maglor whispered. He buried his hand in Huan’s thick fur, and couldn’t make himself look up. “But I…even before that, I was diminished. I resisted him for a time but it was not enough. And later…I tried to sing the foundations down, but he…” His other hand went to his mouth. He made himself stop touching the scars and held out his hand. The bottle was pressed into it, but he barely tasted the wine when he drank. His mouth was full of the taste of blood, and his throat ached with the memory of Sauron’s iron grip. 

Celebrimbor took the bottle and drank. “We did proper battle, with armies and songs and everything we could muster,” he said as he passed it back to Finrod. “It was hopeless from the start. We just needed to give everyone else time to get away; I did not even know that Elrond was coming. No messages had gotten through the siege.” 

“He had his Ring then,” Maglor said quietly. 

“Yes. He did. And I gave him the rest.” Celebrimbor was staring at his hands, flexing his fingers. Maglor reached out to take one of them in his own. Celebrimbor had a smith’s grip, but his hand shook as he closed his fingers around Maglor’s. 

“Not the Three,” Maglor said. 

“They were not there to surrender.”

“But you never told them where they were,” Maglor said.

Celebrimbor looked at him. “How do you know that?” he asked. 

Oh. Maglor looked at the bottle that had somehow ended up in his grasp again. He did not take another drink. “What is in this wine?” he asked instead of answering Celebrimbor’s question. It was meant to be a joke, a distraction from what he’d just revealed, but his voice shook too badly for it.

“Grapes,” said Finrod. “And I think some spices, but Elenwë is horrible and cruel and won’t share the recipe. How do you know? I thought you had never come to Eregion.”

Tears stung his eyes, and Maglor shook his head. He did not want to talk about this. He closed his eyes but he just saw Celebrimbor in torment. 

“Did he show you?” Celebrimbor whispered. “Uncle, did he show you what he—oh, oh.” He moved closer to put his hands on Maglor’s shoulders, pressing his forehead to Maglor’s temple. “That was pointlessly cruel,” he whispered.

“It was all pointless,” Maglor choked out. 

“It is over,” Celebrimbor said. “It is as you said on Eressëa. He is gone, and we are here.”

“Blessed be the race of the halflings, and may their Shire remain forever green and fair,” Finrod said, raising the bottle in a toast to the sky before taking another drink. “And more than that, Macalaurë. You survived.” 

“Do not mistake that for strength, Felagund,” said Maglor. “I kept my tongue and I kept my hands and my life but only because he wanted—he wanted—” He couldn’t say it, and had to cover his face with those unbroken hands, shuddering with the memory of cold stone against raw and bleeding flesh, the memory of a needle dragging coarse cord through skin, of the weight of earth above and around him, blocking out all air and light and slowly crushing everything that made him himself out of him. 

With his eyes closed he did not see Finrod move, but he heard him muttering at Huan until the hound moved, so Maglor was crushed between his nephew on one side and his cousin on the other, both of them whole and alive and always stronger than he had ever been. “My strength failed in the end,” Finrod said. His voice wavered at last, either from drink or grief. “He locked me in dungeons that he had delved beneath the beautiful tower that I had built, and one by one he slew my dearest friends, the only ones who would follow me out of Nargothrond—no, Celebrimbor, do not apologize! I would never have asked it of you!—and when he sent the last wolf I did not think I was buying Beren anything more than just a little more time. I had tangled him up in my own doom, I thought, and in trying to fulfill my oath I had instead led him into the hands of the Enemy.”

“But he lived,” Celebrimbor said softly. “And he lived because of you.”

“Eldarion wears your ring, the ring you gave to Barahir,” Maglor whispered. He leaned against Finrod, who shook with sudden sobs. They were all weeping by then, more than half drunk on both the horrors of the past and the wine. “This was a terrible idea, Felagund.”

“I’ve had many terrible ideas,” Finrod said when he had recovered enough to speak, voice thick still with tears, “challenging Sauron to a duel of song not least among them—but this is not one.”

“If we were meant to feel better for it,” Celebrimbor said as he opened the second wine bottle, “then it has been a failure.”

“The feeling better comes after,” Finrod said. He paused, then added, “Maybe after the hangover.”

“I was fine before you dragged us out here,” said Maglor. 

“You cannot even speak your brothers’ names,” Finrod said. “How is that fine?”

“That has nothing—nothing to do with—” 

“Doesn’t it?” Finrod asked. “What about the way you wear your hair loose so you can use it to hide at a moment’s notice, or the way you no longer perform, or even speak when in company?”

“None of that—” 

“And what about your mother?” Finrod asked.

“What about my mother?”

“You haven’t yet gone to see her. But she already knows what happened—”

“Finrod,” Celebrimbor said.

“I don’t want her to see it.” Maglor pressed his hands over his mouth again, and silently cursed the wine. He curled in on himself, hating this weakness, hating the scars, hating the way that Finrod could see him so clearly. Huan lay in front of him, head against his legs where he had them drawn up. His mother had all of his brothers back already and they were—perhaps they were not all well, but they were whole. She did not have to look at them and see the remnants of horror and pain. 

“She’s already seen it,” Finrod said quietly. “It was she who brought the palantíri out—just so she could look for you. What did Sauron do to make you stop believing that we all love you?”

Sauron did not do that, Maglor thought, but knew better than to say—even drunk. Sauron did not have to do that; I did that, long before I ever came to Mirkwood. It was one of those truths that lived deep in the shadowy places of his heart, that he could bury underneath sunshine and music and his cat and the company of Elrond and his family most of the time—even almost all of the time—and it was enough. It had to be enough.

“That is what he did,” Celebrimbor said, of the three of them the one that understood Sauron best, better than anyone ever should. “He sought out the most—the deepest and most tender parts of you and just—just hit them until they broke apart. He did not kill me so much as he unmade me, little by little.” His voice broke, and he stopped speaking for a moment. Then he said, unsteadily, “I’ve never said that aloud before.”

“That is why I brought the wine,” said Finrod.

“He knew how to do it because I had trusted him. He did not need to find your secrets immediately, Finrod, because you had companions—he could take them away instead, one by one, until there was nothing left for you but the darkness, and if you had not died he would have—” Celebrimbor shook his head. “He—he did it to himself when he made the Ring, and the Ring tried to do it to everyone who took it up. When he looked at you, really looked…”

“It was like a weight,” Maglor whispered. “Like a knife. Like—like a brand.” His hand went to his chest. 

“He put visions into my head, too,” Celebrimbor said. “I don’t remember them now, only that they were there once. I asked Námo to erase them—I begged for it, and he took pity on me in the end.”

“He did not bother with such things for us,” Finrod said. “The wolves in the dark were enough, and the cold iron, and the dripping stones, and the knowledge that I had brought them there.” He was shivering a little. Maglor wrapped his arm around Finrod’s middle, and Finrod leaned on his shoulder. “Maybe if he had learned the truth of me he would have done more. And, maybe, if I had chosen a different route north—”

“Don’t,” said Celebrimbor. “That way lies only madness, and you know it.”

They finished the second bottle of wine in silence. Maglor thought that he should tell them how Sauron had silenced him at the last moment before his rescue, but he couldn’t make himself form the words. He couldn’t speak, either, of the slow and painful return to music that had come even after he could speak again. Bad enough they’d both noticed everything else.

“Well, this was not fun at all,” Finrod said at last. The afternoon was wearing on. “It was cathartic, though. I can’t remember the last time I wept so hard. We should do it again sometime.”

“Absolutely not,” said Maglor. He felt hollowed out, though in a strange and clean sort of way—like he’d purged some lingering poison by speaking some of it aloud, though he’d never admit it to Finrod, who would only be smug about it, and then really insist that they do it again.

“I don’t think I have ever been this drunk,” Celebrimbor muttered as he staggered to his feet. “This is worse than that stuff Thranduil’s son brought.”

“Sing something for us, Maglor,” said Finrod. 

“You sing something,” Maglor said. He did not try to stand, and instead leaned forward to wrap his arms around Huan’s neck, pressing his face into the thick fur so that the trees would stop spinning. 

“I can’t think of any appropriate songs. You’re better at mournful laments—or do all the tales get it wrong?”

“Ugh, no laments,” said Celebrimbor. “Come on. I would like to return to the house before it gets dark and one of us breaks an ankle getting out of the woods.” He reached down to haul them up, one by one. Huan licked all their faces thoroughly, leaving them spluttering and protesting and then laughing, because if they didn’t laugh they would start weeping again, and none of them could bear more tears. 

Elrond met them in the garden just outside the house, and looked between them in astonishment and then alarm, for their faces were still red and splotchy, and Finrod’s eyes were swollen. “What in the world have you been doing?” he asked. “Why do I feel as though I should be scolding you like wayward children?”

“Finrod can explain,” said Maglor, “for it was his idea.”

“I merely followed my elders,” Celebrimbor said, swaying on his feet. 

“What’s your excuse?” Elrond asked Maglor. 

“Finrod is insufferable when he doesn’t get his way.”

“I beg your pardon,” Finrod protested, attempting to sound dignified but ruining the effect by falling into Maglor. “I am never insufferable.”

“You are often insufferable,” Maglor said. “And full of terrible ideas.” 

“You all three need to go sleep whatever this is off,” Elrond said. Maglor couldn’t quite tell if he was trying not to laugh at them or not. 

Outside of Maglor’s room, Celebrimbor halted and turned to him. “It was all lies in that place,” he said. “Nothing he told you was true. You know that, don’t you?”

Even a liar like Sauron could take the truth and use it to his purposes, Maglor thought. “I know,” he said out loud. Celebrimbor gave him a doubtful look. “Don’t mistake this afternoon for—for anything like normal. I meant what I said—I was fine before Finrod came with his awful ideas, and I will be fine when this wears off.” He reached out to brush a strand of hair from Celebrimbor’s face, and cupped his cheek for a moment. “I’m only here because you did not give up the Three,” he said quietly. “Your strength saved my life, Tyelpë.” 

A few tears escaped to slide down Celebrimbor’s face before he turned away to return to his own room. Huan all but shoved Maglor into his, toward the bed. “If you had wanted to be helpful you could have stolen Finrod’s wine before we drank it,” Maglor informed him, and received a deeply unimpressed look in return. With a sigh, he sank onto his bed and let himself fall face first into the pillows. 

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Elrond had sensed that Finrod had come there for a reason, but he had not expected that reason to be getting drunk enough to weep in the woods with Celebrimbor and Maglor. He fetched miruvor and water, and went to make sure they did not suffer too badly for their indulgence.

Celebrimbor was sprawled across his bed, already asleep; the pillow was damp beneath his face. Elrond left the cups where he could reach them, and went to Finrod next, finding him turning his circlet over in his fingers, gaze far away. “What is amiss?” Elrond asked as he set the cups before him. 

“Nothing,” Finrod said, eyes focusing at last as he looked up at Elrond. He smiled, but it did not reach his eyes. 

“Then why are you weeping?” 

“Am I?” Finrod touched his cheek and laughed softly to find the tears there. “So I am. Worry not, Elrond. They are cleansing tears. Did you know that Edrahil has returned?”

“I did not.”

“All of them are here now, at last,” Finrod said. He reached for the water and lifted it in a toast to Elrond. “Save Beren, but he is gone somewhere none can follow. He went singing sorrowless, or so the songs say. I hope it is true.”

“I have no reason to believe otherwise,” Elrond said. He took the circlet from Finrod’s drink-clumsy fingers and set it aside. “Go to sleep, Finrod.”

“Yes, yes, I know. Thank you for the miruvor; you are kindness itself.” Finrod waved him away, careless and airy in a false, brittle sort of way, and Elrond went. 

Maglor was not asleep, but his tears had dried, and he lay on his bed with Huan halfway on top of him. “I hate this dog,” he said into his pillow as Elrond entered the room. 

“Yes, I’m sure the dog is the problem,” Elrond said. “Huan, will you please let him sit up?” Huan obeyed, and Maglor rolled over. In spite of his words he wrapped an arm around Huan’s neck as he sat up. Elrond sat by him on the bed and handed him the miruvor. “I would like to laugh at you,” he said, “but this does not seem like Finrod wanting to begin celebrating Midsummer early.”

“No,” Maglor agreed. He sipped the miruvor and sighed. “I am not going to repeat what we spoke of,” he said. “Half of it should not have been spoken to begin with.”

“I won’t ask it of you,” said Elrond, “but I am worried.” Only that morning he had been laughing and throwing jokes back and forth with Lindir, as merry as Elrond had ever seen him. Now—the shadows behind his eyes weren’t quite back, but he had clearly been weeping, and was still deeply unhappy, eyes red and still damp, and a fragile sort of look to him that Elrond had not seen in a long time.

“I’m sorry,” Maglor said.

“Finrod should not have dragged you into whatever he is battling.”

“He might have had a point.” Maglor turned the empty cup in his hands. “Don’t tell him I said so. I wish he hadn’t chosen today, but…perhaps I will feel better for having said some of it aloud, however ill-advised.” 

Elrond had never pushed Maglor to speak of what had gone on in Dol Guldur. It would not have gone well and it wasn’t as though he couldn’t guess for himself. “I hope so,” he said. “You know that I will listen, if you wish to speak of it. You need not get drunk, either.”

Maglor huffed a quiet laugh. “I would not have said any of it if I’d not been drunk. Nor would Tyelpë or Felagund. That was the point. I told you that my cousin has terrible ideas.”

“If this doesn’t prevent a hangover, come to me in the morning,” Elrond said. He kissed Maglor’s temple, as he might have Elladan’s or Elrohir’s. “We are expecting guests and you do not want to meet them still feeling the effects of Finrod’s bad idea.”

“Thank you,” Maglor murmured. “I do not say it enough, Elrond. Thank you.”

“You do not have to say it at all.”

Maglor sighed and drank the water, and lay back across the bed. Huan did not climb on top of him again, but he rested his great head at his side. Maglor’s fingers tangled in the thick fur. “Will you play something?” Maglor asked. 

Elrond looked at the harp by the window. It was a beautiful thing, carved of interlocked pieces of driftwood that had been bleached and shaped in strange and lovely ways by the sun and saltwater. He rose from the bed and went to it, running his hands over the smooth frame and plucking a string to hear the high clear note shiver through the room. “It is very different from your other harp.” Not in shape or even in general sound, but one would never mistake a harp Maglor had made for one made by any other hands.

“Halbarad is making good use of that one. Gilraen’s son. Arwen’s daughter Gilraen, I mean.”

“I know who you meant,” Elrond said, smiling a little in spite of himself. He’d never actually seen Maglor drunk before—even on feast days in Imladris he’d never over-indulged. 

“There will be little Elronds running around before long, I imagine,” Maglor murmured. 

The thought had never crossed his mind before that his daughter’s children might name their children for him, the way the line of Elros had often used other names out of history, or of their ancestors. It had never occurred to Elrond that he was another such figure, or at least he’d never thought of it in quite the same way. “Good heavens,” Elrond said as he sat down at the harp, just to hear Maglor laugh at him. “What do you want me to play?”

“Anything,” Maglor said, plaintive and quiet again. “Anything you like. I have missed your playing.”

Elrond put his fingers to the strings and began to play a song that had always soothed Frodo when his memories grew too heavy. It was not an elvish song, but one of the Shire—the tune was, as Bilbo had once said, as old as the hills, and many different words had been set to it through the years and generations. Elrond sung none of them now, only played the quiet melody that was as gentle as the Shire itself, all rolling hills and green fields, tilled earth and little rivers, quiet woods and children’s laughter. He watched Maglor shake for a little while with silent tears, and put forth a little of his power into the music, in the exact way that Maglor had once taught him, and slowly the tears ceased and Maglor’s breathing evened out and deepened into sleep. Elrond kept playing, and turned his thoughts to Irmo, the Lord of Dreams, with a quiet plea on Maglor’s behalf—and on Celebrimbor’s, and Finrod’s—for peaceful dreaming. Let the past remain where it belonged. Let the darkness recede in this land that promised light and rest, to trouble them no more. 

He played the song twice more before he let go of the strings and let the last notes fade away. Huan watched him as he got up, and Elrond paused to stroke his large head for a moment before slipping out of the room. 

Celebrían was out in the orchard singing to the peach trees as the shadows started to lengthen. Elrond sat down underneath one to wait for her to be done, and when she joined him he leaned into her arms, unable to hold back a sigh. “What’s wrong, my love?” she asked. 

“Your uncle got himself, Celebrimbor, and Maglor drunk.”

“Oh dear. Not a happy drunk, I must assume.”

“No. Not at all.”

“Mm.” Celebrían ran her hands over his hair. “He and I got drunk like that once. It was…well, it was miserable, but I did feel better afterward—after I got my voice back, having screamed myself hoarse—though I’ve never accepted more than a single glass from a bottle he has brought me since. I don’t know how he manages to find the strongest spirits in Aman every time.”

Elrond had been drunk exactly once, just after the War of Wrath was over and someone had managed to distill something into something else. It hadn’t been wine or brandy or anything that tasted at all good. It had not been a pleasant experience; he had hated the dizziness and feeling like he couldn’t quite control his own limbs. “I will have to remember never to find myself alone with your uncle and a bottle,” he said. 

“I’m fairly certain no one in Aman believes you are capable of getting drunk, Elrond,” Celebrían said with such deep fondness that he had to laugh. “Even I have never seen it.”

“Oropher has,” said Elrond. He had been the one to bring the two of them the alcohol in the first place. “And plenty of others—we were celebrating. It only ever happened once.”

“Not a happy drunk?”

“It wasn’t unhappy, but I didn’t like it much. And the next morning was awful.” Oropher had laughed at them and insisted they drink some other vile concoction that he had claimed would cure the hangover. It hadn’t. Celebrían laughed again. Elrond smiled into her shoulder, feeling that same quiet thrill that he had every time he was the cause of it. It was the same now as it had been the very first time he had said something she found funny—it was stronger now, in fact, because now he knew what it was like to try to make her laugh and to fail. He took her hand, their fingers sliding together as they had always been meant to. “Celebrimbor also brought a bit of news today.”

“Oh?”

“Fëanor came to Nerdanel’s house.”

“Did it go well, or has he come to warn us?”

“He did not say that it went well,” said Elrond. “He didn’t have a chance to say much of anything, really, before Finrod dragged him off.”

“A warning, then,” Celebrían decided. “I suppose we must prepare ourselves to find him on our doorstep next. I hope he waits until after Midsummer; I have been so looking forward to that.”

“Mm.” Elrond sat up. “It’s only a few days away now. I think our chances of getting through it without mishap are good.”

“Oh, and now you’ve gone and said it aloud, so something will happen!” Celebrían laughed and smacked his arm. “The kitchen will catch fire or someone will get drunk and fall in one of the fishponds and nearly drown, or Fëanor will arrive right in the middle of it all and cause a terrible disturbance…”

“Maybe Fëanor will get drunk and fall into a fishpond,” Elrond suggested, and both of them dissolved into laughter at the thought. It was Celebrían who recovered first and got back to her feet. 

“Come on,” she said, pulling Elrond up after her. “Help me start picking these peaches.” 

When they returned with a full basket for the bakers and the dozens of pies they have planned for the feasting, they found that Glorfindel had arrived, with Ecthelion in tow—and another guest that Elrond had not expected. The three of them were laughing about something with the twins, and as Celebrían and Elrond approached Ecthelion and the unexpected guest turned to bow. “Welcome,” Celebrían said, holding out her hands. “Elemmírë, I did not expect to see you here! Are you not wanted in Valmar?”

Elemmírë laughed. Her voice was bright and light as morning birdsong and the chiming of golden bells. Her hair gleamed in the afternoon sunshine like liquid gold, a deeper color than Galadriel’s, and it was wound through with aquamarine, which winked in her ears and on her fingers as well. “I certainly am, but I thought this year I would see what goes on elsewhere at Midsummer.” Her smile turned a little crooked. “And I have been told an old student of mine has come home at last.”

“We heard also that Daeron of Doriath had come west,” Glorfindel added.

“True on both counts,” said Celebrían, “but Daeron will be very much wanted at Thingol and Melian’s court this Midsummer if I am not mistaken.”

“Someday,” said Ecthelion, “I hope we are fortunate enough to hear all three of you sing together.” 

Elemmírë smiled. “I too would like that,” she said. “I have heard much of Daeron of Doriath, and heard many of his songs—and I am very eager to meet him. Perhaps I shall go to the Sindar after I leave here, if I am not called home again. But where is Macalaurë?”

“My uncle is also here,” Celebrían said breezily, “and he and Maglor and Celebrimbor have indulged in some early celebrations, and Elrond has sent them to bed to sleep it off. If they do not emerge sometime this evening, you’ll see all three of them tomorrow at breakfast I am sure.” Elrond saw Glorfindel’s brow furrow, but he said nothing after Elrond caught his eye and gave a small shake of his head. 

Ecthelion was called away then by old friends come to greet him, and Celebrían and the twins took Elemmírë away to show them to their rooms and exchange gossip out of Avallónë and Valmar; Glorfindel lingered with Elrond. “It is not like Maglor to indulge in that way,” he said. “Not unless a great deal has changed since we last parted.”

“It was not his idea,” Elrond said, “nor was it quite as celebratory as Celebrían said. I can only hope it was cathartic in some way. Finrod seems to think so, anyway.”

“I see. How is he really—Maglor, I mean?”

“Finrod’s dubious decisions aside, he is well, if troubled by the news of his father.”

“His father?”

“Is that news not spread so far yet?”

“Not to Turgon’s realm, certainly,” said Glorfindel. It was not Gondolin rebuilt, Turgon’s city to the west of Tirion, but only in appearance. Gondolin in Middle-earth had been an echo of Tirion, and there was no need for that here. This new city that did not yet have a name—or rather, it had so many names that a common consensus had not yet been reached—but it had called nearly all who had lived in the Hidden City to it, including Glorfindel. “Should I be worried?”

“I am not worried,” said Elrond, “but as Maglor is fond of reminding me, I have never met Fëanor. I will not say that I do not think he will cause trouble, but I do not think it will be…the same sort of trouble, at least.”

“Yes, he would find new and interesting kinds of trouble,” Glorfindel said. “What will you do if he comes here?”

Elrond shrugged. “I suppose that depends on what he does, and when he comes.” 

“That is the trouble with your valley no longer being a hidden one,” Glorfindel said, and Elrond had to grin. “Anybody can come to your doorstep at any time. I am glad to hear that Maglor is well, though—and to see your sons again. What news from Gondor?” 

The rest of the afternoon and evening was taken up in Midsummer preparations and merriment. Finrod emerged around supper time, looking only a little worse for the wear. He greeted Elemmírë brightly, and Elrond thought that he, having seen it earlier, was the only one who could tell that the brittleness had not quite left him. Finrod met his gaze and flashed a bright smile that rang only a little false. Elrond smiled back, deciding that Finrod could look after himself. 

Elrond had not expected to see Maglor until the morning, but he and Huan came wandering outside when the stars were out. His eyes were clear and he looked a little tired, but the shadows had receded, and Elrond did not think he hid his relief well at the sight. “Was I really that bad, earlier?” Maglor asked, stopping to put an arm around him. 

“Bad enough to be worrisome. Come; we are out by the pond and Elemmírë is about to sing for us.”

“Elemmírë is here?” Most visitors had been a cause for at least mild alarm thus far, but Maglor brightened at the name of his old teacher. “You did not tell me that she was coming!”

“I did not know until she arrived,” Elrond said.

They made their way out to the gazebo on the water; the stars were out and sparkling on the pond’s surface, and laughter and music echoed across it from their small party and others scattered across the valley. Since Elladan and Elrohir had come, the weight and haze of grief had begun to lift, and the songs were merry again. 

“Macalaurë!” Elemmírë rose as they crossed the walkway over the water, and she stepped out to embrace him. “You’ve returned to us at last! I was beginning to fear you would never come home.” 

Maglor replied, but it was too low for Elrond to hear as he went to take his place by Celebrían. Maglor’s smile only faltered a little, though, when he caught sight of Ecthelion, sitting by Finrod, and he recovered upon receiving Glorfindel's rib-crushing embrace. “Come sit by me,” Elemmírë said when Glorfindel released him, “and let us sing together.” 

“Of course,” said Maglor, settling on the floor by Elemmírë’s legs as she returned to her place on the bench, bracketing himself between her and Galadriel, who rested a hand upon his shoulder for a moment. “I would have brought out my harp if I had known there was to be singing.”

“No matter,” said Elemmírë. “Our voices are enough.” She began to sing, her voice rich and full, a song of the splendor of the stars and of Varda Elentári. A beat after she began Maglor joined her. 

Maglor had said more than once that his voice and skill were not what they had once been, but listening to him then, harmonizing with Elemmírë as the stars shone down upon them, Elrond did not think that was true. It was not precisely what he remembered from his own childhood, for no one could wander so long by the Sea, learning its moods and its songs, and not be changed. It had been changed too by pain and grief and fear, but not diminished. There was yet power in it, steady and rolling as the tides. Elemmírë’s power was of a different kind, shaped by different things, but Elrond could hear the kinship, could hear the ways that she had helped to shape Maglor into the singer that he was—and even the ways in which her teachings had been passed from Maglor to Elrond himself. 

Elsewhere other singers fell silent as Elemmírë and Maglor’s voices soared up toward the sky. Elemmírë led the way, from verse to verse to song to song, and Maglor followed unerringly; they were songs from the Years of the Trees and even before, some in a tongue older than the split between Quenya and Sindarin. It was not often, even there in Valinor, that Elrond felt young. He did that night—and it was not overwhelming as it had been at other times; instead it was a thrill, to hear the music of the ancients sung by those who had been there, or whose parents had been there, and sung with such skill that it took one’s breath away. 

Eventually their performance wound down, and silence descended over them all. As Elrond remembered how to breathe, Elemmírë looked around and laughed. “Now I wish to be the audience! Someone sing something of Middle-earth for me.” 

Maglor hummed a few notes, and looked to Elrohir, who raised his flute to his lips and began to play. It was a simple tune; the original song had not had accompaniment. Maglor sang softly and in simple Westron, and from the way he glanced across the gazebo, Elrond thought the song was not as much for Elemmírë as it was for Finrod—a quiet song of defiance in the dark. 

Above all shadows rides the Sun,
And stars for ever dwell:
I will not say the day is done,
Nor bid the stars farewell. 

Galadriel lifted her voice as that song faded, singing of Lothlórien far away, and Celeborn joined with her, singing of golden mellyrn and the rushing Silverlode shimmering in the starlight. Then Elladan and Elrohir sang a song of Rohan in that tongue, of the rolling fields and the horses and the shining spears of the Riders. And on they went, everyone taking a turn, even Finrod, who had been very quiet until then. 

It was dawn before they dispersed. Elrond lingered with Celebrían and Maglor, who had Huan half on top of him again. This time it was because Huan had fallen asleep, and with a hound such as Huan one had no choice but to let the sleeping dog lie. Finrod also hung back, lying down on the empty bench with one knee bent, his hair spilling over the edge in a half-braided tangle. “Uncle,” Celebrían said, “are you going to tell us what’s the matter, or must I have my mother drag it out of you?”

Finrod waved a hand. “Don’t trouble Galadriel,” he said. 

“I am not the only one with ghosts,” Maglor said quietly. “Or at least, one particular ghost.”

And Edrahil had recently returned from Mandos. Elrond was glad no one had thought to sing any part of the Lay of Leithian that night. “Did it help?” he asked, glancing between them. “Getting inadvisably drunk in the middle of the day?”

“Yes,” said Finrod. 

Maglor shrugged. “I don’t know. But I am not doing it again.”

“If you say so.”

“Regardless, it isn’t the sort of thing to make a habit of,” said Celebrían. “Or at least not a frequent habit, however good Elenwë’s wine is. Uncle, are you returning to Tirion or will you join us here for Midsummer?”

“Ugh, do not make me go back to Tirion! My father and uncle won’t stop dithering about whether to tell anyone about Fëanor’s return, or who to tell if they do decide to share the news. And anyway, when he does turn up I do not want to be there.”

Maglor rolled his eyes. “And so you came here, to one of the only other places in all of Aman he is likely to come?”

“Why would he—oh.”

“Yes, oh.”

“Well, if he does come here at least we can all hide behind Glorfindel.”

“Speak for yourself,” said Celebrían primly. “He is only Fëanor, not a balrog.”

“Never mind,” Finrod said to Maglor, “we shall hide behind my niece. I should like to see that confrontation, though from a safe distance.”

“I don’t have confrontations,” Celebrían said. “Honestly, Uncle. Are you still drunk?”

Finrod laughed. “No, my dear niece. I promise I am as clear-headed as can be.”

“Hm.” Celebrían rose, shaking out her skirts. “Well, I am to spend the morning preparing pastry dough for baking this afternoon. Please hold off on further indulgences until Midsummer, when the actual feasting and celebrations are going on!”

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Midsummer in Imladris had always been a merry affair, even when the valley’s inhabitants were dwindling, trickling away west. It promised to be even merrier in Imloth Ningloron. Gandalf arrived the evening before with a cart full of his famous fireworks. The twins burst out into the courtyard to greet him and help unload. Maglor trailed after them, Huan at his heels and Pídhres on his shoulders.

Gandalf took one look and laughed. “Soon we shall not be able to find you at all underneath the host of animals that follow you!”

“I hope not,” said Maglor, holding out his hands. Gandalf grasped them warmly. “It is good to see you, Gandalf.”

“And you, Maglor. You look very well! What is this little one’s name, then?”

“Pídhres,” said Maglor, as Gandalf gave her a scratch behind the ears. “She will climb up anything, but never back down.” Gandalf laughed. He was not much changed from when Maglor had seen him last after the War of the Ring—he had been freed of his labors and cares, and constant joy bubbled under the surface of him just waiting to be released, and Maglor was glad to see that that had not changed. He had even kept his hat, broad-rimmed and summer-sky-blue. 

“And Huan?” Gandalf asked, turning to bow before giving him some scratches of his own. “I am quite surprised to see you here, my good hound. Should you not be making sure another son of Fëanor is staying out of trouble?”

“I cannot answer for Huan,” said Maglor, thinking briefly of the letters he still had not opened. Neither one of them were from Celegorm—but perhaps Huan was Celegorm’s letter. At least he hadn’t really tried to drag Maglor off somewhere. He was just there, a large and steady presence. 

Maglor did not think that he felt better for having gotten drunk and said some foolish things to Finrod and Celebrimbor, but he did not feel worse. The shadows had receded, and his dreams remained untroubled. Celebrimbor had been quiet but his eyes were clear. Finrod did seem better, less fragile than he had been before, though it had been so well hidden that Maglor hadn’t noticed until it had gone away. He still didn’t know why Finrod had been so troubled all of a sudden, what had brought back those particular dark memories, but it didn’t seem right to ask now that they had been banished.

Gandalf was full of news and gossip, none of which meant anything to Elladan and Elrohir and only a little of which Maglor could follow. As he and Elladan retrieved the last of the fireworks from the cart another visitor arrived, a lone horsewoman with dark hair and dark eyes and fingers more or less permanently stained with ink. “Macalaurë!” she exclaimed, swinging down from the saddle. 

He straightened, startled. “Rundamírë,” he said. It was absurd to be surprised, he realized as she came forward to embrace him. Of course she would make her way here for Midsummer, with Curufin off with the rest of his brothers and Celebrimbor here. Maglor had always liked her, his brother’s wife. She took their loud and boisterous family in stride, and had a similar level-headed sense to Nerdanel, and Curufin had been so obviously deeply in love, even before he'd gifted her the epessë Arimeldë, that it had been hard not to love her too just for that. 

It was impossible not to love her all over again for the way she did not so much as glance at the scars on his face, and the way she was so obviously glad to see him, beyond all reason. Everyone was glad to see him, so far, and he still did not quite understand it. “It is good to see you, at last!” she said, stepping back to smile up at him. “I hope you’ll come visit us in Tirion sometime soon.”

“Perhaps,” said Maglor, and turned to wave the twins over; Rundamírë had met Gandalf before, of course, but Maglor introduced the twins, and Elrohir volunteered to take her in search of Celebrimbor. Gandalf waved Elladan and Maglor away, insisting that he take care of the rest of his fireworks himself, for he had a certain order to setting them up and storing them that made no sense to anyone but himself, and he neither cared to explain nor trusted anyone else to get it right. 

Elladan was watching Maglor as they made their own way back toward the house. “You’re making me itch,” Maglor told him. “What’s the matter?”

“I just want to be sure you’re all right,” said Elladan.

“Of course I am. Are you?” Maglor stopped to look at him. He wasn’t truly worried; Elrond and Celebrían—and indeed, the whole of their household—would have been keeping a close eye on both of Elrond’s sons. But sometimes it was nice to turn concern back on the other party.

“Yes, of course,” said Elladan. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Because it was far too soon for this place to be home, no matter how homely it was, and in spite of the merriment of Midsummer and the excitement of new places and new faces, Arwen’s absence remained so palpable that it was a presence unto itself. Maglor did not say any of that out loud, instead tousling Elladan’s hair and disordering his braids, enjoying the squawk of protest before they walked on back into the house. 

Midsummer itself dawned with clouds and a brief shower of rain. Maglor woke to the sound of it on the window, and when he sat up he saw robes draped over a chair across the room that he did not recognize. He untangled himself from his cat and Huan, and went over to look at them. His breath caught when he held them up, for they were… 

They were a prince’s robes, something he would have worn on such a holiday long ago in Tirion, young and bright and shining, with gems in his hair and rings on his fingers and in his ears. They were also not like anything he would have worn then. There was something of the Sea in these robes, in the way the fabric moved and in the soft noise it made when it did, and in the colors of it, all greens and greys and blues. Tiny pearls were sewn into the collar, and the sleeves bore delicate and intricate embroidery—waves and sea foam and gently swirling seashells. 

It was his grandmother’s work, clearly. Maglor laid the robes back down and ran his fingers over the stitches. He rarely wore finery anymore—had only started to take particular care in his appearance after the War of the Ring was done and he found himself spending time in Aragorn and Arwen’s court. But he had never worn anything like this. Only Finwë had ever had robes like this, made by Míriel, that he wore on high days and for solemn ceremonies. They had been far too precious for everyday wear. 

He did not put them on yet, going instead to the window, pushing it open and leaning out to feel the rain on his face. It was cool in the warm air, and he could see blue skies coming up behind the rainclouds. The breeze picked up as the rain faded away, and when the clouds broke the whole valley sparkled in the bright Midsummer sun. Someone below burst into song, and Maglor joined his voice to theirs, singing praises to the raindrops and the flowers and to Arien above them on this longest day of the year. When the song was done Maglor withdrew inside, and found Huan looking at him reproachfully, as he usually did in the mornings. He sat by Maglor’s writing desk, where the letters had been tucked into a drawer. “Absolutely not,” Maglor told him. “Not today.” Huan whined. That was new. Maglor picked up his comb to tease out the tangles of sleep and the dampness of the rain. He heard a drawer opening, and turned to see the one holding the letters now ajar, and Huan looking very reproachful. “It’s a holiday,” Maglor informed him. Huan just woofed. “Ugh. Fine.” 

He set the comb down and went to take the letters out. One from Caranthir, one from Curufin. Curufin had sent something with his, and Maglor gave into curiosity and opened that one first. A pair of earrings fell out onto his palm, small hoops of silver set with minuscule sapphires that glittered as he tilted his hand to look at them. They were delicate and simple, matched perfectly with his new robes, and were exactly the kind of earrings Maglor would have chosen for himself—but not what he would have asked Curufin to make long ago when his brother had made jewelry instead of swords, when Maglor had cared more about such things. His throat went tight, and he set them, very carefully, on the desk, and then sat down on the floor to lean against Huan as he unfolded the letter. 

Maglor,

I don’t really blame you for not wanting to see any of us. By the time I died I had lost myself almost entirely and—well, you remember what was left. I have been trying to build myself into something new, something better. Mostly by making things. Pretty things, mostly. Nothing complicated. It is easier when I am not striving for something great or something beautiful, something that might compare to—

Do you remember the combs that I made you, after I spilled that glue in your hair and you had to cut it all off? You didn’t speak to me for two months afterward, and they were the worst two months of my life before the Darkening. I found them, and a box of the beads you used to weave into your braids. I would send them with this letter but they are back in Tirion and I am still at Amil’s house. 

I hope you’ll accept these earrings instead. They are not what you once wore but it felt right to choose them for you. 

Curufin 

Maglor lowered the letter and breathed out. The worst two months of his life? Surely that was exaggeration. He set the letter on the desk above his head and turned to bury his face in Huan’s fur. He remembered very well having to cut all his hair off because Curufin had spilled some kind of experimental glue all over it. He never had learned what it had been for, and he had been furious, though it seemed ridiculous now. It was only hair. When next he had had his hair cut short, it had been to rid it of the years of matted filth from the dungeons of Dol Guldur. It had been strange and uncomfortable and it had grown back far more slowly. 

When he felt he could breathe again, he opened Caranthir’s. 

Cáno,

No one else is going to ask you to come home because they are trying to give you time or because they are afraid you’ll say no, but if it were me in your place, even if I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to see anyone or not, it would hurt not to be asked. I would stay away too if I thought that I was not wanted. But you are wanted. We are all here, because Ammë wanted us here, but no one is really speaking to each other and everything feels wrong and off balance. I’m sure Tyelpë and Finrod will have told you how badly Maedhros misses you, because it’s true, but the rest of us miss you too.

I miss you. Please come home. 

Moryo

Maglor set that letter on top of the other one and pulled his knees to his chest so he could bury his face in his arms. Huan lay down next to him, pressing against his side. His eyes burned, but the tears didn’t fall. Maglor allowed himself a few minutes to just sit and not think about anything at all, and then pulled himself up. He folded the letters and tucked them into the drawer again. “Satisfied?” he asked Huan, who woofed softly, which didn’t answer the question at all.

He finished combing his hair and braided it more elaborately and with more care than normal, winding silver ribbons through, pale enough that the white in his hair could be mistaken for them. He had not planned on wearing any jewelry, but the earrings sat on his desk and glittered as he pulled on the robes his grandmother had made, and it felt strange to wear such fine clothes and no jewels at all. There was a box of rings and armbands and necklaces, and another with a few circlets that he had been gifted over the years by friends in Imladris, by Elrond and his sons, by Arwen and Aragorn. He wore few of them and only seldom—really, only when he visited Minas Tirith or Annúminas—but now he opened them up and chose a few rings, and a circlet. Then he picked up the earrings and slid them into place. 

Ready at last, he turned to the mirror. He looked…not like Macalaurë of Tirion, exactly, but closer than he had looked in many centuries. Maglor stared at himself, and then looked at Huan. “I do not feel nearly as splendid as I look,” he said. Huan yawned. “All right, come on.” Maglor scooped Pídhres up off the bed and went downstairs. 

The whole household and all the guests were turned out in their own finery. Elrond was resplendent and Celebrían radiant. “These are new,” said Elrohir, appearing at Maglor’s side as he poured himself tea, reaching up to touch the earrings. “They’re lovely.”

“They were a gift,” Maglor said. Elrohir tilted his head, eyes bright with curiosity, though he didn’t push. He had half a dozen small golden hoops glinting up the curve of his own ears, bright gold against the dark fall of his hair, which was entirely loose and held back from his face by the golden circlet he wore. “Where is Elladan?”

“Outside already. Come on!” Elrohir looped his arm through Maglor’s and drew him outside to the wide flowery field where picnic tables and blankets had been scattered about, and tents raised against the heat of the summer sun, though it was still early enough to be pleasantly warm instead. There was music everywhere, and footraces and other games, but most were sprawled out on the picnic blankets or sitting at the tables. Maglor sat between the twins on their blanket and let himself get swept up in the merriment. 

And it was merry. The whole day was games and singing and music, of more laughter than speech, and rich food and flowing wine and all the joy that summertime brought. Maglor played music more than he danced, and he sang with Elrond and with Elemmírë. Maglor did not think about his brothers at all. 

The sun set in a glory of fire in the west, with clouds billowing up to shine red and orange, haloed with light like molten gold. “That is my favorite thing about Anar,” Elemmírë said to Maglor as they watched it, sitting among irises and violets. “Sunrises and sunsets. We did not have these with the Trees.” Maglor hummed agreement. He became aware of her gaze on him; Elemmírë missed very little, but she had not asked about the scars. Not even the ones on his wrists, bared for the world to see when he shook back his sleeves to play the harp. “Your voice is changed,” Elemmírë said. 

“Yes,” Maglor said. “I am…not what I was.”

“When you say it, you mean that you have diminished,” Elemmírë said. “But that is not so. It is as strong as it ever was.” 

Maglor turned to her, startled. “No it isn’t,” he said before thinking better of it. It was not the kind of argument he could have with Elemmírë, of all people, and hope to win. 

She looked at him gravely. “It is stronger in the way a bone is stronger after it has healed from a break,” she said. “I do not ask what happened to you, Macalaurë; I can see and hear enough to know it was grievous.” She placed her hand over his. “But you survived, and you are here, and I am very glad.”

“I forgot,” Maglor said softly. “The first lessons you taught me—the most important ones. I forgot them in the dark.” In the dark of his own self, in Beleriand, when the Oath and the blood and the grief had drowned everything else. And then after, in the dark of Dol Guldur where there was nothing but cold stone and the heavy weight of the Eye upon him.

“But you relearned them after,” Elemmírë said. 

“Maybe. I think I would like to learn them again from you,” Maglor said. “And whatever else you would teach me now.”

“You can come to me whenever you like, Macalaurë. My door is always open.”

“Thank you.” Maglor hadn’t even known that he had feared this particular rejection until it did not come to pass; it felt as astonishing as seeing Uinen smile at him from just beneath the water’s surface as they sped toward Eldamar rising up in the distance. 

Her smile brightened a little and she added, “I hope you will bring Daeron with you when you visit. I have heard much praise of him and I am eager to meet him.”

“The tales are all true when they speak of his skill,” said Maglor, grinning. “He would like to meet you too.”

“Do you know him well? I had heard you sailed together, but one voyage does not necessarily a friendship build.”

“We had met before,” Maglor said, thinking of the sunlight on the Pools of Ivrin, the sweet honey mead of the Northern Sindar, and the first proper wines that the Noldor had made in Beleriand, and the easy laughter and hours of music shared both in front of and away from audiences. “I think you will like him. He was a student of Queen Melian of Doriath.”

“A mighty teacher indeed,” said Elemmírë. “I look forward to meeting him, and to all three of us singing together.” She took up her violin and began to play, sliding the bow across the strings with liquid smoothness, teasing out a gentle melody for the coming of the evening. Maglor put his fingers to his harp strings, and they played together until Gil-Estel was shining in the west and night had come, and Gandalf set off the first of his fireworks to burst in the air above them, hanging red and green against the sky. Somewhere nearby Elladan and Elrohir burst into song—one that Bilbo had written based upon a verse that Sam had once made, turning grief into joy afterward, of the finest rockets ever seen, and stars bursting in all colors of the rainbow, sending a rain of sparks down onto the water. Lindir joined them with his flute as Gandalf sent another firework soaring into the sky with a whine to erupt in a bright flash of fire and crackling white sparks that burst in all directions like shooting stars. 

After the fireworks there was more singing, and bonfires with more dancing, wild and ancient beneath the stars, to drumbeats and chanting, heads thrown back, arms flung out wide. The night was a short one, as the day had been long, but it was moonless, starlit and beautiful; the ponds and the streams sparkled with it, and as the wildness faded away the songs grew older still, songs of starlight upon other older waters, songs of a home left willingly but still missed even by those who had never seen it. 

By the time Maglor got back to his own room it was nearing dawn, and he was tired but not enough to sleep, feeling loose and warm with good drink and good food, but not drunk. Pídhres was already on the bed, curled up asleep on a pillow, and Huan followed Maglor in; for the first time that day he’d left Maglor mostly alone, instead leaping about and cavorting with the dancers, jumping into ponds, and acting more like a dog than whatever it was he was doing with Maglor. Guarding him? Chaperoning him? Waiting for a chance to drag him off to wherever Celegorm was? 

“I wish you would talk,” Maglor told him as he carefully slipped out of his robes. The garment was not a fragile thing but it was precious, this first gift from his grandmother that he had ever received. He hung it up with equal care, and then sat down to take his jewelry off. It was a strange and jarringly familiar ritual, in the same way that Tirion had been strange and familiar, in the way that the whole land of Valinor was, changed and unchanged at the same time. “I wish you would tell me why Celegorm sent you.” Huan woofed and butted his head into Maglor’s shoulder, not quite hard enough to knock him out of the chair. “I don’t need you to keep an eye on me, you know. I have not needed that in a very long time.” Huan butted his head against him again and this time he did knock Maglor out of the chair. “Huan!” One of his new earrings went rolling over the floor, and Maglor had a moment of absurd panic that it would be lost, before he got his wits back and snatched it up. 

He put the earrings into the box with the rings and other bits of jewelry, and loosened his hair from its braids, tossing the ribbons by the jewelry box to put away properly later. Then he turned to the desk, and took out the letters again.

You didn’t speak to me for two months afterward, and they were the worst two months of my life before the Darkening.

I miss you. Please come home.

Maglor looked at Huan, who looked back at him with dark, solemn eyes. “You left once,” Maglor said. “Why did you go back, I wonder?”

Of course Huan did not answer. 

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The first journey that Maedhros could remember had been taken with his parents. It was before Maglor had been born—maybe even in the early day’s of Nerdanel’s pregnancy, for he had so few memories of the time before he was a brother—and he had been small enough to be carried against his father’s chest, strapped up snugly and securely. It had not been a long journey, only a few days out into the woods where he could explore the thickets and splash in a stream and sleep curled up between his parents on a blanket spread over ferns and moss. He remembered waking up disoriented and afraid—there had been some noise in the underbrush, maybe—and his father had been there to gather him up and pepper kisses all over his face until he giggled, forgetting his fears. Fëanor had been warm, his hands calloused and rough from forge work, strong but always gentle with it, whispering Nelyo, my Nelyo, of course you are safe, I’m right here, in the soft silver-edged shadows under the trees until Maedhros had drifted back to sleep. 

Maedhros lay in his bed and stared at the plain white-washed ceiling, listening to his brothers prepare for departure outside. They had refused to let him do anything besides pack his own bags, united in this as they had not been since the last of them returned from Mandos. Just as well, since he couldn’t seem to get his mind to focus on anything useful—just memories, going around and around in circles, the good ones fading into the awful ones, all of them hazy like he was seeing them through smoke. 

A knock on the door heralded his mother. She sat down on the bed beside him and ran her fingers through his hair. Maedhros couldn’t stop a shuddering sigh from escaping as he closed his eyes, turning towards her. She smelled of fresh air and clay. “What did he say to you, Maitimo?” she asked softly. 

“Nothing,” Maedhros said. “I didn’t let him speak. It was—I needed him to—to see me.” 

“He saw you, my love,” Nerdanel said, “with clear eyes.”

“Did he?” Maedhros whispered. 

“He saw the fire of his own spirit burning in you,” Nerdanel said, “and saw and heard how it hurts you, and it grieves him, Maitimo. It truly does.”

“Did he come…”

“No. No, I will not have him under my roof when it will do nothing but hurt you. I sent him to my father—they know to expect him, and I think it might do him good to hear all that his old teacher has to say. He and I will speak again once you have gone.” Nerdanel kept stroking his hair, the way she had when he had been small, when the things that had troubled him had been foolishly simple—the dark under his bed or a quarrel with one of his brothers about something silly. “I think it will be good for you to get away from this place,” she said after a while. “You’ve shut yourself up here for long enough.”

“Ammë…” 

“What is it?”

“Did Mag—did Macalaurë send a message to you with Tyelpë?”

“He wrote to me. Do you want to see it?”

“No. I just…wondered how he is.”

“There’s nothing in it you should not see, nothing that he asked me to keep in confidence.” Nerdanel rose from the bed. “I’ll fetch it.” 

Maedhros sat up as she left the room, rubbing his hand over his face. He glanced out of the window, which looked toward the river. No one was there, but he felt uneasy still, knowing that Fëanor had not gone far. The ugly twisting in his stomach returned, but retreated when he got up to open the window, letting in the breeze and the sound of his brothers bickering over something. Maedhros leaned against the window and listened for a moment, but it sounded—well, if not good natured, then at least not dangerous. 

“Here it is, Maitimo.” Nerdanel returned with a letter. There was a smudge of ink near the top, as though he had put the pen there and hesitated for too long. The first few paragraphs, short, were cheerful as he described a little of his voyage west, and the cat that he had brought with him, and his rekindled friendship with Daeron of Doriath. 

Maedhros hadn’t known that Daeron had come west. He hadn’t thought of Daeron since—since the Mereth Aderthad, probably. He’d seen Maglor come worryingly close to losing his heart to the minstrel of Doriath, though Maglor had laughed it off, and seemed to forget all about Daeron himself once they returned to the east. Maybe that was just one more thing that Maedhros hadn’t seen, or had chosen not to see because it had been easier to let Maglor reassure him than to ask more questions.

Near the bottom there was another ink spot, and a few lines alluding to what befell me in Wilderland, and an entreaty to Nerdanel not to worry anymore. 

“Do you believe him?” Maedhros asked finally, handing the letter back, thinking again of his brother the performer, his brother who knew exactly what to say to put others at ease. Thinking of how that letter did not sound like the brother he had once known. Maglor’s letters had always been infrequent but long, rambling, with bits of verse and sometimes small drawings. In this one not even his cat had earned a couplet, let alone a tiny sketch. In this one even the bright tones of the beginning paragraphs sounded brittle and false. They were too short. When had Maglor lacked words for anything as song-worthy as his return voyage from Middle-earth? When had he had to think so hard of what to say that he left ink plots on the page? “Do you believe that he is well?”

“Both Telperinquar and Finrod have told me the same,” Nerdanel said. “They say that he laughs and sings and is a beloved member of Elrond’s household. Galadriel, too, has told me such news as Elrond’s sons wrote to her or to her daughter over the years, and all of it has been good. I’ve shared some of it with you.”

Galadriel, though, did not know Maglor. “But he does not want to come here,” Maedhros said. 

“Finrod also told me that he was not prepared to learn that all of you were returned to us,” Nerdanel said.

“Yes, I know.” Finrod also said that Maglor had not even wanted to speak of Maedhros, let alone see him.

“Give him time, Maitimo. Let him find his footing. You know how much these lands have changed since he last walked them. When he is settled he will come.” 

“Maedhros?” Celegorm appeared at the door. “We’re ready to go.”

“I’ll walk down with you,” said Nerdanel, taking Maedhros’ arm as they followed Celegorm. “Do not think about your brother,” she said to him quietly, “or your father. You used to love to wander and explore, all of you. Let that be all that you concern yourself with for a time. And there is time, Maitimo. There is all of the time in the world for Macalaurë to find his way home. And for you.”

Outside, Nerdanel embraced them all and admonished them to be careful and watch out for one another—all of the things she had told them when they were young, including: “And do you have one of the stones?”

“Yes, Ammë,” said Celegorm, to Maedhros’ surprise. “I have it.”

“Good. Be sure to use it once in a while!”

Maedhros pulled himself up into the saddle; he’d ridden very little since his return and riding without anything heavier than his own clothes and a hunting knife on his belt still felt strange. “Don’t look at me,” he said, trying to lighten his voice a little, when his brothers all glanced at him—almost as long a habit as Nerdanel’s words. “I am not leading this journey.”

“No,” Celegorm agreed with a swift and bright smile. “I am! We are heading west. Farewell for now, Ammë!”

“Farewell, my sons,” Nerdanel said. “Remember it is Midsummer very soon. Find something to celebrate!”

“I shall celebrate being far away from Tirion,” Celegorm said once they had left the courtyard and struck out at an easy pace across the fields, westward, toward the river. “Did anyone think to pack wine?”

“I did,” said Curufin and Amras at the same time, before exchanging either a grin or a grimace; Maedhros couldn’t tell which. He was not at all sure getting drunk would be wise for any of them, but he said nothing. The worst that would happen, probably, was that they argued and shouted at each other, and by the time Midsummer rolled around they would likely be very far from anyone that would be disturbed by it. 

He glanced back once, as they splashed across the river. There was movement near the gate leading into Ennalótë and Mahtan’s garden, but he could not see clearly who it was. The lights were on in Nerdanel’s workshop. He turned away, not liking the sense that someone—he knew precisely who—was watching them go. “Where are we going?” he asked. 

“West,” said Celegorm, in that tone that said he knew he was being infuriating. 

Maedhros pinched the bridge of his nose, but before he could say anything Caranthir said, rolling his eyes, “West is a direction, not a destination.”

“Do we need a destination?” Celegorm replied. “That isn’t the point. We’ll turn around when we’ve gone far enough. Or when we reach Ekkaia, I suppose. Whichever happens first.” He spoke breezily, but glanced over his shoulder at Maedhros, eyes uncertain above his careless smile. 

“I have no objection,” Maedhros said. “I told you I don’t care where we go. I only wondered.”

“Won’t Rundamírë wonder where you went?” Amrod asked Curufin after a few minutes of riding in silence.

“Tyelpë will explain,” Curufin said. “He said he would ask her to spend Midsummer with him at Imloth Ningloron.” The words dropped into a sudden weighty silence, because to speak of Elrond’s valley was to speak of Maglor, even if they did not say his name. Maedhros looked away. 

It was Caranthir who broke it. “I spent Midsummer there once. It was—very merry.”

“When did you go to Imloth Ningloron?” Amras asked.

“And why?” Amrod added. 

Caranthir flushed, but it wasn’t an angry red. “I was—I was introduced to the Ringbearers once in Tirion by accident, and then the older one, Bilbo, wouldn’t stop writing to me. He wasn’t much of a gardener himself, but he loved flowers, and that’s mostly what we wrote about. He sent an invitation, so…I went.”

“What were they like, the halflings?” asked Celegorm, having dropped back to join the rest of them. 

“They were…strange. I think they were accounted strange even among their own people. Bilbo used to laugh about it. But—I don’t know. I liked Bilbo. Frodo was…” Caranthir trailed off, gaze going distant. “Frodo was the one that carried the Ring to the fire, he and Sam—Sam was a gardener. It became his family name. I liked him too. I liked them all. But Frodo…Tyelpë knew him better than I did. There was very little laughter in him for a long time, not like Bilbo who laughed at everything. He had been…hollowed out.” For a little while none of them spoke. They all knew what that felt like, though their cause had not been nearly so noble, nor so selfless, as that of Frodo Baggins. 

Maedhros asked, quietly, “Did he find the healing he sought?”

“Yes,” Caranthir said, quiet but firm. “Yes, he did. And so did Tyelpë.”

“Tyelpë has never spoken of him much,” Curufin said. “But he was restless when he first came back, and after he started to visit Imloth Ningloron he grew steadier. He started to make things again.” He paused, and added a little sadly, “I do not think he will ever make jewels again, though.” 

“He’s making those windows for Fingolfin, isn’t he?” asked Caranthir. 

“He is.”

“What do we think Fingolfin will do about Atar?” asked Celegorm after a little while.

So much for not thinking of Fëanor, Maedhros thought. “Fingolfin has never done anything unless provoked,” he said. “I told Fingon and Finrod that Atar would have no support from us if he tried to make trouble.” 

“Will we support Fingolfin instead, or will we keep out of it entirely?” asked Amrod. 

“If I am asked I will stand by Fingolfin,” Maedhros said. He did not think he would be asked. All their old followers were either still in the Halls, or scattered throughout Eressëa and Tirion and Imloth Ningloron, or other smaller settlements that had sprung up over the last few thousand years. There was no reason to believe any would come if he called—and he did not want to have to call. It would be enough, he thought, that he did not stand behind his father.

No one asked what had passed between him and Fëanor, and Maedhros was grateful for it. They soon spoke of other things—of the land, of the forests, of where they might stop that night to make camp. It was simple and light and if not for the fact that there were only six of them it might have been easy to pretend they were in Beleriand during the Long Peace, taking a hunting trip or traveling between their strongholds together. It was so easy to forget that there had been joy then, not only death and grief and war. There had been peace for a while, even if it had been false. There had been beauty, and the thrill of wide new lands to explore under the open skies and the new-risen sun and the stars. It was easy for Maedhros to forget that he had been happy. He had been grateful beyond words to Fingon for bringing him out of Angband, astonished and overjoyed to still be alive after everything…

He remembered it in a strange, distant sort of way. He remembered having the feelings, but not what they had actually felt like. He remembered wanting to keep living, to keep going, to keep fighting, but that desire had left him long before he had at last left the world and he did not know how to find it again. If he could just see Maglor again, maybe…

Maedhros didn’t know what that would achieve. If he saw Maglor again more than likely all it would do was hurt both of them. 

The conversation had gone on without him, and when he listened again he found them talking about Bilbo Baggins again, and his passion for songs and poetry. Ambarussa insisted that Caranthir sing them one of Bilbo’s songs, but it was only after Celegorm added his own entreaties that he obliged. None of them could claim a voice comparable to Maglor’s, but Caranthir’s was fair, low and warm and well suited to the cheerful and silly songs that Bilbo Baggins had brought into the west. He sang of the Man in the Moon coming down to an inn and getting drunk, and even Maedhros had to smile at such cheerful nonsense. Ambarussa joined him on the second round with their songbird bright voices. None of them had learned Westron until fairly recently, but it was a language well suited to such songs, Maedhros thought. Their own tongue felt too old for it, too heavy for quicker the fiddle went deedle-dum-diddle and the cow jumped over the moon. 

After they finished laughing, Celegorm sang a traveling song of their own, one they had often sung together while riding through Beleriand, between Himring and Thargelion, or from Himlad to Hithlum. Maedhros did not sing, but the remaining sick feeling in his stomach ebbed with each step they took away from their father, and he felt steadier, less like he was going to dissolve into ashes at the slightest provocation, even if he still did not feel quite…himself, or as close to himself as he’d gotten since his return from Mandos. 

They did not stop until well after sunset, when the moon was rising behind them. Celegorm came over to take the reins of Maedhros’ horse, and Maedhros caught his arm before he could turn away. “Thank you,” Maedhros said quietly. 

“We should have done this years ago,” Celegorm said. He hesitated, and then said, “Nelyo…you should have told us about Maglor.”

“I can’t apologize for keeping it from you.”

“It can’t be worse than what we saw before,” said Celegorm. 

Maybe that was so. They had all seen the work of Angband before, in prisoners and escaped thralls, but… “It was never your brother before, Tyelko.”

Celegorm looked at him in astonishment. “Who do you think I meant?” he asked. “Nelyo, of all of us it is you who never before had to watch a brother suffer so.” Maedhros felt his mouth drop open, but he couldn’t think of what to say. “You must stop trying to carry all these burdens alone. First Cáno, then Atar—don’t speak to him alone again next time.”

“That wasn’t the same,” Maedhros said. “That wasn’t—it was what I said to him that I did not want Moryo to hear.”

“Well, now you have said it, so you won’t need to send anyone away. You aren’t alone, Nelyo. That’s all I need you to understand.” 

Celegorm led the horses away, leaving Maedhros to wonder just how bad he had looked when he’d come back from Thangorodrim. By the time he had been given a mirror he’d recovered enough that it had not been so terrible to look at, and his memories of those first days were so hazy… 

“Nelyo, come sit down,” Ambarussa called from where they had started a fire. Maedhros obeyed, and found himself pulled down between them so each twin could claim a shoulder to lean against as all three leaned against a fallen log. Caranthir carefully placed increasingly larger pieces of wood onto the growing fire, and Curufin was digging through one of the bags and muttering to himself. 

It was all so normal. Overhead the stars shone down on them, and in the east the moon had risen, waning but still mostly full. Maedhros allowed himself the small luxury of leaning back against the log and staring up at the stars while Ambarussa whispered together in the half-sentences they used when they weren’t worried about anyone else needing to understand. He did not trace new constellations as he watched the stars; that had been a game he and Maglor had played. But he counted them, and by the time his attention was called back to his brothers he could accept a piece of way bread and an apple and be able to eat them without choking.

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Once he read the letters Huan, for reasons known only to himself, left Maglor alone for whole hours at a time. It was nice not to be continually watched by a great hound, though Maglor did wonder what Huan was doing with himself otherwise; if his errand had only been to get Maglor to read the letters, why did he still linger in the valley? 

During one such stretch of freedom, he went looking for Galadriel, and found her with Finrod and Celeborn, talking of Doriath. “Cousin, may I borrow you for a while?” Maglor said, leaning on the door frame. Finrod started to rise. “No, I meant my favorite cousin.” 

“I beg your pardon!” Finrod exclaimed as he sank back into his eat, and Galadriel rose laughing. “When was I supplanted as your favorite, Maglor?”

“Who has said Galadriel is supplanting you?” Maglor replied, just to see Finrod splutter.

“Who was it, then?” Finrod demanded when he regained his ability to speak. “Do not say Fingon! He’s everyone’s favorite and I would be ashamed of your unoriginality.” 

“Elessúrë,” Maglor replied without hesitation. He held out his arm to Galadriel, who was still laughing as she accepted it, and they left Finrod sputtering again while Celeborn laughed at him.

“If I recall correctly,” Galadriel said as they stepped outside into the sunshine, “your cousin Elessúrë was a child when we left these shores.”

“He was,” Maglor said. He had been just big enough to want to follow Maglor around wherever he went, before they had all packed up and removed to Formenos. Maglor hadn’t thought, then, that they would be gone so long. He had thought that he would come home to visit—he and his brothers had not been under exile, however his father spoke of it. In the end he had only seen his mother’s family once more before they left, a brief and grievous parting; his baby cousin had clung to him and wept, begging to either go with him or for Maglor to stay. “I was his favorite cousin, anyway.” Elessúrë would be grown now, perhaps with a family of his own. Maglor likely had other cousins, too, that had been born after the rising of the Sun and Moon that he had never known. “And on your side of the family my favorite was Finrod, but for heaven’s sake don’t tell him that.”

“Of course not, so long as I really am your current favorite,” Galadriel said. “What was it you wanted to speak to me about?”

“I said it to tease Finrod, but it is true,” Maglor said. “And I wanted…let’s go this way.” He led her to the memorial garden, where it was quiet and set apart. The mallorn’s branches rustled as though in greeting as they stepped through the gate. Galadriel stepped forward to lean over the rose bush, which had a fresh and sweet scent not quite like any other roses Maglor had known. He went to the statue of Gilraen, running his fingers over hers in greeting before turning away. By unspoken agreement they passed to the other side of the mallorn tree where there was a bench in the shade. Maglor sat, toying with the end of one of his braids, as Galadriel joined him and waited. He no longer feared the keenness of her gaze, but it was easier to look at another flowering bush as he said, “Have you seen much of my brothers since you came back?”

“Not as much as my brother has,” said Galadriel. “They come but rarely to Tirion except for Curufin, and he’s been subtly avoiding our branch of the family. He and Finrod have spoken, I think, but Finrod has not told me what passed between them. Are you sure you do not want to speak to him?”

“I’m sure,” Maglor said, and turned to look at her. “He wants me to go to see them even more badly than Celebrimbor does.”

“He is one of the few that can speak to Maedhros these days and expect to be listened to,” Galadriel said. “What do you want to know of them? I will tell you what I can.”

“I don’t…I don’t know. I know…several people have told me that Maedhros isn’t well, but…”

“He is not,” Galadriel said. “Celebrían describes him as wallowing, which is perhaps accurate but not entirely kind.”

“But no one has told me of the others,” Maglor said. “I have six brothers, not only one, and…I don’t know if I want to see any of them, but—” It was so hard to explain. “Tyelpë has told me a little,” he said. “He told me his parents have reconciled, and that Celegorm and Ambarussa spend all their time in the wild, but—perhaps if knew what questions to ask I would…” 

“I cannot pretend to understand exactly how fraught it all is,” Galadriel said. “My own reunions were much different. From what your mother has said…they are all well, in their own ways. Tirion is not unwelcoming but it is not quite welcoming, either. Caranthir spends his days in his own gardens or in Mahtan’s workshops. I cannot speak for Ambarussa or Celegorm. I have heard it said they’ve rejoined Oromë’s host.”

“You said that they made appearances in Tirion at Midwinter,” Maglor said. Galadriel had shared many absurd and silly stories from the last few years, but she’d skirted around his brothers. He had been grateful for it—was still grateful, for this conversation was making everything inside him twist and knot up, and making it hard to breathe. The only versions of his brothers’ faces he could conjure in his mind were the dream-ghosts that had haunted him in Dol Guldur, and he did not know if they were how he really remembered them or if it was another trick of Sauron’s, distorting them the way he had distorted Nerdanel. He hated the fear that kept clawing its way back up his throat, burning like bile.

“They did. Fingolfin invited them and I think it was only Nerdanel’s insistence that made them come. Even Maedhros came, though he did not stay long and he only spoke to Fingon. The rest were cheerful enough. Again, Finrod would be the better one to ask; he spoke to them more than I did. If it eases your mind, your mother does not seem worried about them.”

“I suppose it does,” Maglor said. 

“You did not want to hear anything of them before we left Avallónë,” Galadriel said softly. “What has changed?”

“They wrote to me. Caranthir and Curufin. Curufin sent…he sent a gift.” Maglor rubbed a hand over his face, feeling tears gathering. “I don’t know what to think anymore.”

“Did they ask something of you that you are not willing to give?”

“Caranthir asked me to go home,” Maglor whispered. “But I don’t…it isn’t that I am unwilling, I just…” He pressed both of his hands to his face, and after a moment Galadriel moved closer to embrace him. He leaned into it gratefully. The tears didn’t fall, but they burned behind his eyes. “I did not think they would be here. I didn’t think I would have to…”

“I am sorry,” Galadriel said.

“Tyelpë said they have all gone off somewhere,” Maglor said. “They would not be there if I went looking, anyway.”

“Will you go to your mother?” Galadriel asked. 

He sighed, and lowered his hands, though he did not lift his head from Galadriel’s shoulder. “Yes,” he said after a moment. “Yes, I must, I…” He bit his tongue, and then wondered if it would help to speak aloud this particular torment. He didn’t need to get drunk for it—in fact, he never wanted to get drunk and talk of it again—but there was something to be said for voicing the worst things that lived in his heart, and being heard. Galadriel had already seen him at his weakest and most broken. It was she who had removed the stitches from his lips and given him a room where the first thing he saw upon waking was the bright gold of the mallorn leaves outside of his window. He had been so badly mistaken in his judgment of her once, but he knew better now than to expect anything but compassion.

He sat up, and Galadriel released him so that she could hold his hand instead—the scarred one. “What is it?” she asked. 

“In…in Dol Guldur…” He put his free hand to his lips, feeling the scars there. “He tried to use my mother against me, and I…”

“It didn’t work,” Galadriel said softly. 

“No,” he agreed, “but I cannot remember what her face looks like—I can only see the mockery of it that he used. I don’t—I don’t know why this makes me so hesitant to see her but it does, and I…”

Galadriel squeezed his hand. “You do not need to explain yourself to me. It is enough to know that he sullied your memories of her. It is as unforgivable a thing as anything else he did. I am sorry, Macalaurë. I would have sought to show you her face in my mirror had I known.”

“I could not have looked into your mirror,” Maglor said. “It would have only drawn me to see…things I would rather not.” He did not know much of that sort of power, but he was sure of that. His own will would have had to be stronger than it was, regardless of Galadriel’s own power.

“She is so close by now. You can be there in a day or less if you ride hard.”

“I know.”

“Anyone would accompany you if you asked.”

“I know,” he said again. And Huan would accompany him whether he asked or not. But Celebrimbor had said that Fëanor had come there, and Maglor did not know if he was still nearby. Mahtan’s house was so close by, and that was another place Maglor needed to visit soon. To see his grandparents and his aunt and uncle and whatever cousins might be there, who he had never met or who he had left behind long ago. What would little Elessúrë think of what his once-favorite cousin had become?

“I think,” Maglor said finally, “what I really wanted to ask you is—are my brothers now as they were when you last saw them in Middle-earth?”

“I saw very little of any of you in Beleriand, as you know,” Galadriel said after a moment. “But…no. No, they are not. The Oath is long over and done and they are trying to find their way to who they might have been had it never been sworn, and for the most part I think they are succeeding. Mandos was kind to them. Even to Maedhros—it is Maedhros who will not be kind to himself. I do not say that to try to convince you to go to him,” she added when Maglor looked away. 

“I know,” he said. 

“And I will tell my brother to stop trying to convince you,” she said after a moment.

“He hasn’t been,” Maglor said. “But if I tried to speak to him of this I think that he would. I know that he means well…”

“Well, there is a reason I am your favorite and not him,” Galadriel said, with just enough smugness that Maglor couldn’t help but laugh, a pathetically small and damp sound, but still enough to lift some of the weight of this conversation from his spirit. “What will you do?” she asked. 

“Today? I will go throw clay on the wheel until I feel steadier. Maybe I will even make something worth firing; maybe I will be able to decide what I want to do afterward.”

“A good plan,” said Galadriel.

“I don’t think I will come back for lunch,” Maglor said. It was nearing noon, but he had no appetite, and he could not bear other company. “Will you tell Elrond? He still worries about me eating.”

“I will tell him, but should I be worried about you eating?” 

“No.” Maglor summoned a smile for her as they rose, knowing he looked something of a mess. “By now Elrond just worries out of habit. I’ll eat later, I promise.”

“I will hold you to it.”

Maglor embraced Galadriel, and kissed her cheek. “You really are my favorite cousin,” he said. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome, Macalaurë. Tell me when you decide what to do. I will go with you if you wish.”

“I will.”

Maglor stopped by a stream to wash his face before going on to the workshops. No one else was working with clay that day, and with relief he settled down at the wheel, throwing the clay down onto it with a satisfying thwack. He worked it for a while with no particular purpose, just enjoying the feeling of it shifting underneath his fingers. Clay was clay, whether in Valinor or Middle-earth, and there was comfort in that. He hummed as he worked, no particular song, just an old melody he’d learned long ago. After a while he heard a familiar thump outside the door, and looked up to see Huan sprawled out in the shade of the workshop. “Hello, Huan,” he said, receiving a lazy woof in reply. He turned back to his clay, which seemed to want to be a bowl. As he focused on the making rather than just the feeling, he started singing properly, a making-song he had learned in Rivendell. It was best when sung in company, but even alone it lifted his spirits and steadied his fingers, so that when he was finally done the bowl was even in form and in thickness. He carved a design into the rim of it, wavy and curling, and then etched a small M rune into the bottom before he set it on the rack to dry in anticipation of firing later. 

For a long time he had not found any particular satisfaction in making anything. It had been something to do with his hands and something to think about outside of himself. Now, though, he was smiling as he left the workshop to wash the clay from his hands. Huan followed him down to the stream, and when he was clean Maglor threw his arms around Huan’s big neck and kissed his nose. Whatever else was wrong, he could still make things. He could shape clay and he could carve wood and he could write songs, and he could fix things that were broken in a way that brought new beauty to them. Sauron had taken his memories and twisted them, and he had taken his freedom and he had taken his strength and even his voice—but he had not, in the end, taken everything. And what he had taken could be recovered. Had been recovered. 

It occurred to him that maybe the distorted memories could be recovered too. “Perhaps I should go to Lórien,” he said aloud. Huan licked up the side of his face. “Ugh, Huan!”

“Maglor?” Elladan and Elrohir came up the path. “Have you eaten lunch yet?” Elrohir asked, coming to sit beside him. “No? Of course not.”

“I’m fine,” Maglor said, but he accepted the bowl of raspberries presented to him. He ate one and savored the bright burst of sweetness on his tongue.

“Visitors are coming down the road,” Elladan said, sitting on Elrohir’s other side. “With banners.”

“What banners?” Maglor asked. 

“Silver and blue,” said Elrohir. “Ada neglected to tell us that he is expecting a visit from High King Fingolfin.” Maglor made a face. “Do you want to avoid him?”

“No…no, I shouldn’t.” Just a minute ago he had been feeling more confident than he had since disembarking in Avallónë—but this news might be almost enough to undo all the good that a few hours working clay had done him, if he was not careful.

“Do you want to? For today, anyway,” said Elladan. “He’ll likely be here for several days at least.”

Maglor grinned at them. “Are you trying to avoid meeting my uncle? He is your grandfather.”

“He is our very formidable grandfather,” said Elladan.

“You are rather formidable yourselves,” Maglor pointed out as he ate a few more raspberries. 

“Not in these lands, we are not,” said Elrohir, laughing. “We fought at the Black Gate but that is not the same as challenging Morgoth himself! You’re right, though, that we shouldn’t hide away like children—but we needed to prepare ourselves. This is all even worse than when Glorfindel came to Rivendell for the first time—it took us almost a full month to get up the courage to speak to him longer than a good morning or good evening. But I think Fingolfin wishes to speak to Ada about something in particular, so perhaps we should wait a little before we go back in.”

Maglor lifted the bowl away from Huan’s questing nose. “I will not argue,” he said. “Let the great ones take counsel together, and then I can go say hello to my uncle. Huan!” Huan had abandoned the raspberries but had returned to licking Maglor’s face, which was worse. “What is the matter with you—” Elrohir, laughing, managed to rescue the berries when Huan shoved Maglor down onto the grass, presumably to make licking him easier. 

“It’s nice to know that the great Hound of Valinor is, sometimes, just a dog,” Elladan said as he took a berry from the bowl. 

“The great Hound of Valinor is a menace,” Maglor said through gritted teeth, trying and failing to shove Huan off of him. 

Someone called up the path, and still Huan did not stop trying to coat Maglor in as thick a layer of drool as possible. Elladan and Elrohir scrambled to their feet, and it wasn’t until Maglor heard laughter that he recognized the voice. Of course Fingon would come to find him at the least dignified moment imaginable. “Help,” he said, and it took both the twins pulling and Maglor shoving to get Huan off of him. At least when Maglor got to his feet he wasn’t knocked over again in an instant. He wiped his face as best he could, but knew he still looked a disheveled mess when he turned to greet Fingon. 

Fingon only laughed at him, of course, and embraced him with as much force as Celebrimbor had by the docks of Avallónë. “At last, Maglor, you’re here! Whatever took you so long?”

“It’s good to see you too,” said Maglor as he returned the embrace, and he found that he really meant it. Fingon had always shone, an exuberant and joyful presence even as the shadows lengthened and the wind out of the north grew bitter and colder with every passing year, and in the bright summer sunshine, with golden ribbons in his hair, he seemed even brighter than he had before. 

His smile dimmed, however, when he drew back enough to see Maglor’s face properly. Maglor spoke before he could. “I know, I am a mess. Huan decided I needed a bath like I was a puppy.” Fingon laughed, but his smile no longer reached his eyes, and Maglor saw his gaze linger a moment on the scars. He turned away from it. “Have you met your nephews yet? Elladan and Elrohir, the sons of Elrond and Celebrían.”

“I have not!” Fingon turned his blinding smile on them, and Maglor could step back as they exchanged greetings, both twins a little overwhelmed at yet another kinsman of renown appearing to welcome them to Valinor and to the family. It wasn’t long before Fingon set them at ease, though, and they were all laughing as they turned back to head toward the house. Fingon said nothing of the scars. Huan tucked himself up at Maglor’s side, and Maglor rested his hand on Huan’s head. 

“I’m surprised to see Huan here,” Fingon remarked, glancing over at him. “He has stuck to Celegorm’s side like a bur since he came from Mandos.” 

“I don’t know why he is here,” Maglor said. “I’ll catch up with you in a moment. I need to wash all of Huan off of my face before I see my uncle.”

“Come on, Huan,” said Elrohir as Maglor turned down another path to another stream. “If you are going to knock someone else over, let it be Glorfindel.” Fingon laughed, and Maglor ducked behind a bush to kneel by the water and rinse his face off. He finger-combed the snarls and bits of grass out of his hair, and undid the smaller braids to pull half of it back out of his face, sliding Daeron’s hair clip into place to secure it. He did not want to meet Fingolfin by ducking his face behind his hair, however hard it was to be stared at. He did not want Fingolfin to think him still broken. He stared at his reflection in the water, though he knelt in the shade and it was little more than a shadow. He knew what was there, though. There was no hiding some scars, but he rolled his sleeves back down his arms to hide the marks around his wrists, and some of the fainter and fading scars higher on his arms from the orcs’ knives long ago. 

Fingon hadn’t known. Maglor had seen the surprise there. It would be too much to hope that Fingolfin did. If they met among other company, though, surely he would not ask questions. Maglor rubbed his hands over his face and got to his feet. Elladan was waiting for him down the path. “Are you all right?” he asked. “Fingolfin is formidable to us, but you did not seem to think him so earlier.”

“He is formidable,” Maglor said, “and he is the High King. That’s why I stopped to wash off the dog drool. I’m all right, Elladan. You really don’t need to worry about me.”

“I think Fingon is worried about you,” Elladan said. 

“Hopefully he won’t be insufferable about it. If he is I’ll shove him into a fishpond later.”

Elladan laughed, delighted. “Is this what it was like when you were younger?”

“Not really.” Maglor smiled and threw his arm around Elladan’s shoulders. “I never had to shove Fingon into a fishpond before. Hopefully I won’t have to now. Come on. Fingolfin will probably not be quite so terrifying as he is in the tales.”

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In the corner of Elrond and Celebrían’s bedroom was a neat collection of packages and chests of various sizes. The largest packages were as tall as Elrond was, wide and rectangular, carefully wrapped up. He knew they must be paintings, perhaps done by Arwen’s own hand, for she had been as skilled with a brush as she had been with a needle. The chests held letters and documents and diaries, and perhaps other books and other gifts as well. Neither he nor Celebrían were quite ready to look at any of it, but its mere presence was a comfort—something solid and tangible existing as evidence of rich lives well lived. Elrond had not even had that much when Elros had died, until he had come to Avallónë and met Finrod, who had given him a chest overflowing with letters, and several journals that Elros had written over the course of his life and given to Finrod to keep on Eressëa for Elrond’s someday-arrival. 

Elrond still had not read all of them. It took a particular kind of mood for him to have the heart for it, and it was one that came only rarely. He suspected the same would be true for Arwen’s papers. 

The thickest haze of grief was lifting from the valley, now that Elladan and Elrohir were there and settling in as easily as though they were come home to Imladris. They were full of small stories and details to share about Arwen and Aragorn and their children—things that were brought to mind by a particular flavor of jam at the breakfast table, or the scent of lilacs in the air, or the sound of some instrument or another. Things that made them all smile, rather than weep.

He sat on the bed behind Celebrían, braiding amber beads into her hair. They’d spent a lazy morning in bed together for no particular reason except that they could—a thing that still felt wondrous and precious after so many years apart. “When do you expect Fingolfin to arrive?” Celebrían asked after a while, gazing out of the window that faced toward the road, though from the bed the road itself was not visible. 

“Any time now, I suppose,” Elrond said. “He did not give a particular date in his letter.”

“Has anyone heard anything more of Fëanor?”

“No, but I expect Fingolfin will have news when he arrives.” Elrond fastened one braid with a gold clip, and began the next. He did not work quickly, unwilling to put an end to their quiet morning. “I still can’t understand why he wants to take counsel with me. It isn’t as though I ever met Fëanor.”

“Maybe that is precisely why,” said Celebrían, “aside from the fact that you are justly renowned for your wisdom.” She laughed when Elrond gently tugged on her hair. “Anyway, you might also seem to him to be a neutral party.”

“Oh yes,” Elrond murmured, “Galadriel’s son-in-law, Elwing’s son, Eärendil’s son, Fingolfin’s own grandson—I suppose I should take it as a great compliment indeed to be thought neutral in the matter of Fëanor.” Celebrían laughed again, and Elrond finished off the last braid before leaning forward to kiss the back of her neck. “All done, love.”

“Thank you!” She turned around to kiss him before taking the box of beads and clips away. “Though now I must ask how you do feel about Fëanor.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Elrond admitted. “I think Fëanor new-come from Mandos will not be the same Fëanor that led the Noldor into exile. I think he will rather be more like how he was before the Morgoth first began to spread discord among the Noldor; but while we do not have to worry about the Oath there is still a Silmaril that might come within his reach. And—well, and there is Maglor, who wants nothing to do with him regardless. If I were to take any side it would be his.”

“If there are sides to be taken, it will be regarding the kingship,” said Celebrían. “Maglor’s feelings are rather more personal than that.”

“For the House of Finwë the personal is often political, and the political personal,” said Elrond. “Maglor won’t back any claim of his father’s. Beyond that I don’t think he much cares.”

“Do you care?” Celebrían asked.

“My loyalty has always first lain with Gil-galad,” said Elrond. Gil-galad was yet to return from Mandos, and he would never be High King again, so it meant little. Still… “Fingolfin was High King far longer than Fëanor ever was, and I have never heard it said that he was a bad one in Middle-earth, and I have not seen that he is a bad one here, either.”

“Well, it’s only been a few decades,” said Celebrían. “He wears the crown easier than my grandfather did, though.” She sat back down on the bed. “It seems to me that Fëanor will have very little support if he tries to cause any trouble.”

“I honestly don’t think he will,” Elrond said. “Try to cause trouble, I mean. I can’t claim to know what the dead see of Vairë’s tapestries or what they are aware of, but I’m not sure it is coincidence that his return coincides with Maglor’s.”

“Then the trouble will come when he finds that his children have not forgiven him,” Celebrían murmured. “I know we’ve joked about him falling into fish ponds and things, but I do pity him. I could not bear it if Elladan or Elrohir ever decided they never wished to speak to me again.” She glanced toward the corner that held all of Arwen’s letters, proof that her choice had never been a rejection of them, but an embracing of something else. Elrond reached out to take her hand. “I have hope that they will reconcile—Fëanor and Fingolfin. And Finarfin and Findis and Lalwen, when it comes to that.”

“I do, too,” Elrond said. “Choosing to hope has not steered me wrong yet.”

“I hope that he can someday reconcile with his sons, too,” Celebrían said. “For all of their sakes.” 

Whether reconciliation was possible between Fëanor and his sons was up to them. Elrond was certainly not a neutral party in that matter: he would take Maglor’s side, every time.

They went downstairs and found Celeborn and Finrod together in a sunny room, Finrod sprawled across a sofa, though Elrond couldn’t tell if it was for the dramatic effect or to take advantage of the sunbeams that fell across his face. “Celebrían!” he cried as they entered the room, making Elrond decide the sprawl was, in fact, for dramatic effect, “Come distract me from a cousin’s betrayal. What have you been doing all morning?”

“Oh dear,” said Celebrían as she went to sit by Celeborn, leaning against his side as he put his arm around her shoulders. “I have been enjoying my husband’s company, Uncle. What sort of betrayal have you suffered?”

“It seems,” said Celeborn with a smile, “that Galadriel is Maglor’s favorite cousin. Poor Finrod has had something of a shock.”

Elrond sat on Celebrían’s other side. “Poor Finrod indeed,” he said gravely.

“And to hear him tell it I was never his favorite,” Finrod said plaintively. “I don’t believe him, of course, but at least he didn’t try to convince me it was one of my brothers. Or Fingon. Fingon is everyone’s favorite. Except mine; my favorite is Turgon.”

“Well, who was it before it was my mother, then?” Celebrían asked. 

“Elessúrë. His only cousin on Nerdanel’s side of the family—well, his only cousin at the time, who was very young when we left, so I can’t even argue with him about it because that would be absurd.”

“Whereas bewailing to everyone else who will listen isn’t absurd at all!” Celebrían laughed. “I’m rather fond of Elessúrë, myself. He and his sisters did many of the mosaics on the guest rooms walls here. Elrond, you met them your first Midwinter in Tirion, you remember.”

“I don’t remember; I met everyone my first Midwinter in Tirion,” Elrond said. Finrod laughed. Celeborn laughed too, until Elrond reminded him, “So will you, come wintertime. They’ll all be lining up in Tirion to meet Galadriel’s husband—and coming from Valmar, no doubt, and Alqualondë—”

“Who’s to say Galadriel and I will be in Tirion at Midwinter?” Celeborn asked. “We may well be at Thingol's court, where we are both well known already.”

Galadriel herself reappeared then, and Finrod sat up so she could take a seat beside him. “Where is Maglor?” he asked. 

“Gone to spend the day working clay,” Galadriel said. “He asked me to tell you, Elrond, that he will not be back for lunch but not to worry about him.”

“Should we be worried about him eating?” Finrod asked with a frown.

“No,” Elrond said. “Maglor just worries about me worrying.”

“What an odd relationship you two have.”

Elrond shrugged. Worry was a hard habit to break after so many long years filled with it in Middle-earth. He worried for Maglor for many reasons, of course, but whether or not he was getting enough to eat had long ago ceased to be one of them. Galadriel shook her head and laughed when Finrod asked what she and Maglor had spoken of, but Elrond could tell she was concerned too. It was Fëanor, Elrond thought, and the uncertainty of his aims and his movements, and all the other old wounds reopened by that uncertainty—and by being back in Valinor in the first place. However Maglor might laugh it off or insist that he was fine, Elrond knew better. There was just nothing he could do about it. 

With Midsummer behind them, the valley had settled into summertime laziness. There was very little for Elrond to do besides answer a few letters and make some progress on a text he was copying for the library. Pídhres joined him as he worked, curling up on the windowsill beside his desk in the workroom. It was on one of the upper floors of the house and the window overlooked the road, so when silver and blue banners appeared Elrond saw them almost immediately. He did not get up, but finished the paragraph, and set his pen aside. “Come along, little miss,” he said as he rose, and scooped up Pídhres. She squirmed a little in his hands before climbing up onto his shoulders. “Can’t have you leaving paw prints all over my hard work.” She purred and rubbed her face against his cheek, just as he often saw her do to Maglor, and he scratched her behind the ears as he went downstairs, arriving at the bottom of them just in time to see Elladan and Elrohir escape out a side door. 

“They’ve gone to find Maglor,” Erestor said, coming around a corner, “though I think they just need a bit of time to find their composure before Fingolfin comes through the door. Do you remember when Glorfindel arrived at Imladris?”

Elrond laughed. “Yes, I do.” Theirs was a family—on all sides—populated by many great and formidable names, and he couldn’t blame his sons for needing a moment before meeting Fingolfin. In person, though, he was not at all the sort of person Elrond would have expected to challenge Morgoth to single combat if he hadn’t already known the stories; he was much like Fingon, kindhearted and often merry. The crown did not weigh so heavily there in Aman as it once had in Middle-earth. “I hope it won’t take them a month to get up the courage to meet Fingolfin. I don’t think he’ll be here that long.”

“Is Fingolfin here?” Finrod and Galadriel came around the corner behind Erestor, accompanied by Celebrían. “Whatever for?” Finrod asked. 

“Because my husband is the wisest of the wise, and all kings should come to consult with him on occasion!” Celebrían said. “Not to mention he is Fingolfin’s own grandson, and I flatter myself that he might want to meet my sons also.”

Fingolfin came inside then, accompanied by Fingon. “Well met, Cousin!” Finrod cried, springing forward to embrace him. “Hello, Uncle! I hope Midsummer in Tirion was merry.”

“It was!” said Fingon. “Where is Maglor, then? It must be my turn by now to scold him for taking so long.”

“Out by the workshops, I believe,” Elrond said. 

“Thank you!” Fingon smiled at Elrond, kissed Celebrían and Galadriel, and vanished out of the same door the twins had taken. 

Fingolfin greeted everyone only a shade less cheerfully than Fingon. He seemed tired and tense, and declined Celebrían’s invitation to lunch. “We ate on the road. I would speak with you, Elrond.”

“Of course.” Elrond led him to a small parlor off the entry hall, little used except for such private conversations, but they left the door ajar. “Any news of Fëanor?” he asked as Fingolfin dropped into a chair by the window. 

“Nerdanel came to Tirion with Rundamírë after Midsummer, and we spoke; she will not receive him into her house—not yet, anyway. For her part she is encouraged and hopeful, but his meeting with Maedhros did not go well, and while their sons won’t speak to him, she can’t have him under her roof.”

“How did Fëanor take it?” Elrond asked as he took his own seat. Pídhres jumped down onto his lap, and purred as he stroked her back. 

“As though he’d expected nothing less, according to Nerdanel. She sent him to stay at her father’s house, but I doubt he will stay there long. I had hoped,” Fingolfin said, passing a hand over his face, “that we might contrive to bring him here. I would reconcile with him myself, but I do not want to bring him to Tirion for it. It is too…” 

Too fraught. Too full of memories both good and ill. “You think Imloth Ningloron is a better place? Maglor is here.”

“I know.” Fingolfin grimaced. “But I cannot think of another place that is as close to neutral ground as this one, and Celebrían has always said it is her intention to make this valley welcoming to all, no matter who they are.”

“That is true,” said Elrond. “But we can’t welcome Fëanor without making Maglor unwelcome, and he is not only a guest here, Grandfather. This is his home.”

“It is only a matter of time before Fëanor comes on his own, isn’t it?” Fingolfin asked. “He wants to see his sons—all of them. The others have all gone off somewhere west, but Maglor is still here.”

“He can’t believe that Maglor will be any happier to see him than Maedhros,” Elrond said. 

“Perhaps not. But when he is set upon a course there is very little that can turn him aside. I understand this course, at least. I’m not sure I would be able to rely on someone else’s assurances, if one of my children had been lost for as long as Maglor has been. I’m surprised that Nerdanel has not come, or that his brothers have not descended upon your valley in search of him.”

“Their reassurances came from Celebrimbor,” Elrond said, “and from a letter Maglor wrote to Nerdanel. It isn’t all third-hand reports. Maglor told Celebrimbor that he is not ready to see them.”

“I do wonder at that a little,” Fingolfin said. “They were inseparable, growing up—all of them, but Maglor and Maedhros especially.”

“Maglor was…he was alone for a long time,” Elrond said. “I think he is still learning how not to be.” 

“Six brothers is rather a lot,” Fingolfin said. “Particularly those brothers. But—of course Maglor must be consulted, but if he is agreeable, will you allow me to use this place to meet with Fëanor?”

“If Maglor is agreeable,” Elrond said after a moment’s thought. “I would dearly love to see all the members of our family able to live in—in peace, if not in friendship, and you and Fëanor most of all. But I won’t send Maglor away just so Fëanor can come, or ask Maglor to meet with someone he does not want to see.”

“Of course not. If it cannot be, I will think of another place, or just go to Mahtan’s house myself, I suppose, but that feels as wrong as Tirion in its own way.”

Voices in the corridor heralded the arrival of Fingon and Elrohir, and Huan with them. “Maglor is coming with Elladan just behind us,” Elrohir said to Elrond as he and Fingolfin rose. 

Fingolfin smiled warmly as he took Elrohir’s hands in greeting, and then Elladan’s when he joined them a moment later, putting them both at ease immediately. Maglor came in then, having hung back to allow that first meeting. He was slightly damp and disheveled, and Elrond gave Huan a look; Huan sat down beside Fingon and looked back at him, tongue hanging out as he smiled in dog-fashion, apparently quite pleased with himself. 

“Maglor,” Fingolfin said, “it’s so good to see you at last. Welcome home.” If he was startled by the visible scars he gave no sign; Maglor looked surprised at the warmth of his greeting and at his embrace, but he returned it readily.

“It’s good to see you too, Uncle,” he said. 

“What took you so long? You never did say,” Fingon said. 

“Maglor stayed back with us,” Elrohir said when Maglor hesitated a moment too long, “for we weren’t ready to sail with Adar.” 

“It doesn’t matter,” Fingolfin said. “You are here now, and we are all glad of it.”

Maglor smiled, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. “Thank you, Uncle.”

Erestor appeared in the doorway, looking unusually flustered. “Elrond,” he said, and then caught himself, adding to Fingolfin, “Your Highness.”

“What is it?” Elrond asked, as Huan’s ears pricked up at the sound of other voices in the entrance hall. 

“It is Fëanor,” Erestor said. Maglor’s face went ashen. “He’s just arrived.”

For a moment no one in the room spoke. Then Fingon said, “Well, so much for trying to make plans around him! We should have expected something like this.”

Maglor crossed the room to Elrond. “I cannot see him,” he said in a low voice in Elrond’s ear. “Not here in the house.” He held his right hand to his chest, as though it pained him, and he spoke in quiet Westron. 

“You needn’t see him at all if you don’t want to,” Elrond said in the same language. He reached for Maglor’s hand, but Maglor drew back, shaking his head. “I can give you time, at least, to slip away and prepare yourself if you think he won’t be dissuaded.”

“I know he won’t,” Maglor muttered. “Just—enough time to get away from the house. If I start shouting I don’t want…”

“Elrond,” said Erestor, “where shall I take him?”

“To the larger parlor, the one looking out over the rose garden,” Elrond said. “We’ll be there in a few minutes.” He glanced at Fingolfin, who nodded. 

Unfortunately, it seemed Fëanor was not any more patient now than he had been in his previous life, and before Erestor could do more than step back from the doorway, he had stepped into it. Elladan and Elrohir immediately stepped into the middle of the room to block Maglor from his sight, but Maglor was taller than they were, and Fëanor’s gaze was quicker. 

Everyone else was looking at Fëanor, but Elrond looked at Maglor, who had gone so still that Elrond didn’t think he was even breathing. A rapid and complicated series of things passed over his face in quick succession—grief, fear, pain most alarmingly, and then a flash of anger so intense that Elrond nearly took a step back, viscerally reminded that Maglor was the son of Fëanor, the Spirit of Fire. If asked a minute before he would have said that of course he’d seen Maglor angry—he had seen Maglor in all of his moods at one time or another. Now he realized that he hadn’t, not really. Not like this, an anger born of betrayal and hurt that ran far deeper than any other scars he’d received in Middle-earth. 

“I don’t like being angry…I am so angry I could scream.”

There was another door leading to a small corridor that, eventually, led outside. Maglor slipped through it, pausing for only a fraction of a second when Fëanor said, with the kind of desperation only a parent could feel, “Canafinwë!” Then he was gone, and Elrohir after him. Elladan stepped in front of the door when Fëanor would have followed—Elrond didn’t think Fëanor had noticed anyone else in the room—and brought him up short, blinking in shock. 

It was almost funny, Elrond thought distantly, how Elladan had been so shy before meeting Fingolfin, but he was able to stare down Fëanor without so much as blinking—except that it wasn’t funny at all, because it was the difference between wanting to make a good impression, and not caring for the opinion of a source of danger. “Let me pass,” Fëanor said. 

“He does not want to see you,” Elladan said calmly, without moving. As though to lend his support, Huan moved to sit in front of the door, so no one could come in or go out of the room by it. 

Fëanor was a striking figure, even clad in plain traveling clothes of muted reds and browns, with his hair caught back in a simple, unraveling braid (the same way that Maglor’s hair was forever coming loose of its braids). He could see the similarity in features between Fëanor and Maglor, but it was as though Fëanor had been drawn with a bolder hand, with sharper lines. There was a fire in him that put Elrond in mind of Maedhros, except that the fire in Maedhros burned inward. The look on his face, though, Elrond knew well. He’d worn that look himself before, desperately needing to see his sons and assure himself they were well—after a battle, after a long journey away from Rivendell, most recently on the docks of Avallónë. 

Only Elrond had never had to fear that his children would not be glad to see him. 

For a moment Elrond feared that Fëanor’s temper would show itself, and any hope of a peaceful meeting for any of them would be lost—but he visibly restrained himself, gritting his teeth as he said, “If that is so, I would hear it from Canafinwë’s own lips.”

“Is not his leaving the room as soon as you entered it not enough?” Fingon asked from where he’d leaned back against the wall, arms crossed. His voice was light but his eyes had gone hard. His father gave him a warning look, but Fingon did not seem deterred, not even when Fëanor turned toward him. “You can glower at me all you like, Fëanáro; I am no longer a child, and I have seen far more frightening things since we last spoke.”

“Findekáno,” Fingolfin said sharply. 

“I speak only the truth! I did not quail before a host of balrogs; I shall not quail before Fëanáro now.”

Elrond suddenly understood perfectly how only a few well-timed whispers on Morgoth’s part could have done such damage to the House of Finwë; they could have done the rest all by themselves—and they could do it all over again now, when they were all so much older and sharper, better able to wield weapons of all kinds, whether words or blades. 

“I came here to see my son,” Fëanor said. “I had thought he was a guest here, not a prisoner to be ushered away from—”

“A prisoner?” Fingon repeated, incredulous, as Elladan also voiced his outrage at his mother’s home called a prison.

“It did not seem to me that he left on his own, rather that he was pushed—”

“Enough,” Elrond said. He did not raise his voice, but he put just enough power into it to remind them all why he had once been chosen as Gil-galad’s herald. The room fell silent; even the birds outside the window ceased their chirping. Elladan had heard it before, but neither Fingolfin nor Fingon had, and they both blinked at him in shock. Fëanor turned, and his look was not one of surprise, but rather assessing, curious and wary, and Elrond realized that Fëanor did not know who he was. It was rather startling, not to be recognized. He could almost hear Elros laughing at him for being surprised. He ignored everyone else, even Pídhres, who hissed at Fëanor from the chair by the window, meeting Fëanor’s gaze as calmly as Elladan had. “No one is a prisoner here,” he said, “and Maglor is not a guest. This is his home.”

