High in the Clean Blue Air by StarSpray  

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Fifty Two

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When Celegorm and Curufin started to shout at one another, Maedhros slipped out of the house, escaping through the orchard and to the riverbank. The plum trees were all turning the deep red wine color of autumn, and the flowers had all faded and gone to seed by the water. He’d left his cloak behind, but that didn’t matter; he welcomed the faint chill in the air. Maedhros walked upstream until he reached his favorite willow tree. He sat among the roots by the riverbank and watched the soft yellow leaves drop one by one into the water to be taken away by the currents, like little bits of sunshine falling from the sky. He rested his arms on his knees and his chin on his arms, and wondered if he was the subject of his brothers’ fight. It was either him or Fëanor, he supposed. There was nothing else for them to fight about, these days.

He should not have left, he thought as he watched more leaves fall into the water. He should have broken up the fight and made them talk instead, to listen to one another instead of just shouting. Caranthir would just make it worse if he tried, and Nerdanel had departed the morning before to deliver a commission somewhere in the northwest. If she had still been at home there probably would not have been any shouting to begin with. But he was so tired. Ever since they’d gotten back it was as though he couldn’t get enough sleep, and he didn’t know why. 

“Russandol?” Fingon ducked under the willow fronds. “There you are.” Maedhros lifted his head, and realized he’d already been out there for several hours, lost in hazy daydreams and circling thoughts, watching the water without really seeing it. “Caranthir thought you’d be out here.” Fingon dropped to the ground beside Maedhros, slinging an arm over his shoulders, exactly as he had always done, from their youth onward. When he spoke, though, his voice was far more serious than it had ever been when he had been young. “I’m sorry I didn’t come sooner. It’s been rather busy in Tirion.”

“I wasn’t expecting you at all,” Maedhros said.

“Of course you weren’t. Caranthir also told me that you had been acting much more like yourself over this summer, only to slip away again when you returned.”

Maedhros closed his eyes. He tried to speak lightly, but couldn’t manage it. “Since when do you and Caranthir speak to one another?”

“For years, now,” Fingon said quietly. “Mostly about you.” He rested his head against Maedhros’ temple. “How can I help, Russo?”

“I don’t know,” Maedhros whispered.

“Well, I suppose that’s an improvement on your usual refrain,” Fingon said. Maedhros didn’t have an answer. His usual refrain was you can’t, which he still thought was true—he just didn’t want it to be true anymore. 

“Are Celegorm and Curufin still fighting?”

“Neither of them were at the house when I arrived. What were they fighting about?”

“I don’t know. I left when I heard the shouting.”

“They can solve their own problems, you know,” Fingon said. He leaned back against the willow and pulled Maedhros along with him, their heads resting together, Maedhros leaning on Fingon’s shoulder. “They are, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, full grown.”

And if left to their own devices, they would not have started speaking to each other again at all, Maedhros thought. He’d been able to get them to see sense at Midsummer. Now it was autumn and everything seemed to be unraveling, all of them drifting away from one another like the willow leaves taken by the river current. It was as though the summer had all just been a dream, but for the scars Maedhros had brought home with him. “Have you seen Maglor?” he asked after a while.

“Not since he left this summer,” said Fingon, “but he’s been writing to Galadriel, so I know that he’s well.”

“Good.”

“Has he not written to you?”

“He has.” Short notes, with silly stories of Pídhres and Leicheg, and snatches of sillier verses being sung through the valley. He wrote very little of his own thoughts. Maedhros had written back once or twice, equally short notes, choosing to draw instead, as Maglor had suggested. He’d sketched flowers and leaves and the willow trees by the river. The letters on both sides felt empty, stilted—both of them wanting to say more but afraid to try. “I didn’t know he was such friends with Galadriel.”

“He spent time in her realm before going to Elrond’s, after his rescue,” Fingon said. “I didn’t know any of that either until after he left—I didn’t know he’d been held captive, and so I opened my mouth and said something very stupid that I still need to apologize to him for.”

“What did you say?”

