A Hundred Miles Through the Desert by StarSpray  

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Fifteen

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Autumn came slowly, lazily, creeping in with cooler weather and rainy days. Maglor spent those days with his brothers and with Míriel, who had come to Imloth Ningloron determined to get to know all seven of her grandsons at last. Celegorm had avoided her in the beginning, as seemed to be his new habit when anything made him upset or uncomfortable, but she was even more stubborn than he was, and Maglor saw them several times talking quietly together, and afterward Celegorm seemed a little more at ease, and Míriel pleased. 

Nerdanel arrived as the apple harvest began in earnest. Maglor was not aware of her coming, having retreated to the pottery studio to begin fixing a jug that had been broken. He’d learned how to repair such things in Imladris, long ago now, and he found the process soothing. Maedhros had joined him, curious about how it was done. As Maglor sanded down the sharpest edges of the broken pieces they chatted about nothing in particular—just Pídhres and the hedgehogs, the weather, and the apples. It was quiet, peaceful. Maglor had spent the morning working on the first very rough draft of a few verses of his song for Finwë, and was glad for a reprieve.

The sound of their mother’s voice just outside reached them suddenly. Maglor abandoned his work and Maedhros rose so quickly he nearly knocked over his stool, both of them racing out of the workshop and nearly getting caught together in the doorway. Nerdanel, crouched on the path outside petting Pídhres, looked up and laughed as Maglor got out by way of elbowing Maedhros in the ribs. “There you are!” she cried. She was still dressed for travel, with her hair bound up in braids.

“Ammë!” Maglor threw his arms around her as she rose to her feet.

“Macalaurë! Maitimo!” Nerdanel held on very tightly for a moment before releasing him and pulling Maedhros into her arms, and then holding them both at arm’s length so she could look into their faces. “Oh, you look so much better—both of you! The light in your eyes is back!”

“We are better,” Maedhros said. 

“We promise, Ammë, we are,” Maglor added. 

Nerdanel wrapped an arm around each of them, pulling them back in close. Maedhros said something, but Maglor did not catch it. He pressed his face into Nerdanel’s shoulder, swallowing past the tightness in his throat. “I’m so, so glad you’re back,” she said, and kissed their temples. 

At last Nerdanel released them, as their other brothers came up the path. Pídhres jumped into Maglor’s arms as all of them crowded around. When last they had all seven been gathered with Nerdanel it had been just before Maglor and Maedhros had departed for Lórien. There had been smiles and laughter then, too—but Maglor had still been fragile, and Maedhros struggling. Everything was different now; they were all better, stronger, happier. He could see that Nerdanel saw it, and could see how she relaxed the longer they spoke and laughed, as though the last shreds of her worries had been blown away like autumn leaves.

Maglor did not find himself alone again with Nerdanel until later that night. He sat with his harp, playing idle melodies as the household slowly dispersed for bed or other nighttime pursuits. Nerdanel had been sitting with Míriel and Indis all evening, but got up after a while to sit beside him. “I’ve just heard about the new song you are undertaking,” she said.

“It is long overdue,” Maglor said. 

“It is, though I wish you were not turning your thoughts again to laments and sorrow.”

“This will be the last lament I write, I think—but it’s too important not to.” Maglor set his harp aside and leaned his head on her shoulder. “I missed you.”

Nerdanel wrapped her arm around him and kissed the top of his head. “I hope you’ll visit often, now,” she said. “We’ve built onto the house so everyone can have their own room now.”

“Except I will have to share Daeron’s room,” Maglor said, just so she would laugh. “I’m glad he’s there often enough for it to be his.”

“As am I. We have all missed you—both of you. I think also that Daeron has found it lonely among his own people.”

“He came back among them changed, too,” Maglor said. Daeron carried the same weight of time upon his shoulders that Maglor did—that so many did who had sailed to Valinor. It was harder to tell just by looking at him, for he bore it more easily than most, but it was there, all the same, showing in his handful of scars and in the way he sometimes glanced eastward with a look of wistful longing. Maglor missed Middle-earth—he’d loved those lands, in spite of all the pain and the fear and everything else—but Daeron had been born there and that was a different kind of grief.

Later, Maglor asked him, “Do you ever regret taking ship?”

Daeron looked up from turning down the bedsheets, a look of surprise on his face. “No, of course not! Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know.”

“I miss it—Middle-earth—but my time there had come to an end. I could hear it in the Music long before I ever knew that you too were going West. Come here.” Daeron pulled Maglor down onto the bed and kissed him.

