A Hundred Miles Through the Desert by StarSpray  

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Twenty Five

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After Maglor managed to compose himself and to convince Daeron and Celegorm that he wasn’t going to fall to pieces as soon as he left their sight, he went in search of his cousins, finding Turgon and Argon together in the library. “There you are, Macalaurë!” Argon exclaimed, jumping to his feet to embrace Maglor. “You took your time, didn’t you?”

“I hope you aren’t just going to repeat all the things Findekáno said to me,” said Maglor, smiling up at him. Argon was nearly as tall as Turgon, who was nearly as tall as Maedhros, and Maglor was glad to find them both seated.

“Oh, he said it to complain—I’m not! I want to hear all about your travels and wanderings. Everyone else got to see so much more of Middle-earth than I ever did, and you the most of all.”

“Unless you are particularly interested in the habits of seagulls and crabs, I’m afraid my tales will be very boring for the most part,” said Maglor. “Hello, Turukáno.”

“Hello, Macalaurë.” Turgon’s gaze lingered for only a few seconds on Maglor’s face and the scars there. “You’re here to talk to us about Finwë?”

“I am, though you don’t have to speak with me if you won’t want to.”

“Of course we want to speak with you,” Argon said. “I don’t know what we can tell you, though.”

“You can tell me what you would like to hear sung,” Maglor said. He sat down at the table with them, resting his arms on top of it. “Anything at all. It doesn’t matter if it’s the same thing someone else told me.”

“What sort of song is this going to be?” Argon asked. “Do we all get our own verse? This is what Turukáno remembers best, and this is Aracáno’s favorite childhood memory?”

“No,” said Maglor, “but it will all help me…shape it. Discover what words I will use. I don’t know how to explain better than that. I’ve never done anything like this before for a song.”

“Why are you doing it now?” Turgon asked. He sat leaned back in his seat, at first glance as comfortable and casual as Argon, but there was a faint tension in the way he held himself, a deliberate air to his stillness, and he did not smile. He was not quite as stiff as he had been when Maglor had last seen him, sometime before the removal to Gondolin, but he was not at ease either.

“Both Míriel and Indis asked it of me,” Maglor said, “and this is—it’s Finwë. It cannot be my song alone.” This, at least, earned him a look that was something like approval. He hadn’t really expected any sort of warm reception from Turgon, but his reticence still stung a little. They had been friends once, often thrown together while their older brothers went off to spend time away from younger siblings. They hadn’t had much in common in their youth, but Maglor still remembered those days with fondness. “And you do not have to speak to me now.”

Argon leaned forward onto the table, crossing his arms and tilting his head a little as he thought. He seemed so young, Maglor thought—because of course he was. He had survived the Helcaraxë, and that had surely left its mark, but he had died so quickly and so soon after reaching Middle-earth. Maglor hadn’t wept for him at the time, because he had been acting as Maedhros’ regent and fearing that it would very soon become more than a regency, and in the wake of Fëanor’s death and Maedhros’ capture he had felt so terribly numb that every other piece of bad news seemed like something far away, something out of a story that had nothing to do with him. It was all he could do to keep his people in order and to avoid an all out fight with Fingolfin’s host when they arrived, furious and grieving for all those lost on the ice, and then reeling from the shock of finding him, rather than his father or even his elder brother, there to greet them. He tried not to think about those years—those terrible years when Maedhros had been lost, and his brothers had formed and discarded plan after plan of rescue in spite of Maedhros’ last order to them not to try. After Maedhros had come back, after it was certain he would recover, Maglor had locked himself away for several days just to cry and cry, all the tears that would not come before spilling out all at once, until he fell asleep for a full day and night and woke up with the worst hungover feeling of his life, but also able to breathe again. 

Now Argon sat across from him, alive and bright-eyed. “He used to take us fishing,” he said. “You remember, he taught us to make our own poles, and our own spears?”

“I remember,” Turgon said.

“Yes,” Maglor said.

“Those were my favorite times, especially when it was just him and us.”