“He was going to apologize for the Nirnaeth, and I tried to head him off. I said something about my death being my own fault in part—that it was better to die in battle than to be taken. Yes, I know,” Fingon sighed when Maedhros winced. “I’ll apologize when I see him next now that I know the full tale. But Galadriel was there when he was at his weakest, and they are quite close, now. Finrod was very dramatic about being replaced as Maglor’s favorite cousin.”

“Finrod is dramatic about everything.”

“But how are you, Russo?”

Maedhros sighed. “I’m tired,” he said.

“You don’t look as though you’ve been eating well, either.”

“It all tastes like ashes.” It had been the same after his rescue from Thangorodrim long ago, but he’d not had the same trouble since his return from Mandos. He didn’t know why it was all going wrong now. “I don’t want to be like this,” he whispered.

“Did it help, speaking to your brothers this summer? Traveling with them?”

“Yes.”

“Would it help if you spoke to me, now?”

“I don’t know what to say.” 

Fingon sat up and turned so they were facing one another, both leaning a shoulder against the tree. There was no gold in Fingon’s braids that afternoon, but the sunshine through the branches caught in it, making it shine like a spill of black paint over his shoulders. “Tell me what troubles you, Russo. Is it Maglor?”

“No.”

“Then you’re reconciled…?”

Maedhros shook his head. “No.”

“Russo—”

“That’s not—it’s between Maglor and I—and we aren’t at odds, not the way everyone thinks.”

“What is it, then? I want to help you, but I can’t if I don’t understand.”

“You can’t.” Maedhros looked away, out at the water. “No one can, because no one else was there. When I left him behind—”

“When you succumbed to despair,” Fingon corrected, gently but firmly.

“Yes, but I also left him behind, and that’s—he was alone for so long, and now I’m…I’m not really any different than I was then, and Maglor is the only one who can see it clearly. I used to be someone he could trust, but I’m not anymore, and there’s nothing I can do to repair it.” There wasn’t enough glue or gold in the world to turn the fragments of what they’d been into something whole, let alone something lovely. “The love is still there, but it’s not enough.”

“It’s something,” Fingon said quietly. “Maybe it isn’t enough now, but it is a foundation. You can’t get back what once was, but you can build something new. It’s what we all have to do.”

“There’s nothing left of me to build with,” Maedhros whispered. Sometime over the summer he’d stopped feeling like he was burning—perhaps it had been when he’d fallen into the river. Now he just felt burnt, hollowed out, charred and blistered and aching. 

“That’s not true, Russo. You are different than you were, then. You are stronger than you think you are.”

“It’s—I’m not—I can’t be who you all expect me to be.”

“I have no expectations of you,” Fingon said.

Maedhros sighed. “Yes, you do. You look at me and you expect to see a person, but instead I’m just…a ghost, wearing the face of someone you used to love.”

“No, Maedhros,” said Fingon. He reached out to take Maedhros’ hand. “I do see a person. I see you, my dearest friend, and I see you are lost. Let me help you find your way back. If it isn't Maglor that troubles you, what is it? Your father?”

“I don’t…I don’t like knowing he’s so close, but not knowing what he is doing.” Maedhros lowered his gaze, looking at their hands, and at the grass beneath. Above them the breeze whispered through the willow leaves; the willow itself was full of sleepy thoughts of the coming winter. Maedhros wished that he could also just sleep the cold months away, that he could wake up in the springtime renewed, somehow. “He sent me a letter. And a gift.”

“I know. He and Celebrimbor spent a great deal of time together this summer. I think your nephew has been a very good influence on him. He seems to be embracing the spirit of Eregion, rather than returning to old habits. Have you read the letter?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Maedhros didn’t answer right away. A hawk cried somewhere in the distance, plaintive and lonely. He tried to sort out the tangle of painful feelings, tried to find words, but he didn’t think that he could. Fingon loved his father, had rejoiced when Fingolfin had returned from Mandos. Fingolfin had never put the works of his hands above the lives of his children. They had all fallen under the Doom, but only Fëanor’s sons had been oathbound, doubly cursed. Maedhros had loved his father too, but by the end fear had overtaken everything else. Even when he had stood aside as the ships burned he had done it feeling sick to his stomach, his whole body shaking, knowing that his father’s fury would be turned on him afterward. So it had, and afterward, between Losgar and the Dagor-nuin-Giliath, Fëanor had spoken no word to him that was not an order. Even his final words had been one last command, had been to bind them even more tightly to an Oath he had to have known, with the clarity of death’s eyes, would be fruitless, would only lead them to into further darkness and ruin. 