Maglor wrapped his arms around Daeron and buried his face in his hair. “My mother thinks you’ve been lonely in Taur-en-Gellam.”

“Only sometimes. The first few years were the hardest, but they’re all used to me again now—and I’ve had my work, and my songbirds, and your brothers that I count now almost as my own. All the last traces of my loneliness have fled now, with you here again.”

“I’m glad.”

“Are you having regrets?”

“No. I was just thinking of how different we both are from what we used to be.” Maglor turned his head and sighed, closing his eyes. “There were times before I went to Lórien that I wished I could go back east,” he said, “or that I had never left the shores at all. I missed them so terribly that I ached with it. I don’t wish that now.”

“I think if I had come to Mithlond and learned you were still lost,” Daeron murmured, “I would have gone looking for you.”

“Many others looked, and I never even knew.”

“They were not me.”

Maglor smiled into his shoulder, and then lifted his head. “That’s true.” He would have heard Daeron’s voice on the wind and been drawn to it like a moth to flame—or, rather, like a flower turning toward the sun. Of that he was certain. “I suppose I am also thinking of my kin that I haven’t yet reunited with. My cousins, and my aunts and my uncle Finarfin. I don’t know if it will be as hard now as it was before—but they will still stare, and still wonder, and…I am not afraid of it, but I think it will still be hard.”

“I think you will find it easier than you believe,” Daeron said as he smoothed Maglor’s hair back from his face. “You are at peace now with your past, are you not?”

“As much as I can ever be,” Maglor said.

“Then do not borrow trouble—and remember that I’ll be with you, as I was before. Don’t try to tell me I don’t have to be!”

“I won’t.” Maglor kissed him. “You are where you want to be, I know.”

“All I have wanted since we met again on the road to Ekkaia has been to be by your side,” Daeron said. “Are you thinking of going to see these cousins soon?”

“Not so soon. My mother plans to stay until at least the spring, but Curufin and Caranthir are returning to Tirion for the winter. You and I must be here come springtime to meet Elemmírë. Maybe after her visit I will think of going to Tirion, or to Alqualondë. There is no real hurry to finish this song, or at least my grandmother has given me no deadline, but it feels like something I should not put off for too long.”

“Are you finding it easier to write than you feared?”

“I don’t know if I can call it easy, but some words are coming to me, and I can feel it beginning to take shape. That is farther than I have ever gotten before.”

“Good. You spoke once of going to Taur-en-Gellam, or at least requesting an audience with Thingol. Should I write to him on your behalf come springtime, or merely ensure that your letter reaches him?”

“You know what to say to him better than I do, if you don’t mind.” Finwë and Thingol had been great friends once—it had been on the way to visit Finwë that Elu Thingol had been lost in Nan Elmoth. Growing up, Maglor had heard occasional stories of his grandfather’s dear friend Elwë, but looking back now he thought those stories had been as rare as the ones of Finwë’s own kin, the grief stilling his tongue and turning once-fond memories painful. It would be wrong to try to write this song without the cooperation of all Finwë’s family—and equally wrong to do so without speaking to his dearest friends too. He should likely try to speak to Ingwë as well, but that was even more daunting a thought than going to Thingol.

“We’ll have to choose the timing carefully. I am conspiring with Beleg to split the winnings on some bets he has been making about my return.”

“Surely no one will take any bet that Beleg makes, knowing he is your friend.”

“He is, in his turn, conspiring with Pirineth and my other students—all of whom will be very eager to meet you when we go to Taur-en-Gellam, by the way. I have no idea what kind of bets are being made, or what exactly is being wagered, but I imagine it will be very entertaining upon our arrival.”

Maglor smiled at the mischievous glint in Daeron’s eyes. “What of your parents?” he asked then. “Have you heard more from Mablung?”

“When I wrote back I told him I was with you, and had no intention of leaving your side, which can come as no surprise to him. He is back in Taur-en-Gellam now, but I do not know what my aunt and uncle or my parents might be planning to do. I did say that you intend to travel to Alqualondë in the next year anyway, which Mablung has taken as something of a promise from me to seek them out then.”

“Are you still uncertain about it?”

“Yes,” Daeron admitted. “But I feel more equal to the meeting, whatever it brings, than I did when I received the letter. Such moods always make everything seem so much bigger and more frightening than they really are.”

“I’ll be with you,” Maglor said softly, “as you’ll be with me.” Daeron smiled at him, and tangled their fingers together. “Surely there will be joy in this meeting, longed for but never really expected?”

