to all things housed in silence by queerofthedagger  

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Amras

For the Amras & Amrod chapters specifically I want to greatly thank Polutrope, who has various excellent meta and headcanon posts on the two of them that gave me a lot of inspiration on how to go about the twins. You can find those here: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5], [6] <3

Valinor

It takes many years for Amras to understand that he grows up somewhat differently from his older brothers.

He always knew it to be true to some extent, of course—none of his siblings has a twin, and no matter how close the pairs of them, it is a different kind of closeness. For one, none of them ever struggled to be seen as only one part of a whole.

Amras loves his twin, but that is not the point.

The point is that Amras grows up in a house that alternates between silence and fighting. His brothers have all moved out by the point Amras is old enough to understand; to understand, too, that perhaps it would be better if his father did the same thing.

By then, Fëanáro still lives with them, though. He spends most of his time in his smithy, or at Finwë’s court, and Amras does not understand most of what lies beneath, but he does understand the expression that his mother wears, whenever his father is around. Understands the tight-pressed line of her mouth whenever the two of them clash, and what it means when Amras watches her, hacking away at stone until what once was meant to be beautiful and splendid is ruined and malformed.

He is too young to feel the metaphor to be on the nose, but it makes no real difference.

She never burdens him with what she thinks, but he can tell. He asks her once why she stays; never does so again, at the sorrow that washes across her face in response.

He knows the answer, all the same; for them. She stays, always, for them.

Despite all that, he lives through a mostly happy childhood, a happy adolescence.

He spends endless hours in his mother’s workshop, learning everything he can from her until stone and chisel feel as at home in his hands like her steady, unflinching warmth does beside him.

His brothers are there often—Tyelkormo, taking him and Atyarussa into the forest, atop Aman’s highest peaks. Teaching them how to hunt, how to read the land and all it has to offer. Carnistir, taking them along to Finwë’s palace, showing them the hidden nooks and crannies, where to go if they need a quiet place to rest.

Finwë is ever happy to see them, no matter how busy. He is one of the first, even when they are small children yet, who can reliably tell them apart. Amras never forgets it, the pleased thrill of it. Finwë’s knowing smile, almost conspiratorial.

Maitimo, ever a constant. He has long since his own life, when Amras and his brother are born, but he always makes it a point to be around. To let them stay with him for long, glorious days during which Makalaurë will visit, and their countless cousins that their father would rather keep them apart from will step by. Long days at Alqualondë, and nights spent up in the hunting lodges of the mountains, family drawing a close, tight circle around the two of them.

And yet, and yet. They learn early on not to tell of their exploits at home, when their father is around. Not to tell their mother either, lest she be made to lie for them.

It is not that it always goes wrong; it is just that it is impossible to tell when it will.

The truth is, Fëanáro tries. In more forgiving moods, looking back on it, Amras knows this.

He, too, stays for them. He, too, takes time to teach them—in this, ever has he been patient and enduring, with his children.

He tries, he does. The truth is that, once all is said and done, this matters not at all.

Exile

Amras does not want to go to Formenos. He thinks his father mad for his actions towards his brother. Thinks the pride folly, the northern fortress cold and foreboding.

But Atyarussa goes, eager to follow Tyelkormo—eager, as ever, for something new, something different.

By then, their parents had not lived together for a while, both he and Atyarussa grown enough to be thought capable of handling such a thing.

Maitimo goes, brows furrowed, but the set to his jaw determined. Carnistir and Finwë do.

They all, all go, except his mother. She watches from the sidelines and says naught.

And so, at last, Amras follows, unable to look back and meet her eyes as he does.

Those are twelve long years, and yet, much like his childhood, there is much happiness to be found there. He is among his brothers; he gets to see Telperinquar grow; Finwë, as ever, is a source of comfort.

He has his own workshop, and his father spares no effort to equip it as well as Nerdanel’s, back in Tirion. Amras flourishes there, despite her absence; learns, in truth, to be not only more than part of a whole, but also something other than his mother’s most beloved son.

Perhaps it is this that drives him later. Looking back on it, he never can tell; it remains the kindest possible answer.

It is Carnistir who finds Finwë, but it is Amras who finds Carnistir.

Formenos is an anxious, bristling beehive of activity, people coming out of whatever places they hid in, when darkness fell like the blow of an axe.

People are hesitant, and then they come all at once, clamour rising at the evidence of broken doors and shattered marble.

Everyone races for the armouries and treasuries, but something—something within Amras knows.

He finds Carnistir kneeling next to their grandfather’s body—whatever is left of it. His skull is barely recognisable, except for the hair. His limbs are twisted at strange angles.

He does not look like something that had once been a living thing should look. Amras has been on the hunt; he knows the difference between taking a life and violence.

When Carnistir raises his head to look at him, Amras knows, too, with a bone-rattling certainty that would have scared him if he were capable of any more fear, that this is the beginning of the end.

He is the last to join his father and brothers in their Oath, but join he does.

Tirion is strange, dark and foreign, torchlight painting everything red and violent. The image of his grandfather, beaten bloody and beyond recognition, still burns behind Amras’ eyelids.

And oh, he does want vengeance. Atyarussa bares his teeth at him, expectant, and holds out his hand. So, Amras follows, raises his voice, joins it to those of the family that, when it comes right down to it, he still loves more than any doubt he can muster.

Amras should have been prepared for his father’s rousing speech, the insistence to leave Valinor behind.

He should have, but he is not. He stands in mute horror as the crowd crests and falls, spiralling higher and higher in its agitation. Watches as it all takes on a life of its own, as his brothers are swept up in it.