“Then let him say so himself,” Fëanor said. “Tales told and claims made second- and third-hand is what led us into turmoil, and I will not make the same mistake twice.”

“That is not what is happening, Fëanáro,” Fingolfin said quietly. “No one here is a stranger, least of all Elrond.”

“He is a stranger to me,” Fëanor said. 

“But not to Maglor,” said Fingon. 

“Huan,” Elrond said, “please move away from the door.” Elladan looked startled at the order, but Huan got up and obeyed, going to Fëanor and sniffing his hand—a far more thorough greeting than he usually gave. He concluded with a huff and sat back, looking at Fëanor solemnly, but he did not move to block the door again. 

“Come with me,” Elrond said then, and with a nod to Fingolfin, he led Fëanor through the door and down the corridor. There were few rooms in this house that did not have multiple doors, or windows that could be opened easily. It had been built by the same hands that had made Rivendell, with the memory of Gondolin or Doriath or Ost-in-Edhil clear in their minds, where to be trapped was to die. There was no fear of that here, but it remained a comfort—and as Bilbo had laughed and reminded them all, there were always unwelcome visitors one might wish to escape. 

Would that Fëanor were only as troublesome as as a gossipy neighbor from Bagshot Row. 

Outside in the gardens, Elrond stopped and turned to face Fëanor. “He doesn’t want to see you,” he said, “and I do not believe either of you are ready for this meeting. Will you not wait?”

“What do you think I am going to do that you need to protect him from me?” Fëanor asked. “He is my son.”

“You have already done the worst thing that I can imagine a father would do to his children,” Elrond said. He was no doubt souring whatever hope there was for an amicable relationship between himself and Fëanor, but he didn’t care. Someone had to say it. “Slaying them yourself would have been kinder than binding them to that Oath. All of Beleriand suffered for it, and your sons not least of all; I was born in Sirion—I saw what they had become by the end. Maglor is now a member of my household—of my family—and I will protect him from harm if it is in my power, whatever form it takes. However,” he added, before Fëanor could do more than open his mouth to respond, “it is not Maglor that I am trying to protect in this moment. He is very hurt already, and very angry, and I don’t think he will hold himself back when he sees you.”

Fëanor’s hands were balled into fists, but his eyes were suspiciously bright. “Whatever he has to say to me, I will hear it,” he said. “It is the least that I can do.”

It was a better answer than Elrond had feared. “Then take the path through the lilacs, past the workshops. He will have left the gardens and may be across the valley in the hills by now.” He watched Fëanor disappear around a bend in the path, and sighed.

“Was that a good idea?” Elladan asked, coming up behind him.

“Sometimes a festering wound needs to be lanced before it can heal,” Elrond said. He turned to put his arm around Elladan’s shoulders and pressed a kiss to his temple. “I love you.”

“I’ve never doubted it, Ada.”

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Everything had been going so well. 

Maglor broke into a run as soon as he made it outside, needing to get away. He did not care where he ended up as long as it was away. He flew down the paths and away past the workshops, out over the streams and past the ponds, through the flowering meadows until, out of breath and shaking, he reached the wooded hills where Finrod had taken him and Celebrimbor a few weeks before. He did not go to the glade where they’d drunk and wept together, instead walking only far enough under the trees to lean against one of them, in the shade and invisible from the house. He leaned his arm on the trunk and his head on his arm, staring down at his right hand. The scars were livid, red and tender as they had not been in years. As they never hurt for more than a moment when something triggered that particular memory, which happened with increasing rareness these days—except now. The terrible agony had faded away but he could still feel his heartbeat in his entire hand. 

“Maglor?” Elrohir had followed. Of course he had. Maglor didn’t know whether he was grateful or not. “What’s the matter with your hand?”

“I don’t know,” Maglor said, after swallowing the instinctive nothing that nearly slipped out first. He turned to lean his back against the tree, allowing Elrohir to take his hand an examine it with a healer’s eyes. He was very careful not to touch the scars. Maglor tipped his head back against the rough bark and tried to focus on the quiet, easy thoughts of the tree, or on the breeze through the branches above, but his head was too full of other noise. 

He’d thought he would have more warning. He’d thought he’d have more time. He had joked about it with Elrond, about escaping through windows from unwanted visitors like Bilbo used to talk about hiding from his rude relations in the Shire.

Fëanor had stepped through the door and it was like the world had stopped. Maglor hadn’t been able to breathe. His hand had started to burn, like the fire of the Silmarils was the fire of his father’s spirit, and he had felt so, so angry. It had burst upon him like a sudden wave and he was still dizzy with it. Still shaking like he’d just come from battle. 

He hated being angry. Anger meant losing control, and from the moment he had begun to understand the power that he held in his voice he had known that for him, losing control could mean anything from a bit of broken glass to someone bleeding. Later in Beleriand he had worked hard to maintain iron control on his voice and on his temper, which was slower than some of his brothers’ but no less potent when it was provoked. Only once in battle had he lost that control, during the Nirnaeth when he’d seen Caranthir cut down by Uldor, and the next thing he’d known Uldor and half his men were dead or dying and everything around them was falling into chaos. He still didn’t know how much of that chaos was his fault. 

And the last time he’d gotten really, truly angry, the last time he’d let that fury out on purpose, tried to use it—well. He hadn’t had the strength to do anything with it, hadn’t even cracked the foundations of Dol Guldur, and he had paid for it dearly afterward. His chest ached for a moment in time with the throbbing in his hand; he closed his eyes and took a few deep breaths, trying to find calm. It didn’t work. 

Elrohir had started humming a few bars of a song meant to ease pain, but it made no difference, and he gave up quickly. “Maglor, you need to want me to help you,” he said. 

“It’s fading already,” said Maglor. “You don’t have to—” Elrohir released his hand but only to throw his arms around him instead, holding on so tightly that Maglor had to wonder what his face looked like, how much of his distress could be read there. He wrapped his arms around Elrohir, leaning again against the tree. The bark pressed against his back, against the scars that still criss-crossed the skin there. They were not scars he thought about much, because he couldn’t see them, but sometimes he felt them and remembered everything that had happened all over again. 

He wanted, abruptly, desperately, to be back in Middle-earth, to be on a stretch of stony beach with the waves crashing into the nearby cliffs. He could picture the precise place, grey and wild and beautiful under pale cloudy skies where seagulls circled, the wind strong and with a bite to it and the scent of coming rain, south of Lindon and northwest of the wide floodplains of the mouths of the Brandywine, far away from any cities or villages, unknown to anyone but him. The desire to be there was so strong that it hurt, an ache settling under his ribs like a cat curling up on his lap. 

“What do you need?” Elrohir asked without letting go. 

To find a way back across the Sea. “I don’t know,” Maglor said. 

Movement in the trees caught his eye, and he looked up to see Galadriel; he hadn’t known she was nearby when he’d fled the house. Their eyes met and he let her look, let her see whatever there was to see. Whatever it was she saw, it did not surprise her. She came to join them under the tree. “Perhaps you might think of leaving for your mother’s house earlier than you intended,” she said. 

He couldn’t go to his mother now. And just leaving would feel like running away—which was what he had just done, and which he had no real objection to, except that to run invited the possibility of being chased. It made him feel hunted. “What does he want?”

“To see you,” Galadriel said. 

“It can’t be that simple,” Maglor said. Elrohir eased his grip around Maglor, but did not draw fully back, instead resting his head on Maglor’s shoulder. “It is never that simple with my father,” Maglor said. 

“I don’t think that was always true,” Galadriel said, “and it may not be true now.”

“It isn’t me that he wants to see.” Maglor felt the telltale burning behind his eyes, and blinked a few times, trying to keep them dry. When he saw his father again he did not want to have been crying. “Not as I am now. He wants what I was then.” An unflinchingly loyal son, who would question nothing and who would do anything—from drawing his sword on a darkened quay to throwing a torch onto a ship—just because his father ordered it. A person he no longer was and would never be again. 

“You don’t know that,” Elrohir said. “It has been a long time, Maglor.”

“Your father followed your wanderings through the tapestries of Mandos. It grieved him deeply to see you walk alone for so long.”

He closed his eyes and tried to breathe. There was a stream nearby and he focused all of his thought upon it, on the music of its waters as they flowed cheerfully down the hill over time-worn stones, caring nothing for the turmoil in any elvish heart. The trees around him were awake, whispering to each other of things so far removed from a son’s hurt and anger at his father that it was as though they lived in another faraway world. It was one he wished he could enter into and never have to think of anything but rich soil and rainfall and the breeze in his hair ever again. 

Finally, he opened his eyes and looked at Galadriel. “Will you counsel me, Cousin?” he asked quietly. “What do you think I should do?”

“I think,” Galadriel said after a few moments, “that you should meet with your father on your own terms, in your own time. It may be best if you left this place…” 

Elrohir protested, “It isn’t right that you should have to leave just because he has come here. This is your home, Maglor, not his.”

“I would have left sooner or later anyway.” Maglor reached up to tug on one of Elrohir’s braids, a silent apology for being at the center of the turmoil that had just descended upon the valley. “And my—he and my uncle need to have it out between them. This is a better place for it than Tirion, and it will go far more smoothly if I am not here.” 

Elrohir sighed, and stepped back. “I’ll go pack your things,” he said, “so you need not go back to the house.”

“Thank you, Elrohir,” Maglor said softly.

Galadriel remained behind when Elrohir departed. “He is right,” she said. “You should not have to leave this place just because Fëanor is here. Elrond will say the same.”

Elrond had promised to keep unwanted visitors away, including Fëanor. It had been easy to laugh about on Tol Eressëa, when Fëanor had been far away and they could pretend he had not even been let out of Mandos yet, when the fear and anger had been only a rolling in his stomach and not something with teeth gnawing on the back of his throat, tasting like bile. But he was here, now, and it would be easiest on everyone if someone left. “And you are right that I should,” Maglor said. “If I do not—I have not been angry like this in a very long time, Galadriel. Not since—not since Dol Guldur.”

“What did you do then?”

“I tried to sing the place down around us,” Maglor said, and there was a strange relief in speaking it aloud. “But I was too far gone by then. Even rage did not give me the strength I needed. I paid for it afterward.” He gestured at his face. Galadriel’s lips pressed together, and he sighed. “I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to apologize for,” Galadriel said. 

“Neither do you. Not to me.” Galadriel had apologized before, long to in Lothlórien, for not acting against Do Guldur sooner. Maglor had not been able to answer her, then. “I never expected anyone to come for me, Galadriel. You did not know I was there. You could not have known.”

“But I should have seen earlier that Saruman’s advice was not what it seemed,” Galadriel said. 

“Not even Gandalf mistrusted him.” Maglor had never met Saruman, in the end—not until that encounter on the road back to Rivendell from Gondor, when he had been a wretched and hateful thing. Maglor had pitied him, as he had pitied the Nazgûl—such a distorted and twisted thing he had become, warped by his own ambitions and the machinations of Sauron—even as he had been repulsed. But if Elrond, Galadriel, Gandalf—if all of the wise had trusted him, then he must have fallen very far and had been as good a deceiver as Sauron had once been. No one had seen all the way through Sauron’s deceptions in Eregion, either.

She shook her head. “We all have our regrets, Macalaurë. You have yours, and I have mine—and this is one of them.”

They started the walk back across the valley. Maglor still felt shaky and unsteady, but it was the shakiness of anxiety rather than anger, at least in that moment. He more than half expected to see his father making his own way across the meadows as they emerged from the trees. 

And he was right. Halfway down the hill Maglor saw him coming, and he halted. The anger did not return with as much force as it had when he’d first glimpsed Fëanor’s face, but it was there alongside the fear and the pain and everything else, jagged and sharp. His hand throbbed, and he forced himself to keep walking.

“Macalaurë,” Galadriel said, taking his other hand. “You do not have to do this now.”

“No, I think I do,” Maglor said; he could turn around and vanish into the hills, and his father would not find him if he did not wish to be found—but that would only delay this meeting, and to no good purpose. “I would much rather follow your advice, but maybe it is better—and I expected him to follow, when I came out here. I can lose my temper out here and disturb nothing but the birds and the flowers, and then I can leave him to—I don’t know, whatever it is Fingolfin wants to do.”

“Do you want me to stay?” she asked.

“No. Thank you.” 

“Tell him what is in your heart, Maglor, and then go find your peace. If he loves you still, he will not try to hold you back.” Galadriel kissed him and released his hand. She passed by Fëanor and they exchanged glances, but if they said anything Maglor did not hear it. He walked to the bottom of the hill and knelt by the bank of the small stream ruining by his feet, and dipped his scarred hand into the cold water. The relief was nearly instant, and he sighed, closing his eyes. The echo of the Music of the World was quiet in this small spill of water, but it was there, and it was an even greater comfort than the cold. 

When he raised his eyes again his father had reached him, standing several paces away just out of reach. His expression was in that moment as blank and inscrutable as the ghost of him had been in Dol Guldur, and the sight of it hurt, like being stabbed with a jagged piece of glass. Maglor rose slowly to his feet. 

“Canafinwë,” his father said finally, voice heavy. Maglor flinched. “Cáno. I—in Mandos, I—”

The sound of his father’s voice made something in him snap. “Don’t speak to me of Mandos.” He heard the power in his voice and felt it hum in the air between them, a threat not yet made manifest. “I don’t care what you did there, or what healing or peace you found.” His voice shook with the strain of not shouting. “I don’t care what happens in Mandos. I have never been there.”

Something flickered across Fëanor’s face, there and gone again before Maglor could see what it was. “Cáno,” he said, so quietly, and Maglor hated that he wanted to run into his arms in that moment, seeking the comfort once found there when he had been small and upset over something that seemed now so insignificant as to be absurd: a scraped knee or a broken toy, or some thoughtless remark by a brother or a cousin. His father had spoken in that same soft way then; he had been big and warm and safe, and he had made all kinds of promises—of love and safety and a swift end to tears and the passing of whatever had caused them. 

And then he had broken every single one of those promises in one fell swoop. They had been overwritten by the Oath, withered like the Trees and burned like the Swanships of Alqualondë and the tapestries of Menegroth.

“Do you know what we did for you?” Maglor asked. “Do you know what we became? Treachery and fear of treachery we were warned about—and it was ours. Our treachery, when we slew our kin and our allies, when we turned into monsters worse than orcs and burned down everything in our path—and it was for nothing.” He thrust out his hand, and his father actually took a step back. “Your Silmaril did that,” Maglor said. “The jewel you prized above every single one of us. Will you slay me now for it, Atar?”

Fëanor’s eyes snapped to his face. “What?”

“Whoso hideth or hoardeth or in hand taketh, finding keepeth or afar casteth. That is what the Oath said, what we all swore. I cast it away; I threw it as hard and as far as I could into the Sea at the end of the world, and I would do it again in a heartbeat! It is the only thing I have ever done that I have never regretted, not even once, while I haunted the mists on the shores like a shadow, dropping vain tears into the Sea.”

His father actually flinched. “Cáno, I never wanted—”

“I don’t care!” Maglor shouted. The air around him shivered with it. “I don’t care what excuses you have now! I know what you wanted then and I know what you did, and I know all that came after, and it is terrible! I haven’t gone back to visit my own mother because I cannot look her in the eye knowing what I have become because I didn’t have the strength to do what I knew was right.”

Fëanor did step forward then, catching Maglor’s arms. “Cáno, your strength is beyond anything I have—”

Maglor jerked back out of his grasp. Fëanor let him. “It was never strength. If you followed me through the tapestries as Grandmother said, you know it wasn’t.” It had never been strength that kept him moving, kept him breathing, and it was not strength now; it was not even anger, really. Oh, the anger was real, and it burned so hot in him in that moment that he was afraid to look down lest he see the grass at his feet smoking and blackening. But the anger would fade; in him it burned hot but never long. When it was gone all he would be left with was fear. Fear of his father’s disappointment, fear of his acceptance. Fear that he had been marked too deep for even Estë to heal the shadows and ghosts that still clung to his heart. Fear that his mother would look at him and see him for what he was instead of the bright and beloved son he had once been.

“What do you want me to say, Cáno?” Fëanor asked. He stood almost as though he was bracing for a fight, or maybe just a blow. He had not yet raised his voice, which was unexpected. Maglor had expected a shouting match, not for his father to just listen. “What do you need me to do?”

“You’ve done enough.” Maglor took a step backward. “I want nothing from you. You made it very clear long ago what we meant to you. Finwë chose you, always, every time, even when he shouldn’t have. In your turn you set the works of your hands above everything, and set us on the road to our own destruction.” He saw the blow land, saw Fëanor’s mouth drop open and tears spring to his eyes. “And that isn’t even the worst—” His voice failed him as the anger drained away all at once, leaving him empty and cold and afraid that if he began to weep he would never be able to stop, until all of him just dissolved into saltwater and sea foam. 

Silence fell between them. There was always birdsong and music in the valley but where they stood it was utterly silent. Even the water at Maglor’s feet had gone quiet. Finally, Fëanor said, in a voice that shook with some emotion Maglor couldn’t identify—it did not seem to be anger, but he had forgotten what Fëanor sounded like otherwise, “What was it, Cáno, the worst thing that I did?”

“You died, Atya.” 

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It took longer than Maedhros had expected for things to start breaking down. Cracks started showing five days into their journey—all of them snappish and chafing against the constant company of the others—but it was a full week before Celegorm and Curufin got into some snarling argument that none of the rest of them understood, and which resulted in both of them storming away from the camp into the woods. 

“Should someone…” Amras ventured hesitantly, once they were out of sight. 

Maedhros sighed. Caranthir, not looking up from a tear in one of his saddlebags that he was mending, said, “No.”

“Shouldn’t we at least try to find out what it was they’re fighting about?” Amrod asked. 

“No,” said Caranthir again, and cursed as he stuck himself with the needle. “Whatever it is isn’t what the fight is really about, and they won’t tell us what it’s really about, so it would be useless.” Ambarussa exchanged a glance, eyebrows raised; Caranthir was not known for such insights, though Maedhros had learned by now that he saw a great deal more than he let on. It was, Maedhros hoped, a good sign that he had decided to share it. 

“Just leave them be,” Maedhros said. If anyone should get up and do something about it, it was him, but he couldn’t immediately muster the will for it. He leaned against one of the rocks that surrounded the little hollow they’d chosen for their campsite, and stared up at the sky without really seeing it. He had a few guesses about what the fight was really about—Nargothrond foremost among them—but Caranthir was right. Neither Celegorm nor Curufin were likely to confide in anyone this fresh off the fight. “Give it an hour or so,” he added after a moment. If they weren’t back by then he’d have to decide who to go after, and likely no one would be happy with whoever he chose. 

An hour passed, and neither of them returned. Maedhros got up and considered which one was more likely to get into trouble, and decided that it was Celegorm without Huan there to temper his wilder impulses. He was also, Maedhros thought, the one more likely to talk to him. “Keep an eye out for Curvo,” he told the others, and headed in the direction that Celegorm had gone.

Surprisingly, Celegorm had not gone far. Maedhros found him halfway up a tree, lying on his back across a limb, whistling back at some birds hopping around on the branches above. Maedhros sat down on one of the large raised roots to wait; he’d climbed trees before one-handed, but only when absolutely necessary, and this one’s lowest branches were high enough above his head that he didn’t think he could have gotten himself up even with two hands. 

Finally, Celegorm heaved a sigh and dropped down, landing in a crouch in front of Maedhros. “You didn’t have to come after me.”

“I thought we were out here to fix us,” Maedhros said. Celegorm sank down onto the mossy ground beside Maedhros, crossing his legs. The birds in the tree above kept cheeping at each other; higher, in the sky, a hawk cried out, a plaintive and lonely sound. “Tyelko?”

Celegorm sighed again, and this time it was a shaky sound. His eyes were over-bright before he closed them as he leaned against Maedhros’ leg. Maedhros rested his hand on Celegorm’s head for a moment before he started to pick leaves and twigs out of his braid. “Curvo and I were awful,” Celegorm said finally. “Unforgivable. Treacherous—”

“We’ve had this out before,” Maedhros said quietly. The halls of Himring had echoed for hours with their shouting, and none of Maedhros’ people had the nerve to look him in the face for days afterward. Even Maglor had been furious, and Maglor never lost his temper. They hadn’t spoken of it since they’d all returned to life—but there was no need. It had all been said already, and anything they might have forgotten would have come out in Mandos.

“I know. And you were right. We knew you were right. But we just—” Celegorm exhaled sharply, fists clenching white-knuckled in his lap. 

“I know,” Maedhros said. He hesitated a moment, and then asked, “Have you spoken to Finrod?”

“Yes,” Celegorm said, shoulders slumping. “He’s disgustingly forgiving about the whole thing, but I can still see how he gets nervous when we’re in the same room. I don’t know—apologies aren’t enough, but I don’t know what would be, and I don’t think he knows either.”

“Maybe it’s just time that’s needed,” Maedhros said. Celegorm, like all of them, had gone to everyone he’d wronged in one way or another, but it was different with Finrod—their cousin, their friend. But that was not why they were out here in the wilds, and not why Celegorm had gone off alone to whistle half-heartedly at songbirds while Curufin went somewhere else to do whatever it was he did to sulk these days. Maedhros should have known what that was—he’d once known all of his brothers’ habits, happy and unhappy. He needed to do better. “Why do you and Curufin not speak?”

“I brought out all the worst in him,” Celegorm said, voice very quiet and very small. “I don’t know how to not do it again.”

“Oh, Tyelko.” Maedhros slipped off of the root and wrapped both his arms around Celegorm. Celegorm didn’t cry, but he went limp, resting all of himself against Maedhros, hands coming up to grip Maedhros’ arm. There wasn’t really anything to say—nothing that would fix this, or make anyone feel better. So instead he asked, “Is this why you never go to Tirion?”

“You never go to Tirion either,” Celegorm said. 

“Don’t be like me,” Maedhros whispered. “Please don’t be like me.” 

When they returned to their camp Curufin had already come back. Neither he nor Celegorm looked at the other, and when Caranthir glanced his way Maedhros shook his head. He would find a time to talk to Curufin later. “Let’s go,” he said, and they all moved to break camp. They were ready to move on in minutes, and no one protested when Celegorm again took the lead, though Curufin dropped to the back. 

Before long they came to a road, which was a little surprising, since Maedhros had thought they had left behind nearly all villages and towns, and lonesome hamlets were few and far between out in the wilds. They broke into a canter just for the pleasure of speed, but after a time Celegorm held up his hand, and they all slowed. Maedhros did not reach for a weapon but he saw Ambarussa and Curufin make aborted movements toward their belts. “What is it?” Maedhros asked. 

“An old man,” said Celegorm, sounding baffled. 

Caranthir and Maedhros both moved forward, on either side of him. Caranthir snorted. “It is only Mithrandir.”

“Who is Mithrandir?” one of the twins asked. 

“One of the Istari.” Unlike Maedhros, his brothers seemed to have kept themselves informed, and knew what that meant without further explanation. “I don’t know what he’s doing out here, though. I would have thought he would be at Elrond’s house with Midsummer approaching.”

Gandalf, or Mithrandir, or whatever name he had decided to use that day, came strolling down the road, wearing an absurd blue hat with a broad brim; his cloak was grey—befitting the name Caranthir had given him—and he was singing as he walked, in Westron, keeping time with his staff and his footsteps. 

Still round the corner we may meet
A sudden tree or standing stone
That none have seen but we alone…

He broke off his singing and laughed, as he had laughed when Maedhros had first met him. “What have we here, then? Six brothers journeying west? Where are you going, Sons of Nerdanel?” 

“Well met, Mithrandir,” said Caranthir. 

“We are going west, as you see,” added Celegorm, looking as though he did not know whether to be amused or not. “And where are you going?”

“To Imloth Ningloron, of course! Midsummer’s Day is the day after tomorrow!” Gandalf beamed at them. “I have prepared a special set of fireworks to celebrate Elladan and Elrohir’s arrival, and I have heard that Elemmírë will be there as well—a great piece of luck for the rest of us, to have both Maglor and Elemmírë there to perform.” 

“You are a long way from Imloth Ningloron, Mithrandir,” said Caranthir. 

“Not so long,” Gandalf said, laughing again. “I am glad to see the six of you together. It has been too long.” He gazed up at each of them in turn, and Maedhros had the uncomfortable feeling that Gandalf saw much more than his cheerfully careless demeanor suggested. “Is your father back among the living yet?” 

Maedhros stiffened, and his horse shifted under him. Gandalf knew very well that Fëanor was back, he thought, seeing that glint in his dark eyes. It was Caranthir who answered him again. “What business is that of yours, Mithrandir?”

“Oh, none at all! I’m afraid I spent far too many years among hobbits, and they are shameless gossips, every one of them. Perhaps I do have a bit of a personal interest, being rather fond of your brother. Now, if you want my advice—”

“We don’t,” said Caranthir and Celegorm. 

“Well, I shall give it to you anyway.” Gandalf leaned on his staff, and Maedhros noticed for the first time that he wore a ring, gold set with a warm red stone. “Imagine you are in your mother’s kitchen, and there is a bowl on the table, a lovely ceramic bowl, perhaps painted with flowers, or with stars. It is knocked to the floor and breaks into a dozen pieces—what would you do with it?”

Maedhros glanced at Caranthir, who shrugged. The silence went on long enough that it became clear Gandalf expected an answer. “Sweep it up, obviously,” Celegorm said impatiently. 

“And do what with the pieces?”

“Throw them away.”

“Put them away,” Caranthir said. “Our mother might use them for something later.”

“Or,” Gandalf said cheerfully, “you can put them back together.”

“What’s the point of that?” asked Celegorm. “You can’t put a ceramic bowl back together the way it was.”

“There is a method of pottery repair practiced by the Elves of the east—the ones you call Avari, though they have their own names for themselves, of course. It was brought west to Rivendell by one of them after the Last Alliance, and I found it fascinating and quite lovely. They take broken pottery—for clay is not always so abundant that they can simply toss a broken piece away and make another—and glue it back together, and then they highlight the breaks with golden lacquer—or silver, perhaps, or some other color, but Ifreth always used gold. Everything has a history, you know, a story, and the breaking is a part of it, and it is turned into something quite lovely when all is said and done. You’ll see several such pieces in Imloth Ningloron, if you stay there long enough—platters at the supper table, or vases holding Lady Celebrían’s roses and peonies.”

“Sometimes,” Maedhros said quietly, “a thing is too broken to be repaired.” Shattered into a thousand pieces, so all that could be done for it was to sweep it up and dispose of it while trying to avoid stepping on any sharp pieces that might embed themselves in one’s foot.

“Sometimes,” Gandalf agreed, looking at Maedhros with such kind pity in his eyes that he wanted to turn away, though he found that he could not, “but in my experience that is a rare thing indeed.” He smiled and straightened, tapping his staff on the road. “There. You will remember that, I hope, and when it proves useful you can find me in Imloth Ningloron with your thanks. Another bit of advice, if you like, for your travels: Ekkaia is quite lovely at this time of year. Farewell! I must be going or I shall be late, and feasting and singing at the house of Elrond and Celebrían is not a thing to miss if you can help it!” He passed them all by then, his staff tapping on the road again in time with his steps, and as he gained distance he began to sing again, that same cheerful tune from before: 

Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though we pass them by today,
Tomorrow we may come this way
And take the hidden paths that run
Towards the Moon or to the Sun…

“What was that all about?” Amrod asked after Gandalf had disappeared into the distance. “A lesson about the pottery customs of the Avari isn’t advice.”

“I hope he was not so strange in Middle-earth, if he was meant to defeat Sauron,” said Amras. 

“He was and he wasn’t, to hear Bilbo tell it—and anyway whatever he did worked,” Caranthir said absently, frowning as he gazed back down the road after him. “Did you see his ring? It seemed familiar.”

“Telperinquar’s work,” Curufin said quietly. “It was Narya.” He kept his gaze lowered, staring at his horse’s mane rather than looking at any of them.

Maedhros sighed, and looked at Celegorm. “You had mentioned Ekkaia too,” he said. “Should we go there?”

“Might as well,” said Celegorm, straightening and flashing a grin. “Unless there is somewhere else one of you needs to be.”

“Nowhere, and you know it,” Caranthir said. 

“We have never seen Ekkaia,” said Amrod, as Amras nodded. 

“Nor have I,” said Curufin after a moment, seeming to bring himself back to the present with a great effort. 

“Then we must go!” said Celegorm. He urged his horse forward into a canter and then into a gallop, and one by one the rest of them followed. Maedhros brought up the rear. The wind in his face was brisk and the sun was warm. They passed through forests and fields, seeing no other travelers but coming more than once upon a settlement or a hamlet, with elves that paused and waved cheerfully as they flew by. They did not slow until the sun began to set in front of them; they had left the forests behind and ahead were rolling hills covered in grass and wildflowers, with purple heather glowing in the light of the setting sun. 

Celegorm led them off the road and up one of the hills, and Ambarussa disappeared to look for firewood. The rest of them set the horses free to graze, and set up the rest of the camp. Curufin and Celegorm still were not speaking directly to one another. The silence was grating, and Caranthir caught his eye more than once, questioning, but Maedhros did not think any further intervention would solve anything. He knew why Celegorm was keeping his distance. He did not know why Curufin was letting him. 

When the twins returned Caranthir finally spoke. “Are we saving the wine for Midsummer or for Ekkaia, or can we get stupidly drunk tonight?”

Amrod made a face. “Do we all want to get angry and shout at each other tonight? That’s what will happen if we get stupidly drunk.”

“Except Maitimo,” said Amras. “I don’t think he would yell.”

“I won’t be getting drunk,” said Maedhros. 

“You’re the one who probably should,” said Curufin unexpectedly. But he did not move to get out a bottle. “Let’s wait. We can fight one another on the shores of Ekkaia where no one else will hear.” 

“There’s no one else around here for miles,” Caranthir said mildly. 

“That’s what we thought before we encountered Mithrandir.”

“Mithrandir doesn’t count. Any of the Ainur could appear at any moment. We’d never do anything if we decided to worry all the time about whether Manwë might decide to drop out of the sky on a whim.”

Maedhros leaned back on his elbows and watched the stars come out. Gil-Estel shone over the western horizon, and he found himself thinking of Fëanor again, wondering what he thought when he saw that star. Whether he would try to demand the Silmaril’s return. It seemed doubtful. That manic, shadowy haze of madness and rage and grief had been absent from Fëanor under the willow tree. Still… 

A stick hit the side of his face. “Stop brooding,” said Amras. “You’re not supposed to brood on this trip.”

Maedhros tossed the stick back; Amras caught it easily and threw it into the fire. “Distract me, then.”

The twins obliged, launching into a story about one of their recent hunting trips. It was absurd and more than half made up, but it had them all laughing by the end. “We win!” Amrod crowed. 

“Win what?” Maedhros asked. 

“We made you laugh first!” Amras said. 

“Probably for the first time since you came back from Mandos,” said Amrod. 

That was…probably true. Maedhros wasn’t sure what to say without ruining the mood, but Curufin started a much more believable but still funny story about his wife’s family and a lost bracelet, and after he was done Caranthir talked of what their younger cousins were making—lovely things, furniture and lamps and jewelry—and then Celegorm took his turn with another hunting story. Maedhros offered up no tales, for he had none. 

It was late by then. The stars blazed over their heads, and the moon was just rising in the east. “What is Elrond like?” Amras asked. “We only met him once in Tirion. He seemed…” He paused, thinking. “I don’t know what he seemed like.”

“Kind,” Amras murmured. He lay with his head in Amrod’s lap, eyes closed. “He was kind.”

Everyone else looked at Maedhros. “Why do you look at me?” he asked. “Curufin has seen him as recently as I have.”

“You raised him, didn’t you?” asked Celegorm.

“Maglor raised them,” Maedhros said. Maglor’s name dropped heavily from his tongue, into the space between them like a stone tossed into calm waters. They had been dancing around it for days, ever since they had left Nerdanel’s house. 

“Why?” Caranthir asked. Why not you? Why not—when you were once the consummate eldest brother, the one all of us as children looked to after our parents, the protector, the comforter. 

“Would you let me near a child now?” Maedhros asked. “I was worse then.” Caranthir and Celegorm exchanged a glance. Curufin frowned at the stick he was whittling down to a nub. Amras opened his eyes.

“You could still tell us about him, couldn’t you?” Amrod asked quietly. “As a child.” 

Maedhros did not immediately answer. It wasn’t really Elrond that they wanted to know about. If they wanted to know anything about Elrond they could go ask him, or others who had known him. It was that time—those years after Sirion when none of them had been there, when the seven of them had been reduced to two. They knew what happened at the end, but no one knew what came before. Neither Elrond nor Elros had ever set those years down into the history books, but for one or two lines that only hinted at the love they bore Maglor. His brothers waited. Maedhros sat up, and looked into the fire because it was easier than looking at any of them, and…he tried to think of what to say. It had been terrible. Sirion had been terrible, chaos and betrayal compounding betrayal, and Ambarussa had died and they hadn’t even been able to take their bodies for burial. Afterward there had been just a handful of loyal followers around them, for reasons Maedhros still did not understand. Maybe it had been for the sake of Elrond and Elros. He couldn’t ask them now. He didn’t even know if they had survived the war in the north. 

“The world was falling apart around us,” he said finally. “Storms ripped across the land, and the earth shook, and rivers flooded and dried up and flooded again; there were orcs everywhere. But the twins…there were always flowers, wherever they went. There would be none when we set up camp and then the next morning or the day after there would be niphredil everywhere. It still happens to Elrond, I think.” That was what he remembered most clearly about those terrible years—the sweet springtime scent of niphredil cutting through everything else, and the silky softness of the petals when he woke to them blooming by his cheek. That and the music the twins had made with Maglor, as he taught them to sing and to play the harp. Their voices had been sweet as nightingales, and there had been real joy in Maglor then—the joy of sharing the music he loved with others, of teaching someone willing and eager to learn, of being the listener sometimes rather than always the singer—and it hadn’t been just music. He had made the decision to love those boys with all he had left in him and had never looked back, even when it broke his heart. 

“Maglor taught them music,” Maedhros said out loud, to the fire. “He taught them everything he could, and they learned quickly, always asking questions even when no one had answers for them. And then when they reached adulthood—they grew fast, the way Men do—they insisted that we go north to join with Gil-galad and Finarfin. Maglor sent them with the rest of our people. We knew better than to go ourselves.” Maglor had given Elros his harp, so he could not play anymore. He hadn’t sung, either. There was no longer an audience to pretend for, except Maedhros, and that was a different sort of performance. “Maglor loved them, and they loved him. Elrond loves him still.” 

“And you?” someone asked, almost too softly to be heard over the gentle crackling of the campfire. Maedhros wasn’t sure who. 

“They were afraid of me,” he said. “I kept my distance.”

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Fëanor did not try to stop Maglor when he stepped past him to return to the house. Elrohir led a horse from the stables as Maglor approached, and Elladan stepped forward to embrace him. “We heard you all the way here,” he said. “Your voice, not the words.”

“I’m sorry.” Maglor realized only then that since meeting the twins he’d only rarely had any reason to use the power of his voice; he wasn’t even certain they’d heard him shout before. They knew what he had once been capable of, but knowing the stories and hearing it were two very different things. “I won’t do it again.”

“That’s not what I meant. Are you all right?”

He felt worse than he had in many, many years. He did not feel like he had in the aftermath of Dol Guldur, exactly, but rather as he had in the aftermath of Fëanor’s death—or Maedhros’ capture. Then, he had not been able to flee—there had been nowhere to go, and too many others had been reliant upon him; he’d pushed all the terrible guilt and grief down deep and tried to forget about it. For a time, after Maedhros had been returned to them, as they established their own realms and it began to seem as though they might be able to live there in Middle-earth rather than merely surviving, he had even succeeded. Now, though… “I need to be somewhere else,” he said. 

“I still think it isn’t right,” said Elrohir.

“I am not leaving because he is here. I am leaving because I still feel like I need to scream, and I don’t want to shatter all your mother’s windows.” Maglor held out his arm and Elrohir stepped forward, so he was holding onto both twins. “I’ll be back. I don’t know when, but soon. Before the end of autumn, maybe.” 

Elrond and Celebrimbor emerged from the house, and Celebrimbor hurried down the steps to throw his own arms around Maglor the moment the twins made room. “Do you want company?” he asked. 

“No, thank you,” said Maglor. “Please don’t worry about me,” he added, glancing at Elrond. 

“You know that’s impossible,” Elrond said. It was hard to read the troubled look on his face, and Maglor hated that he had put it there. He moved forward to embrace Elrond, and Elrond returned it fiercely, holding on as tightly as he had on the docks of Avallónë. As he had before they’d parted during the War of Wrath. “Do not stay away too long,” he said quietly.

“I won’t. I promised you once I would not disappear.” Maglor kissed his forehead, and whispered, “I love you, Elrond. I just cannot be here now.”

“I understand.”

Maglor pulled back and heaved a dramatic sigh as Huan came out to join them before lightening his tone, adding, “And I suppose you will be following whether I want company or not.” Huan woofed in reply, before sitting down to scratch himself. “No one worry about me, please—you’ll have enough on your hands with both Fëanor and Fingolfin visiting. Look for me when autumn is waning!” He offered Elrond a smile that he feared was not convincing, before he swung up into the saddle.

Before he turned toward the road, Maglor glanced back up the valley. He saw his father, paused beside a patch of flowering yarrow and bluebells, and for a moment their eyes met. Fëanor looked as though he had been weeping—a shocking sight, though Maglor could not have explained why. His father had once been free with both tears and laughter, though that was before everything had gone so terribly wrong, when both laughter and tears had dried up, leaving only fury and fire behind. Maglor’s own eyes stung, and he turned away, urging his horse into a quick trot, lifting a hand and calling a farewell over his shoulder to Elrond and Celebrimbor and the twins, hoping it sounded merrier than he felt. Huan loped along beside him, and then ran ahead to stop by a large rock standing beside the road. Maglor slowed, seeing Gandalf sitting in the grass beside it, blowing smoke rings that circled in the air above his head like lazy lopsided birds. “Off on a journey then, Maglor?” he asked, sending one of the rings to hover around Maglor’s own head for a moment before dispersing in the breeze. 

“I am.”

Gandalf grinned up at him, dark eyes twinkling. “Good!” he said. “Nothing like a bit of travel to clear the head. I hear Ekkaia is lovely at this time of year.” As he spoke he winked at Huan, who nuzzled his face for a moment before trotting on.

Maglor looked at him, but saw nothing but his usual cheerfulness—and anyway, he couldn’t think of any reason beyond perhaps teasing him that Gandalf would suggest any particular destination; Maglor was, after all, rather infamous for his seaside wanderings. “I will keep that in mind,” he said, “farewell for now, Gandalf.”

Someone called his name before he could reach the edge of the valley, and Maglor turned to see Fingon racing to catch up. He reined in beside Maglor, windblown and flushed. “Where are you going?” he asked. “No don’t worry, I don’t want to go with you, I just…we’ve only just met again.”

“I’m sorry,” Maglor said. “Fingon, I’m…”

“If you’re going to apologize for how I died, don’t. Please.” Fingon’s smile was crooked, and did not reach his eyes. “Everyone else already has, and it wasn’t your fault. It was all our faults and no one’s fault—and my own fault. Better to die in battle than to be taken captive.” Maglor stiffened before he could help it and his horse shifted under him, and Fingon’s expression fell. “What? What did I—Maglor, you weren’t—were you…?”

“Elrond can tell you. Or Galadriel. I can’t. I’m sorry, Fingon—for the Nirnaeth and for everything that came before and after, and—and for leaving now. But I will come back. I just—I can’t be here. Not now.”

“I understand,” Fingon said. He looked at Maglor’s face, at the scars there, and then met his gaze. “I’m sure everyone has told you about Maedhros by now.”

“Fingon…”

“I won’t say that he needs you, because you already know. But you need him, too, Maglor.”

He knew that. Of course he knew that. It was such a deep and fundamental truth that it was almost nonsensical to say it aloud, like pointing out that the sky was blue or that fire was hot. But he’d learned how to live with that absence, over thousands of years; sometimes he could even forget how much it hurt, and anyway he was not the one who had forgotten—or ceased to care. “Has anyone said that to him?” 

“I don’t know,” Fingon said. “But I will, if I see him before you do.”

“Please don’t.” Maglor looked away, out toward the road stretching away into the distance. “I don’t want to see him any more than I wanted to see my father.” It tasted like a lie, bitter on his tongue, even though he meant it. He didn’t know anymore whether he was glad that Maedhros had stayed away as he’d been advised, or angry that he hadn’t come looking for him anyway, as Fëanor had.

“Maglor…”

“He made his choice.”

“I’m not so sure—” 

“I was there, Fingon. It burned me too.” All he'd wanted in that moment had been to get it away, to take the thing that was causing him pain and fling it as far as he possibly could. It wasn’t until after it disappeared beneath the waves that he had even realized what he’d done—and then even though his hand had been a mess, bloody and blistering, and the pain hardly lessened, it had been such a relief, and he’d turned to tell Maedhros that he should also throw it away, only Maedhros—

Maglor had turned just in time to see him disappear into the chasm, to die before his eyes but out of his reach—just like all the others, from Caranthir to Ambarussa. He hadn’t been able to save any of them, and watching Maedhros die was worst of all because he hadn’t fallen in the midst of battle—it was something Maglor could have prevented, if he had only seen the signs, if he had not trusted to any promises made when the Oath had overwritten everything else, if he had not turned away even for a moment, if he had realized that of course by then Maedhros would not try to escape the pain, that of course he would turn toward something worse instead.

Maglor didn’t remember what happened after that, only coming back to himself some time—hours, days, weeks, it was impossible to guess—and some long way later, the world breaking around him, his throat raw and aching, mouth full of the taste of salt—both seawater and tears. 

“You shouldn’t go alone,” Fingon said after a moment. “I hate to think of you alone, Maglor.”

“I’m not alone.” Maglor nodded toward Huan, who waited a little farther up the road. “And this isn’t—this isn’t like it was. I have a home to return to, and I promised Elrond long ago I wouldn’t just disappear.” He reached out, and Fingon grasped his hand; his was missing the callouses that Maglor remembered, for there was no reason to pick up a sword anymore. “You have enough to worry about, surely, between your father and mine. Don’t add me to the list. I’m—I have been fine, and I will be again. Ask Elrond about it.”

“I don’t think you are,” Fingon said. “Maedhros used to say he was fine, too, when he wasn’t, back in Beleriand—I think he even believed it some of the time.”

“Have you been talking to Finrod?”

Fingon grinned at him as they released their hands. “No, but if he is saying the same thing perhaps you should listen. He is wiser than I.”

“He only got that reputation because Men hadn’t met anyone else yet,” said Maglor, just so Fingon would laugh. “I’ll see you when I come back, Fingon. You can go gossip about me with Finrod and Galadriel in the meantime.”

“It isn’t gossip, Maglor. We love you, and we are worried for you.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” Maglor said.

As he left the valley at last and the road stretched out before him, and Valinor opened up beyond, he took a deep breath. “All right, Huan, can you keep up?” he asked. Huan barked and surged forward. His horse needed almost no encouragement to pick up speed until they were barreling down the road, and there was nothing but the horse under him and the sky above him and the wind on his face—nothing but freedom and speed and that moment, with neither past nor future to come crowding into his thoughts.

He left the main road after a time, taking another branch that led north and west that he did not remember being there before, and not really caring where he went so long as it was away from Imloth Ningloron and away from people. When he slowed to a walk, he looked at Huan, who took advantage of the slowed pace to pause and sniff at the flowers on the side of the road. No coddling from him, at least. Maglor was about to say something to him when he heard a faint meowing from his saddle beg. “What in the world…? Pídhres, what are you doing there?” He scooped her out and she climbed up onto his shoulder, perching there and rubbing her head against his ear. “You could be napping in a sunbeam back at Imloth Ningloron right now, you silly cat. What do you want to be out on the road with me for?” She purred.

His intention had been to go somewhere empty and desolate, far away from anyone who would be disturbed when he stopped holding back and screamed as loud and as long as he could at the sky. As he rode, though, he kept coming upon villages or farmsteads, kept passing other travelers who greeted him merrily—or with surprise, if they recognized his face or recognized Huan. No one was unkind but there were so many of them. He urged his horse into a gallop more than once just so he could avoid speaking to others. Huan kept up easily, but Pídhres hated going too fast for too long. 

After a few days he left the main roads at last and found himself able to breathe easier after going a full morning without seeing anyone else. He stopped to eat near a stream, finding shade under a stand of slender young trees. Huan splashed around in the water, and Maglor lay back on the grass and found shapes in the clouds while Pídhres stalked field mice and his horse grazed in the clover. It was a beautiful spot, and a beautiful day, and at any other time Maglor would have found something pleasant to sing about, making up ridiculous rhymes just to amuse himself. Instead he found his thoughts circling back, again and again, to his father. 

Why had he come to Imloth Ningloron in the first place? What had he wanted? Surely it had not just been to let Maglor shout at him and then storm away—except that was what he’d done. For what? Some kind of self-punishment, some kind of atonement? It did not feel like atonement. It felt—he couldn’t put a name to what it felt like. 

The clouds blurred before his eyes, and he rolled over to bury his face in his arms to try to muffle his cries. He regretted none of the things he’d said, but now he wished that he hadn’t left so immediately, that he would have been able to listen to whatever his father had come to say. That he could have run into his father’s arms instead of away from them. He missed his father, desperately, the way he missed his brothers and his mother, and the Trees, and their sprawling chaotic house. He missed the father that had kissed his tears away, who had set his fingers on the strings of a harp underneath his own larger ones, guiding him over the scales for the first time, who had been the first one to tell him how proud he was after Maglor had first performed before a crowd in Tirion. 

There was no getting that back, though. The father that he’d loved had died the moment Fëanor had drawn his sword against Fingolfin in Tirion. They just hadn’t realized it until it was far, far too late—and he couldn’t trust that that was who had come back from Mandos. Not after everything else.

The tears slowed eventually, leaving him feeling drained and hollow, though the burning itch under his skin that made him want to scream and scream until he had no voice left had eased a little. When he lifted his head he found that a patch of sweet-smelling chamomile had sprung up and bloomed around him. He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of it, and sat up, finding Huan laying nearby, watching solemnly with his dark eyes. As Maglor rubbed his face with the hem of his shirt he heard Pídhres make her usual plaintive sounds—the ones that signaled that she had climbed something and gotten herself stuck. He sighed, and got to his feet. She’d chased something up one of the young and slender trees by the roadside, and scolded him when he came to stand beneath her. “Well come on, then,” he said. His voice was rough and he had to cough to clear his throat, which didn’t much help the sound. Pídhres meowed. “I can’t reach you up there, silly cat!” She’d settled on a branch a hand span beyond his reach, and the tree was too slender for him to try to hoist himself up; the branches would not hold his weight even for the few moments he would need to grab her. 

As he rose onto his toes he heard horses somewhere ahead, but he did not look away, lest Pídhres choose that moment to jump onto his head, or onto Huan, who had followed to lay at Maglor’s feet. At the sound of horses he raised his head, one ear cocked. Then he lumbered to his feet and stepped up onto the road, barking a greeting. Pídhres hissed and jumped farther up the tree. Maglor let his head fall forward against the smooth bark. “Huan!”

Familiar laughter floated down the road, and Maglor closed his eyes, somehow torn between relief and dread. He rubbed his sleeve over his face, though he didn’t imagine it did much good, before turning in time to see a trio of horses stopping so the riders could dismount and greet Huan. Daeron was one of them, of course, and Maglor recognized Mablung too, who bowed to Huan before smiling as Huan butted his head into his chest, eager for scratches. The third rider, silver-haired and slender, was one Maglor did not know; he remained in the saddle, and there was something melancholy and oddly insubstantial about him—something oddly like Fëanor, though they looked nothing alike. 

“Well met, Maglor!” Daeron said, springing from his saddle and crossing the road to join Maglor beneath the tree. “I did not expect to see you until we reached Imloth Ningloron!” His sharp gaze missed nothing, of course, and he lowered his voice as he asked, “What is the matter? What’s amiss?”

“Only my foolish cat, who can climb up anything but never down again,” Maglor said, and was relieved to find that his voice sounded almost normal. Daeron looked up and laughed, momentarily distracted. “But what brings you out here? Were you going to Imloth Ningloron?”

“Yes, of course! Or at least, I was, and my dear cousin doesn’t think I can be left unsupervised,” Daeron raised his voice slightly, “even though I survived thousands of years without him! So he insisted upon coming along, and Beleg is so new-come from Mandos that he’s seen as little of this land as I have, and decided that he would like to meet Elrond and his family at last, and so here we are!”

“It was sheer luck that you survived, and you know it,” Mablung said mildly, with the air of resignation that came with an ongoing argument that would have no resolution. Beleg dropped to the ground to hold out his hands for Huan to sniff, and the three of them crossed the road back to the tree. “Well met, Maglor. It is a long time since the Mereth Aderthad.”

“A long time and a long way,” Maglor agreed. 

“Well met,” Beleg echoed, with a smile. “I am glad to meet you at last. Daeron has spoken much and highly of you.” 

“I have heard much of you also,” Maglor said, somehow managing a smile of his own. Overhead Pídhres made a quiet disgruntled sound. He wished this meeting had happened an hour later, or an hour earlier, when he was in better control of himself. He’d left Elrond’s house to be alone, and here he was, forced to make polite conversation with Mablung and Beleg Strongbow, with Daeron standing close enough to notice if he started shaking. 

“Where are you going?” Daeron asked him. “I hope you aren’t going off wandering without me, as you promised you wouldn’t do.” He was teasing, but Maglor couldn’t bring himself to tease back, or even smile.

“My father is at Imloth Ningloron,” he said, and all three of them, Daeron, Beleg, and Mablung, exchanged a look of surprise. “Fingolfin is there also. It is…tense, and I wished to be elsewhere.” 

“Well,” Beleg said after a moment, “that will certainly be interesting news to bring back to Thingol. Mablung?”

“Would we be intruding, or will Elrond mind if we indulge a little curiosity?” Mablung asked. 

“You would not be intruding. Celeborn is there and I think he would be glad to see you.”

“Do you have your driftwood harp?” Daeron asked. “I told Beleg of it; would you show him?”

Maglor couldn’t think of a good reason to say no. He had nowhere else to be and nothing else to do, no ready excuse to end this encounter and part ways again. So he went to his things and took out his harp. “This is lovely,” Beleg said, running his hands over the frame. “I have never worked with driftwood before.”

“You’ve never gone to the sea before,” Mablung said. 

“I have,” Beleg said, smiling, “but not to look for wood. It was only to stop Daeron from drowning himself diving for pearls off of Balar.” He handed the harp back to Maglor. “I will not ask you to play now; I think you are eager to be on your way. Perhaps some other time.”

“Some other time,” Maglor agreed. Mablung and Beleg bid him farewell and good luck with his cat, but Daeron did not follow when they returned to their horses. “Are you not also going to Imloth Ningloron?” he asked. 

“Of course not. I was only going to see you.” Daeron lifted a hand to wave to Mablung and Beleg as they passed on down the road; Mablung called out to Daeron to be careful, and Daeron stuck his tongue out in reply before turning back to Maglor. “Don’t look so surprised! You told me I could find you there.”

“But—but why?”

Daeron’s smile faded into seriousness. “I have been having troubling dreams,” he said. “Dreams of you—traveling as you are now, alone and unhappy. I spoke to Melian and she agreed that you should not be alone—and so here I am. Shall I fetch Pídhres? I am lighter than you; if you lift me up I can grab her.”

Maglor did not like the idea of Melian giving him any thought at all; it made him want to run and hide somewhere. “I’m not very good company,” he said. “In fact I am terrible company, and—”

“Maglor.” Daeron reached up to touch his face, his thumb sliding over the scar over Maglor’s cheekbone, and when he lifted his hand his fingers were wet; Maglor hadn’t even noticed he’d started to weep again. “Won’t you let me help?”

“I don’t think you can,” Maglor said.

“I can at least help you fetch your cat.”

“Daeron—”

“Give me a boost, come on!” 

Maglor sighed and knelt, holding out his hands for Daeron to step into. When he did Maglor rose, lifting him up so he could grab one of the thicker branches and reach for Pídhres, snatching her in one swift motion before dropping lightly back to the ground while she yowled. Maglor caught his arms to steady him, though it was unnecessary. “What a dramatic little thing she is,” Daeron laughed, and held her out. “Here you are! And what is Huan doing here? I had heard he had gone back to Celegorm.”

“And Celegorm sent him to me,” Maglor said. Pídhres climbed up onto his shoulders, and Huan came over to sniff at Daeron. “I don’t know why—or why he won’t leave me alone.” He sighed. “I suppose you’ll be as hard to get rid of as Huan.”

“I shall indeed!”

“Fine.” Maglor turned to whistle for his horse; she came trotting up, eager to be going again.

“Will you tell me what’s wrong?”

“I did tell you. My father is at Imloth Ningloron.”

Daeron’s whole face softened, and Maglor had to turn his back. He slipped his harp back into its case and reattached it and his bags to the saddle, fumbling with the straps. “I am sorry,” Daeron said, laying a hand on Maglor’s arm. “But believe even more strongly now that I should not leave you alone. Where were you headed?”

At least when he had been wandering the shores of Middle-earth, believing there was no one left in the world who cared what became of him, Maglor thought, he hadn’t had to feel bad about other people worrying about him. There had been sorrow and loneliness but also a strange sort of freedom in it. The knowledge of so many people’s care now felt…heavy. Suffocating, when he would rather indulge in solitary misery. It was an unkind and ungrateful thought, but he couldn’t help thinking it all the same. 

Once they were both back in their saddles he said, surrendering to the inevitable, “Gandalf said Ekkaia is nice at this time of year. I suppose since you are with me I might as well show you the way.” He was rewarded with a bright smile, dazzling as the sun emerging from behind a cloud. Daeron then burst into a merry traveling song, breaking into a trot and leaving Maglor blinking in his wake. 

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As Maglor disappeared into the distance, and Fingon turned to make his way back, Elrond looked back into the valley; Fëanor had disappeared. Elladan and Elrohir retreated inside, speaking together in low voices; Celebrimbor lingered, looking unhappy and uncharacteristically uncertain. Something of that thought must have shown in his own face, because Celebrimbor grimaced at him. “I should speak to my grandfather,” he said, “but it feels wrong to do so when not even my father will see him.”

“Did your father ask you not to see him?”

“No, of course not.”

“Then it is no betrayal to do so.” Elrond glanced back to where Fëanor had been. “But I think I would like to speak to him first.”

“You’ve spoken to him already, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but I was trying to dissuade him from going after Maglor. I spoke nothing untrue, but I was not…kind.”

“If the truth is unkind, that is no fault of yours,” said Celebrimbor. “But go on—I want to talk to Fingon and Galadriel first, anyway. I don’t trust Maglor’s assurances about himself.”

“He was doing well,” Elrond sighed. “He was happy, but I suppose that was only in ignoring the storm on the horizon.”

“I don’t like that he’s gone off alone.”

“Huan is with him, and I think Huan has plans of his own.” Elrond had also seen Maglor pause by the roadside, and the telltale smoke rings floating up from the person he’d stopped to speak with. Perhaps Gandalf only wished to say farewell—but Elrond knew the old wizard well enough to suspect he, too, had some sort of plan. He would ask later, but he also knew Gandalf well enough to not expect an answer. “I am worried about him, too,” Elrond said, looking back at Celebrimbor, “but I don’t think he will come to harm.”

“You don’t think he’ll fall into old habits?” Celebrimbor asked quietly. “Six thousand years is a long time to wander.”

“I think he will keep his promises, and he will return before the start of winter,” Elrond said. Maglor was was in pain, but he was not in danger of losing himself, or forgetting that he had a home to return to when he was ready. “Or, if his plans change, he will send a message. Almost I hope his plans will change, if he finds himself at Nerdanel’s house.”

“Maybe.” Celebrimbor still seemed doubtful. “Good luck speaking to my grandfather. He let Maglor have his say, and I doubt he’ll have much patience for anyone else.”

“That’s all right,” said Elrond. “I can at least show him to the room Erestor picked for him.”

“Which room?”

“One on the opposite side of the house from Fingolfin’s.”

“Your wisdom is unparalleled,” Celebrimbor said with a grin.

Elrond smiled. “Not my wisdom,” he said. “It was Celebrían’s decision.”

They parted, and Elrond walked back out into the gardens, following the path that Maglor had come from when he’d returned. He did not find Fëanor out among the flowers, or by the ponds; he went to the workshops, thinking he might retreat there, but they all stood empty. It was very quiet; Maglor’s voice had shivered through the air of the whole valley, though they hadn’t caught the words—those had been meant for Fëanor’s ears alone—and even the birds had fallen silent. The nightingales in the hedges had started to sing again, but anyone who had fled inside had not yet reemerged. 

Elrond paused in the pottery workshop to look at the bowl Maglor had made that morning, sitting on a shelf to dry before being fired. He’d carved a pattern of waves around the rim. By now Elrond could tell the difference between things Maglor made when he was unhappy and trying to distract himself, and things that he made for the pleasure of the process and the satisfaction of making something lovely. This was the latter, and the sight of it made Elrond sigh. It had been a good day, before Fëanor had come. 

In the end he found Fëanor in the memorial garden, which both was and was not surprising. He stood before the statue of Gilraen, as though examining the workmanship. It was a strange echo of Elrond’s encounter with Maedhros in this same garden; he had been standing in the same place in almost exactly the same stance. As the gate clicked shut behind Elrond, Fëanor turned. He had been weeping, though his eyes were mostly dry now. “This is a place of death,” he said, and Elrond could not tell what he thought about it. 

“It is a place of memory,” Elrond said. He took a handkerchief from his pocket as he crossed the garden, one of the many that Bilbo had brought of been given over the years—he had allays carried extras, ever since that momentous spring morning in the Shire long ago—and offered it to Fëanor. Fëanor looked at it, and then at Elrond. There was neither fire nor fury in his gaze now, only sorrow and weariness and wariness. “It is only a handkerchief,” Elrond said. “It isn’t going to bite.”

Fëanor took the handkerchief, though he didn’t use it, instead running his thumb over the neat and tiny stitches of the monogram in the corner. “What does this mean, BB?” he asked.

“Bilbo Baggins,” Elrond said. 

There was a pause. “What…” Fëanor said finally, “is a Bilbo Baggins?”

This was not how Elrond had expected this encounter to go; he had to suppress a smile as he answered, “A hobbit.” The look he received was so exactly like the one Maglor made when he was growing exasperated that he only just managed to keep from laughing, in spite of everything. “Bilbo was a dear friend.” Elrond nodded toward his grave, overrun with colorful snapdragons. “He was very practical about things like pocket handkerchiefs. As for hobbits—there is no simple explanation for them, I have found. Bilbo’s own words would be better than any of mine. We have several copies of his book here in the library.” It was a peace offering, alongside the handkerchief. Elrond hoped Fëanor would see that and accept it. “Bilbo was also a good friend of Maglor’s.”

“And who are you to my son?” Fëanor asked. He still hadn’t used the handkerchief for its intended purpose, instead folding it over and over in his fingers as though he could not bear to keep his hands still. “Child of Sirion, lord of Imladris—I remember your face. I have seen it in the tapestries of Vairë.”

It was very strange to imagine his own face adorning the walls of Mandos, of being woven into the story of the world by Vairë’s own hands, though he knew he should not have been surprised; he’d been on the edges of or at the center of too many things for that. Still, he could not picture his own face rendered in thread. “If you have seen me in the tapestries, you must know that your son raised my brother and me.”

“I know he took you from the ruins of Sirion after he and his brothers set them aflame.”

“He did,” Elrond said. He found himself unsure how to explain—every other time he’d had to, it had been to someone who already knew him well, who would understand at least something of the things he could not put into words. “He also loved us,” he said finally, thinking of those rare days of sunshine when they’d find a hillside to sit on and sing together, Maglor guiding their small hands over the harp strings; of the soft lullabies and quiet reassurances in the dark, when the wind had been sharp and cold, and wolves had howled in the distance. Maglor had braided their hair and taught them the names of the stars and of all the trees and flowers and herbs they encountered, and how to take the first steps in harnessing the power that lay coiled in them, how to bring it forth into their music and their voices; he had been forever stepping between Elrond and Elros and whatever dangers they encountered in war-torn Beleriand, whether it was orcs or beasts or just a thunderstorm.

He remembered, the same day they had parted, after Maglor had refused to go with them to join Gil-galad, how a storm had swept over them and they only barely managed to find shelter before the downpour hit. Elrond had not been a child then, but he had still reached for Maglor, more than once, before remembering that he was no longer there. It was not something he regretted, going to join the fighting—for he had witnessed the downfall of Ancalagon and the breaking of Thangorodrim, had seen Morgoth brought out in chains—but it had been difficult to learn to live with that particular empty spot in his heart. It had been worse after Elros had sailed away, when Elrond had gone looking as long and as far as he could, and had not even heard the echo of a voice on the sea breeze. 

“I don’t know how to explain it in a way you will understand,” he said finally, aware that Fëanor was watching him, his gaze as sharp as the swords he had once forged. “He was not our father, and he never tried to be. But he raised us and he loved us, and we loved him—I love him as I love my parents and my children. My children love him, too, and my grandchildren—” 

“Grandchildren?” Fëanor repeated quietly.

“I have never met them,” Elrond said, “and I never shall. My daughter—we are peredhil, Fëanor. I and my children are descended from both Elves and Men through both Elwing and Eärendil, and when my parents first came to these shores they were given a Choice. They chose the life of the Eldar. My brother Elros chose the Gift of Men, and so did my daughter Arwen.” He lifted his gaze to Fëanor’s, and saw his jaw go slack with horror. It was not unexpected: Fëanor had never known a world where death was not horrific, was not something that went against the proper order of everything. He had died before the first Men ever awoke beneath the first sunrise. “There is no one who lived in Middle-earth who is not familiar with such grief,” Elrond said. “That is the purpose for this garden. We carry the memory of those we loved with us, always, and this is a place to come to remember that we do not bear the weight of that sorrow alone.”

“But how can you…” Fëanor faltered, as Elrond suspected no one else had ever seen, except perhaps his father or Nerdanel. “How do you bear it, such a separation—forever? From your own child?”

“Maglor asked me that once,” Elrond said. Fëanor turned away. “It was many years before Arwen made her choice; we were speaking of Elros. My answer to him has not changed: I bear it because I must.” They had been speaking then, he and Maglor, of Maedhros and Maglor’s other brothers as well; Maglor had never expected to see them again, any more than Elrond would see Elros; Elrond had disagreed, but there hadn’t been much he could say to offer reassurance. They had not known, could not have known, that Maedhros had already been released from the Halls. There wasn’t much he could do or say now, either, when Maglor had arrived in Valinor to find all of them alive after all. “In Middle-earth I could care for Elros’ children, those who survived the fall of Númenor. I could not do the same for Arwen; I could not stay for her, after the power of the Rings was done. Here I can only carry the memory of her in my heart, as do all others who knew and loved her. Your grief, Fëanor, is not so singular now as it once was.”

“So I see,” Fëanor murmured. “I do not know if that is a comfort. I would not wish it upon anyone.”

“Maglor stayed, when I couldn’t,” Elrond said. “He stayed with Arwen and Aragorn and he knew their children; he did it for my sake, and also for theirs. He did many terrible things in Beleriand, but that was long ago, and even at the end he never fully lost himself. He has always reached out, ever since I have known him—he has never closed off his heart, not from anyone. No, not even from you,” he said when Fëanor shook his head. “He loves you; that is why his pain runs so deep.”

“I never meant for any of it to happen,” Fëanor said. “I never wanted any of that—not for my children.”

“It is what happened,” Elrond said quietly. “There is no undoing it now; you can only move forward. What will you do now?”

Fëanor’s expression turned briefly sardonic. “What would you advise me to do?”

“Would you take my advice if I gave it?”

“I should have taken it earlier,” Fëanor said. “Are you so surprised? I can admit when I am wrong.”

“That has, historically, not been the case,” Elrond said. 

To his surprise, Fëanor laughed. “And there are few who would say so to my face.”

“There may be more than you think,” said Elrond. “Fingon spoke truly when he said he had faced more frightening things than you. All of us have. But if you would hear my counsel, I will give it: take some time and rest; there is a room here for you if you wish to take it. Then, when you have rested, speak to your brother, and if you cannot be friends at least make peace.”

“Your counsel echoes Námo’s,” Fëanor remarked.

“Do not make your children take sides in this life,” said Elrond. “I do not think you will like which one they choose.”

“I have no desire for the crown; Nolofinwë can keep it. I have no desire either to take your father’s star from the sky,” he added, to Elrond’s surprise; he had expected the subject to be avoided entirely, at least for the time being. “I did not make the Silmarils to hoard them away, though I forgot that in the end. I did not come from Mandos to do any of the things you all seem to fear I will do.”

“Can you blame us?” Elrond asked.

“No.” Fëanor looked away, back toward the graves. “I will follow your advice,” he said, “if you will tell me what has befallen Canafinwë. He has scars that I do not recognize, and when I last saw him in the tapestries, when he boarded the ship…” He trailed off, gaze going distant, brow furrowing. “He was woven strangely. I do not understand it.”

“I will tell you,” Elrond said, “but it will go more smoothly, perhaps, if you read Bilbo and Frodo’s book first. It will explain much of what went on in Middle-earth at the end of the Third Age. Maglor does not appear in it, for he played no part in the Quest of Erebor or the War of the Ring, but it will help you understand what befell him—and for my part it will make the telling easier.”

Fëanor’s mouth twitched. “And this book will explain to me what hobbits are?”

“Oh, yes. It was written by hobbits, after all.”

Elrond showed Fëanor to the room prepared for him. It was not large, but it was cozy, decorated with warm colors and a tiled mosaic upon one wall that showed the sunset over Tirion. “I will find a copy of the Red Book for you,” Elrond said. “Will you join us downstairs this evening, or would you prefer to dine alone?”

“Alone, I think,” Fëanor said. “Thank you—for all you have done for Canafinwë.”

“You don’t need to thank me for that,” Elrond said. “He is my family.”

He retreated to the library to find the book, and after a moment’s thought he took two copies off of the shelf—one in Quenya, the other in Westron. If nothing else, Fëanor might enjoy learning a new language. “Doing a bit of light reading, Elrond?” Gandalf asked, coming around the corner. 

“I thought Fëanor might benefit from catching up on recent history. What did you say to Maglor before he left?”

“Only wished him a good journey,” Gandalf said. Elrond did not believe him for an instant. “How did your own talk with Fëanor go?”

“Better than Maglor’s, I suppose. I hope if you plan to meddle you’ll give me some warning beforehand.”

Gandalf laughed. “No, no meddling from me. Let Fëanor and Fingolfin have it out between them as brothers should. I am hopeful, though, that they will find common ground. I think I will stay a while and see how it all plays out. Will he be joining us for supper?”

“No. I rather think he wants to avoid Fingolfin until both of them are ready—and he’s already had a rather trying day.”

“I imagine being shouted at by Maglor would give anyone a headache,” Gandalf said. 

When Elrond left the library he found Celebrimbor waiting for him. “How is he?” 

“Rather subdued,” Elrond said. “I did not tell him you are here, but I think he’ll be glad to see you. Do you want to take these to him for me?”

“The Red Book?” Celebrimbor looked amused as he took them. “In two languages?”

“I thought it would be a welcome distraction. It will also help him better understand Middle-earth, I think—better than Vairë’s tapestries maybe.”

“Yes,” Celebrimbor agreed. “The tapestries show much, but but that is all they do—there is rarely anyone there to explain who the strange faces are, or what precisely is happening or why. I will take these, and answer whatever questions he has, since I played no small part in it all.”

“I haven’t told him what happened to Maglor,” Elrond said. “I told him I would once he’s read these. It will make it harder to hear, maybe, but he’ll understand some things a little better.” Like why Maglor had been left to suffer for so long before the White Council had acted. Elrond was not eager to explain that. Maglor had never blamed any of them for it; Maglor had never imagined anyone would come for him at all. Fëanor would likely not be so forgiving.

“I can reassure him that Maglor is well, these days. Or mostly well, anyway,” Celebrimbor said.

“It has been hard for him to come here,” Elrond said. “To learn that all of his brothers and his father are alive again. I think he more than half-believed they had never come to Mandos at all. It’s…it’s hard enough to come and find the ones you’ve mourned for so long alive again, even if you know to expect it.”

“Yes, I know,” Celebrimbor said. “I feel that way myself sometimes—and I was one of the dead who returned.” He tilted his head a little, strands of hair falling across his forehead. “It’s strange how grief sinks in so deeply, compared to everything else. How it becomes a part of you, even when the reasons for it are no more.”

“It changes, I think, rather than going away,” Elrond said. “I don’t grieve the people anymore, but I grieve their absence in all the years that I lived without them, and I grieve that they died at all. It’s a lighter grief, though. Easier to carry. It’s just a matter of getting over the shock.”

“Do you think Maglor will? Get over the shock?”

“I hope he will.”

When Elrond retreated to their room he found Celebrían, and she breathed a sigh of relief when he told her Fëanor would not be joining the rest of them for dinner. “I think Celebrimbor might stay with him,” Elrond said. “At least I hope so.”

“At least someone is glad to see him,” Celebrían said ruefully. “Oh, what a mess.”

“It could be worse,” Elrond said. “At least no one is armed. And if we can maneuver them right, we can ensure that if something goes wrong when Fingolfin and Fëanor finally speak whoever is at fault can be pushed into the fishpond.” Celebrían tried valiantly not to laugh, but that lasted only a few seconds. “I’m sure Finrod will help,” Elrond added.

“Oh, stop!” Celebrían slipped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “We should take this seriously.”

“We can take it seriously and use the terrain to our advantage,” Elrond said. He did not feel like being serious anymore—he’d had enough of that for one day, and he wanted to hear Celebrían’s laughter.

“And what about the poor fish, hm?”

“The fish will be fine, I’m sure.” Elrond kissed her through the giggles. “And more to the point, it’s impossible to be dignified or threatening when you’re soaking wet with duckweed in your hair.”

“Surely there’s a better way to end an argument between them than that,” Celebrían said.

“I’m sure they’ve all been tried,” said Elrond. “I’ll do the pushing, if it comes to it—whichever one of them needs it. Or both of them! Do you doubt my wisdom, Celebrían? You were boasting of it to Finrod only this morning.”

She was laughing again. “No. I think others will, if they hear of this.”

“Surely true wisdom does not care what others think of it,” Elrond said.

“Well, at least we can laugh about it now. How was Maglor when he left?”

“Troubled, but trying to hide it,” Elrond said. “I heard him say something about not wanting to shatter all your windows.”

“Considerate of him,” Celebrían murmured, and sighed, leaning into Elrond’s arms. He kissed the top of her head. “He went alone?”

“Huan is with him.”

“But no one else?”

“He did not wish for company.” Elrond sighed. “He said to look for him when autumn is waning.”

“Do you think he’ll really come back?” Celebrían drew back, all traces of laughter gone from her. “It would not be the first time he disappeared.”

“I’m worried about Maglor for several reasons, but whether he will disappear is not one of them. He promised me once that he wouldn’t, and he invoked that promise again today. Either he’ll be back by wintertime, or he will send a message to tell me of his changing plans. And even if he had not promised, I do not think Huan will let him just disappear.”

“You know him best, of course,” said Celebrían, and sighed. “Well, I had hoped for a restful summer here with our boys, but I suppose we’ll have to have a restful winter instead if all goes well.”

“If it isn’t restful, at least it’s interesting. It’s too bad Fëanor did not come back years ago; Bilbo would have been delighted to meet him.”

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It was very dark, and very cold. Iron bit into his ankles and his wrists, and the heavy chains were a weight on his chest that he was not strong enough to shift. His mouth hurt, and he tasted blood. When he turned his head he glimpsed his brothers and his father, all ghostly, with dark eyes that held no light at all. When he tried to speak he couldn’t open his lips, and his throat would make no sound. 

Panic rose, and he tried to get up, tried to move, but the chains were too heavy. Then heat bloomed, and a pair of yellow eyes wreathed in flame opened in the dark above him, and a hand like hot iron gripped his throat. The brand on his chest erupted in burning pain. The voice, when it came, was like like a raging forest fire, all heat and rage, and also like the scream of metal grinding over stone. Laid over it, speaking at almost the same time, was his father’s voice—not as he had been long ago in the dark of Tirion, loud and strong and fey, but as he was now, quiet and sad and almost soft, jarring against the horrible discord of the voice of the Necromancer.

The great singer of the Noldor—

Canafinwë—

The last and least of the Sons of Fëanor— 

—the crack of a whip sliced over his back, and he screamed—knives cut into his arms, orcs laughing and jeering all around him—

Cáno, I never wanted—

Do you think you have suffered here? You have not—not yet—

His chest burned, and he couldn’t fill his lungs, couldn’t breathe through the heat and the thick smell of blood in the air—

—what was it, Cáno, the worst thing that I did?

Fëanor’s body erupted in flame before their eyes as his spirit fled, and when the fire died away there was nothing, only ashes already scattering in the frigid north wind.

—last and least—

The world was breaking around him, falling apart, falling into the sea, and he was alone. There was no one left, no one to hear him screaming at the red and roiling sky, no one to care if he screamed his spirit out of his body and into the Void. 

—will sing no more.

Maglor jerked awake, tried to sit up, and found something on his chest keeping him from moving or even breathing. He tried to push it off but he couldn’t even make his arms work, and he couldn’t make a sound—his voice was gone—he couldn’t—

“Huan! Get off him, Huan!” Daeron’s voice sliced through the blind panic like a knife, and the weight on Maglor’s chest abruptly lifted. He jerked up, but his lungs still wouldn’t work and he thought he heard the jangling of chains, and it was so cold—

He felt hands on shoulders, on his face, heard Daeron’s voice again, which was wrong and strange, and he couldn’t understand the words. He was still dreaming, surely. Daeron could not be there, not under Dol Guldur—he was made for starlight and green woodlands, not darkness under stones. But the hands pulling him up felt real enough, and then he heard a steady heartbeat as his head was pressed against a chest, and—and—

The air he’d been struggling to inhale left him in a sob, and he sucked in another breath, somehow able to breathe enclosed by arms and someone else’s hair and…

He breathed, and smelled pine and fern. He felt the prick of small claws as his cat climbed onto his lap, burrowing in against his stomach to curl up and purr at him, soft under his hands. 

This wasn’t Dol Guldur. He was with Daeron, in the little glade they’d decided was a good place to camp for the night. They were in Aman, where Sauron’s power could not reach him even if he had not been destroyed. It had only been a dream. 

He was still so cold, though, in spite of the warm summer air. 

“Maglor, can you hear me?” Daeron asked, drawing back so he could lift Maglor’s face up; the darkness receded, replaced by the soft silver light of stars. Maglor nodded, and Daeron caught his gaze and held it, his eyes as keen as Galadriel’s—they would be, Maglor thought distantly, for they were both students of Melian. “I see,” Daeron murmured at last. “Some memories have teeth. I’ll sing the dreams away.” His gaze shifted over Maglor’s shoulder and sharpened. “This is half your fault, you know. You’d better keep away,” he said, and Maglor turned to see Huan lying nearby, head on his paws, looking at him mournfully. 

Oh. The weight on his chest. Maglor shook his head and held out his arm, and Huan came to lie at his side, very careful not to put either head or paws on top of any part of him. Daeron muttered something about dogs as he got up. He was back a moment later with his own blankets, piling them on top of Maglor and settling down on his other side. Maglor looked at him in surprise. “Go back to sleep,” Daeron said, tugging him down; Maglor went, falling into the circle of his arms, unable to stop another sob escaping. The ferns beneath them were soft and springy; high above the stars shone like silver and diamonds, peering through the gaps between the tree branches. “Fear no more shadows.” He began to sing, but Maglor couldn’t make himself close his eyes, afraid of what he would see when he did. He couldn’t stop shivering, even with Pídhres curled up by his shoulder and Huan tucked up against him, even with Daeron’s hand on his back as he sang, very softly, almost drowned by the leaves rustling in the breeze over their heads. Maglor did not know if the song was meant to be a lullaby but it wrapped itself around him like another blanket and before he could even think to resist sleep rose up again to claim him. 

When he woke again the sun was high, and Huan was still pressed against him. For a few moments Maglor lay and let himself drift, not quite ready to wake fully. He heard movement around the glade, and the soft sound of Daeron’s laughter. The memory of the previous night, jumbled and cold and terrible, returned then, and Maglor opened his eyes, staring up at the trees. Huan sensed that he’d woken, and turned his head to lick up the side of Maglor’s face. Maglor cringed away. “Huan,” he croaked, and then pressed a hand over his mouth, eyes stinging, realizing the fear even as it was chased away. His voice was hoarse and weak but it was there. He wanted to sob with the relief of it, but Daeron called to him then. 

He sat up, feeling tired and strangely sore. Daeron had Pídhres in his arms; it was she that he’d been laughing at. “All well?” he asked. 

“Better,” Maglor whispered. “Daeron, I—” 

“You need not speak of it,” Daeron said. “I wasn’t going to ask. Here.” He tossed a package of way bread to Maglor, who fumbled in catching it. “Are you still cold?” Maglor shook his head; he was a little, but Huan beside him was warm, and the sun would be warmer yet once they set out again. He ate the way bread because he knew he should rather than because he had any appetite, and then got up to help pack their things back into the saddle bags. Pídhres immediately abandoned Daeron in favor of Maglor’s shoulder, and Huan remained close too, even when they set off again, trotting beside Maglor’s horse rather than ranging ahead or falling behind. 

They passed out of that wood into open grassland again, but by mid-afternoon had come to another forest, this one very old with trees like towers, the canopies somewhere very high above, so that the birdsong that drifted down from it sounded strange and distant. There was very little undergrowth, and the air had a greenish tinge, but for the bright golden sunbeams that pierced through sometimes into a glade filled with a shocking rainbow of wildflowers, or onto a sudden rocky outcropping jutting up out of the moss. 

“I have been to Fangorn,” Daeron said after a while, voice low, “but even that wood is not so old as this one.”

“The trees are friendlier, here,” Maglor murmured. He himself had not visited Fangorn, but he had heard the tales, and he had seen what the huorns had done at Isengard—and he had been to the Old Forest once, where the trees were even more ill-disposed to those that walked on two legs, not fond even of Elves. 

“If they have opinions of us at all,” Daeron agreed. 

All through the day Maglor felt jittery and strange; it was an effort to keep himself from looking over his shoulder when they were in between the woods; and then when they entered the forest again he felt worse. He kept seeing movement in the shadows, but when he turned his head nothing was there. When Daeron sang he did not join in, or take out his harp. 

Huan eventually did range ahead, and returned to beckon them off the path as the shadows began to deepen with the waning afternoon. After exchanging a glance they followed, and found themselves riding beside a stream the flowed along quite cheerfully in its stony bed. It was fed by cold springs bubbling up out of the moss and by tiny rills flowing down from elsewhere in the wood. As they followed it the ground began to rise, and the stream fell down many series of miniature waterfalls with a sound like laughter, until they came at last to a wide open space beneath a sudden steep hillside looming up before them. The stream that plunged over its edge was much larger than the one they had been following, which was what escaped out of the deep and wide pool at the hill’s base. 

Daeron laughed aloud. “This is wonderful! It is a good thing indeed that Huan is with us.” 

Wildflowers and green grass grew around the pool, and after they released the horses to wander and graze where they would, Daeron skirted around the edge of the water to climb the cliff face. Maglor went looking for firewood, accompanied by Huan. Pídhres had, unsurprisingly, disappeared. He only hoped she did not find a tree to try to climb; there would be no rescuing her from one of the towering giants around them. 

By the time he returned with enough dead wood to last the afternoon and evening, Daeron had reached the top of the cliff, and sat near the fall with his legs dangling over. Maglor busied himself with the fire pit and then the fire, glad of something to occupy his attention and his hands, though it took several tries to start the tinder burning. Huan lay beside him, ever watchful. “I’m fine, Huan,” he murmured, pausing to scratch him behind the ears. “I’m not angry with you, either. I know you didn’t mean any harm.” Huan whined softly, and licked Maglor’s hand—very gently, not the exuberant and sloppy sort of licking he normally indulged in. 

After the fire was finally lit and crackling merrily, Maglor lay with his head pillowed on Huan’s side and closed his eyes, letting himself doze, listening to the sound of the water and the crackling of the fire, and of Daeron singing some bright and cheerful song from atop the fall. The sun was warm and the air was fragrant with grass and flowers and pine. The chill that lingered was only Maglor’s imagination, he knew, but he couldn’t seem to shake it. 

He woke when Huan shifted, and as he sat up Huan got up and trotted off, having heard or smelled something in the wood that was more interesting than being Maglor’s pillow. Maglor lay back down onto the grass and stared up at the sky, pure summer blue. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “He is gone, and I am here,” he whispered to the sky. 

“Who is gone?” Daeron’s voice was sudden and startling in its closeness. Maglor sat up to find that Daeron had returned from the cliff top, and was in the middle of pulling off his shoes. 

“…Sauron,” Maglor said after a moment, hating to bring that name into this place, but unable to think of a way to brush the question off. He was still too rattled, and even before the nightmare he hadn’t been up to pretending he was in better spirits than he really was. “I did warn you I would be terrible company,” he added. 

“You aren’t,” Daeron said. “Would you tell me if I asked what you dreamed of—would it help, do you think?”

Maglor looked away. “I don’t know. I haven’t…I have not dreamed like that in a long time.”

“I’m glad of it.” Daeron picked up a stick and tossed it onto the fire. “And I am glad that I was there—I dislike thinking of you waking up like that alone. Huan,” he added when Maglor opened his mouth, “doesn’t count—especially since it seems he caused the trouble in the first place.”

Maglor tried to smile, but couldn’t quite manage it. “The singing helped,” he said softly. “Thank you.”

“You have been very quiet today,” Daeron said. “I don’t mean to press you, but—when we first met you sang as often as you breathed. To hear you go a full day without making music is strange, as strange as it was aboard the ship.”

“Estel said something like that once,” Maglor murmured. He picked a few flowers to start weaving together, needing something to do with his hands. “It was after he asked me if it was true that you were the mightier singer, as all the histories and songs say.”

“The histories and songs care much more about that than I ever did,” Daeron said. “I hope you told him that.”

“I told him they were true,” Maglor said, “and that I never cared about it.” It had been such a relief, he remembered, to meet Daeron beside the Pools of Ivrin and find him a friend rather than a rival, who thought all the speculation and gossip about it as amusing as he did. They had understood one another almost without having to speak, and he had never found such joy in performing with another before or since—not even with Elemmírë. “I had not made music for a very long time, when Estel and I spoke of you. It had been…” He still did not know exactly how long he had been locked away. “More than sixty years, at least.”

“That is a long time indeed,” Daeron murmured, “to go without breathing.”

“Elves sing as easy as breathing, Estel told me, and pointed out that I was still breathing.”

“Estel sounds wise,” Daeron said. 

“He was eleven years old, and we met when I fished him out of the river after he fell off of the bridge. Do not give him too much credit.” That got Daeron to laugh, at least, and Maglor breathed a little easier. “It was…it was difficult to come back to it after Dol Guldur, though.”

“Dol Guldur?” Daeron repeated, aghast. “How came you there?”

Maglor looked up. “You didn’t know? I thought you would have asked…”

“Asked who? Celeborn? No, of course I didn’t.”

“Oh.” Maglor had been certain that Daeron would have asked others for the tale after he’d refused to speak of it on the ship. “You could have,” he said. “It isn’t secret. You could have asked anyone, really.”

“It is your tale to tell,” Daeron said. “And you do not have to tell me now.”

“There isn’t much of a tale,” said Maglor. And then, because it would be easier if Daeron knew—especially if Maglor was going to be having nightmares—he went on, “I was…I was caught near the Anduin and taken to Dol Guldur. I did not know until I got there who the Necromancer truly was, but he knew me immediately. He…his Nazgûl were there.”

“How did you get out?” 

“I didn’t. The White Council drove the Necromancer out, and Elladan and Elrohir found me when they entered the tower afterward. They took me to Lórien, and then the next spring to Imladris. Where I met Estel when he fell into the river.”

“When did you start to play music again?” Daeron asked quietly. He moved around the fire to sit beside Maglor, pressing their shoulders together. “Why did it trouble you, after you were away from that place?”

The flowers did not hold together, and fell to the ground in a small heap. “He stole my voice,” he whispered. “Before he was driven out he—even when they took the cords out of my lips I couldn’t—and after—after Elrond lifted that curse I couldn’t—I just couldn’t. It was years before I could so much as hum in front of another person again.” 

“You did eventually,” Daeron said. “I am glad of it—more glad than words can say—that you came out of that place, and are here now.” 

Maglor turned to look at him, and found their faces quite close together. Daeron’s eyes were dark, but in the sunlight the blue in them shone, the deep color of sapphires. “I’m glad, too,” he said. “And I am glad that you are here with me.” 

Daeron smiled, and was about to say something else when Huan returned, carrying something small very carefully in his mouth. He came to drop it into Maglor’s waiting hands, and both he and Daeron found themselves peering down at a small young hedgehog, curled up into a prickly ball. “Huan, what in the world…?”

Slowly the hedgehog unrolled, and sniffed at Maglor’s fingers. “Oh, the poor thing,” Daeron said, reaching for it. “Look at its leg; I think it’s broken.”

“Do you know how to fix a hedgehog’s broken leg?” Maglor asked. “I certainly don’t.”

“I know a song for broken bones,” Daeron said. “It can’t be that much different than a bigger creature’s—easier, I would think. Less bone to knit back together. Ouch!” The hedgehog tried to roll up again, spikes poking now at Daeron’s fingers. 

“Here, let me hold it.” Maglor took it, cradling it gently, humming a gentle song until it unrolled again. “There we go.” He looked up at Daeron, who was smiling at him strangely. “What?”

“Nothing.” Daeron turned his attention back to the hedgehog, who did not curl up again when he reached out to stroke it with his fingertips. He began to sing, a short song of healing and strength, and when he finished and Maglor set the hedgehog down it took a few steps with no apparent trouble. Then it made its way back over to Huan, who had flopped down nearby, and nestled in between his great paws and, to all appearances, went to sleep. Daeron laughed. 

“How,” Maglor said, lifting his gaze to the sky, “do I keep acquiring animals?” For he had no illusions about the fate of the hedgehog, or about the songs Lindir would make up about it when he got back to Imloth Ningloron.

“So long as it gets along with Pídhres, I don’t see reason for worry,” Daeron said. “Come on, let the little thing sleep, and let us go swimming!” He drew Maglor to his feet. “That’s what I meant to do when I came back down.”

Maglor hesitated, and Daeron looked back at him, still with a hold of his hand and their arms now stretched between the two of them. “I’ve got—from Dol Guldur, I have—”

“Scars?” Daeron’s smile softened. “I’ve seen others who have been marked by the Enemy, Maglor. It isn’t the scars that will horrify me, but the knowledge of how they came there—and I already feel that. Showing me will make no difference.”

“They are bad, some of them,” Maglor said. “I don’t…” He didn’t want Daeron’s pity or his horror—but Daeron had already seen him the night before, rendered helpless and stiff with cold and terror. “All right.” He closed the distance between them, and followed Daeron to the water’s edge. 

“The scars only mean that you survived,” Daeron said as he stripped his own shirt off, revealing a handful of scars on his arms, such as one might acquire over many years of wandering and of living on the edges of war. “And at least no one will be angry with you over them! Mablung was furious when he saw this.” He pointed to a scar on his chest, uncomfortably close to his heart. “I was in Rhûn, with those who resisted the Enemy and his warlords, and we were ambushed. I had armor, but it was leather and was already old—but enough to slow the arrow and save my life.” 

Maglor found himself staring in exactly the way that he did not want others to stare at him, and lifted his gaze to Daeron’s face. “It still almost killed you,” he said. He’d seen enough such wounds to be able to tell that at the time it had been very bad. It was suddenly far too easy to imagine Daeron in the immediate aftermath of the ambush, weak and bleeding and inching closer and closer to death—

“It might have, if Alatar had not been there,” said Daeron, strong and bold and so very alive. “But it didn’t, as you see! Now show me yours; let us get it over with so we can go wash the road out of our hair.”

Maglor lifted his his shirt, removing it in the same quick motion that Daeron had used so that he couldn’t stop himself halfway through. Daeron took one sharp breath a the sight of the livid brand on his chest, among the others, and then stepped forward to pull Maglor into a tight embrace. “I would not have survived such an ordeal,” he whispered into Maglor’s ear. “You are far stronger than I.”

“I wasn’t,” Maglor said. “I was just—dying wouldn’t have let me leave that place.”

“No, don’t try to argue! You’re a terrible judge of your own strength.” Daeron drew back, but only far enough to look Maglor in the eye. For a moment Maglor had the wild, delirious thought that Daeron intended to kiss him. It was a thought he’d had before, long ago and far away by the shores of Ivrin, when they had slipped away from the constant demands to perform to laugh and talk together, splashing their feet in the shallow waters and debating whose style of musical notation was better, and also when they had found themselves caught up in the same dance by the bonfires late at night when the stars blazed overhead, and Daeron had been luminous, breathless and pink-cheeked from dancing and with his hair disheveled, the pearls in his braids all out of place. 

Daeron hadn’t kissed him then, and Maglor had known better than to do anything himself—secrets and dooms and oaths had stood between them; he had not needed Maedhros to remind him. “Be careful, Cáno,” he’d said one night, late, in the dark privacy of their tent. “Your promises are not your own.” Maglor had laughed and said something reassuring—something about only seeking friendship, something about music, something about Doriath and Thingol’s good opinion. Maedhros had been satisfied. It had been so much easier to laugh in those days, to pretend that he didn’t know what heartache was, and then to bury it all down deep so he didn’t have to think about it. Of course he had made no promises, not even in the privacy of his own heart. It had still hurt, though, when the truth of Alqualondë came out and Thingol raged, to know that even the chance of friendship with Daeron had ended forever. 

Except here they were, by another clear pool shining in the sunlight, with neither secrets nor oaths nor dooms between them. They were a long way from Ivrin, and both of them were changed—and still this friendship had been so easy to rekindle. 

He still knew better, though the reasons were different, and Daeron, of course, did not kiss him; likely the thought had never crossed his mind, had only ever lived in Maglor’s imagination. Instead he gave him one of those sun-bright grins and pulled the tie out of Maglor’s braid before stepping back to loosen his own hair and finish undressing before diving into the pool. Maglor stood still with his hair unraveling, catching his breath and trying not to stare for reasons entirely unrelated to scars, and then followed him into the water. 

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Midsummer Day was unremarkable but for a spectacular sunrise and an even more spectacular sunset. They spent it continuing west—racing much of the day, both for its own sake and, Maedhros thought, so they did not have to talk to each other. The lands flattened and opened up, a sea of grass and flowers rippling in the wind, all gold and green and pink and pale purple. In the distance they glimpsed herds of grazing animals, and as they slowed to look for a place to camp Celegorm warned them to be on their guard. “We should take care to light a fire tonight,” he added, “and perhaps set a watch.” 

“Why?” Caranthir asked, frowning. “There are no enemies here.”

“No, but there are animals—big cats, wild dogs, and other things. They won’t care who we are, if they think they can get an easy meal, and we don’t have Huan here to scare them off.”

They came upon a river with some stands of trees growing along it, and made their camp there, careful to keep the horses close rather than letting them roam. Ambarussa scampered up the tree they’d chosen to camp under, vanishing into the upper boughs with the swift ease of squirrels. Beneath, Caranthir started a fire and Celegorm disappeared to do some hunting of his own. Maedhros sat back against the tree to watch the sun go down in a brilliant show of color, all oranges and reds and golds that only slowly deepened to purple and then the softer blues of twilight. 

He could paint that, he found himself thinking, found himself committing the sight of it to memory so he could recreate it on canvas after he returned home. The thought startled him; he had taken up sketching at Nerdanel’s insistence, and until that moment it had only been something to do to occupy his mind and his hand, not something to do for its own sake—something to plan for, rather than something that just happened when he picked up a pencil or a piece of charcoal. 

Curufin came to sit beside him, leaning against his side when Maedhros lifted his arm. “What are you thinking about?” Curufin asked as Maedhros settled his arm around his waist. 

“Paints,” Maedhros said, earning himself a look of surprise. “What? I’m not supposed to be brooding, remember?”

“We didn’t think you’d actually listen,” Curufin said. “What are you going to paint?” Maedhros nodded toward the sunset. “Do you even have paints? Or brushes?”

“Are they difficult to get?” Maedhros asked, amused. “Ammë doesn’t do much with paints, but I thought Grandfather Mahtan might have some.”

“Or you could ask my wife,” Curufin said, rolling his eyes. Rundamírë had once been among the best ink, paint, and pigment-makers among the Noldor. Maedhros supposed she was still, though he had never asked—he had never seen her without stains of some color or other on her fingers, either before the Darkening or after he had returned from Mandos. 

“Or I could ask your wife,” he agreed.

As the stars began to come out, Ambarussa burst into song somewhere in the tree above their heads. It was a song Maglor had often sung when they were all young, when they had traveled beyond the reaches of the Trees and could see the stars properly. Maedhros tried to think if he had ever sung it in Middle-earth. He did not think so. Curufin hummed along, but broke off abruptly when Celegorm returned triumphant from his hunt, with a large hare that between him and Caranthir was quickly skinned and cleaned and set on a spit to roast. Ambarussa dropped down from the tree to join Caranthir and Celegorm by the fire. Celegorm was in a better mood after his success, and if Caranthir was quiet, he wasn’t scowling. Out of all of them, Ambarussa were the most cheerful—but in a determined, set sort of way that rang a little false, as though they felt they could drag everyone along with them to a good mood if they were insistent enough about it. It was the same tactic Maglor had often used, though it had lost much of its effectiveness after the Nirnaeth, when more often than not it made the rest of them angry, triggering arguments over stupid things. And still he’d kept trying. 

Ambarussa were not as good at it as Maglor had been—but it did seem to be working a little. Celegorm laughed at something Amrod said. The firelight danced over their faces and made their shadows on the grass behind them flicker and waver. Amras said something then that had Celegorm’s smile fading as he shook his head and Maedhros heard him say, “No, don’t ask Curvo, I can do it—” Curufin heard it too; Maedhros felt him go stiff.

But Amras had already turned to call over his shoulder, “Hey Curvo, can you make fishing spears?”

“Yes, of course I can,” Curufin said, voice gone flinty—hard and sharp but brittle. Maedhros tightened his arm around him just slightly. “In the morning, when I can find stones for it.”

“Thank you!” said Amrod, he and Amras both obviously choosing to ignore Curufin’s tone and the way that Celegorm was shrinking back from the fire, as though he had half a mind to disappear into the growing darkness beyond. Caranthir rolled his eyes; Maedhros tried to catch Celegorm’s gaze, but Celegorm was very studiously not looking in his direction.

There was little more laughter that evening. Celegorm took the first watch—and then all the rest of them, and ignored Maedhros’ glare the next morning.

Maedhros did not dream that night, but he still woke in the dark watches of the night to Caranthir stirring beside him, gasping softly before jerking awake, hands going to his neck—to where Uldor had cut him down during the Nirnaeth. When Maedhros reached for him he didn’t pull away, as he would have once, but rolled over to bury his face in Maedhros’ chest, not weeping but shivering. Maedhros kissed the top of his head, and said nothing, just stroked his hair until the tremors stopped and he fell back asleep.

In the morning after breakfast Maedhros followed the river to a place where it widened and grew shallow, and where many flat stones could be found that were ideal for shaping into spear- and arrowheads. It was an ancient practice that Finwë had once taught them; he in his turn had learned from his father and grandfather beside the shores of Cuiviénen. It had been a history lesson as much as a practical one, and Finwë had laughed when Fëanor had pointed out how much better a spear made in a proper forge would be, and asked if he intended to carry a forge with him whenever he went traveling, or what he would do if his forge-made spears all broke or were lost. “It doesn’t have to be perfect, Fëanáro. It just has to be sharp enough to spear a fish for your supper. Even a sharpened stick will do, unless one of your sons is wielding it—then you need a stone that won’t break after the second try!”

Curufin was there, already in the midst of shaping a third stone into a sharp point; he had always made the spears, on their youthful travels, whenever they came to a river or a lake and decided they wanted fish for supper. He was quickest and best at finding the perfect stones for the tips, and sharpening them just so. Maedhros crouched beside him and glanced toward the water, watching it sparkle and gleam in the sunshine while he gathered his thoughts. “I’ve heard Celegorm’s side,” he said finally. “Care to tell me yours?”

“No,” Curufin said without looking up.

“I’m just trying to understand.”

Curufin hit the rock with more force than necessary, chipping off another piece that went skittering over the other stones on the bank. “It’s not that hard,” he bit out. “He won’t speak to me and he won’t come to Tirion when I’m there unless Ammë forces him like she did at Midwinter, and the only reason he’s suffering my presence now is because Ambarussa insisted that if some of us come on this trip then all of us should come.”

“Do you want him to speak to you?” Maedhros asked. 

