High in the Clean Blue Air by StarSpray  

---

Forty Three

---

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.”