High in the Clean Blue Air by StarSpray  

---

Fifty Three

---

In the end it was two years before Maglor left the valley again. It was much easier there to feel as though he was on firm ground, to feel happy and able to put the past where it belonged and even to forget about it for long stretches of time. His mother and grandmother both visited him there, and he knew they were surprised to find him laughing and at ease. He hoped it put at least some of his mother’s worries to rest.

The shadows of the past were still there though, and they still reached out to trip him up from time to time, leaving him shaking after a nightmare or simply unable to shed a heavy sense of gloom and melancholy. That might last days, or only a few hours. In the middle of it, he sometimes found himself treading dangerously close to despair. 

It helped that he could speak to Elrond whenever he wished, of the past or of the present, or anything at all. It helped to make things with his hands and to make music with Daeron—and to wake up every morning beside him, knowing even before he opened his eyes that he wasn’t alone. It helped to curl up with his cat in a patch of sunshine and watch his hedgehog trundle around the flowerbeds. It helped that Elrond could always tell, and always had athelas ready to chase away the worst of the dark thoughts. But it didn’t stop everything. 

“What was it you wanted to tell me about my father?” Maglor asked Elrond one sunny spring morning. There remained a slight chill in the air, and they sat in a patch of sunshine with steaming mugs of tea—a gift from Caranthir, golden-colored and gently floral. They had not spoken of Fëanor since Maglor had first come back to the valley; it was long overdue, but Maglor hadn’t been able to bring himself to ask before now.

“It might be something he told you in his letter,” Elrond said. He watched a pair of sparrows hopping around across the veranda, pecking at seeds scattered there for them by Celebrían. “When he first spoke to Fingolfin, he said that he came from Mandos because of you.”

“He wrote that,” Maglor murmured. “Do you believe him?”

“He has no reason to lie. He often came to me over that summer to ask about you, you know.”

“Yes, that was also in the letter.” Maglor slouched in his seat, watching the steam rise from his cup. “He said he hoped I wouldn’t be angry with you for telling him so much. As though I could ever be angry with you.”

Elrond smiled briefly. “I thought that if you wanted anything from him, it would be understanding.”

“I don’t know what I want. I don’t know if the kind of understanding I wish he had is something that’s possible—and the wishing isn’t…it isn’t kind. What else would you have me know?”

“He is able to let himself be teased, now,” Elrond said after some thought. “I warned him after Findis knocked him into the pond that there would be songs made of it, and then I reminded him of his own words—of the deeds of the Noldor being the matter of song, and all that.” Maglor snorted in spite of himself, almost inhaling a sip of tea. “He laughed at it. That must mean something, that he can laugh at himself. I also gave him a book of your music, one of the copies from your room.”

That was surprising, though Maglor wasn’t sure why. Fëanor had written about hearing some of his songs. “What did he say?”

“He only thanked me. I don’t know what he thinks of the songs themselves. It pleased him, I think, to see the harp that you made—to know that you still work with wood. He told me how Finwë was the one to teach you.”

“Did you know he made me a set of tools? For working wood and for working clay.”

“I knew he made something of course, but not what. Have you used them?”

“No.” They remained where he had put them after Celegorm’s brief visit, untouched and mostly disregarded. Maglor dropped his head back onto his chair and gazed up at the sky as the sunshine dimmed a little. He saw a haze of clouds gathering, slowly thickening. It would rain later. “I dreamed of him last night. I was searching through darkened Tirion, trying to find him, but the streets were empty and all I could hear was the rush of the Sea, and his voice swearing the Oath, always somewhere just out of sight.” He sighed. “I really do need to go to Lórien, I think. The past did not feel like such a weight across the Sea.”

“The past was not walking around just out of sight across the Sea,” Elrond said. “Will you go this year, then?

“Yes. In a few weeks, maybe.” At the start of May—the time he had come to Imladris, long ago, and the time he had stepped aboard Círdan’s last ship. He remembered Frodo once talking about September in a similar way, having been the start of so many important chapters of his own life. “Did Frodo ever go there?”