“Everyone says that Mandos healed him, that he is restored to who he was before,” he said finally, without looking up. “But I know…I know what he is capable of.”

“You are also capable of terrible things,” Fingon pointed out, so very gently. “So are we all. I don’t fear that you will do any of them again.”

“I suppose I know that, too, but he—I don’t know how to stop being afraid.”

“Would not his letter help? Would it help if I told you that he is choosing, thoughtfully and deliberately, to do things differently? We spoke a great deal this summer. He often asked me about you. I still cannot like him, and I’m not sure that I trust him very much either, but I think he really is trying to find a better way forward.”

“What did you tell him?”

“Very little. Finrod told him even less. We would not betray your confidence, Russo. He went to Elrond, too, but I do not know what Elrond might have said.”

“Very little. Nothing good.”

“He is kinder than that, Russo.”

“He is also honest.” Maedhros turned to set his back against the tree, and drew his knee up to his chest and rested his arm over it. “If he asks you again, you can tell him whatever you like. It doesn’t matter.”

“Of course it matters,” said Fingon. “What passes between us stays between us. Your trust means far more to me—and to Finrod—than whatever good might come of sharing your secrets with your father. Should you not, though, read his letter? At least you’ll know then what it says and you won’t be plagued by this uncertainty.” Fingon had never been able to live with uncertainties. If there was something to be learned he would learn it, no matter what it was, and once he knew everything he could he would set his course and not waver from it. In that respect he was much like Finwë. A little like Fëanor, too—though Fëanor was more likely to choose a path and force the circumstances to fit his desires, rather than the other way around. “Would it help you if I read it first? Unless you wish to keep it entirely private.”

“I’d share it with you anyway,” Maedhros sighed. It felt cowardly and foolish to be so relieved by the suggestion, but Fingon would be able to tell him the contents, if it was something he couldn’t bear to read, without inflicting the same pain that Fëanor’s own words would. “All right.”

He had put the letter under one of the jars of ithildin that Celebrimbor had brought, tucked into a far corner of the shelves in his studio, out of sight unless he went looking deliberately—which he did more often than he knew he should. Fingon picked up the other jar, examining it for a moment. “It’s beautiful,” he said.

“Tyelpë’s creation, from Eregion.”

“I’ve heard many marvelous stories of Eregion. I wish I could have seen it.” Fingon sighed and set the jar back down. “That is the letter?” 

“Yes.” It was folded over and sealed with a bit of red wax into which his father’s star had been pressed. When Maedhros handed it over Fingon broke the seal without hesitation. Maedhros didn’t watch him read, instead going over to the table where he’d left his sketchbook. It was open to another page where he’d been attempting to draw Himring. Somehow he just couldn’t get it right, even though he could see it so clearly in his memory. He’d abandoned charcoal for pencils, but it hadn’t helped. 

It did not take Fingon long. He placed the letter on the table, folded again. “You should read it,” he said quietly. “But I didn’t know you disliked your father-name so.” Maedhros grimaced. “Your brothers all still call you Nelyo.”

“They’ve called me that all their lives. It doesn’t feel the same. They didn’t choose it.”

“Does anyone else call you Nelyafinwë, now?”

“No. My father did, but I…well, you must know what I told him, if he wrote about it.”

“He did.” Fingon laid his hand on Maedhros’ arm. “Read the letter. Even if it doesn’t make it better, even if you don’t believe a word of it, at least you’ll know.” He left the studio then. Maedhros watched him return to the house, presumably to talk more about him with Caranthir. Then he sat down and picked up the letter. At least he could get it over with. 