“He always tried to do that,” Turgon added after a moment, “to make time for us each alone, even though there were so many of us. He would let me join him in his council meetings when I was old enough to take an interest. I learned a very great deal from that, though I never expected to need any of it, really.”

“I wish he had told us more stories of his own youth,” said Argon. “But whenever I asked about his parents, or his grandfather that he talked about a little, sometimes, he just shook his head and changed the subject.”

“Indis or Míriel could tell you more now, if you wanted,” Maglor said. “They spoke to me a little of his family at Cuiviénen.”

“Really?” Argon sat up, eyes lighting with curiosity. “I would like that very much. I have nothing to add, Macalaurë, unless you want to ask me more questions. If not, I’m going to find Grandmother.”

“I don’t,” Maglor said, and Argon got up, planted a kiss on top of Maglor’s head, and left the library. It was very quiet there; only a handful of others were about, reading or writing alone or in pairs, in silence or holding their own hushed conversations. Maglor glanced toward the ceiling and found it to be the same ceiling he remembered from his youth, that his father and many others had painted over the course of many weeks. Maglor had been quite small then, and not allowed anywhere near the library while the work was going on, but he remembered Fëanor carrying him in afterward to show him the scenes high above. 

“So it’s really true, then, that you were captured by the Enemy?” Turgon asked after a few moments of silence. 

“Yes.” Maglor dropped his gaze to Turgon’s face. “And yes, that is where the scars on my face are from.”

“Are those scars around your mouth?” Turgon leaned forward a little, frowning. “I hadn’t noticed before. What…?”

“They are,” Maglor said. He pressed his palms flat against the table to stop himself digging his thumb into his scarred palm. He’d thought he’d left that habit behind in Lórien, too. “They’re needle marks.”

“Needle—?”

“My last act of defiance failed to bring his tower down, and he ordered my lips sewn shut. It was very—unpleasant.”

Turgon sat back in his seat, now looking rather stunned. His own hair was as dark and thick as Maglor’s own, and fell in similar waves over his shoulders. Usually it was Maglor with the unruly hair, but Turgon’s was only held out of his face by a simple golden circlet, set with a few tiny sapphires that glittered when he moved his head. “Unpleasant,” he repeated, incredulous. “That’s all you have to say about it?”

“I would much rather say nothing at all,” Maglor said. “The tower of the Necromancer was a dark and terrible place.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right. I know I look very different.” Maglor paused for a moment, and then asked, “Is there anything else you would ask of me, or say to me, Turukáno?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m not—I’m not angry, Macalaurë. I have missed you, and my brother did tell me something of what happened. It’s just that hearing about it and seeing it are two very different things. You are so much older than the rest of us now.”

“I suppose I am.”

“Are you still not on speaking terms with your father?”

“That’s…complicated.”

“I understand,” Turgon said. “I’m not on particularly good terms with mine.”

“Really?”

Turgon shrugged, looking away. “I was the one that built his cairn in the mountains. I had to…I prepared his body. Alone. That was my own fault, really—I was the one who had taken my people and hidden us away. But he…seeing it—”

“I know,” Maglor said softly. 

“Do you? Fëanáro did not die by Morgoth’s hand.”

“No,” said Maglor, “but Finwë did.”

Turgon closed his eyes, and slumped forward, elbows on the table as he rubbed his hands over his face. “I forgot,” he sighed, “that all of you were there.”

“We found him after. Maedhros and I. We didn’t know what to do except to cover his body and to keep our brothers and our father away. Findis mentioned his grave to me, but I don’t have any idea who might have gone back afterward to make it.” They’d known what graves were, then—they’d known the stories of those slain long ago, as part of the explanations given for why the Elves had left Cuiviénen, but no one had ever told them how to make one, to dig a grave or build a cairn or why one might choose one rite over another. They’d learned later, far more than they had ever wanted, but Maglor still wished they could have done something more for Finwë, rather than just…leaving him there.

“Ingwë and Olwë did. My father says there is a cairn by the lake, covered now in flowers.”