“Yes. Gandalf took him straight from Eressëa, even before he came here. He stayed for several years, and came back with clearer eyes and a more settled heart—and the anniversaries in October and March did not make him ill, after that. It did not fix everything, but time and companionship did the rest. I think Celebrimbor’s friendship in particular was a great comfort to him.” Elrond looked over at Maglor. “The past won’t stop being heavy, you know.”

“Then I must learn how to carry it better.”

“We’ll all be waiting when you return,” Elrond said. He reached out to take Maglor’s hand. “But do not hurry. Will you go alone?”

“I’m going to ask Maedhros to go with me.”

Elrond smiled at that, but squeezed Maglor’s hand. “If he hesitates, ask him why he is afraid.”

“You think he’s afraid of Lórien?” Maedhros was many things, but Maglor was not accustomed to thinking of him as fearful. Maglor was the one who had to push himself, stumbling, through heavy and paralyzing fears; Maedhros just kept moving, never faltering—even at the end, even now.

“I begin to think self-hatred and despair are not what held him back in Mandos. Many others have gone there feeling similarly, and have found healing—I suspect your other brothers are among them. There is something else at work. You understand that fear, I think—and that may be what will convince him to go with you. Both of you know the weight of an Ainu’s gaze, and what they are capable of when they wish to do harm. The difference is that I think Maedhros has felt thus for so long that he’s forgotten it has a name, and that it can be overcome. I think maybe this is something that has lingered since he was brought back from Thangorodrim.”

It so happened that Mablung arrived at the end of April, prepared to, as he said, tie Daeron up toss him over a horse’s back to take him back to Thingol's court, where he was both wanted and missed. Daeron rolled his eyes at him. “Are you sure you don’t want me to go to Lórien with you?” he asked Maglor, perched on the window seat and watching him pack his bag. He wasn’t taking much; Lórien would provide all that he needed, except his harp. 

“I’m sure,” Maglor said. “You should return to your own people—I really don’t think Mablung intends to give you much of a choice, anyway.”

“If I can outrun the armies of Mordor I can outrun my cousin. The last time you went traveling alone, you were horribly troubled.”

Maglor looked up at him and smiled. “I’m not, now. I need what Estë offers, but I’m not suffering from any kind of dark mood at this moment, and—and if all goes well, I won’t be traveling to Lórien alone.”

“Your cat and your hedgehog don’t count.”

“I’ll have a horse, too.”

Daeron laughed. He rose and came to run his fingers through Maglor’s hair. “I know you aren’t fond of these,” he said, twisting one of the white strands around his fingers, “but I think it looks like moonbeams have been caught in your hair. Go to Lórien, then, and drowse some years away among Estë’s poppies. I’ll find something to do with myself in the meantime, I suppose.”

“You’ll find plenty to do with yourself, I think,” Maglor said. “Here.” He drew a wooden pendant from his pocket, just big enough to nestle in the middle of his palm—the same size as the stone he had taken from Ekkaia that now sat beside the box of seashells on his bookcase—and pressed it into Daeron’s hand. He’d carved it out of silvery mallorn wood, and inlaid the shape of an aster flower on one side in purple enamel, and on the other, in gold, the first handful of notes of the song they’d sung together on Ekkaia’s shores. “That journey would have gone very differently if I had not met you on the road,” Maglor said, as Daeron turned it over in his fingers, “if you had not decided to come look for me. Thank you.”

“There’s no need for thanks.” Daeron kissed him. “I am so very, very glad we met when we did. I did not realize how lonely I felt until you stepped aboard that ship and I found it so easy to speak to you again—or how lonely it would be to return so changed among those who knew me long ago, having seen places and done things they never have or will. My heart beats easier for having traveled and lingered here with you. Take however long you need in Lórien, beloved. I will be here to meet you when you return, and we will make such music together that even the Valar will pause to listen in amazement.”