“It would be nice if he at least told me why.” Curufin raised the spearhead to examine it, and then set it aside with the others, before picking up one of the tree limbs to be made into the shafts. “If I can’t—if there’s nothing I can do to fix it, fine, I suppose we’ll all just have to live with it, but I’d like to know why.”

Maedhros sighed. “Celegorm is an idiot,” he said. 

“I knew that already.”

“You might be an idiot, too. Have you asked him?”

“Of course I have! But he wouldn’t answer and—and what am I supposed to do when he won’t ever stay long enough for me to try again? It’s not like I could follow him out into the wild.” Curufin put the stones down, blinking rapidly. “I just—I don’t know what I did. I know what I did in Beleriand, but not what I did after coming back.” He swiped his sleeve over his face and picked up his knife again. “I don’t understand how you can bear not hearing anything at all from Maglor.”

“I can’t,” Maedhros said quietly; they all knew that it was burning him up inside, but Curufin had only said it to try to wound, and Maedhros didn’t mind a little sting if he could get Curufin and Celegorm to have even one real conversation, “but I can also think of half a dozen good reasons for his silence without trying. Curvo, what if I told you that he isn’t staying away because he’s angry with you?”

“That just makes it worse,” Curufin said. “Because then I can’t understand it at all. How can I fix it if I don’t understand it?”

“You can stop snarling at him whenever you do speak, to start,” said Maedhros. He rose to his feet. “Thanks for making the spears. I’ll tell Ambarussa to stop meddling.”

“Are you going to stop meddling?”

“Probably not, but that’s one of the privileges of being the eldest.” Maedhros offered a smile as Curufin rolled his eyes, and headed back to the campsite. Ambarussa had gone off somewhere, and Caranthir was bathing in the river. 

Celegorm sprawled out under the tree, one arm thrown over his face, his silver hair fanned out on the grass around his head like a halo, shining in the dappled sunlight that danced over him when the tree branches swayed in the breeze. To anyone else he would have appeared sound asleep, making up for the rest he hadn’t gotten the night before, but Maedhros could see tension in his limbs. He nudged him in the ribs with his toes. “You’re an idiot,” he said. 

Celegorm didn’t move. “Historically or currently?”

“Both.”

Celegorm lowered his arm and sighed without opening his eyes. “Considering I don’t know what I did, I suppose you’re right. Enlighten me, then.”

“You can’t guess? Talk to him, Tyelko. Explaining yourself is the least you can do.”

“Talk to who—ow.” Celegorm curled around the spot Maedhros had kicked. “Fine.”

“Don’t do it angry. The point of all this was to fix us, you all keep telling me—so start fixing.” 

Celegorm sat up, grass sticking to his hair, and peered past Maedhros to where Curufin was returning with the spears. “Can I wait until he’s unarmed?”

“Coward.” Maedhros walked away, leaving Celegorm to sort himself out. He passed Curufin and said, “Please don’t stab him. If you do, you’re the one who gets to explain why to Ammë.” 

“Ugh, fine.” Curufin set the spears down, and Maedhros left him and Celegorm to have it out by the fire. 

He retreated to the river to join Caranthir, who had paused halfway through combing the travel dirt out of his hair to watch. “How worried should we be?” he asked as Maedhros stripped off his clothes and joined him in the water. 

“Hopefully not at all,” Maedhros said, before ducking under the surface to soak his own hair. Celegorm was an idiot, but in a very particular kind of elder-brother way—a way that Maedhros could sympathize with. At least Celegorm had not and would not do what Maedhros had, at the end in Beleriand. He’d told Curufin that he could think of at least six reasons Maglor was avoiding him, but really there was only one—Maglor could and had forgiven him everything except this one thing. 

“Do not ask me again, please, Maedhros. I will not leave you. I cannot leave you, and I could not bear it if you left me.”

Caranthir splashed him. “Stop brooding,” he said. “Or at least share what you’re brooding about. Is it Maglor?”

What else? “He used to love Midsummer.”

“I’m sure he still does. He probably spent all day yesterday singing like a lark and basking like a cat in the sunshine. With his cat, probably—Tyelpë said he has one that followed him all the way from Middle-earth.”

“Finrod mentioned a cat too,” Maedhros murmured; Maglor had written of her, too, to Nerdanel. He ducked his head to the water again, scrubbing his fingers through it before surfacing, thinking of the silly verses Maglor should have been writing about the cat but probably wasn’t. “I hope it gets on well with dogs.” 

“Did you see the cup he sent Ammë with his letter?”

“No.”

“That method of repair that Mithrandir was talking about—highlighting all the cracks with gold—that’s what someone did with the cup. I suppose Maglor might have done it himself. It’s…it is lovely, in its own way. Definitely more interesting to look at than if it hadn’t been broken at all.”

“Do you think Mithrandir was talking about Maglor?”

“I don’t know what he was talking about.”

Raised voices had them both turning in alarm, just in time to see Curufin storming off into the grass. Celegorm remained behind, shoulders hunched and arms crossed. He glanced toward Maedhros and Caranthir, and then went back to sit under the trees, resting his head in his arms. “So much for fixing things,” Caranthir muttered. 

“At least they talked,” Maedhros said. 

“For two whole minutes.”

Maedhros splashed him. “That isn’t helpful, Moryo.”

Once he felt as clean as a river would get him, Maedhros returned to the campsite to dry off and get dressed. As he wrung out his hair Curufin returned, passing Maedhros by to sit by Celegorm under the tree. Maedhros dug through his pack for his comb as he watched them out of the corner of his eye. Curufin said something, too quiet to be overheard, and then leaned into Celegorm’s arms when he opened them. Maedhros sighed in relief, and turned away. 

Ambarussa reappeared, and Amras dropped down behind Maedhros to pluck the comb out of his hand. “Let me do that. Your braids always end up crooked.”

“I’d like to see you braid anything at all with only one hand,” Maedhros said mildly, as Amras tugged the comb through his hair, hard enough that his head was tugged backward. “Ow, Amras.”

“Sorry!” Amras did not sound sorry at all, but he did not pull so hard again, though he worked quickly to tease out the last few tangles.

“Spears!” Amrod crowed, stooping to pick one up. “Thanks, Curvo!” He didn’t wait to see whether Curufin would reply. “Ambarussa, come on; there’s fish upstream.”

“In a minute!” Amras said, fingers moving swiftly as he plaited Maedhros’ hair. “There.”

“Thank you,” said Maedhros. Amras pushed himself up using Maedhros’ shoulders, and dropped a quick kiss to the top of his head before following Amrod. Celegorm and Curufin disappeared into the grass, leaving Maedhros and Caranthir alone in the camp. Caranthir emerged from the river to lay on the bank and doze in the sun—basking like a cat, or just like Maglor. Maedhros restarted the fire in anticipation of having to cook fish later, and brought out his sketchbook. He drew the view of the river, and the grass on the banks, and their horses grazing nearby, all broad strokes and little detail. From upstream he heard Ambarussa splashing and laughing; closer at hand a susurration of wind passed through the grass. High overhead an eagle circled; nearer a hawk was hunting. Maedhros paused in his sketching to watch as it suddenly dove, vanishing into the grass across the river, and emerging a minute later with something clutched in its talons. 

These grasslands reminded him of Ard Galen. Of Maglor’s Gap long ago. It was easy to imagine a host of their horsemen galloping across the plain, banners waving and all of them singing, with Maglor at their head, his dark hair blowing in the wind as he laughed; no trumpets were needed when his voice would do. It wasn’t an imagining so much as a memory, for it was how Maglor had come to Himring on many occasions, both looked and unlooked for. Imagining him appearing in the distance on these plains, though, was only wishful thinking. Maglor was back at Imloth Ningloron and was unlikely to leave for some time. He had only just arrived; he was happy in Elrond’s house, and Maedhros knew that he should have been content with that, as he was content most of the time to know that Celegorm and Ambarussa were happy, away in the wilds hunting and riding and finding themselves again among Oromë’s folk, and that Caranthir was rebuilding his friendships with their mother’s family, and Curufin was making lovely things in Tirion with his wife and his son. Maedhros couldn’t do any of those things, couldn’t muster the willpower to even have more than a short conversation with his cousins or his grandparents, hating the way they looked at him with poorly-hidden concern, but his brothers could and he could keep out of their way.

Of course, it was different. The rest of them had passed through Mandos, and almost all of them had emerged rested and restored. Maglor’s road had been much longer, and much lonelier. And if he never wanted to see Maedhros again—well, Maedhros had no one but himself to blame. 

He had started drawing again while his mind wandered, and when he looked down he discovered Maglor on the page, walking way but looking over his shoulder, cloak tattered, a harp-case slung over his back, his hair in a loose braid coming unraveled because he could never be bothered to secure it properly. Maedhros stared down into his face and the unhappy, solemn expression it wore, drawn from memory, and wondered how much it resembled the Maglor that had come back to Valinor, aside from the scars that Maedhros hadn’t seen yet. He wondered if he would even be able to draw Maglor with a smile—he found himself unable to quite recall what it looked like.

Curufin dropped down on one side of him, suddenly, and Celegorm sat on the other. “What are you drawing?” Celegorm leaned over to peer at the page. “Oh.”

Maedhros flipped the sketchbook shut. “Are you two on speaking terms again?”

“Yes.” Curufin rested his head on Maedhros’ shoulder. “You were right. He’s an idiot.”

“I’m an idiot,” Celegorm agreed. 

“You’re both idiots,” Maedhros said. He wrapped an arm around each of them, relieved that this rift, at least, had been mended—or was in the process of mending. Quietly, he added, “I love you both.”

“We love you too, Nelyo,” said Curufin. 

“You should draw more portraits,” added Celegorm. “You’re good at them.”

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They lingered by the pool and its waterfall for some days, swimming and climbing the cliff, and playing music together—old songs, newer songs, and brand new ones, most often about Pídhres, Huan, and the hedgehog, who had indeed added herself to their little party with no apparent intention of leaving. She rode around on Huan’s back, and curled up with Pídhres at night by Maglor. He discovered by way of waking with her on his chest that hedgehogs purred, and this one purred often, especially whenever she was settled on someone’s lap or in the crook of someone’s arm for any length of time. 

“If this little one is going to follow you, you should give her a name,” Daeron said one rainy afternoon. They had retreated from the pool to the shelter of an enormous tree with thick branches so high up that there was no fear of being rained on. Maglor lay in the leaves with Pídhres curled up in the crook of his neck, and Daeron perched on one of the great roots that had risen above the ground. Huan had vanished into the wood; the hedgehog too had disappeared, though Maglor could hear her rooting around in the roots, searching for whatever it was hedgehogs ate. Insects or grubs, Maglor supposed. He couldn’t think of what else was down there. 

“Who says she’s following me?” Maglor asked. “She could follow you home.”

“I doubt it. It’s your cat she’s made friends with. Well?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Leicheg, perhaps.” 

“A good name for her! Perhaps I should sing down some birds to join our party, too,” Daeron said. 

“Please don’t. Pídhres would definitely try to eat them.”

“But it would be very funny to see half a dozen songbirds perched on your shoulders, and atop your head, all singing a merry chorus—” Daeron laughed, ducking away from the handful of leaves Maglor tossed at him, and whistling a handful of bird calls that, fortunately, did not attract more than passing attention from the birds themselves. 

Maglor did not dream of Dol Guldur again, or of his father or his brothers—he barely even thought of them. Instead he dreamed often of the sea—of the shores of Middle-earth, windblown and wild—and woke more than once with the taste of saltwater on his lips, never quite sure if it was a lingering part of the dream or if it was tears. The chill the nightmare had left him with faded in the face of bright sunshine and pleasant company, and he no longer felt as though he needed to scream himself hoarse.

“Why did you leave Middle-earth?” he asked Daeron. They had climbed the cliff again and were seated by the waterfall, legs dangling over the edge. Clouds covered the sky, though they were too light to promise rain. 

“I heard that the last ship from Mithlond was setting sail, and thought I should be aboard when it did,” Daeron said. 

“There would still have been other ships, from other havens.”

“Yes, but I had also heard that you would be on that one.” Daeron smiled when Maglor only stared at him. “Why are you so surprised?”

“Why shouldn’t I be? We had not seen each other since the—and you said—”

“Can you really not guess? I know I was not imagining it at the Mereth Aderthad, but you kept pulling back and I did not want to push. I understand why now, of course. But you are still pulling back and there can be no reason for it, unless you have more secrets.”

Oh. For a moment Maglor couldn’t breathe. “I have no more secrets,” he said finally. “But—you should know, Daeron, at the Mereth Aderthad…even if there had been no secrets, there was still the Oath. I was not—not free.” If Alqualondë had never happened, if they had found another way to cross the Sea—well, there would have been no need for the Mereth Aderthad in the first place, replaced instead by many far merrier and more open meetings between the Noldor and Thingol’s people. But still Doriath might have happened, still Sirion. The Oath had come before everything, even when he’d tried to pretend it didn’t. 

“Are you not free now?” Daeron asked. 

“I am, but I’m not—you know I’m not—”

“You are not who you were then, of course. I am not who I was. But we are neither of of us so changed that we cannot sing together as we did then, that we cannot laugh together—that we cannot find joy in one another’s company. Or do I misjudge how your mood has improved since I joined your journeying?”

Maglor looked away, at the water spilling over the edge of the stones. “You haven’t misjudged.” 

Daeron reached out to turn Maglor’s face back toward him, his hand lingering on Maglor’s cheek. “Why do you keep pulling back, then?” he asked, voice very soft, the question gentler than it had any reason to be. “What are you afraid of?”

“I don’t know,” Maglor whispered.

Daeron drew back. “I’m patient,” he said. “I’ll be here, whenever you are ready.” Then he rose to his feet and took a running start to leap off of the waterfall, landing with a great splash in the pool below. Maglor remained where he was, watching Huan charge into the water, barking excitedly, to join Daeron as he surfaced, his clothes drenched and clinging to him as he waded into the shallows. He glanced up toward Maglor, who made himself move—he did not take the short way down, choosing instead to remain dry. He’d hoped it would give him time to think, to come up with some sort of answer for Daeron more satisfactory than an ill-defined fear, but his head was full of overlapping memories of the Mereth Aderthad and all the awful things that had come later. 

Huan had started getting impatient over the last day or so, often sitting by their discarded saddles and looking reproachfully at Maglor; he did so then as Maglor came back to their little camp after he’d shaken himself dry and soaked Daeron all over again. “I suppose we should continue on if we wish to see Ekkaia before the summer is out,” Daeron said, amused, as he wrung out his hair. 

“Huan certainly thinks so,” said Maglor, relieved that Daeron did not seem inclined to continue the cliff top conversation. “All right, Huan. In the morning, we’ll go.” Huan’s tongue lolled out in a dog’s grin, and he trotted over to lick up Maglor’s face. “Ugh.”

“Are we taking Leicheg?” Daeron asked. 

“I’m not sure we have a choice; she’ll hide in one of my saddle bags with Pídhres if we try,” Maglor said. He sat by their fire as he spoke, and Leicheg came over to climb over his legs, playing some kind of chasing game with Pídhres. 

“How far to Ekkaia?” 

“I don’t know. A few weeks, maybe. Maybe less—distances are sometimes odd in Valinor.” 

Daeron looked amused. “Do you even know where we are?”

“Not really!” Maglor grinned in spite of himself. “But Ekkaia is very easy to find, fortunately. You just have to keep going west.”

“And finding our way home afterward?”

“Go east! If we do get lost Huan will lead us home. Won’t you?” Maglor looked over at Huan, who woofed his agreement. “Of course, his ideas of where we should go, and where we want to go might differ. I’ll be heading back to Imloth Ningloron, whatever Huan has to say about it.” Huan woofed again, this time reproachfully. “I told Elrond I would be back before the end of autumn.”

“What about your mother?” Daeron asked, shaking out his still-wet hair. 

“Come here, I’ll comb it for you,” Maglor said. “What about my mother?” Daeron settled in between his legs after shooing Leicheg and Pídhres away and handed back his comb. Maglor tugged it gently through the wet tangles, easing the strands into order again. 

“You haven’t seen her since you’ve come back to Valinor, have you?”

“No.”

“Why? I know you’ve seen your father, and I understand you’ve no wish to see your brothers, but you have not spoken before of her.”

Maglor didn’t answer immediately, instead focusing his attention on Daeron’s hair. Daeron sat quietly, as patient in this matter as he was in all others, though when the silence stretched long enough he asked, “Are you angry at her, as you are at your father?”

“Angry—? No! Why would I be angry at my mother?”

“For not going with you? For—oh, I don’t know. All sorts of reasons.”

“I’ve always been glad that she did not go with us,” Maglor said, “that she did not get herself tangled up in our doom. No, I’m not angry with her. I just—all of my brothers have returned to her by way of Mandos. They have new bodies, no scars, no…I imagine they look like they did before the Darkening, like they did when she last saw us.”

“There’s a certain grief in that, though,” Daeron said. “To be given a new body that has none of the markings from your life before—although I have heard that Maedhros returned one-handed.”

Maglor paused in his combing. He hadn’t even thought of that; he didn’t know what to think of it now. “Well,” he said finally, pulling the comb through the ends of Daeron’s hair, “I’m…you know what I look like. And my mother knows something of it already, but it’s different when it’s…I don’t know if I can bear it. Not yet.”

“Did your father see?” Daeron asked.

“Yes.”

“Was it that bad?”

“I did not give him much chance to say anything one way or the other,” Maglor said. He hadn’t even been thinking of his face when he’d met with Fëanor; he’d been more concerned with other, older scars. “I was—I perhaps should not have said some of the things that I did. But I don’t regret it, really, especially if it means he’ll not try to come find me again.”

“You have me very curious about what you said,” Daeron said, “but you don’t have to tell me.”

“Maybe when I can think of him without wanting to scream,” Maglor murmured. He finished combing the snarls out of Daeron’s hair and parted it for braiding. “I should go see Ammë, I know. Now would even be the best time because my brothers have all gone off wandering somewhere. I just…” He was a coward, was the real reason. He was afraid—afraid that she’d see him and change her mind about him and turn him away. Afraid that she wouldn’t turn him away. Afraid of making her cry, of her seeing him cry. He felt like the whole of the past, from the Darkening to Dol Guldur, had condensed into something sharp and heavy that was scraping him raw inside. He could ignore it when Daeron engaged him in singing silly songs about hedgehogs and cats, but it was always there waiting for him when his mind was left to its own meanderings. 

“If it helps,” Daeron said, “I don’t know what I would say to my own mother either if I saw her again.”

“Your mother?” Maglor said, forgetting all about his own troubles in his surprise.

Daeron glanced over his shoulder with a crooked smile. “I’m not one of the Unbegotten—of course I have parents.”

“I suppose I just assumed you were one of those strange and marvelous beings that sprang fully formed out of the Music, like old Bombadil,” said Maglor. Daeron laughed hard enough that he fell backward against Maglor’s chest, letting his braids fall loose and unraveled as he burst into a bright round of hey dol merry dol and other such nonsense, and only sat up again when he’d caught his breath. “What happened to your mother?” Maglor asked when the laughter faded enough to return to more somber subjects.

“I was born during the Great Journey—somewhere in Eriador, I think. I don’t know what happened, exactly, for I was a babe in arms and it is only luck that I was not with them, but…Thingol was not the only one to disappear. He was just the only one we ever found again. What I was told was that my father disappeared, going either to seek one of the other camps, or to forage for food, and when he did not return my mother left me in the care of my father’s sister and her husband and went to seek for him. She never returned either. Other larger search parties went out to look, and even Thingol and Olwë joined them, but no sign was ever found.”

“I’m sorry,” Maglor said. 

“I have no memory of them, except I think a very faint recollection of my mother’s voice singing, but that might be my own imagination. My aunt and uncle raised me—they are Mablung’s parents, and that is why Mablung is so protective—why he’s so annoyed with me about almost getting killed.”

“Yes, I’m sure annoyed is the word he would use,” Maglor said. “And you have heard nothing of them since you came here?”

“I haven’t asked,” Daeron admitted with a shrug. “They have not come seeking me either. I used to imagine they had gotten lost and made their way back east to join with Lenwë’s people, but no word came with Denethor later, and when I went back that way I did not find any sign of them. Morgoth was imprisoned at the time, but not all of his servants had been caught, so it seems likely…most likely the worst happened.” The worst thing to happen had never changed, before or after the Journey: to be taken, rather than killed. “It isn’t—it isn’t the same thing as your own tale at all, but at least I know what it is to feel hesitant.”

“Do you want to find them?” Maglor asked. “If they are here?”

“I think so. But I’m not sure—I am not sure what they would think of me, or I of them. They are my parents, but they are also strangers. I have asked after my aunt and uncle—they died in the Dagor Bragollach—but they are not returned from Mandos.”

“I’ll go visit my mother if you look for yours,” Maglor offered after a moment, as he tied off the end of the braid. 

“All right.” He turned around to face Maglor. “But we must go see your mother first, since I don’t even know where to start. After you show me Ekkaia.”

“After Ekkaia,” Maglor agreed. 

They packed up and departed from the pool the next morning. Leicheg rode in the hood of Maglor’s cloak, and Pídhres perched on his saddle. Huan took the lead, guiding them back to the road that led through the forest, and once they reached it they set a quick but leisurely pace. Daeron sang a traveling song, and when they emerged from the wood Maglor joined him; grasslands opened up before them like a sea, waves rippling over the hills with the breeze, and he sang a song he’d written in praise of the fields of Ard Galen glowing green and gold beneath the new-risen sun. 

As they went, Huan did not let them linger anywhere particularly long, seeming intent upon reaching their destination sooner rather than later. Maglor didn’t know what to make of it, except that Huan had been listening to their conversation about Nerdanel and wanted to hurry Maglor along so he could go back and see her. But then, he had been impatient even before that.

One night they camped at the base of an enormous outcropping of rock jutting out of the rolling hills. In the early morning before dawn Daeron insisted on climbing it to see what they could see, and in spite of Huan’s continued impatience, Maglor agreed. He was a slower climber than Daeron, who scampered up the rocks with the same ease as Pídhres, who followed at his heels. When Maglor caught up he found Daeron standing atop the stones looking eastward. Pídhres was at his feet, grooming herself lazily. Maglor stood beside Daeron, who reached out to take his hand as the sun crested the eastern horizon. It was a clear morning, and dawn came swiftly, the sky turning from deep blue-black to pale blue in a matter of minutes. Gil-Estel gleamed near the horizon until its light was drowned by Anor. 

“What was it like before sunrises here?” Daeron asked. 

“A shift from gold to silver, with the loveliest light at Mingling,” Maglor said. “That is what is caught in the Silmarils—the Trees at Mingling.” 

“Did their light reach all throughout Valinor? Was it not blocked by hills or mountains?”

“We are far enough away now that it would be growing faint,” Maglor said, “and Ekkaia was never lit by the trees. Nor was Alqualondë—the Pelóri blocked the light, save what flowed through the Calacirya.”

“Do you miss them?”

Maglor looked back toward the rising sun, toward the hill where, too far away to be seen, the Trees still stood, dead and withered, a memorial and a monument to the glories of the past. “I miss that time,” he said after a few moments. “The Noontide of Valinor, they call it now, though when we were living it was just…the present, with no end in sight until the end suddenly came. I miss the time before the discord, before my father’s dislike of his brothers deepened into hatred, and my friendships with all my cousins were soured. But we did not have sunrises or sunsets. Elemmírë said, when we were together at Midsummer, that they are her favorite gift of Anor. I agree.” There was no sight like a sunset over the sea—it was the first thing he’d found joy in, after everything, when he had been wandering alone. The first song he’d sung that was not some desperate and poor attempt to put his misery into words had been in praise of it. It had not been a very good song, and it was not one he would ever share with anyone else, even Daeron, but it was still a memory he treasured, something just for himself.

“And that light is given to all the world, and not only this land,” said Daeron.

“Yes. Yes—and Gil-Estel, too, is seen by all. I have been glad of that from the moment I saw it.” Maglor glanced at Daeron. “That reminds me, I need to take you to Valmar sometime, to introduce you to Elemmírë.”

“Should I be nervous?”

“No!” It did occur then to Maglor that, with all three of them in Valmar, it was likely that Ingwë would call upon them to perform together—the greatest singers of all three kindreds—and that if he did so it was equally likely that the Valar would also take an interest. He pushed the thought away, along with the knot of anxiety that formed with it. It would not be so bad, he thought, if he was not performing alone. He looked again at Daeron, who had turned to look north and east over the plains. The sun lit his face, bringing out the blue in his eyes, and making his hair shine. 

Maglor really didn’t know what it was that he was afraid of. Maybe it really was just all the things he’d been afraid of before, the things that were over or didn’t matter anymore. Daeron was right. There were no secrets or oaths hanging between them, promising doom if they dared to take a step. “Daeron,” he whispered, and when Daeron turned back to him he leaned in. Daeron didn’t hesitate, didn’t even seem surprised; he just released Maglor’s hand to slid both of his into Maglor’s hair, pulling him in even closer as Maglor settled his arms around his waist. Daeron kissed like he sang, with all of the passion and feeling of his whole being pouring out of him into it. It was exhilarating to be the focus of it—it was overwhelming; Maglor felt giddy and half drunk by the time they parted, both of them breathless. 

Daeron released Maglor’s hair to loop his arms around his neck instead. “What was that?” he asked. “I thought I’d be waiting another century at least.”

“I don’t know. I’ve…” Maglor closed his eyes as Daeron rested their foreheads together. “I’ve been afraid of so many things for such a long time,” he whispered, “and I don’t want to be.”

Daeron pressed a soft kiss to the side of Maglor’s mouth, and another to his cheek directly over the scar on his cheek. “You don’t have to be.”

“When you say it, I can believe it.”

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In the days after Maglor’s departure, peace settled again over the valley. The birds sang and the flowers bloomed. There were peaches for every meal, and more leftover for jams and preserves. Mablung arrived in the company of Beleg Strongbow, newly returned from Mandos, bearing greetings from Thingol’s court and a lively curiosity about the recent goings on in Imloth Ningloron. “We set out in the company of Daeron,” Mablung told Elrond in a quiet moment after the initial flurry of greetings and welcome. “He wished to see Maglor—and we met him on the road, so Daeron left us to join him. I do not know where they intend to go; Daeron has never been one for planning very far ahead.”

Elrond smiled. “I’m glad that they are traveling together,” he said. 

“Maglor might not be,” Mablung said. “He seemed troubled and ill inclined towards company—not that such a thing has ever stopped Daeron. It was he that warned us that things might be…tense, here in your valley.”

“It isn't so bad thus far,” Elrond said. “And I think Daeron’s company will do Maglor more good than traveling alone, however he might feel about it now. Thank you for telling me.”

“You are welcome, of course. I would ask one thing of you—may I show your memory garden to Beleg?”

“Yes, of course. It is open to anyone, and there is already a memorial there for Túrin and his family.” 

“Thank you. I think he will appreciate it very much.” 

Fingolfin remained in the valley, but kept his distance from Fëanor, apparently content to let things proceed as they would without trying to force it. Elrond was grateful for that; it would do no one any good to have any meeting between the brothers turn into another confrontation. For his part, Fëanor kept to himself, speaking to few people and resting after the exertion of traveling farther than he should have so newly reembodied, and after his encounters with both Maedhros and Maglor. 

“They said some very similar things to him, I think,” Celebrimbor told Elrond when they spoke of it, sitting by one of the ponds and watching a family of ducks splash in the shallows.

“I can imagine,” Elrond said. “They aren’t so different, Maedhros and Maglor.” They seemed quite different on the surface, but Elrond had grown up seeing how alike they were in thought—they had needed as few words as he and Elros had needed, having whole conversations in a glance and then acting in tandem without exchanging a single word. 

“Don’t say that to Maedhros. He’d be horrified.”

“Was he any better when you saw him last?”

“No,” Celebrimbor said, sighing. “I saw him just before they all left, and he was…I don’t know. Defeated, somehow. As though it had been Fëanor who had the last word, rather than him.” They watched one of the ducklings topple off of the bank into the water, surfacing a moment later with a great deal of splashing. “I was so glad to see my own father again,” he said after a while. “He came to Lórien before I was ready to leave it. I think I was slower than most to adjust to having a body again.” He grimaced when Elrond winced, both of them thinking of why that was. Elrond had seen Celebrimbor’s body only once, a glimpse at a distance when it was raised before the armies of Mordor as they marched out of the smoking ruins of Ost-in-Edhil—even that had been enough to see how terrible his end had been. “But I just—I suppose it’s that I said all the cruel things already, when I turned my back in Nargothrond, and once we were both here again we could start anew. None of my uncles ever got that chance. Grandfather understands, though. He isn’t angry. I think he hoped but did not expect it to go any differently.”

“Why did he come, then?” Elrond asked. 

“He had decided that whatever they had to say, even if it was that they never wanted to see him again, he wished to hear it from them—and it has always been that once he is settled on a course he will not be swayed. I would not be surprised if he goes to my father and my other uncles after they return from their journey, though I did warn him that Celegorm and Ambarussa will probably leave again to rejoin Oromë’s hunt, and it would be useless even to try to track them when they do. He’s lucky he caught Maglor here, come to think of it.”

Maglor wrapped himself in subtle enchantments of hiding and secrecy without even thinking about it. “Luck is one word for it,” Elrond said. 

“I think it’s for the best that Maglor was able to say whatever he needed to say,” Celebrimbor said. 

“I agree, but that doesn’t lessen the pain of it in the present. Is Fëanor reading the Red Book?”

“He’s nearly finished, and fascinated,” Celebrimbor said, laughing a little. “It’s a shame that Bilbo isn’t still here. I don’t know if they would get along, but it would certainly be something to witness their conversations. I did have to explain my part in the whole thing, though—that was hard.”

“I’m sorry.”

“He knew some of it already, and then he managed to get me to promise to show him how to make ithildin. He might ask you about Vilya sometime. I told him that you and Mithrandir and Galadriel still have the Three.”

“We do,” Elrond said. Gandalf still wore Narya, but Elrond had been quite happy to tuck Vilya into a jewelry box and close that chapter of his life. He would be forever grateful for it, for having had its power when he’d most needed it, but it had been a burden as much as a blessing. His hand felt so much lighter without it, and these days the only ring he wore was his golden wedding band. He knew Galadriel had kept Nenya, too, but he did not know what exactly she’d done with it. “It was my hope in giving him the book that he would come to understand something of the world we left, that he never knew. In doing so he might understand Maglor better.”

“I think he does,” said Celebrimbor. “It will be hard, though, for him to hear the full tale.”

“I think,” Elrond said, remembering that afternoon that Finrod had gotten the three of them drunk on wine and old grief, “that you may know more of it than I do. I can guess much, but he never speaks of it.”

“He tried to sing the tower down, once,” Celebrimbor murmured. “It didn’t work. That was when they…” He gestured at his own lips. They both fell silent; Elrond tilted his head back to look at the clouds gathering, promising rain showers later in the afternoon. Galadriel had taken the stitches out as soon as Maglor had been brought to her, and his mouth had been well healed by the time he’d come to Imladris months later. It wasn’t the physical wounds that had marked him most deeply; they were only the most visible. It was what had happened after the stitching that had left the deepest and most lasting damage—when he had been thrown into cold dark silence and left to wander in dreams and nightmares as the years marched on outside, and the lock on the door slowly rusted. Elrond had not known that he’d tried to sing down the tower—an inversion of Lúthien’s song long ago at Tol-en-Gaurhoth, a last desperate attempt at something like escape. The thought made him shudder. 

But it was over. Sauron was no more, and Maglor had been brought out of that place alive—and he had healed. The Maglor who had first come to Imladris would not have been able to face Fëanor at all, let alone speak to him. He would not have been able to sing with Elemmírë or tease Finrod, or even hear the news that all of his brothers were alive again. He hadn’t even been able to look Elrond in the eye when he’d first come to Rivendell. 

“I know it may not seem like it,” Elrond said after a few minutes, “but he is better—he is so, so much better than he was, even when I left him after the War of the Ring.”

“I know,” Celebrimbor said. “I know what it is to be broken by Sauron, and what it takes to come back from it. Maglor is far stronger than he will let himself believe.”

Elrond returned to the house to seek Fëanor, and found him in the gallery, a bright and wide room with high ceilings and many windows and skylights to let in the sunshine. Paintings lined the walls—portraits, landscapes, many depicting people or places in Middle-earth beloved by the artists. Sculptures and busts were also scattered throughout the room. The artwork was often changed and rearranged as more was made or brought to the valley. Elrond knew that Celebrían was already planning where to place the last paintings that Arwen had sent them, once they were unwrapped.

Fëanor stood looking at a painting Arwen had made long ago, of the Fellowship gathered in the courtyard of Rivendell before setting out on the Quest; she had insisted that Elrond take it with him when he set sail. “Are they truly that small?” Fëanor asked. He had his hands clasped behind his back, and his hair was loose; from the back Elrond might have mistaken him for Fingolfin if he hadn’t known better.

“Hobbits? Yes. Merry and Pippin, I have been told, caused quite a stir when they returned home several inches taller than when they had left. And of course there is the tale of Bandobras Took, the only hobbit that ever grew tall enough to ride a horse, who led them to victory against the goblins in the Battle of Greenfields. He was an ancestor of Bilbo’s, and Bilbo was very fond of telling that story.”

Fëanor was looking at Frodo, standing in the center with Sam at his side and Gandalf’s hand on his shoulder. After a few moments he shifted his stance and turned to Elrond. “Will you tell me now what happened to Canafinwë?”

“You read of Dol Guldur, in Mirkwood?”

“Yes…”

Elrond took a deep breath, and told him—of Maglor’s capture by the river, of his years of captivity, of Sauron’s desire to break his will. He did not go into detail, but he did not shrink from describing just how terribly fragile and afraid and wounded Maglor had been when he had come to Imladris after his rescue and the winter in Lothlórien under the care of Galadriel and Elrond’s children. Fëanor listened, ashen-faced, in silence. “Before he was taken by the orcs,” Elrond said at last, “he was alone for a very long time—but not so isolated as he was in that prison cell, and free to wander wherever he wished. It was the years alone in the dark, unable to escape, that wounded him most deeply, in ways that do not show on the body.”

Fëanor turned away, and Elrond thought at first that he was going to leave. Instead he just stood very still, shaking a little. When he turned around again, he said, “I saw him woven in your valley beneath the mountains, but he wasn’t—there were gaps in the weave. If I did not know the skill of Vairë’s weavers I would have thought them a beginner’s mistake—missing threads, or woven too loosely so that they came unraveled. Even later, the gaps were closed but it still—it seemed wrong.”

“He is strong,” Elrond said quietly. “He survived, and he healed—it may seem hard to believe to you, but he did.”

“Why were you not there when Dol Guldur was besieged?”

“My power, and Vilya’s, was anchored in Imladris. I left the valley only rarely by the end of the Third Age; my sons went out in my stead. Galadriel did not leave Lórien either, though she did not need to for the part she played for there was only the river separating her land and Mirkwood; and the Istari were there, and Glorfindel—and my sons. It was Elladan and Elrohir that found Maglor and brought him out of there, and they and Arwen had him in their care most of that winter. None of them were strangers to the devices and torments of the Enemy, after the long wars with Angmar. Nor was Galadriel. There was no safer place for him that winter than Caras Galadhon.”

“Why was he left there so long?” Fëanor asked after a moment, voice tight. “You said—sixty years and more in torment. What were you waiting for?”

Elrond sighed. “None of us knew he was there,” he said. “We had not been able to find him since the end of the First Age—you must remember that he can hide himself if he wishes to. As for Dol Guldur…Saruman’s counsel seemed good at the time. It was not until the year Frodo fled the Shire that we learned of his treachery. It was nearly our undoing—as you know, for you have read the account of it.”

“I have.”

“I don’t know why Saruman wished to wait, since we can no longer trust the reasons he gave to us, but by the time we made our move Sauron was ready, and he established himself again in Mordor within just a few years.” Elrond paused, unsure of how to proceed. “Maglor…came out of that placed filled with fear, for fear was Sauron's greatest weapon and he and the Nazgûl wielded it to deadly effect; there were few even in Rivendell who could withstand them. He was so afraid of losing himself to Sauron that he had managed to forget almost all he knew of music—because that was what Sauron wanted from him—and it was many years before he played or sang again outside of the privacy of his own room with the door firmly shut. We were all afraid as Sauron’s power grew again, but Maglor never really had any hope that we would find a way to defeat him, and even now I think he finds it difficult to let go of that fear. He is not afraid of Sauron anymore, but he dislikes performing, especially in front of a large audience. He does not like to be seen. Older wounds too have been reopened since he came here—”

“You mean that I have reopened them,” Fëanor said. The tension was gone from him; his shoulders sagged, and he sounded suddenly exhausted. 

“No,” said Elrond. Fëanor raised his eyebrows in surprise. “Not only you. All of his brothers are here, too. We passed by Lady Nerdanel’s house, where they were gathered, on our way from Eressëa, and Maglor raced ahead to leave it behind as quickly as he could. I’m not so sure that he would not greet Maedhros in almost exactly the same way he spoke to you.”

“He wouldn’t,” Fëanor said immediately, with the certainty of a father who knew his sons better than anyone. “He would never speak to Maedhros thus.” When he had known his sons best, though, had been in times of peace and joy. He had not been there to see how war and suffering and their own deeds wore them down and changed them, hardened them and sharpened them like pieces of brittle stone with pieces being slowly chipped away until they were nothing but sharp edges. When Fëanor had known them it was unthinkable for Maglor and Maedhros to be at such odds—or for Maglor to speak to anyone so harshly, let alone his own brother. When Fëanor had known them best, many things that they later did were unthinkable, unimaginable even in one’s worst nightmares. 

Sometimes Elrond wished that he had known them then, that he had known that Maedhros that everyone else loved, that he had known Maglor before he was weighed down by so much grief and guilt. Those wishes lived in the same place in his heart as the wish that so many terrible things had not had to happen for him to even have been born. They were impossible wishes, and so not worth dwelling upon—and he didn’t, for the most part, except when he felt particularly weary or heartsick. 

“Maedhros was the last to leave him,” Elrond said quietly. “Everyone left him in the end, even Elros and I. Maglor often seeks solitude, but there is choosing to be alone for a few hours or days and there is watching everyone you love turn their back in one way or another, one by one. Losing Maedhros was the one thing Maglor feared and dreaded above all else. I never knew Maedhros as well as I knew Maglor, and I cannot guess what was in his mind when he cast himself into the fire, but it was a choice that he made, and Maglor knew it, and I don’t know if even Maglor, who can forgive his brothers almost anything, can forgive Maedhros that.”

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Maglor dreamed of his brothers—but not of the bloody and burning past. The dreams were strange and almost nonsensical, a blending of their youth in Valinor with the present day under the sun: Caranthir pruning roses with their grandmother and aunt; Maedhros sitting by the river with a sketchbook and only one hand, loose hair gleaming in the sunlight; Celegorm and Maedhros squaring off by the river in the late afternoon as rainclouds gathered in the distance, Maedhros looking stubborn but also somehow like a wrong touch would shatter him into a thousand pieces like a badly made piece of glass, and Celegorm snarling in the way a wounded animal snarled, lashing out only because there was nothing else it could do; Caranthir and Curufin conferring quietly as they saddled horses; Ambarussa knee-deep in a river with wood-and-stone spears, laughing at something on the shore rather than trying to catch a fish; all six of his brothers riding down a road and singing one of Bilbo’s songs—the one about the Man in the Moon come down to get drunk.

When he woke, his brothers’ voices all still echoing with a ping and a ping the fiddle-strings broke! in his mind it was to Daeron shifting beside him, one arm wrapped around Maglor’s head and shoulders, the other pushing Huan away. “Leave off, you horrible beast. I am sure Ekkaia is a marvel, but is it truly worth such a hurry? Must we see it before the summer is out to fully appreciate its splendor?”

Maglor smiled into Daeron’s shoulder. “It is marvelous,” he said, “but I think it is marvelous all year round.”

“Tell that to your dog!” Daeron lay back down and pulled the blanket up over both their heads. Huan huffed and flopped down beside them. “What’s his hurry, then?” Daeron asked.

It felt both silly and very cozy to be tucked up under the blanket like that, the rest of the world shut out. Even the hedgehog and the cat weren’t with them, having presumably gone off in search of breakfast. Maglor raised his head to look at Daeron, whose eyes gleamed in the soft shadows. “I don’t know,” Maglor said. “I think he and Gandalf may have been conspiring.”

“Should we be worried?”

“Probably.” Maglor brushed hair out of Daeron’s face. “Historically the people whose lives Gandalf meddles in get sent on terrifying quests to slay dragons or destroy cursed rings.” 

“Well, at least we’re safe from that sort of thing,” said Daeron, “unless there’s some kind of terrible creature lurking in the waters of Ekkaia that Gandalf wants you to take care of.”

“He’ll be disappointed if there is,” Maglor said. “I haven’t fought anything since—” He’d been about to say since the end of the First Age, but that wasn’t true. “Well, the last time I tried to fight it didn’t go very well. I’m certainly not going to try to fight a sea monster.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll sing the—oh I don’t know what sea monsters have. Tentacles? Fins? Whatever it is I’ll sing them off it for you, and we can flee back inland before the tide comes in.”

“And afterward I shall compose a lay about it,” Maglor said, “to be performed on all high holidays before the court of Elu Thingol.”

“Don’t you dare.” Daeron leaned in for a kiss, both of them laughing. Maglor closed his eyes, basking in the closeness and the warmth, and marveling a little at how easy it all still was. 

“It would be a very flattering lay,” Maglor said when Daeron drew back. “All rhyming couplets and—” Daeron shoved him, that time, and they both tumbled out of the blankets onto the grass. As they packed up their camp Maglor began the lay in suitably heroic meter, expanding for many lines upon Daeron’s valor and the might of his voice echoing off of the dark waters of Ekkaia, while Daeron threw things at him and provided scathing commentary on the increasingly tortured rhymes. 

He relented by the time they were ready to go. Pídhres reappeared to climb up on Maglor’s shoulders, and Leicheg scuttled through the grass to Daeron’s outstretched hands, eager to be tucked into the little pouch that they’d fashioned for one of them to wear while they rode, slung across their chests, so she could stick her little nose out to sniff the wind. Huan waited impatiently, circling around and sniffing at the occasional tussock. When they set off he loped ahead and vanished into the tall grass beyond the road, and they could track his movements only by the ripples of it and by the flocks of birds that erupted into the air in a flurry of feathers and indignant cries. 

The rolling fields and wide prairies passed, a sea unto themselves like Ard Galen had been long ago. They saw herds of animals of many kinds in the distance, and occasionally came upon a wandering company of Elves—Avari who had come to Valinor through Mandos, mostly, though there were some Vanyar wandering too. No one recognized either Daeron or Maglor, or even asked their names. They just exchanged greetings and asked after the latest gossip from Tirion or Valmar or from Thingol’s realm, and were satisfied when Daeron could give them only the latter. 

Birds were abundant on the plains. They crossed rivers and passed ponds and lakes where geese flocked, and cranes, and herons, and many other birds besides. Huan charged into one such lake, barking wildly, and sent them all scattering, squawking and honking. Even the geese didn’t dare try to chase Huan away. They did not linger in any one place again, though they camped early and started late each day. 

They rode in companionable silence as often as they sang or spoke together; when they were not speaking, Maglor’s mind wandered. He dreamed of his father, glimpses of him in Imloth Ningloron—in one of the guest rooms sitting by the window with a book on his lap, or walking in the garden, or speaking to Elrond in the gallery—as though Irmo or someone else wanted him to know that Fëanor was not following him or causing any trouble. The Fëanor of the present day was so unlike the Fëanor who had charged into Beleriand that he seemed almost a stranger—though perhaps it was only that Maglor’s memories of his father before everything had gone wrong were so badly distorted by all that had come later. 

“Did you ever travel past the Sea of Rhûn?” Daeron asked one morning. “The lands in the east are like these—though perhaps a little drier. Steppe country, all golden grasslands and wide skies.”

“No,” Maglor said. “I ventured south into Harad once, but I did not go very far inland.” 

“I never made it to Harad; I stayed in the north,” said Daeron.

“Did you ever find Cuiviénen, or where it once was?”

“No, I never did. I never really looked for the place—it was the people I sought. I found some of them—some were nomads, like the people of Rhûn. Others had built cities to rival Gondolin or Nargothrond. I found ruins of older cities, too. The Elves of the West are fading, but the Elves of the East remain, and will remain for a long time yet, I think.”

“I’m glad,” Maglor murmured. He’d thought about it—going in search of Cuiviénen, or at least the Elves left behind after the Great Journey—but he’d never gotten up the nerve for it. It had been easier to linger in the lands and by the waters that he knew. And, of course, the one time he did strike out from the coast, following the Anduin north… 

Clouds moved in one day and stayed for the next, and the day after that, slowly growing heavier until at last the rain began to fall. It was steady and light, but Pídhres complained loudly even after Maglor drew his hood up to cover both of them. Leicheg vanished into her pouch and did not come out again; Huan, of course, minded the rain not at all. Daeron sang rain songs he’d learned in Rhûn, and Maglor sang bathing songs that he’d learned from Bilbo. 

They came to a river with trees growing along its banks, and found a place to set up camp until the rain passed. “Whether that is tomorrow or three days from now,” Maglor informed Huan as he and Daeron pitched the tent that Elrohir had packed for Maglor but that he hadn’t bothered with until then. “You might not mind being damp all the time, but we do.”

“Pídhres certainly does,” said Daeron, as Pídhres vanished into the tent to bury herself in the depths of one of Maglor’s saddle bags. The trees kept off most of the rain but not all, and a large drop of it splashed onto the back of Maglor’s neck and rolled down his shirt before he could join Daeron inside. They peeled off their wet clothes before Daeron pulled Maglor down onto the blankets, and they both forgot all about the rain and the road for a long while. 

Later, Maglor dozed, with Daeron sprawled half on top of him, their legs tangled together. Rain pattered gently on the canvas overhead, and just outside of the tent Maglor heard faint scuffling noises as Leicheg hunted for her dinner. Somewhere else nearby a few birds were singing, heedless of the rain. He felt heavy and sleepy and comfortable, and thought idly that even if the rain stopped in an hour he would like to stay there—for a few days, for a few decades…

“Are these teeth marks?” Daeron asked.

“Hm?” Maglor opened his eyes and lifted his head. While he had been dozing, Daeron had been cataloging his various scars. His fingers had found a very old scar indeed on his forearm—Maglor had forgotten it was even there, and was honestly surprised it had not faded away long ago. “Oh, that. Elros bit me.”

“Elros bit you?”

“Elrond was busy kicking at my knees.”

Daeron raised up onto an elbow. “Was this at Sirion?”

“No, it was later—but before they stopped being afraid of me. We had to flee—something. Orcs, probably. I’d promised not to hurt them but in the rush I wasn’t exactly gentle.” 

“Sharp teeth for a child,” Daeron said. He lifted Maglor’s arm and kissed the scar. “Do you have any other interesting ones?”

“I don’t think so.” 

“No childhood accidents or misadventures?”

Maglor laughed softly. “No. I broke my arm falling off of my grandfather Mahtan’s roof once, though. Do you have any scars from such misadventures?”

“Lúthien broke my nose once,” Daeron said. “Neither of us were children, but she was the one who fell out of the tree—landed on top of me and what’s worse, broke my harp.” That made Maglor laugh out loud. “And I have…ah, this.” He held up his arm to show a small and old burn scar near his wrist. “Leaned against the wrong thing in the dwarves’ workshops in Menegroth. They never let me forget about it afterward.”

“I confess I cannot imagine Lúthien falling out of a tree,” Maglor said.

“Few can,” Daeron said with a smile. “I never let her forget it, either. What’s this scar from?” His hands landed on a nasty old burn on Maglor’s hip.

“Dagor Bragollach.”

“And this?” A scar on his thigh where a sword had cut deep—it hadn’t hit any major vessels only by sheer luck. “It looks very bad.”

“It was. That was from the Nirnaeth. Those are the only two battle scars. The rest are from…”

“Dol Guldur,” Daeron finished. 

“Yes. And most of those have faded.” Maglor regretted saying that as he watched dismay pass over Daeron’s face. “They don’t hurt anymore. Except my chest, sometimes.”

Daeron kissed him, sudden and fierce. “You should never have been hurt in the first place,” he said as he drew back, just far enough to speak before he kissed the scars around Maglor’s lips and the one on his cheek. He rested his hand on Maglor’s chest, over his heart—over the brand. “Would that I had come west sooner.”

“You were needed in the east,” Maglor said. He ran his fingers through Daeron’s hair. “And I’m—I’m glad you were not there to see me when I was brought out of that place. I was so afraid for such a long time—”

“You are still afraid,” Daeron whispered. 

“Not like I was. I lost so much of myself in the dark.” He’d thought that he had put himself back together by the time he’d left Middle-earth, but he kept finding missing pieces, or pieces of him that were broken in ways he hadn’t realized before, sharp and jagged-edged. If he had come to Valinor directly after being released from Dol Guldur, though, he would have had to go straight to Lórien, and he wasn’t sure he would have ever been able to come back out. Not with his brothers waiting for him, and without knowing what was happening back across the Sea. “Now I’m only afraid of some things,” he said, trying to speak lightly. Daeron wasn’t fooled. “Back then I feared everything.”

“What, even Elrond?”

“Even Elrond. And especially Galadriel.”

“Well, anyone with sense is at least a little afraid of Galadriel.”

Maglor grinned. “Celeborn isn’t.”

“I never said Celeborn had any sense.”

“Elrond isn’t, either.”

“Elrond is very wise but that does not mean he is sensible. Consider who he is descended from! Consider who raised him!” Daeron grinned when Maglor laughed, but he grew serious again quickly. “It’s useless to wish the past was different, I know, but it has not stopped me yet. I would have done many things differently if I had known…”

“So would I,” Maglor said.

“Starting at the Mereth Aderthad.”

“That, I don’t regret. I would not have had you drawn into my doom for anything.”

“I was drawn into it anyway,” Daeron said, “though through no doing of yours.” He kissed Maglor again, softly this time, and Maglor let his eyes fall shut, keeping his fingers tangled in Daeron’s hair. Then Daeron asked him, “What is it you fear now?”

Maglor didn’t answer immediately, but Daeron was patient. He shifted to the side so that Maglor could roll over and rest on him instead of the other way around. “My brothers,” he said finally. “And—I know I shouldn’t. Everything I have been told suggests that there is nothing to fear from them. Even the fact that Huan is with me. And I’ve received letters. I just…” He closed his eyes. His head rested on Daeron’s chest, and he could hear the steady drumbeat of Daeron’s heart. “I don’t know if I can explain.” It wasn’t like his apprehensions surrounding his mother. All his brothers had done the same things—some worse—than he had. Maybe it was that he had seen them die—all of them, one by one; he’d been too slow, too far away, too encumbered, and he hadn’t been able to save any of them. Not even Maedhros, who had disappeared into the great fiery rent in the earth before Maglor could even scream his name.

“Will you sing something?” Maglor whispered. “I don’t want to think of my brothers.”

Daeron obliged immediately, singing a quiet song of clear waters under dark trees, and the deep twilight of ancient woods. Maglor closed his eyes when Daeron drew a blanket up to cover both of them. Pídhres emerged from her saddlebag-bed to curl up with them, and at some point Maglor must have fallen asleep, because when he woke it was evening, and Huan had crowded into the tent with them too, with Leicheg sprawled out on her little flat stomach between his paws. 

The rain lasted another day, and when it ended they packed up the tent and moved on. “When you see your brothers,” Daeron said as he sprang into his saddle, “I will be with you. You are not alone any longer.”

Maglor smiled at him. “I know. But I wouldn’t ask you to go with me—”

“I know. That’s why I am telling you now, so we don’t have to argue about it later.” Daeron hesitated a moment before asking, “Do you think it’s only fear keeping you away, or grief?”

“Grief? I don’t—they’re alive again—”

“I still grieve Mablung,” Daeron said. “And Beleg, and Elu Thingol, and all the others I knew before who died and who yet walk again beneath the sun. Even when they stand before me I find myself missing them, and the grief has only grown sharp again, when before time had dulled it. I don’t know how to stop. How do you let it go when it has become such a part of you?”

Maglor scratched Pídhres behind her ears where she sat before him on the saddle. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “You are right, though—I think of them and all I can see is how they died, or what they were just before—how they were all so changed from the brothers I loved. Perhaps if I had known…I never thought to prepare myself for it. I never thought they would be released.”

“I expected—I hoped—to see the ones I missed, here alive and whole again,” said Daeron, “but even the knowing does not make it easier. I spoke to Melian of it, and she told me that it will fade with time, which I expected her to say and yet still disappointed me.”

“Maybe it’s useless to make the distinction between the two. I learned when Finwë died that grief can feel an awful lot like fear,” Maglor murmured. It had been difficult for a very long time to tell the difference—he still felt sometimes like he’d started being afraid then and had never stopped. 

“I have found that, too,” said Daeron. 

“I don’t know what keeps me away, exactly,” Maglor said after they had ridden in silence for a time. The grass around them was still wet from the rain, and it sparkled under the sun. Huan trotted along between their horses, tongue lolling out. Leicheg peered out of her pouch, carried by Daeron, and Maglor could hear her purring contentedly. “Part of it is—I was so angry when I saw my father. I don’t want to be angry like that again, and I’m afraid I will be.”

“I think,” Daeron said slowly, “that grief can also feel a lot like rage.”

With the passing of the rainclouds the weather turned fine and hot. They kept their leisurely pace, and after some days more Maglor began to recognize the country around them; rolling hills covered in heather that, once, had seemed to glow in the faintest Treelight that only barely reached them. Now they flourished under the summer sun. “When we crest those hills,” he told Daeron, “we will see it, Ekkaia. There will only be some dunes between us and the beach then.”

“I want to go on foot,” said Daeron. “Let us stop before the hills and let the horses loose so we don’t have to stop and worry about them afterward.” He glanced around as he spoke, and raised a hand to shield his eyes. “This is beautiful country. But desolate, somehow.” There was nothing else for miles—no one lived out here, and though Nienna’s halls were on the shores of Ekkaia they were nowhere in sight, and Maglor had never found them in his previous wanderings up and down the coast, long ago. There were not even birds, no gulls or albatrosses or terns, diving into the water or circling above, or nesting on the beach. Maglor had never stayed long before, though he’d come several times in his youth, drawn to the eerie silence and emptiness and yet unable to bear it for more than a short time. 

It felt a little different this time. This time he wasn’t alone. “Come on,” he said, urging his horse forward. “I want to make it to the hills before sunset.”

They reached the hills well before sunset, just as the sunlight began to take on a deeper golden color as the afternoon began its waning. They unsaddled the horses and set them free to roam where they would. Pídhres curled up around Maglor’s neck, and Leicheg peered out of her pouch at his chest, and purred when he stroked a finger over her head. Huan, though, raced ahead and paused to sniff the air before bounding away north, past the dunes onto the beach, letting out a loud bark after a few minutes. “What was that about?” Daeron asked. 

“Perhaps he scented a sea monster,” Maglor said. “Are you prepared to enter into battle?” Daeron laughed, reaching for his hand to climb up through the heather and the tall grass to the top of the hill before them. They stopped at the crest of it, and Maglor’s breath caught in his throat at the sight of Ekkaia stretching out before them. Its waters were calmer and smoother than Belegaer. The waves were gentle as they washed quietly up over the stony beach, their music no more than a whisper, the stones themselves all warm browns and reds and occasional pinks, and the waters were darker, not quite reflecting the blue of the sky, but instead shimmering with the remembered light of ancient stars. They were endless, vanishing past the horizon; there were no ships that sailed upon Ekkaia, no fishermen to cast their nets into its depths. Certainly no sea monsters, Maglor thought as he lifted a hand to shield his eyes from the westering sun. Here there was only peace.

“Oh,” Daeron breathed. “Oh, it’s…” He gazed at it a moment longer before tilting his head back to begin to sing. His voice lifted up on the breeze and echoed out over the water, a song of praise for the peace and tranquility of the sea at the edge of the world, for the beauty of its dark waters and the bright glow of the sun overhead. When he finished his stanza Maglor continued the song, singing of his memory of it under ancient starlight before the rising of the Sun or Moon. 

They traded verses as they made their way down to the beach, past the grassy dunes and onto the stones, falling into harmony as easily as they joined hands, building upon one another’s words as they went, weaving themes and melodies together. The stones crunched gently underfoot, and when Maglor knelt to dip his fingers into the waves they were cool and fresh; the air smelled faintly of salt. 

As Daeron’s last verse ended but before Maglor could begin another Huan barked again; they both turned—and Maglor froze. Huan was not alone.

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Things got easier after Curufin and Celegorm reconciled. They weren’t perfect, but no one was perpetually angry, and no one was not speaking to anyone else. They stayed a few more days by the river; they drank one of the bottles of wine over the course of those days, eating the fish that Ambarussa caught, cooked with herbs that Caranthir and Celegorm found. Maedhros spent most of that time under the tree, sketching portraits. Nerdanel would want to see them—proof that going away had been the right choice, that they had indeed found something to celebrate.

The night before they left, Celegorm brought out the palantír, and bent over it for some time, communing with their mother. When he put it away, he was frowning. “What is it?” Curufin asked. 

“Atar went looking for Maglor,” Celegorm said. “He’s still at Imloth Ningloron, but Maglor’s gone off somewhere.”

“Huan is with him, though,” said Curufin. “He’ll make sure he’s all right.”

“Fingolfin is also at Imloth Ningloron.”

Caranthir wrinkled his nose. “Poor Elrond,” he said. Curufin snorted.

“At least no one has swords anymore,” Amrod murmured. 

“I’m glad we left when we did,” said Celegorm. “I don’t want to be anywhere near that. Maglor had the right idea, leaving.”

Maedhros leaned back against the tree, one knee pulled up to his chest. “Did Ammë say whether Maglor had spoken to him?”

“She thinks he did, but she doesn’t know what he said; no one does, because he isn’t there and Atar isn’t saying. And he hasn’t come to her house—she heard the news from Tyelpë, who is also still at Imloth Ningloron, and wrote her a note to tell her about it.”

That was strange, Maedhros thought. It was one thing to avoid Nerdanel’s house when the rest of them were there, but Maglor would surely know by now that they’d left. It should have been the first place he went. Maedhros looked out over the river, westward toward the sunset. He had been apprehensive, when he’d first come from Mandos, about going to see her—but he’d still gone. She was their mother, and all of them had gone to her first after leaving Mandos. Why would Maglor avoid her in his turn? Something was wrong, and Maedhros did not like not knowing what it was. 

“Can I see the stone?” Caranthir asked. Celegorm brought it back out and handed it over.

“What are you looking for?” Amras asked. “We’re all here.”

“Maglor.”

Amrod snorted. “Good luck. Those things never work on him.”

“They did once,” Maedhros murmured. Celegorm got up and came to sit beside him, pressing their shoulders together. 

“I want to try anyway.” Caranthir bent over it, expression intent, but after a few minutes he shook his head and straightened. “Only mist.”

“Let us try!” Ambarussa chorused, and each took their own turn. They had no luck finding Maglor either, though Amras reported that he’d seen their mother at work on a bust of Varda, and their father reading a book in Imloth Ningloron. “I think he is teaching himself Westron.”

“I really don’t know why that’s surprising,” Curufin muttered as he took the palantír to have a turn of his own. He looked longer, and when he straightened he said, “I think I saw him—just a glimpse, under a tree by the side of the road. I think his cat was stuck in it.”

Maedhros held out his hand, and Curufin gave him the palantír. He might as well, he thought as he steadied it with his other wrist. He looked for Maglor in the present, but saw nothing but mist. “Nothing,” he said, and handed it back to Celegorm. 

“What if we looked for the recent past?” Caranthir said suddenly. “There’s no hiding that; it’s already happened.”

The stone was passed around again, this time with far more success. Caranthir saw him racing down the road, though he couldn’t tell which road or when; Celegorm saw him at the pottery wheel, intent and focused on the bowl taking shape under his hands. Ambarussa each saw him with his cat, laughing as he dragged a piece of string around for her to chase. Curufin dropped the stone after looking into it and would not share what he saw. 

Maedhros picked it up, feeling uneasy—but not uneasy enough to stop him from catching a glimpse of Maglor outside of Dol Guldur. The mists cleared in an instant as he gazed into the stone, and he saw a golden wood, a wood of mallorn trees in late autumn, and tucked into the boughs of the tallest of them was a talan, and in that talan was a window. Maglor sat in a bed beside just inside it, leaning on the sill. He was painfully thin and pale; his hair was cropped very short, with threads of white in the dark strands; his wrists were bandaged, and his mouth was red and swollen, as though the cords that had stitched his lips shut had only just been removed. Maedhros had looked too far back; this was years and years ago. But he couldn’t stop staring as, weak and in pain as he clearly was, Maglor reached out to pluck a leaf from the branch before him, sending a shower of raindrops cascading down to the forest floor below as he leaned back inside. He looked lost, lonely—but also it seemed to Maedhros full of wonder as he turned the leaf in his trembling fingers, looking wide-eyed at it as though he’d never seen anything so lovely.

He set the stone down and shook his head when Celegorm asked what he had seen.

Even then, so newly rescued from the horrors of the dark, Maglor had had hope—he had seen beauty and he had reached for it without hesitation, even though he barely had the strength to lift his arms. Not even Sauron could take that from him. 

“I wish we knew where he was going,” Celegorm said as he put the palantír away.

“So we could intercept him on the road?” Curufin asked, raising an eyebrow. Celegorm shrugged. “I’m sure that would go very well, especially if he left Elrond’s house after a confrontation with our father.”

“It would surely go better than that,” Amrod protested. 

“We’ll find out how it will go eventually,” said Caranthir quietly. “I’d rather he came to us because he wanted to, instead of because we got impatient.”

Maedhros looked out over the river, and at the stars shimmering in the wide open sky. Wherever Maglor was and wherever he was going, Maedhros hoped that he would find what he was seeking, even if it was just escape from their father. There was a strange comfort in that—that even though so much stood between them, they were united in something, even if it was opposition to their father. 

“Do you think eventually we’ll all be at home again?” Amrod asked after a while. “I mean—all of us?”

“Not for a long time,” Celegorm said. Curufin turned away as Caranthir murmured agreement, pulling his cloak around himself even though the night was warm. It was not for his own sake that he kept his distance from Fëanor, Maedhros knew. But then, Curufin knew what it was to be rejected by a son, didn’t he? And he and Celebrimbor had managed to reconcile, though both of them still tread carefully, lest it prove more fragile than either of them wished. Maedhros wasn’t sure if that gave him hope for the rest of them and Fëanor, or not. Or if he wanted it to.

When Amras glanced at him Maedhros said quietly, “I don’t know.”

They left the river the next day, traveling leisurely across the plains, leaving the roads behind. Celegorm and the twins ranged ahead, and Maedhros fell back beside Curufin, who had been quiet all morning. “If you want to see him, go see him,” Maedhros said.

Curufin shook his head. “I don’t want to—”

“It’s no betrayal of us, Curufin.”

“Arimeldë is still very angry at him.” Curufin looked away. “She said she would not argue if I wanted to, but—it feels wrong to want to see him when no one else does.”

“It might be that we are all wrong,” Maedhros said. “And it’s—I wish that I was glad to see him. I hate that it’s come to this. If you can take the first steps the rest of us can’t…”

Curufin looked at him. “Does it bother you that I look so much like him?” he asked.

“No,” Maedhros said. “No, of course not. By now it’s—it feels as though it’s the other way around. He looks like you.”

“He’s most likely to listen to you, Curvo,” said Caranthir, having dropped back to join them. “Anyway, he’s not Morgoth. We don’t all have to put up a united front against him.”

“I’d rather we were a united front,” said Curufin. “I dislike being caught in the middle.”

“You’re no more caught in the middle than Ammë is,” said Maedhros. “I can’t see him again—but that’s because, as you are all so fond of reminding me, I came from Mandos unhealed, and that’s no one’s fault but my own.”

“Have you changed your mind about going to Lórien?” Caranthir asked.

“No.”

“Why not?” Curufin asked, frowning at him. “You always look like you’re in pain. Even when you’re asleep. Why do you still punish yourself?”

I’m not, Maedhros wanted to say, but he knew they wouldn’t believe him. “There’s nothing Estë can do,” he said instead. 

“What about Nienna, then?” Caranthir asked. “Her halls are near to Ekkaia anyway.”

“There’s nothing Nienna can do either.” 

“You don’t know that,” Caranthir protested.

“Not everything that’s broken can be repaired,” Maedhros said shortly, “whatever Mithrandir says.” He rode forward, though he stopped short of joining Celegorm and the twins, who were debating something about hunting, or tracking. Maedhros let his gaze and his mind wander, trying to ignore the quiet voices of Curufin and Caranthir behind him. He had no idea where they were; they’d left the roads far behind, and there was nothing but rolling hills as far as he could see, green and gold under the sun. Stands of trees marked other rivers or watering holes. It was quiet but for their own voices and the whisper of the wind through the grasses. The air was clean and fresh, and the breeze was cool even as the summer sun blazed hot overhead. 

None of them spoke of Fëanor again, or of Maglor. As they drew near to Ekkaia it rained—not hard, but steady, for several days. There was no good place to take shelter, so they just kept traveling, Celegorm grumbling about being wet and Ambarussa taking charge of setting up the large tent they’d packed but not yet used—they knew some secret to keeping everything inside dry even if the ground was wet when they started, and refused to tell anyone how they did it. Those nights were filled with grumbling and elbows in ribs and someone’s cold feet on someone else’s legs, but Maedhros somehow slept better than he had any other night of their journey. 

It was still raining when they came to Ekkaia. The clouds stretched out over the waters, ending somewhere in the distance where they could see golden sunbeams breaking through, and pale skies beyond. The waters were dark and quiet on the stony shore. Maedhros left the others to make their camp tucked between two large dunes, and made his way down the beach to the water. He’d left his shoes behind, and the stones were smooth under his bare feet; when he stepped into the waves he found the water cool but not cold. The rain had eased a little, taking on a fine misty quality, and as he stood there it turned to proper mist, hovering around him and making his brothers’ voices echo oddly. 

Movement out of the corner of his eye made him turn sharply, hand going to his side, but it was only mist, swirling a little around him. Maedhros dropped his hand, but did not turn away again; there was no breeze to make the mist move like that, and as he watched it coalesced into a figure, tall and slender, robed in soft grey. “Lady,” he murmured, bowing his head as Nienna stepped forward.

“Maitimo,” she said, smiling and reaching out to take his hand in both of hers. Her voice sounded like the waves of Ekkaia itself. “I am glad to see you, child. You are better than when we last met.”

He had last seen Nienna in Mandos, but they had not spoken. Or if she had spoken he hadn’t listened. He hadn’t wanted to listen or to speak—not to Nienna, not to anyone. Now, he said, “Lady, why did Mandos release my father?”

“Because he asked,” Nienna said. 

“It can’t be that simple.”

“It is very simple, though it was not easy—not easy for him to ask, though it was easy for Námo to answer. In doing so he parted himself from his father, as he was once parted from his mother. But he is a father, too, and he could bear no longer to be parted from his children or from his wife.”

Maedhros closed his eyes. “He could bear it when he left his wife behind in the dark,” he said. “When he—” His eyes burned and he had to stop speaking before they started to fall. “Does he not understand?” he whispered finally.

“He does,” Nienna said. “He will not come to you again; but he will be waiting, when someday you decide you are ready to speak to him. But what will you do, Maedhros? Will you come to my halls? Or perhaps I shall find you in Lórien, where you can find rest for both body and spirit?”

“I will not find rest anywhere, Lady,” Maedhros said, “not until—” 

Nienna stepped forward and drew him into her embrace. Maedhros let her. In spite of the rain and her forever-falling tears she was warm, and he felt that if he were to fall she would catch him with no trouble, as though he were no more than a child. It was strange and reassuring and frightening all at once, and he squeezed his eyes shut against the tears, but they escaped anyway; that was the way of Nienna. Her very presence drew them out, and he didn’t know if it was a relief or not. “Your brother misses you as much as you miss him,” Nienna said. “He has been sorely tried and he needs you.”

“He does not want to see me.”

“He was left alone for a very long time. Perhaps he has forgotten what it is to have brothers. Should you not remind him?”

“I left him alone,” Maedhros said.

“You were in pain, Maitimo.”

“But I knew—I knew he couldn’t bear to be alone and I still—”

“You cannot change the past,” Nienna said. “Neither can he. There are many things both of you might have done differently, but you did not, and now you are here. What will you do next? Will you leave him alone now as you did then?”

“He is not alone.”

“Neither are you,” Nienna said, very softly and very gently. “But you can feel the missing piece among you, can you not? He is the missing piece, and he has been without the rest of you for so long that he has forgotten what it is to be part of a greater whole. You must reminded him—all of you, but you most of all, Maedhros.” She drew back and took his face in her hands, wiping away his tears as her own continued to fall. “I do not say that it will be easy, or that it will not hurt. There is hurt on both sides, and you may find that he is angry too. You will not be what you were before, but neither is the cup that Maglor gave to your mother. Sometimes there is beauty and joy anew in the healing.”

“Not all broken things can be fixed,” Maedhros said.

“You are not a broken thing. You are wounded and weary, and for those things there is healing.”

“Maedhros!” Celegorm called through the mist. “Where have you gone?”

“Go back to your brothers, Maedhros,” Nienna said.

“I don’t think I can fix it,” Maedhros whispered. 

“It is not for you alone to fix.” Nienna leaned down and kissed his forehead. “It is for the seven of you to find your way back to one another, full brothers in heart once more. You have let them help you thus far, and you are finding your way back to yourself. My halls will always be open to you, but it is not solitude that you need. That is why, perhaps, you found no rest in Mandos.” She stepped back as Maedhros heard the stones crunching under someone else’s feet, and by the time Celegorm reached him she was gone.

“Maedhros? What is it?” Celegorm took one look at Maedhros’ face and threw his arms around him with enough force to nearly send them both falling into the surf. “What’s wrong?”

Maedhros wrapped his arms around Celegorm and bowed his head. “Everything,” he heard himself say.

“Come back to the tent and dry off. Caranthir’s opened the wine. We’re going to get drunk and make up stupid stories. You don’t have to,” Celegorm added as he pulled Maedhros back toward the tent. “Do either, I mean. Get drunk or tell stories. But you have to stay in the tent.”

“I’m not going to wander off,” Maedhros said, trying to sound reassuring but knowing he fell far short. “That was always—” It was always Maglor that wandered off, when he got annoyed or just tired of the noise, and Maedhros who had gone to drag him back.

“Come on,” Celegorm said, opening the tent flap. “Maedhros isn’t playing the game,” he announced as Maedhros ducked in after him.

“What happened?” Caranthir asked, moving over so Maedhros could drop to the blankets in between him and Celegorm. Curufin, on Celegorm’s other side, leaned forward to peer at Maedhros with a frown.

Maedhros sighed. “Nothing. Nothing new. Where’s the wine?” He accepted the bottle from Amrod and took a sip. He could tell immediately that it was far stronger than their usual fare. “What is this?”

“Elves from the Greenwood have been trying to recreate the wines they used to get from—somewhere east of Wilderland, I think,” Amras said. Maedhros couldn’t stop himself wincing at Wilderland, but he didn't notice. Caranthir did, though, as he took the bottle for a sip of his own. “I forget what it was called—it was the stuff the captain of Thranduil’s guard and his butler got drunk on when Master Baggins snuck thirteen dwarves out of their dungeons! They’re all very fond of that story. Anyway, I’m told this is the closest they’ve gotten, though it’s sweeter than the real stuff.”

“It’s potent,” said Curufin after he took a sip, grimacing. “We can’t drink this whole thing tonight even between the six of us.”

“Oh, certainly not!” said Amrod. He took a swig—his second—and launched into a story about a rabbit and a hedgehog having a quarrel over a burrow. As he expanded on the story in response to picky questions from Curufin and Caranthir, Celegorm nudged at Maedhros until they could shift around with Maedhros leaning back against Celegorm’s chest. Celegorm unraveled his braids and combed his fingers through the damp tangles, and Maedhros sighed again, letting himself relax, letting his brothers’ voices was over him without paying much attention to the words. Celegorm’s laughter rumbled through his chest and made Maedhros think of Fëanor long ago, when Maedhros had been small enough to sit on his lap—when he had still laughed. He pushed the memory away. When the bottle was passed around again he took another sip but declined a third. 

Sometime in the evening he dozed off, and only halfway woke up when his brothers shifted around him. “Go back to sleep, Nelyo,” Caranthir whispered. Someone kissed his forehead, just where Nienna had before. Someone else cursed about an elbow to the spine, but Maedhros fell back asleep before the ensuing scuffle resolved. 

He dreamed of Maglor, walking along a sandy stretch of shore strewn with driftwood and seashells. He was not dressed like one having wandered for centuries; his clothes were travel-worn but not tattered. Nor did he look like the glimpse Maedhros had had of him in the palantír; he was not nearly so thin, he was stronger, and his wounds had healed into old scars; he did not look unhappy, precisely, but there was something melancholy in his bearing, a quiet sadness that seemed to be as deeply rooted in him as music was. He stopped and looked out over the waves. His cloak whipped around him as the wind picked up; it was fastened with a brooch in the shape of a spray of golden flowers. As the wind tore his braids loose Maglor tilted his head back and began to sing, but it was drowned out by the wind and waves, and when Maedhros woke he could not recall having heard a single note. 

The rain stopped that afternoon, the wind picking up and driving the clouds away eastward. By evening it was dry enough to take the tent down and spread their blankets out on the grass. The sunset over Ekkaia was beautiful, though not quite as brilliant as it had been over the grasslands at Midsummer. Maedhros sat atop the dune and watched it; Ambarussa had walked away down the coast together, and Curufin and Caranthir were talking by the fire below—something about forge work. Celegorm had disappeared earlier in the day, but he returned to climb up beside Maedhros. “Want to talk about it?” he asked, sitting down and leaning back against Maedhros’ chest this time. 

Maedhros looped his arms around Celegorm’s shoulders, resting his chin atop his head. “It’s nothing new.”

“Is it Atar?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know.”

“What did you say to him?”

“I told him what our legacy is,” Maedhros whispered. “I told him what it means to be his son.”

“You think he didn’t already know?”

“I think,” Maedhros said, “that he could convince himself of almost anything. But he couldn’t ignore me.”

“You don’t have to keep punishing yourself, Nelyo,” Celegorm said quietly. Maedhros didn’t answer. “You seem…you have seemed better, lately. Please don’t make us watch you get worse again.”

“I can’t make any promises, Tyelko.”

They had made no plans for what they’d do when they reached Ekkaia, or even how long they would stay. Now that they were there, though, Maedhros felt as though they were waiting for something. He just didn’t have any idea what. “I feel the same,” Caranthir said when he mentioned it a day or so later. “I don’t think Mithrandir would have sent us here just because it’s a good place to visit in the summer.”

“Mithrandir is not known,” Curufin remarked without looking up from a woodcarving he’d been working on here and there for the last several weeks, “for sending people to very pleasant places.”

“This is a pleasant place,” Amras said. “Though it’s very quiet. The waves hardly make any sound at all, and there aren’t even any birds.”

“Why would he send us here, then?” Celegorm asked. “I thought maybe he just meant we should take a long journey—you can’t go any farther than Ekkaia.” He lay by their fire, staring up at the sky. “And it’s quiet, and peaceful. We aren’t going to meet anyone else, so there’s nothing to—” A bark echoed over the water, and all of them went still. 

“Was that…?” Caranthir began. 

“It can’t be,” Celegorm said. He sat up. “I told him to stay with…” 

But it was Huan, racing down the stony beach until he spotted them. He barked again and bounded up to knock Celegorm flat on his back, greeting him with many enthusiastic kisses. “Huan!” Celegorm cried, laughing as he tried to wrestle him off. “What are you doing here? I told you to—”

Another sound had them all going still again, even Huan—a voice lifted in song, the kind of voice that one couldn’t help but stop and listen to. Maedhros hardly breathed as the song rose up toward the sky, a song of praise for Ekkaia and its dark waters under the sun. “Daeron,” he whispered as the verse ended. 

“Daeron of Doriath?” Curufin said. 

“You don’t forget his voice once you’ve heard it,” Maedhros said. It was overflowing with power, and love laced every note—love for the song’s subject and for the song itself, for the whole world. His voice was both like and unlike Maglor’s, both of them mighty but in slightly different ways. It was impossible not to listen when he sang, impossible not to forget everything else.

Then another verse was added to the song, but not by Daeron. They all leapt to their feet at the sound of Maglor’s voice, singing not of Ekkaia as it was but Ekkaia as it had been, long ago under the stars, outside the bounds of the Trees. Daeron’s voice was breathtaking but Maglor’s almost matched him in sheer power, and what was more it was familiar, and when Maedhros looked at his brothers he saw tears on all their faces. “He’s here,” Caranthir breathed. None of them moved. Celegorm wrapped his arms around Huan and buried his face in his fur. 

Maedhros couldn’t breathe. He wanted to move but he dreaded the moment that Maglor saw him. He wanted to keep listening for as long as both Maglor and Daeron would sing, because they were the greatest singers of all the Eldar, and this—this was them singing without regard for an audience, only for the pure joy of it and for the joy of the view before them, and it was more beautiful than anything they had sung together at the Mereth Aderthad. The sheer power of their voices echoing over the waves and through the dunes was enough to make it seem as though all the world had paused to listen—the stones, the grass, the sea itself. 

It was Huan who moved first, nudging Celegorm and then the rest of them, nearly knocking Amras onto his face with the force of it. That seemed to break the spell the music had placed on them, and it was Caranthir who went first, leaving the hollow between the dunes where they had camped. Maedhros followed him, and saw Maglor and Daeron up the beach, two dark slender figures, one of them kneeling to dip his fingers into the waves. The other stood with his head tilted back, enjoying the breeze off of the water. 

Huan trotted ahead of them and barked; the kneeling figure’s head jerked up. Even at a distance Maedhros could see how he went rigid for a second before he rose and took several steps backward, as though preparing to flee from them. He couldn’t tell if the others had noticed; they were already racing down the beach, calling out his name. Huan did not follow; he came back to Maedhros, taking his sleeve in his teeth, very carefully, and tugging. 

“No, Huan,” Maedhros said, planting his feet so he wouldn’t be pulled over. Nienna’s words rang in his head, but he was not going to force Maglor to speak to him if he didn’t want to. That was what Fëanor would do, and Maedhros was done following his father’s footsteps. Huan whined. “He isn’t here for me.”

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When Caranthir had been born, Maglor had been the first one to get to hold him after their parents. He’d been tiny and wrinkled, red-faced and squalling and already with a thick head of dark hair. Celegorm had fled the room with his hands over his ears, but Maglor had already written a lullaby just for the new baby, and as he hummed it Caranthir had calmed, slowly, to stare up at him with big dark eyes. 

Maglor had been new to songwriting then, and later wrote other and better lullabies, but Caranthir had always asked for that one when he’d woken in the night or when he couldn’t get to sleep. The same way Maglor and Celegorm went to Maedhros with their troubles if their parents were unavailable, Caranthir had come to Maglor. He rarely wanted to talk about whatever it was that had upset him, so Maglor would just sing to him, or play whatever instrument he had to hand, until Caranthir, curled up beside him, worked through his thoughts on his own, and was able to smile and laugh again. 

He’d sung that first lullaby often after the Nirnaeth, when Caranthir had been slow to recover from his wounds, worse than any of the rest of them had suffered. Caranthir had never smiled, let alone laughed, after that—none of them had, no matter how Maglor had tried to remind them how—but the singing had helped. And after Doriath Maglor had sung no lullabies at all—not until Elrond and Elros had needed them, and he’d written new ones then. 

It should not have been so surprising, then, that Caranthir had written to him, or that it was he who came running first down the beach, colliding with Maglor just a moment after Daeron had snatched Leicheg out of her pouch lest she be crushed. Maglor staggered and slipped on the wet stones, and when Celegorm slammed into the two of them all three went down, just as an incoming wave washed up over them, leaving Maglor spluttering and his brothers laughing, though they were weeping too, saying his names—Maglor, Cáno, Macalaurë—over and over again like they couldn’t believe he was really there. Curufin and the twins fell to their knees on either side of him, uncaring of the water, the six of them all in a tangle of limbs and hands and wet hair, everyone talking over one another. 

“Cáno, what are you doing here?”

“Why didn't you come home before?”

“Did you know we would be here?”

“Didn’t you get my letter?”

This last question, from Caranthir, brought everyone up short. “You wrote to him too?” Curufin asked.

“Were we all meant to write to him?” Amrod demanded.

“Did you write to him?” Amras asked Celegorm.

“I sent Huan,” Celegorm said.

“Did Maedhros write—where is Maedhros?”

Maglor couldn’t stop himself stiffening, and of course they all noticed. Celegorm turned to look down the beach, and Maglor caught a glimpse of Maedhros, his hair falling over his face as Huan tried to pull him forward. To stop them talking about Maedhros more—or worse, calling him over, or dragging Maglor down to him—Maglor said, “I got the letters. And your awful dog.” His voice shook, and he was aware that he was crying, but he couldn’t make himself stop. They were all there, all of them smiling and whole and bright, as they had been before the Darkening, and he couldn’t even be happy to see them because still all he could think about was what they had looked like dead. 

Celegorm grabbed Curufin and Caranthir, hauling them up off of Maglor. “Come on, the water’s too cold for this,” he said. Ambarussa grabbed Maglor’s arms and pulled him up out of the surf; he was shaking, but he didn’t know if it was from the cold or everything else. Caranthir threw his arms around Maglor again as soon as they were both standing. “Did you read the letters?” he asked, voice muffled by his arms and Maglor’s shoulder.

“Yes,” Maglor said. “Huan wouldn’t leave me alone until I did.”

“Huan,” Celegorm said, “is a very good dog.”

“Huan is a menace.” 

“We’ve missed you, Cáno,” Curufin said quietly. 

“Come back to our camp and let’s all dry off,” said Celegorm. 

That meant taking off his wet clothes. It meant seeing Maedhros. Maglor felt panic lurch in his stomach, like he was going to be sick. Something must have shown on his face, because Celegorm suddenly looked tired and sad. It was an awful look to see on his face and Maglor hated that he had put it there. “All our things are behind that hill,” he said.

“We’ll get them for you!” said Amrod, but Celegorm caught him when he and Amras started to step away.

“Will you come join us after, then?” Celegorm asked. 

“Please don’t run away,” Caranthir whispered in Maglor’s ear. “Not from us. Please.”

“It’s not you,” Maglor said. “It’s…” He looked past Celegorm again, but Maedhros had disappeared behind the dunes. 

“Maglor,” said Daeron behind him. Caranthir let go at last, and Maglor escaped his brothers to join Daeron a few paces away. “Give me the pouch, please. She keeps poking me,” Daeron said briskly, and then, as Maglor fumbled with the straps of Leicheg’s pouch, he lowered his voice to almost a whisper, “You should speak to him.”

“I can’t,” Maglor said. He held out the pouch. “She won’t like this, it’s wet.”

“I just needed an excuse.” Daeron had Leicheg in the crook of his arm, where she was purring contentedly, not poking anything at all. Pídhres had vanished in all the chaos. Daeron took the pouch and caught Maglor’s hand, weaving their fingers together. “Maglor, you need to see him.”

“No, I—”

“If it does not go well, we can leave. I’ll sing up a fog so thick even Huan won’t be able to track us through it.” Daeron leaned forward until their foreheads rested together. “Whatever happens, at least it will be better than a sea monster.”

Maglor tried to smile, but couldn’t. “I’d rather face the monster,” he whispered.

“That’s not true. I met Maedhros too at the Mereth Aderthad—I remember well how you two love one another. You need to speak to him again, even just once.”

“We are a long way from Ivrin, Daeron,” Maglor said. 

“I know. Remember, I told you I would be there when you met your brothers again. I am still here, and I am not going anywhere. You can choose to walk away, and I will be at your side.”

That was a comfort, though he didn’t quite share Daeron’s confidence in their ability to evade all six of his brothers if they gave chase. Maglor closed his eyes and took a few shuddering breaths. “All right,” he whispered, and straightened. He didn’t turn fully, not wanting to see his brothers’ faces. “We’ll join you at your camp in a little while.”

Amrod said, “You can just bring your things to—ow, Tyelko!”

“There’s no hurry,” Celegorm said. Then, “Maglor, wait a moment.” Maglor paused in following Daeron back toward the hill. Celegorm sent their brothers back to their camp with a look, though Caranthir went only slowly. When they were alone, Celegorm strode forward and pulled Maglor into a tight embrace. “I’m sorry, Cáno,” he said.

“For what?” Maglor asked. “It’s not—you haven’t—”

“I said terrible things to you after the Nirnaeth. Before Doriath. I meant them at the time, but I was—I was wrong about so many things, and I’m so, so sorry. I love you so much.” Celegorm’s arms tightened around him, and Maglor realized that he was weeping too, trembling with the effort of not letting the others see. 

Maglor returned his embrace and let his face fall forward into Celegorm’s shoulder. “We both said awful things,” he said. “We were both wrong.”

“You were right. You didn’t want to go.”

“I didn't want any of it. I love you too, Tyelko. I forgave you a long time ago.”

“But not Maedhros?” Celegorm asked softly. 

Maglor drew back. “Don’t ask me about that, please.”

“Can I ask what you’re trying to hide?”

Maglor shook his head. “You’ve already guessed.”

“We’ve all seen scars before, Cáno. We all know what happened, no thanks to Maedhros.” Celegorm reached out to rub his thumb over one of the scars on Maglor’s lip. “Why did he do this?” he asked.

Because he did not want to cut out my tongue. Because he still thought he could make me his. “Punishment,” Maglor said. “Don’t ask me more, Celegorm. I won’t speak of it.” He took a step backward. “See you at your camp.”

“Don’t run away, Cáno. Please.”

“I won’t.”

Behind the hill Daeron had already gotten out dry clothes. Once Maglor had changed, he sat him down and pulled out a comb to fix his still-dripping hair. Maglor sat and watched Leicheg snuffle around in the grass. Pídhres had reappeared, and was sitting atop one the bag holding their tent. “This isn’t how I thought it would go,” Maglor said at last.

“Meeting your brothers?”

“No—well, yes, but that’s not what I meant. I meant visiting here. I thought it would be…quieter.”

Daeron leaned forward to kiss the back of his neck. “Still better than sea monsters. Do you think Gandalf knew they would be here?”

Maglor thought of the wink Gandalf had given Huan, and Huan’s insistence that they reach Ekkaia sooner than later. “Yes,” he said. “I think he did. I’m going to steal his hat and set it on fire. I’d wager he even told them that ‘Ekkaia is lovely this time of year.’ I should’ve guessed…”

“I’ve never met Gandalf,” said Daeron, “but I have known other wizards, and I cannot believe he meant harm by it.”

“Of course he didn’t.” Maglor sighed. “I just—I don’t like having been tricked.” 

“Do you want me to braid your hair, or do you wish to keep it loose?”

“Loose.” 

“All right.” Daeron set the comb aside, and Maglor turned to face him. He wasn’t ready to get up, to leave the little space amid the heather where they sat. He heard raised voices somewhere down the beach, but he could not tell if they were angry or not. “Six brothers is quite a lot,” Daeron said. 

“Especially my brothers.”

“Come here.” Daeron kissed him and held him, and Maglor let himself relax for a little while, soothed by the quiet sounds of Ekkaia’s waves beyond the hill, and by Daeron’s steady heartbeat under his ear. “You do it on purpose, don’t you? Let your hair fall into your face.”

“I can’t run away,” Maglor sighed, “but I can hide.”

“I’m glad you’ve stopped hiding from me.”

“You wouldn’t let me hide.” Maglor took a deep breath, and lifted his head. “Thank you,” he said.

“For what?”

“Everything.” Maglor kissed him, but did not allow himself to linger. If they tarried too long someone would come looking. 

They gathered up their things and tracked down Leicheg, who Maglor carried in the crook of his arm since her pouch was still damp. Pídhres climbed her way up onto Daeron’s shoulder. It was not that far to Maglor’s brothers’ camp, which was the oddest coincidence Maglor could imagine. They had the whole coastline, and both their parties had chanced to come to this particular spot. If chance you call it, he thought, and bit the inside of his cheek to stop himself from frowning. 

“You know,” Daeron said as they walked, “we’ve never written a song together before.”

They had talked about it a few times at the Mereth Aderthad, but there had been no time for more than that. “We should finish it,” he said.

“Yes. And write others.” Daeron grinned at him. “Not about sea monsters.”

Maglor laughed a little in spite of himself. “No?” he said. “Then I shall have to finish the lay by myself. Perhaps by next Midsummer it will be done and I can perform it before Thingol—”

“You will not!” Daeron cried, but he was laughing too. “I’ll steal your harp—”

“I’ll sing without one—”

“It’s a terrible song, I’ll never speak to you again—”

The twins appeared out of the grass before them, looking so astonished at the sound of their laughter that Maglor forgot what silly threat he had been about to make. “Is that a hedgehog?” Amras asked, pointing at Leicheg. “Whatever do you have a hedgehog for, Cáno?”

“Mysterious reasons of her own,” Maglor said. 

“And Huan,” Daeron added.

“Yes, and Huan.”

Ambarussa laughed, and then insisted on helping to carry the saddle bags. They came around the side of a hill to a cozy hollow that opened toward the sea on one side and the fields of heather on the other, bracketed by two grassy dunes. Maglor knelt to set Leicheg down, but she turned right around and climbed back into his hands. “All right, then,” he murmured, scooping her up. Pídhres, for her part, jumped off of Daeron’s shoulder and sauntered into the camp to investigate everyone. Maglor glanced around, but Maedhros was not there. Neither was Celegorm. 

“Come sit,” said Amras, pulling Maglor over to the fire. “You too, Daeron. Do you know which of us is which, or must we make introductions?”

“You might as well make introductions,” Daeron said, smiling easily as he sat down next to Maglor, bumping their shoulders together. “I think I can guess who is who, but I would not like to make an embarrassing mistake. And you can tell me how you know who I am.”

“Maedhros recognized your voice,” said Curufin. He leaned against his pack beside Maglor and was carving something. He didn’t look up as he spoke, but Maglor knew that he was watching everything going on around him. “He said it isn’t something one forgets.”

Ambarussa chatted with Daeron, and on Curufin’s other side Caranthir sat with his knees bent, arms resting over them, watching and listening, quieter than he used to be. They were waiting for him to say something, Maglor thought, turning his gaze to the cheerful fire in front of him. Pídhres came over to join Leicheg on his lap. Before he had been the one to fill the silences, to make up silly rhymes or make a joke or tease someone. Toward the end he’d been so desperate to keep them all there with him, as the Oath ate away at them little by little and then more and more until there was nothing left; he’d grasped at anything he could think of, even arguments and stupid fights, to distract them, to remind them and himself that they were more than what they had bound themselves to. And now—

It wasn’t a full reversal of roles. He was still himself—he was only diminished, as they had all been renewed. If they expected or needed him to be the one to hold them together, they would all be disappointed. He could hardly hold himself together. 

Curufin shifted a little so he could rest his head against Maglor’s arm. Maglor leaned back. “Thank you for the earrings,” he said softly. “I wore them at Midsummer.”

“I know they’re not what you usually…”

“They’re exactly what I would’ve chosen.”

Curufin looked up at him, both surprised and wary, as though he wasn’t sure whether Maglor was just trying to be kind rather than being truthful. Maglor didn’t know anymore how to reassure him, but whatever Curufin saw in his face seemed to do it. He relaxed again. 

“Cáno?” Celegorm had reappeared, and when Maglor looked up he gestured for him to follow. He hesitated, but Daeron nudged him with his elbow. 

“Fine,” Maglor muttered, and set Leicheg on the ground. “Oh stop it, silly thing.” He picked her off his lap when she clambered back on again. “Stay with Daeron.” He got to his feet as Daeron scooped up Leicheg, who squeaked indignantly and made Ambarussa laugh. Maglor felt Caranthir and Curufin watching him as he walked over to Celegorm. Pídhres followed at his heels; there was no telling her to stay behind. 

“Please talk to him,” Celegorm said when Maglor reached him. “He’s convinced you hate him, and—”

“How do you know he’s wrong?” Maglor asked quietly. Celegorm recoiled, like Maglor had just slapped him. “I only ever asked one thing of him, Celegorm, and he—”

“I don’t believe it. I can’t believe it. Not of you.”

“A person can change a lot in six thousand years.” 

“Not that much. Can’t you just—look, you can shout at him and say whatever you want and then you can both—then we’ll figure it out. Just say something. It’s the waiting that’s hurting him. Please. For the rest of us, if not for him. For Ammë. Even if you hate him I can’t believe you’ve grown cruel, Cáno.”

“I wasn’t going to say no,” Maglor sighed. “I don’t think I hate him, either. I just—I need you to know that it’s not going to go how you hope it will.”

“I’ll hope anyway.” Celegorm took his hand and pulled him away, around the hill and down the beach. “It took me this long just to find him. Come on.” 

The sun sank toward the horizon as they walked, feet crunching over the stones. Ekkaia did not sound at all like Belegaer. It was as though a different part of the Music had been caught in it, one that Maglor did not immediately recognized. He listened to it as they went, trying to understand whatever it had to tell him—but he would need hours or days for that, and all he had managed to determine by the time he saw Huan sitting at the base of a dune up ahead was that the theme of Ekkaia’s music sounded mournful. He did not remember it being thus, but perhaps he had just known too little of sorrow when he had walked this shore before, young and foolish and unable even to imagine that the Trees might wither and darkness and dread come upon Valinor—let alone all that had happened after. 

Maedhros sat halfway up the slope of the dune, half-hidden by the coarse grasses. Celegorm released Maglor’s hand and clambered up to sit beside him, throwing an arm over his shoulders. “You’re an idiot,” Celegorm said, not unkindly. 

“Historically or currently?” Maedhros asked. It sounded like an echo of another conversation, one that Maedhros was reenacting only reluctantly, wearily. Maglor looked away, back toward the water, feeling like an intruder, no longer privy to the quiet jokes and threads of weeks- or years-long conversations that existed now between his brothers. Huan got up and butted his head into Maglor’s chest, and Maglor absently petted him, blinking back tears. The sound of Maedhros’ voice after so long felt like a knife through his ribs.

“Both,” Celegorm said, and then added something in a low voice that Maglor didn’t catch. He turned when Celegorm came back down the slope. “The rule is whoever does the stabbing has to explain it to Ammë later,” Celegorm told him. 

“What have you all been doing to each other?” Maglor asked. Celegorm flashed him a grin, bright and brittle, and didn’t answer, instead leaving to return to the camp. Huan licked up the side of Maglor’s face and followed without needing to be called. 

As Maglor scrubbed his face on his sleeve he heard Maedhros sigh, a sound so bone-achingly weary that he winced. Then there was the soft rustle of grass as Maedhros stood and made his way down to the bottom of the dune, and there, on the farthest edge of Arda, for the first time since the breaking of Beleriand, Maglor looked up into his brother’s face. 

In the nightmares that had haunted him in and after Dol Guldur, and even lately when he tried to picture Maedhros’ face, it was the blank and grim mask of the Lord of Himring that he saw, implacable as the stones of his fortress, a mask from behind which no glimmer of emotion good or bad could escape. It was the mask he had worn when making terrible decisions, when passing terrible judgments, but which he had never put on when it was just them, the two of them or the seven of them. Maglor had dreaded seeing it now, a confirmation of the irreparable rift between them—but those fears, as so many others had been, were unfounded. It was not the Lord of Himring looking back at him but only his brother. There were tears on his face, and he stood with his arms crossed, hugging over his middle—in exactly the same way, Maglor realized, that he was. They stood, mirrors of each other, silent and uncertain, with six thousand years stretching between them like the chasm into which Maedhros had thrown himself. Like the Sea. 

He didn’t know what to say. He’d thought he’d feel that same white-hot anger that he’d felt when Fëanor had come to Imloth Ningloron, but now—now there was just an empty ache in his heart, and nothing to say, which was worse. Maedhros was waiting for him to speak, he knew. He’d always been the one to speak first—the one with the quick tongue, clever mind, always the one to reach out first whenever they quarreled.

A memory of the day they’d sent the twins away came to him, sudden and vivid, of taking shelter from a downpour, leaning against Maedhros who he had thought of, then, as a pillar of strength. Of a protector, someone he could lean on, even when everything else was falling apart and falling into darkness. He remembered Maedhros resting his hand on the back of his head and feeling comforted through the grief of saying farewell to Elrond and Elros. 

There was no going back to that. He didn’t know how. 

“Was there anything I could have done?” he asked finally.

Maedhros did not have to ask what he meant. He closed his eyes. “No.”

“I followed you,” Maglor said. “I did—everything I did, I did it for you. I followed you to the bitterest end and you just—”

“I know,” Maedhros whispered. “Maglor, I know. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to say.”

“Will you tell me why?”

“I don’t…I just wanted it to stop.”

“You could have thrown it away.”

