One In the Fires of the Heart of the World by Isilme_among_the_stars  

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Little Pity

There are mentions of Finwë's and Fingon's deaths in this chapter. Descriptions are brief and more emotive than graphic. Please read with care. 

It was impossible to tell how long Maedhros remained closed off. There was no way to measure time here. No coming up of the sun, nor turning of stars in the sky. It could have been minutes, or hundreds of years.

The great thunder of noise had ceased. In the renewed quiet his thoughts sparked like lightening, terrifying flashes illuminating the darkness, impossible to ignore. It was the choice of one storm or the other. He chose the lightening.

When Námo brushed against Maedhros’s consciousness, he was quite polite about it. It was as if he tapped on the kitchen window and asked to join him for a warming pot of tea and casual conversation. Maedhros suspected the subject matter would not be casual at all. When a Vala wished to speak to you it rarely was. He let down his barrier cautiously, admitting Námo, and Námo only.

“It will do you no good you know,” Námo said, “Closing off like that.”

It… it was so… loud. I just needed quiet.

“Yes, it is rather busier here than when Míriel came,” Námo said drily. He gave the distinct impression that if he had been wearing a physical form, he would have been staring intently at his fingers as he picked a speck of dirt from beneath a fingernail.

Was that a sense of humour? In Námo?

“I don’t know why you’re so surprised. Serving as the Doomsman of the Valar doesn’t preclude humour.”

You are not what I was expecting. None of this is what I was expecting.

“All manner of things in this world rarely are.”

The statement did not particularly invite an answer. Maedhros stayed silent.

“She still comes here. Quite often actually. Though she was re-embodied long ago.”

Whom?

“Míriel. Her name has been bouncing about your fëa since you arrived. You were practically broadcasting it, before you closeted yourself away. The two of you are not as alike as you think, yet not entirely dissimilar.”

Why do I not find rest here as she did?

“Because of the ways you are different, Maitimo.”

Don’t call me that.

“Why not? Is it not your name?”

Not one I am comfortable with.

“You may want to consider why that is so. Do not give me any nonsense about being “well-shaped” no longer, for we both know that has nothing to do with it.”

Maedhros scoffed. When have I ever said as much? Though it was convenient not to correct that assumption. No, Maitimo is the name of someone long gone. Someone who would not have been burned by a Silmaril.

“Good, you have already begun. But there is a long way yet to go.”

That is both cryptic and ominous.

“Both benefits of being Doomsman. I can be as cryptic and ominous as I like, and no one can complain.”

I know what you are doing, you know. With the humour.

“And what am I doing, son of Fëanor?”

You’re putting me at ease. I have done it enough times with men before a battle to know it when I hear it. What I have not worked out is why. We are not gearing up for battle, are we?

“Not in the way you are imagining. Does everything truly feel like war to you now? No, do not answer that. You already know that it should not. Come. Not all Mandos is as crowded as this chamber. I shall lead you to a quieter one, provided you endeavour to open a little. There are others here I believe you shall find it very helpful to connect with.”

Are you…pitying me? I thought…

“The prophecy said little pity, not none. You may also wish to consider the meaning of that while you are pondering on your name.”

Maedhros shuddered.

“Why do you assume it is because I do not wish to give any?” There was a distinct amount of annoyance in that statement.

Because it was your proclamation.

“I speak truth, not my own will. Sometimes, they even align. Think on that too.”

There are many things you seem to wish me to think about.

“There are many things in which you seem to remain ignorant. I hope it is not wilfully so.” Námo gave the impression of looking down his nose at Maedhros, one eyebrow raised, “You will have an abundance of time. When you tire of the company of your own thoughts, I suggest you seek out Finwë. He will be pleased, if that is the right word, to speak with you again.”

That name slapped stingingly across Maedhros’s fëa, carrying the weight of dark memories he had thought long put aside. Rushing headlong back to Formenos under a newly darkened sky, Maglor had cried out in warning, “Do not go so fast! Do you wish to break your neck?”

None of them could see very well and likely neither could their horses. It was dangerous, galloping as they did, but he and all his brothers besides, feared more what may await them in the unnatural dark. They did not slow. Maedhros had meant to seek out Finwë’s leadership and was already planning a step ahead for the ride to Tirion. For surely Finwë’s first thought would be of Fingolfin, who ruled in his stead, and of coming to his aid without delay.

“Haru!” he called, dismounting and leaving the reigns to Celegorm, “Haru, where are you? Are you here still?”