When Maglor left Imloth Ningloron at last, with Leicheg in her basket and Pídhres perched before him on the saddle, he found the roads very busy with people coming and going from the lands to the south where great gatherings of Yavanna, Nessa, and Vána’s folk were held each spring. It was also a time of year that often brought ships out of the east, and Maglor thought there must be many among the travelers he saw on their way to Tol Eressëa to greet long-awaited loved ones. When he closed his eyes he could see the shores of Middle-earth receding into the distance across the waves, with the stars shining overhead in the twilight, and he felt again the pang of homesickness for those wide and wild lands he would never see again. That was one grief he did not want to let go; those lands, more than anything else, had shaped him into who he was, and he would always love them, always miss them.

He came to his mother’s house in the middle of the afternoon. His grandmother’s garden was as vibrant as Celebrían’s, flowers glowing like jewels in the bright May sunshine, and the roses that climbed up the side of Nerdanel’s workshop were all in bloom, a burst of bright pink and white and red against the pale stone. Beyond, the plum orchard was a small sea of pink blossoms, and the breeze that wafted up toward the road smelled sweetly of them and of the roses. Maglor went to his grandparents’ stables to leave his horse, and to greet Mahtan when he emerged from his forges. “Macalaurë! What brings you here? I hope a good long visit.” He embraced Maglor tightly. 

“Not this time,” Maglor said. “But someday soon, I hope. Is Ammë at home?”

“No, she’s been in Valmar these last few months, visiting Indis and installing a few sculptures for Ingwë, and she did not say when she would return. Your brothers are all at home, however. She’ll be disappointed to know she missed all seven of you.” He set his hands on Maglor’s shoulders and looked him up and down. “I am glad to see you smiling. Will you join us for dinner tonight?”

“I don’t know. If all of my brothers are here I think…I think I want to be just with them. But next time I visit, I’ll come to stay with you for a while. I promise.”

“Good.” Mahtan smiled warmly at him, and pressed a kiss to his forehead, his hands big and warm on Maglor’s cheeks. “We miss you, Macalaurë.”

“I miss you, too.”

Maglor carried Leicheg back through the orchard, Pídhres trotting along at his heels, and before he came to the garden where he heard his brothers’ voices he set her down, and let her scurry away through the grass and around the lilac bushes as he waited. Pídhres chased after her, and it was only a minute or two before he heard Caranthir exclaim in surprise, echoed a second later by Ambarussa. Curufin came around the bushes a moment later, looking bemused. His face lit up when he saw Maglor. “Cáno!”

“Curvo!” Maglor opened his arms, laughing when Curufin lunged at him. “I didn’t expect to find you here.”

“We didn’t expect to see you! What brings you here? Ammë is away in Valmar.”

“Grandfather told me.” Maglor followed Curufin back into the garden, where Caranthir had Pídhres in his arms; she was purring and rubbing her head against his chin as he pet her. Leicheg was enjoying attention from Ambarussa, but both of them were abandoned as soon as Maglor appeared, and he found himself buried under his brothers, not unlike he’d been by Ekkaia. This was a far merrier meeting—though not everyone was there as he had hoped. “Where are Celegorm and Maedhros?”

“Maedhros is out by the river,” Caranthir said. “He goes out there most afternoons now that it’s warm. I don’t know where Tyelko’s gone. He was here a moment ago.

“Did you quarrel when he visited you?” Amrod asked. He knelt down to pick up Leicheg again. “He wouldn’t tell us.”

“Not exactly,” said Maglor, glancing at Curufin, whose smile had disappeared. “Are you two still at odds?”

“No,” said Curufin. “But now it seems he’s at odds with you, and if it’s because I—”

“It isn’t, and we aren’t. He’s just being an idiot again. I’ll speak to him and make it right, if he’ll listen.”

“Good luck,” Caranthir muttered. 

