A Hundred Miles Through the Desert by StarSpray  

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Twenty Six

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Celegorm came looking for Maedhros at Súriellë’s house the day after Maglor was to speak with their father, carrying a bird on his shoulder. Súriellë was a scribe at the palace, but her wife Míraen was a baker; they lived behind and above the bakery, and Maedhros had been recruited to help knead dough for the morning, since it could apparently be easily done one-handed, and Míraen’s usual assistant was still away visiting family for the holiday. Elessúrë had laughed at him before making his own escape to go shopping with his wife and daughter.

“Taking up baking, Nelyo?” Celegorm asked, leaning over the counter to grin at him. 

“Only for today,” Maedhros said. “Where did that mockingbird come from?”

“You keep that bird away from my wares, Celegorm,” Míraen warned, coming out from the ovens with a warning frown and a tray of scones in her hands. Her frowns were more fearsome than most, aided by a scar tracing from her hairline to her chin, passing over her left eye, the ruin of which was hidden underneath a patch. A memento of the War of the Last Alliance, she had told Maedhros with a toothy and fierce grin, where she had fought in Gil-galad’s vanguard. “If I find any feathers…”

“You won’t,” Celegorm said. 

“I better not. Here, try one of these. I have been experimenting.”

“Why does everyone want to test their experiments on me lately?” Celegorm asked, but he took a scone and bit into it. “Oh, I like that. Consider your experiment successful. Can I have my brother, please?”

After Maedhros washed the flour off of his hand and returned Míraen’s spare apron, Celegorm pulled him out of the bakery into the sunshine. “How are you?” he asked. “I mean, really.”

“I’m fine,” Maedhros said. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Cáno isn’t.”

“Did he see Atar?”

“Yes. He said I went well, but he’s doing that thing where he hides behind his hair again, and—” Celegorm stopped himself, visibly biting his tongue. “I’m trying to give him space,” he said finally, “because Daeron threatened to drown me in one of Finrod’s fountains if I didn’t.” The mockingbird on his shoulder nibbled at his ear, and he reached up to stroke a finger down its breast. 

“Daeron probably has the right of it,” said Maedhros. “If Maglor says that it went well, speaking to our father, then it went well. He wouldn’t try to lie about it.”

“I know, but—”

“He’s also doing something that until now he has found utterly impossible. Let him work through it and be in a bad mood if he wants. You don’t see the rest of us threatening to drag you off to Lórien when you get gloomy.” Maedhros met Celegorm’s glare with a raised eyebrow. “Are you going to explain the bird, or not?”

“I fixed his wing for him back in Imloth Ningloron,” Celegorm sighed, “and he flew off and I thought that was that, only he turned up at my window this morning. I don’t know why.”

“Just make sure Pídhres doesn’t get him,” said Maedhros. “Does he have a name?”

“If he stays longer than a week maybe I’ll think of something.”

They wandered through the streets, seeing what had changed and what was the same. They avoided going near the palace, but Argon and Turgon found them anyway, and the four of them fell in together. It wasn’t as easy as it had been long ago, when they’d roamed the streets of Tirion in their youth under the golden light of Laurelin, but it wasn’t terribly hard, either. Turgon was grave and Maedhros was quiet, but Argon had not changed so much, and Celegorm was willing to be drawn into conversation and laughter. The two of them wandered ahead, and Turgon fell into step beside Maedhros. 

“I’m surprised to see you back in Tirion,” Turgon said after a while. 

“I came for Midsummer with my cousins,” said Maedhros. “My other cousins, I mean.”

“Have I heard right that all seven of you are here?”

“For the moment, yes. Have you seen Maglor yet?”

“We spoke yesterday. He is…different.”

Maedhros glanced at Turgon, who was the closest one of their family to Maedhros’ own height, only a few inches shorter. “We’re all different,” he said. 

“Yes, but…” Turgon shook his head. “I know you’ve both spent some years in Lórien. If he is so somber and wearied now I cannot imagine what he was before you went there.”