“Oh. Good.” Maglor dropped his gaze to the table. “Can you forgive your father, do you think?”

“I have, it’s not that. I just…when I look at him sometimes I see only his body. What was left of him in the end. Do you know what I mean?”

“When I came back that’s all I could think of when I saw my brothers again,” Maglor said softly. “But did you not…I mean, in Mandos—?”

“I’m sure it would be worse if I hadn’t sought help for it in Mandos. But it’s still hard. It makes speaking to him at all difficult, and we end up arguing most times that we try, even though neither of us are actually angry with the other. I’m not really that long out of the Halls, you know. Only a year or so longer than Atya himself. And I had my own difficult reunions with Idril and Tuor, and Eärendil. They did not have to bury me, but—well. They could not bury me. We were none of us very good fathers in the end, I think. In some ways Finwë was not, either.”

“No, but he tried. You tried—you all tried.”

“I didn’t,” Turgon said. He rose from the table. “I knew what I should do and I did not do it—I told myself at the time I had many good reasons for it, but none of that mattered in the end. Maybe Finwë also had good reasons for acting as he did during the unrest, but none of that mattered in the end either.”

“With Morgoth in our midst there was no way it could end well, whatever happened between your father and mine,” Maglor said. He also rose. “What-ifs and should-haves are useless, especially now. I do not intend to flatten our grandfather into some greater-than-life figure, some legend out of ancient days. But neither will I reduce him to only his mistakes. That isn’t the point.”

“Good.” Turgon’s smile was small and crooked. He reached out to grasp Maglor’s hand. “I really am glad you’re back, Cousin. If even you and Fëanor have returned to us, it gives me hope yet for Aikanáro and Irissë.” 

After Turgon left Maglor sat back down for a few minutes, looking up at the paintings on the ceiling, at how the sunlight slanted through the windows differently than Laurelin had, and made the colors look different. Then he took a breath and went in search of his aunt Lalwen. He found her out by the stables, talking of horse breeding and her hopes for a filly that had just been born. “Macalaurë!” she cried, abandoning her conversation with the stable master immediately upon seeing him. She threw her arms around him, squeezing tightly for just a moment. “You’ve finally made your way to Tirion! I’m so glad to see you. What an interesting style you are wearing. Is this what they wear in Middle-earth these days?” She took a step back, holding onto his arms as she looked him up and down.

“It was,” Maglor said. “I haven’t the faintest idea what the current fashions in Gondor are.”

Lalwen laughed. “Well, it suits you. You look very handsome—I like the music notes. But you want to talk about more serious things than clothes, don’t you? Come on, let’s walk through the gardens. Anairë has been growing a hedge maze and it’s finally tall enough to walk through and get properly lost!”

The hedges were of neatly-trimmed boxwood, just tall enough that even Maedhros or Turgon wouldn’t be able to see over the top even when standing on their toes. Maglor knew his brothers, though, would immediately cheat by hoisting one another up on their shoulders if someone let them into the maze. “I’m told you want to know what I would like to hear sung of my father,” Lalwen said once they were away from the entrance and Maglor had gotten entirely turned around. 

“I do,” he said. 

“I’m very glad you’re writing this song,” Lalwen said after a moment, instead of giving an answer to the question. “My mother spoke to me of it—I know its real purpose.”

Maglor tripped over a bit of loose gravel. After he caught himself he said, “Please do not expect any—”

“Oh, I didn’t mean that, and I haven’t told anyone else. That part of it, I know, is to be kept secret—just in case it does not work out as my mother hopes.” Lalwen smiled at him, though the bright laughter had faded, and her blue-grey eyes were very serious. “I’m a much better secret-keeper than anyone guesses, you know, because I seem like I would be terrible at it. If you start to feel the weight of this task, Maglor, please feel free to come to me. You can complain all you like and I will never tell another soul.”

