High in the Clean Blue Air by StarSpray

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Twenty Five

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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.”