 

Maedhros,

I am sorry. It’s too little, too late, but it is all I have. If I could go back there are a hundred, a thousand things I would do differently—anything to spare you the fate you have suffered. There are no excuses, nothing that can justify either the Oath, or Alqualondë, or Losgar. They were the result of nothing but wrath and jealousy and pride. I have left two of those things, at least, behind me, and if I must struggle to quash the last for the rest of time, I will do so.

You spoke nothing but the truth to me when we met, and I knew it already. I knew also that you and your brothers may not wish to see me. I had hoped otherwise, perhaps foolishly. I bound you to something terrible; I have been told since that it is the worst thing that a father could do to his children. Elrond does not mince words. “Slaying them yourself would have been kinder,” he said to me, and he was right, and in coming as I did I only caused you more pain, and I am sorry.

My memories of Mandos are fading, but there is one that remains, as vivid as though it just happened—when I went to seek for you. You were still burning, a bright white-hot flame, and you had retreated far away from all other spirits in the Halls, and would not suffer even Nienna, or the least of Námo’s Maiar to approach you. No one else seemed to understand why; but I did, for you are still my son, and I still know you. You were afraid. More than despair, more than self-hatred or guilt or pain, what your spirit burned with was fear. You were afraid too on the riverbank when we met again in life—I know you feared me, then, and I don’t blame you for it. I do not know what you feared in Mandos, where there was nothing that could have harmed you. I don’t even know if you realize just how afraid you have been. Whatever it is you fear, Maedhros, I hope you have found reassurance. I hope you can find a way to let it go. 

Telperinquar tells me you intend to take up painting when you return from your travels. He and I have made a gift for you—ithildin, a substance of his own design, with a few modifications we worked out between the two of us. I hope it will please you if you decide to use it. 

One thing more I would write of before I close—your name. Nelyafinwë. I see now why you would think that I named you to spite my brother, why you would think it less meaningful than any of your brothers’ names, only a place in a line, a point to make. That is not why I chose it. When you were born there were dozens of things I wished to call you. Perfect, precious, beautiful, lovely, adored. I did call you all those things, though you will not remember, each one a short-lived epessë when you were still very small. When I settled on naming you the third Finwë it was when I thought of what a miracle it was that you had been born at all, the firstborn of the third generation of Finwë’s line, the second generation born on these shores, after my father led our people through so much hardship and danger to reach them. You were born long before the feud between myself and Nolofinwë was anything more than quiet resentment on my part; I had left the palace, left Tirion entirely—you were born in the house of Mahtan and Ennalótë—and Nolofinwë was not in my thoughts at all. 

You are not, of course, perfect, though I think every parent will describe their newborn child thus, marveling at all your tiny fingers and toes, at your nose and your eyes and hair softer than silk and the bright and beautiful spark of your newborn spirit, and to give you such a name would have been to place a terrible burden on your shoulders. But you are beautiful, you are adored, you are precious—all of you are, all seven of you. I forgot it, or stopped caring, when I set the works of my own hands above you, and so set you on the road to your own destruction. Your brother does not mince words, either. It was the worst thing I have ever done, and to all of you who I love most, and I am so, so sorry.

I hope Macalaurë finds his way back to you. I hope you can come together and that you can, all seven of you, find a way forward. If nothing else, it seems that my coming has united you again as you had not been since your deaths. If that is all I accomplish in this second life of mine, I will be content.

I love you. Like apologies, it does not seem like enough, those three simple words, no matter how many times I write it. I love you, I love you, I love you.

 

The last line and the small star drawn under it blurred as he read it over and over, and he had to set the letter down lest tears fall and smudge the ink. He shoved it away and buried his face in his arms, allowing himself to indulge in a storm of tears. Six thousand years ago he would have done anything to hear those words from his father, just one more time, before the end. But to be told now, when he knew himself to be anything but beautiful or precious, after everything he had done and failed to do—no, he did not believe it. The only words he did believe in that letter were what Elrond and Maglor had said to Fëanor. It seemed incredible that anyone should have said such things and gotten away with it, but if anyone could, Maedhros thought it would be the two of them. Elrond had grown into someone utterly fearless, so perfectly confident in his own power and his wisdom that there was no room left for fear; and Maglor had always been far stronger than he believed himself to be—of all seven of them, now, he was the one who could face their father without flinching.