“He is usually much more cheerful,” said Maedhros. “It is somber work though, what he’s doing.” And there was the performance before the Valar, when the song was done, that hung over him. If asked, Maglor could claim not to be afraid, only certain that it wouldn’t work, but Maedhros knew better. Turgon could know nothing of that, though, so Maedhros turned the conversation away from Maglor and to Idril, asking after her and Tuor. Turgon smiled much more easily when speaking of his daughter, though it still didn’t reach his eyes; Maglor was not the only one who felt the weight of the past. Maedhros asked after Fingon, too, but no one had heard anything since he and Gilheneth had hurried away to Lórien. 

“I don’t blame them,” said Turgon as they dodged around a knot of children clustered in front the window of a toyshop. “It will be even worse for Gil-galad than it was for Elrond, when he finally comes to Tirion. Everyone is going to want to see him and speak to him and all of that. Outside of Tirion, no one dares to risk Gilheneth’s wrath by appearing uninvited. I hid away with them too for a while after I came back.”

“Can I ask why you left Tirion afterward?” Maedhros said as they halted to avoid being run over by another large group of children, this time charging down the street shouting at each other, waving sticks and toy swords. 

“I liked ruling my own city,” Turgon said with a shrug. “I was good at it—all my mistakes aside. And it’s not as though there isn’t room here.”

“No need for hidden kingdoms, either.”

“No, but I do miss it. Tumladen, the encircling mountains. I dream of it sometimes even still.”

“I miss Himring too,” Maedhros said.

“You could build another one here if you wanted.”

“No, it wouldn’t be the same—the things I loved most about it are the things that aren’t needed here. I don’t miss the responsibilities, though. I don’t even want a household to manage—let alone a city.” 

“Really?” Turgon frowned at him. “I thought you were all avoiding such things now because you did not think it would be taken well. But you gave up the crown, not all your titles, or your authority. There are many who would flock to a city you or your brothers founded. You see how many have gathered in the quarter of Tirion where Curufin lives.”

“None of us want that,” Maedhros said. 

“I suppose I should not be so surprised; even Fëanor is apparently content to let go of his own claims,” said Turgon. “Though he remains a Prince of the Noldor, and is happy to remind anyone who forgets. He sits on my father’s council and is very welcome there. You could still do something, if you wanted to.”

Maedhros shrugged. “I’m not my father.”

“No,” Turgon agreed, but in a tone that warned that Maedhros would not like his next words, “but you are your father’s son. You always have been.”

Maedhros stopped walking. Turgon stopped after another few steps, turning to look back at him with a raised eyebrow. “I am trying very hard,” Maedhros said, keeping his voice even only with great effort, “not to be.”

“And even in that, you are like him,” Turgon said, “since he is trying very hard not to be who he once was, too. I’m not sure he is entirely succeeding, but he is trying. The two of you even wear the same expression when you think no one is looking.”

“Are you two coming?” Argon called from ahead of them.

“Yes, we’re coming,” Turgon called back, and did not wait for Maedhros again. Maedhros caught up and fell into step by Celegorm again, trying to ignore the way his hand suddenly hurt, trying to school his expression into something cheerful and knowing that his brother saw right through it. This earned Turgon a dark look from Celegorm, but he said nothing when Maedhros caught his eye and shook his head. 

Later, after they parted from their cousins, Celegorm turned his scowl on Maedhros. “What did he say to you?”

“Nothing,” Maedhros said.

“Nelyo—”

“He just remarked how like Atar I am. It’s nothing I didn’t already know—”

“You aren’t,” Celegorm snapped. They had left the crowded market streets but there were still plenty of other people around, and a few glanced their way. Maedhros sighed and took Celegorm’s arm to pull him into the relative isolation of a small park, where they could have at least the illusion of privacy behind a few trees. “You aren’t anything like—” Celegorm began again as soon as they were alone.

“All I ever was, was my father’s son,” Maedhros said, trying to keep his tone even and calm but just landing on flat. “That shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone, least of all you.”