“I want to see Maedhros first, though. That’s why I came—but I am glad to see all of you, before I go to Lórien.”

“What’s the matter?” Amras asked, sounding alarmed. 

“Nothing,” Maglor said. “At least, nothing new. It’s just—the past is still a heavy weight for me, and I’m tired of carrying it the way that I have been. I keep tripping over it. I feel perfectly happy today, but I might not tomorrow, and I hate it. But please don’t start worrying again. I’m really much better now than I was when I last was here.”

“You look better,” said Caranthir. “Where is Daeron? I would have thought he’d be stuck to your side still.”

“He’s been summoned back to Thingol’s court,” said Maglor. “Mablung came to drag him back. And really, there’s no reason for him to go with me all the way to Lórien. I need it, he doesn’t.”

“So you’re just going to go alone?”

“Maybe not.” Maglor offered them a smile. “I’m going to find Maedhros. If Celegorm returns before we do, have Huan sit on him so he doesn’t run away before I can come back.”

He left the garden, following the familiar path down to the river. It gleamed under the sun, and the stones in its bed seemed to glow, warm gold and bronze. Maglor followed it upstream, trailing his hands through the reeds and cattails, pausing to watch a heron step slowly and carefully through the shallows across the way, hunting for its lunch. A lark was singing in the willows ahead, as bright and cheerful as the dandelions and buttercups scattered through the grass. Once upon a time he’d come out there to sit among the reeds and the tall grass, so watch crickets and frogs and the blackbirds, and escape the chaos of six brothers and even more numerous adults. Maedhros had been the one to come after him, more often than not—the only one he’d ever let find him every single time. 

Maglor sighed, raising his head to see a flash of red hair between the waving willow fronds ahead. Once upon a time Maedhros was the one person in the world he was always happy to see. The one person who knew all of his secrets, all of his hopes and daydreams, the first to hear every new song, the first with whom he always wanted to share his triumphs and joys—and sorrows, though they had been so few in those days. Their childhood was one of laughter, rather than tears. Maglor missed that closeness so much that it ached. 

Finally, though, he could see a way forward. 

Maedhros looked up when Maglor ducked through the willows, tensing for a moment until he saw who it was. “Maglor?”

“Maedhros.” Maglor sat beside him and leaned his head over onto Maedhros’ shoulder. He had his sketchbook open to a detailed study of the willow roots dipping into the water at his feet. “That’s lovely,” Maglor said. 

“Just practice. I don’t draw water very often,” Maedhros said, but he didn’t close the book. “The others are all back at the house.”

“I know. I came to see you.” Maglor didn’t lift his head, and Maedhros, with a sigh, leaned back, his cheek resting against the top of Maglor’s head. They’d sat like this before, long ago, for hours as they talked about anything and everything, or just in companionable silence, taking comfort in each other’s presence. “You’re painting?” Maglor asked, reaching for Maedhros’ hand. There were smudges of blue on his fingers, and darker paint caught under his fingernails. Maglor still had clay under his own; he’d spent the afternoon before at the pottery wheel, losing himself in the rhythms of it one more time before he went traveling again. 

“I’m trying,” Maedhros said, but his tone did not hold the same hopelessness that usually accompanied those words; it was wry instead. “I never learned to hold a brush left-handed. There was no call for it in Beleriand. It’s harder than I thought it would be.”

“Do you like it?”

“Yes.” Maedhros sighed again. “More than I thought I would. I only started because I promised Curvo I would paint him that Midsummer sunset, but it’s—it’s like drawing. It makes it easier to stop thinking.”

“Have you managed to draw Himring to your satisfaction yet?”

“No. I don’t know why.”

They sat in silence for a few minutes. For the first time in a long time it was comfortable, companionable. “I miss you,” Maglor said finally, listening to the lark singing and to the water flowing. “I miss this.”

“I do too.”

