Visions by Elleth  

A step behind his only remaining brother, Maglor was carrying their two new charges: One on each hip, the way he had carried the now-dead Ambarussa in their childhood. Dark-haired, near-identical in face, grey-eyed, tense and scared but placid. One of them had his thumbnail between his teeth and worried away at it. He had expected more resistance from the boys, in spite of his attempt at friendliness when he had first discovered them. What remained of the Fëanorian forces, no more than a handful of companies, was striding up toward the shattered gates of Sirion, when one of the twin boys screamed. 

Maglor let go of both of them and only the weight releasing from his hips told him that they must be falling. The world narrowed to a piercing, unnatural pain. His hands flew to his ears. Something warm and wet snaked between his fingers and he did not need to see the red colour or smell the iron-copper of it to know that it was blood.

Still, from his place on the ground, the child kept screaming—a bright, high, stabbing, mind-numbing sound that would not stop. Even with his fingers dimming the sound, Maglor could hear it, more like the drawn-out shriek of a starling wounded to the death by a raptor bird. In that scream were all the pain, fear and hatred a child of six would be able to feel, unfettered, unleashed—and bolstered by the Maiarin powers that had passed down from Melian through Lúthien, Dior and Elwing in this moment of the boy's greatest distress.

The ground slammed into Maglor.

He had not felt himself falling, but there were cobblestones against his cheekbone, here on the outskirts of the Havens of Sirion. Perhaps the boy had realized that they were going to be taken from their home, where their mother had sacrificed herself to finally end with the Silmaril, in the ocean, far from the reach of anyone—them, or Morgoth—who might covet it, or harm her yet again if she once more made her escape.

As if that was the last straw, he let darkness take him.

The shriek followed him into unconsciousness, and as if he were following the strands of an abandoned song of the Ainulindalë or the discarded drafts out of a writer's pen, he wandered on winding paths, like the marionette of other minds and hands than merely his own.

A strange lucidity, he realized, had taken hold of him.

He saw himself by the beach, washing the blood from his twin swords with seawater, saw himself amid the crackling flames consuming the reed-thatched buildings, saw rescue ships from Balar set out from the island. Gil-galad came, and was the son of Fingon, Orodreth, Finrod, a scion of his own House. He saw himself on a cliff, faced with Elwing and the last few of her guard, clutching the Silmaril to her breast, with Ambarussa dead on the ground near her.

Messages of friendship and stern demand that flowed from his quill, signed by Maedhros, and gates that remained shut to them regardless. Saw Maedhros and Elwing, absurdly, pressed against each other and rutting, there, or long-after on a strange, bespelled island. He saw himself sitting by the sea, clutching his harp and composing a lament, as though that might unspill all the bloodshed of that battle.

He saw himself and Maedhros in a round tower room, and once again Elwing, this time on the sill of a floor-length window, turning toward them with a crazed smile that proclaimed victory with the light of the Silmaril feverish in her eyes. Saw a day and age unknown to him, the twin boys strapped into vehicle seats with care, chasing a ball around a grass field. Saw the survivors of Sirion forced into the people of Maedhros, and those who refused, slain.

Racing after Elwing, the Nauglamir on her chest, as she was taking a running leap off a long pier at Sirion and vanishing under the waves, Maglor could barely stop before toppling into the water himself. He saw himself seated with the twin boys at night on the walls of Amon Ereb, explaining the constellations, saw the people of Amrod and Amras leave the children in a waterfall cave for him to find, and hiding in the wardrobe of her chambers, hurrying them away with a nurse. He saw tearful goodbyes and Vingilot rocking far away on the sea, Eärendil's face an unrecollected blur and his warm voice speaking of seeking help and necessary sacrifices, lips kissing their twin heads for the last time before his ship began gliding out of the harbour and, through a blur of tears, was gone like a star on the horizon.

Saw him and Maedhros in an army encampment, light calling them irresistibly. Saw condemnation, pardon, ruin. Saw forgiveness and servitude to Elwing—not dead—and Eärendil forever after, in place of the Everlasting Dark. Saw, like stars in the dark, torches as they crept through Taur-im-Duinath. Saw a single new star rise into the sky, far-distant but hopeful in the West, and another lifting as an island from the wave and a winged war-helm as a crown, saw a valley refuge in mountains he did not recognize, saw it changing and blurring before his eyes into different shapes, roses blooming where guardsmen had patrolled.

He saw himself, tattered and wayworn away nearly to nothing on the beach, singing his grief into the wind, saw a small hand bearing a golden ring and drawing confidence from a wise council, its leader dark-haired and grey-eyed, saw a misshapen creature falling into fire with that same gold band in his hand.

Saw all those stories and strands and threads wind and morph and move and intersect. It became a tapestry of Vairë, a song by voices all in a choir, a monument to possibility and history, to paint and music and drama.

You wrought this, the screaming seemed to say. All of this is your fault and your fault your fault yours—

The sharp crack of a left hand against his cheek brought him back. The screaming had stopped, the boy had slumped, exhausted, and the barrage of visions had faded.

He was almost sorry for it.

Maedhros hovered above him, his eyes shadowed with worry, and offered his hand to help him rise. Maglor took it and climbed to his feet, strangely and inexplicably happy.

Here was something he could sing of for the entire life of Arda.

Yes, he thought as he reached for the boys once again, lifting them to cradle them against his chest.

If cherishing you will bring this to pass, then cherish you I will.

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