“But you aren’t now,” Celegorm said. “Turgon doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Turgon probably knew better than either Maedhros or Celegorm, having spent far more time in their father’s company even as rarely as he came to Tirion from Alastoron. Maedhros just shook his head. The mockingbird on Celegorm’s shoulder flew away, vanishing into the trees. Whatever he did, Maedhros was never going to escape his father’s legacy—he’d always known that. The best he could do was to keep moving forward on his own terms, and if they happened to align more closely with Fëanor’s than he would wish…well, maybe that meant his father really was no longer the monster that still sometimes haunted his nightmares. It was better than Maedhros being more of a monster, still, than he thought he was. 

“He’s always going to be a part of us,” Maedhros said after a few moments. “It would be foolish to try to pretend otherwise. Now we just…know better what roads to avoid turning down. That’s all. Stop scowling at me, Tyelko. I’m fine.”

“You and Cáno both like to—”

“What sort of miracles were you expecting Lórien to work on us? I’m not going to fall apart every time someone talks about Fëanor, but I’m not going to be happy about it, either. If I promise to tell you if I really am struggling, will you stop assuming the worst at every frown?”

Celegorm looked away, strands of hair falling out of his braids across his face. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I just—”

“I know.” Maedhros tugged him into a hug, resting his chin atop Celegorm’s head. “If you’ve been worrying at Cáno like this I’m surprised he hasn’t tried to punch you yet.”

“I think Daeron might be talking him down from it,” Celegorm muttered into Maedhros’ chest, and Maedhros couldn’t quite tell if he was joking. “I’m sorry.”

“Should I be worried about you instead?” Maedhros asked. He already was worried, but he wondered now if he wasn’t worried enough. 

“No. I’m mostly just—Maglor’s been acting strange, writing this song, and I don’t like it. I don’t understand why it’s so important that he can’t stop or even just slow down if it’s making him so miserable.”

Maglor did not want the full truth of it known, but Maedhros wasn’t quite sure why he was keeping it from the rest of their brothers. He glanced around, but there was no one nearby. “Míriel wishes for him to sing it to the Valar, before anyone else,” he said, very quietly.

Celegorm didn’t immediately react. Then he drew back, eyes very wide. “You mean—?” Maedhros nodded. “No wonder he’s so—why did he agree?”

“I don’t know.” He really didn’t, because Maglor was so convinced it would never work. “He just feels that he must finish it. He wants to do it before this feast of Ingwë’s, though I don’t know why. But don’t try to talk to him about it. He says he’ll never get another word written if everyone knows.”

“Who does know?”

“Me, Daeron. Elrond. I don’t know who else Indis or Míriel may have spoken to about it, but it isn’t anything anyone wants widely known.”

“Better not to raise false hopes,” Celegorm said.

“Something like that, I suppose.”

“Do you think he can…?”

“I think,” Maedhros said slowly, “that he still underestimates himself. I’m only telling you about it so you’ll let him have some space, and not just because Daeron’s been threatening you.”

“All right, all right.” The mockingbird flew back to land on Celegorm’s outstretched hand. He whistled at it, and set it on his shoulder. “I’ll just start complaining about his cat trying to eat my bird, so he can be annoyed at me for that instead of anything important, and then I’ll stay with you when he and Daeron and Elrond leave for Alqualondë.”

“I’d like that,” said Maedhros.

They returned to Súriellë and Míraen’s house, and there found Ambarussa waiting for them. “Fingolfin asked Daeron and Maglor to perform tonight,” Amrod said. “Do you want to go see them?”

“At court?” Celegorm asked, wrinkling his nose. “No thanks.”

“I didn’t bring anything I can wear to the palace,” Maedhros said. And he would attract as much attention as Maglor, if he went. Not to mention Fëanor would be there, and if they avoided one another at such an event there would be talk—more than there already was—and Maedhros felt exhausted just thinking about having to deal with it. “I don’t think Maglor will mind.”

“He won’t, no,” said Amras. “But we thought it would be better to ask you anyway.”

“Thanks.”

“How is Maglor?” Celegorm asked as they walked around the back of the bakery to the stairwell that led to Súriellë and Míraen’s apartments. 

“He seemed fine,” said Amrod.

“More cheerful than yesterday,” added Amras. “He saw Orodreth and Angrod and it must have gone well.”