Mounting steps two at a time, he came to the broken doors, and saw over late the pool on the threshold, inky dark. The blood was on Maedhros’s boots before he knew what he stepped in. Like ice, he recalled. It was like ice, the feeling that ran down his spine at the sight of Finwë’s broken form. The cold horror stole his voice. It was Maglor that had broken the silence, screamed out a raw feral cry that reverberated off the stones and echoed through the woods beyond. He could still hear that awful sound.

Maedhros tried to pace away the memory lest it overwhelm him, tried to convince his legs to take him back and forth. But, of course, he had none. If he had still had a voice, he would have yelled in pain, as feral and low as Maglor’s long ago. But he did not have that either.

“It is harder to hide from such things here,” Námo’s voice was soft, carefully picked clean of emotion, “but they will not tear you apart as you think they are wont to do. You are stronger than that. Find your grandfather. It will help.”

It had been some time before Maedhros could bring himself to approach that horribly still, broken form. Caranthir was the first, gently righting all the wrong angles and smoothing dishevelled hair. Longer still it took, until he could see past it. The awful shape had burned itself onto the back of his eyelids, returning with every blink. Maedhros did not know if he could face that horror again now.

Námo withdrew and Maehdros chose to remain alone.

The chamber where Námo deposited him was hung with richly embroidered tapestries. Not only tapestries, but weavings and textiles of all kinds graced the walls, even stretched out upon the floor. Many were only that, beautifully crafted furnishings, fabrics eerily reminiscent of home. Paintings there were too. One depicted the great migration, another Mereth Aderthad, and a more recent work half-obscured behind it captured Finarfin in what was unmistakeably Beleriand. What was the point of all this, Maedhros wondered, it was not as if he could touch or use any of it. How he could see it at all was a curiosity that niggled at the back of his mind, one that Curufin or father would have pursued for the chance to learn more about the nature of fëar and their interfacing with the spiritual and physical worlds. No doubt they would have learned enough to produce a thesis on the subject, he thought wryly.

Maedhros drew nearer to the portrait of Finarfin. This must have been near the end of the War of Wrath. His uncle’s face, rendered exquisitely in subdued oils, wore the overwrought expression he had often seen after battles when Finarfin’s carefully maintained mask slipped. Galadriel leaned against his side as they sat, gazing into and beyond the small flames of a campfire, Gil-Galad and Elrond set in counterpoint.

It would have been a cheerless fire, Maedhros knew, kindled for utility, kept alight only long enough for the necessary tasks of feeding, and boiling a little water so they could cleanse what they must to stave off infection and infirmity. Both, merely important for the Eledhrim, were crucial for the Edain and Peredhil. Maedhros could almost insinuate himself into the scene, feeling the echo of the unceasing worry for their weaker allies that had always overcome his own weariness. For Elrond and Elros truly, he corrected himself, as whether or not they were present with him on any given night, it was always the concern for them that drove him. That livid fear had bred almost metronomic routines that allowed them, he, Finarfin and Gil-Galad all, to go through the motions of keeping them alive, despite crushing exhaustion and grief. Gil-Galad’s weary shoulders sagged, his forehead resting on one hand, but Elrond looked intently at their two golden-haired companions, his expression curiously deep, a mingling of knowing that can only come with personal experience, and great pity.

The pain written on Finarfin’s face was not hard to read. It spoke volumes on the losses, both personal and as regent, that he had sustained. The High King wept sometimes, alone by the fire at night, for the brothers he had lost, the men’s lives their yet to be realised victory was dearly bought with, and for the three sons that were no more. For them most of all.

The sudden realisation that they, Finarfin’s sons, along with Maedhros’s other cousins and uncles besides, were somewhere here too, cut Maedhros like a knife. A large part of his heart ached for them, wanted to embrace them. But fear, sharp and cold whispered they would only want to push him away. His heart bled.

What of all the other dead? The ones who had succumbed to the slaughter brought about by the rotten core of his attempt at a union. Worse still, the ones that died at his hand, refugees and his own men some of them. Guilt tore at what was left of his heart, until he was in tatters, a bloody, pulpy mess. Then he took a boot to it, stomped on those quivering pieces and trod them down into the dust as thoroughly as the enemy had done to what had remained of Fingon. Maedhros recalled them all, remembered their names one by one, a self-imposed parade of damnation marching steadily on for uncounted hours.