“I hope so.” 

As the days grew shorter and the nights cooler, Curufin and Caranthir prepared to return to Tirion. Curufin’s girls were torn, wishing to remain in Imloth Ningloron but also missing their brother. When they were ready to depart at last, Maglor scooped up both girls, one in each arm, to pepper kisses all over their faces. “Don’t look so sad!” he said. “All adventures must come to an end sometime.” He had, over the course of many evenings, told them the rest of the story of Bilbo’s adventure and the defeat of Smaug and the restoration of Dale and the Lonely Mountain. Legolas and Gimli had cheerfully confirmed it all to be true, to the girls’ unending delight, and Gimli had sung for them the songs of the Dwarves and Legolas the songs of the Woodelves. “Think of all you can tell Tyelpë that he’s missed, staying home as he did.”

“Tyelpë doesn’t like adventures,” Náriel said. “He says they’re uncomfortable.”

“They do make you late for dinner,” Maglor agreed, quoting Bilbo to make them giggle.

Maedhros plucked Calissë from Maglor’s arms to kiss her farewell, before taking up Náriel too. “I, at least, will come visit you in the spring,” he said. 

“Will you really?” Curufin asked as Maedhros set the girls down.

“Yes. I’ll be going home with Ammë then, and Tirion is right there. If you don’t come to me, I’ll come to you.”

“And you, Cáno?”

“I’ll come to Tirion sometime next year,” said Maglor. “I don’t know when. Perhaps I’ll turn up unlooked for on your doorstep one evening to whisk your children away on another adventure!”

“Oh please don’t say that,” Curufin said, pained, as Calissë and Náriel cheered. 

“Only if they eat their vegetables and do their lessons,” Maglor added. The girls groaned, and Rundamírë had to turn away and cover her mouth to hide her smile. Lisgalen hurriedly turned their laughter into a cough. 

“You’re supposed to be the good influences,” Curufin complained as Maglor embraced him. 

“That’s no fun,” Maglor said. “Safe travels, Curvo. I’ll miss you.”

“Write to me, then,” Curufin said. “And—when you come to Tirion, we can talk of Finwë? I still need to think on what you asked of us.”

“Of course.”

Maglor turned to Caranthir then, as Maedhros embraced Curufin. “I’ll talk to you of Finwë when you visit too,” Caranthir said. He held on very tightly. “I’m so, so glad you’re back, Cáno.”

“I am, too.”

Curufin pulled Maedhros closer so the four of them could speak in low voices without being overheard. “I am going to take one of the palantíri from Ammë’s house to Atar,” Curufin said, looking between the three of them, “unless you’ve changed your mind about it. I asked Tyelko and Ambarussa and they haven’t.”

“I haven’t either,” said Maglor as Maedhros shook his head. 

“It’s a good idea,” said Caranthir. 

“Write if you need us to come to Tirion,” Maedhros added, resting his hand on Curufin’s shoulder. 

“Or if you need to leave it,” Maglor added.

“All the palantír will show him is us, you know,” said Curufin. “Not—not anything else.” 

“There is the great palantír of Avallónë,” said Caranthir, “and probably others in some other storage room somewhere.” There had never been an abundance of palantíri, and most had been taken long ago to the Faithful of Andúnië, and then either drowned with Númenor or, in the case of the last seven, escaped to Middle-earth, to Gondor and Arnor. Now only two remained there that Maglor knew of, one of which had been rendered nearly useless. Still, who knew what lay forgotten in various cellars or storage rooms in Tirion—even underneath their old house?

“I suggested the palantír because it’s us that we want him to understand,” Maglor said, “but Moryo is right too.”

“What if he doesn’t want to look?”

“Then he doesn’t,” Maedhros said. “All you’re doing is offering him the chance. I think he will, though.”

“He’s always hated not knowing things,” Caranthir said.

“I suppose that’s true.” Curufin glanced over his shoulder when Rundamírë called to him from where she stood with Ambarussa and Celegorm. “I’ll write after…after I know if he’s looked into it or not.” 

After Curufin went to help Calissë with something, Caranthir turned back to Maglor and Maedhros. “Do you really think it will make a difference?”

“I think I want him to see the truth,” said Maglor, “all of the things left out of the tellings, whether we mean to or not—the beauty and the joy, but the grief and the ugliness of it too. Whether it makes a difference is up to him.” 

“I think it will,” Maedhros said when Caranthir glanced at him, “but what that difference will be, I cannot guess.”