Ambarussa stayed the afternoon, leaving only when they had to go prepare for a more formal dinner than they were accustomed to. Celegorm stayed and dined with Maedhros, Súriellë, and Míraen; Elessúrë and his family did not join them, going to spend the evening with Lossenyellë’s sister instead. They talked mostly of art, which meant Celegorm spoke little. He was not unskilled, and had learned all the same crafts and arts that Maedhros and the rest of their brothers had, but none of it had ever called to him like the hunt did, or the wild woods. He’d left the hunt behind, but as far as Maedhros knew he hadn’t found anything to replace it—except worrying about his brothers. But he listened, and when he bid them goodnight he seemed in a better mood than he had been that morning. 

“It’s nice to have you all in Tirion,” Súriellë said to Maedhros. “I feel as though we can finally start to know you. How much longer are you staying?”

“When Maglor leaves for Alqualondë, I think I’ll go home with Celegorm,” said Maedhros. “I think Ambarussa intend to leave not long afterward, too.”

“Well at least you’ll be close by, and not wherever it is they go,” Súriellë said, waving a hand in a generally southward direction. “Where do they live, usually?”

“Somewhere in the mountains,” Maedhros said. “They’re very mysterious about it. Wherever it is, they spend quite a lot of time with the Laiquendi from Ossiriand and the Woodelves from Rhovanion.”

“Merry company indeed,” said Míraen, laughing quietly.

“What do you think of Tirion now, Russandol?” asked Súriellë. 

“It’s very different,” said Maedhros with a shrug. “Fine to visit, but not to live in—not for me, anyway. I like the quiet of the countryside better.”

“I’m a little surprised you haven’t gone to see Daeron and Macalaurë perform,” said Súriellë as she rose to put on more tea. 

“I’ve heard them sing together before, and I will again,” said Maedhros. “It’s wonderful every time—but I don’t need to dress up for it. Why haven’t you gone to see them?”

“What sort of hosts would we be if we left you by yourself?” Súriellë asked. “And I don’t want to put on any finery tonight, either. There will be other opportunities, I’m sure—unless Macalaurë intends to never return to Tirion after his errands this visit.”

“He will, but you’ll be more likely to find him at our mother’s house,” said Maedhros, “or Imloth Ningloron. They are always singing there.”

When he retreated to his room, Maedhros took out his sketchbook. He’d started a drawing of Súriellë and Míraen together after a glimpse of them laughing at something in the bakery, and wanted to finish it for them before he left Tirion. The window was open, letting in the sounds of the city, quieted with the evening but never quite silent. If he leaned out of it and looked toward the Mindon Eldaliéva, he could see the neighborhood where his childhood home still stood, slowly crumbling, waiting for Fëanor to finish tearing it down. As he added a few final bits of shading to Míraen’s hair, Maedhros thought of that house as it stood in his memory. He hadn’t gone near it this visit, not wishing to encounter his father—and reluctant to see what had become of it. It was hard to think of it crumbling, slowly succumbing to the passage of time even there in timeless Valinor, but something in him recoiled at the thought of tearing it down, of taking a hammer to the walls, of carting away the broken stones in carts to be returned to nature somewhere or to be reused for some other purpose. 

The next morning he woke still thinking about it, so he slipped out of the house before any of his brothers or cousins could catch him, and made his way to the old neighborhood. The sun had not quite risen, and the light was pale, the sky only slowly turning grey as the stars lingered over the western horizon. It was unlikely he would find Fëanor already there; from what Ambarussa said, he would not arrive until later in the morning, after the sun was fully risen. Maedhros kept his head down until he came to the gateway, empty now where once beautiful gates of gilded wrought-iron had hung, made by both of his parents working together, with half-abstract designs of stars and hammers. Now it was only an opening in the wall, to which lichen and wild-growing vines clung. 

He stepped into the courtyard. The overgrown gardens had been mostly dug up and cleared out. A few stubborn plants remained; a crabapple sapling here, a cluster of purple columbine there. Dandelions grew through the cracks in the flagstones, bright yellow and cheerful. Maedhros paced across the courtyard, following the footsteps of his long-ago self, and pushed open the door. The hinges creaked gently, and the door dragged a little across the warped tile inside. It was dark and shadowy, the air smelling of dirt and dust and faintly of mildew, and standing there Maedhros could almost see the ghosts of himself and his brothers pacing around, coming and going, arguing and laughing. He could almost see his parents dancing, the way they sometimes had when everything was still happy and they were still so deeply in love, just for the sake of moving together for a few minutes on days when they were both otherwise too busy.