Maglor reached into his satchel and pulled out the cup that Maedhros had dropped. “I fixed it,” he said, setting it on top of the sketchbook. Maedhros picked it up, turning it over so the light caught on the metal painted over the lacquer-repaired cracks. Maglor had not used gold, choosing copper instead. It shone brightly against the dark blue of the cup itself.

“It’s lovely,” Maedhros said after a few moments, rubbing his thumb over a chip along the edge that had had to be filled in.

“More things can be fixed than you might think,” Maglor said softly. 

“Maybe.”

“You asked me once what I needed you to do.”

“And you said you didn’t know.”

“I’ve been thinking about it. And—it isn’t about forgiving you anymore. I think I forgave you a long time ago. I just couldn’t recognize it through the tangle of—”

“Cáno, you don’t have to—”

“Please let me speak.” Maglor sat up and turned so he was facing Maedhros. Maedhros looked at him. He was thinner than he’d been when Maglor had last seen him, and he still looked tired—but his gaze was clear when it met Maglor’s, and he did not turn away. “I do forgive you, Maedhros. I did a long time ago, it just still hurts to see you, and see you still—still as you are.”

“I am better,” Maedhros said quietly.

“I can see it now. But both of us need help beyond what we can find either here or in Imloth Ningloron.” Maglor reached for his hand, sliding their palms together, scar to scar. “I’m going to Lórien. I came here first to ask you to go with me.” 

Maedhros did not let go of Maglor’s hand, but he did hesitate. “I don’t think…”

“Why are you afraid?”

Maedhros’ eyes went wide for a moment, and when he spoke he sounded uncertain. “I’m—I’m not afraid. Not of Lórien, or Estë, I just—I don’t think there’s anything—”

“How can you know unless you try? Estë is not Námo, and neither of them are the Enemy.” Maedhros flinched; there it was. “Elrond was right, then.”

“How can Elrond possibly know what my thoughts are? We’ve spoken once in all the time he has been here, and—”

“Elrond has healed enough people to be able to recognize certain signs. Like fear—the kind that digs in so deep you stop recognizing it for what it is. And he knows me, and we aren’t so dissimilar.” Maedhros started to shake his head, but Maglor only gripped his hand tighter. “I do understand what you did. I understand despair, and fear, and pain, and how sometimes it feels as though it isn’t even worth trying to find relief because it’s gone on so long already.”

“To punish yourself, because no one else will,” Maedhros whispered.

“Is that what you’re doing, even still?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to. I just—he’s out there, and I know that he promised he wouldn’t come back, but I can’t—I forgot what it’s like to be so vigilant, always, how tiring it is. Only this time I don’t have Himring—I don’t have walls to retreat behind that will hold against anything thrown at them. I don’t have anywhere safe—”

“He isn’t our enemy,” Maglor said, “however much he might feel like one.”

“I know. That doesn’t make it easier.”

“Please come with me to Lórien. If nothing else, it is far away, and no one’s rest there is disturbed unless they wish for it. And when we come back we’ll both be stronger. Maybe we’ll even be able to set aside the fear.”

“Not everything can be fixed, Cáno.”

“You don’t need to be fixed. You need to be able to rest. The time for punishment and judgment is over. We are more than our worst deeds, more than our suffering, like Arda is more than its marring.”

Maedhros shook his head, just once. “Those do not sound like your words.”

“They are Nienna’s. I want to believe her, Nelyo. I need her to be right. Please come with me.”

“I’ll come. Of course I’ll come, Maglor. I’ll do anything you want, if it is in my power.”

Maglor let go of Maedhros’ hand and threw his arms around him instead. Maedhros held onto him just as tightly. It felt like some great weight had been lifted, like storm clouds had cleared to reveal clear skies, like the distance between them had shrunk from the vastness of Belegaer to almost nothing. It felt like he had his big brother back, at last.