Maglor did know that Lalwen was a good secret keeper. As children they had all known that their Aunt Lalwen, in spite of her boisterousness and ready laughter and near-constant teasing while in company, had always a ready ear to listen to whatever woes or secrets they might bring her, and that those things would never reach the ears of another. “Thank you,” he said. “It isn’t that no one knows already. I’ve spoken of it to Maedhros and Elrond, and Daeron.”

Lalwen’s teasing smile returned suddenly. “I knew Daeron was smitten with you at the Mereth Aderthad,” she said, poking Maglor in the arm. “I knew it, but Nolofinwë wouldn’t believe me! I’m very happy for you.”

“Thank you. I’m very happy too.”

“But I can tease you about Daeron more later. We are meant to be speaking of Finwë.” Lalwen fell silent as they walked. A few birds sang, hidden from sight in the hedges, and somewhere else beyond the maze Maglor could hear laughter and bright conversation. “The last time I saw my father,” she said finally, “we fought. I did not want him to go, and he would not stay—he was very angry, angrier than I had ever seen him. It was directed at the Valar mostly, I think, and at Fëanáro, though I didn’t realize it at the time. I just thought he was taking Fëanáro’s side again, when it was not Fëanáro who had had his life threatened. I have always regretted that—that we parted in anger, that I did not tell him that I loved him, or hear that he loved me, as the last words we exchanged. That was my own fault—he was not angry at me but I was very angry at him. It’s just…well, it’s just that I thought there would be time.”

“We all thought that,” Maglor said. 

“I don’t know what I would like most to hear in a song. I trust that you will find words for all of us. He was my father, and I know that he loved all of us dearly. I only hope that he knew, in spite of our bitter parting, that I loved him too.” Lalwen took Maglor’s hand and squeezed it. “That probably isn't terribly helpful. I’m sorry.”

“Everyone has said that,” Maglor said, “but it all helps—just to hear him spoken of by all of you, whatever it is you say. It is very hard, but it will all help me to make this song what it should be. What it must be.”

Lalwen knew the hedge maze well enough that they only got turned around for ten minutes before she found the way back out. Maglor lingered for a few minutes by the maze’s entrance as she returned to the stables, listening to the birdsong, then went inside, soon learning that his uncle was in his private study. It was not Finwë’s old study—that, like his workshop, remained shut up and unused. Fingolfin’s was nearby, but smaller and cozier, with warm brown wood paneled walls lined with shelves that held books and small sculptures and other interesting things, some of which looked as though they had come from Middle-earth. His desk was covered in stacks of parchment and paper and books and things, but it was all organized very neatly, and he immediately set his pen aside when Maglor was shown in. “Maglor,” he said, “welcome back to Tirion! It’s good to see you again.”

“Hello, Uncle. I’m sorry our last meeting was cut so short—”

“Oh, it’s all right; I understand.” Fingolfin embraced him with the same warmth that he had at that last meeting, which had been just before Fëanor had arrived and Maglor had fled Imloth Ningloron. “Come sit down. You’re here about that song for Finwë, are you not?”

“I am, but if you’re busy…?”

“I am not.” Fingolfin led the way to the window, where a pair of comfortable chairs sat facing one another. A potted orchid sat on the windowsill, sporting soft purple blooms, beside a few small stone carvings of abstract but clever shapes. “What is it of Finwë you wish to ask me?”

“Just—what you want to hear me sing of. It’s the question I’m asking everyone. Not everyone has had an answer. Whatever you wish to say—it’s all helpful.”

“Have you spoken to your own father yet?” Fingolfin asked as he sat down.

“Yes. I spoke to him this morning.”

Fingolfin had been in Imloth Ningloron when Maglor had had his first confrontation with Fëanor. No one had been close enough to hear the words, but Maglor knew they’d heard him raise his voice. Now Fingolfin leaned back in his seat and regarded Maglor solemnly. He looked very like Fëanor, both of them so greatly resembling Finwë—in the shape of their faces, the dark fall of their hair. Fingolfin did not burn in the same way that Fëanor did, but Maglor knew it was mistake to ever forget that he could. “How did it go?”