“I don’t mean that. I wanted—I wanted it all to stop. I was already burning, Maglor. I’d been burning since Atar died and I knew—I knew that I would die the same way and I just…”

“You couldn’t have known that.” Maedhros had never been burdened with foresight. Maglor didn’t believe it. There was nothing inevitable about what had happened. “You could have thrown it away. We could have—”

“With one working hand between us?”

“Whatever happened, at least we could have faced it together!” His voice broke, and Maglor pressed a hand over his mouth, feeling tears falling down over his fingers before he let go again. “I was alone for six thousand years, Maedhros. You were all I had, and you—you chose—”

“It wasn’t your fault, Cáno,” Maedhros said. 

“That doesn’t make it better! That makes it worse! I just didn’t matter enough to—”

“You mattered more than anything! I tried to send you to safety! I tried to send you to Gil-galad but you wouldn’t listen—”

“Gil-galad wouldn’t have taken me!”

“He would have if Elrond and Elros had spoken for you. All I wanted for you was for you to be safe.”

“There was nowhere that was safe. Not for us. Not after all we did. You knew that. I thought—Maedhros, I loved you. I loved you and you made me watch you cast yourself into the fire.” At Maglor’s feet Pídhres meowed, but he didn’t pick her up. He didn’t think he could make his hands work. 

“There wasn’t anything left of me to love, Maglor,” Maedhros said after a long, agonizing silence. “I’m still not…” He looked away, toward the sea. Strands of hair stuck to his wet cheeks. He looked so young. The marks of war and torment had been smoothed away in his remaking. His right hand was still missing, but the rest of him had been restored to Maitimo of Tirion of old, youthful and fair, Maglor’s beloved big brother, but for the inward-burning fire behind his eyes. That had been there at the end, too, and Mandos had not quenched it, and seeing it now, after so long—fear clenched in Maglor’s stomach like an icy fist. “I’m still so lost even the Fëanturi have despaired of me. I don’t know who I am without the Oath. Without a war to fight. You loved a person that died in Angband, Maglor. I was a walking corpse for five hundred years and just didn’t realize it.”

“No,” Maglor said. “That isn’t true, and I loved you as you were both before and after Angband—after everything. Don’t tell me I didn’t,” he added sharply when Maedhros opened his mouth. “I’m many things but I am not a fool. I was never blind. I knew exactly what we were all becoming.”

“Not you,” Maedhros said quietly. “You were always the best of us.”

“No,” Maglor said. “No, I wasn’t.”

“You never let it consume you.”

It had, though. He’d felt the weight of the Oath constantly, heavier than the chains of the Necromancer had ever been. It had eaten away at him like the sea ate away at the shore, grinding him down a little more with each passing year no matter what he did to try to stop it. Elrond and Elros had given him something else to pour his heart into for a little while, something bright and hopeful—he’d long before lost hope for himself, but there had been hope for them, Elwing’s children with starlit eyes and Lúthien’s flowers following wherever they went. He’d sent them to Gil-galad because they’d believed there would be a victory, and if that was so they deserved to be there to see it happen, and because whatever happened they would be safer under Gil-galad’s protection than his own. But the Oath had still been there. It couldn’t be ignored forever. It hadn’t even slept, between Sirion and the end of the War. He’d felt it pulling on him every time he saw Eärendil’s star on the horizon, every time some tidbit of news came from the north, a reminder that two Silmarils remained in the Iron Crown. When Maedhros had refused to surrender instead of trying to take them, at the end, Maglor could have argued harder. He could have gone alone, could have asked Eönwë to help him restrain both Maedhros and himself, whatever it took—but he hadn’t. He hadn't really believed they’d managed to take them—he’d thought they would die in the attempt like all their brothers had before them, and that at least they would be together when they did.

“You were all I had,” he said again. “You were all I had left in the world, and you left me behind. Or did you expect me to follow you even into death?”

Maedhros closed his eyes again and tightened his arms around himself, as though he was in pain. “I was not thinking of anything except the fire,” he said. “I didn’t expect anything. I wasn’t thinking about you at all.”

“I don’t know how to forgive that.” His voice shook. Pídhres meowed again, and Maglor finally knelt to scoop her up. She rubbed her head against his chin, as though trying to offer comfort. “I don’t think I can.”

“I don’t know, either,” Maedhros said, still with his eyes closed. “I told Atar that giving myself to the fire was one of the only things I did that I don’t regret and—and I meant it. But I do regret leaving you behind. Leaving you alone. I know it’s not enough, but I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” He was shaking with the effort of trying to hold in whatever storm of tears was building. He looked like he might break into a thousand pieces if Maglor dared to touch him. He hated to see Maedhros like this, breaking apart before his eyes and knowing that he was the cause—because if he couldn’t forgive him he still loved him, his big brother, his dearest friend, the one who had once known him and loved him better than anyone else in the world. 

“I wish you hadn’t looked into the palantír,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to say. “I wish you had not seen me in it.”

“I couldn’t save you from it,” Maedhros said. “The least I could do was bear witness.” He bowed his head, letting his hair fall forward to hide his face, and lifted one arm to try to wipe away the tears. Maglor buried his own face in Pídhres’ fur. The arm’s length between them might as well have been one of Himring’s impenetrable walls. He couldn’t make himself reach out. 

He should have fled when he had the chance. Then he could pretend that this meeting might go differently, that there might be some chance of joyous reunion in their future instead of—whatever this was. Grief and bitterness and wounds that had been bleeding since the end of the War of Wrath. He had warned Celegorm this would not go well. It had gone better than his meeting with Fëanor only in that he hadn’t lost his temper, in that they had both been able to speak, rather than Maglor just cracking the stones around them with the force of his pain.

The sunset over Ekkaia was glorious, Anor sinking behind billowing clouds, illuminating them with the colors of fire, brilliant reds and oranges and vibrant pinks that softened slowly into purples and blues as in the east the first stars glimmered in the darkening sky. The waves never ceased their even, steady rhythm. Maglor did not even know if Ekkaia had tides as Belegaer did. The sound of footsteps down the beach made him turn, and he saw Caranthir and Daeron approaching. 

There wasn’t anything else to say. Maglor left Maedhros, and made his way back down the beach; Pídhres jumped down to dart ahead, disappearing into the evening shadows. “Cáno?” Caranthir said softly when they met, reaching for Maglor’s hand.

“I can’t, Moryo. I’m sorry.” Maglor didn’t turn to watch when Caranthir went to Maedhros. He walked on to where Daeron waited. 

Daeron took one look at him and pulled him away from the dunes down to the water, where they could sit on the stony shore together. Maglor let Daeron wrap his cloak around both of them. Neither of them spoke, but after a few minutes Daeron began to hum a quiet, soothing melody, weaving it through the quite wash of the waves over the stones at their feet. Maglor closed his eyes and listened to the music and to the water. He didn’t notice until Daeron grasped his hand that he’d been digging his thumbnail into his scar again. He gripped Daeron’s hand instead, and tried to remember how to breathe. Tried to imagine how to move forward from there. 

He couldn’t. 

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It couldn’t be put off forever, though Elrond had the impression that Fëanor would have liked to delay a little longer—something about the way he held himself when he approached Fingolfin after breakfast. It had been several days since Elrond had spoken to him in the gallery, and if Fëanor looked a little more settled and less exhausted, the tension had returned to the set of his shoulders and his face was very grim, as though it were not his brother that he spoke to but some messenger of Mandos there to pronounce his doom.

Beside Elrond, Gandalf sipped his tea. “He’s taken his time, hasn’t he?” he murmured. 

“He is very new-come from Mandos,” Elrond said. “And has had at least two very difficult confrontations already. Can you blame him?”

“I suppose not.” Gandalf regarded Elrond from beneath his eyebrows. “Aren’t you going to go keep an eye on them?”

“Someone should,” Finrod muttered on Gandalf’s other side. “I will, if Elrond doesn’t, but that might not be received very well.”

Elrond pinched the bridge of his nose. “I am the youngest person in this room,” he said, though he did not feel at all young. Surely it must count for something on occasion—surely he could shirk responsibility sometimes, if the fate of the world was not at stake. 

“Yet also the wisest,” said Fingon. “Especially since, as Maglor recently pointed out to me, Nóm here only got his reputation for wisdom because Men hadn’t yet met anyone else.”

“Maglor,” Finrod said primly, sounding rather like Bilbo when he was on his dignity, “has been under a great deal of strain of late and is obviously not thinking clearly. Anyway, what of my dearest sister Galadriel? Her wisdom cannot be questioned.”

Galadriel smiled, rising from her seat. “I,” she said, “have already made plans for this morning with my husband, Mablung, and Beleg, and unless something is set afire, I intend to avoid both my uncles—and you, my dear brother and cousin—until this evening at least.”

“You see? The wisest of all of us,” Finrod said as Galadriel left the dining hall. He reached for another jam-filled pastry, while Fingon refilled his teacup.

Across the hall both Fingolfin and Fëanor glanced toward their table—toward Elrond. Even they wanted him to bear witness over anyone else. He sighed and rose. “When this is over I am going to throw all of you out so I can have some peace,” he informed Finrod and Fingon, who laughed at him. “I did not sail west just to attempt to herd all my elders in the House of Finwë like a bunch of recalcitrant cats.”

“I don’t know what else you expected!” Finrod said. 

“Peace and rest are what we were promised,” Elrond muttered, “though neither it seems are to be found in this house of late.” He left Finrod and Fingon behind to keep laughing at him with Gandalf, and followed Fingolfin and Fëanor when they left the dining hall, and then the house. 

“Is there a place we may speak undisturbed?” Fingolfin asked Elrond once the three of them were outside. 

“There are many secluded places in the gardens,” Elrond said, “or you can go to the apple orchard.”

“I thought it was peaches,” Fëanor said.

“There are both; the apples are beside the peaches, and beyond the apples there is the strawberry field. The apple orchard is the largest, and there will be no one there at this time of year.” The apples had been planted first, even before the house had begun construction; Celebrían had brought a handful of cuttings from her beloved trees in Rivendell, and they had been carefully preserved and tended until she was able to find a place for them. Elrond led the way to the orchard, where the leaves were thick, and it was quiet, only the sounds of a few voices laughing and singing in the strawberry field reaching them. “Shall I leave you?” Elrond asked.

Fëanor stood with his arms crossed; Fingolfin had his hands clasped behind his back. “When we return to Tirion I would rather there be another party able to assure those who might doubt us, whatever is decided here,” Fingolfin said after a moment. “You, Elrond, will be trusted and believed from Eressëa to Valmar and beyond.”

Elrond did not pinch the bridge of his nose again, but only because he clasped his own hands together. “I think you overestimate my influence, Grandfather,” he said. 

Fingolfin smiled. “And I think you underestimate it. It is lucky for us, perhaps, that you have decided not to make your own bid for the crown.”

“The King of the Noldor should be a Noldo, and I am Peredhel,” Elrond said, “of Lúthien’s line, of Númenor. I care not which of you ends up sitting upon the throne in Tirion—or if it is given to someone else entirely—as long as we may all go on living in peace as we have been.” He had been offered a crown before, and rejected it. He had even less desire, if that were possible, to wear one now. 

Fëanor looked at Fingolfin, then. “Keep the crown, Nolofinwë,” he said. “You are better suited to it than I ever was. I did not ask to be released from Mandos just to make all the same mistakes again. If you wish me also to go into exile—to Formenos, or elsewhere—I will go.”

“I never wished to send you into exile, Fëanáro,” Fingolfin said in a low voice. “I meant every word that I said before the Valar, and I would have you return to Tirion now at my side, in peace and in friendship. That is all I ever wished for.”

“Even after Losgar?”

“No, not after Losgar, or the Helcaraxë. But you even ruined our chance to come to blows over it by dying before I could catch up to you.”

Fëanor actually laughed at that. His smile transformed his face into one that made Elrond understand why so many had followed him so loyally, why all of his sons had jumped to swear the oath with him without thought; once, he had smiled like that often—once, he had been someone worth following. He might one day be worth following again. “You can punch me now if you wish,” he said, “if you think Elrond would allow it.”

“I would rather you didn’t,” Elrond said mildly. “Celebrían would be most displeased.”

“We are all long past that,” Fingolfin said. “What did you ask to be released for, then?”

“I stayed because Macalaurë remained—I could not know what happened to him if I did not watch the tapestries. I went to Námo when I saw that he had taken ship.” 

Elrond wondered if Fëanor had gotten a chance to tell Maglor that. Probably not; he would wager that Maglor had not given Fëanor a chance to say much of anything. But then, he thought, it likely would have made no difference. Maybe once Maglor returned, having had time to think, time to find some peace, Elrond would tell him and he would appreciate what it meant.

“And what will you do now?” Fingolfin asked. 

“I don’t know. I wanted only to see my family again, and did not think far beyond that.” Fëanor paused for a moment, and added very softly, “Atya sends his love.” Fingolfin turned away abruptly, inhaling sharply, a hand rising to cover his face as it crumpled, looking suddenly very young. Elrond also turned away; this was not meant for him, this grief that at last united Fingolfin and Fëanor as nothing else could. 

He walked a little farther into the orchard, stepping out of earshot by remaining within sight, since if anything might drive Fëanor and Fingolfin to blows it would be Finwë. It was quiet among the trees; they were laden with fruit, still small and green. Come harvest they would be big and red-gold, and they would taste like home. Elrond rested a hand on the tree under which he stood, listening to its quiet thoughts. He thought of the orchard that remained in Rivendell, perhaps now overgrown, its orderly rows blurring as new saplings sprouted and other trees and plants crowded in, with few or no elves remaining to tend to them. He remembered the very first apple trees planted there, after the War of the Last Alliance. They had been a gift from Círdan on behalf of Gil-galad, who had known of Celebrían’s fondness for apples and for trees; it had both surprised and not surprised Elrond at all that Gil-galad had already made plans for his wedding gift to them, long before Elrond had spoken aloud to anyone his feelings or intentions. Hopefully, whenever it was that Gil-galad returned to them, he would remember the apples and be pleased to find them here. 

He glanced over his shoulder in time to see Fingolfin and Fëanor embrace, and decided that was a good time to slip away entirely. He made his way back to the house by way of the peach orchard, breathing more easily once he was out in the sunshine again. There would be peace at last in the House of Finwë, and all questions of crowns and thrones put to rest.

“Well?” Fingon and Finrod were, of course, waiting for him. Gandalf was nowhere to be seen and Elrond decided to pretend to be surprised later when it was discovered he’d made his way to the apple orchard—entirely by chance, I assure you!—to see what was going on. “You don’t look unhappy, so neither of them decided to break the other’s nose,” Finrod said. 

“Fëanor offered to let Fingolfin do it,” Elrond said.

“Did he?” Fingon said. “And my father didn’t take him up on it?” Elrond shook his head. “I don’t think I could have resisted, especially if he offered to let me.”

“And that,” Finrod said, “is why you are the valiant and not the wise. But what else did they speak of? I think it is safe to assume by now that Fëanor cares more about his sons than the crown, but…?”

“You are right,” Elrond said. “The crown will remain with Fingolfin. When I left they were speaking of Finwë, and I thought it best to leave them some privacy.”

Both Fingon and Finrod winced. “It isn’t fair,” Fingon said after a moment, “that Grandfather must remain forever in Mandos—just as it was not fair when they judged the same fate for Míriel, or anyone else who died and whose spouse remarried afterward, as must have happened at Cuiviénen, or among the Avari…”

“That is not a problem for us to solve now,” Finrod said. 

Elrond suspected it would be solved in due time by both Indis and Míriel, neither of whom were any less strong-willed than their children. But for the moment Finwë would not return. It might be that he would never return even if the Valar were persuaded to change their minds. There were many who were too sorely hurt to ever find full healing. Finwë, who had died at Morgoth’s hand in the dark and alone in a land where he had been promised peace and protection, might well be one of them. Elrond had seen in Maedhros someone who had not found healing in Mandos, and he thought it cruel to thrust someone so sorely hurt back into the world before they were ready—unless the kind of healing that he needed was not to be found in the Halls. Elrond did not know enough to say one way or the other; it troubled him that the Valar, who should know, had apparently left Maedhros to stumble his own way forward.

“My part in all of this is, it seems, to reassure anyone who asks that yes, Fëanor really has relinquished all claim to the crown of the Noldor,” Elrond said after a moment. “I hope there are not many with such doubts. I would very much like to spend time with my own family without worrying about uprisings or something being set on fire.”

Finrod laughed. “If they ride together into Tirion side by side as friends, many doubts will be laid to rest,” he said. “I hope that they will, truly—and that Fëanor will make peace likewise with my father, and my aunts.”

“I will not be riding into Tirion with them,” Elrond said firmly. “I meant it when I said I was going to throw you all out. I would like at least a decade of peace to enjoy the company of my sons, if all of you don’t mind.”

“So much for your famous hospitality!” Fingon laughed, and then tilted his head back, eyes narrowing a little against the sunshine. “Isn’t that Lady Elwing?”

Elrond turned, shielding his own eyes with his hand, to see a familiar white bird circling lower and lower, until it alighted on the veranda before them and as its feet touched the ground it transformed into Elwing, arms outstretched to balance herself, a few feathers fluttering to the flagstones around her as her skirts and hair settled. “Naneth,” Elrond said, surprised but pleased. “We were not expecting you!” He crossed the veranda to embrace her. “What brings you to Imloth Ningloron?”

“Strange tidings from the birds that flock to my tower,” Elwing replied, frowning at him. “They were given quite a fright a few days ago.”

“Oh, that was only Maglor,” said Finrod as he came to greet her. “Hello, Cousin! You’re just in time to witness a thing truly unprecedented.”

“Only Maglor? What in the world was he doing?”

“Fëanor is here,” Finrod said, “and he lost his temper Maglor, I mean. Fëanor has been remarkably calm.”

Elwing’s frown deepened as she looked at Elrond. “Elrond—”

“No one was hurt, Naneth.”

“This time,” she said, very grimly. “I’ve heard his voice raised in—”

“So have I,” Elrond said. “This was not the same.”

“Where is he now?” Elwing asked. 

“He left after he—” Elrond was not quite sure what to call it. It had been a confrontation of a sort, but he didn’t want to suggest anything more volatile than the truth to his mother. She was worried enough. “After his meeting with Fëanor, he left the valley in Huan’s company. Fëanor is still here.”

“So is Fingolfin!” Finrod added. “And we might even see them come back from the orchard arm in arm as friends.”

“You are ever hopeful, Felagund, but I think friends is pushing it a little too far too soon,” said Fingon. He also stepped forward to take Elwing’s hand. “Lady Elwing, it is good to see you.”

“Grandmother!” The twins burst out of the house, and all of Elwing’s concerns were forgotten for a few minutes, at least. Elrond stepped back to give them room, and glanced toward the path leading down from the orchards. He thought it would be some time yet before Fingolfin and Fëanor returned, so when Elladan and Elrohir finally released Elwing, he led them all back inside; there did not need to be an audience waiting. 

Inside, Elwing slipped her arm through Elrond’s. “I would like to know all about what’s been happening here,” she said. “I know you’ll tell me not to worry, but can you blame me?”

“No, of course not,” said Elrond.

Celebrían and Galadriel appeared to greet Elwing, as did many others in the household before Elrond could escape with her to a quiet part of the library upstairs. They sat by a window that looked out toward the orchards. “Is that them?” Elwing asked, nodding to a pair of figures just visible among the apple trees.

“Yes, that is Fingolfin and Fëanor.”

“I suppose everyone’s concerns have been unfounded,” Elwing said as she sat down beside Elrond. “At least with regard to Fëanor.”

“I was never concerned about Maglor,” Elrond said. “Not in the way you mean. He was very angry, but only at Fëanor, and he took himself far away from the house before he so much as raised his voice.” He glanced out of the window, but the figures in the trees hadn’t moved. “If Maglor posed a danger to anyone it would be Fëanor.”

“Did he pose a danger to Fëanor?” Elwing asked.

“No. Fëanor did not come away from their meeting unhurt, but it came from Maglor’s words, not the power of his voice. It was Fëanor that set Maglor and his brothers on their path, and Maglor has not forgiven it.” He sighed. “He hasn’t forgiven Maedhros, either.”

“Maedhros—for what?”

“Dying.”

Elwing was silent for a while, before she got up and walked along one of the shelves, tracing her fingers along the spines. Elrond waited. He knew what she was thinking of, though it wasn’t a thing they had spoken of before. At last, she returned to stand in front of the window. “Perhaps I was too quick to shut the door on Maedhros when he came to speak to me,” she said softly. “I had forgotten that we had this in common—this choosing.”

“You were caught between the sea and swords,” Elrond said, rising. “Yours was a different kind of choice.”

“It was despair, still,” she said, “and seeing all that we had built burning before me, and I was so sure that you and Elros…”

“I do not need you to explain yourself, Naneth, nor to apologize,” Elrond said. “We were never angry with you.”

“Oh, Elrond. Do you ever get angry?”

“Yes, of course. It just seems that I am never angry with anyone that everyone else thinks I should be.” Elrond put his hand over his mother’s on the windowsill. “There were no good choices at that time, and there was more at work. You were meant to take the Silmaril to Ada in the same way that Frodo was meant to carry the Ring. Elros and I did not understand all of that at the time, but we never doubted that you loved us, or that you would not have left us if you had any other choice. Maedhros…he had suffered much, and he had caused much suffering. It does not surprise me that he chose an end to it, though it grieves me that it should have come to that. It isn’t too late, you know.”

“Too late for what?”

“To speak to Maedhros.”

“Perhaps.” Elwing did not turn her gaze from the window. Her hair fell like soft shadows down her back; under Elrond’s hand hers was small and slender, seeming far more fragile than he knew her to be. “It is very hard to reconcile them now with what they were.”

“What they are now is far closer to what they should have been—what they would have been, had things been different. Nothing begins evil.”

“But anything might go down that path,” said Elwing. “I hope that Fëanor chooses differently in this life.”

“He already has. Finrod was perhaps overly optimistic, as Fingon said, but given time I do think we will see friendship between Fingolfin and Fëanor.”

“One can hope,” Elwing sighed. “Does he also give up his claim to the Silmaril?”

“Yes. So he told me, before I even had the chance to ask him. He is far more preoccupied with his sons than with his jewels, and I do not foresee a change in that, not while they refuse to speak with him.”

“Maglor did not refuse.”

“If he’d been given any warning he would have,” Elrond said, and sighed. “Fëanor came unexpectedly, arriving just after Fingolfin. I think maybe it is for the best, but—” He did not know how to explain his concern, how he was not quite worried for the same reasons that others were, who only saw how changed Maglor was from when they last last known him and did not know how much worse he had once been. “He is unhappy,” he said at last. “He is unhappy and—time dulls grief, but he was not prepared to have them all alive and waiting for him. Least of all his father. I think he must feel more as though they had all just died again, old wounds reopening rather than closing for good.” And that was without everything else that made the grief so complicated. They had spoken of Maedhros only once in all the years Maglor had lived in Imladris. Maglor had despaired of ever seeing him again, but there had been a certain, painful kind of relief in it too—that if he couldn’t ever see his brother again, at least he would not have to confront all the pain of their past either.

Elwing looked at him. “Yet you allowed him to leave by himself?”

“It is not for me to allow Maglor to do anything. He will be back before winter—and he is not quite alone. Huan is with him, and I think his cat stowed away too, since I haven't seen her since he left. Mablung arrived a few days ago with word that Daeron had also joined him. I do not think that he will come to harm; I think the path that he has set out on is the one he needs to take now. It isn’t even that I am worried, precisely. He is not nearly so fragile now as he was when he first came to me in Imladris. It just grieves me that he is in pain and there isn’t anything I can do about it.”

“Even you cannot heal everything, Elrond,” Elwing said. She put her other hand over his. “I hope Maglor knows how lucky he is to have your love.”

“I had his first.”

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It was late when Maglor and Daeron returned to the campsite, but no one had gone to sleep. Maedhros and Caranthir had come back first, and Celegorm and Curufin sat on either side of Maedhros, leaning in to whisper to him; they glanced up when Maglor and Daeron arrived, but Maedhros didn’t, sitting with his arms looped loosely around his knees, head bowed. Maglor went to the opposite side of the campfire to find his bag and pull out his blankets. Daeron stuck to his side; Pídhres and Leicheg were curled up together near the fire, uncaring of the tension thrumming in the air around them. Huan lay near Celegorm, watching everyone with inscrutable dark eyes. 

“Cáno.” Caranthir sat down beside him once he and Daeron had laid out their things. He glanced at Daeron, who squeezed Maglor’s hand and moved away to let them speak. Maglor wished he wouldn’t. He’d hoped they’d let him just go to sleep, so he’d have at least a few more hours to steel himself against whatever they had to say.

Maybe that was unkind. Only…none of them were angry at Maedhros—they had no reason to be—and they had every reason to be angry with Maglor, with Maedhros so obviously hurting as a result of his words. He couldn’t take them back, though, and he himself felt like someone had reached into him and scraped everything out, leaving him raw and aching, and he didn’t think he could bear an argument or a lecture or whatever barbed remarks Caranthir might have prepared.

But Caranthir just wrapped his arms around him, holding on as tightly as he had earlier after tackling Maglor into the surf. Unprepared for it, Maglor fell forward into him, and then couldn't find it in him to pull back. His throat felt tight and his eyes felt hot, but he’d run out of tears before returning to the camp. Someone—two someones—sat down behind him, and he felt Ambarussa’s arms join with Caranthir’s. “We’re sorry, Macalaurë,” one of the twins murmured. “You shouldn’t ever have been left alone.”

“I couldn’t save you,” he whispered. “I’m sorry I wasn’t—”

“Don’t, Cáno. It was a long time ago, and it wasn’t your fault.”

It was at least partially his fault. He hadn’t been fast enough or strong enough to do anything but watch. And then afterward he hadn’t even been able to write music for them. There had never been any dirges or laments for the Sons of Fëanor. Not even from him. He turned his head a little, catching a glimpse of Celegorm and Curufin across the fire, and of Maedhros, who looked away before he could catch Maglor’s eye. Maglor couldn’t tell what either Celegorm or Curufin were thinking. 

He heard a little bit of rustling, and then the soft notes of his harp as Daeron began to play. He did not sing, and he did not play any melody that Maglor recognized; it sounded like something he might have learned in the far east. It filled the silence unobtrusively, and Maglor could feel the gentle power that Daeron put into it, for calm and peace and rest. Caranthir and the twins manhandled Maglor between them into a more comfortable position that still had him trapped under and between the three of them, like they didn’t want to risk him running away. Caranthir took Maglor’s hand in both of his, turning it so the scars on his palm showed.

“Why’d you even pick it up?” Amras asked in a whisper. They had all known—they’d known since Alqualondë, since they burned the ships—that they would not be able to touch the Silmarils again. 

“I don’t know,” Maglor said. It was a lie, but he didn’t know how to explain. He hadn’t been able to help it once they’d opened the chest. Reaching for that Light had been like reaching for—he didn’t know what, exactly. Home. A version of himself that had died long before, drowned in blood. A past that couldn’t ever be returned to. The Light that lived in the Silmarils was something holy and precious. It was the thing that Finwë had led their people across the world for. He had been so tired, and he had just wanted to go home, and the Silmaril was the last remnant of that home, and…

And of course it had burned him. It was no more than he had deserved. He just couldn’t say any of that without it sounding like he’d just been trying to punish himself, which wasn’t untrue but it wasn’t the full truth, either. It would only pain them to hear, and he’d done enough of that already.

“Does it hurt?” Caranthir asked. “Maedhros’ hand hurts sometimes—it pained him terribly after he spoke to Atar.”

Maglor let his hair fall forward, hiding his face as he glanced toward Maedhros, who leaned against Celegorm’s shoulder, eyes closed as he listened to whatever Curufin was saying. “It doesn’t hurt,” Maglor said softly. “Sometimes it aches in the cold, that’s all.” 

“Liar,” Caranthir murmured. “It hurt when you saw him too, didn’t it?” 

Maglor sighed. “It did. It’s just—memory.”

“What did he say to you?”

“Nothing, really. I didn’t give him a chance.”

“Neither did Maedhros,” Amras said. “And he let you.”

“He didn’t have a choice with Maglor,” said Caranthir. “What did you say to him?”

“It doesn’t matter. I don’t—I don’t want to talk about him.”

“It matters,” Caranthir said. “It mattered enough to say it in the first place.”

“I was angry.”

“Exactly. You don’t get angry, Cáno.”

Maglor didn’t answer. He did not want to repeat what he had said, because though he regretted none of it, it still hurt. And Amras was right more than Caranthir was—Fëanor could have shouted him down if he had wanted to. He had been one of the few who ever could. Maglor didn’t know what it meant that he hadn’t, and he had been trying not to think of it. “I asked him if he would slay me for casting the Silmaril away,” he said finally. “I said—I said I would do it again, and I never regretted it. I think I said something about haunting the shores dropping vain tears into the Sea.” He’d just wanted to throw Fëanor’s own words back at him, let him see how they had come true in the end. The deeds of the Noldor would indeed be a matter of song until the end of days—and that song was the Noldolantë. 

“Is that what you did?” Caranthir asked. 

“There was nothing else for me to do.”

“You never went to find Tyelpë?” Amrod asked. “Or Elrond…? Maedhros told us how Elrond loves you.”

Maglor looked at Maedhros again, and through the thin curtain of his hair saw him looking back. Maglor looked away first. “I never did,” Maglor whispered. “You must know by now how they found me in the end.”

“We know a little of it,” Amrod said. “Will you tell us…?”

“No.”

“Why didn’t you come home to us?” Caranthir asked after they were silent for a while, listening to Daeron’s playing.

So many reasons, none of them acceptable except inside his own mind. “I threw it away,” he said again. “After you all died for it I threw it away and—”

“Good,” said Ambarussa together, vehemently enough that Celegorm, Curufin, and Maedhros all raised their heads to look their way. 

“It wasn’t worth it,” Caranthir said, after the others resumed their conversation. “We aren’t oathbound anymore. We’d rather have you than a stupid jewel. Were you afraid that we’d…?”

“I don’t know. I was afraid. That’s all.” Maglor did not look over at Maedhros, but he thought that he could feel him watching again. “I’m sorry.”

“We aren’t angry, Maglor,” one of the twins said. “We’ve never been angry. Not at you.” 

“Go to sleep,” Caranthir said, smoothing Maglor’s hair away from his face, just what Maglor did not want. He opened his eyes just in time to see Maedhros turn his head. “We can talk more in the morning.” 

Daeron shifted his playing to the same melody he’d sung after Maglor had woken from his nightmare, early in their journey together. Maglor wanted to return to his side, but he had Ambarussa on one side of him and Caranthir on the other, and they seemed determined to keep him there. He did catch Daeron’s eye for a moment; Daeron only smiled, and started singing quietly, his voice blending with the breeze through the heather at their backs, and with the quiet sounds of Ekkaia before them. Maglor sighed and sank back onto the blankets, looking up at the stars, at the brilliant, blazing spill of them across the dark velvet sky. Caranthir rested his head on Maglor’s shoulder, just as he had long ago in their youth. Ambarussa moved around and grumbled at each other about feet and elbows before they too settled, tucked up against each other and against Maglor. Across the fire Maglor was aware of whispered voices continuing their own conversation, but they too stopped after a while. 

He closed his eyes and let sleep take him, hoping he would feel steadier in the morning. 

His dreams were quiet that night, and he woke to the pale dawn when Ambarussa stirred beside him. “Go back to sleep, Cáno,” one of them whispered, pressing a quick kiss to his forehead before leaving. Maglor didn’t, but he also didn’t get up; his other arm was numb, but he couldn’t quite remember the trick to escaping Caranthir without waking him. It had been too long. He lay and stared up at the sky, listening to the rustle in the heather somewhere behind him as Ambarussa vanished to do whatever it was they did in the early mornings. When he turned his head he saw Daeron asleep nearby, seemingly untroubled by finding himself unexpectedly in the midst of all of Maglor’s brothers. 

At last, Caranthir rolled away and Maglor could sit up, shaking the feeling back into his arm. He did not look across the remnants of the fire toward Maedhros, letting his hair fall forward to block the view. He felt…not steadier, but less like he would burst into tears at any moment. He felt rested. Pídhres came over to climb up onto his shoulder as he got to his feet. “Good morning, little one,” he murmured as he reached into his bag to look for the hair clip Daeron had given him. “Where is Leicheg, then?” The hedgehog was nowhere to be seen in the campsite, but he imagined she would turn up soon. He took his harp and climbed the largest of the two dunes they were camped between, which commanded a wide view of the shore and of the sea. As he sat down Pídhres rubbed her head against his cheek, purring quietly. Maglor leaned into it and watched Ekkaia for a while. There were no seabirds—that was the strangest part. He’d once known the ways of the gulls and the other shorebirds of Middle-earth so well, had considered them almost friends, had found comfort in the sounds of them calling to one another, even the cacophony of the great colonies of them during breeding season. Ekkaia had no seashells, either. He wondered if there was any life to be found in its depths, or if it was just a great empty watery barrier between Aman and whatever lay beyond the horizon. There was beauty in it, and a peacefulness, but there was a reason no one who came there stayed long, he thought. 

He ran his fingers over the harp strings, keeping his touch light so that he didn’t disturb the sleepers below, and then pulled his hair out of his face and clipped it back. The weight of it falling loose over his shoulders was a comfort, and Daeron’s gift an even greater one. He looked down at his palm, at the pale scars there, and flexed his fingers briefly before setting them back on the strings. 

Maedhros’ hand pained him sometimes. It shouldn’t, Maglor thought as he began to play, not in a brand new body. But then again, he was not surprised to hear it. Maedhros had not found healing in Mandos, though Maglor wasn’t sure whether he had refused it outright or whether Mandos just wasn’t the right place for him. The Silmarils had been more than just jewels, the Light in them more than just light. He’d never given it much thought before, but that bright searing pain he’d felt upon seeing his father—that had had its source in his spirit, not in his body. His body only ached sometimes and felt stiff in the cold. His spirit could remember what it had felt like, fresh as though he’d been wounded only yesterday. Of course Maedhros would feel the same. It must be the same reason he had not come from Mandos with two hands as he should have. 

Maglor’s fingers picked out a quiet melody—one of the first new songs he’d written when he was finding his way back into his music. It had been easier than he’d thought it would be, re-teaching himself to read and write the notations and finding the notes on the harp strings. This song had no words, and it was very simple, but he could play it now without thinking, and he let his mind wander as he did. He heard stirring down the hillside, and quiet voices as his brothers started to wake. When he glanced down he saw Maedhros step out onto the beach, shaking his head and running his fingers through the tangles of his hair. He glanced up toward the top of the dune, but the grass was tall enough that Maglor was mostly hidden, and then he turned away again to walk up the beach.

The sight of him turning his back made Maglor’s fingers fumble, and he hit a few discordant notes before fumbling his way back to the right ones again, forcing himself to keep playing through the trembling in his hands and the way his heart was beating too fast and a scream lodged itself in the back of his throat. He turned his gaze to the strings and exhaled slowly through is nose as Pídhres pressed up against him, until the images of the last time Maedhros had turned his back on him faded from his mind and he could breathe again, smell the heather and the fresh and faintly salty breeze off of Ekkaia. 

It was Curufin that eventually climbed up to sit beside him. Pídhres eyed him with suspicion before climbing down onto Maglor’s lap. “You really wore the earrings?” Curufin asked after a little while. 

“Yes.”

“You aren’t wearing any jewelry now.”

“I don’t wear it to travel.” Really, he only wore such things on holidays or when he had visited Annúminas or Minas Tirith. “Don’t you believe me? I do like them.”

“I believe you.” Curufin glanced away down the beach. He wore rings in his own ears, a pair of silver and turquoise hoops in each earlobe, just visible under his short-cropped hair. “You’re a terrible liar.”

He had been a very good liar, once, Maglor thought. “I have missed you,” he offered after a moment. He stopped playing and let his hands rest on top of the harp’s frame. “All of you. I think about you everyday.”

“If we hadn’t met out here would you ever have come to us?”

“I don’t know.” Probably, eventually, someday. But Daeron had been at least partly right about grief, and how it didn’t just end when the people you mourned stood again in front of you. It wasn’t the same for everyone—Maglor had been surprised but not afraid when Finrod had appeared beneath the tree behind Elrond and Celebrían’s house in Avallónë. He’d been nervous to see Fingon and Fingolfin, but—maybe it really was that he’d expected all of them to come back sooner or later. He’d never prepared himself to see his brothers or his father again because he hadn’t thought it would ever be possible. 

It was still so hard to believe that he had been allowed to come back. Every breath he took of the air of Valinor was a mercy he did not deserve, like the forgiveness of Olwë and Elu Thingol, and of Elwing and Eärendil—even of Elrond, given so freely and unconditionally before he and Maglor had ever found one another again.

Curufin was watching him, but Maglor didn’t know how to explain his hesitancy. How it hurt like a knife blade to look at all of them and see them smile and laugh, no longer weighed down by doom or oath or war, to be surrounded by them all and still miss them, because they had been restored and he…he just been diminished, scarred and worn down like stones into sand, and—

Celegorm appeared out of the grass, sitting down to throw an arm around Maglor’s shoulders, nearly knocking him over. Pídhres hissed. “Oh hush,” Celegorm said to her. Then to Maglor, more seriously, “What did you say to Maedhros yesterday?”

“I’m not going to repeat it.”

“Well neither will he, and we can’t help if we don’t know what’s wrong.”

“You can’t fix this, Celegorm,” Maglor said. “Ow, Pídhres.” She’d hooked her claws through his shirt as she climbed up his arm again. “You smell like Huan, and she hates Huan,” he added to Celegorm. 

“Don’t be ridiculous. Cats love Huan. But you’re changing the subject. What can’t we fix?”

Maglor shrugged Celegorm’s arm off him. “Any of it,” he said.

“Why can you forgive us but not Maedhros?” Curufin asked. 

“Did you do it on purpose?” Maglor asked in return. “When you slipped in that puddle and missed your parry, was it on purpose?”

Curufin stared at him. “You weren’t even there,” he said.

“Answer the question, Curufin.”

“No, of course I didn’t do it on purpose.”

“That’s why.”

Celegorm said, “Maglor, you know he wasn’t—he still isn’t…he isn’t well.”

“I do know that.” Maglor picked up his harp and got to his feet. “Neither am I.”

He retreated to the camp, finding Daeron awake and playing with Leicheg and a piece of string. “Good morning,” he said when Maglor dropped to the ground beside him. “What’s the matter?”

“Brothers.”

“Mm.” Daeron ran his fingers through Maglor’s hair. “I maintain it’s better than a sea monster.”

“What about a sea monster?” said Caranthir from across the remnants of last night’s fire. He was sorting dirty clothes into piles and, apparently, eavesdropping. 

“Only a joke,” Daeron said lightly. “How was your journey west? You must have taken a different road than we did.” 

Maglor leaned against Daeron as Caranthir spoke of their journey—including their encounter with Gandalf, which only confirmed Maglor’s suspicions. Ekkaia was very nice this time of year, indeed. Leicheg climbed onto his lap and rolled onto her back so he could tickle her belly, and Pídhres vanished into the heather. Eventually Ambarussa returned, and Caranthir enlisted their help in finding a freshwater source for washing clothes and refilling water skins. Celegorm and Curufin returned from the top of the hill a little later, but neither of them looked at Maglor. 

Maedhros stayed away most of the morning, but returned when Celegorm went to find him. Maglor kept his gaze down, and ignored Huan looking at him until Huan actually got up and came over to shove his face into Maglor’s, which shoved Maglor further into Daeron, who fell backwards onto the blankets with a startled shout of laughter. “Huan!” Maglor shoved at him, but Huan just kept snuffling at his hair. “Celegorm!”

“What? I didn’t ask him to—”

“Come get him off!”

“Huan, leave off,” Celegorm said, without much enthusiasm. Huan did not leave off. “He wants you to do something, Maglor. I don’t know what it is.”

“He already dragged me all the way out here, what else does he want?” Maglor demanded. He shoved at Huan again, and then Huan took his shirt in his teeth and pulled him up. By then nearly everyone was laughing at him. “If you rip my clothes, so help me, Huan—”

“Stop it, Huan,” said Daeron, coming to Maglor’s rescue at last—or trying to. He pushed at Huan’s face, but Huan just pulled harder until Maglor tumbled forward, almost landing face first into last night’s ashes. “What is the matter with you?”

“Fine,” Maglor muttered, and got to his feet before Huan could do something worse. Huan took his shirt in his teeth again and pulled insistently toward the beach. “Celegorm, this is your fault.”

“I’m not doing anything!” Celegorm protested through his laughter. “Maybe he thinks you need a bath.”

“Huan thinks someone needs a bath?” Caranthir said. “If that’s true, I fear the Dagor Dagorath is upon us.”

“He’s your dog,” Maglor said over his shoulder before he left the hollow between the dunes and stepped out onto the beach. It was a bright day, and the dark waters sparkled under the sun, though clouds were gathering in the distance, and soon enough they would arrive with rain. Once Huan released him he walked down to the water’s edge. He wasn’t going to bathe in it, but it felt pleasant washing over his bare feet. Huan seemed satisfied, and trotted off back toward the camp. Another scuffle ensued, and Maglor looked up to see Maedhros being similarly dragged out. The laughter behind them died rather quickly as everyone realized what Huan was really trying to do. Huan released Maedhros’ sleeve and got behind him to shove at him with his great head, nearly knocking him over before he too surrendered to the inevitable and came down to the water’s edge. 

“Very subtle,” Maglor said to Huan, who woofed at him and turned to wander off down the shore. “You’re worse than Gandalf!” Maglor called after him; Huan wagged his tail but didn’t otherwise respond. 

Maedhros stood a few steps back from the high water line. He crossed his arms again; the breeze blew his hair across his face, obscuring most of it. Maglor did not turn fully toward him. “Celegorm really didn’t ask him to do that,” Maedhros said into the silence that had fallen between them. Back in the campsite Maglor heard the sound of a flute; Daeron was playing. 

“I know.”

“You aren’t…you aren’t upset with any of them, are you?”

“No. Huan is a menace all on his own.” Maglor crossed his own arms and wished for his cloak as the wind picked up off the water. It smelled strange. There was salt in it but nothing else—no seaweed, no fish. It didn’t even really smell like Belegaer had away from the coastline. He crouched to dip his fingers into the water, having a sudden thought, and when he put them to his lips he found he’d been right.

Ekkaia tasted like tears. 

“Maglor…” Maedhros spoke so quietly, and with such uncertainty. Maglor hated to hear that from him; it made him sound like someone else, not like Maedhros at all. He didn’t look up, instead keeping his gaze on the stones at his feet. He picked one up; it was perfectly round, and fit snugly in his palm. When it dried it would be a soft warm red, like a sunrise. “Maglor, what do you need from me?”

“What do you want me to say, Cáno? What do you need me to do?”

Maglor rose to his feet. The water felt cold, suddenly, though the sun remained warm. The chill came from inside him, that remnant of Dol Guldur that had reared its head along with everything else and wouldn’t go away again. 

He had told Fëanor there was nothing that he wanted, nothing that he could do to—Maglor wasn’t even sure what Fëanor thought he could fix. But to Maedhros—he couldn’t just say nothing. That would be cruel, and while he had been trying to hurt Fëanor, he didn’t want to hurt Maedhros, who was already in so much pain. “I don’t know, Maedhros,” he said finally, without looking up. “I wish that I did, but…I just don’t know.”

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Maedhros had thought the worst that could happen was a complete rejection—was Maglor refusing to speak to him at all, or saying flatly that he could never forgive Maedhros, that he hated him, that he never wanted to see him again, and then turning his back for good. 

Watching the tears fall silent and unheeded down his scarred face as he said, “I don’t know how to forgive that,” was so, so much worse. Maedhros could weather Maglor’s anger. He thought he could even withstand his hatred, if he had to. 

He couldn’t bear to see him so hurt and to know that he was the cause, and therefore unable to fix it. If there was anything he could do, he didn’t know what it was. If Maglor didn’t know either—maybe there really was nothing to be done. 

All that Maedhros could think of, as Maglor walked back to the camp with that stone in his hand, picked up from the surf for reasons known only to himself, all he could think was that Maglor never would have come to Dol Guldur if Maedhros had not left him alone. More likely both of them would have died in the tumult of Beleriand’s breaking, or in the long years between then and whatever had caused Maglor to leave the shores and strike inland, up the River Anduin. But maybe not; maybe they would have survived it all, somehow, maybe even have come to Elrond in Rivendell in the end. He didn’t know. He couldn’t truly imagine a world in which he did not give himself to the fire. 

The Valar should have just let him stay in Mandos, he thought as he stared out over the dark waters of Ekkaia. The waves did not reflect the sunlight or the blue sky quite as they should, but it was still beautiful. Dark clouds hovered over the horizon and when the wind picked up again it smelled faintly of rain. Maedhros thought, distantly, that he wanted to paint this too—except he didn’t know anymore if he could pick up a brush and make anything beautiful with it. That felt like a passing Midsummer fancy, best forgotten before he returned home.

It was Amras who came down to join him after a while. “Do you take turns or draw lots?” Maedhros asked him. 

“Neither.” Amras peered up at his face and then embraced him. Maedhros returned it, resting his chin atop Amras’ head. “We all love you, Nelyo,” Amras said. “Even Cáno. Please come back.”

Maedhros released a shaky breath. “All right.”

“We’ll make sure Huan doesn’t try to push you into the sea again,” Amras said more brightly. He took Maedhros’ hand and pulled him back to the camp. Someone had found more firewood and gotten the fire going again; Maglor lay on his stomach, playing some silly game with his kitten and his hedgehog. No one had explained the hedgehog, and Maedhros didn’t know how to ask. Maglor’s gaze flicked up as Maedhros and Amras returned, but he said nothing. Daeron sat beside him, his knee pressed against Maglor’s shoulder.

Someone was asking Maglor about King Elessar, and if he had known him. Maglor laughed, a sudden and bright sound. “I met Elessar when he was eleven years old,” he said, “when I had to fish him out of the river because he’d fallen off the bridge in Rivendell—”

“Estel was Elessar?” Daeron interrupted, also laughing. “You didn’t tell me that!”

“He wasn’t Elessar yet,” Maglor said, smiling. When he looked up at Daeron his eyes went soft and fond and Maedhros felt an old familiar flicker of concern, leftover from Beleriand. Be careful, Cáno. 

It wasn’t Maedhros’ place to worry anymore, though. Maglor could guard his own heart.

“I thought his name was Aragorn,” Curufin remarked.

“It was,” Maglor said, “but as a child in Rivendell he was called Estel. It is still how most of us who lived there think of him.” He grinned, suddenly. “Estel acquired a great many names over the course of his life. Strider is perhaps the most famous—not a flattering name, given to him by the folk of Bree, but the hobbits adopted it later with far more affection, and he took it for the name of his house.”

“Strider is not a good name for a royal house,” Daeron said.

“Telcontar is,” Maglor replied. 

He spoke easily and with a smile, especially when Caranthir asked about Arwen and Aragorn’s children, but Maedhros saw the shadow of grief that lay behind it, though the smile itself was not feigned and the remembered joy was real. Maglor had loved Elessar as much as he loved Elrond, and Elrond’s children, and that was why he had tarried in Middle-earth, even knowing it would only cause him pain in the end. 

Maglor could guard his own heart, Maedhros thought, but he never did. 

Someone asked for a song, and Maedhros saw Maglor go very still for a moment, his smile faltering. It returned when Daeron leaned down to whisper something in his ear, and then he was sitting up and reaching for his harp—a lovely thing made of interlocking pieces of driftwood; even after so long Maedhros could recognized something made by Maglor’s hands, and it was such a relief to know that he still did those things—carved wood, made music. But the hesitation—why would he hesitate? Strands of hair fell forward to partly obscure Maglor’s face as he put his fingers to the strings. “What would you like to hear?” he asked, plucking a few of them, the notes thrumming in the air, sweet and light. 

“Something new,” said Celegorm, as Amras said, “Something you wrote.”

“I haven’t written many new songs lately,” Maglor murmured. “Not happy ones…well, there’s that one about the sea mon—”

“Not that one,” Daeron said.

Maglor played a few chords on the harp, apparently lost in thought. Maedhros tilted his head back to look at the sky, and found the clouds already starting to gather. They were pale and high, and he wasn’t sure it would rain that evening, but there was a definite chill in the air. He shifted a little, and pulled his cloak around Amras and Amrod on either side of him.

“I did not write this song,” Maglor said finally, as his fingers picked out a more deliberate melody on the strings instead of just playing delicate scales while he thought, “and it is not very new, though perhaps you have not heard it. It was written to celebrate the wedding of Aragorn Elessar and Arwen Undómiel, and the blossoming of the White Tree again in Minas Tirith after the fall of the Dark Tower and the destruction of the Ring.” As he finished speaking Daeron lifted his flute to his lips and joined him, and then Maglor began to sing. 

He had lost none of his skill, but his voice was not as Maedhros remembered it. There was something of the Sea in it, which was no surprise—it held the power of the tides, and a strange quality that made Maedhros think of the Ainur, of the times long ago when he had heard Uinen singing with the mariners of Alqualondë. There was also a roughness to it that Maedhros hadn’t noticed before when he’d been singing with Daeron, something unpolished, unpracticed, and he did not lift his head or reveal his face to them as he sang. It was still beautiful, all the more so for having gone so long without hearing it. The song, too, was lovely. As Maglor sang Maedhros closed his eyes and saw before him the White Tree, a slender sapling in flower atop the pinnacle of Minas Tirith built into and out of the mountainside. He could see there also Aragorn Elessar, with a green stone set in a silver-eagle brooch upon his breast, clasping hands with Arwen Undómiel, so like Elrond in appearance that there could be no mistaking her, both of them smiling and joyful, and the city around them filled with singing and merriment and celebration, for the king had come again and was now wed to his fair queen.

There was a thread of grief through it, though, that Maedhros did not think was meant to be there. The song was one of joy, and hope, not one of mourning. It was in Maglor’s own voice—and it had been there before, in the song he had been singing of Ekkaia with Daeron, though that song had not been mournful either, but a celebration of both the present and the past. He opened his eyes to look at Maglor, but Maglor’s eyes were closed; he had lifted his head at last, and the expression on his face was calm—not merry, but not unhappy either. 

Maedhros watched him until the song ended, only looking away when Maglor opened his eyes. He caught Celegorm’s eye; he’d noticed it too. 

Ambarussa called for another song, something merry, and it was Daeron who obliged, handing Maglor his flute and launching into a very merry song indeed that Maedhros thought must have come from Doriath before the Girdle, perhaps even before Menegroth had been delved. Maglor put the flute to his lips and Maedhros wondered a little if it was relief he saw in his face before he began to play, or if he was only imagining things. 

As the afternoon wore on the group broke apart again; Ambarussa wandered away into the heather, and Caranthir dragged Curufin away down the beach to stretch their legs. Celegorm and Maedhros also took a walk, going in the opposite direction, while Daeron and Maglor remained by the fire with their animals. Maglor’s laughter followed them as Maedhros and Celegorm fell into step together. Celegorm walked half in the surf, splashing his bare feet through the waves. “His voice is different,” he said after a while.

“I noticed.”

“It sounds like the Sea. Belegaer, I mean.”

“He wandered its shores for thousands of years,” Maedhros murmured. “He’s always been drawn to water.”

“Mm.”

“He still sounds like himself.”

“Just sad,” Celegorm said. “Even when he’s singing about something happy. He sounds like you.”

Maedhros stopped walking; Celegorm took a few more steps before he stopped and turned. “What do you mean he sounds like me?” Maedhros’ singing voice wasn’t terrible, but it was nothing like Maglor’s. Celegorm rolled his eyes. “I’m not—”

“If you try to tell me you aren’t sad I’m going to throw you into Ekkaia.”

“I don’t know what I am, but—” Sadness was a part of it but it wasn’t all of it, and it was too simple a word. Maedhros didn’t think there was a word for what he was, except maybe wrong, but he couldn’t say that to Celegorm. That would get him tossed into the sea. “What are you trying to say?”

“Just that you two are so much alike, and in all the worst ways. What did you say to each other last night?”

Maedhros flinched. They’d been over this. “I can’t—”

“Why not?”

Silence fell between them, broken only by the water, and by the faint echo of their brothers’ voices from down the beach. It was so quiet by Ekkaia; it was peaceful but the longer they stayed the more it grated. Maedhros wanted to return to a place with animals, with birds and crickets and other living things—with noise that might drown out his own thoughts. He looked out over the water so he didn’t have to look at Celegorm. 

“I should never have been let out of Mandos,” he said finally.

“You deserve it as much as the rest of us,” Celegorm said quietly.

“That isn’t true. But that isn’t what I meant. I don’t—I didn’t want to leave. And I’m not—all I’ve done since is make everyone I care about worry and I don’t want to be—”

Celegorm closed the distance and grasped Maedhros’ arm, reaching for his hand. “Maitimo, I would much rather you be here where we can worry about you and help you, instead of somewhere in the depths of Mandos beyond anyone’s reach.”

“But you shouldn’t have to—”

“Of course not—because you shouldn’t be hurting like this. Curvo said you were thinking about painting sunsets at Midsummer. You have been getting better.”

“I know, and I know you asked me—I just—I don’t know how not to—”

“And anyway, worrying all of us isn’t the only thing you’ve been doing. Carnistir wouldn’t have come to any of us for comfort when he woke in the middle of the night. Curvo and I wouldn’t be speaking still if you hadn’t done something. Ambarussa—they’re better off than any of us because they’ve always had each other, I suppose, but it was you that brought us all back together.”

“Only because Atya came back,” Maedhros whispered.

“Maybe we should thank him for it,” Celegorm said, only a little ironically. He rubbed his fingers over Maedhros’ palm. “Does it hurt? Speaking of him?”

“Not my hand.” Maedhros looked at Celegorm. “I didn’t want to hate him,” he said. “When he came back I didn’t want to—but I can’t—”

“Not everything that’s broken can be fixed,” Celegorm said, meeting his gaze. “But I think us—the seven of us, including Maglor—I think we can. What did you say to each other? Please tell me.”

“I don’t—I don’t know how to…” Maedhros looked back down the beach, at the distant figures of Caranthir and Curufin, and at Huan sitting like a guard near their campsite. Smoke curled gently up from the campfire. The clouds that had come in gave the scene a bleak look, drained of most color except for the purple heather on the hills beyond. “We sent everyone away with the twins. Everyone. It was only the two of us and I tried to convince him to go too, but he wouldn’t.”

“Could he have?” Celegorm asked quietly.

“He says not. I think…I don’t know. Elrond would’ve spoken for him.”

“Elrond was still practically a child.”

“He was the son of Eärendil, of Elwing. Even then I think he would’ve been listened to. He and Elros. I haven’t heard that the rest of our people were turned away. But it doesn’t matter because Maglor wouldn’t go and I knew—I knew what it would do to him if I left. And I still did it.” He closed his eyes, unable to look at Celegorm’s face any more than he’d been able to look at Maglor’s. “It was the best thing I ever did but the worst thing I did to him and he can’t forgive it. I never expected him to.”

For a moment he thought Celegorm was going to argue with him, but instead he just sighed and shook his head. “If he can forgive the rest of us all that we did, he can forgive you.”

“No. Not this. You weren’t there, Tyelko, at the end. I was all he had left in the world, and the Silmarils burned both of us, and I left him behind. He can’t forgive it—and I can never ask him to. It feels like asking too much just for him to sit across the fire from me, let alone having Huan drag us off—”

“I’ll ask Huan not to do that again. He just wants to help.”

“I know. I just don’t think anyone can.”

They returned to find Maglor and Daeron having some kind of argument about a series of notes that was incomprehensible to anyone but them. They were laughing about it, though, and when he smiled Maglor looked so much more like his old self, his younger self before everything had gone so terribly wrong—if you could ignore the way he kept his sleeves pulled down almost over his hands and the way he turned his head so his hair fell forward, like a curtain between him and everyone else but Daeron, even when he leaned forward to snatch the flute from Daeron’s hands to play a flourishing set of notes that seemed to be the culmination of whatever point he was making.

Daeron snatched it back and played the exact same sequence, except that apparently it wasn’t because it started the argument all over again.

Maedhros could have sworn they had done this before, at the Mereth Aderthad. Even the bit of music sounded familiar. 

After watching them for a while, Celegorm remarked, “Are you enjoying this or is this a serious argument? I can’t tell.”

“Both,” said Daeron and Maglor together. “Daeron is the mightier singer,” Maglor added, “but I’m clearly the better songwriter—”

“Not with the way you rhyme things,” Daeron said.

“—when I’m not out of practice,” Maglor finished. 

“Why are you out of practice?” Celegorm asked. 

Maglor’s smile faded. “I just—I haven’t written much. Not since—”

“Dol Guldur?” Celegorm asked. Maglor flinched. “We all know about it, Cáno.”

They didn’t know everything, though, Maedhros thought as Maglor looked away. Maglor said quietly, “No, not since Dol Guldur.”

Daeron said lightly, “That’s still no excuse for that abomination of a lay you’ve been concocting.”

“It isn’t my fault your name doesn’t rhyme with anything heroic,” Maglor replied, though his smile was not as bright as it had been before. He picked up the flute to play a quick series of notes that sounded like they belonged to a dance. Daeron had leaned forward as he’d spoken, as though he sought to shield Maglor from whatever memories might be brought to mind by the mention of Dol Guldur. Maglor leaned right back, and it was as though the two of them suddenly existed somewhere set apart, pulled away from the rest of the world into one made only of music and whatever deep and quiet understanding existed between the two of them. 

Celegorm sighed quietly; Maedhros bumped their shoulders together, and Celegorm leaned against him. “Give it time,” Maedhros whispered.

“I will if you will.”

Maedhros sighed. “Fine.”

As the afternoon began to wane, Maglor slipped away, murmuring something to Daeron before going off alone, toward the water. He paused only to scoop up his kitten, settling her on his shoulder as he went on. Daeron remained behind with the hedgehog. “All right,” Celegorm said finally, “is anyone going to explain the hedgehog?”

“Huan brought her to us,” Daeron said with a smile as he tickled the hedgehog’s belly. It took Maedhros a moment to realize that the sound he was hearing was the hedgehog’s purr. “She had a broken leg, which I sung to rights, and then she decided not to leave. Her name is Leicheg.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all. She and Pídhres are great friends, though not quite united in their opinion of Huan.”

“Cats like Huan,” Celegorm said.

“Pídhres doesn’t. Maglor says she sees him as something of an interloper. Maglor is her person, you see.” Huan whined, and Celegorm reached back to scratch him behind the ears. “She’s a very silly cat.”

“I didn’t know Maglor even liked cats,” Celegorm said. 

Daeron shrugged. “He likes this one enough to have brought her all the way from Imladris.”

Maedhros could count on his only hand the number of times he had spoken to Daeron before now, by Ivrin. He’d seen the way Maglor was drawn to him, and he’d been caught between wanting to warn Daeron away and needing to remain open and friendly for the sake of potential alliance with Doriath, and the end result had been mostly empty pleasantries. Now he wasn’t sure what to say. There was no reason to warn him off except a fear for Maglor’s heart, but Maedhros had already broken it beyond repair and lost all right to say anything. The trouble was that he did not know Daeron, had never had a chance to even begin to get to know him, and that meant he couldn’t even begin to guess at his thoughts, except that he cared for Maglor and, perhaps, knew more about Dol Guldur than any of the rest of them. 

Celegorm, of course, had no such reservations. He crossed his legs at the ankle and tilted his head slightly as he regarded Daeron, who met his gaze with a slightly raised eyebrow. “What brings you out into the wilds with our brother?” Celegorm asked him. 

“We spoke in Avallónë of traveling together,” Daeron said. “We are both of us more used to wandering than to staying in one place. We met almost by chance on the road after he left Imloth Ningloron, and there was no reason not to join him.”

“Almost by chance?” Celegorm repeated.

“I was on my way to visit him,” Daeron said. His smile disappeared. “He is very troubled by his meeting with your father, and I did not like to leave him alone.”

“And what are you—” Celegorm began, and Maedhros knew by his tone that he was going to attempt to be protective. 

Daeron cut him off before Maedhros could shove his elbow into Celegorm’s ribs. “It is very surprising to me that you of all Maglor’s brothers would be the one to ask me my intentions.” His tone was amused, but his dark eyes had gone hard. Celegorm’s face flushed, blotchy and red.

“Both Celegorm and Curufin have made peace with Thingol,” Maedhros said quietly, putting his arm across Celegorm’s chest to keep him from getting up, lest he do something stupid. “We would make peace with you too, if you wish for it.”

“Of course I wish for it,” said Daeron. “I laid aside all the old anger and hatred long ago. It is a poison I do not need to carry in my spirit; nor would Lúthien wish me to; and for Maglor’s sake, I would have us be friends. I do not, however, feel the need to justify myself to you concerning your brother. If anything,” and here his gaze caught Maedhros’ for a moment, “it should be the other way around.” He scooped up Leicheg then and departed, vanishing into the purple heather. 

Maedhros glanced at Celegorm. “Well done,” he said.

“I know, I know, I’m an idiot.”

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Maglor walked along the water for some time as the light began to slowly fade. There would be no sunset, not with the day so cloudy. He stopped once the faint sounds of his brothers had were lost behind him and he could no longer see the faint curl of smoke from the fire when he looked back, and sat down just above the high water mark. Pídhres jumped down from his shoulder to curl up on his lap, lightly biting at his fingers until he started petting her. The stones were cool under him, but the texture was different enough from other, colder stones that it did not trouble him. He closed his eyes and breathed a sigh, and listened. 

Listening to the Music was more than listening with his ears. He’d forgotten how, once, but he’d learned again, slowly, as his spirit recovered from the long silent darkness of Dol Guldur. The bright sunshine and vivid life of Rivendell had helped. Even the stones in that valley sang with joy. Now it was as easy as closing his eyes to open his spirit to the Music that still echoed in all the waters of the world, and to listen and learn of the part of it that lived in Ekkaia. 

The waters tasted of tears, and their music was lamentation. It sounded like every song Maglor had sung alone to the waves of Belegaer over the long years of his exile, of the Noldolantë and all the songs that came after in which he tried again and again to put to words what it meant to weep tears unnumbered, to mourn those who had been both great and noble, and also monstrous, what it meant to try so hard to hold onto something like hope while you felt yourself crumbling little by little under the weight of a terrible thing you had taken on before realizing far too late what it really meant. It sounded like the mournful whispers of the stones under Dol Guldur who suffered the presence of the Necromancer and his Nazgûl while remembering the Elves who had lived there in happier times, and the living sorrow of the Ents and the trees they tended as their numbers slowly dwindled. It sounded like Frodo’s quiet voice as he too struggled to find the words for what he had survived, and like Arwen weeping bitter tears in Minas Tirith as the city mourned the passing of King Elessar, and his family grieved the loss of their Estel. 

Maglor opened his eyes, blinking as tears fell from them. They felt different, though—because if Ekkaia’s music sounded like lamentation, it also sounded like the quiet patter of winter rain upon mallorn leaves, and like Sam Gamgee humming to himself as he pruned his roses while his thoughts drifted westward, and the wind through the flowering boughs of the White Tree, like the laughter of Elladan and Elrohir as they sat among the irises with their mother in the sunshine, like horns echoing across a battlefield as the sun rose at last, like Daeron voice singing the Lay of Leithian under the stars and the creak of wood and rope and canvas as their ship cut through the waves, sailing on westward. He knew this Theme. He had tried to use the power of it to save himself, once, and though he had failed the Music itself never had. He wiped the tears from his face, and looked down at the scars wrapped around his wrist. They were fading at last, though slowly. 

“I am glad to have come here,” he murmured to Pídhres, who purred under his hands, “but this is not a place to linger for long.” 

“Where will you go next, Macalaurë?” The voice was like the rain falling softly on his window at home in Rivendell, and Maglor knew who it belonged to even before he turned his head, and he knew that he should not feel afraid—but a frisson of fear shot down his spine anyway. Nienna stepped forward as he rose to his feet, taking his face in her hands and wiping away the tears that lingered, and he couldn’t stop himself shuddering under the weight of her full attention. Her own tears fell unceasing, even through her smile. “You are reunited with your brothers at last. Is that cause for tears?”

“You know it is, Lady,” Maglor said. “I can’t—I don’t know how—”

“You have been alone for a very long time,” she said, so gently that his eyes stung with fresh tears. In his arms Pídhres meowed softly, and rubbed her head against his arm. 

“I am not alone now,” he said, thinking of Daeron, and also of Elrond and his family, and of Galadriel, and—

“No, but you miss your brothers.”

“I shouldn’t,” he said. “They’re right there. They’re—”

“They are changed, as you are changed.”

“I can’t be who they need me to be.”

Nienna folded him into her embrace. She was very warm. Maglor let himself lean against her, feeling the soft fall of her tears on his hair, and the strength and quiet power of her being—so unlike Sauron’s that the pounding of his heart began to ease. “They need you as you are,” she said, “and you need them, do you not?”

He did. Of course he did. But instead of agreeing he said, “I’ve survived without them this long.”

“But have you been happy, Macalaurë? Have you been at peace?”

“Yes,” he said. “Sometimes. But I don’t—”

Nienna drew back, but only to take his hand, his scarred one, in both of hers. Her tears fell over it, and eased the faint stiffness that had crept with the cooler weather. “If you had come to us,” she said, softly, “we would have brought you home. There would have been judgment, but it would not have been so terrible, I think, as you feared. It would certainly have not been so terrible as your long and lonely exile, or the years of torment that you suffered at the hands of Sauron.” With one hand she held his, but with the other she cupped his face, her thumb brushing over the scars on his lips, and the one over his cheekbone. “You did not deserve this. The time now for judgments and punishment is long past. You deserve what all Children of Ilúvatar deserve—peace, and joy, and love.”

“I know that I am loved, Lady,” he said softly.

“Do you? Your brothers love you. Maitimo loves you.”

It was hard to breathe through the tightness in his chest. “I can’t—I can’t forget—”

“You need not forget. Can you forgive?”

“No. No, I can’t. I told him I—I don’t know how.” Maybe if he had never come to Dol Guldur it would be different, but all of that had reopened old wounds he’d thought had been healing, and he’d only realized since returning to Valinor that they had never closed at all. He felt like he had been bleeding for six thousand years, and he did not know how much longer he could go on before it killed him. “They keep asking me why I haven’t come home but I don’t—there isn’t—” The closest thing he had to a home had been Rivendell, but even that had only really lasted until Elrond had left. Now there was Imloth Ningloron but he was too new-come to it for it to feel like home yet, however alike to Imladris it was—and it was because of him that trouble had come there to send him running away again. 

Nienna did not chide him. She did not try to tell him that he must forgive his brother or assure him that it would surely come with time; she did not tell him that of course he had a home, or that he could make one for himself wherever he chose. Instead, she said gently tilted his chin up so that he had no choice but to meet her gaze. His breath caught, remembering the burning eyes of Sauron—because if Nienna was gentler she was yet more powerful than he had been and they were still cut from the same cloth, of the world and yet not, with a power beyond comprehension—

Her eyes were the color of Ekkaia, with a gentle light shining behind them, older than the oldest stars, a candle in a dark room rather than a conflagration. She looked into his eyes and saw all that there was to see of him, and all she said, so very softly, was, “I know your sorrow, Macalaurë. I know your heartache and your pain.”

He believed her, and for the first time in many years it was not frightening but a comfort, to be so clearly seen and to be known, to be understood without having to try to find words to explain. It was like the floodgates in him opened—like they had upon his first coming to Rivendell long ago. Maglor let Pídhres jump to the ground as he fell forward into Nienna’s arms. She had been there, too—he remembered the statue of her, hands held out in welcome, like the one by the quays in Avallónë. He sobbed into her chest, feeling flayed open, raw; his chest hurt and it felt as though he would drown in his own tears. Nienna held him and stroked his hair, and wept with him. When he could no longer stand she knelt with him on the stones, murmuring words that he didn’t understand but that chased away the lingering chill of Dol Guldur that clung to him. 

Eventually, the tears slowed, and Maglor just rested in Nienna’s arms, spent and unwilling to leave the warmth of them. They felt like his mother’s arms, or at least like his memory of them. Night had fallen; it was very dark under the starless sky. He closed his eyes, and knew the answer to the first question she had posed to him. “I want to see my mother,” he whispered.

“She misses you,” Nienna said.

“I know.”

“Look at me, Macalaurë.” She lifted his face in her hands, and this time he did not hesitate to meet her gaze. “Your brother has been lost, too, in his own way. He has let the others help him begin to find his way back, but there is a missing piece, a gap in their number, a space that should be filled when they all gather together. That is your place. You have been alone for so long, perhaps you have forgotten what it is to be part of a greater whole.”

“I haven’t forgotten,” Maglor whispered. “But the shape of us is different and I no longer fit in that space as I once did.”

“When you mend a broken cup, the pieces do not all fit cleanly, but you fill in the empty spaces and make them shine.”

“We are not a piece of broken crockery, Lady. There isn’t—there isn’t enough gold in the world that could my scars beautiful.”

“You are beautiful, Canafinwë Macalaurë, son of Fëanáro and Nerdanel, in all that you are—yes, even your scars, mighty singer and lonely wanderer, precious child. You are more than your suffering. Is not Arda more than its marring? The love you and your brothers share is more than the pain of your separation.”

Maglor closed his eyes. “Lady, I don’t…I have been grieving them for so long, I don’t know how to stop. Why can’t I stop?”

“Grief and sorrow are a part of you as they are a part of Arda. The joy of your reuniting will overshadow the grief of your parting in time. Let yourself feel, Macalaurë, and do not try to hide it all away as you once did. Let yourself grieve for all that you lost. Let yourself be angry, but do not let it fester and turn bitter. That is what drove the wedge ever deeper between your father and his own brothers.”

“I’m not my father,” Maglor whispered. 

“No, you are not.” Nienna smiled at him, and leaned down to kiss his forehead. The warmth of her lips lingered when she drew back, like a benediction. “Go home with your brothers, Macalaurë. Let your mother see you. Know that you are always welcome in my halls, if you need them—but I do not think you will.” She stepped back, and in the space of a blink she was gone, disappearing into the mist that had begun to gather while Maglor had been weeping into her arms. 

Pídhres meowed beside him, and he scooped her up. He was still trembling, and he supposed he should count himself lucky that the first Vala to speak to him had been Nienna. As he pressed his face into Pídhres’ fur he heard someone call his name. He got unsteadily to his feet and walked back along the shore. His throat still felt tight, and he wasn’t sure that he could bear anyone’s company, let alone his brothers’, but it would be worse to have them worry about him all night—or to leave Daeron to deal with them on top of his own concern. 

It was Curufin who found him. “Where have you been?” he demanded. “It’s been hours.”

“Has it?” Maglor had cried himself hoarse, and couldn’t do much more than whisper. “I’m sorry.”

Curufin looked at him again, and his frown deepened. “What happened?”

“Nothing. I just—nothing.” 

“Maedhros did the same thing when we got here,” Curufin said. “He disappeared into the fog and when Tyelko brought him back he’d been crying. What is it the two of you found out there?”

“Nothing. I’m fine, Curufin.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

Maglor felt his shoulders hunch a little. In his arms Pídhres made an angry noise. “Hush,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head. Curufin wasn’t angry, he was worried. Maglor did know the difference; he knew how prickly both Curufin and Caranthir could be—he just couldn’t laugh it off as he should in that moment. “I’m sorry,” he said again. 

“Just—come on. We have the tent set up, and it’s big enough for all of us, even Huan. It’ll be warmer.” 

Daeron was waiting outside the tent when they arrived. Curufin glanced between them before ducking inside. Maglor heard him announce that his search had been successful, but not what anyone else said. “What’s wrong?” Daeron asked softly, reaching up to touch Maglor’s face just like Nienna had.

“Nienna found me,” Maglor whispered. “I’m—I’ll be all right, I think. I’m just tired.” He leaned against Daeron gratefully. The fog had brought a chill that threatened to reawake the memory of Dol Guldur that Nienna had banished, but Daeron was arm, and his hands were steadier than Maglor’s. 

“We can put up our own tent,” Daeron said, “if you can’t bear other company.”

“No. No, that will just make them worry more.” Maglor tried to smile. “Unless you sang up this fog and intend to spirit me away in the night.”

Daeron did smile, and shook his head. “No. If you’re sure…”

He wasn’t at all sure. He still felt painfully raw, as though his spirit was laid bare for all to see—and he did not want his brothers to see. But he thought it would be worse to try to hide away. “Just so long as no one asks me to sing,” he said. “I’ll be all right.”

Inside the tent it was warmer, and crowded in a familiar, jostling sort of way that Maglor would have once found comforting. Pídhres jumped from his arms and went to curl up near Caranthir, where Leicheg was already asleep, curled into a little spiky ball. He and Daeron were jockeyed into a place near the back of the tent, and Maglor found himself tucked between Daeron and Maedhros, who shifted away a little, though there wasn’t quite room for it. Maglor didn’t look at him; he didn’t think he could without bursting into tears again, and that would ruin whatever cheer Ambarussa were trying so very hard to keep up. They had produced a half-empty bottle of wine from somewhere. “We need to keep you away from the Woodelves,” Caranthir said after he took a sip. 

Daeron took the bottle next, and held it up to look at the deep red liquid inside after he had a taste. “Where did you get a bottle of Dorwinion?” he asked.

“Is it really?” Maglor reached for it and took a small taste. It burst on his tongue, bright and sweet and potent, and for a moment he was so overcome with a longing to be back across the Sea, back in time at a merry feast in Rivendell or in Ithilien, that he couldn’t speak. 

“It isn’t,” Ambarussa said, laughing. “It’s the Woodelves’ best attempt at recreating it,” Amras added. “Does it really taste the same?”

“Yes,” Daeron said. “Or nearly so.” Maglor passed the bottle to Maedhros without turning his head, who passed it on to Celegorm without drinking. “It is not the sort of wine meant to be swigged out of a bottle.”

“That’s why we only finished half of it the other night,” said Amrod. “Cáno, are you all right?”

“Fine,” Maglor said. His voice was still hoarse. “But I am not having any more.” The last thing he wanted to do was get drunk again, when he already felt halfway hungover even before the drinking had begun. If he started to cry again he might never stop. 

“More for us then,” Amrod said cheerfully, but when he looked at Maglor his smile didn’t reach his eyes. Maglor dropped his gaze, and let his head rest on Daeron’s shoulder. “You’ve both had the real thing, then? Is the story about the dwarves and the barrels true? I couldn’t quite tell if the drink had gotten to the Woodelves telling us.”

“It’s true,” Maglor said. “Bilbo was very fond of telling it.”

“I couldn’t say,” Daeron said. “I’ve heard the tale, of course, but I was far away east of Rhûn when it happened.” His hand had found Maglor’s, weaving their fingers together; Maglor squeezed it gratefully, and hoped he would not be asked where he was when Bilbo was smuggling thirteen dwarves out of Thranduil’s halls in apple barrels. 

“What were you doing in the east?” someone asked instead, and Maglor breathed a sigh of relief as Daeron spoke of the Elves who lived there, and of the Blue Wizards, and of their efforts to resist the growing might of Mordor after Sauron returned there to rebuild Barad-dûr. 

On Maglor’s other side he heard the rustle of paper, and when he looked he saw Maedhros with a sketchbook on his knee, drawing idly as he listened to the conversation going on around them. He noticed Maglor looking and tilted the page so that Maglor could see what the drawing was. It was sketchy and had little detail yet, but even so the form of Nienna, veiled, hands outstretched, was unmistakable. Maglor lifted his eyes to Maedhros’ face and saw the exact same sort of understanding there that he had found in Nienna’s. Maedhros wrote in the corner of the page, where only Maglor could see, she visited me too. 

That must have been what Curufin meant about the mist. Maglor looked away, but he let his legs relax a little so that when in the jostling crowding in the tent—for no one could ever be still for long—he and Maedhros bumped into one another, neither of them flinched away from it. 

Eventually the talk turned from the past to the present, and to their immediate plans. “Ekkaia is very nice but it is not a place to linger very long,” Amras was saying, when Maglor dragged his attention back after his mind wandered. He hadn’t struggled to focus like this since—since that first winter and spring after he’d come out of Dol Guldur. He didn’t like it. “Where are you two going to go next?”

“I’m only along for the journey,” Daeron said. “I care not.”

Maglor thought of Nienna. He thought of the agreement he and Daeron had made weeks before. “I would like to see Ammë,” he said softly. Daeron squeezed his hand.

“Will you travel back with us, then?” asked Curufin. 

It would be ridiculous to refuse—and he found, to his surprise, that he didn’t even want to. “Yes, of course.”

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The summer wound on like a slow river, lazy but steady. The weather grew hot, and the sunshine was broken only occasionally by an afternoon rain shower, which made the flowers and trees and grass all sparkle with lingering raindrops until the sun returned to dry it up again. Fingolfin and Fëanor lingered still in Imloth Ningloron, taking many long walks together and spending much of their time deep in conversation. Letters were sent to Tirion, but no one seemed in any hurry to return. In spite of his words to Fingon and Finrod, Elrond didn’t mind. If Imloth Ningloron gave Fëanor and Fingolfin the space and peace to find their way to something like friendship, Celebrían said, she was happy to have them there. Elrond agreed, but he hoped that Fëanor was not lingering in hopes of seeing Maglor again. That would not go well for anyone. 

When he was not with Fingolfin, Fëanor disappeared into the forges, to no one’s surprise. Celebrimbor often accompanied him, and small gifts and trinkets began to appear around the house, each one marked with a very tiny and unobtrusive star.

“I must admit,” Elladan said to Elrond one sunny afternoon as they sat in the library together, “none of this is what I expected when we set sail.”

“I don’t think it’s what anyone expected,” Elrond replied. “Certainly I did not.”

“Has Maglor sent any word yet?”

“No.”

“Are you worried?” 

“I’ll worry if autumn comes and goes without his return,” said Elrond. “But you have spent far more time with him than I have in recent years. Are you worried?”

“I don’t know.” Elladan frowned, his gaze going distant as he looked out of the window. A butterfly flitted past, seeking the roses that climbed up the walls outside; the breeze carried their scent into the room to mingle with the smells of ink and parchment and paper. “I never saw him so upset before. He took up wandering again after you left—we did not see him until we went back to Gondor again more than two years later; he had gone down to Dol Amroth by way of the coast, on foot. But he was not unhappy—in fact he seemed very happy. He wasn’t wandering for the same reasons that he had before.”

“He has always been something of a wanderer, I think,” Elrond said. “I’m glad that he found joy in it again.”

“I do wish Arwen had been here,” Elladan said quietly. “She would have known what to say to him.”

“Perhaps,” Elrond said. He took Elladan’s hand, squeezing it gently. “And perhaps there was nothing anyone could say that would have kept him here when he so desperately wanted to leave. But he’ll be back by winter, and Fëanor will certainly have gone to Tirion by then, and we can all breathe a little easier.”

“Naneth says we are not going to Tirion to celebrate Midwinter.” Elladan smiled, a little crookedly. “I’m glad of it.”

“Tirion is…bustling,” Elrond said, “and will be very full of people wanting to meet you and Elrohir. The loremasters there in particular will have many questions for you, I think.”

“We thought they might, and we brought plenty of copies of documents and records for them,” Elladan said. “That should keep them busy for a little while, at least, while we settle in! Finrod has already promised to deliver them for us.”

“What do you think of it so far, though? Valinor?”

“I think it is nearly as perfect a place as I can imagine, but really only because you and Naneth are here. This valley is so like home while still being itself that I can find no fault in it at all. It is strange, though, to be meeting with so many figures out of legend who died so long ago.”

“You’ll get used to it, though it will take some time. Do not forget either that you and your brother are also figures of legend.”

Elladan grinned. “Hardly,” he said, “compared to everyone else here—and I am content to leave it that way. You are more than enough a legendary figure for the whole family.” Elrond made a face, and Elladan laughed. “It has never felt like that, though, you know—even now, surrounded by all these other legendary folk. You’re only Ada, as you’ve always been.”

“I’m glad,” Elrond said. “I do not feel very legendary.”

“Nor do I!”

Over the course of the summer, Elrond and Celebrían also began, slowly, to open the packages and letters sent by Arwen and Aragorn and their family. Among the packages were several paintings; the first and largest was not done by Arwen but by a court painter of Dol Amroth, of Aragorn and Arwen and all their children when they were still young. 

Elladan and Elrohir joined them for the unwrapping. “There is Eldarion, and Gilraen, Celebringil, and Thoronil,” Elrohir said; Thoronil, the youngest, had been small enough when the painting had been made to sit on her father’s lap for it. “The girls especially loved to spend their summers in Dol Amroth, and Celebringil married Prince Alphros.”

It was a formal portrait, everyone clad in fine clothes and jewels, with little of the various personalities shining through, but aside from that both Elladan and Elrohir agreed the likenesses were very good. This was a copy of the portrait that hung in one of the many galleries of Minas Tirith. “I think all of the others they sent are paintings Arwen made herself,” Elrohir said as that one was set aside, with plans to make room for it in their own gallery. “I know there are also sketches and drawings that she sent tucked into all the letters—and perhaps some done by her daughters as well. Eldarion never had the patience for it.”

“Let us open only one more today,” Celebrían said. “I want to savor them, going slowly. What is that smaller one there, Elrohir?”

“Oh, I remember this one,” he said as he slipped the fabric from it. It was a dreamy watercolor scene of a grown Eldarion with a lovely dark-haired woman, each of them holding a child on their lap, sitting on a stone bench under a dogwood tree in flower. “Silmariën of Lossarnach,” said Elrohir, pointing to the lady, “now Queen of Gondor and Arnor. And these are Eärendil and Tindómiel.”

“Twins?” Celebrían asked, when Elrond could not find his voice past the sudden tightening of his throat.

“Yes.”

Both young Eärendil and young Tindómiel were dark-haired and grey-eyed, like their parents, but Elrond, having now a much clearer picture of his father in his mind, could see the shape of him in their faces—and in Eldarion’s face, in the way that he held himself; even a still image caught in paint and ink managed to convey the quickness with which he was wont to smile, so unlike Aragorn as he’d grown older and grimmer under the lengthening Shadow. With it gone and peace brought back into the world, Elrond hoped that his Estel had lost that grimness, and that his children had never had cause to adopt it. 

They ended up all seated on the floor of the bedroom, the two paintings propped up against the wall in a nest of wrappings and bindings, as Elladan and Elrohir shared more stories that lay behind them—of weddings and births and journeys to the north to visit Dale and Erebor, and even on occasion south into Harad, or east as far as the Sea of Rhûn. They spoke also of Estel as a child and young man, when Celebrían asked. Elrond let Elladan and Elrohir do most of the talking, about Estel and Gilraen and about Arathorn and their other friends among the Dúnedain. It was harder, somehow, to speak of Aragorn’s childhood than his adulthood. The grief felt nearer when he thought of Estel climbing into his bed after a troubled dream, or tracking mud throughout the house every spring, or building snow forts in the garden to ambush Erestor or Glorfindel when they made the mistake of passing unwarily by.

Later, they took the paintings down to the gallery, and Celebrían ordered the three of them around as she decided where to put them and then where to put the artwork displaced by them, changing her mind a dozen times before Elrohir, laughing, begged for mercy. By that time the dinner bell was ringing, and they went to join the rest of the household in the dining hall. There they found Fëanor and Fingolfin speaking with Fingon and Celebrimbor; none of them were quite smiling—Elrond could not guess at the subject of their conversation—but they were not scowling either. 

Gandalf seated himself at Elrond’s left without ceremony. “I think it’s all going quite well, don’t you?” he said. “Not friends yet, but it won’t be long, I think!”

“I did ask you to warn me if you intended to meddle,” Elrond said. On his other side Celebrían laughed into her wine. “Are you meddling, Gandalf?”

“Me? No, certainly not! It isn’t my fault Fëanor was distracted from some very serious talk this afternoon when we happened to meet in the garden, and I see no harm in promising to show him the fireworks I still have left from Midsummer—”

“Of course you don’t,” Elrond sighed.

“I think he might have some interesting ideas for improvement,” Gandalf said cheerfully. “Perhaps we shall see the results of our collaboration by Midwinter.”

“Do keep any new ideas away from my house please, Gandalf,” said Celebrían. “And from my orchards!”

“Neither building nor tree will be harmed, I promise, Lady Celebrían,” Gandalf said, eyes twinkling. 

“I’m suddenly looking forward again to when you all return to Tirion to be Fingolfin’s problem, rather than mine,” Elrond said, as Fingolfin and Fingon came to take their seats just down the table. Fëanor and Celebrimbor followed a moment later, deep in discussion now about something to do with glass. 

“Still planning to throw us all out, Elrond?” Fingon asked, laughing. “I’d thought you’d forgotten.”

“Are you not going to come to Tirion with us?” Fingolfin added with a smile of his own.

“Certainly not,” Celebrían said before Elrond could reply. “We are going got spend a very cozy winter right here.”

“Not even for Midwinter? Anairë will be very disappointed not to see you.”

“There’s always next year,” said Celebrían. “This year I want quiet.”

As the first course was brought out the conversation shifted, and Fingon called upon Elladan and Elrohir to talk of Middle-earth. “We’ve heard much of your exploits already, but hardly anything from your own lips!”

Elladan laughed. “What would you like to hear? We played but a small part in the War of the Ring—”

“But not unimportant,” Elrond said.

“Certainly! But bringing messages from you to Estel is not as interesting to hear about as other deeds. I can tell you of the Battle of Pelennor Fields, or the fighting at Pelargir, or at the Black Gate, unless you would rather hear more pleasant things. We spent much time in Ithilien with Legolas and his people after the war, when we were not aiding in the rebuilding of Annúminas in the north.”

“Tell us of that!” said Fingon. “And tell us of its first building, too.”

“You’ll have to ask Ada and Naneth about that,” Elrohir said, laughing. “Arnor was founded long before Elladan and I were born.”

“Long before we were wed, even,” Celebrían agreed with a smile, reaching over to tangle her fingers in Elrond’s. “Elrond sorely tried my patience, waiting as long as he did to give even a hint of his intentions.”

“He tried everyone’s patience, as I have heard it told,” Celebrimbor said, grinning at Elrond. “I was very surprised to hear about it; you’ve never been shy, Elrond.”

“The time was not right,” Elrond said, and took a sip of wine so he would not be pressed to explain further. Even now he was not quite able to laugh about it. His reasons had had nothing to do with shyness. Celebrían knew it—had known it then—in spite of her teasing, and she squeezed his hand. Elrond lowered his goblet and added, “I too wish to hear of Annúminas rebuilt, Elladan.”

Elladan obliged, and the subject took up most of the remaining meal; with many interjections from Elrohir, he told many tales of the building work and of the city’s growth afterward, when the Dúnedain of Arnor were at last able to emerge from hiding, grim and elusive Rangers no longer. It gladdened Elrond’s heart to hear, for he knew how it had been the desire of Aragorn’s heart to see the North Kingdom restored. They spoke of the repair of the watchtowers along the Road, too, beginning with Amon Súl, and of the increase in trade and traffic between Annúminas, Bree, and the Shire. 

Maglor wandered in and out of the tales, his name coming up as naturally as Legolas or Gimli or the hobbits. He brought gifts and songs and tales, more often laughing and merry than not. Elrond saw the surprise on Fingon’s face, and on Celebrimbor and Fingolfin’s. Fëanor remained quiet and difficult to make out. The Maglor that Elladan and Elrohir spoke of with such warmth was a quite different figure than the quiet and pained one his kinsman had met again on these shores. 

Later, in their room, Celebrían said, “I think I see now why you haven’t been as worried about Maglor as I had expected.”

“He needs time,” Elrond said. “Sometimes that is the only cure for a troubled heart.”

“Not here,” Celebrían said. “I know that you say he’ll tell you if he thinks he needs to go to Lórien, but what if when he returns you put the suggestion to him? I do think it would help.”

“I will speak to him, of course,” Elrond said. “But remember, he only just arrived. I wonder if everyone here realizes just how overwhelming it is to have every single one of your relations so eager to see you all at the same time.”

Celebrían smiled. “That’s true. I was quite lucky in that way, I suppose—everyone was so very careful with me! Especially my uncle; I think he must have fended off many intruding relations behind my back. But then, I was quite fragile when I arrived.”

“I was not, and I still cannot always remember who I have met and who I haven’t, and I was able to prepare myself for it. Maglor is—he is fragile in some ways still, but not nearly as he once was, and he never expected or wanted to see Fëanor again.”

“Or his brothers?”

“I don’t think even he knows that,” Elrond said.

Celebrían slipped under the blankets to curl up beside him. “You are not fond of Maedhros,” she said.

“It is not easy to like someone who makes it nearly impossible to speak to them, let alone know them,” Elrond said. “He kept his distance when we were young, and I am still surprised he came here at all.”

“He loves his brothers,” Celebrían said. “That, at least, cannot be doubted.”

“I have never doubted it,” Elrond said. And in his turn, Maglor loved Maedhros—but it might not be enough, now, to bridge the gap of six thousand years of absence and grief that lay between them. “I hope they can all come together someday in joy and peace, but I don’t think Maglor is ready.”

“I’ve been in company with all of them—his brothers, I mean,” Celebrían said. “There was that one party last winter that you couldn’t attend—I forget why—but they are rather a lot, though—the five younger ones, anyway. Maedhros is very quiet, but his brothers can be rather boisterous. What about Daeron?”

Elrond lifted his head and blinked at the sudden change in subject. “What about Daeron?”

“He’s off traveling with Maglor, according to Mablung. What do you think of that?”

“I think I am glad of it. They seemed to be friends, when I saw them together in Avallónë.”

Celebrían laughed. Her hair gleamed in the moonlight coming through the window. “I saw them together there too, and I think Daeron had something besides friendship on his mind.”

Elrond thought back to his own brief conversation with the two of them, but could not see it. “If you say so,” he said, resting his head on the pillow again. 

“Don’t you think it would be good for him?” Celebrían asked, raising her own head up, resting on her elbow to look down at him. 

Elrond wrinkled his nose. “I think,” he said, “that whatever happens between Maglor and Daeron is their business, and certainly not something I need to think about.” She laughed. “Wherever they are, I hope their summer is passing more peacefully than ours.”

“Ours has been surprisingly peaceful, all things considered,” Celebrían said. “We will not be hosting kings and princes forever. I did mean it when I said I have no intention of going to Tirion this winter. I hope neither you nor the boys were hoping for endless rounds of parties and feasts.”

“We are not,” Elrond said. “I very much hope to spend this winter more quietly than we have spent the summer.” He suspected it was unlikely to happen, but at least nowadays his vain hopes were as inconsequential as a quiet house. He sighed and lifted Celebrían’s other hand to kiss her fingers. “I am very sorry that you have to deal with all this trouble, too.”

“They’re my relations as well as yours,” Celebrían said, “and no one has broken anything yet, or even gotten shoved into the fishpond! I don’t mind a little chaos if it means the mending of these old rifts. I certainly don’t mind receiving a few new pieces of jewelry made by Fëanor himself while he gets reacquainted with his craft!”

“Is that what he’s been doing out there? Making jewelry?”

“At least in part. I showed you that lovely bracelet he gave me.” Celebrían lay back down, curling up around Elrond with their legs tangled together and her hair spilling across the pillow like starlight. “I heard him laughing out there earlier today with Celebrimbor, and for a moment I mistook the sound for Maglor. You’ll talk to him about Lórien when he returns?”

“Yes, of course.”

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It rained in the night; Maglor woke from a dream that was not quite a nightmare, but which left him unable to return to sleep even as the details slipped away upon waking. His heart beat hard in his chest as he caught his breath. It was very dark in the tent, and very quiet but for the soft breathing of Daeron and his brothers all around him. He was warm, Daeron tucked up against his side, an arm resting across his stomach. The rain was a steady patter on the canvas, comforting and familiar in its rhythms. 

Then someone stirred beside him, breath hitching—Maedhros. He had never had screaming nightmares, had never tossed and turned, but Maglor had quickly and early learned to recognize the signs. Old habits took over and he reached over without thinking, taking Maedhros’ hand in his, rubbing his thumb over Maedhros’ knuckles, and feeling Maedhros grip his fingers tightly, desperately. He couldn’t tell if Maedhros woke or not, in the dark.

After his rescue from Angband Maedhros had slept very little. He had trusted no one but Maglor and Fingon to be there when he did, even as he dreaded being alone, and in spite of Fingon’s deeds there was still so much tension between their houses. Their other brothers hadn’t helped, fear making already-bad tempers worse, but Maglor had been willing to do anything for Maedhros’ sake—and the real healing of the rift had started when he and Fingon had come together to find a way to help Maedhros sleep. Maglor had the power, but Fingon had had the hope, and the right words. 

Maglor hummed one of those songs now. It was not one he had ever sung for anyone else, but he put forth the power of it to wrap around everyone in the tent, murmuring words for rest and ease, for hope of waking to a bright sunrise. Maedhros’ grip on his fingers eased as his breathing deepened and evened out into deep and peaceful sleep, but he did not let go. Sleep did not return to Maglor, but he felt better for having assured everyone else would rest undisturbed until morning, and he lay in the dark and listened to the rain until it faded away and morning light began to brighten the tent.

No one was in a particular hurry, in spite of their decision to depart, and it was noon before they had finished packing their things. Daeron whistled for the horses and they all came trotting out of the heather. Pídhres clawed her way up Maglor’s cloak to curl around his neck while he knelt to scoop up Leicheg, also returning from her morning’s foraging. They both purred as he secured Leicheg in her pouch across his chest. Once he had both them and himself in the saddle he glanced toward Maedhros, who was already mounted and waiting for Ambarussa to stop bickering. He looked…not fine, but less tired than he had seemed the day before. Less fragile. Maglor looked away before Maedhros noticed him staring. Huan trotted over to rest his big head on Maglor’s leg. “For goodness’ sake, Huan, you can stop hovering over me. Celegorm is right there.” But he scratched Huan behind the ears and ignored Pídhres quiet hiss. 

“Are we ready?” Celegorm called out once they were all in the saddle. “Try to keep up!” His horse leaped forward into the heather, and with a shout of laughter Ambarussa charged after, Huan at their heels. The rest of them followed, though not quite as quickly. Maglor let the rest of them go before him, and turned to take one last look at Ekkaia’s calm waters. He was glad to have come, and maybe even glad to have found his brothers there. As his gaze strayed up the coast he thought he caught a glimpse of white-tiled roofs in the distance—Nienna’s halls, revealed in silent reminder and invitation, should any of them desire her help. 

“Maglor?” Maedhros had lingered too—long habit, Maglor thought. If Maedhros was not taking the lead, he was bringing up the rear to make sure no one was left behind. Some things never changed.

“I’m coming.” Maglor tore his gaze from the water and turned back eastward. 

They rode at a leisurely pace, apart from Celegorm and Ambarussa’s initial race ahead. Someone called for a traveling song and Daeron obliged before Maglor had to come up with an excuse not to. His throat was still sore, and he felt like his skin had turned to glass, fragile and transparent, and he did not think he could manage any kind of cheerful music. The echo of Ekkaia still played in his mind, themes of sorrow and of hope mingling together. There was a song of his own there too, somewhere, but he would not be able to tease it out until he could shut himself away in his own room at home in Imloth Ningloron, with his harp and a stack of paper to scribble on. 

The sky remained overcast, and the evening grew misty, though no more rain fell, and they found shelter at the edge of a small wood with tall trees and a thick canopy. Ambarussa built a cheerful fire, and Maglor found himself sitting between Caranthir and Curufin. Celegorm brought out a palantír. “Ammë wanted to know when we were on our way home,” he said, “but I think I won’t tell her that Cáno is with us. Let it be a surprise!” He grinned at Maglor, and turned his attention back to the stone before Maglor had to try to summon a smile in return. 

“We can tell her if you want us to,” Curufin said once Celegorm was absorbed in the stone. 

“No, that’s all right,” said Maglor. It was somehow easier to commit to going when he knew he was not expected. 

“We looked for you a few weeks ago,” Caranthir said. “In the palantír, I mean.”

Maglor looped his arms around his knees. “Did you find me?”

“Curvo caught a glimpse. You were trying to get your cat out of a tree.”

“I do that rather often. She likes to climb things, but can never get herself back down.” The cat in question had gone to sit by the fire where Ambarussa and Daeron were cooking dinner. Leicheg had vanished into the twilight, and he could hear her snuffling through the leaves somewhere behind them. They must have been looking for him the same day he met Daeron on the road; she hadn’t actually gotten herself stuck anywhere since then, though now that he’d had the thought he would probably find her stuck in a bramble bush the next morning. 

“Then we thought—you can’t hide from us in the past,” Caranthir went on. “And we all managed to find you then.”

Maglor didn’t look at either of them; he kept his gaze on Pídhres. “And what did you see?” he whispered.

“I saw you circling the harp we made like you thought it was going to bite you,” Curufin said quietly. 

“That was a long time ago,” Maglor said, closing his eyes. “I didn’t know at first that it was yours.”

“We made it for you, you know,” Caranthir said. “We just…never got to give it to you. I’m glad it came to you in the end, however it managed to survive—well, everything.”