Others came out to say goodbye, filling the courtyard with laughter everyone talked over everyone else. Elladan and Elrohir teased Náriel and Calissë the way they’d once teased Estel as a child, and then later their own nieces and nephew. It was a cheerful parting with many promises of letters and visits to come. 

Later, Maglor went back to the pottery workshop to keep working on the broken jug, which he had nearly forgotten about over the last few weeks. Míriel found him there, accompanied by Nerdanel. “You never did show me how this is done,” Nerdanel said, smiling as they sat at the table with him. 

“I’m only just starting,” Maglor said. “Most of the process is really just waiting for the glue to try.”

“I have seen the end results,” Míriel said, “and they are lovely.”

Maglor remembered suddenly the letter his father had written to him, the description he had included of a tapestry he’d seen in Mandos. “Have you woven them, too?” he asked. 

Míriel smiled at him. “Yes.”

It was strange to think of himself woven with golden thread, somewhere in the walls of Mandos. Maglor lowered his gaze back to his work. His mother and grandmother chatted with him and with each other, laughing about Náriel and Calissë, talking of the harvest and of the coming winter. Finally Nerdanel asked him, “What were you and your brothers whispering about before Carnistir and Atarinkë left?”

“Curvo is going to give one of the old palantíri to Atar,” Maglor said after a moment, as he carefully picked up the last piece that needed its edges filed. 

“One of the ones from my house? Why?”

“He saw much in the Halls,” Míriel said quietly, “but the memories of death fade when one returns to life—and there is only so much that can be understood from a still image upon the wall, however skilled the weaver.”

Nerdanel pursed her lips. Maglor finished his filing and turned away to bring out the ingredients for the lacquer. As he rummaged through a cabinet Nerdanel said, “Would it not be easier just to speak to him?”

“Not for me,” Maglor said without turning around. “And Curvo has been speaking to him. It’s just—if you weren’t there, you can’t understand, not really. The palantír is the closest anyone can come now.”

“I know just how close the palantír brings you,” Nerdanel said. “You told me once, Macalaurë, that you wished I had not looked.”

“You know that’s different, Ammë,” Maglor said softly. 

“It will break his heart to see you thus,” Nerdanel said. 

“Maybe he needs his heart broken.”

“Macalaurë.”

“It can be mended afterward. Ours all have.” Maglor had said more than once that he wanted nothing more from Fëanor; Elrond, though, had known better even when Maglor himself didn’t. He had tried to help Fëanor to understand, just as Curufin was still trying to do, and they had both been right. Maglor did want his father to understand—to understand something, at least, of all of it, both the wonders and the horrors. If Fëanor’s heart broke just to see it—well, it would be easier to mend, maybe, there in Valinor far away and long past all the real harm that had been done, and he would not be alone for it. 

Nerdanel reached for him as he turned from the cupboard, cupping his face so he had no choice but to look at her. “Does this mean you want to be able to speak to him?” she asked. 

“I will have to, for the song I am to write,” Maglor said. “Beyond that—I don’t know what I want, Ammë. Whatever happens, though, I need it to be on my terms. I was not able to choose when to see him before, or when I saw my brothers.”

“Did it not turn out for the best, though, meeting them as you did?”

“That doesn’t mean it would not have been better if it happened differently.” It had all worked out in the end only because they had all so desperately wanted it to. Maglor had not been ready—he had barely been able to hold the pieces of himself together, feeling as though he’d been coming apart at the seams ever since he had set foot upon Tol Eressëa and learned that everyone he had been so sure he would never see again had returned, and were waiting for him. 

“Fëanáro will not try to force another meeting, Macalaurë,” Míriel said.

“I know. Does he know you’ve asked me to write this song for Finwë?”

“No. It was an idea Indis and I had just before we learned you had returned from Lórien.” Míriel smiled at him again. “So the timing worked out nicely, though it means we did not consult with anyone before approaching you.”

“Is it meant to be secret?”

“No, of course not, but…” She paused for a moment, as though hesitant to go on. “There is a purpose to it beyond merely honoring Finwë—though that is also important to us, and to all our people.”

“What is the purpose?” Maglor asked. “Why did you not tell me before?”

“Would it affect the writing of it?”

“It might,” Maglor said. 

Míriel met his gaze. Maglor had inherited her eyes, soft grey-green, and it was still startling sometimes to see them in another’s face. “You have been reluctant to sing before any great audience since you came West,” she said. “I did not wish to speak of it and discourage you from the writing.”

“What audience is this song meant for?”

“The Valar.”