It was late enough for the sunshine to have turned a deeper shade as they left the willow to walk back to Nerdanel’s house, making the world glow. The river shone like liquid gold, and birds were singing in the tall grasses. A red-winged blackbird took off as they passed it by, the red spots on its wings flashing ruby-bright before it winged away across the water to the fields beyond. Maedhros wrapped his arm around Maglor’s shoulders, and Maglor slid his around Maedhros’ ribs, the two of them falling into step as easily as they had long ago making this same walk along the river.

They stepped under the plum trees, and Maglor saw a flash of silver ahead. He released Maedhros and quickened his pace, catching Celegorm before he could slip away. “Tyelko, wait.”

“Maglor, I—”

“No, listen.” Maglor pulled him into a tight hug. Celegorm’s hair smelled like sun warmed grass, but he held himself rigidly, trembling a little under Maglor’s hands. “I’m not angry with you. You frightened me.”

“I’m sorry,” Celegorm whispered, the rigid tension releasing in a rush as he dropped his head onto Maglor’s shoulder. “I shouldn’t have said—I didn’t mean it like it sounded. I don’t want to go back now that I’m here, and I didn’t even really want to stay. I promise. I’m sorry.”

Maedhros came to join them under the tree. He rested his hand on the back of Celegorm’s head, and his other arm around Maglor’s shoulders. “We all should not have to be a burden you carry, Celegorm,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry. You did, though—bring us together, all of us. You can step back, now, and let us pull our own weight.” Celegorm made a noise that sounded dangerously close to a sob, but he nodded, lifting his head. Maedhros bent down to kiss the top of it.

“I wanted to run away, when I first saw you,” Maglor said, “but I am so glad now that I didn’t. It was hard, and it hurt, but I think that journey, that summer, was what I needed—what we all needed.” He grabbed Celegorm’s hand, and Maedhros’ arm. “Come on. Everyone else is waiting. And don’t tell Gandalf what I just said,” he added as he pulled the two of them along behind him. “He’ll be insufferably smug about it.”

“He’s already insufferably smug,” Celegorm said, wiping his sleeve across his eyes. “He was far too pleased with himself, going on about pottery without making the least bit of sense.”

“It made sense,” Maedhros said. “He wasn’t really speaking of pottery.”

“Well, I’m glad you understood,” Celegorm muttered. 

They returned to mild chaos in the house, as four of them in the small kitchen was too many, no matter how many carrots and potatoes needed peeling, and all seven of them was far too many. “Why does it smell like the Shire?” Maglor asked as Caranthir shoved a pile of plates into his hands to take to the dining room. 

“Bilbo Baggins taught Moryo to cook,” Amras said, and ducked under a swing from Caranthir.

“I’ve always been good at cooking. Better than you—”

“You burnt an entire boar that one time—”

“At least I don’t serve all my food raw like some kind of beastly—”

“That’s enough,” Maedhros said, tone mild but voice pitched just right to cut through the rising argument. The bickering didn’t stop, but no one tried to hit anyone again as the food was brought into the dining room and the places were all laid. It was an odd mixture of habits, some from their youth and others gained in Beleriand—such as the order in which they at last sat down to eat, with Maedhros at the head of the table and the rest of them in descending order down the table by age. Celegorm sat across from Maglor, on Maedhros’ left. Maglor sat at his right, and when he looked up from shooing Pídhres away he found everyone looking at him. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked. 

“Nothing,” said Caranthir, reaching abruptly for the wine. 

“Last time we all sat down at this table like this,” said Curufin, “it was to talk about you and Atar—and your seat was empty.”

“What, you held some kind of war council about me?”

“Mostly Atar,” said Amrod. “But it was while we were waiting for news of you from Avallónë. It’s just nice to see you back where you’re supposed to be.”

Oh. Maglor glanced at Maedhros, who offered a small smile—but still a smile. 

“Are you two on speaking terms again, then?” Caranthir asked.

Before Maglor or Maedhros could answer the front door opened. “Carnistir?” Nerdanel called. “Who’s all here with you?”