“You’d cut your hair,” Curufin added. “And you were…” He hesitated. Maglor knew what he’d seen—he’d seen him as he’d been upon first leaving Dol Guldur, afraid of his own shadow, unable to speak and unable to bring himself to even touch the strings of a harp, let alone make music. It was a good thing to be reminded of, he thought as he glanced toward his harp case. He was so much stronger now than he’d been then. He could make music, and write songs, and if he was still apprehensive about performing—even that was fading, little by little. If his brothers had appeared in Imladris as they had by Ekkaia, he would never have been able to speak to them, or even look them in the face; no promise to Elrond would have stopped him from running away. However fragile and terrible he might feel now, he did not feel like that. “You were very thin,” Curufin finished. 

“You saw me just after I first came to Imladris,” Maglor said. He let go of his knees to wrap his arms around his brothers instead; they both leaned against him without hesitation. “It was a long time ago.”

“Did you keep it? The harp?”

“I played it until I left,” Maglor said. “I brought two that I made myself with me—and that harp I left in Annúminas. It will become an heirloom of the Stewards of Arnor. I wanted something of yours to remain in Middle-earth—something beautiful.” Himring still stood, a monument to either their hubris or their hope—he had never been able to decide which—and Eldarion bore the elessar stone that Celebrimbor had made; in Minas Tirith too there was a small figurine that Nerdanel had made of porcelain, of a dancing figure and a spray of flowers and a tree, depending upon how one looked at it; she had given it once to the Lady of Andúnië, who had taken it then to Middle-earth where it had been gifted in turn to Elrond, and then to Maglor. He had in his turn given it to Queen Silmariën as a wedding gift. Not all that they had made or done was terrible. There had been great joy and beauty too, when the Oath had slept. “I loved it,” he added after a moment. “I thought of you every time I played.”

“But you did not play right away,” Curufin said. 

“That had nothing to do with the harp, and everything to do with—with me.” He hadn’t even known at first that his brothers had made it; it had just been the harp Erestor had brought out of storage for him, hard enough to look at all on its own. Erestor, of course, had known all along. Maglor had asked him once why he’d never said anything, and he’d responded with such a knowing look that Maglor had just gone away again feeling sheepish. Of course he had said nothing; Maglor would never have gone near it if he’d known from the start that his brothers had made it, for reasons neither definable nor rational. It had been hard enough finding their marks himself. He would never say anything of that to Caranthir or Curufin, though. They did not need to know it, and it no longer mattered. He’d gotten over the fear in the end.

The next morning Maglor found himself beside Celegorm, as the twins ranged ahead and Maedhros fell behind with Caranthir. “You aren’t singing,” Celegorm remarked after a while. Maglor didn’t answer; a sarcastic or bantering reply was what would be expected, but he didn’t have it in him. “Why not?”

“Whatever your memory might tell you, I have never spent my life in perpetual song.”

“No,” Celegorm agreed, “but when we used to travel together you had all sorts of traveling songs.”

“Nothing is stopping any of you from singing,” Maglor said. “You all have fair voices.”

“We’re all sick of each other’s voices,” Celegorm said. “It’s yours that we’ve been missing.”

Maglor didn’t look at him, keeping his gaze on the sky in the east, where the clouds were breaking. The wind was at their backs, and still carried a faint chill—or maybe it was a chill only Maglor could feel. He’d dreamed of Dol Guldur the night before, again. It hadn’t been enough to wake him in a panic, but he’d dreamed of lying on the cold stones with blood slowly seeping out of him, and even waking with Daeron’s arms around him and Pídhres curled up on his chest hadn’t been enough to banish the feeling. “I’m in no mood for singing, Tyelko.”

“You were in the mood before you met us,” Celegorm said in a low voice.

“It’s nothing to do with you.” Maglor reached out, and gripped Celegorm’s hand tightly when he reached back. “It’s hard to perform,” he said. “I don’t know how to explain more than that. I’m sorry.”

“I don’t like that it’s performance when it’s only us,” Celegorm said. “What do you think we’re going to say?”

“Maybe it’s not the right word. I’m not—it’s not that I fear your judgment. I can’t really explain it. But even aside from that, I really am not in the mood for singing today.”

“Did you not sleep well?”

Maglor managed a smile. “Well enough. If I had slept truly poorly everyone would know it.” He squeezed Celegorm’s hand once more before letting go. “Please don’t wor—”

“Don’t you dare tell me not to worry about you.”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to breathe with everyone always looking at me like I’m going to fall to pieces at any moment,” Maglor said, unable to quiet the edge that crept into his voice. “Bad enough I know Elrond and the twins are worrying, back at Imloth Ningloron, on top of having to deal with—” He shook his head. “I’m—if I am not fine now I will be. So yes, I do wish you wouldn’t worry about me.” He wished they were out of the maze of rocky hills that they’d entered that morning, so that he might escape all conversation by galloping away ahead of everyone. But they weren’t, and when they crested a hill and he could see the land stretching out before them, it did not look like they would be leaving it any time soon. They were taking a more northerly route than he and Daeron had come, and he didn’t remember the lands well enough to know what to expect over the next few days. Pídhres perched before Maglor on the saddle, watching the lands passing by with interest. In her little pouch Leicheg sniffed the air and purred. Celegorm didn’t leave his side to rejoin the others, but he said nothing more.

They left the cool breezes of Ekkaia behind, and had two days of hot summer sunshine before clouds gathered again and it rained. Pídhres complained loudly from her warm and dry saddlebag; Leicheg was likewise secure in her pouch, but she did not mind the rain nearly as much as Pídhres did, and when they stopped to make camp and Maglor released her she scurried away into the wet without hesitation. 

Both tents were set up that night, and Maglor escaped into his and Daeron’s as soon as they finished securing it. Daeron followed a moment later. “What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Brothers,” Maglor said, yanking off his boots. “I’m—I’m all right. I just feel like they’re all watching me every moment, and I can’t bear any more of it.”

“Do you want me to leave you alone a while?”

“No!” Maglor pulled him down onto the blankets. “You haven’t been staring at me all day.”

“Yes I have,” Daeron laughed. “Come here.” He slid his fingers into Maglor’s hair to tug him in for a deep and fervent kiss. Maglor surrendered to it gladly, sliding his own hands under Daeron’s shirt to find smooth skin. The world shrank to the size of their tent, inhabited by only the two of them, a place where nothing else mattered—not brothers, not the weather, neither the past nor the future. 

The world outside eventually had to intrude again, but not until the next morning. Maglor woke to someone pulling the tent flap open. “The sun is both up and out,” Celegorm said, “if you two care to join the rest of us on our journey—” He broke off, and Maglor raised his head to see him staring at him. “Cáno, what—”

Maglor had neglected to put a shirt back on, and the blankets had slipped down to his waist in the night. He jerked them up over his chest. “Give us a few minutes,” he said. Celegorm withdrew hurriedly, and Maglor muttered a few choice words as he sat up and grabbed his clothes. In the process he dislodged Pídhres and Leicheg from the pile, and they tumbled into a game of chase around the tent. 

“It was only a matter of time,” Daeron said quietly as he pulled Maglor’s hair free of his shirt. He kissed the back of his neck before swiftly braiding his hair for him. 

“I would have liked it to be a time of my own choosing.” Maglor turned around to return the favor, though his fingers shook a little as he parted Daeron’s hair. 

No one would look him in the face when he and Daeron emerged from the tent, except for Maedhros—and Maedhros, Maglor thought bitterly, had surely already seen it in the palantír, the brand of Sauron on his chest, the thing that marked him as something apart from any prisoner just taken to torment or punish with no other real purpose. He did not look at any of them either, and kept his head down as he and Daeron packed their things, and his brothers packed theirs. Pídhres climbed up onto Maglor’s shoulders, and he turned his face into her fur for a moment, glad of the chance to hide, for however short a time. Daeron stayed by his side, and when they let everyone else ride ahead of them, no one protested. Maedhros looked like he wished to say something, but he glanced at Daeron and must have seen something discouraging on his face, because he just turned and trotted away to catch up with the rest. They were all in a knot, six heads leaning together and speaking quietly. They didn't look back, but he knew they were talking of him. 

“I hate this,” he whispered.

“They love you,” Daeron said quietly. He took Maglor’s hand and kissed his fingers. “Just give them time to get over the initial shock, as you did me.”

“You knew to expect something terrible. And—I meant to show you,” Maglor said. “I never…” He had never wanted his brothers to see, to know the full extent of what had happened to him. It was already bad enough they’d all had to see Maedhros, after Angband. Bad enough that Maedhros had seen him in the midst of it in the palantír. “I just wish he hadn’t seen the brand.” Anything else he could bear, he thought. The ugliest of the other scars had faded, visible to him only by a small discoloration of the skin because he knew what had been there. The cuts and the scars from the whips on his back and his arms and legs were nothing that stood out—notable only for the number, not the shape of them. The brand, though—that was as livid as the day he’d gotten it, its meaning unmistakable. 

It hurt, thinking about it. His lips hurt too, remembering the needle that had come only minutes after the brand. 

“Take out your harp,” Daeron said. “Let us continue the song we began at Ekkaia.”

“I can’t—”

“You need to be thinking of something else, so let’s have an argument about scansion and your horrendous ideas of rhyme.” There was nothing wrong with the rhymes he’d used in the song about Ekkaia, and Maglor said so as he reached for his harp case. Daeron grinned at him. “Then try to keep it up for the rest of the song!”

Their song making lasted the rest of the day, and by the time Celegorm called a halt Maglor was in a fairer mood—and the clouds had returned. “We had such pleasant weather riding out,” Amrod said as he frowned up at the steel-grey sky. 

“We’ll reach the grasslands tomorrow or the next day, and we can outrun the clouds,” said Celegorm and added, in a teasing manner that sounded forced, “if Maglor and Daeron can keep up.”

“I’ve kept pace with the fastest horsewomen of the eastern steppes,” Daeron said mildly, “and they put the famed Rohirrim to shame. You need not worry about me.”

Maglor knew he was meant to say something similar—to invoke his keeping of the Gap with cavalry, and all the races he had won against his brothers in their youth. Instead he found himself thinking of his race with Galadriel—begun to escape those same brothers—and said nothing, instead turning to tend to his horse, resting his head against her warm neck for a moment. She nosed at him, and he stroked her velvety nose before removing the saddle and letting her wander away with the others to graze. Huan followed them; they were approaching wide open country where wild beasts roamed. Maglor wasn’t worried, any more than he had been on the journey west; Huan’s keen senses would alert them to danger long before it reached them—and his mere presence would be more than enough to frighten away any but the most desperate of predators. 

The clouds hid the stars, but it did not rain, so they did not bring out the tents. Caranthir disappeared to seek firewood, and Maglor and Daeron went to forage for whatever they might find—mostly herbs, but it was enough to go with the birds Celegorm had managed to shoot at the same time. Curufin and Maedhros took over cooking. It was all so very normal, except that everyone was quieter than they should have been, and being so careful around Maglor as though afraid to speak to him at all, lest he—what, burst into tears? Snap at them? He didn’t know, and what was worse, he didn’t know that they were wrong. It had been starting to get easier—being around them, talking to them, seeing them as his living brothers and not just ghosts brought out of the mists of Ekkaia—but all that was gone now, and he didn’t know how to get it back.

As the afternoon slowly darkened into evening he leaned against Daeron and listened to the quiet conversation flowing around the campfire, letting his hair fall forward to hide his face. No one called for music that night. 

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The days after Celegorm inadvertently discovered the worst of Maglor’s scars were not good days. The sun had come out only for a few hours before the clouds gathered again; the heat remained, though, so the air was muggy and heavy. Maedhros did not sleep well, and his dreams were all of Beleriand at the end, breaking apart and slowly sinking under the inexorable rush of the incoming tides. He kept trying to find Maglor in them, but he never could. He only caught the briefest hint of his voice on the wind, an echo of lamentation in the distance, plaintive as a gull’s lonely cry, forever out of reach. 

Waking was no better. Celegorm and Curufin were butting heads again, and Caranthir kept making comments that were unhelpful at best and provoking at worst. Ambarussa abandoned the rest of them entirely to hunt through the hills or scout ahead for a path out of them; they did not, as Celegorm had predicted, find their way back to the plains after only another day or two. They kept running up against gorges and gullies impassible for the horses, and a river that snaked through the rocky landscape that they could not cross, for it was swollen and fast-flowing with the recent rains, and in the places where the current did not seem quite so bad the banks were too steep on at least one side of it. 

“I don’t remember anything like these hills on the way west,” Daeron remarked when they had to backtrack for the third time in one day.

“The lands change, sometimes,” Amrod said. “They shift, and distances get longer or shorter, or you find yourself in places you never meant to go—it’s the Valar, the way their power is sort of…soaked into the land. They don’t do it on purpose. It just sort of happens.”

“They do it on purpose sometimes,” Amras said, “but you can usually tell when they do.”

Maedhros woke one morning with a headache that he could not get rid of and his hair all in knots and snarls, and to make matters worse still, when he went looking for it he couldn’t find his comb. “Here, use mine,” Curufin said. “Or I can comb it out for you.” 

“All right,” Maedhros sighed, and sat down so Curufin could kneel behind him. He was gentler than Amras, taking care not to pull too hard. Maedhros became aware of Maglor frowning in his direction, but he had already turned away by the time Maedhros glanced at him. He watched Maglor murmur something to Daeron before disappearing into a stand of gnarled trees on the nearest hillside. 

“Do you want the braids tighter so they don’t come undone?” Curufin asked as he worked the last tangles out of the ends of Maedhros’ hair. 

“No,” Maedhros said. “Just one—loose, please.”

“Does your head ache?”

“It will pass.”

“Mm.” Curufin wove the braid quickly and tied it off. “There, done.”

“Thanks. And—Curvo.” Maedhros caught his hand when he went to rise. “Stop snarling at everyone, please.”

Curufin grimaced. “Sorry,” he murmured. 

“And stop treating Maglor like he’s made of glass. He won’t break if you say good morning to him.”

“You haven’t been saying good morning,” Curufin pointed out. Maedhros just looked at him until he turned away. “All right, but it’s not—”

“Nothing has changed. The scars were there all along; you just know what they look like now. You didn’t act this way when I came back from—”

“He isn’t you,” Curufin said. “We had time to—and you—it was different. Your scars were different. You came back still full of fire, and we had a war to fight. Maglor looks like he’ll break apart if we—”

“If Maglor was going to break apart,” Maedhros said, “he would have done it long ago. Ignore the scars, Curvo.”

“I thought we weren’t to take orders from you anymore,” Caranthir remarked from nearby.

“If you want him to stay, you’ll take this one.” Maedhros fixed his glare on Caranthir next, who averted his gaze immediately. Curufin went to help saddle the horses, and Maedhros pinched the bridge of his nose, wishing his temples would stop throbbing. He was sick of travel; he wanted to be back at his mother’s house where he could retreat to his own small bedroom and lock the door behind him, where he could expect to be left to his own devices and his own thoughts without being scolded for brooding; where he wouldn’t have to deal with his brothers’ ill tempers, or try to exist in the same space as Maglor, who so clearly still did not want to be anywhere near him. 

A sudden small weight on his lap startled Maedhros, and when he opened his eyes he found Maglor’s little grey cat sitting on his knees. She rose up to place her forepaws on his chest, and rubbed her head into his palm when he stroked her soft, silky fur. She purred and nuzzled at his chin before climbing up to curl around his neck. Maedhros looked over at Daeron, but found him laughing as the hedgehog evaded his attempts to pick her up. Maglor, though, had reappeared, and was watching Maedhros with an inscrutable expression on his face. He looked a little like Fëanor when he had that expression, though Maedhros knew better than to ever say that out loud. In his hands were a few pieces of wood. When Maedhros met his gaze he turned away, tucking the wood into one of his bags before smiling at Daeron, who scooped up the hedgehog with a triumphant cry. 

“You need to go back to Maglor,” Maedhros told Pídhres, who ignored him and settled even more onto his shoulders, rubbing her head against his cheek. Maedhros sighed and got to his feet. 

Before he could say anything when he approached, Maglor turned and said, “She’ll only climb right back up if you put her down. If she’s really bothering you I’ll take her, but she won’t be happy.”

“She’s not bothering me,” Maedhros said. “She’s the least bothersome creature in this entire party.” Behind Maglor, Daeron snorted. “But she’s your cat—”

“She’s her own cat, and she’ll kick up a fuss if we try to move her.” Maglor reached out; Maedhros flinched at the sudden movement, but he was only scratching his cat behind the ears. “Her names is Pídhres because she kept climbing up my clothes when I attempted to leave her with the rest of her litter mates before I took ship. I’m only surprised it took her this long to realize you are the tallest thing around that she can climb.”

“Better you than a tree,” Daeron added. “We cannot just ask a tree to please set the cat down when she starts crying about being stuck and expect it to oblige.”

“Are you sure?” Maedhros asked Maglor. He’d seen how attached Maglor was to both his cat and his hedgehog. 

Maglor didn’t smile, but his eyes softened. It was the same look that Elrond had given him weeks before, along with the satchel and the carvings that he’d kept for so long, and for some reason that made Maedhros’ eyes sting. “I’m sure, Maedhros.”

They rode on, and by noon came again to the river; beyond it, at last, the hills opened up and through the lingering mists they could see the wide open rolling grasslands. There was still no good place to cross, however, and Celegorm was growing ever more frustrated—and nervous. Maedhros kept to the rear, scratching Pídhres behind the ears absently as he tried to think as little as possible. His head still ached, and he was hot, and the hills seemed suddenly far too close and too high around them, hemming them in like prison walls. 

“This will take a while,” Caranthir said finally, tuning back from Celegorm and Ambarussa. “Might as well make camp here.”

“It’s a terrible place to camp,” said Curufin, also eying the hillsides. 

“Only if you’re thinking of defense,” Caranthir said.

Curufin opened his mouth to say something, caught Maedhros’ eye, and changed course, instead bringing up rain and suggesting they move back to a wider opening between the hills they’d passed through before reaching the river. Caranthir also glanced at Maedhros before agreeing, and they all retreated while Celegorm and Ambarussa split up to try to find any place that was a better crossing. No one really thought they’d find one. Celegorm left Huan behind, and a warning that he’d spotted the tracks of a large cat a mile behind them. Maedhros dropped to the ground with relief, leaning against his horse for a moment. Pídhres purred into his ear; he still felt terrible, but somehow that helped. After a moment he straightened and went to help Caranthir set up the tent. The clearing was only big enough for one, which would make things uncomfortable come evening when it would surely rain again, but there was nothing to be done about it. As he secured the last peg, Maedhros glanced up to see Maglor speaking to Curufin; both of them glanced his way. Curufin looked away when Maedhros glared, but Maglor’s gaze lingered until Maedhros was the one to turn his head. He didn’t like the look he’d seen there. It reminded him too much of Beleriand—at the end, when it had been just the two of them, both of them withdrawing ever inward. 

No, that wasn’t true. Maedhros had been the one to withdraw. Maglor had kept reaching for him, even unto the very end—the same way he’d reached out for that mallorn leaf long ago. It was now that he was no longer reaching out. Once the tent was up Maedhros retreated inside to bury his head under his blankets where it was still too hot but at least it was dark. He even managed to fall asleep, rousing only when Caranthir woke him for dinner—roasted rabbit, thanks to Amras. “I didn’t find any good crossings, though,” Amras was saying as Maedhros emerged from the tent. It was not yet dark, but the clouds were heavy and steel-grey. “Nor did Amrod, and it will only be worse in the morning.”

Maglor sat near the fire, carving something. It was the first Maedhros had seen him with a knife and a piece of wood in his hands. Daeron sat beside him, and they were talking quietly together. Pídhres had abandoned Maedhros when he’d retreated into the tent, and was chasing the hedgehog around the fire, dodging around people’s legs and arms—including Maedhros, who then suddenly found himself with a lap full of small animal. The hedgehog seemed to be trying to burrow into his shirt, and then curled up into a spiky ball to deter Pídhres, who squeaked indignantly before fleeing back to Maglor, who scooped her up with a soft laugh, kissing her as she rubbed her head into his face. 

Amrod dropped down beside Maedhros as the hedgehog—was her name Leicheg? Maedhros couldn’t recall—unrolled and then curled up again, without the protruding spikes this time. She started purring. “How’s your head?” Amrod asked, bumping his shoulder into Maedhros’. 

“Better. Where’s Tyelko?”

“Still looking upstream for a crossing. He’ll be back before full dark. We’re going to have to leave the hills before we cross the river, I think.”

As though summoned, Celegorm returned then, looking frustrated and like he would snap at anyone who tried to speak to him. Curufin got up anyway, going to speak quietly as Celegorm tended his horse. It didn’t turn into an argument, which was something. Maedhros sighed, and let himself lean against Amrod until the food was ready to be passed around. There was still tension, but it wasn’t quite as bad. And after he ate, Maglor brought out his harp. He didn’t sing, but he played—gentle, melancholy music that wrapped around them all like a soft blanket. Maedhros didn’t know if it was his own weariness catching up to him again or if it was a result of the music, but he nearly fell asleep before Amrod roused him and retrieved the hedgehog so Maedhros could retreat back into the tent. He fell into his blankets and buried his face in his arms until sleep found him again. 

He dreamed, again, of breaking Beleriand. In the dream the ground cracked at his feet, a chasm opening and widening, and when he looked up from the darkness of it he found Maglor on the other side. Maedhros reached for him, but the ground shook suddenly and this time it was Maglor that fell into the earth, vanishing into the darkness before Maedhros could even fall to his knees. A scream rose up in his throat and he woke choking on it, to pale light and the soft sound of rain falling outside. His brothers were stirring around him, and Maedhros lay for a moment, remembering how to breathe. When he thought he could lift his face without betraying himself, he pushed himself up, and set about gathering up his things, rolling up his blankets clumsily and grabbing his pack to pull out his cloak. He paused, though, when he opened it. A comb sat on top of his folded cloak, newly-carved, with a pattern of leaves along the handle. It was both unexpected and, somehow, not surprising in the least. How many times had he opened his pack in Beleriand to find an almost identical comb sitting there—or maybe two or three of them, because he’d been forever losing such things? They just hadn’t seemed to matter, then. 

Maedhros looked over at Maglor, but found him already ducking out of the tent, hood up to shield him from the rain and to obscure his face. 

“Nelyo?” Caranthir was watching Maedhros. “All right?”

“Fine.” Maedhros shoved his blankets into his pack and flipped it shut. Some things settled into place in his mind, making sudden sense—of course Maglor couldn’t bear to be near him. Of course he could not forgive him. Of course there wasn’t anything Maedhros could do to fix it. Nothing had changed, had it? Maedhros was still as broken as he had been in Beleriand, unable to see a way forward, and Maglor was the only one who could tell. Bearing that in mind, though, he was more careful that morning to make sure he had all of his things, including the new comb.

Outside the tent in the rain, Celegorm was starting to talk about which direction they should go to try to leave the hill country and find a better river crossing. It would take days, though, and Maedhros felt exhausted just thinking about it. 

“I have an idea,” Maglor said, speaking up unexpectedly when Celegorm paused. “It might not work—but if it does we can cross right here.”

“Are you going to sing up a bridge for us?” Caranthir asked, only a little sarcastic. Curufin nudged him with an elbow.

“No,” Maglor said. “I think…I think that I can sing the current slow enough for us to cross.” He glanced at Daeron as he spoke; Daeron tilted his head thoughtfully, regarding the river for a moment. “It might not work,” Maglor said again. 

Once upon a time Maglor would not have even hesitated, Maedhros thought. He would have just started to sing and expected it to work simply because he wanted it to. 

“It’s much harder to slow a river down than to call it to flood,” Daeron said finally, “but I think I see how you might do it.”

“I know a song for flooding,” Maglor said, “that Elrond used to call the Bruinen to the defense of Rivendell. If I change the words and the key so it’s mirrored…” He hummed a few bars, and then a few more in a different key, though Maedhros could recognize no more than that.

“Yes, I think that would work,” Daeron said. He drew out his flute and they rode forward to the river’s edge, talking in musical terms and half-formed sentences, almost as in tune with the other’s thoughts in this as Ambarussa were all of the time. 

“Is that what they were like at the Mereth Aderthad?” Curufin asked Maedhros in a low voice.

“No. Or at least not when among other company. I don’t know what they spoke of alone.”

“If they did much speaking,” Celegorm muttered. Maedhros shot him a look. “What? You don’t know what they did—”

“I know what Maglor didn’t do.” What he’d known better than to do. “We went there in pursuit of friendship. That’s all that happened.”

“That’s not all that’s happening now,” Curufin murmured.

“Leave it,” Caranthir said. “You don’t see the rest of us speculating about you and Rundamírë.”

“Anymore, you mean,” Curufin said sourly. They’d gotten all the teasing out of the way during his courtship, thousands of years ago now. That had been a different time, when such things were less fraught and none of them truly minded six other noses being stuck into their business. 

“You could try being happy for him,” Amras pointed out. “I think Daeron is the best thing to have happened to him in a very long time.”

Daeron raised his flute and began to play then, cutting off all further conversation. Maglor waited a few beats, and then began to sing. Maedhros’ horse shifted beneath him, and he heard more than one of his brothers gasp softly as the sheer power of Maglor’s voice made itself known, as though the very air around them were a plucked harp string humming with it. He did not sing very loudly, but through the rain Maedhros heard every word, felt every note. Daeron too was putting forth his power, through his flute, but it was Maglor’s voice and Maglor’s words that shaped it the way his hands shaped wood or clay, molding it into precisely what he wanted it to be. Maedhros could hear again the Sea in his voice, the inexorable power of the tides and the rush of the waves—of Belegaer, rather than Ekkaia. Maybe it was only that time had faded his memory of what it had been like before, but it seemed that Maglor’s voice was stronger than it had been long ago. Certainly it was stronger than it had been in their youth—stronger and tempered, used with iron control and intention. There was none of the hesitation now that Maedhros had heard when he’d sung for them by Ekkaia, nothing rough or unpolished about it, though it was a song he had made in only the last few minutes.

At first, in spite of the power and skill on display, it did not seem as though the river would respond. The water continued to flow as quickly as it had when they woke. After several minutes, though, Maedhros saw the change, and by the time the song had been sung through the water was low and slow enough that they could ford it. Maglor began the song again, and lifted his hand to wave the rest of them forward. “Hurry up, then!” Celegorm led the way, all of them splashing quickly across. The water was still quite high, and the current still strong, but it did no more than make Huan stagger a little before he scrambled up the far bank; he darted ahead, nose to the ground as though he’d caught a sudden scent. Maedhros stopped once he was out of the water and turned to watch as Daeron, still playing his flute, followed. Maglor came last, and only once his horse was fully out of the water did he stop his singing, slumping forward suddenly, taking a deep, gasping breath. Maedhros grabbed the reins and led him a little farther from the bank before the anticipated flood of the held-back water came crashing through. 

“Are you all right?” he asked, alarmed. Maglor had only ever been so spent after a song if they’d been in battle, or if he was exhausted even before he’d started to sing. Maedhros knew little about songs of power, it was true, but he didn’t think Maglor should be so wearied by this one.

“I’m fine,” Maglor said hoarsely. He was pale, and Maedhros couldn’t tell if it was rain or sweat that beaded on his brow and upper lip before he wiped it away. “I’m fine. I—”

Huan began barking, suddenly—a great loud warning bark—and Celegorm cried out just as something moved on the hillside above them, behind Maedhros, dislodging a handful of stones to rain down the sheer embankment. It was a cat—a big hunting cat, tawny and too skinny, and Maedhros moved without thinking as it leaped; he shoved Maglor out of the way, throwing himself out of the saddle and between him and the cat, which landed on him hard, sending them both tumbling to the ground—and down into the river. Claws raked down his side and teeth sank into the arm Maedhros threw up to protect his face. He might have screamed; he might have heard the twang of bowstrings. When they hit the water the cat released him, falling away with an aborted scream into the strengthening current, and Maedhros struggled to find the surface.

“Maedhros!” Maglor was there, suddenly, reaching for him. Maedhros reached back, but just as he grasped Maglor’s hand the floodwaters arrived, and a great wall of brown water and debris overtook him. 

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The force of Maedhros’ push sent Maglor tumbling out of his saddle to the ground. Pídhres fell out of his hood with an indignant yowl, and Maglor looked up to see a large tawny cat land on Maedhros, skin and bones but still heavy enough to knock him backward as his horse lunged forward in panic. Maglor’s horse bolted too, but he paid no attention, because the cat had thrown itself and Maedhros into the river—the river that was about to flood with all of the water his song had held back. “Maedhros!” he cried as three bows twanged. One arrow went wide but the other two struck the cat as it released Maedhros with a scream, taken by the current already. Maglor scrambled to the edge of the bank; someone behind him called his name but he wasn’t listening. He reached for Maedhros, who thrashed in the water, trying to pull himself out, but he felt the ground rumbling underneath him, and as soon as their hands met the water hit, a great tumult of brown water and debris that overflowed the banks with a great roar.

It was like being struck by a wall of stone rather than water. Maglor felt himself tumbling through the current head over heels, the only sure thing his grip on Maedhros’ hand until he lost that, too. It was impossible to tell how far the river carried them or for how long, and all he could think was that he did not want to die—not like this. He hadn’t survived the breaking of Beleriand and the torments of Dol Guldur just to drown in the wilderness of Valinor. He’d promised Elrond that he would return—he’d promised him that he wouldn’t disappear again. If he died now his body might never be found, and no one would know what became of him until Mandos at last released him, and who could guess how long that would take? If he would ever come back?

He struggled to find the surface, but every time he broke through he got a lungful of almost as much water as he did air, and he couldn’t even call out before he was dragged under again. He hit one large rock and then another, and dragged along the riverbed, churning up even more mud and stones, and then it felt as though the river turned suddenly into hands, scooping him up and in the wrong direction, out of the current instead of with it, dropping him onto the stony bank before retreating. For a moment he thought he glimpsed a face, and eyes like bright sparks in the water, there and gone again in a blink alongside the passing and bemused attention of an Ainu surprised by both the presence and the carelessness of the pair of Children they had found in their domain, before he rolled over to expel all of the water inside of him, coughing and retching until he could fill his lungs almost without choking, and all that came up from his stomach was bile that burned his already-aching throat. 

Slowly, he rose to his hands and knees. His cloak was twisted around him, soaked and heavy, and he fumbled with shaking fingers to get it off. Somewhere nearby he heard someone else retching and coughing, and looked up to see Maedhros, bloody and battered but alive. “Maedhros?”

“Maglor?” Maedhros choked, doubling over—and then collapsing entirely. 

Maglor scrambled over, slipping on the wet stones and falling hard to his knees at Maedhros’ side. “No, no, don’t do this,” he gasped as he rolled Maedhros over, off of his back and onto his side. He wasn’t moving. He was covered in blood, with more soaking through his shirt with every passing second. “Maedhros!” Maglor hit him, hard, between the shoulders blades, and shook him, and called his name, begged him to wake up, to breathe, but nothing seemed to work. He’d somehow forgotten everything he knew about helping someone pulled out of the water, and as a last desperate effort he called up the last remnants of his own power to Command, “Breathe, Maedhros!”

It worked. Maedhros’ whole body jerked and shuddered, retching and choking, expelling as much water as Maglor had. Sobbing in dizzying relief, Maglor pulled him up once it was all out and held on tight, pressing his face into Maedhros’ shoulder for a moment, the fabric of his cloak heavy and wet against his cheeks. “Maglor…?” Maedhros rasped, gripping Maglor’s shirt with weak fingers. “What…”

Maglor drew back. It wasn’t over yet. “We have to stop the bleeding.” He pulled at Maedhros’ cloak, and once that was off he and Maedhros between them, with clumsy fingers, peeled his shirt entirely away, in between coughing fits from the both of them, revealing the claw marks down his side, only a little shallower than the wounds on his arm, all still bleeding freely. Maglor had to try three times to tear the first strip of fabric from the shirt, his hands were shaking so badly. 

“Maglor, you’re bleeding too,” Maedhros said suddenly, reaching up to touch Maglor’s forehead, near his hairline. It stung, and his fingers came away damp and pink, blood mingling with river water.

“It’s fine,” Maglor said.

“It’s—”

“You’re the one that got mauled, I’m fine.” 

“You almost drowned.”

“So did you!” Maglor yanked at the fabric and it finally tore. He wrapped the makeshift bandages around Maedhros’ arm as tightly as he could, but the blood still seeped through, soaking them immediately. They needed far more than this. Someone needed to sing, but even if he could think of any songs of healing Maglor was too spent. He’d known it would take a great deal out of him to sing the river back, even with Daeron’s help. He lacked the strength he had once had, and was sorely out of practice. Even a simple song without any power was beyond him now, his throat torn up and sore from choking up what felt like half the river alongside all the bile in his stomach, and all of that after he’d strained it with his singing. His head ached, too, and he felt dizzy and sick.

It was both familiar and strange to be patching up Maedhros again. The motions were the same, but having been attacked by a wild cat was new, and he had no other scars or marks on his skin anymore—and in the past they had almost always had real bandages with them, and needles and thread to sew up the worst wounds. 

Maglor had to stop and turn away, pressing his arm against his mouth as his stomach lurched with the thought of having to stitch his brother’s skin together. “Maglor?” Maedhros reached for him. “What is it?”

“Nothing,” he said when he could speak, and turned back to finish wrapping the remnants of Maedhros’ shirt around his torso. “I hope someone has a—has—needle and thread.”

“Caranthir does,” said Maedhros. “But—” Before he could go on Maglor finished tying off the last makeshift bandage and shoved him, just hard enough to knock him onto his back. “Maglor!”

“What is the matter with you?” Maglor demanded as Maedhros struggled to push himself up on his good arm. “Jumping in front of—”

“What’s the matter with me? You’re the one that jumped into a flooding river—”

“I was trying to pull you out!”

“I was trying to stop you being killed!”

“I would’ve been fine! Celegorm already had his bow out—”

“Even he couldn’t shoot it before it landed on you! Look at me!”

“I am looking at you!” Maglor shouted, except he couldn’t raise his voice properly. Every word scraped out of his throat like it had claws. “I’m covered in scars already, it would have been—”

“Don’t—”

“If you make me watch you die again I will never forgive you!”

“You haven’t forgiven me in the first—”

“And I won’t! Not ever! I can’t do it again, Maedhros. You have one foot back in Mandos already and I can’t—” 

His voice gave out entirely, leaving him unable to make a sound but for a voiceless whisper, and he forgot everything that he had been about to say. He forgot where he was, what he had been doing, that it wasn't his own blood slick and wet on his hands, that the stones under his knees were the stones of a riverbank and not the foundations of Dol Guldur. The sound of the rushing river turned into the roar of a distant inferno, into the voice of the Necromancer laughing at him before he departed, taking with him the last thing Maglor had left of himself. 

The great singer of the Noldor will sing no more.

His chest burned with sudden intensity and he doubled over with it, closing his eyes but seeing the yellow flame-wreathed gaze of the Necromancer when he did, finding no relief, no escape. There would never be any escape. The chains still dug into his flesh, as cold as the piercing attention of the Nazgûl. His skin stung and burned from the whips of the orcs. He was burning and freezing and bleeding all at once and he couldn’t even scream. 

“—hear me? Maglor? Maglor!” A hand touched his shoulder and Maglor jerked away, falling over onto the stones, curling into himself. When he opened his eyes he saw Maedhros’ face staring back at him, just like he had for years in the dark, and he couldn’t bear it. He tried to pull away but the hand just gripped him tighter. “Maglor—Macalaurë, look at me!” He squeezed his eyes shut, because if he couldn’t flee or fight back he could do that—he knew better, he knew it was a trick, as much a trick as the vision of Nerdanel had been, and he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t—

A loud bark echoed around them, and then another, loud enough that Maglor felt it shake his bones—and all of a sudden he wasn’t in Dol Guldur after all, he was back by the river, and Huan was there, shoving his face into Maglor’s, licking away the blood and river silt before going to sniff at Maedhros, licking his face the same way. Then he lifted his head and barked again, and this time Maglor heard the answering cry, and felt the approach of the horses before he heard them. He pushed himself to sit up, gasping as his whole body throbbed, in time to see Daeron and Celegorm throwing themselves from their saddles at almost the same time, before the horses had even come to a stop. Daeron stumbled and nearly fell before catching himself; Celegorm landed as light-footed as he ever was, already moving. The others were right on their heels, though Caranthir pulled up short and said something to Ambarussa that made them split away from the group and disappear behind one of the hills that hemmed them in still, though they were smaller here and not as steep. The mist had burned away, and the sun was out.

“Maedhros, you idiot,” Celegorm said as he knelt in front of him, reaching for his bandaged arm. He glanced at Maglor with the same naked concern in his face, but Maglor wasn’t the one soaked in blood.

“Maglor!” Daeron threw his arms around Maglor, kissing him fiercely. “Never frighten me like that again! Are you hurt?”

“His voice gave out,” Maedhros said. His voice sounded odd, underneath the rasp from his own torn up throat. “I think he overtaxed it, but then he—watch it, Tyelko—”

“I wouldn’t have to watch it if you hadn’t gotten yourself mauled, Nelyo—”

“Maglor already yelled at me, so can we please—”

“Absolutely not, we are all going to take our turns yelling at you, and then you can explain to Ammë when we get home—”

Daeron’s arms tightened around Maglor, and he found himself bursting into tears, silent sobs shaking through him and making all of his bruises and sore muscles hurt all over again. He was far away from Dol Guldur; the cold and the burning and the darkness was just memory. This was real, and finding it so—Daeron’s warmth, the sound of his voice and the voices of all Maglor’s brothers around him, the sound of the flowing water and the heat of the sun, even the ache of his bruises—was such a relief that he almost couldn’t bear it. “Maglor?” someone said, sounding alarmed. “What’s—”

“He’s lost his voice,” Daeron said, in a tone sharper than Maglor had ever heard from him. Then, much quieter, he said as he leaned over Maglor to speak into his ear, “It will come back, Maglor, with rest. You know it will.” Maglor nodded into his chest. He did know—it wasn’t the same. He knew it wasn’t the same, even if fear had made it seem so. 

“Can they move?” someone else asked after a few minutes, as Maglor’s tears subsided and he was able to catch his breath—one of the twins, but Maglor found he couldn’t tell which one by voice alone. “There’s a better spot to set up camp out in the grass; there’s a copse of trees we can put the tent up under, and there’s room for the horses.”

“We’ll make it,” said Celegorm. “Come on, Nelyo. Has someone started a fire?”

“Amrod is working on it.” It was Amras speaking, then. “Caranthir, you brought tea too, didn’t you? If Maglor’s lost his voice—”

“Yes, I brought some. I’ll make it after we stitch Maedhros up.”

“Come on,” Daeron said. “Can you stand?” He helped Maglor stagger to his feet, and took his face in his hands, wiping at his cheeks with his thumbs. “It’s all right, beloved. I’m here. Where is your cloak?”

“I have it.” Amras came over, holding the cloak and peering into Maglor’s face. “You’ll have a terrible black eye by tomorrow morning,” he said. “The camp isn’t far. Can you walk?”

He could, but he needed to lean on Daeron for it. He didn’t know how long he’d been lost in dark memory before Huan had found them, but it had been enough for his battered muscles to go stiff. His head ached, and when he touched the back of it he found blood there, too, along with the dirt and river water. By the time he and Daeron reached the campsite the tent was halfway set up, and a fire was going, with a small pot of water steaming over it for Celegorm and Curufin to use in cleaning Maedhros’ wounds while scolding him. They were more eloquent about it than Maglor had been. Maedhros let them talk, though it might have been that he wasn’t strong enough to argue back. Maglor saw Curufin take up a needle and thread and had to turn away, stomach lurching again, badly enough that he nearly doubled over, thinking he would actually be sick for a moment. 

“It’s all right,” Daeron murmured, taking him to the other side of the campfire. “Never mind the scars; everyone knows about the worst ones already.” He helped Maglor strip out of his wet and filthy clothes, tossing them aside, and picked up a blanket to wrap him in. Maglor kept his head down, and with relief sank onto the grass afterward. Pídhres and Leicheg appeared to crawl onto his lap, Pídhres loudly scolding him. He petted her and rubbed Leicheg’s belly and did not look across the fire at Maedhros. Daeron sat with him, and combed the dirt out of his hair, humming softly as he did, the sound of his voice a comfort far beyond the blanket and the fire, and even Pídhres now purring on his lap. He then braided it back out of Maglor’s face, careful of the cuts and bruises on his scalp.

By that time Caranthir had put more water on to heat for tea, and he brought a cup of it over when it was done. “Daeron,” Celegorm said from across the fire, as Caranthir sat down and Maglor took the steaming up. “Do you have any songs for healing?”

“I do,” Daeron said. He kissed Maglor’s temple and got up to go kneel at Maedhros’ side. They spoke for a moment, very quietly, and then Daeron laid his hand over Maedhros’ arm and began to sing. Maglor knew the song; he’d sung it himself many times before; it was one of the first healing songs he’d taught to Elrond, long ago. It would be far more effective under Daeron’s power than it had ever been for him. Maedhros was properly cleaned and bandaged by that time, and Maglor could see that he also sported bruises as bad as his own in addition to the bites and scratches. 

He looked away when Maedhros glanced at him, and sipped the tea. It was hot, soothing his aching throat, and it was the dark spiced tea that had always been his favorite. Maglor leaned against Caranthir, unsure how to say thank you without speaking. Caranthir wrapped an arm around his shoulders and kissed the top of his head, seeming to understand anyway.

“Ammë’s going to be furious when we get home,” Amrod said as he dropped down on Maglor’s other side. He spoke cheerfully, having apparently gotten over the initial rush of panic and concern. “Here, Maglor—we took your clothes and laid them out to dry, but I thought you wouldn’t want to lose this.” He held out the brooch that Maglor used to fasten his cloak, the spray of mallorn flowers wrought in gold that Galadriel had given him long ago and far away in Lothlórien. He took it with an attempt at a smile, feeling steadier with it in his palm, a tangible reminder that his past was more than the darkness of Mirkwood, more than silence and ghosts and cold. There was kindness and blessings and friendship in unexpected places, too. He closed his fingers around the flowers, feeling the texture of them press against his palm, and thought of Lothlórien in spring and the music of the Nimrodel.

He drank the tea slowly, savoring the heat in his throat and the rich spices on his tongue. His brothers talked around him, making plans to set watches that night—Celegorm was taking no chances with the hill cats or anything else—and debating half-heartedly what kind of story they could tell that would put their mother at ease when they finally arrived home. He glanced toward Maedhros again and found him asleep with his head on Curufin’s lap. Like Maglor, he’d been stripped of the rest of his wet clothes and bundled in blankets. Amras sat down on Amrod’s other side and something he said made Caranthir laugh, the sound of it a thing Maglor felt as much as he heard as he leaned on his shoulder. It would have been nice, if Maedhros weren’t still so pale and if Maglor didn’t ache all over. 

Sometime after he finished the tea he fell asleep too, and only roused in the evening when Daeron woke him. “You should eat,” Daeron said apologetically. “There’s stew, and we found raspberries growing in among the trees. No, don’t try to speak,” he added when Maglor opened his mouth. “You know better.”

It was true, he did. Maglor sighed and sat up, wincing as every muscle in his body seemed to want to lock up in protest. The blanket slipped off his shoulders, and he fumbled with it until Caranthir knelt in front of him with a clean shirt. “We’ve all seen it, Cáno,” he said quietly. “You don’t have to hide.” It was still a relief to put on the shirt, hiding the worst of the scars. The brand felt tender and sore, and so did his back, and he still felt cold, even dried off and with the fire burning cheerfully in front of him. When Maglor looked up he saw that Maedhros was awake too, giving Curufin a positively withering look. Caranthir glanced over and smiled wryly. “Curvo was just suggesting that someone carry him into the tent,” he told Maglor, “and of course Nelyo thinks he’s overreacting, because all that happened is he got bashed around a river for a while while losing half the blood in his body. I’m of a mind to let him try to walk himself and then say I told you so after he falls over onto his face.”

“I can hear you, Carnistir,” Maedhros said, his voice a hoarse growl over the fire. Maglor looked down when he glanced in their direction. 

“I know,” Caranthir said. “I bet Cáno will let someone help him into the tent.”

“Of course he will,” Daeron said as he sat back down beside Maglor, two bowls in his hands. Maglor took one and sipped at the broth.

“I never said I didn’t want help,” Maedhros said, speaking through gritted teeth, “I said I didn’t want to be carried, because I don’t trust any of you not to drop me.”

They went on like that, the others even including Daeron in the teasing and bickering—though Maedhros sounded a little too serious to be truly lighthearted. Daeron teased right back, and Maglor was surprised at the relief he felt to hear it—to hear Daeron getting along with his brothers, laughing at them and making them laugh. No one tried to tease Maglor, though he wasn’t sure if that was because he couldn’t talk back or whether they still saw him as something too fragile to try to joke with. In that moment he didn’t care, whatever the reason. He ached all over and he still felt shaky and frightened—if Maedhros was feeling well enough to scowl at people, he was still too pale, and he really did need help getting up and making his way to the tent after dinner was finished. Celegorm and Caranthir did not carry him, but they supported most of his weight. 

Maglor also needed help, because standing up made the world spin and his head start to pound. Daeron steadied him, and Maglor leaned on him for a moment, eyes closed, trying to ignore the way everyone else was looking at him. “Maedhros is going to be all right,” Daeron said softly. Maglor nodded. “And so are you. Though when we return to Imloth Ningloron I am going to lock us both up in your room for at least two months, maybe all winter, away from all bodies of water and meddlesome relations except maybe Elrond, and only because it’s his house.” Maglor managed to smile, and was rewarded with a quick kiss.

Inside the tent it was crowded; everyone piled in except for Amrod, who had drawn first watch, and Huan, who would be up and alert all night. In the jumbling and jostling for position Maglor found himself beside Maedhros, and then knocked into him when Amras tripped over Caranthir. “Watch it,” Maedhros said, sounding more tired than annoyed, his good arm wrapping around Maglor’s shoulders by reflex. He let go swiftly, once Maglor had steadied himself. “Cáno…” he whispered, but Maglor turned away. He couldn’t look at Maedhros for more than a few seconds without seeing the moment the water overtook him, just a split second before it took Maglor himself—and that laid over the memory of Maedhros vanishing into a very different river, of flame and molten stone. If he tried to meet Maedhros’ gaze now he didn’t know what would happen, but he knew he couldn’t bear it.

Pídhres came to curl up beside him, purring softly. Leicheg was nowhere to be seen, but Maglor was too tired to worry about it. Daeron was there, and the rest of his brothers slowly settled down; outside he could hear night birds and crickets, and Amrod talking quietly to Huan. Maglor closed his eyes but the gaze of Sauron was there waiting for him, and he opened them again quickly, looking instead at Daeron, who was still awake and looking back at him, his eyes lit by the stars of long ago, soft and fond as they looked at Maglor. “I’ll sing the dreams away,” Daeron whispered, reaching for his hand. “Fear no darkness.” He began to sing, very quietly, the same song that he’d sung before to banish nightmares and dark memories. Maglor closed his eyes and saw nothing there; he sighed, and let the music wrap around him and pull him down at last into deep, dreamless sleep.

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When Fëanor came to ask Elrond about Maedhros, Elrond was only surprised it had taken so long. “You told me once that Maglor raised you—but Maedhros was there also, was he not?”

“He was.” Elrond had been sorting through some treatises brought west by Elladan and Elrohir from Gondor’s Houses of Healing, but he set them aside as Fëanor sat across from him, casting a brief but curious glance at them. The table was set by one of the many windows in the library, this one looking southeast out over the flowering meadows and streams, toward the mountains; potted athelas and rosemary sat on the sill, lending their fresh and herbal scents to the others of the library—ink, parchment, leather. A bee landed on the flowering rosemary for a moment before buzzing away. “He could not avoid us, exactly—we were always on the move in those days, fleeing bands of orcs and other worse things, and our camps were never large—but he very rarely spoke to us.”

Fëanor frowned at him. “Why not?”

“I can only guess—and I cannot say that my guesses are good ones. You would be better off asking Fingon, or Finrod. They know him better than I.”

“They did not know him then,” said Fëanor. 

Elrond picked up his pen, needing something to occupy his hands while he thought. Finally, he said, “They knew him long before I did, and have known him since. It is true that he may not have spoken to them of Sirion or the years afterward, but I still think they would be able to guess at his thoughts better than I can. I have heard it said they are counted among the very few these days to whom he will confide anything at all.”

“Have you not spoken to him since?”

“Until this year I had seen him only a handful of times since I came west, and never to exchange more than simple greetings, if even that; he goes to Tirion even more rarely than I do.” And when they had been in company together, more often than not Maedhros had just left, quietly and unobtrusively. “He came here earlier this year—just before we left for Eressëa.”

“What did you speak of then?”

Elrond sighed. “Maglor, of course. He knew something of what had befallen him in Dol Guldur, which I had not known, or else I would have sought him out much sooner. We had words too concerning the past, and neither of us came away very happy.” When he looked up he found Fëanor looking not at him but out of the window, arms folded, but one hand raised to his chin. He had soot under his fingernails, and tender spots on his hands where a craftsman’s callouses had not yet reformed. His hair was braided sensibly back, and he’d acquired golden beads from somewhere to weave into the smaller braids at his temples—acquired or made, Elrond supposed. “I cannot speak to you of Maedhros as someone who loves him. I was afraid of him for nearly all of my childhood, though now I think…I think he did care for us, in his own way. He did not try to ease our fears, except to keep his distance, but I am almost certain it was at his insistence that we learned to do most things with both of our hands, especially fighting.” He saw Fëanor wince, jaw tightening. “I am grateful for it. It saved my life at least twice during later wars in the Second Age. I never have gotten the hang of writing with my right hand, though.” It had been Maglor, and the others who had still followed the last sons of Fëanor, who had taught Elrond and Elros all they needed to know, from language to tracking to healing. Maglor had taught Elrond his first healing songs, and how to stitch a wound closed. And Maedhros had always been nearby—near enough to act if something happened, but far enough away that he couldn’t be expected to take part in whatever was going on, whether it was a lesson or cooking or just conversation.

“I am trying to understand them,” Fëanor said after a little while. “I hardly recognize any of them anymore, in what Telperinquar tells me, in what Nolofinwë has said, or Findekáno, even when they speak of the past. Especially when they speak of the past.”

“Years of war will change you,” Elrond said. “Even aside from their Oath, that was inevitable. Beleriand became a dark and treacherous place after the Dagor Bragollach.” He hesitated for a moment before adding, “I think they struggled to recognize you at the end, too.”

“I don’t doubt it.” Fëanor did not look away from the window. “I do not recognize myself, when I look back.”

“I hope you will let them come to you, when they return,” Elrond said. “Seeking them out has not, thus far, seemed to be the best course.”

“So everyone has said, and so I will. The younger ones made their wishes clear when they departed as soon as they learned I was back.” He sounded pained, and Elrond thought of Curufin, who had been similarly quiet and subdued when he had brought the news of Fëanor’s imminent return. Elrond did not know, however, whether the same demeanor spoke of the same doubts and uncertainties and griefs. Curufin had his father’s face, but that did not mean they thought alike—especially now. 

“They have not been united in anything since they all returned from Mandos, from what I have understood,” said Elrond. “That they all left together speaks to hope of some kind of reconciliation between them, at least.”

“I cannot regret that,” said Fëanor, “even if what unites them is coming against me.” 

Elrond once again found himself grateful beyond words that his children had never had cause to turn away from him like this, and also that he and his own parents had not suffered such a rift. He’d been resentful of Eärendil when he had been younger, but that had faded as he’d grown and listened to what those who had known Eärendil had told him, as he understood better, little by little, what Eärendil had been trying to do, and all of the other forces that had been at work. It had been true what he’d said to Elwing: she had been meant to bear the Silmaril to Eärendil, as Eärendil had been meant to find the way past the enchantments of the Valar to plead the case of Elves and Men before them. The cost had been high, but worth paying to see Morgoth taken in chains and thrust beyond the Doors of Night, worth the peace that had come to Middle-earth afterward. It was not their fault it had not lasted. Being able to greet them in joy upon his coming west had been, alongside seeing Celebrían again, the greatest balm on his weary heart in the wake of saying farewell to Arwen and to Rivendell, and of losing the power of Vilya.

“I cannot help you understand Maedhros,” Elrond said finally, after the silence had stretched between them, both of them lost in thought. “Not when I understand him so poorly myself. I know the rest of your sons even less well, although Caranthir used to correspond regularly with Bilbo, who was quite fond of him. I believe they primarily wrote about flowers, though it would surprise me if Bilbo had not at least asked about the Elder Days. But if you wish to understand Maglor better, perhaps his music would help.”

“Has he written new music?” Fëanor asked. “In the tales your sons tell of him he seems to always be singing the songs of others, rather than of his own making. I noticed also that he did not often sing before any crowd larger than your daughter’s family.”

It was not Elrond’s place to explain Maglor’s relationship to his craft, the way that it had been damaged and then repaired, and was still greatly changed from what it had once been, though he had recovered all of his old skill. “Since he came to Rivendell he’s written few new songs,” he allowed, “but he has written some. Not all of them have words, but he did write them down. He did perform for all of us at Midsummer, alongside Elemmírë. He is as skilled as he ever was.” He rose from the table. “Come with me.”

They went to Maglor’s room; Maglor had been there so short a time that it was not yet really his—his things were not scattered about as they would be when he had lived there long enough to become truly comfortable, and he’d only barely gotten around to fully unpacking before he had left. His harp stood by the window, and there were a few sheets of paper on the desk with half-formed lyrics and musical notation scribbled across them; a book lay on the nightstand with a silver ribbon sticking out of it as a bookmark. The walls were painted blue, and light rugs of similar shades were scattered across the pale wood floor, like bits of spring and summer sky brought indoors. On the stand by the mirror stood a small jewelry box of dark wood inlaid with gold in a design Elrond recognized as Dwarvish; he thought it might have been a gift from Gimli, or else something traded from the Lonely Mountain. Fëanor hesitated in the doorway. “He would not like me intruding into his space,” he said, “or taking any of his things.”

Elrond found what he was looking for on the bookshelf by the desk, a slim volume bound in pale blue leather, with a curling ocean wave design embossed in silver on the spine. “This is one of several copies,” he said, holding it out to Fëanor. “I doubt Maglor even noticed them on the shelf before he left, and I do not think he will object to me giving it to you.” Maglor had not said so, but Elrond could guess easily enough that if he wanted anything from Fëanor, it was understanding—an understanding, however small, of what his sons had become, both in long-ago Beleriand and now. 

Fëanor took the book, opening it briefly to glance over a page at random. Then he lifted his gaze, looking toward the harp. “He made that?” he asked quietly.

“Yes, of driftwood.”

“My father taught him woodwork. I was too impatient a teacher for him, and wood was never my preference.”

“He always had a bit of wood in his hands when I was young,” Elrond said. “He found it hard to come back to woodworking after Dol Guldur, precisely because it made him think of Finwë, and that grief felt nearer, then, than it had in many years.”

“What does he work with now?”

“Clay. The vase in your room—the blue one with a seashell pattern painted on it—he made that some years after he came to Rivendell, and I brought it with me when I took ship. He has not abandoned wood entirely though, as you see.”

“Yes, I see.” Fëanor raised the book in his hand with a small, wry smile. “Thank you. It seems your solution to every problem of mine is to hand me a book. To save time, is there anything else in your library I should read?”

“I am a loremaster. There are many records in my library of the First Age, primarily from Himring and some from Amon Ereb; less from Himlad or Thargelion, and none from the Gap. Himring survives still, an island off the coast north of Lindon. We recovered many records and artifacts from it after the War of Wrath. It is my opinion that books and histories and songs hold the solutions to many problems; it is always worth taking the time to try to understand the minds of others.”

“You are right,” Fëanor said, “and I am trying. Thank you again.” He glanced once more over the room, as though trying to glean some other small insight into Maglor’s mind through its contents before he turned and departed. Elrond glanced around himself, straightened the books on the shelf though they did not need it, and left also to return to the library. 

He found Galadriel there, perusing the shelves. “Have you noticed that my uncle is avoiding me?” she remarked, sounding amused. “I had no idea he was capable of such a feat. We’ve hardly spoken ten words to one another since he came here.”

“You are rather formidable,” Elrond said as he returned to his seat, “or so I have been told.” Galadriel laughed. She had daisies in her hair, and did not seem to Elrond formidable at all—no more than Celebrían ever did. “I think he is trying very hard not to cause trouble.”

“He is succeeding. I am very impressed. My other uncle was speaking today of returning to Tirion soon. I think I will go with them, though I would like to see Macalaurë again first.”

“I am hoping they depart before he returns,” Elrond said. “Do you know where he has wandered?”

“No. I haven’t tried to look for him either; it has always been an exercise in futility, and I see no reason that would change now.” Galadriel pulled a book from the shelf and flipped it open. “It comforts me to know that Daeron is with him. I hope they return here together; I would very much like to hear them perform again as they did at the Mereth Aderthad.”

“Is it true that Daeron is the mightier singer?” Elrond asked. Maglor was always quick to say yes, of course, but Maglor’s judgment of his own abilities these days was somewhat skewed. 

Galadriel thought for a moment. “Yes,” she said finally, “but by so slim a margin that it hardly seems to me to matter. At least at the feast neither of them particularly cared. I had never seen either so animated as when they met and began to get to know one another. It was my brother Angrod that introduced them, since Daeron and Mablung had come there with our party. That is what made it so wonderful to listen to them—the fact that they were so delighted to perform together.”

“Are you worried?” Elrond asked her. “About Maglor?”

She placed the book back on the shelf and came to sit at the table with him, taking the seat Fëanor had so recently vacated. “Yes and no,” she said. “My heart tells me that he is where he is meant to be in this moment, but I also wonder whether he will meet with his brothers out in the wild. The lands of Valinor are vast, but something in Gandalf’s demeanor suggests to me that chance will bring them together.”

“I did ask him if he was meddling,” Elrond muttered, shaking his head as he took up the papers again, sorting them into neat piles in front of him. 

“Of course he is meddling. Since his task in Middle-earth was ended I daresay he has been rather bored—and what better challenge than nudging the disparate pieces of the House of Fëanor back together?”

“I hope he knows what he is doing, then,” said Elrond, “because if it goes wrong it will go spectacularly wrong.”

“I think no matter how they come together, the reunion will be a painful one,” Galadriel said. “Maglor spoke to me of his brothers that morning, before Fëanor came.”

“When he told Finrod that you were his favorite cousin?”

She laughed a little. “Yes. I think he was starting to consider whether to go see them, but then his father arrived and threw whatever plans he had begun to make into disarray. He was still hesitant to go see Nerdanel too, though for different reasons. He asked me whether his brothers were what they had been in Beleriand when I last knew them.”

“Did you know them in Beleriand?”

“Not really. I went to Doriath and did not often leave it except to visit Nargothrond on a few occasions—well before Celegorm and Curufin came there. Finrod would have been the better person to ask, but Maglor did not want convincing, he only wanted answers. They are not what they were,” she added after a moment, “even Maedhros, I think. I saw them at Midwinter but not to speak to. He seemed unhappy and uncomfortable, but not much as I heard him described in the latter years of Beleriand.”

“If even Fëanor will not approach you,” Elrond said with a smile, “you can’t expect his sons to.” 

She smiled. “Perhaps. I do sometimes wish some others thought me as formidable. I was once the baby of the family and there are some who think of me that way still. Celeborn will be laughing at me about it for centuries after we visit Tirion and he meets the rest of the family.” She did not sound bothered by the idea; Elrond understood. He still courted Celebrían’s laughter too, whenever he got the chance, after having gone so long without hearing it. 

Summer was passing, slowly but steadily. Soon the apples would be ready to harvest, and autumn would bring cooler weather and rain. Elrond hoped it would bring Maglor home, too, or at the least a message from him. He had told Elladan he would not worry unless autumn came and went with no word, but as the days passed he found himself glancing often toward the road, feeling uneasy. That was just old anxiety rearing its head, though, and some of it eased when preparations began for Fingolfin and Fëanor to leave Imloth Ningloron, and plans were made regarding what they would do when they returned to Tirion—together, as brothers and if not friends than at least as allies. 

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When Maglor woke it was late in the morning. For a moment he lay still, basking in the warmth of the tent and the blankets and listening to someone else’s breathing just beside him. Then Leicheg scuttled over the blankets to bump into his forehead, sniffing and making her little purring noises. Maglor smiled at her, but winced when he tried to lift his hand to pet her nose and found himself almost unable to move, he was so stiff. One of his eyes was swollen shut—that black eye that Amras had predicted. He sighed and rolled onto his back, grimacing with the effort, and carefully stretched out his arms and legs, trying to loosen the muscles again. His throat was still sore, but it felt less raw than it had the day before. He tried to hum and made some kind of noise, but it sounded awful, and it hurt. It would be whispers or nothing for at least another day. 

Beside him Maedhros still slept. His hair was unbound, falling in loose copper coils over the blankets. Pídhres lay by his head, but when she saw that Maglor was awake she immediately abandoned Maedhros for him. Maglor scratched her ears and stared at Maedhros. His bruises were as bad as Maglor’s, but the bandages around his chest and his arm were still clean, with no sign of any more bleeding. He was frowning, though, still in pain even in sleep. 

The tent flap opened, and Curufin stepped inside. “I’ve got your clean clothes,” he said as Maglor sat up. “How’s your voice?” Maglor shook his head. “We have more tea. That spiced stuff you used to like, and some other kind that Ambarussa says will help everything heal faster, or at least make you feel better.” He carefully moved Leicheg out of the way so he could sit beside Maglor and help him get dressed. He paused to stare at the brand on Maglor’s chest for a moment, but said nothing about it, instead picking up a comb to tease out the snarls and tangles of his hair. “Tyelpë didn’t mention any scars beyond your face,” he said after a moment. 

“He doesn’t know,” Maglor whispered, and grimaced. Even that hurt his throat.

“Don’t try to talk.” Curufin put the comb down and wrapped his arms around Maglor, being very careful about it. “I’m sorry, Cáno,” he whispered. “For everything that happened in Beleriand, and—”

“Don’t,” Maglor whispered. He leaned his head against Curufin’s and sighed. 

“I didn’t know that you were there when I died,” Curufin said, his voice very quiet and very small—sounding so very young. “I didn’t know you saw it happen.”

“I saw all of you,” Maglor said, and that was as much as he could manage before falling into a coughing fit, which hurt even worse. 

“I told you to stop talking,” Curufin said. 

It also woke Maedhros, who stirred and groaned. “Cáno…?”

“He’s fine,” Curufin said. “How do you feel?” Maedhros groaned again. “There’s some of Ambarussa’s tea outside for you.”

“Absolutely not,” Maedhros said. He rolled onto his back with a grunt and opened his eyes. “I’d rather jump in the river again.”

“You’ll feel better if you drink some. And Caranthir has good tea for afterward.”

“Where was the good tea on the journey out?”

“We had wine instead,” Curufin said. He tied off Maglor’s braid. “Celegorm’s gone scouting ahead to see if he can find another water source so you two can get properly clean when we break camp in a few days—if you drink the damned tea, Maedhros—and when you’re well enough we can go home. And if Ammë doesn’t lock you in her house for a few years, I’ll drag you to Tirion and lock you up in mine. I’m sure Arimeldë won’t mind.”

“I’m going to lock myself up just to get away from all of you. This trip wasn’t even my idea.”

“Oh good, you’re awake!” Ambarussa piled into the tent, bearing cups of dark green tea, still steaming. Maglor accepted his in silence. Maedhros groaned again, but that might have just been from the effort it took to sit up, even with Amrod’s help. The tea did not smell bad, but when Maglor sipped it he nearly spat it back out. He had never tasted anything so bitter, and there was no amount of honey in the world that would improve it, even if Ambarussa had bothered to add any. 

“Told you it was awful,” Maedhros muttered. “It’s the same stuff they made in Beleriand, except it tastes worse.”

“Just drink it,” said Amras. “You act like you’ve never had willow bark before. You’ll feel better afterward; the plants here are stronger than the ones in Ossiriand.”

Maglor drank his in a few large gulps, and made an exaggerated face at the twins when he handed the cup back. They laughed at him and pressed kisses to his cheeks before retreating back outside. Curufin went to help Maedhros get dressed, and the two of them bickered over the tea, though Maedhros did drink it, in gulps similar to Maglor, though he waited longer between them. Maglor turned his attention to Leicheg and Pídhres, who chased one another around him, up and over his legs. Pídhres jumped up onto his chest and butted her face into his. He rubbed his face into her fur as he pet her. The nice thing about cats was that they were not complicated. Pídhres just wanted affection and food and someone to get her down when she got herself stuck somewhere, and she didn’t care what had happened to him in the past, or what he had done, or what kind of scars he bore. 

Curufin eventually departed as well, leaving Maglor and Maedhros alone. “Cáno,” Maedhros said quietly. Maglor lifted his head. Even in the bright morning after a full night’s rest, it was hard to look at him, hard not to see Maedhros of Beleriand laid over Maedhros by Ekkaia laid over Maedhros by the riverbank. “I’m not—I know I’m not—” Maedhros looked away for a moment. “I’m better, I think, than I was when I first came from Mandos,” he said finally, “and better than I was when—when Atar came to see us. The whole idea of coming out here was to—to fix us. Celegorm’s idea. And it’s…it’s been working. I’m—I’m trying.” He looked back at Maglor, meeting his gaze. “I’m not going to die. The past isn’t going to repeat itself. But I’m not sorry for coming between you and the hill cat. I’m not going to apologize for trying to protect you.” 

“Oh, we’re not doing that again, are we?” Caranthir ducked into the tent that time, holding two more steaming cups—these, at least, were proper tea. Maglor took his and sipped it gratefully, glad of the excuse to look away. Glad, suddenly, that he didn’t have enough of a voice to argue, to say aloud that he couldn’t believe Maedhros’ words. He’d been trying in Beleriand, too. 

“It’s only an argument if you make it one,” Maedhros said, sounding tired. 

Maglor wondered what else Maedhros had been trying to protect their brothers from. Not hunting cats, certainly. Something must have shown on his face because Maedhros looked away and Caranthir grimaced. “He never told us that he’d looked for you in the palantír,” he said. “Let alone what he saw—”

“Good,” Maglor whispered. Maedhros looked up, and even Caranthir looked surprised. “I didn’t—I don’t—I never wanted—” His throat hurt too much and he gave up. He sipped his tea, letting the faint sweetness and the rich spices banish the bitter medicinal taste of Ambarussa’s brew. 

“Not you, too,” Caranthir sighed.

“You’ve all proved both of us right, you know,” Maedhros said quietly. “After Tyelko—”

“If you had told us before we wouldn’t have—” Caranthir stopped and rubbed his hands over his face. “No, we’re not going to argue about it again. Just—we have another chance at—at everything, now, and we’ve all decided that the two of you need to stop—stop being the oldest, and let us do it instead.”

“That doesn’t make any sense, Moryo,” Maedhros said.

“Yes it does. Shut up and drink your tea. And we outnumber you, and we have Huan on our side, so you don’t have a choice but to agree. Or else Huan will—I don’t know. Sit on you. If you don’t go back to sleep you can come join the rest of us in the sunshine. No more hiding.” He glared at Maglor as he added the last part, and then left them alone again. 

Maedhros sipped at his tea. Maglor rested his cup on one knee as he pet Pídhres, wondering when Caranthir had gotten so bossy. Once upon a time he would have said that out loud, to make Maedhros laugh. He watched Maedhros out of the corner of his eye. The silence between them felt unnatural—but it was not quite as painful as it had been on the shores of Ekkaia that first night. 

“Thanks for the comb,” Maedhros said finally.

Maglor had almost forgotten that he’d made a new comb. “Don’t lose it,” he whispered. 

Maedhros sighed, closing his eyes. “I’m better at that now,” he said. “Not losing things.” Maglor didn’t answer. He didn’t trust that Maedhros really was better, rather than just not having the opportunity to leave things behind because he usually had no cause to be traveling. “And I didn’t—there were things I didn’t lose until—until the very end. Things you made. Elrond found them afterward, and kept them. He gave them to me when I went to Imloth Ningloron this spring.”

Maglor knew about the chest of old things that Elrond had always kept in his study. A letter to him from Elros had been in it, but he hadn’t ever asked about the other contents. They were Elrond’s to share or to keep, private memories of his childhood and youth. Celebrían was probably the only other person in the world who knew the full contents of the chest. He wondered if Maedhros knew the importance of it, knew what it meant that Elrond had opened it for him. Likely not—Elrond would not have told him, and Maedhros would not have known to ask. 

It had troubled him deeply, once, that Maedhros hadn’t tried harder with the twins—that he hadn’t tried at all either to know them or to make them fear him less. He thought that he understood why, but that had been the first real sign that Maedhros was truly no longer the person he had once been, even before Sirion. It had been Maedhros who looked longest and hardest for Eluréd and Elurín in Doriath. It had been the first thing that really made Maglor fear for Maedhros, and he hadn’t known what to do. So in the end he had ignored it, as best he could, the way he ignored the Oath and so many other awful things, and in the end of course it hadn’t helped. It never did. 

“What else did he say to you?” he asked after a few moments. He didn’t know whether it was Ambarussa’s tea or just the benefit of drinking something hot, but his throat was starting to feel better, even if he still couldn’t speak above a whisper. 

“He was kinder than I deserved. I wasn’t—I haven’t—” Maedhros sighed. “I should have gone to speak to him years ago. It was just easier not to. He’s…very different from what I remember.”

“He has always been kind,” Maglor said. 

“I know.” 

The tent flap opened and Amras stuck his head in. “Are you two coming out or not? Caranthir was supposed to tell you, no more hiding.”

“Do you want us to talk to each other or come outside?” Maedhros asked him. 

“Maglor shouldn’t be talking.”

“We’re coming,” Maglor said.

“No talking, Maglor!”

Maglor got to his feet, slowly and carefully, and held out his hands to Maedhros, who did not hesitate before reaching up to accept the help. He staggered, and they both needed a moment to steady themselves before they could emerge from the tent without falling on their faces. Amras was waiting for them with Curufin, ready to catch Maedhros when he inevitably swayed. Daeron rose from his seat by the campfire to come to Maglor. “All right?” Daeron asked quietly, sliding his hands up Maglor’s arms. Maglor nodded. “Did you dream?”

“No,” Maglor whispered. Daeron kissed him, soft and warm, and for a few seconds he let himself forget all about his brothers and his bruises and the long journey still before them.

His brothers, of course, did not let him forget for long. “Ugh, must you?” called out Amrod. Maglor made a rude gesture over Daeron’s shoulder, and heard everyone laugh. 

Daeron laughed too, and pressed a few more kisses to Maglor’s face before sobering. “They keep asking me why you were so frightened by losing your voice,” he said, “but I do not know enough to explain in full—and I would not tell them without your leave.”

“I’ll explain,” Maglor sighed. “When I can speak properly again.”

“Let your voice rest, then.”

When they joined the others around the fire, Daeron sat with Maglor in front of him so he could wrap his arms around his shoulders from behind. Maglor leaned back against him gratefully, and tried to ignore the way Maedhros was watching. It made him think of his warnings at the Mereth Aderthad. He hadn’t been wrong to worry then, even if Maglor hadn’t needed the warnings—but all the reasons for it were gone, now. Maglor laced his fingers with Daeron’s and listened as he threw Ambarussa’s teasing back at them, not bothered in the slightest by the way Maglor’s brothers were all making themselves insufferable. 

Celegorm returned in the middle of the afternoon, announcing that he’d found a creek not far away that was running clear and clean. He had also hunted a few birds that Ambarussa and Caranthir took charge of. “Where is Huan?” Maedhros asked. “I thought he’d gone with you.”

“I don’t know,” Celegorm said. “I left him here.” He dropped to the ground on Curufin’s other side. “He’ll probably be back before nightfall.” 

Maglor had Leicheg on his lap, and watched as Pídhres went over to sniff at Celegorm, who offered her his fingers and then scratched her behind the ears for a moment. She purred and rubbed her head against his palm, and then vanished into the grass, darting away after some small creature or insect. Leicheg immediately abandoned Maglor to chase after her. “I’m surprised you have a cat and a hedgehog following you, Cáno,” Celegorm said with a grin. “And not a flock of songbirds.”

“I could sing one down,” Daeron said, and whistled a few notes before Maglor reached up to put a hand over his mouth. 

“No birds,” Maglor said.

“No talking,” Curufin and Amrod said at the same time. Daeron caught Maglor’s wrist and kissed his palm before freeing himself. 

Huan returned, damp and muddy-footed, from the hills in the early evening as the sunlight deepened and made the grasslands glow like gold and emerald. Whatever he had been doing, he seemed satisfied with it. When he came into the camp he trotted up and stuck his nose into Maglor’s hair at the crook of his neck, sniffing thoroughly before licking him up the face and making him splutter; laughing, Daeron pressed a hand over his mouth to stop him from trying to protest. Huan gave Maedhros the same treatment before lying down next to him. Maedhros scratched him behind the ears and leaned against him.

That night passed as uneventfully as the one before, except that Maglor dreamed of Dol Guldur again just before waking in the morning. This time it was a repetition of the waking-dreams he had suffered there, where his brothers marched before him, silent and glowering, pale as death in the deep darkness, and always dissolving into mist when he reached for them. He woke to Pídhres licking the tears from his face with her scratchy tongue, and to Celegorm looking down at him, his expression serious enough that for a moment Maglor thought he was still caught in the dream and flinched away. 

“Maglor?” Celegorm’s hand caught his. “It’s only me.”

The dreams never spoke. “Tyelko?”

“I’m sorry I woke you, but you’re crying.” 

Maglor pushed himself up, ignoring the bruises and stiffness, and wrapped his arms around Celegorm, who did not vanish into shadows, who smelled like woodsmoke and grass, who was warm and suntanned and nothing at all like the nightmares that had haunted him for so many years—and nothing either like the cruel and savage hunter who had stalked the forests of Beleriand, too consumed by bitterness and anger to remember that he had once been someone soft-hearted and kind, who cared for lost baby birds and wayward brothers. 

They were close enough in age that Maglor did not remember clearly the day Celegorm had been born. He had memories of a baby crying and of his father lifting him up onto the bed, where Maedhros was already sitting beside Nerdanel where she lay propped up against a mountain of pillows with their tiny baby brother swaddled in her arms. As soon as Celegorm had been old enough to toddle around after him they had been playmates and conspirators, and he had many memories of one of their parents carrying them both back home, giggling and wiggling where they were slung over shoulders or hauled up into someone’s arms, or of Maedhros, only a handful of years older and not big enough to carry them, dragging them both along by the hand, exasperated and indulgent by turns when Celegorm dug in his heels or Maglor got distracted by a passing butterfly or an interesting flower. Even as they grew older and their interests diverged, it had always remained easy to laugh together, to confide in one another and to share secrets; they had often gone out riding, racing through the Treelit fields outside of Tirion, always outstripping all their brothers and cousins. 

And when they had argued in Beleriand, after Nargothrond, before Doriath, it had not been only Maglor’s voice that shook the walls of Himring. They had both known exactly what to say to hurt the other most, and there had been no recovering from it.

But there might be, now, both of them softened and worn down by time and regret. “I love you, Tyelko,” he whispered into Celegorm’s shoulder.

“I love you too, Cáno, but what’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just—I miss you.”

“You don’t have to,” Celegorm said. “I’m right here. We’re all right here.”

“I know.” Maglor didn’t let go, though. He heard someone speak outside the tent, and someone else respond in a tone either annoyed or frustrated. There were birds singing in the trees, and the tent was warm, sunshine peeking through the flap that hung open. It was as unlike his dream as could be imagined, but he still found it hard to shake the feeling that sometimes clung to him after some dreams—that it was this that wasn’t real, and that when he truly woke up he would be back under Dol Guldur, silenced and freezing and forgotten.

“What were you dreaming of?” 

“Ghosts.”

Celegorm shifted from kneeling to sitting, keeping one arms around Maglor as he did, and lifting Leicheg out of the way, ignoring the way she squeaked at him. Maglor turned his head as Celegorm set her back down, and watched her curl up into a little spiky ball in protest. “Cáno, why did he mark you like that?” Celegorm asked, speaking very quietly. “I know you don’t want to speak of it, but I have seen branding like that before, on those thralls of Angband too far gone to be saved.”

“He wanted—he wanted to make me his,” Maglor said. His voice was stronger than it had been the day before, but not quite strong enough to speak above a hoarse whisper. “He wanted my voice to serve his ends. But I never—I—” He closed his eyes again. “There was nothing he could do to me that would make me surrender that.” He’d managed to forget everything he knew about music long before Sauron had placed his last curse on him in the midst of his retreat from Dol Guldur. Even if he had broken entirely and fully surrendered himself, there had been nothing left of him for Sauron to use. He would have only ended up being made an example of, like Celebrimbor before him. “The branding came before the breaking.”

“But you didn’t—”

“I broke, Tyelko. Just—just not in any way that he could make useful.” Maglor drew back, and wiped his face on his sleeve, wincing as the fabric dragged over his black eye and other bruises. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Cáno. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t have seen it in the first place, and I shouldn’t have withdrawn afterward. It was just—it’s—I can’t stand seeing how you were hurt while we were—we were here, we had no idea…”

“You were still in Mandos. You couldn’t have done anything, even if you had known,” Maglor said. “Maedhros wasn’t wrong to keep it from you. I wish he hadn’t known. It’s—I haven’t been doing well lately, but usually I can forget about the scars. I haven’t been always so broken and unhappy.”

“But coming here has made you unhappy,” Celegorm said quietly. “Seeing us has made you unhappy.”

“No. Seeing Atya made me unhappy. Seeing you just—it hurts, but that’s not the same thing.”

“It sounds like the same thing. Why did you come to Valinor at all? It doesn’t seem like you wanted to.”

“I did want to—I promised Elrond. I promised that I would stay with Arwen until the end, and then I would take ship. Even before that, I promised him I would not disappear again. I love Middle-earth, and I miss it, but I love him more. I love you more—I just—I needed time.” 

“We were trying to give it to you,” Celegorm said. “Truly. We had no idea you would end up at Ekkaia—”

“I know that. And I don’t…” Maglor looked away, back at Leicheg as she unrolled herself and came over to nuzzle at his fingers. “Maybe it’s better this way.” He couldn’t regret leaving Imloth Ningloron when he did, because it had brought him to Daeron, and he found that he couldn’t regret meeting his brothers as he had either. Even Maedhros. Nienna believed there was a way forward for them, and Maglor wanted so, so badly to believe it too. He just couldn’t see it yet. “I’m trying, Tyelko.”

“We’re all trying. I suppose that’s all we can do. Maedhros is trying, too.”

“I know he is, but I—” His voice broke, and his eyes burned with fresh tears. “I watched him die—I watched all of you die, but Maedhros was dying by inches, for years, until he took the last step, and I didn’t see it in time, and he’s still—”

Celegorm folded him into another embrace, rubbing one hand up and down his spine the way that Nerdanel used to when they had all been very small. “He’s going to be fine,” he said. “We’re all going to make sure of it. Neither of you are alone anymore.”

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Between Ambarussa’s awful-tasting tea and Daeron’s songs, Maedhros felt much better. He still hurt, but it was bearable, and he could absolutely ride the short distance to the creek that Celegorm had found. 

Caranthir and Curufin disagreed. “I’ve ridden farther with worse wounds,” Maedhros reminded them. 

“Only when there wasn’t any choice,” snapped Caranthir. “You don’t have to push yourself now, and you shouldn’t. It’s been less than two days!”

“But—”

“Give it another day, Nelyo. You can’t even stand up without almost falling over,” Curufin said.

“I can—”

Celegorm and Maglor emerged from the tent. Maglor had his hedgehog in his hands; he looked fragile, and as though he’d been weeping. Celegorm kept his hand on Maglor’s back, and took half a step in front of him when Caranthir rounded on them, pointing at Maglor. “Macalaurë! You don’t think you can ride yet, do you?”

Maglor blinked at him, startled. His eye was still swollen and dark; the other was reddened and damp. His voice was still hoarse and scratchy. “I—yes? If I had to?” Caranthir threw up his hands, and Maglor flinched; Maedhros didn’t think Caranthir had noticed, since he was already turning away.

“Is this about moving camp?” Celegorm asked, taking a step closer to Maglor. “It’s really not that far, Moryo. They can both make it if we ride slowly, and then we’ll stay an extra few days if we have to.”

“I want to wash my hair,” Maedhros said flatly. “I smell like the bottom of a river, and—”

“We’re the only ones who can see you, Maedhros, or smell you.”

“I don’t care what I look like. It itches.”

“A bath does sound nice,” Maglor said after a moment. He had followed Celegorm to the campfire, but kept his gaze lowered. 

“Ugh. Fine.” Caranthir got up. “But then we’re waiting until the bruises start to fade and Maglor can see out of both his eyes, and Maedhros can get to his feet without help or almost falling over until we move again.”

“Are we breaking camp?” Ambarussa called from where they were tending to the horses. 

“Yes.” Caranthir glared at Maedhros. “I don’t like how you’re acting more like yourself only now after you’ve almost been killed, Maedhros.” Maedhros stared at him, but he was already turning away to go clear out the tent and take it down. He had thought before that Caranthir was only annoyed, but now he saw that he was bordering on livid.

“He has a point,” said Curufin before following. 

That didn’t feel fair. He felt more present, perhaps, than he had immediately before falling into the river, but he’d felt more present at Midsummer too, and in the days before they’d arrived at Ekkaia. The pain of his wounds was grounding in its own way, as pain always was, but Caranthir’s accusation made it feel like they thought he’d done it on purpose. It was uncomfortably like what Maglor had said on the riverbank, furious and frightened enough to be careless with his voice even on the verge of losing it. 

Celegorm crouched beside him. “They’re angry because they’re worried,” he said.

“I know.”

“Should they be?”

Maedhros sighed, and rolled his eyes, and tried to speak lightly. “No, I don’t intend to make a habit of getting attacked by wild animals.”

“You know what I mean.” Celegorm searched his face, and whispered, “You told me by Ekkaia you should never have been let out of Mandos.”

He never should have said that out loud. “I’m not trying to go back, Tyelko. I promise. And I’m not trying to aggravate my wounds by getting back in the saddle. I really just want to be clean, and—and away from the hills.” He glanced toward them, rocky and grey, looming up behind them. He could still hear the sound of the river, still too high and too fast, just out of sight. There might be other cats and other creatures lurking nearby, and it made him nervous—especially at night, when only one of them was awake, even with Huan on watch too. Maedhros wanted to be far away; at least out on the plains they could see anything coming at a distance, instead of even Huan being taken almost entirely off guard.

“All right.” Celegorm grabbed the back of his head and pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I’ll hold you to that promise, Nelyo.” He rose then, and went to help saddle the horses. No one allowed Maedhros or Maglor to get up and help, even to pack their own things; Huan came and sat down beside Maglor when he tried to get up, in a way that suggested that if he tried again Huan would next sit on him. Maglor settled back down, and remained quiet and downcast; he only smiled when Daeron came to speak to him, but even then he spoke little, and he wouldn’t look at Maedhros at all. 

The creek was less than half an hour’s ride through the grass, even moving slowly. The summer wildflowers were all in full bloom, a fragrant rainbow of color stretched out all around them like a colorful patchwork quilt. Maedhros had gotten into the saddle with less effort than he’d feared, with both Caranthir and Celegorm hovering and helping by turns; Maglor had not sprung as lightly into his as he once had, but he too seemed relatively comfortable. They could have gone farther, Maedhros thought; but he didn’t mind stopping again, especially once he was able to escape into the shelter of a willow tree by the water so he could peel off his clothes and bandages and wade into the clean clear water of the creek, so unlike the muddy river of the hill country behind them. The bed of it was sandy rather than muddy, and it was just deep enough for him to be able to sit and duck his head easily under the surface to scrub his fingers over his scalp. Even without soap it was a terrific relief. 

When he surfaced he heard a voice from just upstream, in the shade of a neighboring willow—Daeron, and Maedhros thought Maglor must be with him, though if he spoke it was too quiet for anyone else to hear. On the bank under Maedhros’ willow waited Caranthir, with a set of clean clothes and a scowl. “Have you seen yourself?” he asked. 

“Yes,” Maedhros said, before ducking under the water again, needing a moment to push away memories of the last time he and Caranthir had sat together under a willow tree. Fëanor was not going to appear unlooked for out here, but the sick feeling in his stomach needed convincing of it.

He was covered in bruises, purple and blue and in places starting to turn sickly yellow, and though the bite and claw wounds had been neatly stitched, they would certainly leave scars, and remained red and slightly swollen. Thanks to Daeron, they were already more healed than they would have been otherwise. He rubbed his fingernails over his scalp again, to make sure he got as much dirt out as possible without soap, and then rose, twisting his hair around his hand and wrist to wring it out as he splashed back to the bank. “I’m sorry I frightened you, Moryo.” Caranthir just glared at him until he sat down again on the grass, and then he grabbed his arm to look more loosely at the stitches. Maedhros let him. They were healing well, and Caranthir couldn’t find anything to complain about, so he patted them dry in silence, and wrapped new bandages around them. Maedhros’ ribs received the same treatment. 

“If you do anything like that again,” Caranthir said finally, as he handed Maedhros a clean shirt, “I’ll never forgive you.”

Maedhros wondered if there was some script his brothers were following that he did not know about. “I didn’t intend to do it in the first place,” he said. “We’ve already been over this.”

“But you aren’t—”

“Of course I’m not sorry I did it. I would have preferred it if the cat hadn’t attacked anyone at all, but it did, and I reacted. I’m not going to die, and the scars won’t even be that bad, so can you please stop? If I hadn’t been there one of you would have been, and you would’ve done the same thing.”

Caranthir didn’t stop glaring at him, but before he could reply Daeron and Maglor ducked through the willow fronds, both of them damp and Maglor, at least, looking somewhat refreshed. Maglor’s steps faltered when he saw Caranthir’s face, and Daeron reached out to take his hand. Maedhros gave Caranthir what he hoped was a pointed look. It didn’t make him stop frowning, but he did get up and leave, muttering under his breath but at least ending the argument before it really began. 

“Your brothers are all even worse than my cousin,” Daeron remarked. “At least Mablung knows when an argument is finished.”

“Arguments are never finished when there’s seven of you,” Maedhros sighed. He grabbed the rest of his clothes to finish dressing. Daeron and Maglor exchanged a few quiet words, and when Maedhros looked up again he found himself alone with Daeron, Maglor having slipped away soundlessly through the grass. Daeron knelt on the grass by Maedhros, who looked at him warily. “You aren’t going to start an argument, are you?”

Daeron smiled. “No, but what I want to speak of may be worse. You do not have to answer me if you don’t wish to.”

“I’ll answer if I can,” Maedhros said. “Is Maglor…?”

“He’s all right—or as well as can be expected. Not being able to speak troubles him greatly, but it isn’t my place to explain why. That isn’t what I wanted to ask you about.” Daeron paused, as though putting his thoughts in order. He had his hands on his knees, and one of his fingers tapped in a rhythm Maedhros couldn’t quite follow. “I wanted to ask about your father,” he said finally. 

“What about him?” Maedhros asked. Whatever he’d expected, it wasn’t that. 

“Maglor spoke to him, and came away greatly troubled. I think that is what lies behind everything else—I think if he had met you before, it would have gone very differently. He was somber but not nearly so troubled when we were aboard the ship together—I attributed that to grief at leaving, for I felt it too—and he was much more cheerful when we met again in Avallónë, though still not particularly merry.”

“I’m not sure I can tell you anything helpful. My own meeting with him went no better than Maglor’s.”

“But why did it go so poorly?” Daeron asked. “I wish to understand what it is that has hurt all of you so badly.”

Maedhros regarded him for a moment, remembering again just how little he knew of Daeron—loremaster, mighty singer, perhaps would-be lover of Lúthien Tinúviel, if those tales were true; traveler and friend of wizards, from the tales he had told of himself. None of that gave a hint as to what he thought of Fëanor, or of the rest of them, or of what had drawn him to Maglor in the first place—or back to him, after so long. Maybe it didn’t matter. He had been drawn back, and it seemed clear to Maedhros, at least, that he intended to stay. 

“I don’t know how to explain,” he said finally. “He was not always what he became before his death, but the change was…it was not sudden, and yet it felt so. He was once as great as the old tales say; he was brilliant and driven, but when we were young he would set aside any project no matter how important just to spend an afternoon in our company, doing nothing more than laughing and playing games, or just talking to us if we were troubled. There was nothing we could not tell him, no question we could not ask. He loved his own father; he never liked his brothers, and resented Indis, but tolerated his sisters, at least for a time. I don’t think he ever made peace with his mother’s death. We loved him as much as he loved Finwë—as much as you have loved your own father, I would guess.”

Daeron’s smile was crooked and did not reach his eyes. “No,” he said, “I cannot say that I love my father, for I cannot love someone I have never known. Perhaps if I did I would not have to ask such questions of you. I was raised by my aunt and uncle for the most part, but really by everyone around me, as was the custom in those days when a child was orphaned. I had no shortage of guardians—but no parents.”

“I’m sorry,” Maedhros said.

“You need not be. I cannot miss someone I never knew, either.”

“Our father turned into someone none of us recognized, by the end,” Maedhros said after a moment, “but he still wore our father’s face, and—and we still loved him, enough to swear his oath, once in Tirion and again at his death. What hurts now is that he seems restored to himself, to who he was before—or someone very like it.”

“Ah,” Daeron murmured. “And you are not.”

“We cannot be, any of us. He set us on our path, but we walked it, all the way to the end.” Maedhros looked out over the water. It sparkled in the sunshine; the breeze whispered through the willow boughs above them, and birds were singing up and down the creek. The noise of it all was such a relief after the silence of Ekkaia and the damp and dreary quiet of the hill country behind them. “It was never our intention to look for Maglor,” he said after a moment. “We came out here to get away from our father, and to try to know each other again. I never meant to reopen old wounds.”

“I know that,” Daeron said, “and so does he. I’m not so sure it is a matter of reopening wounds, instead of realizing they had never healed in the first place. He was longer in Dol Guldur than you were in Angband, you know.” He spoke the names with even more ease than Elrond had, and Maedhros winced. “Sixty years at least, almost certainly more. I am sorry to ask this, but I must: did the memories ever cease to trouble you, afterward?”

“No,” Maedhros sighed. Daeron meant the kind of memories that had rendered Maglor frozen and trapped in the maze of his own mind on the river bank, empty-eyed and white-faced with horror; the ones that clung to the spirit with barbs, that could be brought to the surface after years, centuries, by something as simple as a sound or a word or a scent on the breeze. Maedhros had learned, eventually, how to push them back and how to delay the inevitable panic and pain that they brought until he could escape somewhere private—the walls of his bedchamber in Himring had seen him fall apart many more times than he had ever let anyone know, even Maglor. He had never learned how to keep them entirely at bay. “I learned how to manage them,” he said aloud. “How to do what I had to in spite of them, until everything turned into one long unending nightmare that even the memories of Angband could not surpass.”

“And now?”

“They have not troubled me like that since I returned,” Maedhros said. Mandos had done that for him, at least. “I dream of it sometimes, but not often.” Other things haunted his dreams more, but he was not going to remind Daeron of Doriath or Sirion if he did not have to. “But I had a war to fight then,” he said, “and people to lead, and brothers to manage. Maglor doesn’t—and he has already received more help than I ever did. Maybe someday they will cease to trouble him altogether. I don’t know. Elrond might be the better one to ask.”

“Did you ever ask for help?” Daeron asked. 

“No. I don’t say I had no help. Fingon helped. Maglor helped. All my brothers did, and my cousins, my uncle, in their own ways, though I never asked for it, and maybe it wasn’t enough. I didn’t know what to ask for, anyway. None of us understood yet what it all meant, or how to heal such wounds. We just—we just kept going.” There had been no other choice. The orcs didn’t care if you were too exhausted from nightmares to grip a sword; the dragons wouldn’t stop just because you were afraid. The Oath cared nothing for grief or pain or guilt. 

“If you had known,” Daeron said after a moment, “what would you have asked for? What would you have wished someone would have done for you?”

Maedhros looked at him. “Exactly what you are doing,” he said.

“Are you saying that because you know it is what I want to hear, or because it is the truth?”

“It’s the truth. I love my brother, Daeron, and I wish that I could help him. Since I can’t, I am very glad that he has you by his side.”

Daeron smiled at him. It softened his dark eyes, brightening the ancient starlight that glimmered in them. “He loves you, too,” he said softly. “Do not despair, Maedhros. I think you will both find joy in one another again.” With that he rose and passed out from under the willow tree, leaving Maedhros alone in the shade. 

He drew his knee up to his chest and rested his arms over it. His eyes stung, but he was so tired of tears. Maedhros closed his eyes instead and listened to his brothers’ voices and to the flowing water beside him. Maglor could hear the Music that made the world in such waters. Maedhros remembered when he’d first learned how, long long ago when they’d still been almost children. He had been so thrilled, even more excited than he’d been after his first performance before Finwë’s court. And he remembered when they had first come upon the River Sirion in Beleriand. Maglor had tilted his head, listening hard as they rode along its banks, and he’d smiled to recognize the Music that he knew so well. Maedhros himself had only ever heard a faint echo of it; nearly everyone could, but it took better ears than his to learn to truly hear the Music in whatever fullness it was preserved in the world’s waters. Sometimes he wished he could hear it, that he might understand better, somehow, the song of his own life.

After a few minutes he felt able to face the rest of the world again, and got up carefully, leaning against the tree for a moment to steady himself, because if Caranthir was not gentle he was right—Maedhros did need more time to rest—and went back to the campsite. 

They stayed by the creek for the better part of two weeks, until both Maedhros’ and Maglor’s bruises started to turn more interesting colors than purple and blue, thanks to the rest and Daeron’s songs, and Maglor’s voice returned to its normal strength. He still spoke little, as though afraid of making it worse again. Maedhros kept his distance, not wanting to make anything else worse; Maglor had been unable to look him in the face since the river. Perhaps Daeron could see a way forward, but Maedhros couldn’t. When Caranthir and Curufin finally admitted that Maedhros was probably not going to suffer more than unusually sore muscles from a full day’s ride, they packed up their things and set off again, heading east across the rolling grasslands. The days were hot and bright, and at first they went slowly, at a leisurely pace. No one wanted to rush, but Maedhros thought they were all ready to be back at home—wherever that was, for each of them.

It was Maglor that started the first race. Caranthir and Curufin had been bickering about something for half an hour when he seemed to grow sick of it, urging his horse into a canter and then a full gallop, racing ahead past Celegorm, hair flying free of its braids like a dark banner behind him. Huan barked and charged after him, and Celegorm, laughing, followed. Ambarussa took off next, but Maedhros remained behind with Curufin and Caranthir. Daeron too kept his pace slow; he had a dreamy, far away look on his face, and Maedhros was not even sure he’d noticed the sudden commotion. The hedgehog peered out of her pouch curiously, nose twitching as she sniffed the air. 

“Well,” Curufin said after a few minutes, “at least he’s feeling better.”

“He and Tyelko will be racing the whole rest of the way home, now,” Caranthir sighed. 

“I hope not,” said Curufin. “At that rate we’ll arrive before his black eye is completely gone, and Ammë will have a lot of questions.”

“She’ll have questions anyway.”

“But not right away—only when she sees Nelyo rolls up his sleeve.”

“The bruises will be gone by the time we reach your mother’s house,” Daeron said. Maybe he wasn’t so unaware after all. “I flatter myself that my songs have been speeding them along their healing.”

“I like your songs better than I like Ambarussa’s healing brews,” said Maedhros. “Don’t look at me like that, Curvo. You haven’t been the one forced to drink them.”

“I drank them plenty in Beleriand.”

“They’re worse now.”

“Oh, stop it,” Caranthir said. “Here’s a thought: what if we arrive home to find Atar there?”

“I doubt we will,” said Curufin. “He’s been at Imloth Ningloron with Fingolfin all summer, hasn’t he? Tyelko spoke to Ammë last night and nothing had changed.”

“He’s got to leave there sometime,” said Caranthir. “Even Elrond’s famous hospitality must have its limits.”

“They’ll go to Tirion, then,” Curufin said. 

“And on the way is Ammë’s house,” said Caranthir. 

“Is this not borrowing trouble?” Daeron asked. 

“Borrowing trouble is Carnistir’s favorite pastime,” said Curufin, and dodged out of the way of a half-hearted swing from Caranthir, moving so that Maedhros was between them.

They caught up to the rest later in the afternoon beside a broad lake, its shores thick with reeds where birds were hidden, and the surface in the middle a smooth mirror of the wide blue sky. They stopped there to make camp; Maglor was flushed and windblown, and looked as though he’d left something behind in the race and was lighter for it. His smile was brighter than Maedhros had yet seen it when he greeted Daeron, and he laughed at whatever Daeron had to say to him. The smile faded a little when Curufin went to speak to him, but then the two of them walked off together, away around the bend in the lake. Maedhros glanced at Celegorm, who shrugged in response. 