Maglor shrugged, looking at the flowers rather than at his uncle’s face. “Better than I feared. It was hard because we spoke of Finwë, more than for any other reason.”

“He has missed you, you know,” Fingolfin said quietly. 

“I know.” Maglor did not look away from the flowers. “It isn’t that easy to stop being afraid.”

“Is that what it is? Fear, rather than anger?”

“It’s always been fear.” Maglor did look at Fingolfin then. “I’m not as afraid now—not of most things, anyway. Not like I was before. I hope someone else has told you about how much of a mess I was, because I don’t really want to speak of it.”

“I’ve spoken with Elrond,” said Fingolfin, “but he is reluctant to share very much.” He paused, and then said, “Your father has been deeply unhappy since he returned from Mandos. I do not think he expected a warm welcome, but he did harbor hope for it, however small.”

“I know.”

“He has blamed himself for Finwë’s death,” Fingolfin said after another pause. “Findis and I followed him to Formenos some years ago, when he left Tirion so abruptly that your brother thought we had quarreled and I had banished him.”

“Curvo has never mentioned that.”

“It was a few years after you left for Lórien—so long ago now that he likely doesn’t think it worth remembering, since we had not quarreled and I certainly did not send him away. Fëanor did not stay there long. He wanted to see Finwë’s grave.”

“Turgon said that Olwë and Ingwë buried him.”

“They did, following the traditions of Cuiviénen. Flowers grow over his grave; we were there in spring, and so it was all snowdrops and hyacinths, like what grows near the doors of Mandos. It was morning, and the mist over the lake glowed golden in the early sunlight. You have never seen the Wilwarinen under the sun, have you?”

“No. Do you think I should?”

“It is beautiful. Lonely, perhaps it might be called desolate—but there is a certain beauty even to the crumbling walls of Formenos, covered in wild roses and lichen. The town is gone, entirely overtaken by forest now. Melkor’s most evil deed in Aman was committed there—but still life and beauty has returned to it. I suppose that is what I would like to hear in your song. Findis believes that he will return to us someday, though for years now both my mother and Míriel have argued and pleaded before the Valar and not swayed them. I find I do not have my sister’s capacity for such hope, but it was easier to believe her when we stood there by the lake, the three of us, with the air full of the scent of flowers.”

“Does my father still blame himself?” Maglor asked.

“I think so. It isn’t the sort of thing anyone’s assurances can really erase. He spoke of his guilt concerning Míriel, too, and I know he feels the weight of responsibility for all that befell you and your brothers. He does love you, Maglor.”

“I know,” Maglor said quietly. “I’ve spoken to him. I know.”

They spoke a little more of Finwë—of happier memories—until someone came with an issue Fingolfin was needed to resolve. When he left, Maglor found he had no heart to seek out Orodreth or Angrod. He was exhausted, though it was barely lunchtime, and really just wanted to go back to Imloth Ningloron to curl up in the clover with his hedgehogs and Pídhres. Instead he found Daeron and Celegorm near the stables with Lalwen. When Daeron spotted Maglor he immediately left the conversation, and pulled Maglor into the shade of a pillar, away from curious eyes. “Are you all right?” he asked.

“I’m tired.”

“Between seeing your father and spending all morning talking of your grandfather, is it any wonder?”

“No,” Maglor said, “I know. I have yet to speak to Orodreth and Angrod, but I don’t know where they are and I don’t think I can do it.”

“There’s time. The deadline of the feast is a thing you’ve given yourself, you know.”

“I know.” Maglor let his head rest on Daeron’s shoulder for a few moments. “I’m going to be terrible company the rest of the day.”

“Do you want to be left alone?”

“For a while, when we return to the house.”

“All right. Let’s go, then. There’s a bakery on the way that Mablung showed me on my first visit. Surely pastries will help to cheer you up.”

“They certainly won’t hurt.” Maglor raised his head and kissed him. “Thank you.”

Celegorm appeared behind Maglor, throwing his arms around his neck and leaning most of his weight on him, so that Maglor staggered forward with a grunt. “What’s the matter, Cáno?”

