High in the Clean Blue Air by StarSpray

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Eighteen

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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.”