Pídhres came to climb up onto Maedhros’ shoulders, purring as she rubbed her face against his. She’d been doing that more and more often of late, and he didn’t quite understand it. He couldn’t find it in himself to complain, though. There was something comforting about a small purring creature tucked up around his neck.

He pulled out his sketchbook as he leaned against his pack while his brothers argued over what to have to eat and whether there might be good fishing in the lake. Without thinking too much about what he was doing, he sketched them as they talked. He hadn’t drawn anything since Ekkaia, and it surprised him a little to find, now that he’d started again, that he’d missed it. 

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Maglor had not expected Curufin to ask to speak to him. Something was amiss, but he didn’t know how to ask, so he just kept silent, waiting as they walked along the edge of the lake. A flock of birds erupted in a raucous explosion of calls and rushing wings out of the reedy shallows as they passed, and they stopped to watch them until they descended again like a pale cloud on the other side of the lake. Finally, Curufin said, “I used to look for you in Vairë’s tapestries. I didn’t understand why you never went to Telperinquar. And then—and then his city burned, and…”

“I know what happened,” Maglor said quietly. “He and I have spoken of it.”

“He speaks of it to no one,” Curufin said. 

“Finrod got us drunk and insisted—the three of us having one particular thing in common.” Maglor folded his arms and looked out across the lake. “But we’d spoken a little even before then, when he came to see me on Eressëa—after he learned what happened to me.” It had been awful, seeing how the knowledge upset Celebrimbor, and he should have taken that as a warning. How foolish to have ever believed he was ready to come to Valinor, to receive all the questions and the stares and the worried looks.

“I stopped looking for you after that,” Curufin said after a moment. “I wish I hadn’t. I wish—”

“Are you trying to apologize?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know. I just—I watched what he did to Tyelpë but not what he did to you, and—”

“Curvo.” Maglor stepped forward to embrace him. Curufin was shorter than he was, the slightest-built of all of them, wiry in his strength rather than broad; Maglor rested his hand on the back of his head, tucking him under his chin, the way he’d once held Elrond and Elros when they were still short enough. He’d never had to comfort Curufin in this way before; there had been little cause for it in their youth—and Curufin would have gone to Celegorm first anyway—and later in Beleriand Curufin had so swiftly grown too hard for any kind of gentle gesture. “I’m glad you didn’t see me,” he said, “and I wish you hadn’t had to see what happened to Tyelpë.”

“I stopped looking because I was angry,” Curufin said into his chest, voice muffled, as his hands fisted in Maglor’s shirt. “Because you weren’t there when he—”

“I’m sorry,” Maglor said. “I’m sorry that I never saw Eregion in its glory, and that I was not there to do what I could when it fell.” He wasn’t sure that he would have made much of a difference. He had been captured later by Sauron diminished, Sauron only slowly regaining his power as the Necromancer in Mirkwood, and had been unable to withstand him. Sauron at his height, so soon after the forging of the One—Maglor would never have stood a chance. But Celebrimbor was his nephew, and he should have been there. He should have done something. But he hadn’t even known what was happening—not until long afterward, and nothing close to the full truth of Celebrimbor’s fate until Sauron himself had revealed it to him.

“You don’t have to be sorry,” Curufin sighed. “I’m not angry anymore. I just—I saw the brand on your chest and remembered he did the same thing to my son and—” His voice broke and he fell silent. Then he whispered, “You should never have come to that place, Maglor. Why did you go anywhere near it?”

Maglor hadn’t known that Celebrimbor had also been branded. Sauron had shown him terrible things, but not that—only the end, after any brands or similar marks had been obscured by other, worse things. “I had heard rumors of the Necromancer,” he said, looking out over the water again. The sun was sinking behind them in the west, casting a warm glow over the water so that it seemed to be made of liquid gold. Insects buzzed through the reeds, and a frog croaked before splashing into the water. Ducks were nearby, quacking softly to one another as they paddled about. Even there, surrounded by warmth and light and beauty, it was difficult to talk of it. The Anduin Vale had been beautiful, too. He had made it to the Gladden Fields, full of irises and lilies, before the orcs had found him. He hadn’t known the name of the place, then. He hadn’t known it was where Isildur had fallen, long ago; he hadn’t known anything at all about the rings, had only even known the name of Isildur through faint rumors and old stories. “I thought that keeping near the river would allow me to avoid him, whoever he was. It was only a whim that I struck north at all, following the Anduin. I had had some thought of finding its headwaters.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Curiosity, I suppose. I wasn’t…I did not feel so unhappy and lonely then. I was unhappy and lonely, but I was used to it, and out in the world there was always something to see or do or find out, to distract me from it.” There had been moments of happiness, of satisfaction—even of connection, when he came to a Mannish village to trade songs for new clothes, or a little bit of labor for a warm place to sleep and a supply of food to take with him, though he never stayed long enough for there to be a chance at anything like real friendship. Maglor did not often remember those moments, these days. Dol Guldur had stripped everything away except the loneliness and despair of his exile, and it was only long afterward that he’d found real joy in the wandering again, and remembered that even those long solitary years had never been filled with constant misery. “I wouldn’t have gone that way if I had had any idea of who the Necromancer really was. But even the Wise did not know, in those days, and I knew far less than even the least of them.”

Curufin drew back to look up into his face. He was famous for his resemblance to their father, but Maglor could see very little similarity in them now. Fëanor, even subdued in his return from death, was a force, impossible to ignore, his very presence as intense as a forge fire. Curufin had his features, but he was smaller and more slender and at times seemed far more fragile, though that was an illusion, like the intricate roses he had once made of wrought iron, as lifelike as any of Nerdanel’s sculptures, that had seemed delicate while being the farthest thing from it. He was capable of the same intensity, of the same focus and drive—and that had been on full display in Beleriand, to the ruin of Nargothrond—but Maglor saw none of that now. He saw only his baby brother—and someone else who maybe did not know how to stop grieving. Maglor wondered, for a moment, what had become of those metal roses, if Curufin’s wife had kept them, or if they had been melted down or thrown away.

“Are you happy, Curvo?” he asked. “I don’t mean right now, I mean with your life now, as it is.”

“Yes. Mostly.” Curufin looked away, glancing back toward their camp. “Tyelko was avoiding me until we came out here.”

“Why?” He’d seen them butting heads, but hadn’t thought much of it. They were all butting heads in one way or another, except Ambarussa.

“It was…it was guilt and all kinds of other ugly things still tangled up in it. He thought I didn’t want to speak to him, or at least that I shouldn’t want to speak to him. I didn’t understand why he wouldn’t speak to me.”

“How did you fix it?” Maglor asked. 

“Maedhros told us we were being stupid and made us talk to each other. Or—he made Tyelko talk to me, and he made me listen. That was at Midsummer.”

At Midsummer Maglor had been in Imloth Ningloron, singing with Elemmírë and dancing with Galadriel, laughing with Elrond, feeling lighter than he had since Arwen had died, feeling as though he was ready to move forward into this new life before him in Valinor in spite of anxiety about his brothers and the approaching specter of his father. He’d been wrong, of course—he wasn’t ready at all. It was a strange sort of comfort to learn that his brothers were struggling too, in their own ways. It was a bigger comfort to know that they were finding ways to move forward in spite of it.

Then Curufin asked, “Would you be angry with me if I went to see Atya?”

“Why would I be angry?” Maglor asked. 

“Because you were so angry at him. And he—after everything he did—”

“Curvo…” Maglor didn’t know what to say, how to reassure him. “Yes, I was angry when I saw him. It hurt. It hurt like…” He rubbed his thumb over his scarred palm. “I have not been to Mandos, as you have. I haven’t…I am healing, from everything, but it’s slow. There are things I cannot forgive, things I don’t know if I will ever be able to forgive, however much I wish I could. But that should not stop you. He is still our father. I don’t want to feel as I do. I miss him as much as I miss all of you, I just—”

“You don’t have to miss us, Cáno. We’re right here.”

“I can’t stop. I don’t know how. I can no more stop grieving you than I can stop breathing. It’s as much a part of me now as my lungs, as my heart.”

Curufin looked away again. “Is that why you keep pulling back?”

“I’m not the only one who has been pulling back.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too.” A burst of laughter erupted back at the camp, and both Maglor and Curufin glanced that way. Then Maglor asked, “Are they angry with you, for wanting to see Atya?”

“No, except that I haven’t spoken to Tyelko of it yet; he wants nothing to do with Atya at all and we’ve only just—anyway, Moryo thinks I’m the one most likely to have a real—a real conversation with him, instead of just whatever you and Nelyo had.”

“I didn’t want to converse with him,” Maglor said. “I didn’t want to see him at all, only he was there, so I just…” He’d wanted to cause even a small fraction of the same kind of pain that Fëanor had, to make him feel even a hint of what he’d done to them. He didn’t know if he’d succeeded, and he didn’t think now, having had time to reflect, that it had been the right course to take. It had been cruel, and in the end it had not made him feel any better. “Moryo is probably right.”

“It just feels like I am caught in the middle.”

“You understand both sides, though. You and Tyelpë have reconciled.”

“Yes, but…”

“I don’t know what I want from him,” Maglor said. “Right now I don’t want to see him again and I cannot imagine ever wanting it—but if you and Tyelpë can build something new out of what once was, maybe there is hope for the rest of us.”

“I suppose if he can reconcile with Fingolfin, as Ammë tells us he has, then anything is possible.”

“Did Ammë go there? To Imloth Ningloron?”

“No. Tyelpë stayed, and he’s been writing to her. Atya has given up all his claims to the crown, and he and Fingolfin have been spending a great deal of time together—and not fighting.”

“Maybe anything really is possible, then,” Maglor said. Curufin smiled, but only briefly. “When we return, Curvo, go see him.”

“It’s just—if we can’t be united—”

“We don’t have to be. We aren't a faction, we are a family. We were never always united in everything before. One of us was always falling out with another, don’t you remember?”

“None of those fights meant anything,” Curufin said. “Not really. The worst fight we ever had was when I ruined your hair, and that blew over once it started growing out again. This is different.”

“You know what I mean, though. We have always had disagreements. The way that we ignored them in Beleriand for the sake of unity was a mistake, and I think it is what broke us apart in the end.” They had ignored a lot, in Beleriand. The way that Maedhros had never really recovered from Angband the way he wanted everyone to think, the ways that they were all changing and hardening, all sharp edges that didn’t fit together as they once had, and just cut instead, the Doom that hung over them and promised ill ends to whatever they began—and, of course, the Oath, until it refused to allow itself to be ignored any longer. 

“We all loved each other, before,” Curufin said after a moment. He did not look at Maglor, instead looking back toward the camp. Smoke from the campfire curled lazily up toward the sky. Someone laughed again. 

“We all still do,” Maglor said quietly.

“But you and Maedhros—”

“I still love him, Curvo. That’s the trouble. It feels as though I’ve loved him more than he loved me—”

“That’s not true.”

“I don’t know if he loved anything at all by the end. After Sirion he just—he kept withdrawing, fading, and there wasn’t anything I could do to bring him back, and I can see him doing it again now. If it hadn’t been for the Oath keeping him tethered I don’t think he would have lived long enough to try for the Silmarils one more time. I don’t know what’s keeping him here now.”

“Is that what frightened you so badly by the river?”

“Yes. That wasn’t the only thing, but—yes.”

“What was the other thing? Daeron spoke of you losing your voice as though it was something horrible, but it’s come back just fine, and you’ve overextended yourself like that before.”

It was Maglor’s turn to look away. He’d said he would explain when he had his voice back, but no one had asked him and he’d thought, perhaps foolishly, that they had forgotten. “Sauron had my mouth sewn shut,” he said finally, looking out at the water, “at the same time he had my chest branded. It was after I tried to sing down the tower around us.”

“Cáno—”

Maglor kept going; if he didn’t he wouldn’t be able to start again. He had not spoken of this even to Celebrimbor and Finrod while they were all drunk. “It didn’t work; I was too weak by then. I’m not sure I was ever strong enough. But—but when the White Council finally attacked, just before he retreated, he…he laid one last curse on me, and silenced me entirely. Even when Galadriel took the stitches out, I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t even scream even though the pain of it was horrible. I…” He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers against his lips, feeling phantom pains there again, remembering the blank and cold expressions of the Necromancer’s servants that had brought the needle and thread, and how they had seemed not even to hear any of his pathetic pleas for mercy—the last words he spoke for more than sixty years. “Elrond lifted it the next summer. I was not without my voice even for a full year, but that wasn’t the point.” 

“What was the point?” 

“It was a reminder of what he was capable of, of how he could extend my suffering even when I was taken out of his grasp. A hint of what he could do when he found me again. It’s—I know that losing my voice because I’ve done too much is different. But in the moment it did not feel different. And I know that he is gone, but it’s—”

“It’s like Nelyo after Angband,” Curufin said, very softly. “Is there anything…?”

“No.” Maglor held out his arms again, and Curufin embraced him as tightly as Caranthir always did. “I don’t get lost like that often. Not anymore. It was just—that was just a very bad day, on top of those memories being nearer the surface lately than they usually are.”

“Why are they so near?”

“Just—no one here has seen me with these scars before, except those who lived in Rivendell or Lothlórien. It isn’t anyone’s fault, and everyone means well, but even you all stared at them when you first saw me, even after Tyelpë told you what to expect. I can’t forget them again yet, as I could in Middle-earth.” He’d gone years at a time without thinking of them. No one in Middle-earth ever questioned anyone’s scars. “It will get easier with time, I think. Time is the only cure for most of the ills I suffer.”

“You could go to Lórien,” Curufin said, tentatively. “Estë won’t just take them away—at least, she’s never done that before that I have heard—but…”

“I should,” Maglor admitted. “I might have ended up there if Gandalf hadn’t meddled, and if I hadn’t met Daeron on the road. But I just—I don’t know how long I would have to stay there, and I did not want to leave Elrond again so soon. I wanted time to find my footing, first, and…before Atya came there I really thought that I was doing better than it seems I am.” It was easier in Elrond and Celebrían’s valley, where he was not the only one with shadows in his past, not the only one with visible scars or bad dreams. “I’ll go, maybe next year, or the year after.”

“Good,” Curufin said. He sighed. “Maedhros keeps refusing, and none of us know how to convince him to go.”

“I don’t either. I’m sorry.”

As they turned to walk back, Ambarussa came striding out of the grass. “Where have you been?” they demanded. “Tyelko doesn’t want anyone going off out of sight for too long,” Amrod added. 

“There aren’t any hill cats out here,” Curufin said. 

“No, but there are other creatures,” said Amras. “Cáno, come walk with us for a while. We’re looking for wild onions and garlic.”

“What happened to not going out of sight?” Curufin asked as he stepped away from Maglor, and the twins each seized one of his arms. 

“He’s in our sight,” said Amrod with a grin as he hefted his bow, “and we won’t be long. Go help Caranthir try to catch a fish!”

“I’m no fishermen,” Curufin said. “I just make the spears.” But he left them with a smile, and the set of his shoulders was not so stiff as he went. 

“You don’t need me to gather onions and garlic,” Maglor said as he let the twins pull him along. 

“No, but we haven’t gotten to spend any time alone with you yet, and we’ve missed you,” said Amrod.

“I’ve missed you, too,” said Maglor.

They found wild onions growing under a copse of trees some distance from the lake. Maglor didn’t do any digging, but he held the basket that Amras handed him, and sat amid the grass and flowers while the twins worked. They chatted to him about the places they had gone and the things they had been doing since their release from Mandos. They had come after Caranthir and Maedhros, but before Celegorm or Curufin. “I thought you’d joined Oromë’s hunt again,” Maglor said after a while, having heard no tales of it. They’d followed Celegorm into it in their youth, but that had not been very long before Fëanor had begun to speak more openly against the Valar, and in time even Celegorm had stopped going out. Maglor remembered the arguments; they shook the walls of their house in Tirion, and he’d fled to the palace, and Finwë’s woodworking shop behind the cherry grove, just to escape it.

“Everyone assumes we have,” Amrod said, “and it’s easier to let them all think so.”

“We have been following Vána instead,” said Amras after a moment. “And we haven’t really roamed around as much as we let everyone think, either. There is a small house in the woods some days south of Imloth Ningloron, but north of the deep woods of Oromë, where we live.”

“Why?” Maglor asked. “Why keep it a secret? Does Celegorm know?”

“He has rejoined Oromë’s hunt, so he knows that we haven’t,” said Amrod, “but he hasn’t asked us what we’ve been doing instead. I don’t know if anyone has told you, but hardly any of us spoke to or saw one another until we all came out traveling together. I think we’d only all gathered at Ammë’s house…once? Twice before? We haven’t even been to Curufin’s house in Tirion. I don’t think I even know where it is.”

“It’s been nice to escape…everything,” Amras said as he dropped a handful of small wild onion bulbs into the basket. “We learned the value of a quiet and green place in Beleriand, when we went to live among the Laiquendi.”

“We still live near their settlements here,” said Amrod, “though we are not a part of them—the Laiquendi of Ossiriand, and the Woodelves from farther east.”

“That’s how you got the imitation Dorwinion, I suppose,” Maglor said. 

“Yes. We visit them often, but—well, our house was always so loud growing up, and then we got used to the quiet, and then we were at war, and…there’s peace there, in the deep woods. Everything is green, even the sunlight that comes through the leaves. We don’t have to always be remembering whose sons we are, whose brothers. We can just be Ambarussa. Vána doesn’t ask much of her followers, you know. Just that we walk softly and carefully, and with our eyes and hearts open. There are gatherings in the spring to dance and sing and celebrate together, but it’s not really much like the followings of the other Valar, not even Yavanna.”

Their house had been loud and often full, by the time the twins had been born. Maglor had been splitting his time between Tirion and Valmar, studying under Elemmírë, when he wasn’t off wandering by himself or with Maedhros or with their cousins—who had also always been coming and going, before the unrest had entered into Tirion and driven its wedges between them all. “I didn’t know you were unhappy when you were young,” he said.

“Oh, we weren’t!” said Amrod, looking up. “We just find ourselves happier away from the city now. Does that make sense?”

“I think so.”

“Not that Ammë’s house is loud, these days,” said Amrod after a moment.

“No, it’s very quiet—but that’s worse, because everyone is so unhappy.” Amras paused. “Well, no. Carnistir is tolerably happy most of the time, I think, and Ammë is also tolerably happy when she isn’t worried about all of us—but Maitimo has been miserable. He wouldn’t look either of us in the eye for almost a decade after we came back. A little like you’re not looking us in the eye in this moment, now that I’ve told you that.”

“It’s just—you died, and we couldn’t even stay to bury you.”

“Oh, Cáno. That doesn’t matter to us. Burials are for the living; the dead don’t care. Besides, I asked someone once—Gil-galad’s folk from Balar buried us. Everyone, no matter which side, was buried properly after Sirion.”

Maglor hadn’t known that. He didn’t know what to say to it now. The guilt of it would always linger—overshadowed by greater guilt and regret, but there all the same, that not only did he fail to save his youngest baby brothers, he hadn’t even been able to honor them properly afterward.

They left the onions to seek out the garlic, and found a berry patch nearby; Amras picked handfuls for the three of them to eat. The bright red berries were very sweet, and stained their fingers pink; they were not a kind that Maglor had ever seen before, and he would not have known them to be good to eat if Amras hadn’t said so. He sat with the basket and savored the taste, and watched the twins work. “Why did you tell me about your house in the woods?” he asked finally. 

“You’re the one that was always slipping away to find quiet, when we were all young,” said Amrod. “We didn’t understand why, then. Now we do.”

“You can always come find us, if you need to get away, even from Elrond’s house,” Amras added. “We won’t bother you. Sometimes we go weeks without saying a word to each other. And there’s no one in the forest to stare or ask questions. The Laiquendi come and go, but they won’t care what you look like or where you’ve been.”

The offer should not have made him want to cry, but Maglor felt that tell-tale prickle behind his eyes. He blinked the tears away; he was so tired of weeping. “Thank you,” he said, when he could swallow the tight feeling in his throat. “I’ll remember.”

“We won’t be hard to find.”

As they walked back to the camp the twins each threw an arm around his shoulders, though they had to reach up to do it, being only a little taller than Curufin. Maglor wrapped his arms around them in return, remembering when they had been much smaller, and he’d carried them around hanging off of his arms, the two of them swinging hard enough to nearly knock him over more than once, all of them laughing. He thought their mother might have made a sculpture of it once, though it had probably been lost in the long intervening years. 

Maybe one day she would have cause to make new sculptures, of all seven of them.

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“I really don’t know why I’m surprised,” Elrond sighed as he watched the party of horsemen and -women come riding down the road. The banners of Finwë’s house fluttered above them. Celebrían laughed. 

Beside him Elladan leaned out of the window, one hand raised to shield his eyes from the sun’s glare. “I recognize Lady Míriel,” he said, “but none of the others.”

“That is Indis beside her,” said Celebrían, “and coming just behind them are Findis and Lalwen. I do not see Finarfin, though. Or any of my other uncles, nor any of Fingolfin’s other children.”

“I’m not surprised that Finarfin hasn’t come,” said Elrond. “He was very happy to wash his hands of Tirion and everyone in it, when he handed the crown over to Fingolfin, and it was not that long ago. Didn’t Finrod say he intended to spend at least two centuries in Alqualondë with Eärwen, refusing all visitors but for a few particular exceptions?” Celebrían had been very smug upon learning that she and Elrond were two of those exceptions. Whether that would extend to Elladan and Elrohir remained to be seen; Finarfin, though kindhearted and affectionate, was determined in his quest for quiet and solitude after so many long years of a kingship he had never wanted. 

“Well,” said Elrohir, “at least this summer hasn’t been boring. I suppose we must delay our hunting trip a little while.” They and Elrond had been intending to go off into the woods beyond the valley after their current crop of visitors departed, so the twins might begin to familiarize themselves with the lands and the trees, and to learn all of the new plants and birds and beasts that were to be found in Valinor that they had never seen in Middle-earth. 

Elrond sighed; he had been looking forward to it, and had been expecting to say farewell to Fingolfin and Fëanor in the next day or two, not welcoming the rest of the family. “Celebrían, you know better than I. Can we depend on these new guests to be sensible?”

She laughed again. “When it comes to old family disputes? I rather doubt it.”

“Even Indis?” Elladan asked. 

“I have always known her to be calm and reasonable,” Celebrían allowed, “but as I have gotten to know the House of Finwë, and as I have heard tales of Finwë himself, I have come to suspect that it is not from him that his children all inherited their fire and stubbornness. It is often said that Indis and Míriel are very little alike, but in some respects I think they are really quite similar. It’s only that they’re better at hiding it—and that Míriel has the advantage of being so long absent that everyone has forgotten everything but her talents and her decline. I think if she had not been so weighed down by grief, Indis would have braved the Helcaraxë without hesitation, and I think she might have done deeds as renowned as any of her children, had she come to Beleriand—but you’d never guess it to look at her, or even after getting to know her just a little. I suppose I might be wrong, but I don’t think that I am. I think, though, we don’t have to fear anything worse than a few shouting matches—if that, since Fëanor seems so little inclined to shout these days.”

“Don’t look at me,” Elrond laughed when his sons turned to him. “I do not know her nearly as well as your mother does. Come on then, we had best go downstairs so you may greet your great-grandmother and your aunts.”

“There must be an end to meeting our ever-more-distant relations sometime, yes?” said Elrohir as he paused to straighten Elladan’s robes, while Elladan returned the favor through a quick replaiting of one of Elrohir’s braids. “Only the number seems to continue growing.”

“Someday, perhaps,” Elrond said.

“There are relations even we have not met,” Celebrían added, “those who have not yet returned from Mandos. I do wish you could meet Gil-galad…”

“Is he not yet returned?” asked Elladan. “I have wondered, but I did not know how to ask.”

“No,” said Elrond, “he is not yet returned. How long one spends in Mandos seems a very individual thing. He will come when he is ready.” He had spoken of it to no one except, once, to Celebrían, but Elrond had more than half-expected Gil-galad to be awaiting him when he had sailed into Avallónë, and he had been sorely disappointed to find that was not so. He knew it must have been the same for Círdan, as well; when they had met again his name had not been spoken between them, but the silence spoke volumes in itself of grief and longing. 

Downstairs, Finrod and Fingon and Galadriel were gathered to greet the newcomers. Fingolfin and Fëanor were not there, but they had walked away into the valley some hours before and were not yet returned. The usual boisterous and cheerful chaos of such meetings ensued as Míriel and Indis and Indis’ daughters swept into the entry hall. They were introduced to Elladan and Elrohir and greeted with delight, but Lalwen wasted no time in turning to Elrond and asking where her brothers were. “Off beyond the gardens somewhere,” Elrond said, “perhaps in one of the orchards.”

“Excellent,” Lalwen said. “We were hoping to avoid a crowd of witnesses for this first meeting; that is why we came from Tirion!”

“I hope you don’t mind,” Findis added, pausing to kiss Celebrían and Elrond.

“Certainly not!” said Celebrían. “The more the merrier—I hope!”

“That remains to be seen,” Findis said, a little ruefully.

“Sister!” Lalwen called from down the hall.

“Yes, I’m coming!” Findis hurried away after Lalwen. 

“Should we be concerned, Grandmother?” Finrod asked, watching them go. 

Indis smiled. “I don’t think so.”

“And where is Arafinwë?” Fingon asked. 

“Still in Alqualondë,” said Indis. “He has made it quite clear that if his brother wishes to reconcile, he may come there—as he will have to sometime soon, to speak at least with Olwë.” There was a slight pause and a few grimaces, but the moment passed quickly. Like Elrond, no one was really surprised by Finarfin’s absence. “But where is Macalaurë? I had thought he had come to dwell with you, Elrond.”

“He left soon after Fëanor arrived,” Elrond said. “We expect him back before winter.”

Indis and Míriel exchanged a glance, but Indis said with a smile, “Well, he has never been content to remain still for long. I hope to see him in Tirion soon.”

“I hope so, too,” Elrond said. 

After the initial greetings were over, and Indis walked out to sit near one of the ponds with Galadriel, Celeborn, and Celebrían, Míriel came to Elrond and asked to talk a walk with him through the gardens. “Macalaurë did not even want to speak of his father in Avallónë,” she said. “What really happened when Fëanáro came here?”

“Maglor was angry,” Elrond admitted, “and they did have words—but I don’t know what precisely was said. They met outside of the house, almost across the valley, and Fëanor has not shared what passed between them. Nor did Maglor, for he left immediately afterward.”

“You told me before that you were not worried for him. Has that changed?” Míriel ran her fingers over the flower petals as they walked; much of the garden was in full bloom, a rainbow of bright colors with greenery peeking out of it, rather than the other way around. Birds sang in the bushes and trees, and the sound of flowing water surrounded them, cheerful and clear. White puffy clouds drifted lazily across the sky overhead, casting occasional drifting shadows over the valley when one passed in front of the sun.

“Only a little. He was very cheerful until Fëanor came—and Fëanor came without warning, which made it all the worse. He sang and performed at Midsummer for us. Huan caught up to us on the road coming here, and also left with him. I am not worried that he is wandering in the wilds alone, or that he will not come back—he said that he would return by autumn’s waning.”

“But he is troubled—more than he was in Avallónë.” Míriel smiled a little, wry and rueful, and added, “I remember you telling me that Fëanáro would have to learn to take no for an answer.”

“So he has,” Elrond said. “I did not, in the end, stop him from seeing Maglor, but Maglor made it very clear what his wishes are. He does not want to see or speak to him again.”

“My other grandsons are also wandering somewhere in the western wilds,” Míriel remarked after they walked in silence for a few minutes. “I must be glad, I suppose, that Fëanáro’s brothers have not also gone storming away. Or his sisters,” she added, when raised voices from nearer the water reached them. A moment later there was a great splash. 

Elrond sighed. It had been a joke, was his first thought, as he and Míriel turned to quickly make their way towards the commotion. He’d never really expected anyone to get pushed into the fishpond; he’d only ever said it to make Celebrían laugh. 

As they emerged from between the lilac bushes to come within sight of the pond, he found Celebrían valiantly trying to hold in her giggles, but when their eyes met she had to clap a hand over her mouth to stop them spilling out. Meanwhile, Fëanor was heaving himself up, water streaming down his hair and his clothes, one hand pressed to his face over one eye. “Did someone hit him?” Míriel asked, sounding surprised but not terribly worried. 

“Finally,” said Fingon, coming up to join them. “I’ve been waiting for someone to lose their temper with him. Who was it? Aunt Lalwen?”

“Findis, I think,” said Elrond, watching her shake out her hand as Lalwen, while living up to her name, waded into the water to help Fëanor the rest of the way to his feet. 

“Aunt Findis! I would not have expected that. I do beg your pardon, Lady Míriel,” Fingon added belatedly. “I mean it all with the utmost affection.”

Míriel laughed at him. “A black eye and duckweed in his hair won’t do any lasting harm,” she said, “and I think he knows that he deserves it.”

“He offered to let my father punch him, or so Elrond has told me,” Fingon said, “but Atya only rolled his eyes when I asked him why he didn’t take advantage of the opportunity, and then he scolded me when I said I would not have turned down such an offer from Turgon if we had ever quarreled the way he and Fëanor have.”

Elrond left them, and went to join Findis on the bank, where Fingolfin was examining her fingers. “I know that I taught you once to throw a proper punch,” he was telling her. “That was not a proper punch.”

“We were both children when you taught me, and you have never been a great teacher,” Findis retorted. “Hello, Elrond!”

“Is your hand all right, Aunt?” Elrond asked, holding out his own so he could take a look for himself. 

“I think so. I’m afraid I lost my temper.” 

Elrond noticed, though, that she was not apologizing. “Nothing is broken,” he said, releasing her hand, “but I think that’s more luck than anything else. You must keep your thumb on the outside of your fist.”

“Very well, Master Healer—you’d know all about throwing punches, I suppose?”

“Of course,” Elrond said, smiling. “I’ve not always been only a healer.”

“Was it Maglor that taught you?” Fingolfin asked. “He always was a good teacher.”

“Yes, along with all the dirtiest knife tricks that he knew.” Elrond excused himself and went to join Fëanor and Lalwen, who was trying to examine his eye, but was laughing too much to be of much use. 

“The look on your face when she hit you!” she was exclaiming in between giggles. “Oh, I will treasure that forever, Fëanáro.”

“I am overjoyed for you, Lalwen,” Fëanor said dryly. He held his hand over his eye still, but lowered it when Elrond stepped forward to take a look. 

“Well, that will turn some interesting colors by tomorrow,” Elrond said, “but there’s no real harm done, except that you’ve frightened all of my wife’s fish.” Fëanor rolled his eyes and got to work wringing out his clothes. “At least she did not break your nose. That would be much messier to deal with.”

“I’m touched by your concern.”

“Your own mother says that a black eye and a little duckweed won’t hurt you,” Elrond said placidly. Fëanor looked up sharply, seeing Míriel for the first time, and looking for a moment like a child caught misbehaving. “Try not to track mud and algae into my house though, please—and I might as well warn you that there will be at least half a dozen songs and rhymes about all this by dinnertime.”

“Wonderful,” Fëanor said. “And they’ll be the sort of songs that you can’t get out of your mind afterward, of course.”

“Oh, certainly. That is Lindir’s particular talent. And,” Elrond added with a smile, “has it not been said that the deeds of the Noldor will be a matter of song until the end of days?” This sent Lalwen into another gale of laughter; Fëanor covered his face with a muddy hand, but his shoulders shook in a poor attempt to restrain his own mirth. 

Celebrían was still seated on a nearby bench with her parents. “Well, we almost lasted the summer without someone getting shoved into the pond,” Elrond said as he approached, and she lost her struggle not to burst into helpless giggles. 

“Was that a real worry?” Celeborn asked. 

“I didn’t think it was,” Elrond said.

“Well,” Galadriel said, the picture of serenity, “Fëanor is learning now that, having begun to reconcile with his siblings, he must grow used to having siblings—and all that that entails.”

“Did you often blacken your brothers’ eyes?” Celeborn asked her.

“Not often,” said Galadriel, and refused to elaborate further. “I do remember that once Elrond broke his own brother’s nose.”

“That,” Elrond said, when Celebrían turned to him in astonishment, “was an accident.”

“It looked very purposeful to me,” said Galadriel. 

“It was not my fault he put his face in the way of my elbow.”

“It was fortunate that it happened after his coronation,” Galadriel said, “and it did give us all a way to tell you apart for a time, even if it was rather undignified for the new King of the Edain to be going about with his eyes blackened and his nose swollen.”

“What did you tell everyone?” Celebrían asked. 

“Nothing,” Celeborn said, “since Elrond did it in public.”

It really had been an accident—Elrond had been absorbed in…something. Maps, he thought it had been, trying to make sense of the hastily-made ones of the new coastline. He did remember that his thoughts had been full of Maglor and where he might next try to search for him. Elros had come up too quietly behind him, and he’d reacted without thinking at sudden movement out of the corner of his eye. Elros should have been able to dodge, even so, but he hadn’t, and the war had ended so recently that the sight of his face all covered in blood had driven Elrond into such a sudden panic that Gil-galad had had to take him aside to sit with his head between his knees for a while.

Elros had been furious, of course. Not for long—never for long—but it had been as good an excuse to fight as any, since they’d been trying so very hard not to be angry at each other for choosing differently after Eönwë had come to them. Elrond had, like Fëanor, offered to let Elros get in a punch of his own. Elros had told him not to be stupid, and Elrond had replied that it was no stupider than Elros himself had been, and then they hadn’t spoken at all for three days. After that Elros came to find him for one last trip together to look for Maglor, and it was as though the fight had never happened.

“It was an accident,” he repeated, now. He missed Elros, suddenly, sharply—he always missed him, but it did not usually hurt quite so much these days.

“I wonder if I should be grateful, then, that I was never blessed with siblings,” Celebrían said brightly, deftly turning the conversation away from Elrond and toward herself. “I obtained quite enough bruises all on my own.”

“They are good for things other than punching,” Galadriel said. 

“They’re excellent for laughing at you afterward,” Elrond said, watching Lalwen and Fëanor go by, Lalwen hanging off of his arm and still giggling, and Fëanor staggering a little with the weight of her, but submitting to being towed along as any older brother would, still soaking wet and leaving a trail of pond water in his wake. Findis and Fingolfin followed behind at a more sedate pace with Míriel and Indis; Míriel, too, was laughing. Fingon had disappeared, likely to go tell Finrod all about the scene. 

“I want to say that our children never blackened each other’s eyes, or broke anything,” Celebrían said, “but now I wonder if I just never heard about it.”

“We never did, Naneth,” said Elladan. He and Elrohir appeared to each press a kiss to Celebrían’s cheeks. “Not outside of the sparring ring, we promise, and Glorfindel always hit us harder than we hit each other.”

“Arwen bloodied my nose once, though, do you remember?” Elrohir said. “When she was tiny and always squirming around—she kicked me right in the face.” 

“I do remember,” Celebrían said, laughing. Elrond did not laugh, but he smiled through the pang in his heart at the memory of Arwen as a baby, small and round-faced, with bright eyes and shadow-dark hair. She had been squirming because Elrohir had been blowing raspberries into her stomach, making her giggle and scream with delight. 

By supper time, as Elrond had predicted, there were three songs going around about Fëanor’s tumble into the fishpond. Fëanor bore the teasing with surprisingly good humor. Elrond saw that he avoided Indis, as much as was possible, but it was shocking how much tension had been gotten rid of in only a single afternoon. Elrond even saw Fëanor laughing at something Fingon said. Celebrimbor caught his eye and raised his eyebrows, showing his own surprise.

Gandalf, of course, watched it all unfold with a very smug look on his face, and when he caught Elrond’s eye, he laughed.

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There were no more floods or rainy days as they continued on eastward, and no wild animals to bother them as they went or when they camped, though Celegorm and Huan remained vigilant. They passed at a distance the outcropping that Maglor and Daeron had climbed some weeks before, glowing in the late afternoon sun; it felt like a lifetime had passed since, Maglor thought. Daeron followed his gaze to it and smiled. 

Soon they left the wide plains and entered more wooded countryside, and came again into lands of roads and pathways, and other travelers, and small hamlets and lone homesteads. Celegorm and the twins spoke to the others they met, for the most part, asking for interesting news from Tirion and the other cities. There was little to tell, aside from good predictions for the upcoming harvests. Fëanor was now widely known to have returned, and there were rumors of his reunion with Fingolfin, but very little more. 

Maglor felt his heart start to pound every time Fëanor’s name was mentioned, and fear started knotting up his stomach as they drew closer to Nerdanel’s house, having left the roads again and coming in from the wilds, following the same track that his brothers had taken when they’d left. 

At last the plum orchard came into view; it was the end of the harvest, and Maglor could see a handful of figures passing to and fro between the trees, carrying baskets for collecting any fruits that had been missed, and singing songs to prepare the trees for the coming winter months and to encourage an equally bountiful harvest next year. Beyond it lay Mahtan and Ennalótë’s house, large and rambling behind a series of workshops and forges, with smoke rising from the chimneys and the distant ring of hammers audible even at a distance, and the brilliantly-colored and wild-looking gardens of Ennalótë surrounding it all. Before them was the little river with the willow trees where Maglor had first learned to truly listen to the Music in the water. He remembered other plum harvests where they had taken part, as children climbing up the trees and as adults competing to see who could jump high enough to reach the plums just out of reach, Maedhros always helping the twins to cheat by lifting one or both of them up onto his shoulders. He remembered games played among the trees in the springs and summertimes of his childhood, and of parties and projects undertaken at Mahtan’s house, where Nerdanel’s family was less numerous than Fëanor’s, but no less boisterous. “Is that the roof you fell off of, and broke your arm?” Daeron asked him; they rode behind the others as they approached the river, Maglor slowing without thinking and Daeron keeping pace. 

“Yes, though you can’t see the spot from here. It’s lower and on the other side of the house. Or it was, anyway,” Maglor amended. “I don’t know how much the house has changed since.” It looked the same at a distance—but then, nearly everything here did. The differences only showed up close. Daeron reached out to take his hand.

And there was Nerdanel’s house, smaller than her parents’, cozy-looking, made of soft grey stones with a red-tiled roof. Beside it was her workshop; Maglor kept imagining it like the one Sauron had conjured in one of his visions, the one where he had stolen Nerdanel’s face, though that had been a memory of Tirion, and this one would surely be quite different. He kept seeing that version of her, slightly blurry, with too-smooth hands and freckles in all the wrong places, rather than the one he knew he should remember. Her house was also surrounded by a garden, lush with vegetables, herbs, and flowers, all of them growing together in no particular order, giving it a slightly chaotic and untended look. It would have looked a little neater if Caranthir had not been away, Maglor thought, but he liked the wildness of it. Scattered throughout the garden were statues and sculptures, some made of stone, others of metal, and one that seemed to be made of glass, blown and shaped in odd and incomprehensible ways. 

The harvesters in the orchard called out greetings—and called out again in surprise and delight when they realized that there were eight riders returning when only six had left. Maglor knew he had been recognized, and he wished that they’d come later in the day, when there was no one else to see him. He could not find it in himself to return the greetings, though he managed a brief wave. Celegorm was the one to respond, with jokes and laughter, drawing the attention to himself at the head of the party. Someone brought a basket of plums to hand around; Maglor took one but did not bite into it. It would taste like his childhood, and he did not think he could bear it. 

Past the orchard, Celegorm halted them before they could pass around their mother’s house to the front courtyard. “Ammë doesn’t have a stable, so we must take the horses to Grandfather’s,” he said, turning to Maglor. “I’ll take yours, Cáno. Go see her.”

“She’s in her workshop,” Caranthir added, nodding towards it. “Else she would’ve noticed the commotion and come out to greet us.”

Some things never changed, and Nerdanel losing herself in her craft was one of them. Maglor dismounted, and leaned against his horse for a moment, trying to steel himself—though for what, he didn’t know. He missed his mother so much that it hurt, like his heart wasn’t beating properly, and yet… 

Daeron dropped to the ground and embraced him. “You met your brothers and it did not go poorly,” he whispered.

“Yes it did,” Maglor said, his gaze going for a moment to Maedhros, who was not looking at him in a way that felt pointed. Maedhros had not spoken to him outside of necessity since that morning they’d had a few minutes alone in the tent after falling into the river. It had felt like maybe they had taken a step forward, but then Maedhros had stepped back and Maglor didn’t trust either of them enough to try anything more. 

“It went better than you feared. This will, too,” Daeron said.

“What if it doesn’t?” Maglor could barely whisper the words, wasn’t sure if Daeron could hear them even as close as he was. “What if she—”

“Then I will be here,” Daeron said, “and we can leave. But it won’t.”

“Cáno?” Caranthir said.

“I’m going.” Maglor kissed Daeron and stepped back. Daeron had Leicheg, but Pídhres jumped off of Maglor’s saddle to follow at his heels. He kept his pace deliberate and he did not let himself look over his shoulder as he heard the others trot off, toward Mahtan’s house. Soon all his mother’s family would know that he had come, and he would have to prepare himself for those reunions, too.

He came to the workshop and found the windows open, letting in the breeze—and letting out the sound of Nerdanel’s voice as she sang to herself, a working song he didn’t recognize. Maglor stopped and leaned against the wall by the open window without looking inside. He closed his eyes and just listened. Nerdanel was known for her artwork, but she had a rich, lovely singing voice. Fëanor had once said that it was Nerdanel that Maglor had inherited his own talents from. She’d laughed and protested, but Maglor had believed it. He had always loved to listen to her, though she never sang except when she was working and not thinking about it, or when she hummed quiet lullabies to help them sleep as children, and he let himself indulge in it for a verse or two before he stepped away from the window and toward the door. It was not locked, of course, and he opened it just enough to slip inside, closing it behind him.

Nerdanel had not heard the commotion of their arrival, but she did hear the creak of the hinges, and the click of the latch. “Yes, I ate lunch, Linquendil,” she said without looking up from her work. “And I’ll eat dinner, too—you don’t have to keep interrupting me.” She stood leaned over a wide drafting table, sketching plans for her next project. Her pens and pencils were gathered in the gold-mended up that he’d sent to her with Celebrimbor. She’d written of her liking for it, but it was one thing to read in a letter and another to see it there at her elbow. It was one thing to read the words she had written to him and another to hear her voice. 

She was clad in an old dress, patched and mended and stained, its sleeves rolled up past her elbows, and had her hair bound up in braids wound in a crown about her head, but unruly strands were coming loose, and she kept brushing them away with her hand, leaving smears of charcoal behind on her forehead. Around her the workshop was cluttered with tools and partially-begun and half-finished projects—sculptures, statues, and other strange shapes whose purpose was not immediately obvious. A large slab of marble stood in the far corner beside bags of clay and a stack of wooden planks.

The sight of her in life banished the tarnished and wrong memory of her, and Maglor found he couldn’t speak. He just leaned back against the door and stared, throat tight, eyes burning. Pídhres twined around his ankles and meowed, and that was what made Nerdanel look up, startled. “Linquendil, is that—” She stopped with a gasp, a hand flying to her mouth as her eyes opened wide. For a few seconds they stood in frozen silence, staring at one another. 

“Ammë,” Maglor choked out.

“Macalaurë?” Nerdanel moved so quickly that she knocked the cup over, spilling her pencils across the table, but she didn’t seem to notice. He hardly saw her cross the room before she was there in front of him, throwing her arms around him and holding on tight he caught her and held on, almost lifting her off the floor as he buried his face in her shoulder. She smelled of charcoal and chalk and clay, just as she always had. The fabric of her dress was worn and soft. “Macalaurë, you’re here!”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered as he let her go. He sank to his knees, unable to stay standing. “I’m sorry, Ammë, I—”

“Don’t apologize!” She caught his face in her hands as she bent over him. Her fingers and palms were rough and calloused, warm and real, nothing at all like the ghost that Sauron had conjured long ago. He freckles were in all their right places under the equally familiar smudges of dust and charcoal, and her eyes were that particular shade of soft blue that he’d never seen anywhere else. She looked at him, too, like she was drinking in the sight of him even as changed as he was. “Oh, Macalaurë,” she sighed at last, “you’ve had such a long road.”

“I’m sorry,” he said again, because he didn’t know what else to say. He was weeping again, but he didn’t know how to stop. “I missed you. I’ve missed you so much, I just—”

“I don’t need you to explain,” she said. “There will be time for all of that later—explanations and stories. I’ve missed you desperately, but it doesn’t matter how long it’s taken you to come home—you are here now.”

“I shouldn’t ever have left,” he whispered.

“Oh, Macalaurë.” Nerdanel knelt with him, and he fell forward into her arms, a sob escaping before he could catch it. She stroked her hand over his hair and she rubbed his back, just as Celegorm had in the tent weeks before, just as she had once done when he was small and when the things that brought him to tears were such small, inconsequential things. “Where have you been, love?” she asked after a few minutes. “Your brothers all went away too, but I expect them back at any time.” She lifted his face up again, her own expression one of sudden worry. “If you do not wish to see them yet…”

“I already have,” Maglor said. “They’re—they’re taking the horses to the stables, and sent me here to see you first—”

“You came back with them!” Nerdanel wrapped her arms around him again, holding on tight. “Oh, I’m glad. I’m so glad. All seven of you, together again!”

Maglor closed his eyes, dreading the moment she saw himself and Maedhros together in the same room. “It isn’t—it isn’t that easy, Ammë.”

“Of course not. It has not been easy for any of you, has it? But you came back together, and that is more than I ever dared to hope for. Where did you find them?”

“The shores of Ekkaia.”

“Ekkaia!” Nerdanel’s arms tightened even more. Maglor never wanted her to let go. “That is a long journey to make alone, Macalaurë.”

It wasn’t, really, but Maglor knew better than to say so. He did not want to remind her of the much longer journeys he had made entirely by himself. “I wasn’t alone,” he said instead. “Huan went with me. And Pídhres.” Pídhres meowed, and Nerdanel laughed quietly as she reached down to pet her. “And Daeron.”

“Daeron?” Nerdanel repeated in surprise. “The famed singer from Doriath? You wrote to me of him, but I did not realize you were good enough friends to make such a journey together.”

“It wasn’t planned, really. I didn’t intend to go traveling so soon.” He didn’t lift his head. 

“Yes, I know.” Nerdanel drew back then, giving Maglor no choice but to sit up. She took his hand—his right hand, and when he would have pulled away she only gripped it tighter, taking it in both her hands to turn it over, revealing the scars. “Your brother has the memory of such scars on his own hand,” she said after examining it for a moment. “I do not like what that says about the nature of this wound.”

“It doesn’t hurt,” Maglor said quietly. “Or at least—not often. Not anymore.”

“But sometimes?”

“It’s only memory, Ammë. It passes quickly.”

“Is it stiff? Can you still use it…?”

“Yes, Ammë. I can use it as I always did. It gets a little stiff in the cold sometimes, that’s all.”

“Good. I hate to think of you being unable to do the things you love.” Nerdanel lifted her gaze to his face as Maglor tried not to shudder, tried not to think about why he still had the use of his hands. “And what of your other scars? Do they pain you still?”

“Sometimes. I’m—maybe I’m not as well as I thought that I was before I left Middle-earth, but I will be. I just—I didn’t expect—”

“Your father?”

“Any of them,” he whispered. And he still didn’t know how to tell her that he couldn’t forgive Maedhros his despair at the end, how to warn her that she would have to watch them sit in the same house unable to so much as look at one another. He didn’t know how to explain the impossibility of it, the trust that had been washed away like all of Beleriand, drowned under six thousand years of separation and loneliness, not when she was so ready to forgive all of them everything, even him in his long absence. “Ammë, I wish you hadn’t looked into the palantír. I wish you hadn't seen—”

“I am not.” She reached up to cup his face in her hands. “I wish that I had seen you elsewhere, somewhere warm and comfortable, somewhere you were not alone—or failing that, that I could have glimpsed you instead on the shore with your harp, as I had before. I wish this had not befallen you, my son, but I do not regret looking.” She paused a moment, before adding softly, “In the palantír I saw you call for me.”

Oh. Oh no.” Maglor closed his eyes a moment, bowing his head so his hair fell forward. He’d thought that she had seen him as Maedhros had, locked up in darkness and in chains—he hadn’t ever imagined that she’d seen that—that she had been watching as he’d been presented with a twisted and warped image of her, designed to break trick him and then to break his will. 

“I saw you try to sing, I think,” she went on, “but someone—I don’t know who it was there with you, but—”

“I did try to sing. I just—I wasn’t strong enough.”

“Maybe not for such a fight, face-to-face,” Nerdanel said, “but I have heard many tales of Middle-earth, and it has never been strength of the kind you speak of that has had the victory in the end. You’ve suffered so much, Macalaurë, but it has not made you bitter, and that is its own strength. You will find joy again, if you allow yourself.”

“I have found joy,” Maglor said. “I have, truly—in Middle-earth, I was happy. I’ve been happy here, too, only—only—”

“Only your father came to interrupt it.” Nerdanel tucked his hair behind his ear. Like Daeron, she would not let him hide. Maglor kept his gaze on the floor by their knees, tracing the patterns of the dust on the flagstones. “I warned him that he would not be welcome, but he would hear it from your own lips and no one else’s. An improvement from listening to whispers and rumors, perhaps, but…”

“What did you say to him?”

“I told him nothing he did not already know. I am not ready to receive him back into my house, not while his very presence causes my children such pain. Seeing him again even as briefly as he did was enough to break Maitimo’s heart—but he knows that, and he understands it is better to keep his distance. I think he held out hope that you might be more forgiving.”

If he couldn’t forgive Maedhros, he could never forgive Fëanor. “I’m not,” Maglor said quietly.

“He won’t seek you out Agna, Macalaurë. He’s made peace with Nolofinwë, which is more than I dared hope, and he will return to Tirion—to do what, I cannot guess.”

“If he wants the crown—” He knew that it was being said that he didn’t, but Maglor didn’t know how to trust assurances even from Celebrimbor. 

“He doesn’t. He never really did. If you never wish to see him again, he will not try to argue—but he said that he will be here, if any of you change your minds. He would rather you have the choice instead of having a parent lost to you forever. He knows the pain of that, and would not inflict it any longer upon any of you.”

Maglor shook his head slowly. “It was easier when I thought I’d never see any of them again,” he whispered. It seemed suddenly, deeply unfair that Fëanor should walk in the world under the sun and the stars when Arwen did not, or Estel—or Elros.

“None of it is easy,” Nerdanel said. “It will get easier. I know everyone says it, often enough that it sounds trite and meaningless, but it is true that time brings healing.”

“I know,” he said.

He would have liked to linger there, as he had lingered with Nienna on the shore, but voices in the courtyard floated through the open windows—his brothers had returned. Pídhres jumped up and out of the window closest to them, and a moment later Maglor heard Daeron exclaiming over her, and someone else laughing. “I do not know that voice,” Nerdanel said as she got to her feet, drawing Maglor up with her. “That must be Daeron?”

“Yes.”

“Come, then, and introduce me. I hope he doesn’t mind a little disorganization. My house is not fit for fine visitors—and neither am I!”

“He won’t mind.”

“I suppose he’ll not mind much at all if he’s survived weeks in the wild with all of you.” Nerdanel smiled at him, and took his hand to lead the way back outside.

“Ammë!” His brothers all converged on Nerdanel; only Maedhros hung back, and then only until Celegorm grabbed his arm to drag him not the knot of them. Maglor stepped back and found Daeron a little distance away with Pídhres on his shoulders. “Leicheg’s gone to hunt for her lunch in your mother’s garden,” he said. “Well?”

“You were right.”

“Of course I was. I nearly always am.” Daeron smiled at him, and reached up to wipe his fingers over Maglor’s cheek. “What’s this all over your face?”

“Charcoal, I think. Ammë was working on a drawing when I interrupted.” Maglor wiped his own hands over his face and they came away smeared grey, and damp with tears. “I would like very much to stop crying sometime soon,” he sighed.

“You’ve had a very trying summer,” Daeron said. 

“I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to deal with—”

“Maglor, beloved, I keep telling you: I am here because I want to be.”

“You should be reuniting with all your own friends and—”

“For goodness’ sake, Maglor. You have guilt enough weighing you down; please don’t add what you think I am missing to the load. I have the rest of time to reacquaint myself with my own old friends—and to introduce you to all of them.”

“I know, it’s just…” 

“I am exactly where I want to be. I promise.”

“Cáno!” Celegorm turned to call them back over. “Come introduce Daeron!”

Nerdanel welcomed Daeron warmly, and he greeted her with the same sort of gallant charm he had shown long ago at the Mereth Aderthad. Maglor had hoped they would like each other—it was one thing he had not worried about, really—and he was glad to see that it was so. Nerdanel ushered them all into her house, and there was a brief and vehement discussion about baths; the house had not been built with seven sons and a guest in mind all needing to get clean at once, and everyone was eager to scrub the dirt of their journey away with real soap, even if they could not yet indulge fully in a long hot soak. 

In the end Celegorm and Caranthir settled it, and Maglor and Maedhros were to go last—so they could spend more time soaking still-sore muscles, instead of giving themselves only a quick and thorough scrub. “And why do Maitimo and Macalaurë need to care for sore muscles more than the rest of you?” Nerdanel asked archly as Ambarussa vanished to take their turn first. Maedhros sighed; Celegorm grimaced. “Maitimo?”

“There was a…mishap in a rain-swollen river,” Maedhros said, after a long pause in which Maglor could almost see the thoughts turning in his head, debating how best to explain what had happened, how to downplay it as much as possible without outright lying.

“What sort of mishap?” Nerdanel asked, hands going to her hips, and for a moment Maglor felt as though he’d somehow put one foot back in time to another afternoon long ago, in a different house, lit by Laurelin rather than Anor—when the sorts of things they endeavored to keep their mother from finding out were so much less consequential than almost drowning or being mauled by a wild hill cat, but had still earned them that same glare and that pose, hands on hips and head tilted just slightly but speaking very loudly of danger to come if they dared.

“It was weeks ago, Ammë,” Celegorm said. “You can see everyone is fine.”

“That is not an answer to my question, Tyelkormo. If it was a mere minor mishap you would not be so hesitant to tell me!”

“All things considered, it was minor,” Caranthir said; one might never guess that he’d been as furious and afraid as he had been when it had happened. “We’ve all had far worse injuries—”

“You mean the ones that killed you?” Nerdanel asked. Caranthir winced. 

“I think he meant the ones that didn’t,” Curufin said in that tone he adopted when he was going to be annoyingly pedantic, “since the ones that did are rather obviously the worst—”

“Curufinwë Atarinkë—”

“There was a hill cat that knocked Nelyo into the river,” Celegorm said quickly, “and then Cáno tried to pull him out, and they both got washed away by a flash flood. But they’re both fine, and all of us have already yelled at them about it, so—”

“A hill cat?” Nerdanel’s voice rose in pitch alarmingly. 

“I’m really fine, Ammë,” Maedhros said. 

“Forgive me if I choose not to take your word for it, Maitimo.”

Maedhros looked away, but didn’t argue. Maglor remained silent; he was in no better position to reassure Nerdanel than Maedhros was—and he agreed with her. Maedhros was the last one who should be believed regarding his own wellbeing. His stitches were out and his wounds healing well, but that didn’t mean he was fine. He was aware of his mother glancing toward him as though expecting him to speak up. He would have, once upon a time, ever ready to support Maedhros whether it was in lying about who had stolen the last pastry from the platter or in drawing up battle plans; he just couldn’t do it anymore. 

Maglor had been half-afraid that his grandparents and his mother’s other relatives would descend upon the house as soon as they heard that he was there, but no one came that afternoon or evening. He took his bath and washed his hair with soap that smelled like daffodils, and did his best to ignore Maedhros doing the same. Leaving the two of them until last was also a transparent attempt to get them alone together, but Maglor didn’t know how to break the silence. Maedhros wanted to reassure him; he didn’t believe the reassurances. There was nothing more to say. 

Deciding where they were all to sleep was its own flurry of chaos and cheerful bickering. There was enough space, but rooms had to be shared, and for a little while Maglor was afraid he’d be stuck in Maedhros’ room, as seemed his mother’s first instinct. In the end, though, Caranthir took over and assigned everyone rooms, and he and Daeron took the room usually reserved for guests. Once they were alone in the small room Maglor slumped against the door, closing his eyes and feeling like he could breathe again. 

“Your childhood must have been very chaotic,” Daeron remarked.

“It wasn’t so bad as this; we never had to argue about bedrooms,” Maglor said, opening his eyes again. “The house in Tirion was much bigger.” There had been more people always coming and going, between friends and cousins and his parents’ students, but it had been a cheerful sort of chaos, and never unwelcome. He went to look out of the window, which faced toward his grandparents’ house, overlooking the vegetable garden. “My mother likes you, though,” he added over his shoulder.

“I’m very glad of it,” said Daeron, “and I like her. I like all your family, really.”

“All of them?”

“Yes, all of them. Even Celegorm. He tried to be protective once, asking me about my intentions,” Daeron said, and laughed when Maglor turned in horror. “Don’t be alarmed! I put him in his place, but I wasn’t really offended, and in fact it makes me think better of him.”

“Celegorm—of all of them—”

“Yes, I know.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be. He’s worried about you. Come here.” Daeron sat on the bed, and when Maglor joined him he pulled him in for a kiss, deep and fervent. “They’re afraid of you getting your heart broken,” Daeron said when they broke apart. “Maedhros hasn’t said it in so many words, but—”

“Maedhros,” Maglor said, “has no business worrying about my heart. I’ve already endured heartbreak, and I am in no danger of it from you.”

“There’s always some danger, when you give your heart to another,” Daeron said, as he smoothed Maglor’s hair back out of his face, “but I am certainly not going to be careless with yours.”

“Nor I yours,” Maglor whispered. 

Daeron’s grin was sudden and bright, as luminous as the summer sun coming in through the window. “So if I tell you it will break my heart into a thousand pieces if you finish that stupid sea monster lay—”

“But it will be my finest work!” Maglor protested. “Maybe even greater than the Noldolantë—”

“If that is so, you are a far worse songwriter than I ever took you for, and I can scarcely believe the fame you managed to—”

A knock on the door interrupted their laughter, and when Daeron called out an answer Curufin peered in. “Dinner is nearly ready,” he said, “if the two of you care to join us.”

“We’ll be down in a few minutes,” Maglor said. 

“All right. Ammë’s going to want to hear you sing this evening, Cáno.”

“I’ll bring my harp.”

“Does it still make you nervous?” Daeron asked as the door closed.

“Yes.”

“You’ve never told me why.”

Maglor shook his head. “I don’t know if I can.”

“That’s all right.”

“It isn’t the same tonight, though. I’m not afraid of singing in front of my mother, it’s just…my voice, my music, is different now, and I know it will grieve her to hear.”

“Your voice is beautiful,” Daeron said softly.

“There are things I cannot hide when I sing, things that might pass unnoticed otherwise.”

“That is no bad thing, my love.”

“I know.” Maglor leaned against him. “I know it’s not. But it will grieve her all the same.” He sighed. Something clattered downstairs, and Ambarussa laughed. “Will you bring your flute?”

“Of course.”

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After everyone had decided where they would sleep and who was sharing a room with who—Maedhros would be welcoming Curufin into his room, since Maglor and Daeron had taken the guest room that he usually stayed in when visiting, and Caranthir was the only one willing to let Huan into his bedroom along with Celegorm—Maedhros was able to escape out into the garden for quiet and at least the illusion of solitude. He sat on the ground under the hawthorn tree, and was soon joined by Leicheg as she trundled along in her search for whatever it was hedgehogs ate. 

Nerdanel’s glimpse of his wounds, though they were healing very well, had gone as well as Maedhros had expected. She had not lectured, but he wished that she had instead of giving him a look of such worry. He always worried her, but this had made it worse, and he still didn’t know how to fix it. “I would very much like to have as few concerns as you,” he told Leicheg, who paid him absolutely no mind. She snuffled through the leaves and then vanished around the tree trunk. He sighed and leaned back against it; the bark was smooth, and the breeze made the leaves rustle gently overhead. From upstairs he heard a peal of bright laughter—Maglor’s, soon joined by Daeron’s—slightly muffled by the closed window. Downstairs, the windows were open, and he could hear Ambarussa and Caranthir in the kitchen talking of dinner.

Celegorm and Curufin emerged from the house before long, and of course they came straight to Maedhros. “There you are,” said Celegorm, holding out his hand. “Come on, we have something to show you.”

“We haven’t even been home half a day,” Maedhros said, even as he accepted the hand up. “What have you done now?”

“It’s nothing bad,” said Curufin. 

“We asked Ammë and Grandfather to set it up,” Celegorm added. He pulled Maedhros around to the other side of Nerdanel’s large workshop, where there was a smaller building that was, as far as Maedhros knew, only used to store the tools and supplies Nerdanel did not use often enough to want them always near at hand, though it had been built as a second smaller studio. When they stepped inside, though, he found all of those things gone, and instead a clean, bright space with whitewashed walls and an easel and a supply of canvases leaning against one wall, and shelves of various kinds of paints, jars of brushes, palettes for mixing, and various other tools and things along another. A drawing table stood by one of the large windows that looked out toward the garden, just by the door. A few lamps hung from the ceiling, but they were not really needed, since the sun would provide all the light needed throughout the day.

Maedhros looked at it all, and turned to look at his brothers. “You asked Ammë for this?”

“You said at Midsummer you were thinking about painting,” Curufin said. 

“We knew if we left it up to you, you’d never start, no matter what you said,” added Celegorm. “So now you have everything you need, and no excuse not to.”

He didn’t know what to say. His throat felt tight, but he didn’t want to cry, not over this. Celegorm and Curufin just waited, while he looked around again. “Thank you,” he said finally. “But I don’t—I don’t know if I can—”

“You can,” said Curufin. “You thought so at Midsummer.”

That sunset at Midsummer, though still very clear in his mind, felt as though it had happened years ago, rather than just a couple of months. Maedhros knew that he had been better—he’d felt more like a person, had been able to act more like one, more like the older brother that Celegorm and Curufin had needed. He knew, also, that he’d slid back into old habits and patterns, but he couldn’t remember how he’d gotten out of them in the first place, and didn’t know how to do it again. It still felt like his, of all hands, could never expect to take up a brush and paint and make something beautiful out of it. 

Celegorm and Curufin exchanged a glance, and then Celegorm left them, pausing only to wrap his arms around Maedhros for a moment, squeezing hard. When he was gone, Curufin said, “It doesn’t have to be good, you know. You don’t ever have to show anyone. We just—Moryo said you used to destroy all your drawings after you finished them. You haven’t done that lately, and you said…”

“I know.” Maedhros held out his arms, and Curufin stepped into them. “I meant it,” he said. “Thank you. And I did mean it at Midsummer when I talked about painting. I just—”

“It’s not going to make Maglor forgive you,” Curufin said, “but it’ll give you something else to think about, when he leaves.” 

Maedhros had been trying not to think about Maglor leaving. It was painful and uncomfortable to have him there, but watching him ride away, even knowing he would be close by, would be worse. He did not, he realized, want any of his brothers to leave, even though it wouldn’t be fair to ask them to stay. Their journey out into the wilds had done what Celegorm and Ambarussa had intended. It hadn’t fixed everything, but it had put them on the path toward it—they would come back more often, Maedhros was sure, and he would miss them when they left, in a way he hadn’t before when he was too caught up in his own head, wishing to be back in Mandos. 

And when had he stopped wishing for that?

“It took me years,” Curufin added after a moment, “to remember how to make something that wasn't a weapon, that I didn’t have to melt back down halfway through the making, and even longer to remember how to make something that I enjoyed making. I have a box of things in my workshop that aren’t lovely or useful, but that I like anyway because the process made me happy. Either I learned something new or I remembered something I had forgotten, or I was just—just having fun. Tyelpë has such a box too. You can do the same thing. And don’t just say that you don’t remember how to have fun. You had fun on the trip out to Ekkaia.”

“Maybe,” said Maedhros. “I’ll try, Curvo.”

“That’s all we’re asking.”

They returned to the dining room for dinner; it was bustling and a little chaotic, far more like their youth than like the afternoon they’d spent there debating what to do about their father—that also felt like a lifetime ago. Nerdanel sat at the head of the table and insisted that Maglor sit by her. It so happened he chose the seat to her right, the one that had been left empty before, when they’d gathered like allies rather than brothers. Maedhros chose a seat at the other end of the table, and tried to pretend he didn’t notice the way his mother kept glancing his way. 

“Have you told her yet that you and Cáno…?” Amrod whispered to Maedhros halfway through the meal. Maedhros shook his head. There hadn’t been a chance to explain, and he didn’t even know how to begin.

Just after dinner a messenger arrived, stopping on her way from Imloth Ningloron to Tirion. “Tyelpë has been keeping me informed of all that is going on,” Nerdanel told them as she opened the letter. It wasn’t long. “I’ll write back to him in the morning to tell him you’ve all arrived here. If anyone else wishes to write a letter of your own, give it to me tomorrow and I’ll send it along.” 

“What’s the latest news?” Caranthir asked. 

“Indis and Míriel are there now, along with Findis and Lalwen. They arrived last week.”

“I’m sure that’s going well,” Curufin muttered. 

“Findis gave Fëanáro a black eye, and knocked him into the fish pond,” Nerdanel added after a moment as she continued to read the letter. Everyone turned to stare at her, wide-eyed. Daeron put a hand over his mouth as though to stifle laughter. “But aside from that, Tyelpë says everyone is getting along remarkably well.”

“Really?” Ambarussa chorused. 

“Aunt Findis?” added Caranthir. “Not Lalwen?”

“Tyelpë has also included the lyrics to a song that someone wrote about it already,” Nerdanel added. “It’s very silly.” 

Silly, Maedhros thought, was the last word he would have expected to describe a song about Fëanor. Getting punched by Findis and falling into Celebrían’s pond was also one of the last things he would have expected. It should have been funny, except he didn’t think he could find anything concerning his father amusing.

“Lindir is good at those sorts of songs,” Maglor remarked, voice odd and distant. “He wrote a dozen of them earlier this year about the feud between Huan and Pídhres.”

“Huan doesn’t feud,” Celegorm protested.

“I never said so,” said Maglor with a brief smile. “It’s entirely one-sided.” Pídhres was curled around his shoulders, and meowed as though in acknowledgment. Huan, sprawled on the floor by the hearth though there was no fire there, with Leicheg tucked comfortably between his front paws, thumped his tail once. 

“Has Tyelpë said when they intend to all leave Imloth Ningloron?” Curufin asked then, keeping his gaze lowered and his hands busy with some small thing he’d found that needed repairing. 

“They were beginning to prepare to leave as he was writing this, yesterday,” Nerdanel said. “I expect we’ll see their party pass by in the next few days.” She scanned the rest of the letter before folding it up again. 

Maedhros hoped no one would stop when they passed Nerdanel’s house. He did not think that Fëanor would, but so far Fëanor had not done anything that anyone had expected. He glanced at Maglor, but found him turned away, whispering with Daeron. Maedhros couldn’t see either of their faces. Then he caught Celegorm’s eye, and found his own dread mirrored there. 

Nerdanel called then for stories of their journeys, both together and separate. Maedhros let the others speak. He sat on the floor near Huan, and Celegorm came to sprawl out beside him, his legs across Maedhros’ lap and his head on Huan’s side. Across the room Nerdanel sat as though holding court with all of them; Maglor sat at her feet, and after a while, inevitably, she asked him for some music. He obliged without hesitation, bringing out his harp as Daeron produced his flute, and they played songs that Maedhros didn’t know, hymns to Elbereth, and others that Maglor said were often sung in Rivendell, of trees and starlight on the river, of sunshine and rain, and the Misty Mountains rising up like sentinels above. Maedhros knew what Rivendell looked like, from the tapestry that hung in Elrond and Celebrían’s dining hall. Maglor’s songs brought it to life in a way that thread or paint never could. The songs were almost all merry ones, but Maedhros could still hear that thread of sadness wound throughout, even when Maglor seemed to try to banish it. He had loved that place, and he missed it.

It was a quiet ending to the evening, peaceful. Maedhros slipped away first, tired and not wanting to be cornered by anyone to talk more about the journey or about himself. It was a relief to sink onto his own bed, onto a mattress and clean blankets that smelled of lavender rather than horses. Curufin followed him only a few minutes afterward, and before he closed the door Maedhros heard the sounds of everyone else making their way to bed. “Are you all right?” Curufin asked. 

“Yes.” Maedhros pulled his hair free of its braid and used his fingers to tease out the worst still-damp tangles. “I’m just—I’m tired.”

“It was a long journey.”

“Mm.”

“How’s your arm?”

“It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt at all anymore.”

“And—and your hand?”

“Also fine.” Maedhros twisted his hair back into a braid; he’d gotten out of the habit of doing it himself over the course of the summer, but it didn’t matter if it was clumsy and uneven if he was just going to sleep in it. When he finished he held his palm out for Curufin to see. The scar-memory was barely visible in the soft lamplight. Curufin looked at it and seemed to relax a little. “I will start painting, Curvo. I promise.” And when he painted that sunset, he would send it to Curufin in Tirion. It might not be good, but maybe Curufin could hang it near that box of ugly but enjoyable things that he had made.

“Good.” 

Maedhros wanted to ask him not to worry, but that would just get him scolded again. He sank back onto his pillow with a sigh. Curufin shifted around a little beside him before settling likewise. The other quiet rustlings of the house preparing for bed slowly faded. Outside a night bird sang, and crickets chirped; the wind blew through the branches of the hawthorn tree. It was all familiar and comforting as the blankets and pillows of his bed, and sleep came far more quickly than Maedhros had thought it would. 

He couldn’t delay his mother’s questions forever, though. He woke early in the morning, just after dawn when the light was pale and the sky was an almost colorless shade of blue, and left Curufin still sleeping to make his way downstairs. Nerdanel was awake, just finishing her letter to Celebrimbor. There was another letter, folded up and sealed already, waiting on the table, with Elrond’s name written across it in Maglor’s hand. “Good morning, Maitimo,” said Nerdanel as she signed her name. She looked up at him with a smile. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes.” He bent down to kiss her before going to pour himself tea. 

“I want to speak to you,” Nerdanel said as he mixed a spoonful of honey into his cup. “I want to speak to both you and Macalaurë, but he disappeared upstairs again as soon as he’d dropped off his letter for Elrond.”

“I’m not—there isn’t much to say, Ammë.”

“Then it shouldn’t take long,” she said briskly. She folded the letter and sealed it. Maedhros sat down with her at the table, unable to meet her gaze as he should. “What’s happened between you? You spoke not a single word to one another last night, and from what your brothers have said and have been careful not to say, it seems you’ve hardly spoken at all since you met at Ekkaia. How can you cross the whole of Valinor without a single conversation?”

“We’ve spoken, Ammë,” Maedhros said quietly. “We spoke by Ekkaia, and on the journey back.”

“Did your brothers have to trap you in the tent to do it? What is the matter, Maitimo?”

“I died. I led him into ruin and then I left him.” Maedhros didn't look up from his tea. “He can’t forgive that.”

“Maitimo…”

“I never expected him to. Please don’t corner him about it. It’s hard enough without everyone trying to push us together.”

“You should not be at odds like this, Maitimo.”

They weren’t at odds, though. In this they were in perfect agreement: Maedhros had shattered the trust between them when he chose death, abandoning Maglor to thousands of years of lonely grief, and neither he nor Maglor knew how to fix it. “I’m sorry, Ammë, I just…I left him alone, when I knew that was the one thing that he dreaded most.”

“Maitimo.” Nerdanel covered his hand with hers. “Are you going to try to claim that you were thinking clearly when you left the world? There is nothing that distorts the mind like despair. You know that.”

“I do know that. And I wasn’t. But it doesn’t matter what I thought—it’s what I did, and what he suffered because of it.” Maedhros turned his hand to squeeze Nerdanel’s for a moment. “And now—he had to see Atar before he was ready, and then met the rest of us where he never expected to. He only traveled back here with us to see you. Please don’t try to…”

“I am going to speak to him about it,” Nerdanel said. “I cannot do otherwise, Maitimo. I am your mother, and I can’t bear to see you both so unhappy. Do you not want to be reconciled?”

“Of course I do.” He even thought that Maglor wanted it—but wanting wasn’t enough. If it was, none of this would hurt as much as it did. “Ammë, just—he needs time. Please don’t push. You weren’t there at the end. You don’t know what it was like—for me or for him.”

“I won’t push, but I won’t ignore it either. For things that happened so long ago to still be—”

“What I did left him alone for six thousand years, Ammë. I am not the only one who despaired,” Maedhros said. “I could not let Mandos work on me, but he never even got the chance to—” A soft thump and a squeak made them both turn, leaning over to see the bottom of the stairs where Leicheg was making her way very carefully down the last few steps. Pídhres sat at the bottom grooming herself while she waited. 

“Maitimo, why is there a hedgehog in my house?”

“Maglor and Daeron,” Maedhros said. 

“Why do they have a hedgehog?”

“From what they’ve said, I’m not sure they really had a choice in the matter.”

Leicheg jumped off the last step, landing with her legs splayed on the tile for a moment before she recovered herself. She scurried after Pídhres, who trotted toward the kitchen door and the garden outside. Nerdanel shook her head and rose to put water on for more tea, as doors began to open upstairs and other footsteps heralded the waking of the rest of the household. Maedhros took his cup and escaped outside—to the painting studio. Anything to distract himself, he thought as he shut the door behind him. He opened the windows to let in the breeze and birdsong, and went to look at the various paints and pigments that had been set out on the shelves. It was a little overwhelming, looking at them all. 

He’d learned to draw and paint long ago, at the same time he had learned to carve wood and throw clay and to work the forge, and all the other things his parents either deemed necessary for him to know, or which he decided he wished to learn himself. No particular art or craft had ever called to him—not like music called to Maglor, or the forge called to his father and Curufin—but there had been joy in the learning, in collecting skills the way that Maglor collected songs and Celegorm used to collect pebbles and dried flowers. He’d put all those various skills to use in Beleriand—or nearly all of them, though never to make anything beautiful. Himring had grown to be beautiful in his eyes, in time, but he hadn’t designed it that way. He’d wanted strength, safety, something that would endure. 

So it has, he thought. Himring had, against all odds, survived the ravages of Beleriand, even its sinking, and was only slowly succumbing to weather and water and the inexorable, inevitable ravages of time. For a moment he felt terribly, achingly homesick for it—for the cold winds that swept over the ramparts, for his own bedchamber that had begun as austere as the rest but which had been filled, slowly, with rugs and tapestries and blankets and other gifts from his brothers and cousins and various friends and allies until it had become a place of comfort, of escape and refuge. He missed the wide plains that surrounded the hill, and the view of the Ered Luin to the east and Ard-Galen to the northwest, and the way the skies had seemed enormous, often cloudless, a bright clean and clear blue that he had never seen anywhere else, and which he knew he would never be able to replicate with paint, no matter how skilled he became. It had been his, his designs, his hand that helped to lay the first stones of the foundation, the only thing it seemed that he had ever gotten right.

In this new life, where there was no need for fortresses or walls or swords, he’d taken up drawing again because his mother had suggested it, because she’d insisted that he needed to be doing something, and that at least was one thing that did not need two hands. He’d kept it up because it had helped—it helped to quiet his thoughts and stop them circling, even if nothing he’d drawn for a long time had been anything worth sharing. When it was recognizable it was terrible—memories of dark days, of terrible places, of blood and fire and blades. He’d burned those, but he suspected Caranthir had managed to catch a glimpse of them once or twice. He wondered, now, if he’d needed to draw all of those horrible things to pull them out of himself, like purging poison. This summer he had begun to draw what was before him, or things out of his memories that weren’t also out of his nightmares—he’d had to, lest one of his brothers look over his shoulder and see what still haunted him—but it had been so much easier than he’d thought it would be. There was satisfaction in it, rather than painful catharsis.

His brothers thought that he could take these paints and do something beautiful. Maedhros picked up a jar of blue pigment, rich and deep. They had been right about other things, and though he had his doubts, he supposed it would be better to trust their instincts than his own. He did want to try; he didn’t know what held him back. He set the jar back down, and looked at the canvases lined up along the wall, and at the easel—easels, really. There were two very sturdy ones set up there, one larger than the other, and by the door was a third, smaller and easier to break down and carry if he decided he wanted to work somewhere else. They’d thought of everything, it seemed. 

When he left the little studio he found his grandfather and his uncle coming around from the front courtyard. “Russandol!” Mahtan said, smiling broadly and opening his arms. “I missed seeing you all arrive yesterday. Welcome back! How was your journey?”

“Long,” Maedhros said, stepping into his arms. He was taller than Mahtan, but Mahtan was broader, and always stronger.

His uncle Linquendil stepped forward after Mahtan released Maedhros for a hug of his own. “Welcome back, Nephew. Did we hear truly that Macalaurë returned with you?”

“Yes, he did.” Maedhros didn’t want to dampen their joy, but he also couldn’t summon a smile of his own. But maybe they only attributed that to his inability to smile much in general.

At the sound of Mahtan’s voice, Maedhros’ brothers all streamed out of the house to greet him and Linquendil. Nerdanel followed; Maglor came last, and hung back. His shoulders hunched a little, and his hair slipped forward to half-cover his face. But when Mahtan spotted him and nearly picked him off the ground with the force of his embrace, his smile seemed genuine, and he did not actually shrink back from the meeting. The smile faded when Mahtan and Linquendil noticed the scars and the strands of white in his hair, but neither of them asked for an explanation; Mahtan only hugged him again. Maglor hid his face in their grandfather’s shoulder; if he said something, Maedhros couldn’t hear it. 

They did not ask Maglor what had happened, but Linquendil did take Maedhros aside to ask him. “What are those scars, Russo? What happened to him across the Sea?”

“He was held captive for a time by the Enemy,” said Maedhros. “It was many years ago now. Please don’t ask him about it, Uncle. Everyone has been since he arrived, and he doesn’t like to speak of it.”

“Of course I won’t ask him,” Linquendil said. “That is why I’m asking you. How did he survive?”

“He was rescued. Galadriel, I think, was there, alongside Elrond’s sons and Glorfindel.”

“You think? Do you not know the full tale?”

“No. I don’t need to. He found healing in Galadriel’s realm and then in Elrond’s, and now he is here. That is enough.” It was hard to walk the line between never wanting to speak of what had happened to you, while needing others to know that it had happened, and that it had shaped so much of who you now were. Maedhros had never spoken of the torments he had endured in Angband, not even to Maglor or to Fingon. He had had scars from it—fewer than Maglor had from Dol Guldur, for Morgoth had not been interested in his disfigurement—and they had spoken for themselves. Now—now he wanted even less to speak of it, but he was glad that had had come from Mandos one-handed. It was proof that it had happened, and it was something those who had only known him in his youth, like his uncle, could not ignore. It was a sign that he was not who he had been before, changed by both the suffering and the saving, no matter what his face looked like.

Even if, someday, beyond hope, they did find themselves able to speak to each other again, Maedhros would never ask Maglor what happened to him in Dol Guldur. He knew that their brothers had asked—they had asked him about Angband, too—and he couldn’t really blame them, but even they couldn’t understand. Maglor would have told them as little as possible, only enough to give them some small semblance of understanding so that they wouldn’t have to ask again, but never speaking of the full horror of it. Some tales were better left untold, even if they could never be forgotten. He glanced back across the yard and met Maglor’s gaze. Maglor didn’t look away; in that moment, they understood one another as well as they ever had—and for the first time, Maedhros wished they didn’t.

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The arrival of Mahtan and Linquendil at least delayed Maglor’s being cornered by Nerdanel. It did, however, mean he had to endure the lingering looks and then their attempts not to stare at him, and the way they pointedly did not ask him any questions about what he had been doing or what had befallen him in Middle-earth. 

They meant well. He knew they did. But the way he knew they were watching him regardless of where they were looking or who they were speaking to made him itch and struggle not to fidget like a child. He retreated to the far side of the room when they all piled inside again, letting Celegorm talk of the journey out and then back from Ekkaia; he was a good storyteller, even with Ambarussa’s interruptions and Caranthir’s interjections, and neatly danced around the uncomfortable and frightening parts—and made it sound as though their chance meeting by the shore had been a merry one. But even he couldn’t hide how Maedhros kept to the opposite side of the room from Maglor, and how neither of them joined in the telling as they once would have. Maglor was painfully aware of the growing frown on his grandfather’s face as he looked between them. 

Leicheg’s appearance was a welcome distraction. She scurried into the room, getting underfoot of everyone until she found Maglor and Daeron in the far corner. Maglor knelt to pick her up, while Daeron laughed and answered Linquendil’s inevitable questions, putting all the blame for Leicheg’s presence on Huan. The question, though, had been meant for Maglor, and he wished that he was able to put on a smile to answer it as easily as Daeron could. When he rose Daeron slipped his arm around him, so they were pressed together where they leaned against the windowsill. Outside a bird was singing merrily in the hawthorn tree; it was a bright, sunny day with no clouds to be seen. Across the room Mahtan whispered something to Maedhros, who shook his head.

Maglor wished he was happier to see them, but when his uncle suggested they all go to Mahtan and Ennalótë’s house for supper that evening, so the rest of the family could see Maglor now that he was home, his first impulse was to flee out into the wilds again, to hide until he could return to Elrond’s house, where no one would stare at him or ask painful questions, or do anything more than tease him about his pets. Elrond would be concerned, but it was somehow so much easier to bear than anyone else’s. Maybe it was just that Elrond already knew all the darkest parts of the past, the way no one in his mother’s family ever could. 

But of course there was no refusing the invitation. Nerdanel answered for all of them, and when he was looked at Maglor made himself smile and nod and say something about wanting to see his grandmother. It wasn’t even a lie—he did want to see her, and to see his aunts. He did want to meet the cousins who had been born after he’d left these shores. It was only that he did not want them to see him, even if it would be better to see them all at once and get the initial shock out of the way. It would still hurt, and he was so tired of that particular pain.

Linquendil departed to tell Ennalótë of the new plans, and once Maglor saw that Caranthir had engaged both Nerdanel and Mahtan in conversation, he slipped out of the house to find Pídhres. Daeron followed. “Are you all right?” he asked, slipping his hand into Maglor’s as they walked through the flower beds and vegetable patches and statues of Nerdanel’s garden. 

“Yes,” Maglor said. “Only everyone is noticing that Maedhros and I aren’t speaking, and…I don’t know how to explain it to them.”

“You don’t have to,” Daeron said. “It isn’t any of their business.”

“They’re our family, Daeron.”

“And they were not there,” Daeron said.

“They’re here now.” Maglor sighed. “I don’t begrudge them their concern, because it’s…I would be surprised too. Maedhros and I not speaking is as strange to them as it would be if Ambarussa were at odds, as strange as it is for me to know there was a time very recently that Celegorm and Curufin were not speaking.”

“I noticed your uncle talking as though he expects you to dwell here with your mother,” Daeron said after a moment. Pídhres was not anywhere in the garden, so they turned toward the orchard, where Maglor suspected one of them would have to climb up after her. He set Leicheg down; she more or less kept pace with them as they walked. “Will they be upset when they learn you intend to dwell instead with Elrond?”

“I think they will be surprised,” Maglor said, “but if they are upset, they’ll get over it quickly. It isn’t as though I’m going back across the Sea. Imloth Ningloron is no more than a week’s ride from here, and I did write to my mother in the spring to tell her I intended to make my home with Elrond. There she is. Of course she’s gotten herself stuck.” They stopped and looked up into the plum tree, where Pídhres perched on a high branch. She meowed plaintively. 

“At least this one is climbable,” said Daeron.

“There is that.” Maglor grasped the nearest branch and hauled himself up. “I haven’t asked what your plans are, Daeron. Aren’t you wanted back at Thingol’s court?”

“Probably,” said Daeron, “but I found it harder than I expected to return to a life at court after spending so long living so very differently. The fine clothes and comfortable beds are lovely, and of course there is nothing like a good feast with songs and dancing afterward, but I now find the rest of it oddly stifling. I don’t think anyone will be surprised when I don’t turn up for some time. Unless you’re sick of my company, I will stay with you.”

Maglor smiled down at him. “Sick of you? No, never.”

Daeron laughed. “Don’t say never! I’m sure we’ll both grow tired of each other eventually, and we’ll go our separate ways for a time, even if we aren’t both called away by other duties and commitments. It doesn’t matter for how long; we have the rest of forever.”

“That’s true,” Maglor murmured, though he still could not make himself believe it; too much had happened, too many things had ended, for him to really believe that anything could last forever. He reached Pídhres, who immediately jumped out of reach again. “Do you want down or not?” he exclaimed as Daeron laughed at him from the ground. “Come here—” He snatched her before she could jump again, and nearly lost his grip on his own branch and sent them tumbling to the ground before he caught himself. Pídhres meowed and then purred once he settled her on his shoulders so he could use both hands to climb back down. 

Once safely on the ground again Pídhres jumped down and disappeared, chasing after Leicheg away through the orchard. Daeron stepped forward, catching Maglor’s face in his hands to kiss him soundly, pressing him back against the tree trunk, the bark scraping over his back through his shirt. Maglor pulled him in even closer. He couldn’t imagine ever tiring of this, and said so when they parted to catch their breath. Daeron just smiled and kissed him gain. For a while all else ceased to matter, and by the time Celegorm came out of the house to call for them, Maglor had almost entirely forgotten about all of his fears. So far almost nothing he had been afraid of had come to pass. He could surely survive a meal with his mother’s family—he might even enjoy it. 

“What were you doing out there?” Celegorm asked them when they emerged from the orchard. “Oh, never mind,” he said almost immediately. “Fix your hair, Cáno, before Ammë sees you.”

“What’s the matter with my hair?” Maglor asked, raising his hands to it. He hadn’t bothered braiding it that morning, so nothing could be askew.

“There are leaves in it,” Daeron said, reaching up to pick one out. “Oh, and a few bits of bark.”

“That’s from climbing after my cat,” Maglor informed Celegorm. The bark was probably not from climbing after Pídhres, but he certainly wasn’t going to give Celegorm the satisfaction of saying so. “She got stuck in a tree again.” As though summoned by his words, Pídhres trotted up to twine about his ankles, Leicheg following close behind. 

“Of course,” Celegorm said, with a grin that said he didn’t believe Maglor at all. “And you weren’t doing anything else out there all this time, I’m sure.”

“Not what you’re thinking of,” Maglor said. He ran his fingers through his hair, picking out another leaf, while Daeron tugged a few bits of bark out of some tangles. “I can’t believe I missed having younger brothers.” Celegorm only grinned at him. “Why did you call for us, anyway?”

“A wagon’s coming down the road, full of stone for Ammë,” said Celegorm, “and she’s delighted that all seven of us are finally here to help unload it. Well, six of us,” he amended, “because no one’s letting Nelyo lift anything, and Daeron is a guest.”

“I don’t mind helping,” Daeron said.

“Is Maedhros’ arm hurting him?” Maglor asked. 

“No, but that doesn’t mean he has to exert himself. Daeron’s songs have worked wonders, but he still almost bled out a few weeks ago. If he tries helping Huan is going to sit on him. Are you feeling all right? You almost drowned a few weeks ago too.”

“I’m fine,” Maglor said. “I was only bruised. What sort of stone is it?”

“Alabaster and marble; I don’t think there are any enormous slabs.”

They walked around the house as the wagon rolled into the courtyard between the house and the workshop. On the seat were the driver, a broad-shouldered figure with red-gold hair cropped even shorter than Curufin’s, and a child with similar coloring, who leaped down into Celegorm’s arms with a delighted cry. Celegorm laughed as he spun the child around before setting him onto the ground. The driver looked at Maglor in surprise. “Well met, Cousin!” he said. “You took your time in returning, didn’t you?”

Maglor stared at him. “I…”

“Don’t you know me?” The driver jumped lightly to the ground. His smile was warm enough, but it didn’t reach his eyes. “I suppose that isn’t so surprising; I was only a child when you left.”

Oh. Oh. “Elessúrë?” Maglor said. “I’m—I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

He didn’t know what he meant to say, and in any case he didn’t get a chance to say it, as everyone else poured out of the house to begin unloading the stones, and to greet Elessúrë and the child—his son, Vindimórë. Only Maedhros did not make an appearance. Maglor helped Caranthir carry blocks of alabaster into the workshop, and to stack them in the precise way that Nerdanel instructed them, and as soon as the cart was empty he escaped into his mother’s house and up the stairs to the room he and Daeron were sharing. He sank onto the bed and listened to the voices outside, laughing and talking, as his stomach tied itself in knots. 

When they’d come back one last time to Mahtan’s house, to retrieve a few last essentials for the road and to say farewell, Elessúrë had been a small child, terrified of the dark and far too young to understand what was happening. He had understood, though, that they were all leaving, and that they might never come back. Maglor pressed his hands to his eyes, remembering how his little baby cousin had clung to his legs and wept. He’d tried to be reassuring, had hugged him tightly and kissed him all over his round tear-stained face, tried to speak brightly, but he’d known better than to make promises. Even then he’d known that the Oath he’d sworn must override everything else—and even if he hadn’t known, or hadn’t sworn at all, they were all going into further darkness and greater danger, into war. There was nothing that could make that better, especially not for a child. 

Someone knocked quietly on the door. “Come in,” Maglor sighed. He expected his mother, but instead it was his cousin who came in, shut the door, and leaned back against it. For a moment he just stared at Maglor, who fought the urge to look away, to turn or duck his head and try to hide. Elessúrë deserved better than his cowardice. 

Finally, he said, “I was very angry at you for a very long time, you know.” Maglor didn’t answer; he didn’t know what it was Elessúrë wanted to hear—if he wanted to hear anything at all. “I almost went with the host of the Valar—not to fight, but to try to find you, in spite of the tales Lady Elwing brought of what you did. I didn’t want to believe them.”

The thought of Elessúrë in the midst of a battle made Maglor feel ill. “Elessúrë—”

“I just—I don’t understand how the figure in those tales, how that Maglor can be the same person as my bright and kind cousin Macalaurë. Because you were, Macalaurë. You were always kind. That is the clearest thing about you that I remember. You were so much older than me, but you never made me feel like a burden, or like you were too busy—”

“You never were,” Maglor said.

“But then you went and—”

“I know.”

“Three times over! Four times, all for a couple of gems! And then, worst of all, you disappeared. Aunt Nerdanel used to go to Eressëa every time a ship came in, to ask everyone for news of you. She looked for you in the great palantír in Avallónë, and in the smaller ones she kept at home, and no one ever had anything more than a rumor of ghosts somewhere on the seashore, and Aunt Nerdanel never could find you in any of the stones. That was worse for her than even learning all the rest were dead, because at least we know where the dead are.”

She had found him once, Maglor thought, at the worst possible moment. Elessúrë paused to take a breath, and Maglor knew he should say something, but what was there to say? He couldn’t say anything to defend himself any more than Maedhros could. He did not expect forgiveness, and he could not ask for it. 

“This would be much more satisfying if you would argue back at me,” Elessúrë said finally. “I always imagined this as a fight, instead of you just—just sitting there and apparently agreeing with me that you’re a terrible person who has done terrible things.”

“I deserve far worse than what you’ve said, Elessúrë,” Maglor said. “I did do terrible things. I tried not to, but that didn’t matter in the end.”

“What happened to your face?” It was asked bluntly, a question designed to sting. Maglor flinched. “And your wrists? I saw the scars there earlier.”

“The scars on my wrists are from…chains. They rubbed away the skin.” Maglor realized he was digging his thumbnail into the scars on his hand again, but he didn’t make himself stop. “The ones on my face—one is from a stray whip. The others—the others are from—from—” He couldn’t make the words come. In the back of his mind he thought he could hear Sauron’s laughter, distant and terrible. Elessúrë’s brow furrowed. 

He didn’t want to say it—not only because it was hard for him, but he did not want such an image put into his baby cousin’s head. Because Elessúrë was still a baby in his mind, a small fair-haired child with an infectious laugh and a passionate love for strawberries. He had spoken aloud of it to Curufin, but Curufin had seen war, had seen the horrors that Angband wrought. Elessúrë had never left Valinor, knew of such dark things only as distant stories. Maglor would not make them real for him. “I’m glad you did not go to war, Elessúrë,” he said instead. “I’m glad you didn’t have to—have to see it. War, I mean. It’s horrible.”

“I only stayed because my parents begged me to. And Lossenyellë.”

“Lossenyellë?”

“My wife.”

Of course. He had a son, he must have a wife. Maglor was reminded of his first meeting with Elrond’s children, and how he hadn’t known then, either, that Elrond had ever gotten married.

“You promised me once, right before you left for Formenos, that you would teach me to play the harp. As soon as you returned, you said, you would make one for me and teach me to play.”

Maglor looked away, toward the window. It was early afternoon by then; the sun was high in the cloudless sky, and birds were singing in the garden, because Daeron had called them down to provide a chorus for his music. “Did you ever learn?” he asked. He’d taught other children to play instead, long afterward, on grassy hillsides in what patches of peaceful sunshine they could find, those moments too few and far between, and he had tried not to remember his kin and the broken hearts and promises he’d left on the other side of the Sea.

“No.”

“I am sorry, Elessúrë. For leaving. For—for everything else. It’s not enough, I know. But I am.”

“Did you ever even remember me, when you were fighting? When you were wandering?”

“Yes. Of course. But I—I always tried not to.” It had hurt, like poking a bruise on his heart that refused to heal. He’d gotten very good at not thinking about the things that hurt, pretending even to himself that he didn’t miss his family across the Sea as desperately as he did. “You were here, and you were safe, and that was…that was enough.” It had had to be. 

Elessúrë was still watching him. His expression was grim; he’d long ago lost the baby roundness of his face, and he looked a great deal like their grandmother Ennalótë, with the freckles that ran in their family, the strong nose, prominent cheekbones. He wore little in the way of jewelery, but a tattoo of some intricate, interlocking pattern wound around one of his arms, disappearing under the short sleeve of his tunic. He’d grown as broad as Mahtan, and as tall as Maglor. “Did you do anything worth remembering, there?” he asked finally. “Or was it all betrayal and murder and theft?”

“Not all,” Maglor said softly, thinking for a moment of the wide plains of the Gap and of the wild, reckless music he and his people had made there, to the beat of their horses’ hooves, as they rode down bands of orcs in what they thought were victorious skirmishes, the holding of the leaguer, before they understood that those were just tests, that the real might of the Enemy was something far, far beyond their strength. “But nothing that can make up for all the rest.”

Elessúrë said nothing more. He just sighed, and after a moment he left the room, closing the door with a soft click behind him. Maglor remained where he was, listening to Daeron’s music and watching the river in the distance out of the window. After a while someone else knocked, and opened the door even when he didn’t answer. “Macalaurë?”

“Ammë,” he sighed.

“What are you doing up here alone?” She came to sit on the bed next to him, and he leaned against her when she put an arm around his shoulders. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing.” It was only the consequences of his own actions. Elessúrë’s welcome was the sort he’d been expecting from everyone—the sort he deserved. It was not surprising, and there were sure to be other reunions like it in the future, but it still hurt to see his cousin still so upset, and to know there was nothing he could say to make any of it better.

“Is it to do with Maitimo?”

Maglor sat up. “Ammë, I don’t—”

“Did you think no one would notice that you aren’t speaking to one another? You’ve hardly even looked at each other since you arrived. I spoke to Maitimo about it this morning, and he seems to think there is no hope of reconciliation at all.”

“Ammë, I can’t—”

“He is your brother, Macalaurë. You don’t seem to have the same trouble with the rest of them, so why—”

“Ammë, please.” Maglor lurched to his feet, but there was nowhere to go. His grandfather and uncle and cousin were downstairs with all the rest of his brothers, between him and the door. Even if he did manage to slip away someone would chase after him. He covered his face with his hands, wishing suddenly, again, that he’d never come west at all, that he’d stayed behind to haunt the shores of Middle-earth the way he had once thought himself doomed to forever. He knew how to be alone, how to be lonely. He did not know how to be someone’s son, someone’s brother anymore.

He wanted so badly for Nienna to be right, but he still could not see how. 

“Macalaurë.” Nerdanel stepped in front of him, catching his wrists, fingers sliding over the scar tissue there, and tugging his hands from his face. “Your brother was not thinking—”

“I know,” he said. “I know—we have spoken of it. More than once. I understand, Ammë. But I can’t—if he were—he hasn’t changed, Ammë. He isn’t like any of the others.” It was hard to see them healed and renewed while he was so tired and scarred and sick at heart, but it was so much worse to watch Maedhros exist as though he were only going through the motions. Caranthir had been right—he had seemed more like his old self for a while only after he’d almost died, and what that meant frightened Maglor more than the hill cat had, more than even watching Maedhros’ blood soak through the makeshift bandages, staining the rocks under them on the riverbank. “I watched him fall farther and farther from me without understanding that’s what was happening. I can recognize it now. I can’t—I can’t watch him do it again. Please don’t ask me to.”

“He is not fading, Macalaurë.”

