High in the Clean Blue Air by StarSpray

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Twenty One

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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.