“We’re in here, Ammë,” Caranthir called, and all of them rose as Nerdanel appeared in the doorway, still in the process of removing her cloak.

“Oh!” She stopped short, a hand flying to her mouth as she looked at them with wide eyes. Tears filled them when she saw Maglor, standing by Maedhros at the head of the table. “What’s all this, then?” she asked after a moment, recovering herself. “All seven of you!”

“You’re just in time to eat, Ammë,” said Amras as Amrod disappeared into the kitchen for another plate. 

“Hello, Ammë,” Maglor said, going to embrace her. She held on very tightly for a moment. “I thought you were in Valmar.”

“I finished my errands early.” Nerdanel took his face in her hands and kissed his cheeks before releasing him and taking her own seat at the other end of the table. “What brings you here then, all seven of you? What a wonderful surprise to come home to!”

“Chance, really,” said Amras. “Macalaurë only arrived this afternoon, without telling anybody that he was coming.”

“I didn’t think I would find anyone here except Carnistir and Maitimo,” said Maglor, as he reached for one of the rolls in the basket before him. “And I am sorry, Ammë, but I do not intend to stay long. I am going to Lórien for a while—and Maitimo is coming with me.”

“Really?” chorused Ambarussa. 

“Finally,” Caranthir sighed at the same time, glancing at Maedhros with naked relief on his face. 

“I’m not sure it will help,” Maedhros said. 

“I do,” Maglor said, placing his hand over Maedhros’ wrist. “I need it, and I don’t want to go alone. There’s no telling how long we’ll be gone, though. If Curvo and Tyelko start fighting again, Moryo, you’ll have to just knock their heads together.”

“Oh don’t say that,” Curufin sighed as Caranthir laughed. “He’ll do it.”

“Don’t fight, then!” Caranthir said. 

“I’m glad you’re going too, Nelyo,” Celegorm said more quietly. 

Nerdanel got up and came around to their end of the table to embrace both of them, kissing their foreheads. “I’m so glad,” she whispered. “Especially that you are going together, and Maitimo I do believe it will help you. If nothing else, it will allow you to rest for a while in peace.”

They stayed two days more, because Nerdanel was so happy to have them all there and happy to be so, and Maglor took advantage of the time to write to Míriel, asking for a favor upon their return. His mother promised to make sure it got to her. Maglor was itching to be on the road again, however. They left for Lórien early in the morning. Pídhres abandoned Maglor for Maedhros, curling around his shoulders. The sun leaped up over the mountains in the east; it had rained the night before and the world seemed freshly washed, sparkling and clean. Maglor tilted his head back, letting the sunlight fall on his face. Tirion retreated behind them, falling swiftly out of sight, and as it did Maedhros breathed a sigh, visibly relaxing. He still looked tired, but even just resolving to go seemed to have helped. 

The weather was fine for the first few days of their journey. They spoke little; Maglor sang sometimes, but more often neither of them felt the need to fill the silence. Then as one afternoon started to wane, as they passed off of the main road to a narrower track leading through meadows of cornflowers and celandine, Maedhros asked, “How did you do it, Cáno?”

“Do what?”

“Come out of—come out of Dol Guldur still with hope.”

Maglor looked at him in surprise. “I didn’t,” he said.

But Maedhros shook his head. “We all looked for you one afternoon, in the palantír,” he said. 

“I know.”

“I looked too far back by mistake. I saw you—it must have been just after you were brought out of there. You were sitting in a bed by a window, and I watched you reach out to pick a mallorn leaf from the nearest branch. It must have been winter, because they were all golden yellow.”

“I remember,” Maglor said. “It was late in the autumn, not quite winter.” The memory was still very vivid in his own mind, the raindrops shining on the leaves in the bright autumn sunshine like round pebbles of diamond, and the sound of them cascading down out of sight to the branches below when he plucked the leaf. He remembered his own weakness, how he could barely lift his arms to reach out of the window, and how his hands had trembled once he held the leaf in them, and the leaf’s own waxy smoothness, the tiny ridges of the veins branching out from the stem. His lips had hurt, his whole mouth and jaw sore and aching from years of being unable to open it, and from having just had the cords removed. In spite of the pain he had felt odd and insubstantial, as though in danger of dissolving on a stray breeze. Of unraveling like a poorly-woven tapestry.