“Are you so sure?” Maglor asked. “I know what it looks like. I was there. I was there until the very end, and I saw him—I watched him—I can’t do it. I can’t look at him and know that there was nothing I could have done then, and there is nothing I can do now. How can I forgive him for leaving me behind when it’s so clear to me now that he would do the same again if he could?”

There were tears in his mother’s eyes, and Maglor had put them there. “Macalaurë,” she said, and stopped. He’d never known her to be at a loss for words. He was the cause of that, too. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“What will you do, then, if you cannot bear to be near him?”

“I’m not—I’m not staying here, Ammë. I’m going back to Elrond’s house, as soon as—as soon as his other visitors leave.”

“Your father, you mean,” she sighed. Maglor remained silent. He couldn’t apologize for that—for wanting to return to Elrond’s house, or for avoiding his father. He wouldn’t. If he saw Fëanor again so soon he was sure that something would break inside of him, and not even Estë and Nienna together could fix it. “Very well. I suppose I expected you to leave again all along.”

“I’m not going back across the Sea. Imloth Ningloron isn’t so far. I did tell you when I wrote that I intended to make my home with Elrond. That hasn’t changed.”

“I know,” she said with a small, sad smile. “Maybe someday I’ll have all seven of you back under my roof, and all glad to be here with one another. We have time, I suppose.” She sighed. Then she said, “You don’t have to come to dinner tonight if you don’t want to.”

Everyone would worry if he didn’t, and it would only be delaying the discomfort. “I want to,” he said. “I want to see Grandmother, and my aunts.”

“They will wonder at you and Maitimo.”

“I can’t help that. I can’t—I lost my taste for performance a long time ago. I can’t pretend anymore that nothing is wrong.” He’d done that for nearly five hundred years, and all it had done was make the end of it all that much worse.

“No one wants you to pretend. We want you to be well.”

“I know. I’m not, right now, but I have been, and I will be.” He looked at his mother and saw the doubt there, that she tried to hide away but couldn’t quite manage to. “I don’t hate him, Ammë. I love him—that’s why I can’t stay.”

“I understand, Macalaurë. I do. I just wish it were otherwise.”

“I do, too.”

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The letter was unexpected. Celebrimbor brought it to Elrond after breakfast, as the dining hall emptied out; it was another fine day and very few would linger inside for long. “I’ve been making sure my grandmother knows all that’s going on,” he said, “and I wrote to tell her that we plan to leave for Tirion soon—and this came with her reply, and a letter from my father.”

Elrond took the letter, startled to find his name written across it in Maglor’s hand. It was not long, and looked hurriedly written.

Dear Elrond,

I am at my mother’s house just outside of Tirion, having arrived this afternoon. You will have learned from Mablung and Beleg that Daeron joined me on the road, so I have not been alone—I know you were worried. You need not have. Daeron is an excellent traveling companion. We went all the way west to the shores of Ekkaia, in the end. I will tell you all about it when I see you in person. While we were there we met all of my brothers—NOT a chance meeting, since it seems that Gandalf has been sticking his nose where it isn’t wanted, not to mention conspiring with Huan. We all came back east together. I will tell you more about that when I see you, too. There is too much to put into a letter, even if I could find the right words for it. 

My mother has been receiving regular notes from Celebrimbor, it seems, and has told us that you are hosting what sounds like half of the House of Finwë. I hope they aren’t causing too much trouble for you and Celebrían. When they leave at last for Tirion, which I am told will be soon, I will come back to Imloth Ningloron myself. Daeron intends to come with me; I promise he will be a much better-behaved guest than any of our extended family. 

Give my greetings and love to the twins and Celebrían, please, and to my cousins if they’re still there—particularly Galadriel, just to spite Finrod. I miss you, but I promise I will see you soon.

Maglor 

Celebrían had been reading over Elrond’s shoulder, her arms looped around one of his. As he folded the letter up again she turned to Gandalf, who was sitting nearby sipping tea and nibbling the remnants of a seed cake. Breakfast was over, and most of the household had drifted away; it was a beautiful day, with a cool breeze to relieve the heat of the bright sun, and there would be very few who chose to stay inside. “You’ve been meddling, Gandalf,” she said sternly. “How in the world did you convince all seven of them to go all the way to Ekkaia?”

“I didn’t,” he said mildly, taking a sip of his tea. His beard twitched in the way it always did when he was trying not to smile, and his eyes glinted with amusement. “I may have suggested it as a destination. They were all going that way anyway, and it is quite lovely in summertime.”

“I did ask you to warn me if you were going to meddle,” Elrond said, trying to sound stern. But of course he had meddled, and of course events had unfolded as Galadriel had predicted. He should not have been surprised—but it seemed that he’d been hoping without realizing it that Maglor would manage to avoid such a meeting. Whatever had happened to put them all on the road together back east, that first meeting must have been hard. 

“I thought you were talking about Fëanor and Fingolfin,” Gandalf said, in that same surprised tone that Bilbo had always adopted when trying to pretend he hadn’t just said something outrageous—Bilbo had, invariably, been trying to make Frodo laugh, both with the tone and the outrageous statements. Gandalf, presumably, was only trying to entertain himself.

“You’ve been meddling there, too, I’m sure,” Celebrían said. “You know, I’m sure the Valar could find something else for you to do if you’re that bored in your retirement.”

“I’m sure they could,” said Gandalf, laughing, “but where is the fun in that? So they all met after all, did they? How did it go?”

“Well enough that they came back east together,” said Celebrimbor, who had his own letters in hand. “But I don’t think your interference is much appreciated, Mithrandir. My father also mentioned it.”

“It will be in time,” Gandalf said.

“One of these days,” Elrond said, “you will be wrong about something, and you’ll find no pity from the rest of us.”

Gandalf raised his mug of tea in a toast, and winked. “But not this time!” 

“Is there any other news?” Celebrían asked Celebrimbor, turning away from Gandalf. 

“No,” said Celebrimbor. “Just that they’re back, and together. What did Maglor say?”

“He and Daeron are coming back here soon,” Elrond said.

“After we all leave, you mean.”

“Yes.” Elrond was glad that he had had such company, and that he had not been alone when he met with his brothers, but he wished Gandalf had not decided to meddle. No matter how it turned out in the end, Maglor had not been ready. “He does not seem very pleased with Gandalf, either,” he added, voice raised just enough that Gandalf could hear. It only made the wizard chuckle again before he finished his tea and wandered away out of the dining hall. 

Later that morning, Elrond found Galadriel and Finrod with Elladan and Elrohir in the library, laughing over some histories that apparently got a few details wildly wrong. “I’ve had a letter from Maglor,” Elrond told them as he sat down between the twins.

“Really?” chorused Elladan and Elrohir, sitting up straight.

“Where is he?” Finrod asked. “Is Daeron still with him?”

“Yes. They are at Nerdanel’s house, along with all his brothers too.” Elrond handed the letter to Elladan, who passed it on around the table. Finrod snorted when he read it.

“Just to spite Finrod,” he said. “Well, he can’t be in too much distress if he’s remembering to tease me. I, for one, think Mithrandir had the right of it. It isn’t right to delay such meetings indefinitely.”

“You might not agree if it were you in Maglor’s place,” Galadriel said. 

“You only say that so you can remain his favorite,” said Finrod with a brief smile, before growing serious again. “But for Maedhros’ sake, at least, it is better this way. Whatever has passed between them, at least they have seen one another and spoken together. Surely there is a foundation there now that they can build upon, even if they can never be what they once were.” He folded the letter and handed it back across the table to Elrond. 

Elrond hoped that Finrod was right, but he did not expect to hear any such thing from Maglor when he returned. The subject turned from Maedhros to Daeron then, as Finrod asked Elladan and Elrohir what they thought of him; that turned into tales from Doriath, which Elladan and Elrohir listened to with rapt attention. Elrond knew them already, but he was happy to hear them again, though he found his mind wandering. 

He had not been worried, not seriously, until he had read Maglor’s letter. It was trying too hard to be cheerful. It sounded false, like a smile that didn’t reach one’s eyes. Maglor had been deeply unhappy when he had left, but Elrond had expected him to return in a better state of mind. If his meeting with his brothers had not gone disastrously, it had not gone well. If it had, Maglor would have said so, instead of delaying all details until they could speak in person. Elrond couldn’t imagine why he had agreed to travel with them across the whole of Valinor. 

He said so to Galadriel, when they were alone. “He had been thinking of going to them before, remember,” she said. 

“Yes, but that is very different from a chance meeting far away from everyone and everything else.”

“True. But he did travel with them, and he lingers with them still.”

“Only because he does not want to come here and see Fëanor instead.”

“He does not need to stay at Nerdanel’s house in order to avoid Fëanor,” Galadriel said. She laid a hand on his arm. “You have not been worried about him thus far, Elrond. Don’t start now just before he arrives home!”

“I have been worried,” Elrond said. “Now I wonder if I haven’t worried enough. I wonder if I should not have convinced him to go straight to Lórien instead of coming here, or if I should have insisted that he go there instead of away into the wilderness when he left after seeing Fëanor.” Even as upset as he had been, Elrond thought Maglor would have listened. There were any number of people who would have gone with him to Lórien if he did not wish to make his way there alone, though it seemed Huan had left the valley intent upon herding him out to Ekkaia from the start.

“I spent time in Lórien after coming back,” Galadriel said after a moment. Outside Elrond could hear Lindir burst into a merry song, tra la la lally and a nonsensical verse about black eyes and frightened ducklings. “But I did not go right away. It was easier to go after I had found my footing again here. I’m not sure that I can explain to one who doesn’t know exactly what I mean already, but…we left this place a very long time ago, in darkness and anger and bitterness and pride. Maglor and I have lived far more of our lives in Middle-earth than we lived here. It is hard to come back to those who expect you to still think of this land as your home, rather than the lands you knew so much better, so far away. Even now, when I think of home I think first of Lothlórien and the mallorn trees flowering in springtime beside the Celebrant.” She sighed. “It was hard to decide where I wished to live and with whom, and harder still to watch those who had known me in my youth struggle to reconcile those memories with who I have become.”

“Did it help, Lórien?”

“I was so weary, after bearing Nenya for so long, after striving against Sauron for so many years. Going to Lórien certainly helped me to find rest, but had I gone there immediately, before I had a sense of what had changed and what had not, of where I might go afterward, I think it would have been even harder to return. I needed to spend time with my parents and my other family, first. That was as healing as the gardens of Irmo and the powers of Estë. I do agree that Maglor should go there; I have even spoken to Celeborn of his going. Estë helps those who suffer weariness beyond that of the body, and Nienna comes to those who are grieving or sick at heart. But Maglor did not choose the timing of either Fëanor’s coming or his meeting with his brothers. Let him decide when he is ready to go. It may be that what he needs now is to be here, with you and your family, among familiar faces who know all of his past already and do not need him to always be speaking of it and explaining it anew—and for those who love him to trust that he is able to make his own choices, to decide for himself what it is he needs and when.”

It was sound advice, and had Elrond been thinking more calmly it was likely what he would have told himself. “Thank you,” he said. 

“He is not alone, Elrond. He has had Daeron with him all along.”

“I know, but I do not know Daeron well enough for that to be reassuring.” 

“I do,” said Galadriel. “Or I did, long ago, and Celeborn tells me that he is not so changed as one might expect, though he has wandered even farther than Maglor, did, and had many adventures of his own east of Rhûn. He is precisely who I would wish to accompany Maglor on such a journey. He is not one to be cowed by Fëanor’s sons, even all seven of them at once.”

That was, Elrond admitted, heartening. He still found himself wishing all of his guests were gone already, so that Maglor could feel safe returning home. 

He did not have to wait very long. It was not a long journey by any means, but there was still enough preparation necessary that the household turned into a veritable beehive of activity. Fëanor took little part in it, but disappeared into the workshops again. “He has one more project he wants to finish before leaving,” Celebrimbor told Elrond. They walked together along one of the many streams in the valley. The sunlight glinted on the blue strands of glass beads woven through Celebrimbor’s hair, and on the rows of small silver hoops lining his ears. He had an easier set to his shoulders than he had earlier in the year, and reached out to run his fingertips over the blue irises that grew along the water, bobbing gently in the breeze.

“What is it?” 

“A gift for Maglor.”

Elrond frowned. “I don’t know if that’s wise.”

“He’s just going to leave it behind for him—to use or not to use as he wishes. It was my idea,” Celebrimbor added, “to leave a gift and a letter. He did not get to say what he wanted to say when he saw Maglor, so I thought this a good compromise. I think he’s a little like me—sometimes, if you cannot speak to someone in person, it is easier to make them a gift instead, to show them instead of just telling them how much you love them. Words written in a letter can feel flatter than they are meant. He does care. He cares so much, and he is trying.”

“I know that,” Elrond said, though he doubted the gift would be taken in the spirit it was intended. “You’ll be going to Tirion as well?”

“Eventually. I’ll leave with them, but I’m going to my grandmother’s house first. I want to see my father; I think Maglor isn’t the only one struggling this summer.”

“Are you worried?”

“Yes, of course. But—I don’t know. I’ve been worried about them all ever since I came back, and so it’s lost any urgency it might once have had. My father did write to tell me that he and Celegorm are again on speaking terms, which I had long ago lost hope for. However much Maedhros is struggling in himself, he has been working to bring the others together again.”

“I am glad to hear it,” Elrond said. 

“I know you aren’t fond of him,” Celebrimbor said, glancing at him with a rueful look in his eyes. “It must be very tiring to hear the rest of us speak of him the way we do.”

“It isn’t,” Elrond said. “I hope for his healing as much as the rest of you do. I wish that I knew him as someone other than what he became in the end. I know that if he was not someone who cared, deeply, he would not be punishing himself as he is. Has your grandfather made anything for him? Or his other sons?”

“Yes, and he’s written to all of them too. That’s another reason I am going to my grandmother’s house.”

“You can also tell them more of him, and perhaps up them more at ease,” Elrond said. “You’ve spent more time in his company than anyone except Fingolfin.”

“That too,” said Celebrimbor with a smile. He looked as though he couldn’t quite believe his luck. Elrond did not think he had seen Celebrimbor so lighthearted or full of hope for the future since the founding of Ost-in-Edhil. “It’s been—it’s gone far better than I would have ever expected, really. We’re peers now, and can talk to each other as such, but he is still also my grandfather who I loved so much as a child, and who I never doubted loved me, in spite of all that happened at the end. It’s a second chance I never thought we’d get.”

That was what Valinor was, for so many of them. A place of second chances—of reunions longed for but despaired of, for new beginnings, new life. Elrond watched Celebrimbor retreat down the path, toward the workshops, and sighed. He thought of Maedhros, still punishing himself for things long past, and wondered if there might ever be a second chance for the two of them. He regretted, suddenly and sharply, not seeking Maedhros out himself, long ago, rather than letting the distance between them remain as it was just because it was easier, because to do otherwise would have been uncomfortable. It would have been better for both of them.

It was not too late, maybe. Had he not said as much to his mother?

Elrond stood for a while, watching a butterfly flit lazily between the irises and a nearby bush of bright pink eglantine, listening to a nightingale singing in the hedgerow nearby, and to ducks paddling in the water. Farther away someone burst into bright laughter like a peal of silver bells. Then he went to write a letter to his parents—to Elwing for now, and to Eärendil whenever he next returned—to share all that had been happening, and to tell them that he loved them.

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Returning to his grandparents’ house was strange in many painful, uncomfortable ways. It was not exactly the same as he remembered it, of course, but it was similar enough. Furniture had been replaced and walls repainted, new artworks displayed in place of the ones he remembered from his childhood, the roof recently re-tiled, and the floor of the entryway redone long enough ago that it would soon need it again, but still a strange and new pattern to Maglor’s eyes. But it still felt like stepping back in time, especially when Ennalótë burst out of the door to throw her arms around him, crowing in delight before she noticed how different he looked up close. She recovered quickly, and he guessed that his grandfather or uncle had warned her, but her smile still slipped, and she let go of him as though afraid of being too rough, as though he needed to be treated as gently as though he had just come out of Dol Guldur that morning.

Maglor hated it. He didn’t want to be wrapped in cotton wool and coddled. It made him feel as breakable as they all thought he was. 

It was a little better greeting his aunts, his mother’s sister Vanilómë and Linquendil’s wife Mornilótë, and being introduced to the cousins he had never met, Elessúrë’s sisters. Calarustë was a craftswoman, often working closely with Mahtan. Súriellë lived in Tirion, serving as a scribe in Fingolfin’s court. They were both visiting Mahtan and Ennalótë then only by chance, and were delighted to have all of their cousins in one place—a very rare event, even before Maglor had come, Súriellë told him cheerfully as she sat beside him at the dinner table. He liked her immediately; she did not look twice at his face, and treated him exactly as she treated all of his brothers, friendly and warm. 

Elessúrë was not there; he had left directly after speaking to Maglor that afternoon, claiming that his wife was expecting both him and Vindimórë before dinner that evening. 

It was a lively, merry gathering, dampened only by Maglor’s own silence. Everyone seemed to expect Maedhros not to speak much, but Maglor saw both his grandmother and Vanilómë look at him often, clearly expecting him to add a joke or tell an amusing story to follow along whatever the line of conversation was at that moment.

It wasn’t that he couldn’t, in general—it had taken a little time, but before he’d left Imloth Ningloron he’d felt perfectly at ease at Elrond and Celebrían’s table, teasing the twins and Elrond and joking with Glorfindel and Lindir, laughing with Finrod and Galadriel. None of them had stared at him, though. None of them looked into his face and searched for a person who no longer existed. They expected him to be who he was, not who he had been so long ago that the memories felt more like dreams. He had once been joyful and carefree at his grandparents’ table, but he found that the words all stuck in his throat now, let alone the laughter. 

He slipped away as soon as he could after the meal was done, in a moment when no one was looking at him as the table was being cleared and the party was moving to one of the large and cheerful parlors. It was too much to be back in that house where he’d spent so much of his childhood and youth, surrounded by so many unchanged faces—and new ones—and he knew someone would call for music, and no one would understand when he had to refuse. 

Daeron followed soon after. Maglor had retreated to their bedroom, preferring the cozy quiet and the soft golden light of the lamp by the bed even to the starlight outside. “Do you wish to speak of it?” Daeron asked. 

“No. I don’t know.” Maglor leaned his arm against the window where he’d been brooding over his reflection, trying not to imagine what they were all saying about him in his absence, and failing. “I shouldn’t be so unhappy. I did want to see them.” Daeron stepped up behind him, and Maglor turned to face him. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”

“No one like being stared at,” Daeron said. “Was it so bad meeting your cousins?”

“No, but they weren’t even born when I left, except Elessúrë. All they know of me are the stories they have heard, and it’s hard not to exceed those expectations.”

“You mean the stories from Beleriand. I think they have heard more tales than those.” Daeron took his hands. “I’m sorry. I wish there was a way to make it easier for you.”

“You’re here,” Maglor whispered. It was more than he would ever have dared to ask for, and he didn’t have the words for how much it meant. He kissed him, trying to say it that way instead. The house was empty but for them, and they stumbled back onto the bed without worrying about having to be quiet, fumbling at laces and ties and falling into helpless laughter when they tried and failed to undress without having to stop kissing or touching each other. 

By the time Maglor heard the doors downstairs open and close, the the voices of his brothers drifting up the stairs, he was more than half asleep, tangled up under the blankets with Daeron; the moon was not yet up, but the stars were out and bright. Daeron murmured something into his hair and tightened his arms around him. He was warm and the bed was soft; the linens smelled of lavender. Maglor kept his eyes closed; his last thought before sleep claimed him fully was to hope his dreams would be equally peaceful. 

He was not that lucky. He woke in the early hours of the morning, in the dark before dawn, from some nightmare or other; the details vanished upon waking, but he had also forgotten where he was, and in his panic he flailed, the blankets feeling like ropes binding him, and managed to kick Daeron in the shins before he fell out of bed onto the floor, startling Pídhres into a yowl and Leicheg into fleeing under the bed. 

“Maglor?” Daeron pulled the blankets off of him; by that time Maglor had woken fully, and the fear had started to ebb into embarrassment. “It’s all right,” Daeron was saying, as he helped him up off the floor. 

“I hit you,” Maglor said. “I’m sorry—”

“I’m fine, don’t worry. Come back to bed.”

A knock on the door made Maglor start. “Maglor?” It was Celegorm. “What happened?”

Maglor didn’t want to yell through the door, so he got up, wrapping a blanket around himself, and went to open it just enough for Celegorm to see his face. “I’m sorry if I woke—”

“I was awake already. Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

“You yelled something.”

Had he? Maglor winced. “I’m sorry.”

Celegorm was frowning at him. His hair was disheveled and he was only half-dressed, and he did not look as though he had been up already—he looked like he had stumbled out of bed at the first sign of trouble, still tense and poised as though ready for danger, for a fight, a look of fear lingering even as he tried to hide it away. “Cáno, what’s wrong?”

“It was just a nightmare. I’m all right, really. I’m sorry.” But as he spoke other doors were opening, and he heard his other brothers starting to ask questions, sounding sleepy and alarmed at once. He heard Nerdanel’s voice, too, from down the hallway. 

Celegorm’s face softened. “Go back to bed,” he said, and added over his shoulder, “It was just Maglor’s cat causing trouble.” He winked at Maglor, and pulled the door shut.

On the bed, Pídhres meowed. Maglor slipped back under the blankets into Daeron’s arms. “What was the dream?” Daeron asked.

“I don’t remember it.” Maglor closed his eyes. “What did I shout?”

“I think I heard the word please,” Daeron said, very softly. 

“No one is going to believe it was my cat.”

“No, but they’ll be kind enough to pretend. I don’t think any of your brothers are strangers to such nightmares.”

He’d had those kinds of dreams before—the ones that woke him screaming. In Rivendell it had not been quite so mortifying; he was not the only one troubled by such things, and the walls were thick enough that even his voice only rarely disturbed anyone else. The walls here, though, not not been built for the same purpose—not that the walls in Imladris had been built with sound in mind, rather than keeping the warmth in during winter and the heat out during summer—and they were much thinner. Maglor should have thought of it before, but it had been such a long time since he’d woken up screaming like that. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered again. “How hard did I hit you?” If he couldn’t even share a bed with Daeron without—

“Sometime it will be my turn to wake you up like that,” Daeron told him. “Don’t apologize. I might find a bruise on my shin later, but that’s nothing, and you must know by now that I am very good at singing those away.”

“You have such dreams?”

“Sometimes.” Daeron stroked his hair, and pressed kisses over his forehead and his cheeks. “I know well how some memories have teeth and claws. They sink in and never really let go. Time is the only cure, I have found.”

“Your songs help,” Maglor whispered.

“Then I can count on yours, when I have my own restless nights.” Daeron kissed him once more. “Go back to sleep.”

Maglor tried, but he didn’t do more than doze, and when the sun finally rose he gave up on sleep entirely. Daeron had fallen back asleep, so Maglor slipped out of bed carefully and dressed silently. Pídhres and Leicheg followed him out of the room, and he caught Leicheg before she could jump down the first step and go tumbling. 

The kitchen was empty, the house quiet. After he let his animals outside, Maglor tended to the banked fire on the hearth and put a kettle on for tea. The kitchen was unfamiliar and it took him several minutes to locate the cupboard with the jars full of tea leaves, in more than a dozen blends most of which were unfamiliar to him, but at least the ritual of boiling water and spooning out the tea leaves into the pot remained the same, no matter what side of the sea he was on. Maglor sat at the table and let himself slump forward, head in his arms. 

He heard footsteps on the stairs, and so wasn’t startled by the hands that came to rest on his shoulders a moment later. “Want to talk about it?” Caranthir asked. 

“No,” Maglor said into his arms. 

“Want to help make breakfast then? There’s oats and fresh berries and cream. You still like raspberries, don’t you?”

Maglor squeezed his eyes shut. Elrond had asked him that very same question once, the morning after he’d first arrived in Rivendell. Then, he hadn’t been able to recall the taste of them, and when he’d tried the jam it had made him cry. He’d felt ridiculous then, when every little thing seemed to bring him to tears, and still felt ridiculous remembering it. “Yes,” he said, lifting his head. At least he knew what they tasted like, now. “They’re still my favorite.”

They worked quietly, not really speaking except for Maglor to ask where things were kept, and for Caranthir to answer, Caranthir offering Maglor the same sort of wordless companionship Maglor had given him long ago, when Caranthir had come to him when troubled. They finished cooking before anyone else was awake, and took their bowls outside. Huan wandered into the garden from the direction of the river, soaking wet and looking pleased with himself. “You stay back, Huan,” Caranthir said sharply, pointing with his spoon. “It’s too early to smell like wet dog.” Huan woofed, but obliged, vanishing to the other side of the workshop. Maglor heard him shake himself off—and heard someone protest. It seemed he hadn’t been the first one out of bed after all.

“What’s back there?” he asked Caranthir as they sat under the hawthorn tree. Leicheg came over to climb onto Maglor’s lap and sniff at his bowl.

“It’s been a storage shed, but Tyelko and Curvo asked Ammë to turn it into a painting studio,” Caranthir said.

“For who?”

“Nelyo.”

“He paints?” Maglor had learned painting the same time Maedhros had, long ago—it was just one of many things they were taught, in days full of lessons and tutors, from painting to language to mathematics to dance. He didn’t remember Maedhros taking any particular interest in it, and no one had spoken of it lately. Maedhros had never taken particular interest in any one craft, preferring to learn a little bit of everything, flitting from lessons to short-lived apprenticeships like a butterfly between flowers, taking equal joy in all of it. He’d had a small library in the corner of his bedroom in Tirion with such an eclectic selection of books and manuscripts that not even their father had understood his methods of keeping it all organized. Maglor had never been convinced that he had kept it organized. 

“No,” said Caranthir. “He draws—you’ve seen him with his sketchbook? It started as a way of keeping himself busy. Ammë’s idea. He used to burn all his drawings, but I don’t think he’s burned anything from this summer.” He paused for a moment, stirring his oatmeal around the bowl a few times. “The drawings he burned—they were frightening,” he said in a low voice. “He doesn’t know I’ve seen them. Some must have been nightmares, or memories of Angband. I think it helped him though—to put it on paper and then to destroy it.” 

Maglor didn’t ask for details of what the drawings had been. He could guess all too easily. “So why paint now?”

“He said something about it to Curvo at Midsummer, I guess in between convincing him and Tyelko to actually talk to each other like adults instead of either snarling at each other or not speaking at all.”

That sounded like something Maedhros would have done long ago, before Doriath, before Sirion, before he’d been worn down to almost nothing. Herding feuding brothers back together was not something he would have been capable of after all that. Maglor himself had barely managed to keep Elrond and Elros in line when they had their own spats—though those had, thankfully, been very few and far between. Normal sibling fights had been a luxury they could not afford, not when the world was breaking apart around them. Even so, Maglor doubted that Elrond and Elros would have fought often even if they had grown up in peace; he couldn’t imagine them going more than an afternoon without speaking to one another.

Maedhros came around the larger workshop, damp and scowling, with his sketchbook under his arm. He slowed when he saw the two of them. “Breakfast is inside,” Caranthir said. “Try not to drip wet dog water into the oatmeal.” Maedhros made a face and a rude gesture before continuing on inside. “That,” said Caranthir after a moment, “was the most like himself he’s seemed since I returned. Maybe we should get Huan to bother him more often.”

Maglor finished his breakfast and took his bowl inside. Maedhros was not in the kitchen, but he’d left his book on the table, open to let the damp pages dry. Maglor couldn’t help but glance at the open page, and found himself staring into his own face, at a drawing of himself walking away down a sandy, shell-strewn beach, glancing over his shoulder as he went, expression solemn and sad. Maedhros had drawn no scars, but otherwise it was almost the same face Maglor saw whenever he looked into a mirror. He turned the page back and found his other brothers looking back at him, or drawn caught in the middle of laughter; there was one surprisingly detailed rendering of one of the twins shoving Celegorm into a river, a fresh-caught fish still clutched in his hand. When the turned the page forward he found the sketch of Nienna, only half-finished, and a few other vague and just-begun drawings of landscapes or flowers. Maedhros had done very little drawing on the journey back. 

When he looked up again he found Maedhros in the doorway, dressed in clean clothes and using his teeth to tie off the end of his braid. “These are good,” Maglor said, feeling like he’d been caught sneaking somewhere he shouldn’t have. 

Maedhros lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “I’m not supposed to be brooding,” he said. “That…helps.”

An awkward silence fell, and Maglor wished he knew better how to fill it. They hadn’t spoken alone together since that morning in the tent, just after they’d both almost drowned. That was weeks ago, now. “Sitting at the pottery wheel helps me,” he said finally. He missed it, suddenly—the feeling of wet clay on his skin, the rhythm of the wheel, the satisfaction of watching the clay shift and change, rising and falling according to whatever he wished in that moment. It was easy to let dark thoughts and fears fall away in the face of making something, of watching it form under his hands.

Ambarussa came clattering down the stairs then, and Nerdanel followed, breaking the tension but also ending whatever further conversation they might have attempted. Maglor turned away to pour himself another cup of tea. The twins disappeared into the dining room with their breakfast, dragging Maedhros along with them. Nerdanel lingered in the kitchen. “You were missed last evening,” she said finally.

“I’m sorry.” Maglor stirred a small spoonful of honey into the tea slowly, not looking up.

“And—Macalaurë, this morning, you—”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, “I didn’t mean to wake everyone. It won’t happen again.”

“That’s not—I am not trying to scold you, Macalaurë.”

He sighed. “I know.” 

“It was certainly not your cat that caused the trouble,” Nerdanel said after a moment. So much for everyone being kind enough to pretend. “What was it instead?”

“A bad dream. I don’t remember it now, and I don’t—there was nothing that happened to cause it.”

“You’re going to tell me not to worry, aren’t you?”

“It would be nice,” Maglor said, lifting his teacup to his lips, “if people actually did stop when I asked.”

Nerdanel poured herself a cup of tea. “Come out to my workshop then,” she said, “and tell me how you repaired that cup you sent me. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“All right.”

Daeron came down then. Maglor was aware of his mother’s gaze on them as they exchanged a quick good-morning kiss, as Daeron peered into Maglor’s face in search of lingering shadows, and then pulled his hair back out of his face for him, securing it with the purple and silver hair clip—a wordless encouragement to try not to hide. When Maglor followed her out to the workshop, she was frowning again. “Is that wise, Macalaurë?” she asked once the door was closed behind them. “Is he not from Doriath?”

Maglor set his teacup down before he dropped it. “I have no secrets from him, if that’s what you mean. He knows what I did.”

“Does he, really?”

“Do you think I would keep it from him?” Maglor asked her. “Do you think I would lie?”

“I don’t know,” she said, meeting his gaze. “There are many things I once thought you would never do.”

It was only the truth; he didn’t know why it hurt so badly to hear. “Daeron knows them all,” he said, with a sinking feeling. They were not going to talk about the cup, or pottery, or any of the other things he’d learned in Rivendell that he thought he’d like to tell her. Instead they were going to argue. 

Of course they were going to argue. This family had once argued as much as it laughed, tempers flaring and bursting before subsiding, like Gandalf’s fireworks, even his, even his mother’s. Everything else was different now, though, and this fight wasn’t going to be only the matter of an afternoon, a meaningless dispute that would be fixed with a hug and a joke after they took an hour to calm themselves. Maglor did not want to argue—not with anyone, and not about Daeron. He’d thought that Nerdanel would be happy for him, at least in this. That at least she could see that his life was not all dark dreams and fell memories—but it seemed that just when he had started to let go of his fears, this one came true: that she saw only the scars, only the hurt, only the shadows, only the broken pieces of him and not how he had put himself back together.

“I just—I don’t want to see you get hurt, Macalaurë. After all that’s happened, I don’t want to watch you get your heart broken too.”

“Daeron is not going to break my heart, Ammë.”

“But is it wise to give it to anyone now? You are still—”

“Still what? Broken? Disfigured? Diminished?”

“No! Do not put words in my mouth; that is not what I—”

“Daeron has seen all of my scars, and he is the only one in these lands who has not recoiled from them. Not even once.” He had stared, but only for a few moments; he had been horrified, but it had not driven him away. He hadn’t had to retreat to make sense of it, like Maglor’s brothers. He was not rendered incapable of treating Maglor as he always had before, of laughing at and teasing him or of taking him seriously as either himself or as a musician or as a friend—or as a lover. “I’m never going to be again who I was before I left these shores, Ammë. But I am not—I am not a child, or unable to make my own choices for my own happiness—”

“Yet you have been alone for two full Ages of the world, Macalaurë. Your exile has only just ended—”

“My exile ended two hundred years ago. I haven’t been alone since I was brought out of Dol Guldur.” Maglor watched his mother’s face go pale when he spoke the name, but he refused to feel sorry for it. If he could not say it aloud, he could not let go of the fear, and he was so tired of being afraid. “I found joy again, Ammë. In Middle-earth, long before I ever set foot on that ship. I found healing. You must know that—Galadriel told me that she spoke to you. I wrote to you. The scars I bear just—I know they’re ugly and I know they distress you, but they mean that I survived. 

“Besides,” he said, turning to leave, “I already know what heartbreak feels like, six times over. You can ask your other children about it. Nothing Daeron could ever do or say can be worse than that.”

He left the workshop and left the garden, making his way out past the orchard to the river. His feet carried him there of their own accord, following the path of his childhood when he wished to be alone with his thoughts, and following an even more deeply ingrained habit of seeking the nearest source of water so he could lose himself in its music. He walked upstream for a while, until he came to the willows that grew on either side. He splashed across the river, which was shallow, no more than shin deep—a far cry from the rain-swollen river in the hill country far away in the west—and climbed into the fork of the willow tree on the far bank. He buried his face in his arms and turned his thoughts deliberately to the water. 

He didn’t know how long he’d been out there when he became aware of someone else walking up the riverbank. When he lifted his head he found his grandmother stepping through the willow fronds. “There you are, Macalaurë,” she said. “We missed you last night.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, coming to lean against the willow tree, which was low enough that where he sat put him at her eye level. She was not a tall woman, but she was sturdy, forever with dirt under her fingernails and the smells of her garden lingering about her, of herbs and rich earth and roses. “We should have known better than to drag you to a big family dinner as soon as you arrived.” She reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind his ear. “Your cousin scolded us most soundly for it last night, after your mother and brothers left.”

“Which cousin?”

“Súriellë. She has been often among those returned from Middle-earth, like you, who still bear the scars from it; her wife is a surviver of the Last Alliance.”

“I was glad to see you,” Maglor said quietly. “And to meet Súriellë and Calarustë.”

“I know.” Ennalótë smiled at him, but her eyes were sad. “It grieves us to see you like this, but that should not be your burden too.”

“I understand. I know I don’t look—”

“You look like yourself, sweetheart.” Ennalótë leaned forward to kiss his forehead. “You do not look like the Macalaurë of our memories, but why should you? I hope that will not stop you from visiting us again in the future.”

“Of course not,” Maglor said. He had known it would be hard in the beginning—and that it would get easier afterward. “I’ve missed you.”

“We’ve all missed you too. Come find me whenever you want to, and I’ll put you to work in my gardens. That is still the best cure for cares and heartaches that I have ever found.”

“I’d like that.”

“Your friend Daeron is also welcome,” Ennalótë added, with a smile. “I like him very much, especially since from what your brothers have said he seems to make you so happy.”

“He does,” Maglor said. “He makes me very happy. But Ammë doesn’t think—”

“Nerdanel has spent so long worrying about you, I think she is finding it difficult to stop.”

Maglor looked away, toward the water flowing along cheerfully through the shallow riverbed. In the shade under the willow he saw tiny silver fish darting around, just as they had long ago when he’d come out here as a child. “I know what that’s like,” he said finally. “Not worry, exactly, but…”

Ennalótë kept stroking his hair. “Time is the only cure for it,” she said.

“That is what Nienna told me.”

“Have you seen her? I’m glad. It’s what she told me, too, long ago. The trick is to let time do its work, and to remember to be kind to one another in the meantime. Someone said last night you do not intend to make your home here, as they all did when they first came back.”

“My home is with Elrond,” Maglor said. 

“I have not met Master Elrond,” said Ennalótë. “But your mother and your cousins did work for Lady Celebrían when she was building her house.”

Maglor hadn’t known that. “It’s a beautiful house.”

“I helped her with the gardens,” Ennalótë added, smiling, though it faded a little as she went on, “but I haven’t had occasion to visit since her husband came west—I have been busy, and Master Elrond has been much in demand. Perhaps after you have had time to settle in properly I will return there, to see how the roses fare, and perhaps to hear you sing? I have missed your music.”

“I would like that,” said Maglor. 

“Would you like to help me in my garden today? I could use another pair of hands.”

Maglor unfolded himself from the willow tree. He rested his hand briefly on the trunk in silent thanks for its quiet company before following Ennalótë away down the river again. She looped her arm through his and talked of flowers and pests and of butterflies and bees, and a family of rabbits that had made its home under one of her maple trees. She seemed to have entirely gotten over the shock of his appearance, and it was such a relief to have her treat him—not as she had of old, exactly, but as himself as he was now, to put her arm around him and squeeze, and not to act like he was something breakable. She asked about Middle-earth, but not about what had befallen him or about the wars or great deeds done there. She wanted instead to know of the gardens in Rivendell, and in Gondor, of the trees and flowers that grew in each place. By the time they reached her garden and she handed him a pair of shears to help with some pruning, he could almost forget what had driven him out of his mother’s house in the first place.

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“Ammë, you didn’t.” Celegorm dropped a blueberry back onto his plate to cover his face instead; the blueberry rolled off the plate and to the floor, where Huan immediately claimed it for his own. Maedhros sighed, and pushed his own bowl away. 

“All right then, Tyelkormo, tell me how to talk to him about my concerns—very reasonable ones, I think—without him running away!”

“Choose another concern!” Celegorm said. “The last thing you need to worry about is Daeron.”

“Have you paid any attention to your brother at all in the weeks you tell me you have been together?” Nerdanel demanded. 

“Yes,” Maedhros interjected before Celegorm could speak and make things worse. “Of course we paid attention, Ammë. Enough to know that he was much more at ease in Daeron’s company before he met with us at Ekkaia. Daeron is the only reason he’s here with us at all.”

“You should have heard them singing, before they knew we were there,” Celegorm said.

The trouble, Maedhros thought as he watched his mother glare at them, was that time did not pass the same way in Valinor as it did in Middle-earth. Valinor, even under the Sun and Moon, was timeless. The seasons passed but other things—the land, the people—changed only slowly, if they changed at all; it was too easy to feel as though you had only blinked and then find that centuries had passed you by. Maglor was two hundred years out of Dol Guldur now, and in Imladris far away that was a long time, to grow and heal and find peace again. And he had. The memories were close to the surface at the moment, but so were memories of thousands of years ago, all of them dredged up and tangled together because both they and their father had intruded on the peace he’d fought so hard to carve out for himself. They hadn’t meant to, but that didn’t change the result. Of course he was unhappy and off balance. Of course old wounds had reopened. It was like picking at a scab and being surprised when blood welled up out of it. 

“What are you saying, then?” Nerdanel asked. 

“That he’s had a rather trying journey back,” said Celegorm, “because we’re all idiots and already made the mistakes you’re making now. Also, he fell into a river and nearly drowned, but quite frankly I think he’d prefer the river to dealing with any of us.”

Nerdanel pinched the bridge of her nose, and leaned on the back of a chair with her other hand, arm rigid. “Enlighten me with your wisdom, then. What mistakes am I making?” she asked, voice full of irony. 

“Ammë,” Maedhros protested. 

“You’re just seeing the scars,” Celegorm said. “You aren’t seeing him.”

“Of course I’m seeing him, he’s—”

“No, you’re not,” Celegorm interrupted. “If you were you wouldn’t be warning him away from Daeron. You’d see how strong he is.”

“Daeron makes him happy, Ammë,” Maedhros said quietly.

“Of course I know how strong he is. He is here, isn’t he? I believe that he believes it when he tells me he’s found joy again after his wounding, but I begin to wonder if it’s really true. Those cries last night did not come from his cat causing trouble. He should be in Lórien,” Nerdanel said. “I know you might not think so, Maitimo, because your judgment is also not—”

“Then don’t trust my judgment,” said Maedhros. “If he needed Estë’s help so desperately, he would be in Lórien now instead of here. Elrond would have seen to it—Elrond would have brought him west a hundred years ago, rather than leaving him behind in Middle-earth. He told me that himself when I went to Imloth Ningloron this spring.”

“Elrond,” Nerdanel said, “is said to be wise, but I wonder if his wisdom does not fail him where your brother is concerned. Macalaurë took him as a child—”

Maedhros rose. “Stop it, Ammë,” he said, more sharply than he’d intended. “Attacking the Havens was the worst thing we ever did, Maglor and Ambarussa and I. There is no disputing that, and Elrond has not forgotten it. But afterward Maglor did nothing but love those boys. He cherished them, and when it was time he sent them away to Gil-galad who could protect them better, even though he broke his own heart in doing so. He loves Elrond still—that is the only reason he came west at all—and Elrond, who does not love blindly or carelessly, loves him.”

“And,” Celegorm added quietly, “so does Daeron, and I don’t think Daeron does anything carelessly. You don’t need to warn Macalaurë to be careful. He’s already had his heart broken, and Daeron had nothing to do with it.”

“We all saw to that,” Maedhros said.

Nerdanel looked suddenly very tired and very sad. “Macalaurë said that, too,” she said, “that all of you broke his heart six times over.”

“We died, Ammë,” Celegorm said, dropping his gaze back to his plate. He fed another blueberry to Huan. “We died and we left him, every one of us—and in spite of all of that, in spite of our doing a remarkably poor job of welcoming him back, he’s still here. Just—just let him be. Please. Also, I already tried to talk to Daeron—because I am, as mentioned, an idiot—so you don’t have to try to warn him off, either. And you shouldn’t, because it would just upset Cáno even more.”

“Daeron doesn’t need any warnings, anyway,” Maedhros said, and he left the room, fetching his now-dried sketchbook from the kitchen and retreating back to his own studio. It felt odd to think of it as a studio, and as his own space, but not in a bad way. He set the sketchbook down on the drawing table there, in front of the wide window already letting in the bright golden summer sunshine, and looked to the shelves of paints and pigments. 

He wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. He would try, because he had promised Curufin, but not today. His thoughts were all charcoal-black and jagged, and if he was to try to draw anything it would only be worth tossing into the fire. Maedhros leaned against the table and looked out of the window, at the flowers and the sculptures. A bird was singing in the hawthorn tree. It had been a bright day like this, he thought, when he’d looked into the palantír. He had just come to his mother’s house from Mandos, burning up inside and not understanding why he’d been thrown out when so many others had been permitted to stay, off balance and missing all of his brothers but Maglor most of all—because he knew where the others were, knew they were safe, at least, in death.

Maedhros sat down and let his head rest on his arms. It wasn’t worth thinking about anymore—Maglor had long ago left that place; he was safe, he was nearby—but Maedhros still hadn’t learned how to stop his thoughts once they started circling around things he couldn’t change and couldn’t have stopped. Except that if he had been stronger or smarter or more—

“Hey.” Someone tapped the top of his head, and Maedhros lifted his gaze to find Amras leaning through the window. “No brooding, remember?” He had clover woven into his braids, which were fastened at the ends with beads that clicked together when he moved. 

“That was on the trip,” Maedhros said. “We’re home now, so I can brood as much as I want.”

“Come on, Nelyo.” Amras reached through the window again to tug on a strand of Maedhros’ hair that had fallen forward over his eyes. “We didn’t go all the way to Ekkaia and back just to have nothing change.”

“Things have changed,” Maedhros said. “I’m brooding out here, and not in my bedroom.” 

“Come help us air out the tent and things instead.”

Maedhros sighed. “Are you going to leave me alone if I say no?”

“Of course not! You’re not supposed to be the oldest anymore, remember?”

“That still doesn’t make any sense.”

“Yes, it does.” Amras grinned at him. “It means we get to boss you around for your own good, while you go along with it ungracefully but knowing it’s all for the best. You’ve done it to us all our lives, so it’s only fair that we get our turn now.”

He sighed and got to his feet. “Fine.”

Maglor did not reappear that day, and Daeron too had disappeared to do whatever it was he did when alone; it wasn’t until late that Maedhros heard the two of them return, going straight to their bedroom. By that time the rest of them had also retreated to their own rooms, even if they weren’t yet sleeping; Maedhros and Curufin were both awake still, each with a book, lounging on Maedhros’ bed in companionable silence. Maedhros had grabbed his at random from the shelf downstairs; it was on the process of making dyes for fabric, and Caranthir had made so many scathing notes in the margins that Maedhros had started to wonder why he didn’t just write a book of his own. 

“Tyelko told me about Cáno’s fight with Ammë,” Curufin said, as faint laughter came through the wall. It sounded like Maglor’s voice. It seemed he was always laughing when alone with Daeron. The rest of them were lucky to get a smile. “She didn’t do that when I went back to Arimeldë.”

“Ammë already knew her, as she doesn’t know Daeron; and I think it’s because you were going back,” Maedhros said. He remembered little of Curufin’s first forays back into Rundamírë’s life. He had never been Curufin’s favored confidant—and he would have been the last one Curufin would have turned to upon his return. He did remember, though, seeing Curufin often unhappy but with that determined set to his jaw that meant he intended to try again, whatever it was that had gone wrong.

“Yes, but she wasn’t nearly as forgiving in the beginning as Daeron seems to be.” Curufin thought for a moment, and then added a little ruefully, “Maybe Ammë wasn’t worried about my heart getting broken because I’d already broken Arimeldë’s, and I deserved whatever she threw at me.”

Maedhros glanced at his right arm, at the new scars and at the end where there should have been a scar, rather than smooth skin. “Do you ever miss your scars?” he asked. 

“Not really. I missed my callouses more; trying to work was miserable until they formed again. The scars would’ve just horrified Ammë and Arimeldë.”

“But instead everyone thinks you should be…unchanged. Or changed back.”

“No, not everyone.” Curufin glanced at him. “Just people like Ammë, who never went to Middle-earth. And Arimeldë, I suppose—but she’s always known me better than anyone, and doesn’t need the visible reminders to understand the changes, at least since she’s stopped being furious with me. Almost everyone in Tirion and on Tol Eressëa understands, since most of them have been to Middle-earth, however they came back again. Which you would know if you ever came to visit.”

“Tirion makes me feel like I cant breathe,” said Maedhros. Even emptied as it was, with so many of the Noldor gone away to dwell with Turgon or Finrod’s brothers or in another of the myriad little realms and small cities that had cropped up over the last few thousand years, it felt crowded and close, familiar and strange in equal measure. It was worse on days of celebration or festivity, when visitors descended from all over and it seemed almost as full again as it had been long ago before the Darkening. And, soon enough, Fëanor would be there. Maedhros couldn’t risk seeing him. Curufin’s house was in the same quarter as all of their old followers, where all the metalworkers and gem makers had gathered, and that was surely where Fëanor would spend most of his time even if he didn’t choose to live there himself. Fingon’s house was in a different part of the city, but it was close to the palace—where Fëanor was also bound to spend time. The thought of running into his father by accident made Maedhros feel almost ill. “I’m not just thinking about me, though,” he said. “I’m thinking about—all of us really, but mostly Cáno.” Maedhros didn’t know if Maglor would rid himself of all of his scars if he could, if he thought it would be better for those like Nerdanel or their grandparents to see his face unchanged. It seemed there was no good way to come back, with or without scars—there would always be those who would not understand one way or the other.

“He’s going to be living in Imloth Ningloron. I saw plenty of people there with scars of their own. Even Lady Celebrían—she can hide hers, but I’ve heard the stories.”

“I know, I just…” Maedhros remembered Maglor saying, softly and hesitantly, that he wanted to see their mother. How nervous he had been as they approached the house, pale and holding himself in that rigid way that meant he was trying to stop himself from trembling. How it had seemed to go so well in the beginning—there had been tears, but they hadn’t been bad. “I wouldn’t have thought Ammë would speak so thoughtlessly, or to fail to see past the scars to see the healing.”

“Ammë is never thoughtless,” said Curufin. He frowned down at his book as he thought, rubbing his thumb over the corner of a page. “But even we have struggled, haven’t we? And we know how strong he’s always been, we know what healing looks like after that kind of suffering. Ammë has never seen it before. She only has the memory of what he was before we left, and whatever she saw in the palantír. She’s not wrong to worry about him, because he’s not as fully healed as he wishes we all believed, but…Tyelko was right too. Daeron is the last thing she needs to worry about. Did Cáno fall in love with him at the Mereth Aderthad?”

“I don’t know,” Maedhros said. “If he didn’t, he came dangerously close.”

“He hid it very well.”

“I think he hid a lot of things well, even from himself. He used to say he could do anything in front of an audience.” Even pretend that nothing was wrong—for years, centuries. 

“I don’t think that’s true anymore,” Curufin said quietly. “I think the idea of an audience scares him, now. Even if it’s just us.”

“Sauron used the symbol of an eye for a reason,” Maedhros said, equally quiet. “And he had it trained upon Maglor for a very long time. I don’t blame him for wanting to hide.”

The next day Maedhros slept late. His dreams had been quiet, but he woke up still feeling tired, as though all the exhaustion of the journey was only just catching up to him. He made his way downstairs and outside, wanting to be away from walls and roofs, and found most of his brothers in the front garden, either repairing damage to their tack or traveling supplies that had been put off until the journey’s end, or just lying in the shade. Maglor sat on the grass with Pídhres in his lap, making a face at Daeron, who had put his flute to his lips and was playing a bright trilling series of notes.

“I said no birds!” Maglor protested as a dozen of them immediately came to flutter around him. He grabbed Pídhres as they settled on top of his head and on his shoulders; he was laughing as his kitten squirmed and yowled. Daeron kept playing and the birds burst into a cheeping, chirping chorus. “I told you Pídhres would just try to eat them—”

“Go on then, Cáno, give us a song!” said Amras. “You have a whole chorus to accompany you!”

Maedhros leaned against the doorway as Maglor stuck his tongue out at Amras before obliging, bursting into a very silly song about a blackbird and a lark and a nest full of eggs, all the while trying with increasing difficulty to keep Pídhres from going after the birds. By the end of the song everyone was laughing, and the birds finally flew away. Pídhres darted after them and scurried up the nearest tree. Maedhros heard the swish of skirts behind him, and turned to see Nerdanel also watching the scene, misty-eyed and wistful. When Maedhros glanced back outside, Daeron had draped himself across Maglor’s lap, and Maglor had his fingers tangled in his hair, his expression soft and so deeply fond, even through laughter, that Maedhros had to look away again. “All right,” Nerdanel said softly, reaching for Maedhros’ hand. “I see what you meant.” He put his arm around her and kissed the top of her head. 

Huan trotted around the corner of the house, Celegorm just behind him, and stopped, lifting his head to look toward the road. Maedhros, remembering the last time he had done so, followed his gaze. A large party was coming up from the south, banners waving. “Is that Grandfather Finwë’s banner?” Amras asked, startled. 

“Yes,” said Maedhros. It had caught his eye, too—for it was the largest, and at the head of the party. Behind it and smaller, lower, were the banners of their own house and Fingolfin’s, and Finarfin’s, and those of Findis and Lalwen too, in such a display such as had not been seen since the days before the unrest in Tirion long ago. Fingolfin had displayed the banner of Finwë at the Mereth Aderthad, a symbol of the reconciliation of all their houses, but not before or after.

The party did not slow down, but Maedhros imagined he could feel Fëanor’s gaze turning toward them; there was nothing between the house and the road to hide them from view. He looked to Maglor, who sat very still, watching the horses go by; all traces of his smile, all hint of laughter, had vanished. Daeron sat up, and Maedhros could see Maglor gripping his hand with white knuckles. They all stiffened when a rider dropped out of the party to come cantering down the road toward Nerdanel’s house, but it was clear a second later that it wasn’t Fëanor. “That’s Tyelpë,” said Curufin, getting to his feet. 

“Who’s that coming behind him?” asked Amrod. “Finrod?”

“No, that’s Galadriel,” said Maglor. He released Daeron’s hand to get to his feet, his whole face lighting up at the sight of their cousin. Maedhros glanced over at Celegorm, who looked as bewildered as Maedhros felt. Maglor had never been close to Galadriel before—none of them had been, she being much younger even than Ambarussa, and with the rifts growing ever wider between their father and his brothers as she had come into adulthood—and not shy about voicing her own dislike of Fëanor. Maedhros was surprised to see her in the same company returning to Tirion, let alone breaking away to come to see them.

Celebrimbor swung out of the saddle into Curufin’s arms, and Galadriel bestowed a sun-bright smile upon them all as she rode up a second later, sparkling in white and with a circlet of silver and diamond resting on her hair. When she dismounted, though, she went straight to Maglor. He greeted her with a smile and an embrace—and of all people, Maedhros would have thought it was Galadriel’s gaze Maglor would avoid at any cost. It was she who was known to look into the hearts of others whether they would or no, to see whatever was there, good or ill. Maglor, though, met her with delight, pushing his hair out of his face rather than letting it fall forward. Galadriel spoke to him too quietly for Maedhros to hear from where he stood, but whatever she said made Maglor laugh. 

She left him then to come and greet Nerdanel. “I’m sorry to come without warning, Aunt,” she said, kissing Nerdanel’s cheek as she took her hands. “I only wanted to see for myself that Macalaurë has returned in one piece.”

“It wasn’t for lack of trying,” Nerdanel said, a little wryly. “But you are always welcome, Galadriel.”

“I cannot stay, for I will be wanted in Tirion alongside my husband.” Galadriel looked at Maedhros, and smiled at him. “You’re looking well, Cousin.”

“As are you,” Maedhros said, inclining his head. He did avoid her gaze. It was not a comfortable thing, to have Galadriel’s full attention. He had heard it said once that the two greatest of the Noldor were his father, and Galadriel—and he thought that Galadriel had long ago surpassed Fëanor in both power and in wisdom. He did not care to have her looking into his own heart and mind, especially as she still had so little reason to have any affection for their family, let alone him. 

Galadriel returned to speak a little more to Maglor, with less laughter this time but with the kind of easy affection on display between them that, Maedhros realized only on seeing it, Maglor still lacked with the rest of them. Then she departed, calling a cheerful farewell to them all over her shoulder before breaking into a gallop, her long golden hair streaming behind her, gleaming in the sunshine. 

“Are you not also going to Tirion, Tyelpë?” asked Celegorm.

“Certainly not!” Celebrimbor said cheerfully. “There’s going to be all kinds of politics, and I had my fill of that sort of thing long ago. Fingolfin will just have to wait a little longer for the last two windows of his council chamber.” He came around to greet them all one by one. “I want to hear all about your journey.”

“It wasn’t that exciting,” said Celegorm. 

“Except for the river,” Amrod said.

“What river?” Celebrimbor 

“Everyone is fine,” Maedhros said, glaring at Amrod. 

“Well that’s not reassuring,” said Celebrimbor, only looking more alarmed. “What happened?”

Maedhros glanced toward Maglor, but he had disappeared. Daeron stood under the tree that Pídhres had climbed earlier, laughing at something. An acorn flew down from the branches to hit him in the forehead, which made him yelp and then laugh harder. 

“There was an incident with a flash flood and a particularly stupid hill cat,” said Celegorm breezily. Celebrimbor’s eyes went wide, and Maedhros pinched the bridge of his nose. “Really, though, everyone is fine and we’ve all already scolded Nelyo about it.”

“Everything you say just makes it worse without actually telling me what happened,” Celebrimbor said. “I hate it when you do that.” Celegorm grinned and mussed his hair, as he had long ago when Celebrimbor had been young; Celebrimbor protested, also as he had then, batting his hand away, and both Celegorm and Curufin laughed. 

“The hill cat tried to jump Cáno, but Nelyo got in the way,” Curufin said, taking pity on his son, “and got knocked into the river. Cáno tried to pull him out, and a flash flood took them both. They really are both all right. Daeron knows a great many healing songs.”

Across the way, Maglor dropped back out of the tree, kitten in hand and leaves in his hair. Maedhros ducked back inside before Celebrimbor could add his voice to the established chorus of scolds. He wanted to go back to bed, even though he’d only just gotten up. As he put the kettle on and got down his own favorite tea—a mild, sweet herbal blend that Caranthir made—he listened to the rise and fall of voices outside, laughing and speaking by turns, affectionate and amused and so normal. As though Fëanor had not just ridden by, as though he wouldn’t be half an hour’s ride away in Tirion from now on. 

It had been foolish, really, to expect to be able to withstand having him so close, to know that he could just appear at any moment the way he already had by the river, no matter what anyone said. Maedhros stared into his empty cup as he waited for the water to boil, unsure if he hated himself or Fëanor more for how brittle and afraid he felt in that moment. 

Pídhres came charging in through the kitchen, appearing so suddenly that Maedhros jerked and knocked the cup to the floor, where it shattered. He cursed, and grabbed Pídhres by the scruff of her neck before she could cut herself on the shards. Maglor appeared a moment later, looking alarmed. “Did she…?”

“She just startled me.” Maedhros held her out, and Maglor skirted around the mess to take her. She squirmed in his hands, meowing loudly as though in protest of how she had been handled, and Maedhros knelt to start gathering the broken pieces.

“Don’t throw it out,” Maglor said. He moved to toss Pídhres into the back garden out of an open window before picking up a broom for the tiniest shards. “I can put it back together.”

“The way that Mithrandir told us about?” asked Maedhros.

Maglor paused. “What?”

“We met him on the road. The day before Midsummer.”

“Yes, I know. Caranthir mentioned it. But he spoke to you about pottery?”

“About the way some Avari use gold to put it back together, the way you fixed that cup that Tyelpë brought to Ammë. Mithrandir called it advice.”

They finished cleaning up the mess in silence. Maedhros put the big broken pieces on the table as the kettle started to sing. Maglor finished sweeping, and turned to pick up one of the pieces, turning it over in his fingers carefully, as he watched Maedhros finish making the tea. Once it was steeping he said, “That is true, what he said about the Avari—one of them taught me how, when I came to Imladris. Her name was Ifreth. I don’t know if she ever came west or if she went back east to seek who remained of her own people once it was safe; she liked to be mysterious about her comings and goings.” He set the piece down. “What did Gandalf say to you about it?”

Maedhros did not have to think hard to remember; the conversation had stuck in his mind. “Everything has a history, he said, and the breaking,” he nudged the broken cup handle with his finger, “the breaking is a part of it. He said the way the Avari repair things with gold highlights the breaks and turns it into something lovely by the end.”

“It is lovely,” said Maglor, “if you do it right.”

“Not everything can be fixed, though,” Maedhros said. 

Maglor didn’t look at him. “It’s a long process,” he said after a few moments, speaking very quietly, “and it’s—it’s not complicated but it’s a lot of work, and you have to be very careful in the beginning, because the pieces are always a little jagged and sharp, and you’ve got to file them down a little, to smooth everything out so it fits together again, and there might be gaps and chips that need to be filled in.” 

“Maglor…”

“It’s worth it, though, and this cup can certainly be repaired. I’m glad that I learned.” Maglor did look up at him then, and abandoned the safety of broken pottery. “I can’t see a way forward,” he said, meeting Maedhros’ gaze. His own was bleak; it reminded Maedhros of that afternoon by Ekkaia under the pale cloudy sky, when the color seemed to have been leached out of all the world. “I hear what everyone is saying to me, but they weren’t there.”

“I know.”

“I hear what you say to me, but Maedhros, I don’t know how to trust you anymore.”

“Maglor—you don’t have to—I’m not asking you to—”

“I know. I haven’t thanked you for that.”

Maedhros shook his head. “I don’t have the right to ask anything of—of anyone, but you least of all.”

Maglor dropped his gaze again. Maedhros turned to take down two new cups from the shelf, and poured the tea, hearing the quiet clink of ceramic behind him. While his back was turned Maglor said, very softly, “I miss you, Nelyo.”

They all used each other’s various names interchangeably in conversation, drifting from nickname to mother-name to their Sindarin names without rhyme or reason except what felt right in the moment. Maglor had fallen back into the same habit—except with Maedhros. He hadn’t used anything but Maedhros until that moment, and now—

Maedhros didn’t know what it meant. The old nickname, the father-name that he couldn’t bear to hear anymore except in that form and only from his brothers—so intimate a name, tied up in their childhood and all the things only the seven of them shared.

“I miss you too, Cáno,” he said into the mugs. But when he turned around Maglor was gone, along with the broken cup.

Feeling off balance, Maedhros took his tea and escaped again out to his painting studio. Even if he never picked up a brush, he thought he would always be grateful for Celegorm and Curufin for asking their mother to arrange this—a small, bright space that he could retreat to when he couldn’t just go back to bed. He sat at the drawing table and rubbed his hand over his face. A knock at the door did not surprise him, exactly, but he wished whoever it was had waited even just a few minutes longer. “It’s open.”

Celebrimbor entered. “Hello, Uncle,” he said, bending over to wrap his arms around Maedhros’ shoulders. “How are you?”

Maedhros gripped one of Celebrimbor’s arms for a moment. “Well enough. Don’t you start worrying.”

“Too late, but I won’t worry about the cat incident if you really are all right.”

“I have a few new scars, that’s all. They’re no worse than any I had before.”

Celebrimbor pulled another stool over to sit at the table by him. “Can I speak to you of Grandfather? I promise I don’t want to convince you of anything, or—”

“You can speak of him, Tyelpë. I survived seeing him; I can hear him spoken of.” 

“It doesn’t…I mean, it doesn’t upset you that I’ve just spent all summer with him?”

Maedhros sighed. “No, of course not. It doesn’t upset me either that your father wants to see him. I know you both feel caught in the middle, and I wish it weren’t so.”

“I don’t, exactly,” said Celebrimbor. “It’s different for me, I know. I just don’t want you to think I am trying to push you toward a reunion you don’t want. I’m really not. I just…think that you should know what he’s like now. What he came back for, and what he plans to do.”

“I would like to know the latter,” Maedhros admitted.

“He isn’t going to come back here. He’s going to stay in Tirion; I think he originally intended to go back to Formenos, but that was when he thought Fingolfin would not welcome him. He doesn’t—you know by now he doesn’t want the crown, don’t you? Nor the Silmaril.”

“What does he want?”

“He asked to come out of Mandos because he saw Maglor was coming west,” Celebrimbor said quietly. “He just wants to be here, where you can go to him if you want to, instead of being locked away in Mandos out of reach the way that Finwë is, and Míriel was. He came back because he loves you, all of you, and Grandmother.”

Maedhros looked down into his mug, at the green-gold tea slowly cooling there. He understood why Fëanor would think like that, but for Maedhros at least it had been easier when he had been out of reach, when he did not have to wonder what his father was doing or thinking or planning, whether he might fall into madness again, whether he might try to take the last Silmaril when Eärendil next came to port after all. He claimed that he wouldn’t, but he had once claimed many things. He had once made many promises—and broke them all, in the end.

Well. If Maglor couldn’t trust what Maedhros said, Maedhros could not trust Fëanor. Not anymore. 

“He wrote to you,” Celebrimbor said after a moment of quiet. “To everyone. I have all the letters here. He made gifts, too—small things, and you can accept or refuse them as you wish. He just—he doesn’t quite know any other way to reach out. And it was also my idea, at least in part, so please don’t be too upset with him. Do you want the letter?”

No. He didn’t. But he also knew that not knowing what it said would haunt him as much as everything else. “I’ll take the letter.”

“And the gift?”

“What is it?”

Celebrimbor reached into a satchel that Maedhros hadn’t even noticed he’d brought with him. From it he took, alongside the letter, two jars of shimmering liquid silver—or something very like it. It seemed to shine with a light of its own rather than just reflecting the sunlight through the window—very like the Silmarils in that way, though the effect was different, more delicate—starlight rather than Treelight. “He asked me to show him how to make ithildin,” Celebrimbor said, “when we were talking of Eregion. It’s something I created with Narvi. We used it to mark the doors of Moria.” His smile turned a little crooked. “They lasted until the War of the Ring, those doors. Frodo told me about seeing them, and the trouble Mithrandir had in recalling the password. You might have seen a depiction of them in the dining hall at Imloth Ningloron when you were there.”

“That’s what this is?” Maedhros picked up one of the jars, mesmerized by the way it sparkled. 

“It’s not quite the same,” said Celebrimbor. “Ithildin was made with mithril, Moria-silver. It exists here, but it’s even rarer than it was in Middle-earth. We made it first specifically for the doors—dwarf doors that disappear when closed, you know? I never used it in other kinds of painting, though I know others experimented, and it could only be seen under the light of the moon and stars.”

“How did one find the doors in the daytime, then?”

“One didn’t. But until the war came, the doors were almost never shut, anyway. There were some doors in Ost-in-Edhil that were made and marked with it, because the idea of secret doors and passageways was amusing. In the end they were life-saving.” Celebrimbor ran his finger over the lid of the second jar. “This stuff isn’t quite like the ithildin of old, not just because it isn’t made of mithril. It will shine brightest in starlight, but it won’t vanish under the sun, and it was made with other uses in mind, other surfaces than stone.”

“Canvas, you mean,” said Maedhros.

“Yes. Grandmother wrote to me about all this—and so did my mother—and I told Grandfather. I hope you don’t mind. We spoke of you often—all seven of you. He wants so badly to understand.”

“I don’t mind, Tyelpë. You can tell him whatever you like.” There wasn’t much Celebrimbor could tell Fëanor that wasn’t already known, and Fëanor had already seen all there was to see of him. Maedhros set the jar down. “It’s beautiful. I don’t know if I’ll use it, but…but it’s beautiful. Thank you.”

“It was his idea,” Celebrimbor said quietly. 

“You can tell him that I like it.”

“You do seem better, you know. More—more present, than you were before. Cats and rivers aside, was it a good journey?”

“It was.”

“And you and Maglor…?”

Maedhros looked away, out of the window. “It will take more than a summer of traveling to mend that.”

“Are you both really at odds? I don’t…”

“Not at odds.” That was the worst of it, everyone assuming that they were. “There isn’t anything you or anyone else can do about it, Tyelpë; it’s between us and no one else. I’m sorry.” 

Celebrimbor got up and hugged him again, squeezing tight. “It’s a new Age, Uncle. Everyone has come back now. Anything is possible.”

Left alone again, Maedhros stared at the jars, at the way the ithildin inside gently sparkled and glimmered. One of the first things his father had made after his return—and it was in collaboration with another. It was the spirit of Eregion, rather than Formenos. Of Tirion at Valinor’s Noontide, rather than its gloaming. Beauty over weapons. Giving instead of hoarding. It should have been a sign of hope, of a way forward. 

Instead it just felt like too little too late. 

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Every conversation with Maedhros felt like taking one step forward, yet two steps back, somehow. Maedhros had said before that he was trying, but he’d never said what it was he was trying to do. Live, Maglor supposed wearily, as he made his way upstairs with the broken mug wrapped in a dishcloth. He transfered it carefully to one of his bags, wrapping it in the stained and still very dirty shirt that he’d been wearing when he fell into the river. He’d mend it at Imloth Ningloron, and use it as an excuse sometime to come visit his mother. 

He didn’t need an excuse, but it might make things easier, especially if they couldn’t resolve yesterday’s argument. Maglor went to the window, pushing it open to lean out and catch a glimpse of Pídhres stalking through the flowers in the garden. She pounced, but whatever poor small creature she’d been hunting got away. Somewhere around the side of the house he heard laughter. 

It had been good to see Galadriel, at least. She hadn’t had time to share much except that Elrond had gotten his letter, and everyone was as eager to have him back as he was to be there. She had been able to tell, of course, that he had been struggling, but Galadriel knew him now better than anyone except Elrond, and her concern didn’t feel like a burden. It wasn’t something that would make her treat him as though he was made of glass—because she knew what it looked like when he was fragile and broken, and she knew he had not been that weak for a long time.

The window looked west, and Maglor couldn’t see the southern road, but he glanced that way anyway. High in the air an eagle was circling, lazily riding the thermals in the cloudless sky, letting the winds chart its course. Closer at hand a flock of geese were winging their way south, pointing like an arrow toward Imloth Ningloron. Maglor felt the pull of it. He was ready to be done with traveling, ready to be home. The valley hadn’t felt like it yet when he’d left, but it was already getting easier to think of it that way. 

The door behind him opened, and Maglor turned. He expected Daeron, but found his mother instead. “Telperinquar is looking for you,” she said.

“I’ll be down in a few minutes.”

She came to join him by the window. Daeron had come around to the garden with Caranthir, who seemed to be telling him about some of the flowers that had not grown in Middle-earth. “He makes me happy, Ammë,” Maglor said quietly. 

“I know.” She covered his hand on the sill with hers. “I’m sorry, Macalaurë. It’s only—your father and I made each other happy, once, too.”

Maglor didn’t pull away, but he closed his eyes, gripping the windowsill tight enough that his fingers ached. “I am not my father,” he whispered. 

“No, you aren’t. That isn’t what I am afraid of. I’m afraid you are too like me. Your father and I—we loved one another, truly, and I believe we love one another still, but the same passion that brought us together drove us apart. It didn’t matter how alike we were in all the ways we had once thought mattered. He broke my heart in the cruelest way, and I fear the same happening to you, after everything else that has happened to you.”

Maglor shook his head. “This isn’t like that. Daeron isn’t like that.” Daeron had not held back on the ship when he had spoken of his anger—anger that was fully justified, that would still be justified, if he had not chosen to let it go. Maglor wasn’t foolish—they would fight, he was sure; they would both inevitably say things that hurt the other, no matter how careful they promised to be. But if Daeron could forgive Maglor the worst things that he’d already done, there was nothing else that could drive them apart the way that Nerdanel feared. “We aren’t young or naive. This isn’t…what is between us is something we have both chosen, deliberately, not out of some blind passion.” They were both too old for that, had seen and endured too much. There was plenty of passion, but it was not the only foundation; it was tempered and strengthened by other, more sober things. “I don’t want to be at odds with you, Ammë. Not about this.” 

“Neither do I,” said Nerdanel. “And I do like him. I like him all the more for the way he makes you smile. I’m sorry for the way I spoke yesterday.”

“Thank you,” Maglor said. 

“But I am not sorry for worrying.”

Of course not. “You don’t have to worry. Not about this.”

“I’m your mother, Macalaurë. I have worried about you all your life in one way or another. When you say you found joy again, I believe you, but I can also see that you are not joyful now.”

“I know I’m not. It’s—it’s just hard. To be here. With them.” He glanced out of the window at Caranthir, watching him crouch down to scratch Pídhres behind her ears. “I can’t stop grieving yet.”

“It is hard,” Nerdanel agreed. She would know, of course. She had been mourning them as long as Maglor had. Maybe even longer. “It gets easier with time. Time, and being with them.”

“I know.”

“You still intend to leave?”

“I want to be at home, Ammë. I’m sorry that it’s not here.”

“Your home is where you make it, Macalaurë. It was never going to be under my roof forever. There will be time for longer visits. I am glad that you came, and that you came with your brothers. I’ve longed to have you all under my roof again for so long. Someday, you will all come together and it will be painless and joyous—for all of you.”

He wanted to believe it. He did, but that kind of hope for the future still lay beyond his reach. “Will you come visit me?” he asked. “I want—I don’t even know if you’ve met Elrond—”

“I have, several times, but I don’t know him well. I know Celebrían a little better, for she has commissioned several sculptures from me over the years. I think there might have been talk of more recently, but no one has written so that may only be idle gossip from Anairë.”

Maglor grimaced. “Someone might have been thinking of Arwen,” he said. “But that’s—your sculptures are marvelous, Ammë, but I don’t think either Elrond or Celebrían could bear to mistake a statue for their living daughter.”

“No, of course not. I didn’t realize that could be what Anairë was thinking of.” Nerdanel squeezed his hand. “Why did you not come west with Elrond? Galadriel brought me your letter, but it only held a promise that you would come one day, not a reason for your delay.”

“I stayed for Arwen. And her brothers—but mostly for Arwen’s sake, and Estel’s. She knew what she was choosing, but some gifts are bitter to receive. Elrond feared that she would be alone at the end, because he could not stay.”

“Oh, Macalaurë.”

“I wanted to be there, Ammë. I loved them too. And I love Elrond, and I promised him that I would come, and so I did, with Elladan and Elrohir.”

“It seems to me such a dangerous thing to love the Secondborn so. It only leads to heartbreak.”

“No,” said Maglor. “No, it’s—there is grief, yes, of course, but the world would be so much less without them. My life would be so much emptier. You must know something of that. You sent the palantíri to Andúnië, didn’t you?”

“I did,” said Nerdanel, “because Finrod asked it of me. All they were doing was gathering dust in Tirion, and the Faithful of Númenor could put them to far better use. He had told me something of Elros, too, and said that he had always spoken of you with love.” Maglor squeezed his eyes shut against sudden tears. Nerdanel put her arms around him. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to remind you.”

“It’s—it’s all right. I think of him often. I just—I wish I had seen him before he left.” He’d been far away by then, consumed by the pain from the Silmaril and grief for Maedhros and for himself, lost and despairing. He hadn’t heard anything of the choice given to Elrond and Elros until long, long afterward; had heard nothing of Númenor until centuries after Elros had died. The sailors who had told him the tale, jumbled and distorted as it was passed through so many years and mouths, had been startled and alarmed at how he had wept to hear it. Tar-Minyatar, Eärendil’s son, had been only a distant figure of legend to them. Maglor was sure they had thought him mad, and maybe he had been, at least a little. It had been years more until he learned the tale in full—and learned which of Eärendil’s sons Tar-Minyatar was—from some Elvish mariners out of Lindon that he’d approached against his better judgment, too desperate to know to really care if they might recognize him. They hadn’t, and had taken pity on him without knowing who he was, giving him food and warm clothes with the tales of both Elrond and Elros, alongside gentle invitations to return with them to Forlond, to return among his own people; he had refused, and they had kindly not tried to convince him, had only given him a map and promised welcome, should he change his mind. He had known then—or thought he had known—that he could never seek out Elrond, though just knowing he still lived had been a balm on his heart, even as it broke all over again to think of what had Elrond suffered at such a sundering from Elros.

It was an old grief now, easier to carry in its familiarity. It had just never occurred to him that Elros would have spoken of him—but of course he would have, to Finrod and anyone else who had known Maglor before, who might have had questions of their own in response to those Elros asked them, because of course he would have asked a thousand questions. Maybe when he saw him next, Maglor thought, he would ask Finrod about it. 

When he went back downstairs he found Celebrimbor in the kitchen with Curufin. They were speaking quietly and seriously, and Maglor turned to slip away, but Celebrimbor called to him to wait. When he turned back it was Curufin who was leaving, a letter and a small wooden box in his hands and a thoughtful expression on his face. Celebrimbor crossed the room to embrace Maglor. “You look better than when I saw you last,” he said. 

“Almost drowning notwithstanding, I am,” Maglor said, managing to summon a smile for him. “How are you? Finrod didn’t try to get you drunk again, did he?”

“Oh, no. He’s been too busy laughing at Elrond, who kept threatening to kick us all out so he could have some peace. He was only joking, though,” Celebrimbor added quickly when Maglor frowned. “It was shockingly peaceful all summer, really. Then Findis and Lalwen arrived and Findis punched Grandfather—”

“I heard about that,” said Maglor, “but didn’t quite believe it. Findis?”

“Yes, Findis! I didn’t see it happen, but I saw them both directly afterward. Grandfather’s black eye has faded now, but it’s still a bit yellowish if you look closely.” Celebrimbor paused, hesitating. “I don’t mean to speak of him if you—”

“I do want to know what he’s been doing,” Maglor said, “if only so I know what to expect when I go back.”

“He’s been trying very hard to find common ground with Fingolfin, mostly,” said Celebrimbor, “and—really, they aren’t so different. I don’t think we can call them friends yet, but it’s only a matter of time. He’s also spoken a great deal with Elrond, and he and I worked together often in the forges.”

“I'm glad,” Maglor said, and received a skeptical look in return. “Truly, Tyelpë. I told your father, too—all of us do not have to be united in this. He isn’t the enemy. My feelings are mine to wrestle with, and I will never begrudge any of you your own.”

“That’s what Maedhros said, too. Why aren’t you two speaking? You seem to be in agreement about everything.”

Including not speaking, Maglor thought bitterly. “That’s between us, Tyelpë. I don’t want to speak of it at all.” Celebrimbor frowned at him. “You can ask your father.”

“I did. He also said it’s between the two of you, and that if Celegorm hasn’t had any success in bringing you together then it’s unlikely I will.”

“He’s right. It’s—I’m not angry at him, but I can’t…I can’t forget what happened. This isn’t yours to fix. It’s not Celegorm’s, either.”

“It could be if you let me,” Celegorm muttered as he passed by them into the kitchen.

“Tyelko, I love you, but speaking of your interference, if you try to be protective again—”

“Protective?” Celebrimbor said. “About what?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Celegorm said quickly, bright red spots appearing on his cheeks; his blushes stood out even more than Caranthir’s, such a stark contrast to his silver hair. “I know Cáno, it won’t happen again, I promise.”

“What did you do?” Celebrimbor demanded. “What else happened out there?”

“Nothing!”

“I’m not mad,” Maglor said, amused in spite of himself, “but it wasn’t necessary.”

“What wasn’t necessary?” Celebrimbor looked back and forth between the two of them, frustration growing alongside amusement. “I wish you wouldn’t all talk around what you mean. I can’t tell if you’re doing it on purpose just to annoy me or not.”

Daeron came inside at that moment, Pídhres on his shoulder. She jumped down and twined herself around Celebrimbor’s legs, meowing a greeting. As he knelt to greet her, Daeron came to Maglor. “All right?” he asked, sliding his arms around Maglor’s waist.

“Yes. Have you met my nephew? Celebrimbor, this is Daeron, once of Doriath. Daeron this is Celebrimbor, once of Eregion.”

“Well met,” Daeron said, turning to Celebrimbor with a smile as he straightened with Pídhres in his arms. “I visited Ost-in-Edhil once, not long after it was built. It was lovely.”

“Thank you!” said Celebrimbor, startled. “No one ever told me we hosted Daeron of Doriath.”

“Oh, no one knew! I had come back west only briefly, with no desire to make myself known. Watching the Gwaith-i-Mírdain at work was a marvel. I think you must have been away at the time, as I don’t remember seeing your face.”

“Well, I am very glad to meet you now.” Celebrimbor saw then Daeron’s arm around Maglor, and understanding dawned. “Oh, that’s what Celegorm was—”

“Telperinquar, dearest and most beloved nephew,” Celegorm said from behind him, “shut up.” 

Daeron grinned and kissed Maglor, rather more theatrically than usual. Maglor ruined it by laughing, and Celegorm, having retrieved the fruit he had come looking for, rolled his eyes at them as he left, only just managing to dodge out of the way of the swing Maglor took at the back of his head.

Nothing else interesting happened that day, except that one by one Maglor noticed his brothers disappearing and returning with thoughtful or pinched expressions. None of them gave a reason, and he didn’t ask—of all people, he knew what it was like to have to field questions when he wasn’t in the mood. Instead he and Daeron retreated to the garden with Celebrimbor. Maglor sat against the hawthorn tree, and Daeron lay back against his chest; Celebrimbor sat cross-legged in the grass beside them, idly playing with Pídhres as he and Daeron chatted about the friends they turned out to have shared among the dwarves of Belegost and Nogrod long ago. It was not a conversation Maglor could contribute to, but he was more than happy to sit quietly and listen.

By dinnertime everyone was in a better mood, except Maedhros, who was even more withdrawn than he had been that morning. Maglor ended up sitting beside him through some shuffling and jostling around that he was almost certain his mother had coordinated, perhaps with Celegorm. When he looked at the two of them, they were both entirely engrossed in cutting the meat and pouring the wine, apparently oblivious. Daeron, it so happened, was seated beside Nerdanel. He caught Maglor’s eye down the table and grinned at him. 

It might be easier to see a way forward if everyone stopped pushing, Maglor thought a little sourly as he stabbed his fork into a roasted carrot, watching out of the corner of his eye as Maedhros pushed his own food around his plate, seeming to eat without actually putting much in his mouth. That was a trick he’d learned in Beleriand, when for a long time he had struggled with his appetite, his body too used to starvation to handle food again—and then later, when his mind struggled to catch up to his body’s readjustment. Maglor had struggled too after Dol Guldur, but he had been much more closely watched and had never bothered even trying to fool anyone—and Maedhros should not be having such trouble now. He nudged Maedhros with his knee under the table, and raised his eyebrows when Maedhros glanced at him, startled. Maedhros then followed his gaze back to his plate and grimaced, but he did start eating. When Maglor looked up he caught Curufin’s eye. Curufin smiled briefly before turning back to Celebrimbor. 

That night Maglor retreated upstairs feeling oddly drained. Daeron followed some time afterward. Maglor was curled up in bed, already drowsing. “All right?” he murmured as Daeron slid under the blankets beside him.

“Mhmm. Your mother wanted to speak to me this evening.”

That woke Maglor up; he rolled onto his back. “Oh no.”

“She was very kind about it.”

“I told her—”

“It’s all right.” Daeron raised himself up on an elbow to smile down at him, tracing his fingers lightly over Maglor’s face. The moonlight caught and shone in his hair and glinted in his eyes, turning him to a figure of ebony and silver, enchanting and luminous, so beautiful that the sight of him took Maglor’s breath away. “I was expecting it, and happy to reassure her, and she was more tactful than your brother.”

“That standard is not particularly high.”

“Don’t you want to know what I told her?” Daeron leaned down to kiss his forehead. “I told her,” he said in a soft whisper that made a shiver trickle down Maglor’s spine, “that I am deeply, helplessly in love with you.” Daeron pressed another kiss to one cheek, and then the other. “I told her that I hold your heart as the most precious gift ever entrusted to me, and I will never, ever treat it with anything other than the utmost care.” 

“Daeron—”

“I speak only the truth. I told her that I have given my heart to you in turn, and that there is no one else in the world I would trust with it more. That I have chosen this, chosen you, beloved, with my eyes open, in full knowledge of the past and all that it holds, for both of us, and that I choose now to leave the past where it belongs, and to look forward instead.”

Maglor rolled them over so he lay atop Daeron instead, and pressed kisses all over his face, from his eyelids to his chin. “I do not have words,” he said, lifting his face just enough to look into Daeron’s eyes, “to tell you how I love you. It is beyond any song I have ever heard or any I could write. Even when we first met by the sun-spangled waters of Ivrin under a cloudless summer sky I could find no words to describe you, for you were the fairest creature I had ever seen beneath the sun or the Trees or the stars. Never before or since have I met someone who has made me feel so free, or whose music harmonizes with mine so effortlessly, so perfectly as yours does.”

“Maglor—”

“Daeron the dark,” Maglor whispered, bending down again to trace kisses over Daeron’s cheekbone and then his jaw, sliding his fingers into Daeron’s hair, black as ink spilled across the pillows and soft as silk, “they say you play, with bewildering wizard’s art, music for the breaking of the heart. That is not so.”

“Is it not?” Daeron asked, quiet and breathless. It sent a thrill through Maglor to know he was the cause. 

“How can it be, when it has healed mine instead?”

Daeron kissed him, arms wrapped around his shoulders, fingers tangled in his hair. “Those are fine words,” he murmured against Maglor’s lips.

“But not enough,” Maglor breathed. “Never enough.”

“They don’t have to be. I know.”

When he did fall asleep that night, Maglor’s dreams were all of starlight, and when he woke late in the morning, still tangled up with Daeron with the warm summer sunshine casting a golden glow upon them both, he felt more rested than he had in weeks.

They lingered a few days more at Nerdanel’s house, but Maglor was ready to be at home. His mother was not surprised when he went to her at lunchtime—bringing food, at Caranthir’s request—to say he intended to leave come the next morning. “I knew you would not stay much longer,” she said. “All of you will be going off again to wherever it is you all go, save Carnistir and Maitimo. Macalaurë, will you speak to him once more before you leave?”

“Yes,” said Maglor, even though he did not know what he would say. 

The rest of his brothers weren’t surprised either. “We’re all going to come visit you,” Caranthir informed him from where he knelt among the thistles and snapdragons, trying to bring some order back to the garden, “and some of us might even write beforehand to warn you.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” asked Amrod. He and Amras were helping; Curufin and Celegorm were not, and Celegorm had been making himself a nuisance all afternoon.

“I’ll warn Elrond,” said Maglor. 

“He’s already expecting it,” Celebrimbor said from where he sat nearby with a book. “Though if you could all let them all have a quiet winter, he would be much obliged.”

“Did he ask you to tell us that?” Celegorm asked. 

“No, but I do think he meant it every time he spoke of his hopes for it, even if threatening to toss everyone out was a joke. It was mostly when Fingon and Finrod were refusing to be serious—they couldn’t really tease Fëanor or Fingolfin, but considered Elrond fair game, especially after he made the mistake of reminding everyone that he’s the youngest one in the family. Well, aside from Celebrían, but she apparently isn’t as fun to tease.”

Maglor left them to it, and went to look for Maedhros. He had been disappearing, sleeping a great deal and then vanishing whenever he did get up. He had heard the others talking about it in low voices, worry creeping in. Their journey west had been to escape Fëanor, but there had also been the hope of breaking such habits—in all of them. It had worked for the most part, except that now Maedhros was slipping back. 

He looked in the orchard and by the river, but did not find him. By that time the sun was dipping west, its light deepening to that particular late summer shade of gold that made the whole world glow; that, too, was something they had not had when the Trees shown. Laurelin had been beautiful, but not quite like this. Maglor lingered a little while by the river, listening to its familiar song and watching the waters sparkle and shine as they flowed by. When he returned to the garden he was just in time to see Caranthir fling a large handful of wet dirt at Celegorm’s face; Celegorm, in the midst of speaking and not paying attention, did not dodge out of the way. He spluttered and cursed, gagging and spitting mud while trying to scrape it all off but only succeeding in worsening the mess while Curufin fell over onto the grass in laughter. Celebrimbor watched with a shocked and delighted look on his face, as though he’d never heard his father laugh like that before. 

He found Maedhros where he perhaps should have looked first. As he approached the small studio behind Nerdanel’s larger one, a crumpled piece of paper flew out of the window to join a handful of others on the grass outside, accompanied by a quiet growl of frustration. It bounced once, and hit Maglor’s foot. He bent to pick it up, and as he smoothed it out he found a half-begun, rough drawing of Himring, as seen at a distance. It was done in charcoal, which had smudged and creased with the crumpling of the paper, so that Maglor couldn’t tell what it was that had gone wrong with it in the first place; he was barely able to tell that it was meant to be Himring at all. He went to the window, finding Maedhros with his head in his arms, his sketchbook shoved away across the table. His fingers were smeared with charcoal; his sleeves were rolled up, showing his scars, still pink and new. 

Maglor went to the door and let himself in. Maedhros raised his head at the sound of it. “Something amiss?” he asked. He sounded exhausted, voice rough with it. He moved as though some great weight sat on his shoulders.

“It seems so,” Maglor said quietly, leaning back against the door, his hands on the knob behind him. “You haven’t been sleeping.”

“I’m—” Maedhros stopped, and sighed. He picked up a cloth to wipe his hand clean. “I have.”

“Not well.”

“No, not well. I just—” He stopped again, unsure and unhappy. “Atar sent something to me with Tyelpë, and I can’t…I can’t stop thinking about what it’s supposed to mean.”

“What is it?”

Maedhros rose and went to the shelves of paints and pigments. He picked up a jar that looked as though it was filled with silver and starlight. “Ithildin, Celebrimbor called it. Not exactly what he made once in Eregion, but—something like it, I suppose.”

“I’ve seen it before.” There had been a few places decorated with it in Imladris, lovely silver-bright designs on otherwise bare stone, only visible at night, like a marvelous secret put there to cheer those unable to sleep. “Why?”

“I don’t know. There’s a letter too, but I haven’t…I can’t…” Maedhros set the jar down and flexed his fingers—a motion familiar because Maglor did it too. Without thinking Maglor stepped forward to take Maedhros’ hand in both of his, turning it over as so many others had turned his own hand to look at the scars. Maedhros’ were not livid, but they were visible, the same pale pink as his other, real scars underneath the faint lingering smears of charcoal, in the exact same pattern as the ones on Maglor’s hand. “It hurts,” Maedhros whispered. “More than usual. But don’t—please don’t tell—”

“I won’t.” Maglor didn’t look up at his face. “I came to tell you that I’m going back to Imloth Ningloron. Daeron and I are leaving tomorrow. Ammë wanted me to speak to you before I left.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Maedhros, I…” Maglor let go of his hand and took a step back. “I want there to be a way forward. But you can’t just—” He gestured at Maedhros’ face, at the shadows under his eyes and the pallor of his skin. “You’re doing it again. When I look at you I see only Beleriand breaking apart, and you with it. Are you even eating?”

“Yes.”

“Are you eating enough?”

Maedhros sighed. “I don’t know. It was easier out in the wilds, away from—from everything. Now I don’t—I know what’s happening but I don’t know how to stop. I feel like he’s going to appear at any moment, like I have to be always on my guard, and…I don’t know what to do.” He spoke in a whisper. He sounded now not only exhausted, but defeated. That was how he had spoken in Beleriand, even when making plans for the last Silmarils, even when arguing against surrender. He had already known then what was coming, even if Maglor had been determined not to. 

“I don’t either,” Maglor said. He couldn’t shake the thought that this—this weariness, this heartache and sleeplessness—was because of him. His inability to trust, his unwillingness to reach out, was driving Maedhros to the same edge that had killed him long ago. It wasn’t even about forgiveness anymore, he realized. Not really. It was just fear. Everything always came back to fear.

He stepped forward again and wrapped his arms around Maedhros, burying his face in his shoulder, desperate suddenly for the comfort only his older brother could give him. Maedhros’ arms came around him immediately, unthinkingly, settling around him as though Maedhros were afraid to squeeze too tightly. His hand rested on Maglor’s hair, over the back of his neck. “I love you,” Maglor whispered. “But I cannot watch you destroy yourself again.”

“I’m not going to—I’m trying not to,” Maedhros said. His arms tightened around Maglor, just a little. He sounded close to tears. “I just—I should never have been let out—”

“But you were. I know what it’s like—what it’s like to punish yourself because no one else will, to believe you don’t deserve kindness or love or joy because of all you’ve done. I know.”

“No, Maglor. You just—you just followed me. I led us all into—”

“Stop it.” Maglor drew back. “Just because I did not lead the charge does not mean my guilt is lessened, and it doesn’t mean you get to take it all on yourself and believe the rest of us blind innocents. I knew what I was doing. We all did. So—”

“Maglor—”

“So I know what it feels like to believe all of that, that grace is so far beyond your reach that it isn’t even worth reaching for, but it’s not, Maedhros. If I could find it across the Sea, you can find it here. I love you. I do. I just can’t—I can’t watch you do this again. I can’t trust you, and that’s worse, because I know you aren’t doing this on purpose. I know you’re trying, and I can’t ask any more of you.”

Maedhros folded his arms over his middle, and for a moment they were not in the sunny workshop but back on the shores of Ekkaia at gloaming, and it was as though the weeks in between hadn’t happened, as though nothing at all had changed. “It was my task,” Maedhros said after a moment, “from the moment you were born, to protect you. All of you. You’re—you’re all my baby brothers and I failed you so horribly. That’s what I can’t—even more than Doriath, or Sirion, or the encampment at the end, that’s—”

“No. It was our father’s task to protect us, and he didn’t fail—he turned his back. All we ever needed from you was your love, and you never failed to give us that. All I ever needed from you was you, Maedhros, and I—” He stopped and took a breath. They’d done this before, to no avail. There wasn’t anything he could do or say that could change the course Maedhros had put himself on, just as there had been nothing he could do long ago. “I can’t stay.”

“I’m not asking you to.”

“I will come back, though. This isn’t—Nienna believes there’s a way forward. For you. For me. For us. I can’t see it yet, but I want to.”

“I’ll be here,” Maedhros said quietly, “whenever you come back.”

“Will you write to me?”

“I won’t have much to say.”

“Draw something instead.”

A small smile tugged at Maedhros’ lips, there and gone in the blink of an eye. “I’ll try.”

Maglor turned back to the door, but paused as he opened it. “Put the ithildin away somewhere,” he said over his shoulder, “and forget about it. You don’t need anything from him. He doesn’t get to decide our future. Not this time.”

Daeron was waiting under the hawthorn tree. Maglor walked into his arms and tried not to cry. “What did he say?” Daeron asked softly.

“It’s not that. It’s just—I love him, and it hurts.”

They left the next morning, early, when only Nerdanel was awake. She kissed them both and bid them give her greetings to Elrond and Celebrían. “I’ll come to visit you soon, Macalaurë,” she said. “And in the meantime I hope you’ll write.”

“I will, Ammë. I love you.”

Back on the road, with Tirion and his mother’s house behind him, Maglor felt as though some weight had lifted. He loved his family, but he had been without them for too long, and it would be even longer, he thought, before he could spend so much time in their company without needing to escape it again. For a little while he and Daeron rode in silence. Leicheg had a new little basket that Nerdanel had woven for her to hang off of the saddle, made cozy by a few scraps of soft cotton cloth tucked into the bottom; she peered out of it, nose twitching. Pídhres sat before Maglor, also alert and curious—and very happy to no longer be sharing him with Huan. 

The day brightened, the sun’s light only slowly peeking over and through the peaks of the Pelóri. There were no other travelers on the road, and after a while Daeron took out his flute. Maglor brought out his harp, and they played snatches of songs, ones they both knew, ones they had learned over the course of their wanderings, ones they made up on the spot. 

They came to Imloth Ningloron at last; it felt like a lifetime since Maglor had left it. They arrived very late in the evening, having not wished to stop and sleep on the road another night, not when the weather was fine and their destination so close. Gil-Estel shone in the west behind them as they rode slowly down the road. “Beautiful,” Daeron said. The ponds and streams all glimmered in the twilight, and the air was filled with the scent of flowers. Someone was singing somewhere out of sight, a lovely song of praise to Elbereth and the stars. If Maglor closed his eyes he might imagine himself returning to Rivendell, except that the air lacked the scent of pine, and the road down into the valley was straight and easy, rather than a series of steep switchbacks. The lights were all on in the house, and he could see figures moving both inside and out. “Lady Celebrían chose her home well.”

“Yes, she did,” Maglor agreed. 

“Is it much like Rivendell?”

“In feeling, if not in appearance, though the house was built by many of the same hands.” 

As they drew closer a pair of figures emerged from the house at a run, hair flying behind them as they sped out of the large courtyard and up the road. Maglor dropped out of his saddle. “Elladan, Elrohir!”

“You’re back!” Elrohir reached him first, and Elladan crashed into him a second later. Maglor staggered under their weight, laughing. Elladan released Maglor to greet Daeron as he too dismounted, but Elrohir just tightened his grip on Maglor. “We were worried about you,” he said in a low voice.

“I told you I’d return before autumn’s waning—and here we are hardly at its beginning!” Maglor smiled at him. “I’m all right, Elrohir. Really.”

Elrohir looked doubtful. “If you say so,” he said.

“Naneth will want us to ask also,” Elladan said brightly, “whether Daeron will be wanting his own room.”

“I will be quite content in Maglor’s, I think,” Daeron said, “which you must have expected me to say since you are asking at all.”

“I knew it,” Elladan said. “Elrohir, you owe me—”

“Were you making bets about us?” Maglor demanded. “Who else is gambling over what I was doing while away?”

“Oh, no,” said Elrohir as Elladan laughed and they began to walk the rest of the way to the house. “We made this bet in the middle of Belegaer.”

“What?” 

Daeron burst out laughing. “I thought I was hiding it so well!” 

“You hid it from me,” Maglor said.

“I think we could have hidden an oliphaunt on that ship without you noticing,” Elladan said.

“Was everyone taking bets?” Maglor suddenly imagined Círdan getting involved, and thought he might never be able to look the mariner in the face again if it was so. 

“No, it was only between us,” said Elrohir. He slung his arm over Maglor’s shoulders. “Naneth only started speculating after Mablung and Beleg came to tell us you were off traveling together. I think Mablung may have dropped a few hints.”

“Mablung needs to mind his business,” said Daeron. “Is he still here?”

“No, he and Beleg left just before everyone else did, to go tell Elu Thingol all the summer’s gossip,” said Elladan.

As they entered the courtyard before the main entrance the doors opened and Elrond emerged—not quite at a run, but not slowly either. Elrohir released Maglor, and he did run, and met Elrond at the base of the steps. “Maglor, welcome home,” Elrond said, relief clear in his voice as they embraced. “I’ve missed you.”

Maglor held on just as tightly as Elrond did, so glad to be back that he wanted to both laugh and cry at once. “I missed you, too.”

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The morning after Maglor’s return, he found Elrond after breakfast. He looked rested and well, and he was smiling—and he had rings on his fingers and ribbons in his hair, and wore the same small pair of earrings that he’d worn at Midsummer with the blue stones in them that matched the robes he wore, which were also finer than his usual choices. “Daeron insisted,” he said, catching Elrond looking at them. He reached up to fiddled with the end of one of the ribbons, as though not quite comfortable with it. “He wanted to know what the point of having such things was if I never wore them.”