Stop! He commanded, shakily mustering all that was left of the Lordly command he had wielded at Himring, bringing it to bear on himself. Tearing away from the painting, he fled to a nook in the opposite wall, framed by vaulted columns and furnished with a carpet of an identical pattern and palette to the one by Finwë’s favoured fireplace in Formenos. Broken, in exquisite pain, and startled, Maedhros found himself thrust into a memory of the two of them together, sitting warm and cross-legged upon it, each with an open book on their knee. Reflexively, he lifted his hand from the page and reached for his grandfather. Finwë, the slightest of smiles teasing across his lips, took it in his own without even looking up.

Finwë’s soul was starlight rippling over clear, calm waters. He was the smell of fresh sprigs of cedar, crushed and fragrant between one’s fingers. Maedhros came close, felt him like a cool breeze on his face on a warm day, comfortable and refreshing. Finwë turned his attention toward him, and he could feel it, calm, constant, eternal.

Child?

Maedhros sighed, his grief briefly flushed by remembered contentment.

Haru. Had the word been spoken aloud, it would have been half sob.

Finwë seemed to wrinkle his brow, grasping for recognition. Maedhros opened his heart to him, feeling once again like he had as a child, climbing onto his grandfather’s snug, safe lap.

Then the images came. An inky pool. Dark hair spreading like a curtain, half-covering a bloodied face. Maedhros pushed them away, but Finwë had already glimpsed them.

Nelyo? He asked, incredulous.

Maedhros pulled himself closer.

What happened to you, child?

Maedhros knew what he was thinking for Finwë did not hide it: that Maedhros was the wrong shape, the wrong colour. Finwë’s flickering mind-pictures remembered him as once expansive, a morning sky in the hour after dawn, warmth and light for the earth to bask in. But now, his grandfather saw instead a point of white flame amid shimmering air, incandescent and self-consuming. It was not a comfortable mirror that he held up, but Maedhros was not ashamed. He had become a beacon, for that had been what was needed. Did it matter if he burnt himself down to the quick in the end?

You were the one who must needs be strong, with little to sustain you, and for too long. Finwë rightly guessed, sadness mingling with pride as he surveyed the memories that sprang to Maedhros’s mind. But there are other ways to be strong.

Not for me, Maedhros told him, rippling with the unvoiced thought that he was not like Finwë, could never compare to his calm, well-spring of strength. Finwë considered this, and Maedhros saw suddenly the man that he had become through his grandfather’s eyes.

Haru, you surely could never have stooped so low. The thought was infested with shame, and followed by a myriad of other, equally dismal self-castigations.

Finwë did not recoil, but somehow weaved his way among them, and matched them with a fierce embrace. Maedhros could read there the threads of disappointment and anger, but overwhelmingly what he found in that embrace was love.

Finwë took hold of Maedhros and tumbled him below those calm, star-lit waters to the turbulent and murky depths below. Only when he knew that his grandson had seen the dark currents, rotting weeds and sharp-toothed creatures that lurked there did he let him rise once again to the calm surface, where the cedar smell carried on a cool breeze was no longer the heart of the landscape, but a deep contrast to what lay below. Maedhros saw the dark potential there and was not sure if it were meant to comfort, or to stand as a testament that Maedhros could have chosen a different path and become a different man.

Both, Nelyo, and the promise of what is still possible besides. We shall have to do something about this, child. It is time that this marring was washed away. Come back to me, my Nelyo, become again the boy who let his heart stay open and warm, and who was not afraid of tears, nor to look himself in the eye.

That boy is gone, haru.

No, I think he is not, Finwë answered, pointedly prodding an image of Elrond, tiny and terrified, comforted by the steady pressure of Maedhros’s hand and crooning words whispered in his ear. Look, here I still see the warmth and kindness of the morning sky. This is the Nelyo I know.

It was not a memory Maedhros had thought about for a long time, and he wondered at its floating to the surface of their shared connection now. Had he done that, or had Finwë? Finwë’s embrace pulled him nearer, and Maedhros pressed still closer, curled himself into Finwë’s arms. He was again just a boy aching with emotion, in need of a steady hand and kind words.

Rest Nelyo, I am here, and I will hold you for as long as you need.

And finally, Maedhros could. He remained, swathed in that embrace, a long time. 

Chapter End Notes

Yes, that was some Sindarin you spotted mixed in with the Quenya words I often sprinkle throughout! I've tried to use both in accordance to what language Maedhros would likely have been speaking or thinking in at the time. This goes for names too. 
 

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