“You’re heavy, is what’s the matter.” 

“We’re going to get pastries and then go back to Finrod’s house,” Daeron told Celegorm as he finally let Maglor go so he could straighten himself. “Are you coming, or will you stay here a little longer?”

“I’m definitely coming if there are going to be pastries.” 

They left the shelter of the pillar and bid Lalwen farewell before Daeron led the way back out into the city. They took a very different route back than the one Maglor had followed that morning, through busy streets and bustling markets. It reminded Maglor a little of the market he and Daeron had visited in Avallónë soon after their arrival, but also of the markets of his youth when he’d ventured out with his cousins in search of sweets or music or gifts for an upcoming birthday or holiday. It was very strange to walk through the familiar streets of Tirion and hear Sindarin being spoken as much as Quenya, and even a scattering of other tongues and dialects too. It was a bright day, warm and sunny and cloudless, and he felt his mood lifting with every step away from the palace. By the time they reached the bakery that Daeron had spoken of, Maglor was cheerful enough again that Celegorm had stopped giving him worried looks. 

The look returned when they reached Finrod’s house and Maglor prepared to retreat upstairs. “I’m just tired, Tyelko, and I have work to do. Stop hovering, or you really will find me in a bad mood.”

“Come on,” Daeron said to Celegorm, grabbing him by the hand. “Maglor isn’t the only one who’s been writing songs. You can listen to my new one and tell me what you think of it. I’m experimenting with puns.”

Alone in his room, Maglor loosened his hair and changed out of his fine clothes into something far more comfortable, and sat down to write. He compiled notes from that day, and then turned his attention to the song itself, but found his mind wandering, and soon gave up and went to lay down instead. Pídhres appeared and curled up beside him, purring as he stroked her fur. His thoughts kept returning, again and again, to the horrors of the Darkening—he already knew that his dreams would be bad that night—and then, after a while, to his father. 

He didn’t really know how he had expected that meeting to go, but he had not expected the reality. To find his father so quiet and thoughtful and…sad. Turgon had been right: it was one thing to hear others speak of what someone was like, but a different thing entirely to see it. Guilt gnawed at him a little. Speaking of Finwë was so clearly painful—and he was also so clearly trying to do things differently than Finwë himself had, in speaking of him at all. They needed to speak again, but there was so much that needed to be said and just thinking of it made Maglor’s head hurt. He couldn’t do it—not while his mind was so full of old grief and the growing weight of the song. The more it took shape, the closer he got to finishing, the closer he came to performing. It was enough to send panic flooding through his veins, making it hard to breathe or even to think at all.

Maglor joined Daeron, Elrond, and Celegorm for dinner, but retreated upstairs again soon afterward. Both Elrond and Celegorm kept watching him, though Elrond was a little more subtle about it; it made him feel breakable in a way that he hadn’t in a very long time, and he hated it. Amras appeared not long afterward to hover around in his own way, and after he left Daeron came up. “If you start,” Maglor told him even before the door fully closed, “I’m going to send you to sleep on one of Finrod’s couches.”

“I’m not going to worry at you.” Daeron plucked the papers from Maglor’s hands. “I’m only going to point out that your brothers are noticing old habits start to appear, and I think it’s rather understandable why that might concern them.”

“I’m not—”

“I know.” Daeron set the papers on the desk and then started to undress. “And now, having said that, I’m going to kiss you senseless, and then we’re both going to fall asleep in bed and no one’s going to banish anyone else to a sofa.”

“Do I have a choice in this?” Maglor asked as Daeron slid across the bed to straddle his lap. Maglor wrapped his arm around him, tilting his head up as Daeron took his face in his hands.

“Certainly not. Now stop thinking.”

Later, as the ability to think about anything but Daeron slowly returned and they lay tangled up under the blankets, Daeron playing idly with Maglor’s hair, Maglor sighed. “I love you,” he murmured.

“And I you. Go to sleep, beloved.”