As he caught his breath, he heard the door open. He didn’t lift his head, even when hands came to rest on his shoulders. “You read it?” Caranthir asked.

“Yes,” Maedhros said. He straightened, and Caranthir hugged him from behind. Maedhros rested his hand on Caranthir’s arm, leaning back against him. Tears still fell, and he didn’t know how to stop them. “I think I hate him,” he whispered. 

“You aren’t alone,” Caranthir said. He hesitated for a moment before asking, “Does it change how you feel about Curvo, what you said to him over the summer?”

“No, of course not,” Maedhros said, and felt the tension in Caranthir’s arms release. “Is that what they fought about?”

“Yes. He’s gone to Tirion, and I don’t know where Tyelko went. I told Tyelko he was being unfair—and I wasn’t trying to make it worse, I just wanted Curvo to know I was on his side. But now Tyelko’s angry with me, too.”

“Huan went with him?”

“Yes. That’s the only reason I’m not that worried.” Caranthir rested his cheek on top of Maedhros’ head. “I burned the letter Atya sent me.”

“What was the gift?” If he’d sent letters to everyone, he’d also sent gifts. 

“A piece of blown glass, with the shape of a flower inside. Either he’s very out of practice, or he doesn’t know enough about flowers for it to be one in particular, but it looks a little like a peony.” Caranthir sighed. “I keep thinking I want to smash it, but I can’t quite make myself do it. I put it away instead, so at least I don’t have to look at it. Apparently Elrond told him I used to write to Bilbo about flowers.”

“Does that bother you?”

“That Elrond talked about me? No. I didn't write anything to Bilbo that I would mind being shared. We weren’t that sort of friends. When he didn’t write about flowers or history, he sent me recipes to try.” Caranthir kissed the top of Maedhros’ head and straightened. “Come inside. You can throw the letter on the fire if you want, and we can eat dinner.”

“I’m not—”

“You are hungry, Maedhros, even if you don’t feel it. Please eat something.”

Maedhros sighed, and wiped his sleeve across his face. “All right.” He took the letter inside with him, but didn’t immediately throw it into the fire. Instead he left it in his room, not quite sure why. Once he had washed his face and made himself somewhat presentable, he joined Fingon and Caranthir, who chatted very cheerfully, in a determined sort of way, about the latest gossip out of Tirion, and about the abundance of apples Lady Celebrían had been sending everyone, never once mentioning Fëanor’s name. Maedhros ate without tasting any of it, even though his stomach felt tied up in knots, because he knew they were both watching him. 

After dinner, Fingon found him in his room, on the bed by the window, looking out toward the river. He didn't say anything, just sat down behind him with a comb to tease out the day’s tangles. Finally, Maedhros said, “Do you believe it, what he wrote?”

“Yes,” Fingon said. He worked more slowly than Maedhros’ brothers, careful as he worked out the knots. He had shown the same care after Thangorodrim, insisting that Maedhros’ hair was not so matted and damaged that it couldn’t be saved. It had still had to be cut, in the end, but not as short as Maedhros had expected. Not as short as Maglor’s had been, long ago.

“I don’t.”

“That is no one’s fault but his,” Fingon said. “What of Curufin?”

“I told Curufin this summer that if he wanted to see our father, he should. I stand by it. I love him far more than I could ever hate Fëanor.”

“Do you? Hate Fëanor?”

“Yes? I don’t know. It’s—mostly it just hurts.”

“I’m sorry, Russo.” Fingon set the comb aside and wrapped his arms around Maedhros, resting his head on Maedhros’ back. “I wish I knew better how to help you.”