Maglor sat back, hitting the wall with a jolt. “I am not Lúthien, Grandmother,” he said. “I cannot move the implacable Lord of Mandos with my song—”

“No one is asking you to be Lúthien,” Míriel said.

“But you want me to achieve the same feat—”

“We want you to write and sing this song on behalf of all our kin and all our people,” Míriel said, “for who better to express our deepest grief and our deepest love than our greatest singer? I have heard the Noldolantë, Macalaurë. I know you are capable of it. Manwë will not listen unmoved to your words.”

“But if you do not want to, Macalaurë…” Nerdanel began, frowning at Míriel. 

“No, I will do it,” Maglor said, the words escaping almost before he could think better of them. “I’ll write this song and I will sing it before the Valar upon Taniquetil or in Máhanaxar or wherever they will come to listen—but I do not think mine is the voice that will sway them.”

“Yours will be the voice that sings on behalf of all who love Finwë Noldóran. I know it is much to ask. We have pleaded and argued and spoken to the Valar for years, Indis and I, and Ingwë and Olwë and even Elwë and Melian both. What have we left to do but to show them how much he is missed, how wrong it is to condemn us all to such a separation, merely because he dared to find love again in his loneliness and heartache? But of this, Macalaurë, I would ask you not to speak openly.”

She did not need to worry about that. If it was widely known what he aimed to do, he would never be able to write another word. Maglor could not, though, keep it secret from either Maedhros or Daeron. He found the two of them together some time later, with Pídhres and the hedgehogs, and both of their smiles turned to frowns when they saw him. “What’s wrong?” Daeron asked. He had been lounging on the grass, but he sat up, sending Annem tumbling off his chest onto his lap. Pídhres darted to Maglor to claw her way up his legs until he grabbed her. 

“I’ve just learned something,” Maglor said. He sat when Maedhros pulled him down between them. “What were you laughing at just now?”

“Maedhros is worried that your father might be making me uncomfortable in Tirion,” Daeron said, “and I have been assuring him that I can handle myself.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Maedhros said, though he sounded doubtful.

“There are very few with the power to discomfit me these days,” Daeron said, “and however impressive he may be, Fëanor is not one of them. I’ve been visiting for years without any issue, and I don’t see why that should change now. But Maglor, what troubles you?”

“This song. The one for Finwë. It’s…Míriel and Indis intend to ask me to perform it before the Valar.”

Maedhros looked at him blankly for a moment, until full understanding came to him, and his eyes opened wide, but Daeron only nodded. “I wondered if that was it,” he said. “All this talk lately of those who are returning from Mandos, and of those who remain there…”

“I told her that I am not Lúthien,” Maglor said. “I cannot be. I don’t…”

“Was it Lúthien’s power that swayed Námo, or her heart?” Maedhros asked unexpectedly. “Was it who she was, or was it the mere fact that she dared to try? Did the eagle come because it was Fingon who asked, or because he asked?”

“Was it the words of Eärendil who swayed the Valar, or was it the love he bore for everyone left behind, for whose sake he had risked everything?” Daeron added.

“Others have asked, who love Finwë better than anyone,” Maglor said. “Míriel and Indis, and even Ingwë and Elu Thingol. Why should the Valar listen to me, when I go before them to ask them to reverse their own ruling?”

“Because you will not be speaking only your own words,” Maedhros said, echoing Míriel. He moved closer to Maglor, to put his arm around his shoulders and press a kiss to his temple. “Even before you knew this was the purpose, you determined that this song would not be yours alone. You will sing for all of us who love him.”

“Who better than you to put words to such grief, Maglor?” Daeron asked softly. “Who better than you to teach the Valar what it means, this heartbreak, this long separation that should not be?”

“When you sing—both of you—I can hear it, the Great Music echoing in your voices as it does in the Sea,” Maedhros said. “The Valar will hear it, too.”

“And when I fail?” Maglor whispered. Pídhres butted her head into his chin, demanding scratches. He obliged, ducking his head to let his hair fall forward, indulging an old habit that he’d tried to leave behind in Lórien. 

Daeron tilted his head slightly, as though listening to something only he could hear. Whatever it was he heard, he chose not to share it. “Do not think of failure,” he said finally, reaching out to brush Maglor’s hair aside. “Do not think of this performance. Think only of the song and of what it means, not of the Valar. That is what you were doing before. You need not worry about singing it before there is even a song to be sung.”

“If your voice cannot move the Valar to pity, Canafinwë,” Maedhros said quietly, “I do not think anyone’s can.”