He hadn’t, of course. He’d been solid enough to grab onto the leaf, even if he had been too weak and lost to believe any of the words Galadriel said to him afterward. “Those leaves…they were the first thing I saw in the sunlight again, after Dol Guldur. I’d forgotten that there were such colors as that in the world.”

“You saw something beautiful,” Maedhros said quietly, “and your first thought was to reach for it. What is hope, if not that?”

“It didn’t feel like hope.” 

Elladan had said something similar to him once though, that they had had hope for him, even from the beginning, because the first thing he had done, even weakened as he was, even before he had reached for the mallorn leaf, had been to stretch his hands out of the window to feel the rain on his skin. “You kept reaching out, always,” Elladan had said. It had been long ago, the two of them curled up on pillows in the Hall of Fire while a blizzard howled outside, a few years after Elrond had left, after a bad few days when the shadows had lain heavily over Maglor, and he’d fallen into a mood uncomfortably close to despair which he had no expectations of ever climbing back out. “You never withdrew into yourself, you still wanted to be a part of the world, even if you didn’t realize it. We feared for you, of course, because such things are never certain, but we never despaired of your healing—and that is why I know you will recover from this, too, the same way that I know the storm will pass and the sun will shine down on the valley to make the snowdrifts glow.”

“What did it feel like?” Maedhros asked, in the present under the bright spring sun, far away from the darkness of Dol Guldur.

“I don’t know. I just—I’ve never known how to do anything else. I did not want to die. Not really, not even when I wished I could.”

“When did you—”

“In the dark—but he was called the Necromancer for a reason. Death would not have been an escape. I lost so much of myself, even when I was brought out of there I was sure there wasn’t any way back, that the bright golden leaves and the elanor and niphredil and the sunlight and the rain—that none of it was meant for me.” Maglor looked over at Maedhros, saw the sudden grief there. “Don’t, Maedhros. I don’t feel that way now, and I was wrong. There was a way back. I only needed help to find it. I’m here now because Elladan and Elrohir and Arwen loved me before they ever even knew me, and because Galadriel was kind when she did not have to be, and because Elrond never stopped loving me. Like you are here because Fingon loves you, and our brothers, and our mother.”

“I want to be able to reach back,” Maedhros said after they rode for a few minutes in silence. 

“You are,” Maglor said. “You were reaching when you put yourself between me and the hill cat, and when you got Celegorm and Curufin to start talking again—when you painted the sunset for Curufin. You are reaching now, by coming with me. What is that, if not hope?”

The wind picked up suddenly, and clouds moved in from the northwest. Maglor urged his horse into a canter, Maedhros just a step behind him, and they reached a thick stand of trees to shelter under just before the skies opened. Maglor dropped to the ground alongside Maedhros; Pídhres complained about the sudden burst of speed as Maglor let Leicheg down to snuffle about in the pine needles at their feet. Maedhros leaned back against the thick trunk of one of the trees, watching the rain with a faraway look on his face. Maglor joined him, and leaned on his shoulder. Maedhros’ arm came up around his back, his hand resting over Maglor’s windblown hair. 

“I don’t remember what hope feels like,” Maedhros said after a few minutes of watching the rain. 

It was warm under the trees, the air still and pine-scented. Pídhres had settled down again and started to purr. Beyond the rainstorm blue skies appeared in the distance where the clouds were already breaking, bright and clean. Maedhros’ arm around him was heavy and solid. He did not know what they would find in Lórien, or how long it would take either of them to find real, lasting peace, but for the first time in a very long time, he was certain that they would. “I think,” Maglor said, “that it feels like this.”