“He might be right,” Elrond said. “You look very fine, and you are still a prince of the Noldor, you know.”

Maglor made a face. “Only when I have to be, though I suppose that will be more often than I had hoped, going forward. Wearing such things is a shockingly hard habit to pick back up, though, however nice they look.” He paused, and grew more serious. “There was something else I found in my room.”

“Your father’s gift,” Elrond guessed. 

“You knew about it?”

“I knew he made something for you. He and Celebrimbor spent much time together out in the forges and workshops. You do not have to accept it, you know, whatever it is.”

Maglor looked away, rubbing at the scar on his palm with his thumb. “I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised,” he said after a moment. “I knew he sent something to Maedhros. I just—I thought I had made it clear that I wanted nothing from him.”

“You did,” Elrond said. He slipped his arm through Maglor’s. “Let’s go somewhere quiet. I want to hear all about your travels, anyway.”

“I want to tell you,” Maglor said, smiling. “Or I want to tell you most of it, at least.”

“Should I be worried?”

“No, but you will be anyway.”

Elrond didn’t like the sound of that, but he didn’t say anything more until they had left the house and made their way to the peach orchard. It was quieter there, the peaches all long ago picked and the apple orchard now busy with preparations for its upcoming harvest. The sun was bright and hot, but under the trees it was cool, and the dappled sunlight danced around them as the breezed moved through the boughs overhead, and for a while they walked in companionable silence. Finally, Maglor sighed. “I’m very glad to be back here,” he said quietly. 

“You went much farther than I thought you would,” said Elrond.

“I didn’t set out to go all the way to Ekkaia, even though Gandalf suggested it. Of course, it seems he and Huan were conspiring, so I’m not sure I would have had much choice in the matter anyway.”

“He’s been sticking his nose into everyone’s business all summer, if it makes you feel better. He taught your father to make fireworks.”

“That certainly doesn’t make me feel better. Fireworks, really?” They stopped and sat under one of the trees. Maglor rested his hands in his lap and leaned back against the trunk, looking up at the leaves waving gently in the breeze. Nearby a nightingale was singing. “I think it was for the best, though. Seeing them—even traveling all the way back with them. But it’s…I could not have done it if Daeron weren’t with me.”

“We were glad to hear that you weren’t traveling alone,” Elrond said. Maglor smiled, briefly. “Did you speak to Maedhros?”

“Yes. We’ve spoken more than everyone seems to think we have. It was—” Maglor closed his eyes, but not before a tear escaped. “I don’t know what to do. He seems so—so unchanged. There were moments when he seemed more like himself, but only after—” He broke off, and sighed. “Only after he was injured.”

“Injured?” Elrond repeated, alarmed. He had been leaning against the tree, too, but he sat up to face Maglor. “What happened?”

Maglor told the story of the river, of his reversing of Elrond’s own flood song so that they could make their way across, and then the wild cat that attacked just after Maglor had made it to the bank. He gave few details and Elrond knew that he was trying to make light of it, but he trembled and his voice shook when he talked of trying to help Maedhros afterward, on the riverbank, and of his voice giving out in the midst of it. Elrond reached for his hand; Maglor gripped his tightly. 

“It sounds as though you have both made full recoveries,” Elrond said after Maglor fell silent. He felt sure that he would have noticed if Maglor was moving stiffly or in any pain—he thought, too, that Daeron would have taken him aside to say something if there was anything wrong.

Maglor squeezed his hand once more before letting go. “We have. He has some new scars, but they aren’t too bad, however frightening it was at the time, and it all certainly could have been worse. They aren’t even visible, except when he rolls up his right sleeve. I was only bruised, really.”

“After overextending yourself in song,” Elrond said. “You are perhaps the only person I’ve ever known who would attempt to slow a river and expect to succeed.”

“Daeron helped. I wouldn’t have been able to do it alone; I’m not strong enough. No, don’t look at me like that, Elrond. I’m only saying that I’m out of practice. I can’t remember the last time I put forth that much power into a song. I only tried it at all because it would be days before we could leave the hill country otherwise, and I could see how weary Maedhros was. He was—he was losing things again, like he wasn’t wholly there. You remember how…?”

“Yes, I remember.” Elrond had spent many evenings of his childhood watching Maglor carve new small combs or utensils or tools out of wood. Everyone lost things, for moving camp was often chaotic and hurried, but Maedhros had been the worst—as though he didn’t care at all. Those evenings held fond memories for Elrond, though. Maglor had taught them both, he and Elros, to carve things as soon as they were old enough to be trusted with small knives, and he had sung songs and told stories while he worked. It had been years before Elrond had noticed how Maglor would look at Maedhros every time he handed him a new comb; his words had been light and teasing, but his face had grown increasingly worried. In the present under the peach trees, far away from war-torn and drowned Beleriand, Elrond summoned a smile. “But you also surely just wanted to see if you could.”

Maglor smiled, a little wry and rueful. “I did. And it did work, exactly as I hoped it would. If the hill cat had not been there, I would be speaking of it to you now as a great success.”

“I’d like to hear more about it,” Elrond said, “especially how you reversed my own song, since I wrote it with only the Bruinen in mind. But I’m more worried now about you losing your voice.” Maglor grimaced. “It brought it all back, didn’t it?”

“It was all already close to the surface. I’d been trying to hide the worst of the scars, but—well, you know what it’s like camping in the wilds. Celegorm saw the—the brand, and…they didn’t know what to do with it. We’d all seen such things before, you know—on those too far gone, too badly broken in both body and spirit to be saved.”

Elrond had seen such things too. “They must know that yours is different.”

“They did. They do. No one cared much about it after Maedhros was injured, which was something, at least. But—I did lose myself for a while.” Maglor’s voice dropped almost to a whisper, and he did not look away from the leaves overhead. “I don’t really know how long it took for Huan to find us. I think I must have frightened Maedhros very badly.”

Elrond had never suffered from such things himself—being entirely consumed by memory either good or bad, so that he lost track of where or when he was. He had, though, seen others caught in the throes of it. He had seen Maglor caught in it, though it had been many years, and Elladan and Elrohir had assured him that Maglor had not suffered like that at all in the time between Elrond’s sailing and their own. “Do you think, perhaps, Maedhros might have known exactly what was happening?”

“I suppose. He said nothing of it, and I wasn’t going to ask.” 

“Maglor…” Elrond hesitated. Maglor had only just come back, and Elrond, selfishly, did not want to watch him leave again any time soon. 

“Do you think I should go to Lórien?” Maglor looked at him then, his smile faint and brief. “I have been thinking about it.”

“I don’t think you need it direly,” said Elrond, “but it can only help. I think we all underestimated how badly it would go, your meeting Fëanor again, especially with no warning.”

“Maybe. Only—the Ainur, I wonder if they understand how hard it can be to just…be in their presence. Even Nienna, as unlike the Necromancer as anyone could possibly be—I spoke to her by Ekkaia and she was…overwhelming, though I don’t think she was putting forth any power. She just…was.” Maglor paused, and Elrond realized, with such sudden clarity that he couldn’t believe no one had realized it before, why it must be that Maedhros had refused what Mandos could offer, and why he refused still to go to Lórien. Maglor had suffered the attentions of Sauron when he was still much weakened; Maedhros had suffered Morgoth’s, at the height of his power. Unaware of Elrond’s thoughts, Maglor went on, “I am glad she came, though. I needed what she gave me.”

“What was it?”

“She…she understood, without me having to try to find the words, and all she did then was weep with me without trying to tell me what I should do or think. I didn’t…I didn’t realize that I needed it—” The memory of it brought the tears back, and Elrond shifted so that he could wrap his arms around Maglor, who leaned against him. The tears were not many, though, and Elrond thought that Maglor was better afterward for their release, though he didn’t move away or raise his head. “I don’t know how to explain why it frightens me,” he whispered. “Why I can’t—I can’t perform as I used to, and I used to love it, or even be in large or unfamiliar company, I just…”

“You don’t have to. I know why.”

“I shouldn’t be, though. Not anymore.”

“What keeps us safe in one stage of our lives might harm us in another,” Elrond said, “but such habits are always difficult to overcome. I do not say that continuing to hide is harming you, but it does hinder you.”

“I know. And I know the only way to stop being afraid is to stop hiding.”

They sat for a little while in silence, listening to the wind in the trees and to the nightingales. In the apple orchard Celebrían was singing a song of bounty and of sweetness—a song she had sung every single year in Imladris, too. Here she was soon joined by Elrohir, and then by Daeron, whose singing Elrond had never yet heard but which was unmistakable once he did. The song was meant for the apple trees, but the peaches all responded to the power of him, too, a shiver passing through them that had nothing to do with the light breeze, as though the joy in his song was infectious, sinking into the roots like rainwater. The leaves seemed somehow greener for it, the sunshine more golden; Elrond could almost taste apples. At the sound of his voice Maglor sighed, relaxing against Elrond’s shoulder. 

“Do you want to go to Lórien?” Elrond asked finally. 

“I don’t know. I think that I should. I know that Estë is more like Nienna than…anyone else. I know that someday I must come before the other Valar, either by chance or by summoning, and it would be mortifying to fall into mindless panic the moment Manwë looks at me.” Maglor sat up. “I told Curufin I might go in a year or two.”

“I know things are difficult with Maedhros, but what of the others?”

“It’s—easier than I thought it would be, and easier now than it was at Ekkaia. It’s still hard, though, to look at them sometimes and not just see ghosts.”

“They were dead for a very long time,” Elrond said. 

“I know.”

“And they are all still very new from Mandos. Did you know?”

Maglor shook his head. “I didn’t ask any of them when they had come. I only know that Maedhros was alive to see me in the palantír.”

“He was the first to return, and I think he must have looked for you almost immediately. Celebrimbor was the last, but only by a few years, after Celegorm.” 

Maglor drew a knee up to his chest and looped his arms around it, wrapping one hand loosely around the other wrist. “I can’t forgive my father what he did to us,” he said after a moment, not looking at Elrond, instead watching the sunlight glint on the rings he wore; they were simple, made of silver and set with tiny sapphires and emeralds. The tears had dried but the tracks remained on his face. “I don’t really want to. But I don’t know how to forgive Maedhros what he did, either—even though—I know that he wasn’t thinking clearly, or even at all. I know it wasn’t because of me. I understand. I just—”

“That doesn’t mean it hurt you any less,” Elrond said, though it sounded to him as though Maglor had forgiven Maedhros already, only his mind hadn’t caught up yet to his heart. It sounded, even from what little Maglor had said, just by the way he spoke his brother’s name, as though both of them had fallen very quickly back into old habits—of care, of concern and worry, and love—in spite of the hurt both old and new. “I understand why you did the things you did, long ago, but that never lessened the pain of them.” Maglor closed his eyes. “You know that we forgave you long ago, Elros and I.”

“And you know that I did not deserve it, anymore than my father does.”

“It isn’t about that. Forgiveness isn’t something that can be earned, only freely given. Our love for you always outweighed any anger, and—and you were not like your own father. He fell into darkness and madness and he dragged you all along with him—”

“We swore freely,” Maglor said. “No one forced us.”

“I wasn’t there, and cannot speak to it,” said Elrond; he doubted, though, whether any of them would have dared not to swear—and it didn’t matter now, anyway. “But what I meant was: you did not do that. You sent us away rather than let your fate ensnare us. You stayed away for the same reasons.”

“In part,” Maglor murmured, without looking at him. He said nothing more, but he didn’t need to. It was a conversation they’d had before, and the rest did not need repeating. 

“You loved us, and we never, ever doubted it,” Elrond said.

“I did. I do. I shouldn’t have taken you as I did, but I have never been able to regret it even so.”

“I don’t regret it.”

“It was not a good way to grow up, Elrond.”

“There was no good way to grow up anywhere,” Elrond said. “Maybe we would have been a little safer on Balar. We would have been among familiar faces, perhaps, but our parents would still have been gone, and we would not have had you. I would not be who I am now without you.”

“You are who you are all on your own, Elrond.”

Elrond sighed. “I wish you wouldn’t do that.”

“Do what?”

“Try to make yourself smaller, to lessen the good things you’ve done. I am who I am because of many things, and you are not the least. You showed me how to be kind even when the world was full of darkness and danger and pain; you showed me that even those who do terrible things are capable of great good, too. You taught me music, and how to turn it into something more. You always stepped between us and anything that might harm us without hesitation, and I never felt unsafe when you were nearby. I always, always knew that I was loved. It was you who taught me that the choices we make—to love, to care—matter, no matter how dark the outside world grows. It was your example that I followed when raising my own children. You are so much more, Maglor, than the worst things you did.”

“I know,” Maglor said, very softly. His eyes were very bright again, but he shed no more tears.

“Do you? I will remind you again and again, as often as I need to.”

“I do know. I am more than my deeds and more than my scars, as Arda is more than its marring.” He sounded as though he were quoting someone else, but he did not say who, and it also sounded as though he were repeating it like a mantra, to convince himself as much as to reassure Elrond. He looked away into the trees. “I know that is true of Maedhros, too, and if so it must be true of my father.”

“We are all more than our worst mistakes. He is trying not to repeat them, even if that means he is making new ones instead.”

“I suppose I am grateful for it,” Maglor said. “He didn’t have to let me raise my voice or say any of the things I said.”

“I’m not sure anyone could stop you.”

“Few can. He was always one. From what Caranthir and Ambarussa told me, he let Maedhros have his say, too. I wish it had made either one of us feel better.”

“I told Elladan that sometimes a wound needs to be lanced before it can heal,” Elrond said. 

“Better to say that a bone set wrong must be rebroken,” Maglor said. 

“Maybe. Either way, healing can come afterward—whatever that might look like. I don’t know what he wrote in his letter to you, but he and I have spoken much over this summer, and there are some things he said that I think you should hear.”

Maglor sighed. “I don’t know if I’ll read the letter, but I’ll listen to whatever you have to tell me, though I don’t think it will change my feelings much. It’s Maedhros that I wish I could…I wish I could see a way forward, but I don’t think there is one. There won’t be until he can find it for himself, but I don’t even know if he’s able to look. He’s still punishing himself.”

Elrond had thought the same, but now he wondered if that too wasn’t also just fear—the same fear that held Maglor back from performance in front of an audience larger than their family, from drawing attention to himself, hiding behind his hair or keeping to the fringes of a room, that had held him back from going to see his mother and his brothers sooner. He said nothing, though. If it was fear, it was a fear that Maedhros himself had not recognized, and Elrond did not think it was his place to say anything of it, at least not yet. He didn’t think Maedhros would listen if he did.

“It was not all bad, though,” he said now, “your summer travels. I met your hedgehog this morning when I tripped over Pídhres outside my room.”

Maglor laughed, the sound sudden and bright, like the sun emerging from behind a storm cloud. “I’m sorry,” he said. “Leicheg has figured out how to navigate stairwells far more quickly than I ever thought she would.”

“It was a surprise, certainly. Celebrían was delighted.”

“I’m glad, especially since I don’t think I can promise to keep her out in the garden. She and Pídhres are very attached to one another.”

“And to you,” Elrond said.

“Yes, though heaven knows why.”

“Daeron is also rather attached to you,” Elrond remarked after a moment. He had seen them at breakfast together, had seen the way that Daeron’s gaze lingered on Maglor, and the way that Maglor looked at him—the same way that Elrond knew that he looked at Celebrían. Now Maglor’s expression softened in such a way that Elrond rarely saw. “Celebrían suspected something in Avallónë, but I confess it had never occurred to me.”

“It occurred to your sons,” Maglor said, wrinkling his nose as he laughed. “They were making bets with one another about it, apparently. It didn’t—it didn’t occur to me, either, until we were traveling together. It had been so long since the Mereth Aderthad.”

Elrond raised his eyebrows. “You—at the Mereth Aderthad…?”

“No, nothing happened, but…it might have, if I had been free to pursue it. The seed was planted then, and now it can grow. I do hope you aren’t going to get protective. Celegorm already tried, and then my mother spoke to him.”

“Certainly not,” said Elrond. “I’m happy for you, Maglor. We spoke earlier this year of you being under my protection, but you don’t need protecting from this.”

“Tell that to my mother,” Maglor muttered.

“I can’t speak for my sons, of course, or Celebrían.” Elrond laughed when Maglor covered his face with both hands, groaning into them. “They would only be teasing. We are all overjoyed to see you so happy. Truly.”

“Thank you.” Maglor lowered his hands, his expression now rueful. “I already argued with my mother over it. She—she just sees the scars. I know she means well, and I know I haven’t really given any of my family reason to believe I’m anything other than—than unhappy and broken—but—”

“You aren’t broken, Maglor.”

“Maybe that isn’t the right word. But I have been struggling all summer, and that’s really all they’ve seen of me. I asked my mother to visit me here. Maybe then she’ll see…”

“She will.”

“Elrond, is that you?” Celebrían called as she emerged from the trees a little distance away. “There you are! And Maglor!” 

“Good morning, Celebrían,” said Maglor as he rose to his feet. “How are your apples?”

“Wonderful! The harvest this year is even better than we expected.” As Celebrían spoke, Daeron followed her. “They are the same apples that I grew in Imladris,” Celebrían added.

“Are they?” Maglor’s smile brightened. “I didn’t realize. Those were the best apples in all of Eriador.” Daeron stepped up beside him, and Maglor slipped an arm around his waist, both of them leaning in towards each other, as natural as breathing.

“They were, weren’t they?” Celebrían said, and Daeron laughed. “It isn’t quite time yet, but soon we’ll be so awash in apples we won’t know what to do with ourselves. I’ll have to send some to Tirion—and to your mother, Elrond, and of course this year we must send some to Lady Nerdanel…” 

Maglor seemed after that morning to forget all about his brothers and his father as he settled back into the rhythms of the valley. They were all settling back into normal routines after the disruptions of the summer. Daeron hardly caused a ripple in comparison to Fëanor and Fingolfin. There was music and laughter, and many new songs about hedgehogs and kittens soon heard throughout the valley.

“I approve,” Celebrían told Elrond one evening, as they prepared for bed. “Of Daeron, I mean—in general, and particularly with regard to Maglor. He’s the least troublesome house guest we’ve had in ages.”

Elrond smiled as he unraveled the last ornaments from his hair, leaving the ribbons and clips in a small pile on his nightstand. “Shall I tell Finrod you said that?”

“Finrod is, of course, my favorite uncle—but he delights in causing trouble occasionally. Oh, but I’m glad all that’s over! Have you heard anything from Tirion yet?”

“I had a note from Fingolfin, thanking us for our hospitality this summer. I think he might be planning some kind of gift, but I can’t imagine what it would be.”

“He and Fëanor, you mean. Goodness, how odd that is to say even still.” Celebrían slipped under the blankets with a sigh. “Has Maglor looked at the gift his father left?”

“I don’t think so. We spoke of it, but of course he’s reluctant. He knows about Maedhros’ gift; I got the impression that Maedhros did not take it well.” 

“I do feel badly for them,” Celebrían murmured. “I can’t imagine ever seeing my father and feeling anything but joy. Oh, we’ve fought and disagreed, of course—I was a terror for several years growing up—but nothing like this. I have never, ever doubted that he loves me.”

“I have thought many times over the last few months of how grateful I am that Elladan and Elrohir never turned from me in such a way,” Elrond said quietly, “though I too sent them often into darkness and danger.”

“That was different, Elrond. You know it was. They would not have remained safe at home if they could be doing something.” Celebrían tucked a strand of hair behind his ear. They lay each on their side, facing one another. The only light in the room came from the stars outside; the window was open, letting in a cool breeze and the soft sound of flowing water. “Fëanor at the end acted in wrath and in despair, and so doomed his children and his people. You have never, as long as I have known you, succumbed to despair, my love.”

“I came very close, once,” Elrond whispered. The years after Celebrían’s departure had been the darkest of his life. Elladan and Elrohir had thrown themselves into their unending hunts for orcs and other fell creatures in the Misty Mountains, and even into battles far away in Gondor, and between the grief of parting from Celebrían and his fear for them—Elrond still wasn’t sure how he had gotten through. Arwen had remained at home, but even offering her the comfort she needed in her own grief and worry had been almost beyond him. He’d tried very hard to hide his heartache, for her sake, though he was sure he’d failed miserably. Hope was a choice, and he had tried to choose it every day for as long as he could remember, but for a time it had felt more like something he clung to with his fingernails, desperate and painful and always on the verge of slipping away.

“But you didn’t.” Celebrían pulled him in to kiss him. “Don’t think of it, Elrond. It was long ago, and it is over.”

“I know.” He wrapped his arms around her and pressed his face into the crook of her neck, inhaling the scent of her soap and the oils she put in her hair, smelling of apple blossoms and roses, floral and sweet. It was all over, the darkness and the danger and the fear; he’d found ways to firmly hold onto hope again, and it had won out in the end. And every day he got to wake up to Celebrían beside him still felt like a miracle in this land of miracles, where hope was not beyond grasp—not for anyone who would reach for it. 

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Fëanor’s gift to Maglor had been left on his desk, alongside a letter, folded over but unsealed, with Maglor’s name written across it in Fëanor’s bold, elegant hand. Maglor had taken both and shoved them into the back of his wardrobe, out of sight behind robes he never wore. He’d meant what he had said to Maedhros, and he intended to follow his own advice, in spite of Elrond’s words. 

For a while he did manage to mostly forget about them. He found that the bowl he’d made the day he’d left had been fired, and he glazed it and fired it again, and sent it to his grandparents as a gift. He made other things, too, and taught Daeron the basics of throwing clay. Daeron humored him, but disliked the feeling of all that clay on his hands and arms, and afterward only joined Maglor in the workshop to watch and to talk, and to sometimes help with glazing. They made music together often, and picked apples with Elladan and Elrohir and dozens of others under Celebrían’s supervision, and as the days grew shorter and the autumn rains moved in they finished the song they had begun together in praise of Ekkaia. Maglor received notes from his mother and his brothers, cheerful scrawls from Ambarussa and somewhat longer letters from Caranthir, usually with an addendum from Celegorm or Curufin at the end, as they had all lingered at her house after Maglor had left. Maedhros had written a few short notes, and sent a few sketches—making an effort to do as Maglor had asked. Maglor had written back, but he didn’t know what to say any more than Maedhros did. Caranthir’s letters were somewhat reassuring—Maedhros still wasn’t sleeping much, but he was eating better and he had not started burning his drawings again. Galadriel wrote from Tirion, and Finrod too, their letters full of silly stories or bits of city or family gossip. Neither wrote of Fëanor, but he still seemed to loom large behind their words, a presence that was difficult to ignore.

But the knowledge that a letter to him from his father sat unread in the back of his wardrobe began to feel like an itch that he couldn’t scratch. Maglor kept opening the wardrobe to look at it before turning away. He didn’t want to know what his father’s excuses or explanations were. He didn’t want to be cajoled or begged or worse. He told himself he didn’t care what it said, but even in his own mind the lie was not convincing.

“Just read it,” Daeron said, watching Maglor shut the wardrobe again. It was late, and they’d both had a little too much wine that evening, playing a drinking game of Lindir’s devising. Lindir and many others were still going at it, judging by the occasional burst of laughter that drifted up from the gardens. The nights were getting longer and though they were cool they did not get cold. Celebrían had chosen her home well; even winter would not bring more than the occasional frost. “If it’s terrible you can throw it into the fire.”

“I just—” Maglor opened the door again. “I don’t understand why.”

“The letter,” Daeron pointed out, “will probably answer that question. Perhaps even in the very first line!”

He was right. Of course he was. Maglor was being ridiculous and childish. He pulled out the letter and the gift—it felt like a series of sticks tucked into a roll of soft leather, embroidered with his name—his Sindarin name, rather than either of his Quenya names. He had heard that Míriel had come to Imloth Ningloron at the end of the summer, and he thought that the stitching might be hers. He ran his fingers over it as he sat on the bed. Daeron rolled over to wrap an arm around his waist. With a sigh, Maglor set the bundle aside. “I’ve been happy,” he said as he turned the folded paper over in his hands. “This will just make me unhappy.”

“I’ll cheer you up after, then. I’ll kiss you senseless and then have my way with you. Just see what it says and have done, or you’ll drive both of us mad.”

“All right, all right.” Maglor unfolded the letter. 

Maglor,

In Mandos, as you know, there are tapestries. Vairë and her handmaidens weave all of the workings of the world and they are hung in the wide, vast halls. There is no roof there. It is open to the stars, though they are not the same stars we see here in the living world, even standing by the walls. My memory of Mandos is fading now, as though it were a dream, but for a handful of moments that remain very clear in my mind. I am told this is how it is for everyone. One of those moments, the clearest, is the last tapestry that I saw there. It was not in the main halls; there are many corridors and out of the way corners, and it is not only the great and important histories that are woven. I found in one such corridor a weaving of you. You stood aboard the last ship to leave the Havens, and it seemed to me that you wished you were not. 

There are things that can be conveyed through those threads that are not visible in the living world. I had seen you before, recently, with threads missing, gaps in the weave, as though you were in danger of unraveling entirely. I feared to see you thus again, but the gaps had all been filled, the missing threads replaced with gold. I didn’t understand what it meant, except that you were coming home at last. 

That is why I went to Námo. Nienna spoke for me, and I was released. I never asked before because I could not bear to walk in the world not knowing what had become of you. Your brothers, I knew, were safe and returned to Nerdanel, but you were alone for so long and, I feared, forgotten by all but me and the tapestry weavers.

You said that you did not want to hear of Mandos, I know. I’m sorry. You said also you want nothing at all from me anymore, and I understand. There are some things that cannot be forgiven, and a father’s betrayal of his children is one. You will not hear from me again; if you ever do change your mind, I will not be hard to find. I will be here, as my own father cannot be, but the choice is yours.

There are neither excuses nor explanations for my actions before and after the Darkening. When I look back I do not recognize myself, and I can hardly believe myself capable of any of it. I’m sorry. There are no words in any tongue for how sorry I am. I can only say that with this second life I have been given I will strive to do better, to not repeat the mistakes of the past, and to seek peace before anything else. Too little too late, perhaps, but I do not know what else to do.

Elrond has been astonishingly patient and kind all this summer, in spite of his brutal honesty when we first met—which I needed to hear, I think. I certainly deserved it. He has answered all my questions of you without hesitation, and I hope you will not be angry with him for it. He told me what befell you in the east, and he—and his sons—have told many tales of you afterward, joyous ones full of light and laughter and love. You are so loved here. You tried to deny your own strength to me, but you are wrong in this, Maglor. To have survived all that you did, and to find joy again afterward, takes astonishing strength. I know that I could not have done it. Please do not delay much longer going to your mother. She has been waiting for so long for you to come home, and there is nothing you have done or could do that would change how much she loves you.

I have also seen some of the things you have made, of wood and of clay. They are beautiful. I have heard your songs sung throughout this valley over the summer, and they are more beautiful still, though I would rather have heard them in your own voice. As I have been slowly returning to and re-learning my own crafts, I’ve made you a set of tools for you. There are no expectations, Maglor. You can use them or give them away or destroy them as you wish. It is only that I don’t know any other way to show you that I love you, since I cannot embrace you or tell you with spoken words. But I do. I love you so much. I forgot, once. You were right—in my grief and my anger after my own father’s death I forgot that I too was a father. Either I forgot what any of it meant, or I stopped caring—I don’t know anymore. Maybe it doesn’t matter. The oath was the worst mistake I ever made, because I pulled you all into it with me—and then left you to walk that dark road by yourselves. I am so sorry. 

I’m glad you threw it away in the end. Let the Silmarils lie in the earth and under the waves, and let the one remaining shine in the sky for all to see. It has been a sign of hope to many, I am told, though I look at it and feel only regret. 

Again, because I cannot say it enough: I love you. I love you, and I want nothing for you but joy and peace, even if you don’t believe me.

It was signed with a small eight-pointed star at the bottom. Maglor read the letter through twice before handing it to Daeron and rising from the bed. He walked to the window, but couldn’t bear the sound of laughter coming from outside, so he walked over to the hearth instead, where a small but cheerful fire crackled. He leaned on the mantelpiece and stared at the flames, and thought of Míriel, who had spoken to him before, briefly, of the tapestries and of Fëanor. 

“Your father followed your wanderings through the tapestries of Mandos. It grieved him deeply to see you walk alone for so long.”

He still didn’t know what to think of it. It seemed impossible to believe that his fate should have concerned Fëanor at all, rather than that of the Silmarils. It was still too easy to hear the words Sauron had thrown at him in Fëanor’s voice instead—the last and the least of the sons of Fëanor. 

Daeron made a thoughtful noise behind him. “It seems terribly unfair that the living are not able to see the tapestries of Vairë,” he said.

“You can see some if you go to Manwë and Varda’s halls upon Taniquetil,” Maglor said without turning from the fire. “The important ones—the planting of the Trees, the Great Journey, that sort of thing.”

“It sounds as though the unimportant ones are the most interesting. I wonder if I was also in the tapestry your father saw, but I suppose he wouldn’t have noticed. Come back to bed, love.”

Maglor left the hearth, as Daeron put the gift and the letter to the nightstand on his side of the bed, out of Maglor’s reach. Maglor fell onto the bed and into his arms. He didn’t, oddly, feel like crying. He did not feel anything at all. Daeron’s arms were warm and tight around him, fingers tangling in his hair. “Do you feel better for having read it?” he asked after a little while.

“I don’t know.”

“Maedhros told me once that it was the fact that your father seemed entirely restored to who he had been that caused the most pain. Is that so?”

“I don’t know.” Maglor turned his head to rest instead on Daeron’s chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart. He felt the scar there under his cheek. “It feels—it feels unfair, that I am…that I am what I am, and he is again what he was. That he is here when others I have missed so much more are not and won’t ever be.”

“I have heard a great deal of him over these last weeks,” Daeron said softly, rubbing one hand up and down Maglor’s arm as he spoke, “tales of him both as he was—as he was before the unrest and during, and after the Darkening—and as he is now. It seems to me that he is changed. Even this letter, does it sound like something he would have written before?”

“No,” Maglor admitted. “But I still can’t…I don’t know anymore whether I love him or I hate him.” He remembered clearly that instant of yearning, out on the other side of the valley, when he’d wanted so badly to run to his father rather than away, wishing for the comfort only Fëanor had ever been able to give him, the warmth of him, a hearth fire rather than the inferno it had so suddenly become before the end. Maglor shivered, and Daeron’s arms tightened around him. “At the end he was—he was always as Míriel named him, a spirit of fire, but at the end it was terrible. Like the ships at Losgar. He was not so unlike Sauron at the end, all heat and wrath and…”

“Not anymore,” Daeron murmured.

“But I cannot forget it.”

“Nor should you. I do not say you must forgive him, Maglor, but it is easier to know what to do when you can understand your own heart.”

He was right. “Maybe…maybe we can speak of it later,” Maglor said after a few minutes. “When I can read it again, and…think on it.”

“Whatever you need.” Daeron ran his fingers through Maglor’s hair. “Do you want me to kiss you senseless now?”

“Please.” Maglor raised his head to kiss Daeron, and found himself flipped around onto his back a second later, so suddenly that he was startled into laughter. Daeron, as promised, made him forget all about the letter—about everything, for he was serious in his quest to drive all thoughts of anything but delight out of Maglor’s head. 

Forgetting for the night did not make the letter any less real, though. He read it again and again over the next few days, taking it often to the memorial garden so he could pace around the mallorn tree, turning golden with the autumn, in solitude, but didn’t know what to do with it. He looked at the tools—a set for shaping clay and another for wood—cleverly and delicately made, with wooden handles polished to a warm shine and stamped with an M, but not with any other mark, not even the tiniest star. They fit perfectly in his hands.

He did not take them out to the workshops, but he kept the letter in his pocket without really knowing why. Elladan joined him as he began the process of repairing the cup Maedhros had dropped. They chatted about nothing in particular as Maglor carefully filed down the sharpest edges of the broken pieces. It was cool outside but warm in the workshop, one of those days where it was easy to forget for a few minutes or an hour at a time that he was in Imloth Ningloron and not Rivendell.

A shadow from the doorway fell over the piece of ceramic in Maglor’s hands, interrupting his thoughts; he and Elladan looked up in surprise, and found Celegorm there. “Tyelko,” said Maglor, rising to his feet. “What are you—what’s wrong?” His expression was stormy, and he had a more severe look than Maglor had yet seen in him since they’d met again, with his hair pulled back in tight hunter’s braids, unadorned and plain, secured with leather ties rather than with beads or ribbons. 

“Did you tell Curvo to talk to him?” Celegorm demanded. 

Elladan, always fearless, immediately stepped forward between Maglor and Celegorm. Celegorm looked at him and away swiftly, patches of red appearing high in his cheeks. Maglor put a hand on Elladan’s shoulder. “It’s all right,” he murmured.

“Are you sure?” Elladan asked, not taking his eyes off of Celegorm.

“Yes, of course.” Maglor tugged on one of his braids. “Tell your mother we’ll have an extra guest for supper, won’t you?” Elladan looked at him doubtfully, but acquiesced, giving Celegorm a warning look as he passed by. Maglor followed, and pulled Celegorm out of the workshop with him, and away into the gardens where they could have it out in private. “So much for a quiet winter,” he said.

“I’m not here to make jokes, Maglor—”

“I know.” They left the formal bounds of the gardens, and stood in between a few small streams that flowed through the slowly-fading wildflowers and grass. Far overhead an eagle circled lazily, a small dark shape against the sky, pale with clouds. “Why are you here, then?”

“Curufin’s gone back to Tirion,” Celegorm said. He stood with his hands balled into fists, white-knuckled. The angry flush hadn’t left his face. “To—to see Atar. On purpose. He said that you told him to go, but I don’t—”

“I did,” Maglor said. 

“Why? After all that he did—can we not be united in this one thing? He sent us all letters and—and gifts, as though he can bribe us back into—”

“I don’t think that’s what he’s doing.”

“You haven’t seen Nelyo! He hasn’t—it’s as though this summer never even happened. He promised Curvo he would start painting but he hasn’t. He promised me he wasn’t trying to go back to Mandos but he’s—he’s not sleeping and I don’t think he’s eating, and it—”

“He was withdrawing even before the letters came,” Maglor said quietly.

“But it got worse.” 

“If his going to see Atar was what was hurting Maedhros, Curufin wouldn’t do it. You know that.”

“I’m not so sure I do,” Celegorm snapped. “We all agreed this spring that our loyalty is to Nelyo, not to him.”

“And Curufin is not betraying anyone, not if Maedhros himself told him he should go. This isn’t Beleriand, Celegorm. Maedhros is our brother, not our king.”

“Are you planning to go crawling back to him, then?” Celegorm demanded. 

“No,” Maglor said. The letter was a sudden heavy weight in his pocket. He still didn’t know what he wanted to do about it, if anything, but he did know that. “I’ve seen him already. I don’t want to again. But is this how you want to lose Curvo again?”

“We’re already all losing each other! You’re here, Ambarussa are gone, off away somewhere—they still won’t tell anyone where—and Curufin’s back in Tirion. Caranthir is at Ammë’s house with Maedhros, but Maedhros might as well not be there at all. What was the point of—of any of it, if I can’t—if we can’t—”

“Tyelko, stop.” Maglor reached out, but Celegorm jerked away. “Do you really want to understand, or do you just want to be angry?”

“I just—I want—I hate him and I don’t understand why no one else does!”

“If you think Curvo should hate him,” Maglor said, “do you think Tyelpë should hate Curvo in his turn? Was it a mistake for them to reconcile?”

“That’s different.”

“Is it? Tyelpë had to watch his father do terrible things, and then lose him entirely. Just like us.”

“Curvo never made him swear any—”

“No one made us swear, either. Tyelko, please listen—” Maglor reached out again, and didn’t let Celegorm pull away that time. “I’m still angry at him, just as you are. But it’s—our lives before, even before the Oath, they were defined by him. We were always his sons before we were anything else. Then the Oath united us, as you want us still to be united, in a way that was unbreakable, except that it broke everything else until it was all that was left of any of us—his words, his vengeance, his wrath. We don’t have to live like that now. We are still his sons but that isn’t all that we are anymore. All of us holding rigidly to some promise of never speaking to him again feels too much like another Oath. It is still us defining ourselves by him, only in opposition rather than obedience. I don’t believe that’s what you want, but it’s what you’re asking for. Curvo finding a way forward, whatever that looks like for him, whether that’s rebuilding something like the relationship they had before or just being able to live peacefully in the same city, doesn’t mean he loves you any less. It does not mean we are not united, as brothers, in all of the ways that really matter. We have to let one another decide who we are on our own, not just as the seven Sons of Fëanor.”

Celegorm’s eyes were too bright, but he stood frozen, hard and unmoving, as though he was made of stone. Finally, he said in a low voice, “We aren’t united, though. You and Nelyo—you still—”

“What you are watching in him now is what I watched for years, in Beleriand. I just don’t have the strength to do it again, Tyelko.”

“There has to be something I can do,” Celegorm said. He sounded desperate suddenly, frightened now, rather than angry. It was like something was cracking in whatever facade he had been hiding behind, that Maglor hadn’t realized was there until that moment. He seemed so suddenly, terribly afraid, and like he was trying to grasp at something that was slipping through his fingers, the way that the ghosts of Maglor’s nightmares dissolved into smoke at his own touch. The flush had faded from his face, leaving him pale as the clouds over their heads. “If I can’t fix—then—then why did they send me back? Why was I let out if there’s no point to it, if it would’ve just been better for everyone if I never—”

The breeze picked up, and it felt suddenly cold. Maglor gripped Celegorm’s arm tighter. “What does that mean?” he asked. “What are you talking about?”

Celegorm closed his eyes for a moment, shoulders sagging. “Nothing. It doesn’t—it doesn't matter.”

“Of course it matters. Didn’t you want to come back?”

“I didn’t think wanting had anything to do with it,” Celegorm said. “It’s never meant anything, has it, what we wanted? Not since the Darkening. The only time I really got what I wanted was in Doriath and—”

Maglor released him as he stopped talking, and stepped back. “None of us got what we wanted in Doriath,” Maglor said, but he heard his voice turn it into a question. “Celegorm, please tell me you did not want what happened in Doriath.”

“That’s not what I—” Celegorm pressed his hands to his face. “Doriath was a disaster.”

“Then what did you want there? All you got was—” Death. Death was what Celegorm had found there, he and Caranthir and Curufin. It was suddenly very hard to breathe. Celegorm’s silence atop the dune weeks ago when Maglor had asked Curufin if he had chosen death on purpose, though it had only lasted a few seconds, suddenly seemed far weightier than Maglor had thought at the time.

“It was just—it was better that way, wasn’t it? All I’d done was make everything worse. We all hated one another by then. The Silmaril was gone, we would never get the other two, and it was just—”

“I never hated you!” Maglor cried. “I was angry, but I never—”

“I hated me,” Celegorm said, very quietly. “I hate what I was and how much like him I became, and I hate that I can’t—I can’t outrun it, no matter where I go or what I do, I still get so angry, just like him, and if I can’t—if I can’t do better now, what’s the point? Why does he get to come back and—and just get everything he wants, be who he was before, while we’re all just—”

“You are doing better—” Maglor reached out again, but Celegorm stepped away. “Tyelko—”

“I shouldn’t have come here. I’m sorry, I didn’t—I won’t disturb your peace again, Cáno.”

“You aren’t—Tyelkormo wait—” 

Celegorm was already walking away, not back toward the house or the road beyond it, but on toward the woods and hills. He would disappear into them and Maglor would never be able to track him. Maglor stood frozen, sudden fear choking him, fear that should have been baseless except for how it wasn’t. He saw Celegorm walking away across the meadow, but he saw him also stalking ahead through the smoky halls of Menegroth, saw him on his knees at the far end of the great hall, before the dais where Dior had fallen. Dior had been dead by the time Maglor reached them, cut down quickly and decisively, but Celegorm had taken long minutes to bleed out, glassy-eyed and gasping, in Maglor’s arms. Maglor didn’t know if Celegorm had been aware of his frantic efforts to stop the bleeding, of the apologies and pleas and tears that had spilled out of him. He’d been too late, because that had always been his fate—to witness but never to save. And to know now that Celegorm had not just been unlucky, that he had been courting death even if he hadn’t been as deliberate as Maedhros—to learn now that he too had never wanted to come back from Mandos—

By the time Huan butted his head into Maglor’s chest, Celegorm had disappeared into the forest. Maglor buried his hands in Huan’s fur, and then wrapped his arms around his neck to press his face in it instead. “Stay close to him, Huan,” he said. “Don’t leave him alone.” Huan woofed softly. “Take him to Ambarussa, please. You know where they are, don’t you? You can find them?” 

Huan licked the tears from Maglor’s cheeks and woofed again before turning to lope away across the valley, chasing after Celegorm. Maglor sank to his knees in the grass, feeling small and cold and suddenly very, very alone. 

“Maglor?” It was Elrond that found him, either minutes or an hour later; Maglor wasn’t sure. He knelt before him, brow creased with worry. “What happened?”

“Why would Mandos send someone back who did not want to come?”

“Are you speaking of Maedhros?”

“No.”

Elrond sighed. “I don’t know. I know very little of Mandos or its workings. If there are those who know more, they keep their secrets close. I don’t know why Mandos would wait for someone to ask, but make the choice for another without consultation.”

“What if it was a mistake? What if—”

“Those questions will only lead to grief, Maglor. What is done is done. If it was a mistake…only life can cure it, I suppose, but we cannot live another’s life for them.” Elrond rose to his feet again and held out his hands. Maglor took them. “What did Celegorm want?”

“To pick a fight about Atar. Curufin’s decided to go to see him in Tirion.”

“So he came to fight with you about it?”

“He already fought with Curufin, and fighting with Caranthir is often like fighting with a brick wall, and I think they’re all trying very hard not to fight with Maedhros.”

“And the twins?”

“Gone already.” Maglor looked back toward the wooded hills. It seemed like a lifetime ago that he’d followed Finrod out there to get foolishly drunk on a summer afternoon. It felt like only yesterday that he’d fled into those trees to escape his father and his own wrath. “I asked Huan to take Celegorm to them. Out of all of us, they’re…they seem the most at peace. If anyone can help him, it must be them.”

“Huan will make sure he goes where he needs to,” Elrond said. “And you need to return to the house. You look cold.”

He felt as though he was always cold, that he would always be cold. “I think I need to go to Lórien,” he whispered. “I think—I don’t—I was better. I was. But now it’s like…”

“You are,” Elrond said, “but it takes time, Maglor. You pushed all the grief of the First Age down and away for too long, and now it won’t be ignored. If you feel you need to go to Lórien, of course you must go. But can you stay through the winter, at least? I don’t think you should go traveling again so soon, and especially not alone and upset again. There are ways we can help you, too, as we did before.”

“Yes. Yes, of course.” Maglor closed his eyes and took a breath, inhaling the scents of the streams and the grass and the lingering flowers. The irises were fading with the autumn, but niphredil still bloomed everywhere, sweet-smelling, always reminding him of Elrond and of Elros. “I don’t—I don’t want to leave here. But I saw Nienna, and it was not as bad as I had feared. Surely Estë can be no worse? If she can—if there’s anything—I don’t want to live like this anymore.”

“Estë can help,” Elrond said. “This is her purpose, hers and Nienna’s, and Lórien himself, to help those of us who need it to find rest so that our spirits can heal.”

“Did you ever go there?”

“No. I was weary, but I needed Celebrían more than I needed the Valar. Galadriel went, though; she told me that it helped.”

Back at the house Maglor retreated to his room, refusing Elrond’s offer of athelas and company, wanting suddenly to be left alone. He took his father’s letter and his gift and locked them in one of the drawers under his writing desk, in one of the bottom drawers that he would never otherwise use. Then he went to his harp to play until his fingers ached and the music chased away the phantom smell of smoke and the memory of his brother’s blood on his palms. 

Two weeks later a jay alighted on his windowsill as he sat at his desk struggling to write. It held a folded bit of paper in its beak, and flew away as soon as Maglor took it, to the disappointment of Pídhres as she jumped up onto the sill. “What’s that?” Daeron asked from where he sat on the floor by the hearth with Leicheg on his lap, also composing music—though he was having more luck than Maglor.

Maglor unfolded it. “A note from Ambarussa,” he said. 

“Is all well?”

Tyelko is here with us. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of him. —A

Maglor breathed a sigh, and something fell into place in his mind for the song he had been laboring over all morning. “Yes,” he said. “Or at least, I think it will be.”

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When Celegorm and Curufin started to shout at one another, Maedhros slipped out of the house, escaping through the orchard and to the riverbank. The plum trees were all turning the deep red wine color of autumn, and the flowers had all faded and gone to seed by the water. He’d left his cloak behind, but that didn’t matter; he welcomed the faint chill in the air. Maedhros walked upstream until he reached his favorite willow tree. He sat among the roots by the riverbank and watched the soft yellow leaves drop one by one into the water to be taken away by the currents, like little bits of sunshine falling from the sky. He rested his arms on his knees and his chin on his arms, and wondered if he was the subject of his brothers’ fight. It was either him or Fëanor, he supposed. There was nothing else for them to fight about, these days.

He should not have left, he thought as he watched more leaves fall into the water. He should have broken up the fight and made them talk instead, to listen to one another instead of just shouting. Caranthir would just make it worse if he tried, and Nerdanel had departed the morning before to deliver a commission somewhere in the northwest. If she had still been at home there probably would not have been any shouting to begin with. But he was so tired. Ever since they’d gotten back it was as though he couldn’t get enough sleep, and he didn’t know why. 

“Russandol?” Fingon ducked under the willow fronds. “There you are.” Maedhros lifted his head, and realized he’d already been out there for several hours, lost in hazy daydreams and circling thoughts, watching the water without really seeing it. “Caranthir thought you’d be out here.” Fingon dropped to the ground beside Maedhros, slinging an arm over his shoulders, exactly as he had always done, from their youth onward. When he spoke, though, his voice was far more serious than it had ever been when he had been young. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. It’s been rather busy in Tirion.”

“I wasn’t expecting you at all,” Maedhros said.

“Of course you weren’t. Caranthir also told me that you had been acting much more like yourself over this summer, only to slip away again when you returned.”

Maedhros closed his eyes. He tried to speak lightly, but couldn’t manage it. “Since when do you and Caranthir speak to one another?”

“For years, now,” Fingon said quietly. “Mostly about you.” He rested his head against Maedhros’ temple. “How can I help, Russo?”

“I don’t know,” Maedhros whispered.

“Well, I suppose that’s an improvement on your usual refrain,” Fingon said. Maedhros didn’t have an answer. His usual refrain was you can’t, which he still thought was true—he just didn’t want it to be true anymore. 

“Are Celegorm and Curufin still fighting?”

“Neither of them were at the house when I arrived. What were they fighting about?”

“I don’t know. I left when I heard the shouting.”

“They can solve their own problems, you know,” Fingon said. He leaned back against the willow and pulled Maedhros along with him, their heads resting together, Maedhros leaning on Fingon’s shoulder. “They are, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, full grown.”

And if left to their own devices, they would not have started speaking to each other again at all, Maedhros thought. He’d been able to get them to see sense at Midsummer. Now it was autumn and everything seemed to be unraveling, all of them drifting away from one another like the willow leaves taken by the river current. It was as though the summer had all just been a dream, but for the scars Maedhros had brought home with him. “Have you seen Maglor?” he asked after a while.

“Not since he left this summer,” said Fingon, “but he’s been writing to Galadriel, so I know that he’s well.”

“Good.”

“Has he not written to you?”

“He has.” Short notes, with silly stories of Pídhres and Leicheg, and snatches of sillier verses being sung through the valley. He wrote very little of his own thoughts. Maedhros had written back once or twice, equally short notes, choosing to draw instead, as Maglor had suggested. He’d sketched flowers and leaves and the willow trees by the river. The letters on both sides felt empty, stilted—both of them wanting to say more but afraid to try. “I didn’t know he was such friends with Galadriel.”

“He spent time in her realm before going to Elrond’s, after his rescue,” Fingon said. “I didn’t know any of that either until after he left—I didn’t know he’d been held captive, and so I opened my mouth and said something very stupid that I still need to apologize to him for.”

“What did you say?”

“He was going to apologize for the Nirnaeth, and I tried to head him off. I said something about my death being my own fault in part—that it was better to die in battle than to be taken. Yes, I know,” Fingon sighed when Maedhros winced. “I’ll apologize when I see him next now that I know the full tale. But Galadriel was there when he was at his weakest, and they are quite close, now. Finrod was very dramatic about being replaced as Maglor’s favorite cousin.”

“Finrod is dramatic about everything.”

“But how are you, Russo?”

Maedhros sighed. “I’m tired,” he said.

“You don’t look as though you’ve been eating well, either.”

“It all tastes like ashes.” It had been the same after his rescue from Thangorodrim long ago, but he’d not had the same trouble since his return from Mandos. He didn’t know why it was all going wrong now. “I don’t want to be like this,” he whispered.

“Did it help, speaking to your brothers this summer? Traveling with them?”

“Yes.”

“Would it help if you spoke to me, now?”

“I don’t know what to say.” 

Fingon sat up and turned so they were facing one another, both leaning a shoulder against the tree. There was no gold in Fingon’s braids that afternoon, but the sunshine through the branches caught in it, making it shine like a spill of black paint over his shoulders. “Tell me what troubles you, Russo. Is it Maglor?”

“No.”

“Then you’re reconciled…?”

Maedhros shook his head. “No.”

“Russo—”

“That’s not—it’s between Maglor and I—and we aren’t at odds, not the way everyone thinks.”

“What is it, then? I want to help you, but I can’t if I don’t understand.”

“You can’t.” Maedhros looked away, out at the water. “No one can, because no one else was there. When I left him behind—”

“When you succumbed to despair,” Fingon corrected, gently but firmly.

“Yes, but I also left him behind, and that’s—he was alone for so long, and now I’m…I’m not really any different than I was then, and Maglor is the only one who can see it clearly. I used to be someone he could trust, but I’m not anymore, and there’s nothing I can do to repair it.” There wasn’t enough glue or gold in the world to turn the fragments of what they’d been into something whole, let alone something lovely. “The love is still there, but it’s not enough.”

“It’s something,” Fingon said quietly. “Maybe it isn’t enough now, but it is a foundation. You can’t get back what once was, but you can build something new. It’s what we all have to do.”

“There’s nothing left of me to build with,” Maedhros whispered. Sometime over the summer he’d stopped feeling like he was burning—perhaps it had been when he’d fallen into the river. Now he just felt burnt, hollowed out, charred and blistered and aching. 

“That’s not true, Russo. You are different than you were, then. You are stronger than you think you are.”

“It’s—I’m not—I can’t be who you all expect me to be.”

“I have no expectations of you,” Fingon said.

Maedhros sighed. “Yes, you do. You look at me and you expect to see a person, but instead I’m just…a ghost, wearing the face of someone you used to love.”

“No, Maedhros,” said Fingon. He reached out to take Maedhros’ hand. “I do see a person. I see you, my dearest friend, and I see you are lost. Let me help you find your way back. If it isn't Maglor that troubles you, what is it? Your father?”

“I don’t…I don’t like knowing he’s so close, but not knowing what he is doing.” Maedhros lowered his gaze, looking at their hands, and at the grass beneath. Above them the breeze whispered through the willow leaves; the willow itself was full of sleepy thoughts of the coming winter. Maedhros wished that he could also just sleep the cold months away, that he could wake up in the springtime renewed, somehow. “He sent me a letter. And a gift.”

“I know. He and Celebrimbor spent a great deal of time together this summer. I think your nephew has been a very good influence on him. He seems to be embracing the spirit of Eregion, rather than returning to old habits. Have you read the letter?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Maedhros didn’t answer right away. A hawk cried somewhere in the distance, plaintive and lonely. He tried to sort out the tangle of painful feelings, tried to find words, but he didn’t think that he could. Fingon loved his father, had rejoiced when Fingolfin had returned from Mandos. Fingolfin had never put the works of his hands above the lives of his children. They had all fallen under the Doom, but only Fëanor’s sons had been oathbound, doubly cursed. Maedhros had loved his father too, but by the end fear had overtaken everything else. Even when he had stood aside as the ships burned he had done it feeling sick to his stomach, his whole body shaking, knowing that his father’s fury would be turned on him afterward. So it had, and afterward, between Losgar and the Dagor-nuin-Giliath, Fëanor had spoken no word to him that was not an order. Even his final words had been one last command, had been to bind them even more tightly to an Oath he had to have known, with the clarity of death’s eyes, would be fruitless, would only lead them to into further darkness and ruin. 

“Everyone says that Mandos healed him, that he is restored to who he was before,” he said finally, without looking up. “But I know…I know what he is capable of.”

“You are also capable of terrible things,” Fingon pointed out, so very gently. “So are we all. I don’t fear that you will do any of them again.”

“I suppose I know that, too, but he—I don’t know how to stop being afraid.”

“Would not his letter help? Would it help if I told you that he is choosing, thoughtfully and deliberately, to do things differently? We spoke a great deal this summer. He often asked me about you. I still cannot like him, and I’m not sure that I trust him very much either, but I think he really is trying to find a better way forward.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Very little. Finrod told him even less. We would not betray your confidence, Russo. He went to Elrond, too, but I do not know what Elrond might have said.”

“Very little. Nothing good.”

“He is kinder than that, Russo.”

“He is also honest.” Maedhros turned to set his back against the tree, and drew his knee up to his chest and rested his arm over it. “If he asks you again, you can tell him whatever you like. It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters,” said Fingon. “What passes between us stays between us. Your trust means far more to me—and to Finrod—than whatever good might come of sharing your secrets with your father. Should you not, though, read his letter? At least you’ll know then what it says and you won’t be plagued by this uncertainty.” Fingon had never been able to live with uncertainties. If there was something to be learned he would learn it, no matter what it was, and once he knew everything he could he would set his course and not waver from it. In that respect he was much like Finwë. A little like Fëanor, too—though Fëanor was more likely to choose a path and force the circumstances to fit his desires, rather than the other way around. “Would it help you if I read it first? Unless you wish to keep it entirely private.”

“I’d share it with you anyway,” Maedhros sighed. It felt cowardly and foolish to be so relieved by the suggestion, but Fingon would be able to tell him the contents, if it was something he couldn’t bear to read, without inflicting the same pain that Fëanor’s own words would. “All right.”

He had put the letter under one of the jars of ithildin that Celebrimbor had brought, tucked into a far corner of the shelves in his studio, out of sight unless he went looking deliberately—which he did more often than he knew he should. Fingon picked up the other jar, examining it for a moment. “It’s beautiful,” he said.

“Tyelpë’s creation, from Eregion.”

“I’ve heard many marvelous stories of Eregion. I wish I could have seen it.” Fingon sighed and set the jar back down. “That is the letter?” 

“Yes.” It was folded over and sealed with a bit of red wax into which his father’s star had been pressed. When Maedhros handed it over Fingon broke the seal without hesitation. Maedhros didn’t watch him read, instead going over to the table where he’d left his sketchbook. It was open to another page where he’d been attempting to draw Himring. Somehow he just couldn’t get it right, even though he could see it so clearly in his memory. He’d abandoned charcoal for pencils, but it hadn’t helped. 

It did not take Fingon long. He placed the letter on the table, folded again. “You should read it,” he said quietly. “But I didn’t know you disliked your father-name so.” Maedhros grimaced. “Your brothers all still call you Nelyo.”

“They’ve called me that all their lives. It doesn’t feel the same. They didn’t choose it.”

“Does anyone else call you Nelyafinwë, now?”

“No. My father did, but I…well, you must know what I told him, if he wrote about it.”

“He did.” Fingon laid his hand on Maedhros’ arm. “Read the letter. Even if it doesn’t make it better, even if you don’t believe a word of it, at least you’ll know.” He left the studio then. Maedhros watched him return to the house, presumably to talk more about him with Caranthir. Then he sat down and picked up the letter. At least he could get it over with. 

Maedhros,

I am sorry. It’s too little, too late, but it is all I have. If I could go back there are a hundred, a thousand things I would do differently—anything to spare you the fate you have suffered. There are no excuses, nothing that can justify either the Oath, or Alqualondë, or Losgar. They were the result of nothing but wrath and jealousy and pride. I have left two of those things, at least, behind me, and if I must struggle to quash the last for the rest of time, I will do so.

You spoke nothing but the truth to me when we met, and I knew it already. I knew also that you and your brothers may not wish to see me. I had hoped otherwise, perhaps foolishly. I bound you to something terrible; I have been told since that it is the worst thing that a father could do to his children. Elrond does not mince words. “Slaying them yourself would have been kinder,” he said to me, and he was right, and in coming as I did I only caused you more pain, and I am sorry.

My memories of Mandos are fading, but there is one that remains, as vivid as though it just happened—when I went to seek for you. You were still burning, a bright white-hot flame, and you had retreated far away from all other spirits in the Halls, and would not suffer even Nienna, or the least of Námo’s Maiar to approach you. No one else seemed to understand why; but I did, for you are still my son, and I still know you. You were afraid. More than despair, more than self-hatred or guilt or pain, what your spirit burned with was fear. You were afraid too on the riverbank when we met again in life—I know you feared me, then, and I don’t blame you for it. I do not know what you feared in Mandos, where there was nothing that could have harmed you. I don’t even know if you realize just how afraid you have been. Whatever it is you fear, Maedhros, I hope you have found reassurance. I hope you can find a way to let it go. 

Telperinquar tells me you intend to take up painting when you return from your travels. He and I have made a gift for you—ithildin, a substance of his own design, with a few modifications we worked out between the two of us. I hope it will please you if you decide to use it. 

One thing more I would write of before I close—your name. Nelyafinwë. I see now why you would think that I named you to spite my brother, why you would think it less meaningful than any of your brothers’ names, only a place in a line, a point to make. That is not why I chose it. When you were born there were dozens of things I wished to call you. Perfect, precious, beautiful, lovely, adored. I did call you all those things, though you will not remember, each one a short-lived epessë when you were still very small. When I settled on naming you the third Finwë it was when I thought of what a miracle it was that you had been born at all, the firstborn of the third generation of Finwë’s line, the second generation born on these shores, after my father led our people through so much hardship and danger to reach them. You were born long before the feud between myself and Nolofinwë was anything more than quiet resentment on my part; I had left the palace, left Tirion entirely—you were born in the house of Mahtan and Ennalótë—and Nolofinwë was not in my thoughts at all. 

You are not, of course, perfect, though I think every parent will describe their newborn child thus, marveling at all your tiny fingers and toes, at your nose and your eyes and hair softer than silk and the bright and beautiful spark of your newborn spirit, and to give you such a name would have been to place a terrible burden on your shoulders. But you are beautiful, you are adored, you are precious—all of you are, all seven of you. I forgot it, or stopped caring, when I set the works of my own hands above you, and so set you on the road to your own destruction. Your brother does not mince words, either. It was the worst thing I have ever done, and to all of you who I love most, and I am so, so sorry.

I hope Macalaurë finds his way back to you. I hope you can come together and that you can, all seven of you, find a way forward. If nothing else, it seems that my coming has united you again as you had not been since your deaths. If that is all I accomplish in this second life of mine, I will be content.

I love you. Like apologies, it does not seem like enough, those three simple words, no matter how many times I write it. I love you, I love you, I love you.

The last line and the small star drawn under it blurred as he read it over and over, and he had to set the letter down lest tears fall and smudge the ink. He shoved it away and buried his face in his arms, allowing himself to indulge in a storm of tears. Six thousand years ago he would have done anything to hear those words from his father, just one more time, before the end. But to be told now, when he knew himself to be anything but beautiful or precious, after everything he had done and failed to do—no, he did not believe it. The only words he did believe in that letter were what Elrond and Maglor had said to Fëanor. It seemed incredible that anyone should have said such things and gotten away with it, but if anyone could, Maedhros thought it would be the two of them. Elrond had grown into someone utterly fearless, so perfectly confident in his own power and his wisdom that there was no room left for fear; and Maglor had always been far stronger than he believed himself to be—of all seven of them, now, he was the one who could face their father without flinching.

As he caught his breath, he heard the door open. He didn’t lift his head, even when hands came to rest on his shoulders. “You read it?” Caranthir asked.

“Yes,” Maedhros said. He straightened, and Caranthir hugged him from behind. Maedhros rested his hand on Caranthir’s arm, leaning back against him. Tears still fell, and he didn’t know how to stop them. “I think I hate him,” he whispered. 

“You aren’t alone,” Caranthir said. He hesitated for a moment before asking, “Does it change how you feel about Curvo, what you said to him over the summer?”

“No, of course not,” Maedhros said, and felt the tension in Caranthir’s arms release. “Is that what they fought about?”

“Yes. He’s gone to Tirion, and I don’t know where Tyelko went. I told Tyelko he was being unfair—and I wasn’t trying to make it worse, I just wanted Curvo to know I was on his side. But now Tyelko’s angry with me, too.”

“Huan went with him?”

“Yes. That’s the only reason I’m not that worried.” Caranthir rested his cheek on top of Maedhros’ head. “I burned the letter Atya sent me.”

“What was the gift?” If he’d sent letters to everyone, he’d also sent gifts. 

“A piece of blown glass, with the shape of a flower inside. Either he’s very out of practice, or he doesn’t know enough about flowers for it to be one in particular, but it looks a little like a peony.” Caranthir sighed. “I keep thinking I want to smash it, but I can’t quite make myself do it. I put it away instead, so at least I don’t have to look at it. Apparently Elrond told him I used to write to Bilbo about flowers.”

“Does that bother you?”

“That Elrond talked about me? No. I didn't write anything to Bilbo that I would mind being shared. We weren’t that sort of friends. When he didn’t write about flowers or history, he sent me recipes to try.” Caranthir kissed the top of Maedhros’ head and straightened. “Come inside. You can throw the letter on the fire if you want, and we can eat dinner.”

“I’m not—”

“You are hungry, Maedhros, even if you don’t feel it. Please eat something.”

Maedhros sighed, and wiped his sleeve across his face. “All right.” He took the letter inside with him, but didn’t immediately throw it into the fire. Instead he left it in his room, not quite sure why. Once he had washed his face and made himself somewhat presentable, he joined Fingon and Caranthir, who chatted very cheerfully, in a determined sort of way, about the latest gossip out of Tirion, and about the abundance of apples Lady Celebrían had been sending everyone, never once mentioning Fëanor’s name. Maedhros ate without tasting any of it, even though his stomach felt tied up in knots, because he knew they were both watching him. 

After dinner, Fingon found him in his room, on the bed by the window, looking out toward the river. He didn't say anything, just sat down behind him with a comb to tease out the day’s tangles. Finally, Maedhros said, “Do you believe it, what he wrote?”

“Yes,” Fingon said. He worked more slowly than Maedhros’ brothers, careful as he worked out the knots. He had shown the same care after Thangorodrim, insisting that Maedhros’ hair was not so matted and damaged that it couldn’t be saved. It had still had to be cut, in the end, but not as short as Maedhros had expected. Not as short as Maglor’s had been, long ago.

“I don’t.”

“That is no one’s fault but his,” Fingon said. “What of Curufin?”

“I told Curufin this summer that if he wanted to see our father, he should. I stand by it. I love him far more than I could ever hate Fëanor.”

“Do you? Hate Fëanor?”

“Yes? I don’t know. It’s—mostly it just hurts.”

“I’m sorry, Russo.” Fingon set the comb aside and wrapped his arms around Maedhros, resting his head on Maedhros’ back. “I wish I knew better how to help you.”

“You saved me a long time ago,” Maedhros said softly. “I’m only here at all because of you. I can’t ask any more.”

“You can always ask for more,” Fingon said. “That’s how this works, you know. Friendship, family. Would going away again help? I don’t mean to Tirion; you know Gilheneth and I have our estate in the north.”

Maedhros sighed. “No,” he said. “You’ll be wanted all winter in Tirion.”

“The world won’t end if I let my brother take my place.”

“You want to leave Turgon alone in Tirion with my father?”

“He wouldn’t be alone.”

“True. Finrod will be a terrible influence.”

Fingon huffed a laugh. “Was that a joke, Russo? Now I do believe you’re getting better.”

“I don’t feel better.”

“That’s often how it goes, isn’t it? But you are. Are you still afraid, as your father believes? What is it you fear?”

“I don’t know.” Maedhros looked out of the window again, at the darkening shape of the orchard, and the stars slowly coming out as twilight deepened in to evening. “I didn’t think I was afraid at all. Not in Mandos. Not in life. Not until my father came.”

“Do you think,” Fingon said, “that if you were able to identify what it is you fear, you would be able to let it go?”

“I fear my father.”

Fingon sighed. “You are stronger than he, Russo.”

“If that was so, the ships would have never burned at Losgar.” And if that was so, surely he would not feel so weak, or as though he had to always be looking over his shoulder just in case his father went back on his word and came to find him again. 

“You were strong enough to speak against it, and to stand aside, even then. I know how hard it was to withstand him.”

“I don’t want to have to be strong now. I just—I don’t know what I need.”

“I snooped through your sketchbook earlier. I’m glad you’re keeping the drawings now. They’re very good.” Fingon released him and picked up the comb again. “You should start painting.”

“I know. I just…”

“Either you pick up a paintbrush,” Fingon said, tugging gently on his hair, “or I will tie you up and drag you off to Lórien.”

“There isn’t anything Lórien can—”

“Maedhros.”

“All right.”

Maedhros dreamed that night of the battle that killed his father, only it became tangled up in the end of the world, and he kept trying to reach his father, reach his brothers, only for the ground to split apart around him, or to find his father already burning into ash—or else one of his brothers dead or dying, or a company of orcs or balrogs ready to ambush him. The sea rushed in, flooding the fiery rents in the earth and sending steam and foul fumes rushing up into the air, turning them all to ghosts around him, always just out of reach. He woke in the early morning gasping and choking on the memory of sulfur and molten stone, his hand throbbing in time with his heartbeat. For a while he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the pain to ebb. It took longer than it usually did when it was triggered by such a dream. Once he could use his hand, he dressed and went downstairs. It was very quiet, with only Caranthir and Fingon in the house, and he still kept looking down to make sure he wasn’t about to step on a hedgehog or a cat, even though they’d been gone for weeks. 

He missed the noise, especially the laughter. It was hard to smile or laugh even when he felt something like happy, but it had been nice to hear it all around him. As he put the kettle on for tea, he stared at the flames on the hearth and thought about sunsets, and about Curufin, who had been working so hard to find happiness, to find a way to build something new out of the ashes that lay between himself and his wife, his son. However it went between him and their father, he would be doubting himself, especially having left Celegorm furious and Maedhros entirely absent.

Once the tea was done Maedhros went out to his studio. He left his sketchbook alone and went instead to the canvases, and then to the paints, choosing the warmest shades of all the colors he wanted, all the while casting his thought back long ago to all he’d been taught about mixing paints and colors, about shades and shadows, light and dark, warm and cool. It was easier to remember than he had thought it would be. It wouldn’t be so easy to put into practice again—but surely that would come with time. 

Maedhros wasn’t the only one who had taken up an unfamiliar craft, he thought as he opened the first jar. He imagined Maglor in Elrond’s valley, maybe at that moment, sitting down at a pottery wheel, his face intent and gaze focused, thinking of nothing but what was before him and what it would become. If he could do it, after so many years lost and alone, surely Maedhros could teach himself how to find peace in the painting of a sunset.

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In the end it was two years before Maglor left the valley again. It was much easier there to feel as though he was on firm ground, to feel happy and able to put the past where it belonged and even to forget about it for long stretches of time. His mother and grandmother both visited him there, and he knew they were surprised to find him laughing and at ease. He hoped it put at least some of his mother’s worries to rest.

The shadows of the past were still there though, and they still reached out to trip him up from time to time, leaving him shaking after a nightmare or simply unable to shed a heavy sense of gloom and melancholy. That might last days, or only a few hours. In the middle of it, he sometimes found himself treading dangerously close to despair. 

It helped that he could speak to Elrond whenever he wished, of the past or of the present, or anything at all. It helped to make things with his hands and to make music with Daeron—and to wake up every morning beside him, knowing even before he opened his eyes that he wasn’t alone. It helped to curl up with his cat in a patch of sunshine and watch his hedgehog trundle around the flowerbeds. It helped that Elrond could always tell, and always had athelas ready to chase away the worst of the dark thoughts. But it didn’t stop everything. 

“What was it you wanted to tell me about my father?” Maglor asked Elrond one sunny spring morning. There remained a slight chill in the air, and they sat in a patch of sunshine with steaming mugs of tea—a gift from Caranthir, golden-colored and gently floral. They had not spoken of Fëanor since Maglor had first come back to the valley; it was long overdue, but Maglor hadn’t been able to bring himself to ask before now.

“It might be something he told you in his letter,” Elrond said. He watched a pair of sparrows hopping around across the veranda, pecking at seeds scattered there for them by Celebrían. “When he first spoke to Fingolfin, he said that he came from Mandos because of you.”

“He wrote that,” Maglor murmured. “Do you believe him?”

“He has no reason to lie. He often came to me over that summer to ask about you, you know.”

“Yes, that was also in the letter.” Maglor slouched in his seat, watching the steam rise from his cup. “He said he hoped I wouldn’t be angry with you for telling him so much. As though I could ever be angry with you.”

Elrond smiled briefly. “I thought that if you wanted anything from him, it would be understanding.”

“I don’t know what I want. I don’t know if the kind of understanding I wish he had is something that’s possible—and the wishing isn’t…it isn’t kind. What else would you have me know?”

“He is able to let himself be teased, now,” Elrond said after some thought. “I warned him after Findis knocked him into the pond that there would be songs made of it, and then I reminded him of his own words—of the deeds of the Noldor being the matter of song, and all that.” Maglor snorted in spite of himself, almost inhaling a sip of tea. “He laughed at it. That must mean something, that he can laugh at himself. I also gave him a book of your music, one of the copies from your room.”

That was surprising, though Maglor wasn’t sure why. Fëanor had written about hearing some of his songs. “What did he say?”

“He only thanked me. I don’t know what he thinks of the songs themselves. It pleased him, I think, to see the harp that you made—to know that you still work with wood. He told me how Finwë was the one to teach you.”

“Did you know he made me a set of tools? For working wood and for working clay.”

“I knew he made something of course, but not what. Have you used them?”

“No.” They remained where he had put them after Celegorm’s brief visit, untouched and mostly disregarded. Maglor dropped his head back onto his chair and gazed up at the sky as the sunshine dimmed a little. He saw a haze of clouds gathering, slowly thickening. It would rain later. “I dreamed of him last night. I was searching through darkened Tirion, trying to find him, but the streets were empty and all I could hear was the rush of the Sea, and his voice swearing the Oath, always somewhere just out of sight.” He sighed. “I really do need to go to Lórien, I think. The past did not feel like such a weight across the Sea.”

“The past was not walking around just out of sight across the Sea,” Elrond said. “Will you go this year, then?

“Yes. In a few weeks, maybe.” At the start of May—the time he had come to Imladris, long ago, and the time he had stepped aboard Círdan’s last ship. He remembered Frodo once talking about September in a similar way, having been the start of so many important chapters of his own life. “Did Frodo ever go there?”

“Yes. Gandalf took him straight from Eressëa, even before he came here. He stayed for several years, and came back with clearer eyes and a more settled heart—and the anniversaries in October and March did not make him ill, after that. It did not fix everything, but time and companionship did the rest. I think Celebrimbor’s friendship in particular was a great comfort to him.” Elrond looked over at Maglor. “The past won’t stop being heavy, you know.”

“Then I must learn how to carry it better.”

“We’ll all be waiting when you return,” Elrond said. He reached out to take Maglor’s hand. “But do not hurry. Will you go alone?”

“I’m going to ask Maedhros to go with me.”

Elrond smiled at that, but squeezed Maglor’s hand. “If he hesitates, ask him why he is afraid.”

“You think he’s afraid of Lórien?” Maedhros was many things, but Maglor was not accustomed to thinking of him as fearful. Maglor was the one who had to push himself, stumbling, through heavy and paralyzing fears; Maedhros just kept moving, never faltering—even at the end, even now.

“I begin to think self-hatred and despair are not what held him back in Mandos. Many others have gone there feeling similarly, and have found healing—I suspect your other brothers are among them. There is something else at work. You understand that fear, I think—and that may be what will convince him to go with you. Both of you know the weight of an Ainu’s gaze, and what they are capable of when they wish to do harm. The difference is that I think Maedhros has felt thus for so long that he’s forgotten it has a name, and that it can be overcome. I think maybe this is something that has lingered since he was brought back from Thangorodrim.”

It so happened that Mablung arrived at the end of April, prepared to, as he said, tie Daeron up toss him over a horse’s back to take him back to Thingol's court, where he was both wanted and missed. Daeron rolled his eyes at him. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go to Lórien with you?” he asked Maglor, perched on the window seat and watching him pack his bag. He wasn’t taking much; Lórien would provide all that he needed, except his harp. 

“I’m sure,” Maglor said. “You should return to your own people—I really don’t think Mablung intends to give you much of a choice, anyway.”

“If I can outrun the armies of Mordor I can outrun my cousin. The last time you went traveling alone, you were horribly troubled.”

Maglor looked up at him and smiled. “I’m not, now. I need what Estë offers, but I’m not suffering from any kind of dark mood at this moment, and—and if all goes well, I won’t be traveling to Lórien alone.”

“Your cat and your hedgehog don’t count.”

“I’ll have a horse, too.”

Daeron laughed. He rose and came to run his fingers through Maglor’s hair. “I know you aren’t fond of these,” he said, twisting one of the white strands around his fingers, “but I think it looks like moonbeams have been caught in your hair. Go to Lórien, then, and drowse some years away among Estë’s poppies. I’ll find something to do with myself in the meantime, I suppose.”

“You’ll find plenty to do with yourself, I think,” Maglor said. “Here.” He drew a wooden pendant from his pocket, just big enough to nestle in the middle of his palm—the same size as the stone he had taken from Ekkaia that now sat beside the box of seashells on his bookcase—and pressed it into Daeron’s hand. He’d carved it out of silvery mallorn wood, and inlaid the shape of an aster flower on one side in purple enamel, and on the other, in gold, the first handful of notes of the song they’d sung together on Ekkaia’s shores. “That journey would have gone very differently if I had not met you on the road,” Maglor said, as Daeron turned it over in his fingers, “if you had not decided to come look for me. Thank you.”

“There’s no need for thanks.” Daeron kissed him. “I am so very, very glad we met when we did. I did not realize how lonely I felt until you stepped aboard that ship and I found it so easy to speak to you again—or how lonely it would be to return so changed among those who knew me long ago, having seen places and done things they never have or will. My heart beats easier for having traveled and lingered here with you. Take however long you need in Lórien, beloved. I will be here to meet you when you return, and we will make such music together that even the Valar will pause to listen in amazement.”

When Maglor left Imloth Ningloron at last, with Leicheg in her basket and Pídhres perched before him on the saddle, he found the roads very busy with people coming and going from the lands to the south where great gatherings of Yavanna, Nessa, and Vána’s folk were held each spring. It was also a time of year that often brought ships out of the east, and Maglor thought there must be many among the travelers he saw on their way to Tol Eressëa to greet long-awaited loved ones. When he closed his eyes he could see the shores of Middle-earth receding into the distance across the waves, with the stars shining overhead in the twilight, and he felt again the pang of homesickness for those wide and wild lands he would never see again. That was one grief he did not want to let go; those lands, more than anything else, had shaped him into who he was, and he would always love them, always miss them.

He came to his mother’s house in the middle of the afternoon. His grandmother’s garden was as vibrant as Celebrían’s, flowers glowing like jewels in the bright May sunshine, and the roses that climbed up the side of Nerdanel’s workshop were all in bloom, a burst of bright pink and white and red against the pale stone. Beyond, the plum orchard was a small sea of pink blossoms, and the breeze that wafted up toward the road smelled sweetly of them and of the roses. Maglor went to his grandparents’ stables to leave his horse, and to greet Mahtan when he emerged from his forges. “Macalaurë! What brings you here? I hope a good long visit.” He embraced Maglor tightly. 

“Not this time,” Maglor said. “But someday soon, I hope. Is Ammë at home?”

“No, she’s been in Valmar these last few months, visiting Indis and installing a few sculptures for Ingwë, and she did not say when she would return. Your brothers are all at home, however. She’ll be disappointed to know she missed all seven of you.” He set his hands on Maglor’s shoulders and looked him up and down. “I am glad to see you smiling. Will you join us for dinner tonight?”

“I don’t know. If all of my brothers are here I think…I think I want to be just with them. But next time I visit, I’ll come to stay with you for a while. I promise.”

“Good.” Mahtan smiled warmly at him, and pressed a kiss to his forehead, his hands big and warm on Maglor’s cheeks. “We miss you, Macalaurë.”

“I miss you, too.”

Maglor carried Leicheg back through the orchard, Pídhres trotting along at his heels, and before he came to the garden where he heard his brothers’ voices he set her down, and let her scurry away through the grass and around the lilac bushes as he waited. Pídhres chased after her, and it was only a minute or two before he heard Caranthir exclaim in surprise, echoed a second later by Ambarussa. Curufin came around the bushes a moment later, looking bemused. His face lit up when he saw Maglor. “Cáno!”

“Curvo!” Maglor opened his arms, laughing when Curufin lunged at him. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

“We didn’t expect to see you! What brings you here? Ammë is away in Valmar.”

“Grandfather told me.” Maglor followed Curufin back into the garden, where Caranthir had Pídhres in his arms; she was purring and rubbing her head against his chin as he pet her. Leicheg was enjoying attention from Ambarussa, but both of them were abandoned as soon as Maglor appeared, and he found himself buried under his brothers, not unlike he’d been by Ekkaia. This was a far merrier meeting—though not everyone was there as he had hoped. “Where are Celegorm and Maedhros?”

“Maedhros is out by the river,” Caranthir said. “He goes out there most afternoons now that it’s warm. I don’t know where Tyelko’s gone. He was here a moment ago.

“Did you quarrel when he visited you?” Amrod asked. He knelt down to pick up Leicheg again. “He wouldn’t tell us.”

“Not exactly,” said Maglor, glancing at Curufin, whose smile had disappeared. “Are you two still at odds?”

“No,” said Curufin. “But now it seems he’s at odds with you, and if it’s because I—”

“It isn’t, and we aren’t. He’s just being an idiot again. I’ll speak to him and make it right, if he’ll listen.”

“Good luck,” Caranthir muttered. 

“I want to see Maedhros first, though. That’s why I came—but I am glad to see all of you, before I go to Lórien.”

“What’s the matter?” Amras asked, sounding alarmed. 

“Nothing,” Maglor said. “At least, nothing new. It’s just—the past is still a heavy weight for me, and I’m tired of carrying it the way that I have been. I keep tripping over it. I feel perfectly happy today, but I might not tomorrow, and I hate it. But please don’t start worrying again. I’m really much better now than I was when I last was here.”

“You look better,” said Caranthir. “Where is Daeron? I would have thought he’d be stuck to your side still.”

“He’s been summoned back to Thingol’s court,” said Maglor. “Mablung came to drag him back. And really, there’s no reason for him to go with me all the way to Lórien. I need it, he doesn’t.”

“So you’re just going to go alone?”

“Maybe not.” Maglor offered them a smile. “I’m going to find Maedhros. If Celegorm returns before we do, have Huan sit on him so he doesn’t run away before I can come back.”

He left the garden, following the familiar path down to the river. It gleamed under the sun, and the stones in its bed seemed to glow, warm gold and bronze. Maglor followed it upstream, trailing his hands through the reeds and cattails, pausing to watch a heron step slowly and carefully through the shallows across the way, hunting for its lunch. A lark was singing in the willows ahead, as bright and cheerful as the dandelions and buttercups scattered through the grass. Once upon a time he’d come out there to sit among the reeds and the tall grass, so watch crickets and frogs and the blackbirds, and escape the chaos of six brothers and even more numerous adults. Maedhros had been the one to come after him, more often than not—the only one he’d ever let find him every single time. 

Maglor sighed, raising his head to see a flash of red hair between the waving willow fronds ahead. Once upon a time Maedhros was the one person in the world he was always happy to see. The one person who knew all of his secrets, all of his hopes and daydreams, the first to hear every new song, the first with whom he always wanted to share his triumphs and joys—and sorrows, though they had been so few in those days. Their childhood was one of laughter, rather than tears. Maglor missed that closeness so much that it ached. 

Finally, though, he could see a way forward. 

Maedhros looked up when Maglor ducked through the willows, tensing for a moment until he saw who it was. “Maglor?”

“Maedhros.” Maglor sat beside him and leaned his head over onto Maedhros’ shoulder. He had his sketchbook open to a detailed study of the willow roots dipping into the water at his feet. “That’s lovely,” Maglor said. 

“Just practice. I don’t draw water very often,” Maedhros said, but he didn’t close the book. “The others are all back at the house.”

“I know. I came to see you.” Maglor didn’t lift his head, and Maedhros, with a sigh, leaned back, his cheek resting against the top of Maglor’s head. They’d sat like this before, long ago, for hours as they talked about anything and everything, or just in companionable silence, taking comfort in each other’s presence. “You’re painting?” Maglor asked, reaching for Maedhros’ hand. There were smudges of blue on his fingers, and darker paint caught under his fingernails. Maglor still had clay under his own; he’d spent the afternoon before at the pottery wheel, losing himself in the rhythms of it one more time before he went traveling again. 

“I’m trying,” Maedhros said, but his tone did not hold the same hopelessness that usually accompanied those words; it was wry instead. “I never learned to hold a brush left-handed. There was no call for it in Beleriand. It’s harder than I thought it would be.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes.” Maedhros sighed again. “More than I thought I would. I only started because I promised Curvo I would paint him that Midsummer sunset, but it’s—it’s like drawing. It makes it easier to stop thinking.”

“Have you managed to draw Himring to your satisfaction yet?”

“No. I don’t know why.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. For the first time in a long time it was comfortable, companionable. “I miss you,” Maglor said finally, listening to the lark singing and to the water flowing. “I miss this.”

“I do too.”

Maglor reached into his satchel and pulled out the cup that Maedhros had dropped. “I fixed it,” he said, setting it on top of the sketchbook. Maedhros picked it up, turning it over so the light caught on the metal painted over the lacquer-repaired cracks. Maglor had not used gold, choosing copper instead. It shone brightly against the dark blue of the cup itself.

“It’s lovely,” Maedhros said after a few moments, rubbing his thumb over a chip along the edge that had had to be filled in.

“More things can be fixed than you might think,” Maglor said softly. 

“Maybe.”

“You asked me once what I needed you to do.”

“And you said you didn’t know.”

“I’ve been thinking about it. And—it isn’t about forgiving you anymore. I think I forgave you a long time ago. I just couldn’t recognize it through the tangle of—”

“Cáno, you don’t have to—”

“Please let me speak.” Maglor sat up and turned so he was facing Maedhros. Maedhros looked at him. He was thinner than he’d been when Maglor had last seen him, and he still looked tired—but his gaze was clear when it met Maglor’s, and he did not turn away. “I do forgive you, Maedhros. I did a long time ago, it just still hurts to see you, and see you still—still as you are.”

“I am better,” Maedhros said quietly.

“I can see it now. But both of us need help beyond what we can find either here or in Imloth Ningloron.” Maglor reached for his hand, sliding their palms together, scar to scar. “I’m going to Lórien. I came here first to ask you to go with me.” 

Maedhros did not let go of Maglor’s hand, but he did hesitate. “I don’t think…”

“Why are you afraid?”

Maedhros’ eyes went wide for a moment, and when he spoke he sounded uncertain. “I’m—I’m not afraid. Not of Lórien, or Estë, I just—I don’t think there’s anything—”

“How can you know unless you try? Estë is not Námo, and neither of them are the Enemy.” Maedhros flinched; there it was. “Elrond was right, then.”

“How can Elrond possibly know what my thoughts are? We’ve spoken once in all the time he has been here, and—”

“Elrond has healed enough people to be able to recognize certain signs. Like fear—the kind that digs in so deep you stop recognizing it for what it is. And he knows me, and we aren’t so dissimilar.” Maedhros started to shake his head, but Maglor only gripped his hand tighter. “I do understand what you did. I understand despair, and fear, and pain, and how sometimes it feels as though it isn’t even worth trying to find relief because it’s gone on so long already.”

“To punish yourself, because no one else will,” Maedhros whispered.

“Is that what you’re doing, even still?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to. I just—he’s out there, and I know that he promised he wouldn’t come back, but I can’t—I forgot what it’s like to be so vigilant, always, how tiring it is. Only this time I don’t have Himring—I don’t have walls to retreat behind that will hold against anything thrown at them. I don’t have anywhere safe—”

“He isn’t our enemy,” Maglor said, “however much he might feel like one.”

“I know. That doesn’t make it easier.”

“Please come with me to Lórien. If nothing else, it is far away, and no one’s rest there is disturbed unless they wish for it. And when we come back we’ll both be stronger. Maybe we’ll even be able to set aside the fear.”

“Not everything can be fixed, Cáno.”

“You don’t need to be fixed. You need to be able to rest. The time for punishment and judgment is over. We are more than our worst deeds, more than our suffering, like Arda is more than its marring.”

Maedhros shook his head, just once. “Those do not sound like your words.”

“They are Nienna’s. I want to believe her, Nelyo. I need her to be right. Please come with me.”

“I’ll come. Of course I’ll come, Maglor. I’ll do anything you want, if it is in my power.”

Maglor let go of Maedhros’ hand and threw his arms around him instead. Maedhros held onto him just as tightly. It felt like some great weight had been lifted, like storm clouds had cleared to reveal clear skies, like the distance between them had shrunk from the vastness of Belegaer to almost nothing. It felt like he had his big brother back, at last.

It was late enough for the sunshine to have turned a deeper shade as they left the willow to walk back to Nerdanel’s house, making the world glow. The river shone like liquid gold, and birds were singing in the tall grasses. A red-winged blackbird took off as they passed it by, the red spots on its wings flashing ruby-bright before it winged away across the water to the fields beyond. Maedhros wrapped his arm around Maglor’s shoulders, and Maglor slid his around Maedhros’ ribs, the two of them falling into step as easily as they had long ago making this same walk along the river.

They stepped under the plum trees, and Maglor saw a flash of silver ahead. He released Maedhros and quickened his pace, catching Celegorm before he could slip away. “Tyelko, wait.”

“Maglor, I—”

“No, listen.” Maglor pulled him into a tight hug. Celegorm’s hair smelled like sun warmed grass, but he held himself rigidly, trembling a little under Maglor’s hands. “I’m not angry with you. You frightened me.”

“I’m sorry,” Celegorm whispered, the rigid tension releasing in a rush as he dropped his head onto Maglor’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t have said—I didn’t mean it like it sounded. I don’t want to go back now that I’m here, and I didn’t even really want to stay. I promise. I’m sorry.”

Maedhros came to join them under the tree. He rested his hand on the back of Celegorm’s head, and his other arm around Maglor’s shoulders. “We all should not have to be a burden you carry, Celegorm,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. You did, though—bring us together, all of us. You can step back, now, and let us pull our own weight.” Celegorm made a noise that sounded dangerously close to a sob, but he nodded, lifting his head. Maedhros bent down to kiss the top of it.

“I wanted to run away, when I first saw you,” Maglor said, “but I am so glad now that I didn’t. It was hard, and it hurt, but I think that journey, that summer, was what I needed—what we all needed.” He grabbed Celegorm’s hand, and Maedhros’ arm. “Come on. Everyone else is waiting. And don’t tell Gandalf what I just said,” he added as he pulled the two of them along behind him. “He’ll be insufferably smug about it.”

“He’s already insufferably smug,” Celegorm said, wiping his sleeve across his eyes. “He was far too pleased with himself, going on about pottery without making the least bit of sense.”

“It made sense,” Maedhros said. “He wasn’t really speaking of pottery.”

“Well, I’m glad you understood,” Celegorm muttered. 

They returned to mild chaos in the house, as four of them in the small kitchen was too many, no matter how many carrots and potatoes needed peeling, and all seven of them was far too many. “Why does it smell like the Shire?” Maglor asked as Caranthir shoved a pile of plates into his hands to take to the dining room. 

“Bilbo Baggins taught Moryo to cook,” Amras said, and ducked under a swing from Caranthir.

“I’ve always been good at cooking. Better than you—”

“You burnt an entire boar that one time—”

“At least I don’t serve all my food raw like some kind of beastly—”

“That’s enough,” Maedhros said, tone mild but voice pitched just right to cut through the rising argument. The bickering didn’t stop, but no one tried to hit anyone again as the food was brought into the dining room and the places were all laid. It was an odd mixture of habits, some from their youth and others gained in Beleriand—such as the order in which they at last sat down to eat, with Maedhros at the head of the table and the rest of them in descending order down the table by age. Celegorm sat across from Maglor, on Maedhros’ left. Maglor sat at his right, and when he looked up from shooing Pídhres away he found everyone looking at him. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked. 

“Nothing,” said Caranthir, reaching abruptly for the wine. 

“Last time we all sat down at this table like this,” said Curufin, “it was to talk about you and Atar—and your seat was empty.”

“What, you held some kind of war council about me?”

“Mostly Atar,” said Amrod. “But it was while we were waiting for news of you from Avallónë. It’s just nice to see you back where you’re supposed to be.”

Oh. Maglor glanced at Maedhros, who offered a small smile—but still a smile. 

“Are you two on speaking terms again, then?” Caranthir asked.

Before Maglor or Maedhros could answer the front door opened. “Carnistir?” Nerdanel called. “Who’s all here with you?”

“We’re in here, Ammë,” Caranthir called, and all of them rose as Nerdanel appeared in the doorway, still in the process of removing her cloak.

“Oh!” She stopped short, a hand flying to her mouth as she looked at them with wide eyes. Tears filled them when she saw Maglor, standing by Maedhros at the head of the table. “What’s all this, then?” she asked after a moment, recovering herself. “All seven of you!”

“You’re just in time to eat, Ammë,” said Amras as Amrod disappeared into the kitchen for another plate. 

“Hello, Ammë,” Maglor said, going to embrace her. She held on very tightly for a moment. “I thought you were in Valmar.”

“I finished my errands early.” Nerdanel took his face in her hands and kissed his cheeks before releasing him and taking her own seat at the other end of the table. “What brings you here then, all seven of you? What a wonderful surprise to come home to!”

“Chance, really,” said Amras. “Macalaurë only arrived this afternoon, without telling anybody that he was coming.”

“I didn’t think I would find anyone here except Carnistir and Maitimo,” said Maglor, as he reached for one of the rolls in the basket before him. “And I am sorry, Ammë, but I do not intend to stay long. I am going to Lórien for a while—and Maitimo is coming with me.”

“Really?” chorused Ambarussa. 

“Finally,” Caranthir sighed at the same time, glancing at Maedhros with naked relief on his face. 

“I’m not sure it will help,” Maedhros said. 

“I do,” Maglor said, placing his hand over Maedhros’ wrist. “I need it, and I don’t want to go alone. There’s no telling how long we’ll be gone, though. If Curvo and Tyelko start fighting again, Moryo, you’ll have to just knock their heads together.”

“Oh don’t say that,” Curufin sighed as Caranthir laughed. “He’ll do it.”

“Don’t fight, then!” Caranthir said. 

“I’m glad you’re going too, Nelyo,” Celegorm said more quietly. 

Nerdanel got up and came around to their end of the table to embrace both of them, kissing their foreheads. “I’m so glad,” she whispered. “Especially that you are going together, and Maitimo I do believe it will help you. If nothing else, it will allow you to rest for a while in peace.”

They stayed two days more, because Nerdanel was so happy to have them all there and happy to be so, and Maglor took advantage of the time to write to Míriel, asking for a favor upon their return. His mother promised to make sure it got to her. Maglor was itching to be on the road again, however. They left for Lórien early in the morning. Pídhres abandoned Maglor for Maedhros, curling around his shoulders. The sun leaped up over the mountains in the east; it had rained the night before and the world seemed freshly washed, sparkling and clean. Maglor tilted his head back, letting the sunlight fall on his face. Tirion retreated behind them, falling swiftly out of sight, and as it did Maedhros breathed a sigh, visibly relaxing. He still looked tired, but even just resolving to go seemed to have helped. 

The weather was fine for the first few days of their journey. They spoke little; Maglor sang sometimes, but more often neither of them felt the need to fill the silence. Then as one afternoon started to wane, as they passed off of the main road to a narrower track leading through meadows of cornflowers and celandine, Maedhros asked, “How did you do it, Cáno?”

“Do what?”

“Come out of—come out of Dol Guldur still with hope.”

Maglor looked at him in surprise. “I didn’t,” he said.

But Maedhros shook his head. “We all looked for you one afternoon, in the palantír,” he said. 

“I know.”

“I looked too far back by mistake. I saw you—it must have been just after you were brought out of there. You were sitting in a bed by a window, and I watched you reach out to pick a mallorn leaf from the nearest branch. It must have been winter, because they were all golden yellow.”

“I remember,” Maglor said. “It was late in the autumn, not quite winter.” The memory was still very vivid in his own mind, the raindrops shining on the leaves in the bright autumn sunshine like round pebbles of diamond, and the sound of them cascading down out of sight to the branches below when he plucked the leaf. He remembered his own weakness, how he could barely lift his arms to reach out of the window, and how his hands had trembled once he held the leaf in them, and the leaf’s own waxy smoothness, the tiny ridges of the veins branching out from the stem. His lips had hurt, his whole mouth and jaw sore and aching from years of being unable to open it, and from having just had the cords removed. In spite of the pain he had felt odd and insubstantial, as though in danger of dissolving on a stray breeze. Of unraveling like a poorly-woven tapestry.

He hadn’t, of course. He’d been solid enough to grab onto the leaf, even if he had been too weak and lost to believe any of the words Galadriel said to him afterward. “Those leaves…they were the first thing I saw in the sunlight again, after Dol Guldur. I’d forgotten that there were such colors as that in the world.”

“You saw something beautiful,” Maedhros said quietly, “and your first thought was to reach for it. What is hope, if not that?”

“It didn’t feel like hope.” 

Elladan had said something similar to him once though, that they had had hope for him, even from the beginning, because the first thing he had done, even weakened as he was, even before he had reached for the mallorn leaf, had been to stretch his hands out of the window to feel the rain on his skin. “You kept reaching out, always,” Elladan had said. It had been long ago, the two of them curled up on pillows in the Hall of Fire while a blizzard howled outside, a few years after Elrond had left, after a bad few days when the shadows had lain heavily over Maglor, and he’d fallen into a mood uncomfortably close to despair which he had no expectations of ever climbing back out. “You never withdrew into yourself, you still wanted to be a part of the world, even if you didn’t realize it. We feared for you, of course, because such things are never certain, but we never despaired of your healing—and that is why I know you will recover from this, too, the same way that I know the storm will pass and the sun will shine down on the valley to make the snowdrifts glow.”

“What did it feel like?” Maedhros asked, in the present under the bright spring sun, far away from the darkness of Dol Guldur.

“I don’t know. I just—I’ve never known how to do anything else. I did not want to die. Not really, not even when I wished I could.”

“When did you—”

“In the dark—but he was called the Necromancer for a reason. Death would not have been an escape. I lost so much of myself, even when I was brought out of there I was sure there wasn’t any way back, that the bright golden leaves and the elanor and niphredil and the sunlight and the rain—that none of it was meant for me.” Maglor looked over at Maedhros, saw the sudden grief there. “Don’t, Maedhros. I don’t feel that way now, and I was wrong. There was a way back. I only needed help to find it. I’m here now because Elladan and Elrohir and Arwen loved me before they ever even knew me, and because Galadriel was kind when she did not have to be, and because Elrond never stopped loving me. Like you are here because Fingon loves you, and our brothers, and our mother.”

“I want to be able to reach back,” Maedhros said after they rode for a few minutes in silence. 

“You are,” Maglor said. “You were reaching when you put yourself between me and the hill cat, and when you got Celegorm and Curufin to start talking again—when you painted the sunset for Curufin. You are reaching now, by coming with me. What is that, if not hope?”

The wind picked up suddenly, and clouds moved in from the northwest. Maglor urged his horse into a canter, Maedhros just a step behind him, and they reached a thick stand of trees to shelter under just before the skies opened. Maglor dropped to the ground alongside Maedhros; Pídhres complained about the sudden burst of speed as Maglor let Leicheg down to snuffle about in the pine needles at their feet. Maedhros leaned back against the thick trunk of one of the trees, watching the rain with a faraway look on his face. Maglor joined him, and leaned on his shoulder. Maedhros’ arm came up around his back, his hand resting over Maglor’s windblown hair. 

“I don’t remember what hope feels like,” Maedhros said after a few minutes of watching the rain. 

It was warm under the trees, the air still and pine-scented. Pídhres had settled down again and started to purr. Beyond the rainstorm blue skies appeared in the distance where the clouds were already breaking, bright and clean. Maedhros’ arm around him was heavy and solid. He did not know what they would find in Lórien, or how long it would take either of them to find real, lasting peace, but for the first time in a very long time, he was certain that they would. “I think,” Maglor said, “that it feels like this.”

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