High in the Clean Blue Air by StarSpray

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Twenty Four

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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.”