“You saved me a long time ago,” Maedhros said softly. “I’m only here at all because of you. I can’t ask any more.”

“You can always ask for more,” Fingon said. “That’s how this works, you know. Friendship, family. Would going away again help? I don’t mean to Tirion; you know Gilheneth and I have our estate in the north.”

Maedhros sighed. “No,” he said. “You’ll be wanted all winter in Tirion.”

“The world won’t end if I let my brother take my place.”

“You want to leave Turgon alone in Tirion with my father?”

“He wouldn’t be alone.”

“True. Finrod will be a terrible influence.”

Fingon huffed a laugh. “Was that a joke, Russo? Now I do believe you’re getting better.”

“I don’t feel better.”

“That’s often how it goes, isn’t it? But you are. Are you still afraid, as your father believes? What is it you fear?”

“I don’t know.” Maedhros looked out of the window again, at the darkening shape of the orchard, and the stars slowly coming out as twilight deepened in to evening. “I didn’t think I was afraid at all. Not in Mandos. Not in life. Not until my father came.”

“Do you think,” Fingon said, “that if you were able to identify what it is you fear, you would be able to let it go?”

“I fear my father.”

Fingon sighed. “You are stronger than he, Russo.”

“If that was so, the ships would have never burned at Losgar.” And if that was so, surely he would not feel so weak, or as though he had to always be looking over his shoulder just in case his father went back on his word and came to find him again. 

“You were strong enough to speak against it, and to stand aside, even then. I know how hard it was to withstand him.”

“I don’t want to have to be strong now. I just—I don’t know what I need.”

“I snooped through your sketchbook earlier. I’m glad you’re keeping the drawings now. They’re very good.” Fingon released him and picked up the comb again. “You should start painting.”

“I know. I just…”

“Either you pick up a paintbrush,” Fingon said, tugging gently on his hair, “or I will tie you up and drag you off to Lórien.”

“There isn’t anything Lórien can—”

“Maedhros.”

“All right.”

Maedhros dreamed that night of the battle that killed his father, only it became tangled up in the end of the world, and he kept trying to reach his father, reach his brothers, only for the ground to split apart around him, or to find his father already burning into ash—or else one of his brothers dead or dying, or a company of orcs or balrogs ready to ambush him. The sea rushed in, flooding the fiery rents in the earth and sending steam and foul fumes rushing up into the air, turning them all to ghosts around him, always just out of reach. He woke in the early morning gasping and choking on the memory of sulfur and molten stone, his hand throbbing in time with his heartbeat. For a while he lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, waiting for the pain to ebb. It took longer than it usually did when it was triggered by such a dream. Once he could use his hand, he dressed and went downstairs. It was very quiet, with only Caranthir and Fingon in the house, and he still kept looking down to make sure he wasn’t about to step on a hedgehog or a cat, even though they’d been gone for weeks. 

He missed the noise, especially the laughter. It was hard to smile or laugh even when he felt something like happy, but it had been nice to hear it all around him. As he put the kettle on for tea, he stared at the flames on the hearth and thought about sunsets, and about Curufin, who had been working so hard to find happiness, to find a way to build something new out of the ashes that lay between himself and his wife, his son. However it went between him and their father, he would be doubting himself, especially having left Celegorm furious and Maedhros entirely absent.

Once the tea was done Maedhros went out to his studio. He left his sketchbook alone and went instead to the canvases, and then to the paints, choosing the warmest shades of all the colors he wanted, all the while casting his thought back long ago to all he’d been taught about mixing paints and colors, about shades and shadows, light and dark, warm and cool. It was easier to remember than he had thought it would be. It wouldn’t be so easy to put into practice again—but surely that would come with time. 

Maedhros wasn’t the only one who had taken up an unfamiliar craft, he thought as he opened the first jar. He imagined Maglor in Elrond’s valley, maybe at that moment, sitting down at a pottery wheel, his face intent and gaze focused, thinking of nothing but what was before him and what it would become. If he could do it, after so many years lost and alone, surely Maedhros could teach himself how to find peace in the painting of a sunset.