Maedhros didn’t go any father than the entryway. The rooms would all be empty, choked with dust and cobwebs. Even the cellars and storage rooms were now empty, many of the boxes and chests that Curufin had taken charge of carted away already to Nerdanel’s house, where Maedhros knew he would have to organize them to be sorted through properly later, when he or his brothers had the heart for it. This house was not where he had been born—he and Maglor had both been born outside of Tirion—but Celegorm and all the rest of his brothers had begun their lives here. They had all grown to adulthood in these rooms and hallways, which had seen scraped knees and tears and laughter and Huan’s arrival as a floppy-eared puppy, that had heard the discordant notes of Maglor’s first attempts at making music, and later the beautiful melodies he had written and played first just for them. They’d seen Ambarussa scribbling on the walls where they thought no one would notice, and Curufin’s first time bringing Rundamírë home to meet them, and in between all their cousins and friends coming and going, loud and young and so very bright. 

They had seen, too, their descent into darkness—the first blades that Fëanor had forged, the helms and the shields, had heard how he had increasingly often raised his voice, had watched Nerdanel pack her things and leave without a backward glance. And then watched the rest of them depart—first for Formenos, and then for the east. His last memories in this house were dark and frightened and hurried, and now there was no way to replace them with anything brighter. The house needed to be torn down, Maedhros thought as he looked up to the landing above, at the stairs that were broken and tilted and too dangerous to climb. He was surprised more of it had not already collapsed on its own. But looking at it was like looking at the tapestry Míriel had made for him of Himling Isle. It made his heart ache, but he couldn’t bear the thought of it disappearing entirely.

He walked outside into what was left of the gardens. The peonies that Caranthir had adored as a very small child were long gone, of course, but he could still pick out the precise spot where they had grown. The forge and the workshops still stood, but in even worse states than the house. Maedhros stopped before his father’s forge, where the Silmarils had been made. Even then it had been a very simple and unassuming building, not the place anyone would expect such a work to have been done. Maedhros brushed his fingers over the door, but did not open it. 

By the time he walked around the house back toward the gate the sky was fully light, and he could hear the rest of the city waking beyond the walls, beyond the quiet neighborhood of large houses and sprawling gardens. Now was when he could expect to meet his father, Maedhros thought, and he still didn’t know what he wanted to say, or wanted to hear. Sure enough, Fëanor appeared in the gateway before Maedhros could step out of it, and they both stopped, Fëanor blinking in surprise. Maedhros waited for his hand to start burning, and it did, sharp and hot. “Nel—Maedhros,” Fëanor said finally. “What are you…?”

“I hadn’t seen it yet. Since I came back.” Maedhros didn’t look over his shoulder at the house, but it felt like the windows had turned to eyes and were watching them. “What are you going to do after you’ve torn it down?”

“Build something new,” Fëanor said. “I do not yet know what.” 

Elrond had said they needed to speak to one another, to listen to what the other had to say. Maedhros knew he was right, but he didn’t know what to say, and it seemed to him that his father didn’t, either. It was something that Maglor had been able to speak to him, but Maglor had his song to write—something to begin the conversation. Maedhros just…

“Do you remember what you said to me after the ships burned?” The words spilled out of their own accord. Maedhros hadn’t even been thinking of Losgar. 

Fëanor blinked again. “No,” he said after a moment. “I don’t—I remember very little, with clarity, after the Darkening.”

Maedhros couldn’t decide if that made it better or worse, that his father had little or no memory of Maedhros’ single act of defiance or his own reaction to it. “Have you looked for Losgar in the palantír?”

Something went tense in Fëanor’s stance that made Maedhros want to flinch back, but when he spoke his voice was quiet. “No.”

Well, then. “Maybe you should.” Maedhros slipped past him and didn’t wait for an answer. His father didn’t call after him, and he didn’t look back.