His mother finds him, certain like a compass will find north. He recognises the tight-lipped line of her mouth, the hard glint to her eyes, before she speaks.

“You cannot contemplate going.”

He loves her, he does; loves her, he thinks sometimes, uncharitable and desperate, more than any of his brothers do.

“They will all go,” he says, not an answer. She knows it, too.

“It is madness, Ambarussa. Surely, you must see it.”

Something hardens within him at the use of that shared name.

Umbarto, she had named Amrod, no matter what their father liked to claim. Amras knows its meaning well.

His heart breaks when he finally looks at her. He is taller than her, has been for years now. Still, he feels like a child, clumsy and helpless, when he touches her shoulder.

“I do. And yet, I must go. Surely, you must see it, too.”

In the bristling upheaval of Tirion’s dark streets, she closes her eyes in defeat. His proud, unwavering mother, who has never once faltered even in the face of the worst of Fëanáro’s tempers, and yet it is Amras who finally makes her cry.

She pulls him close, holds him fast. Argues with him no more, and only presses a small, stone-carved talisman into his palm, before she disappears back into the crowd.

She had known that he would go from the very start, he realises.

He turns to find his brothers and tries not to let the resentment spill across his face.

In the wake of it, Alqualondë almost feels like an inevitability.

Amras hangs back, hands shaking, revulsion high in his throat. Then a Teler is running at Amrod’s back with what, in the torchlight, looks like a butcher’s knife, and Amras is moving before he knows it.

Twins they may be, both a beloved thing and an exasperating burden, some days. And yet—it has been Amras who was born first. Was Amras, who, oftentimes, had an easier time with his parents than Amrod with his short-fire temper and impatient unwillingness to ever find a compromise.

Amras would never tell him so, but he had learnt from five others how to be an older brother. Nothing in the world, no doubt or fear or uncertainty, could ever stop him from guarding Amrod’s back.

And so he does, Noldor-forged steel sinking effortlessly through flesh and muscle and bone.

The Teler’s eyes are wide and deep blue, where they stare up at Amras, after.

He does not stop to see the light go out of them. Merely presses his back against his brother’s and makes sure that there is no other such close call.

“You do not think it a wise idea,” Amrod says to him, days later, only the two of them in the small cabin of their boat.

It is no surprise that Amrod can read him so. That he is wise enough not to speak the precise subject of doubt out loud, not even here.

Amras does not take his eyes off the ceiling.

“No,” he says, “I do not. I do not think that, by now, it changes anything.”

He fails to keep the bitterness out of his voice, this time. Or perhaps, he does not try; Amrod, inevitably, will hear it anyway.

“No, I think it would not,” Amrod finally agrees.

They speak of it no more, but oh, how they should have.

When his father presses a torch into his hand, Amras considers refusal once more.

Losgar is as chaotic as Tirion had been, those final hours, the night dark and unforgiving.

Still, it had been impossible to miss Maitimo’s row with Fëanáro, the unflinching, unforgiving rock of him. Still he stands to the side, arms crossed, daring any of them to go on whenever they meet his eyes.

Amras wants to join him, he does. A voice in the back of his mind whispers, sly and cruel, what does it matter, to stop now? You have sworn your Oath. You have chosen your path. Do you think flinching at setting fire to timbre will absolve you, will wash the blood off the white-washed wood, after all?

Oh, how Amras knows that it will not. Already the cracks are turning visible, Mandos’ Doom reverberating after them. Neither Ossë nor their mother’s love may have stopped them, and yet Amras can no longer look at any of his brothers without resentment tangling like a vice around his ribs.

“Come, now, or do you want to join Nelyafinwë in his sulking?” Fëanáro asks, and there is malice in the substructure of it. Amras has not recognised him once, since they have left, and he had never known a father that was carefree and loving as his brothers did, but this—

This, he wants to flinch from.

He takes the torch and seals his fate.

There are no words left, in the aftermath.

It is Maitimo who moves first, when the screaming starts. Who runs onto the burning boat amidst the rising clamour, amidst Amras’ sinking, breaking heart.

“Have you not woken him before you started this?” he asks, somehow finding himself beside Fëanáro.

His father looks at him, his eyes fell. “No,” he says, his voice a crooked thing. “It is the boat I set ablaze first.”

Something breaks, then. Amras can feel it resonating through his entire being, tearing and ripping until there is little left of him.

Atop the boat, he sees someone move. A moment later, two figures plunge across the railing, falling, falling, falling until they hit the still raging waves.

Losgar is silent except for the roaring fire and the furious sea, keeping the stillness of a tomb at bay.

Maglor and Celegorm wait at the shore. They pull two figures out of the water, holding so tightly onto each other, they are almost impossible to tell apart.

When they are separated, at last, Amras recognises only one of them.

There are no words left, in the aftermath.

Amrod stops screaming once Maglor begins to sing to him, power leeching from his voice. Their healers set to taking care of his injuries—burns, wild and large, twisting along his arms, his legs, his chest. Half his face is burnt, most of his hair gone.

They build a makeshift cart so that he does not have to ride as they push further into the land. Amras sits beside him and takes nothing in, nothing, nothing, nothing but the mutilated caricature of what used to be his twin.

I did this, he thinks. He can still feel the weight of a torch within his hand.

You did this, he thinks, staring at the back of Fëanáro’s head. At his brothers, all of them silent, once faced with the horrific reality of what they had done. We all did this. What use or threat can be this Oath of ours, when this is what we do to our own?

Maedhros is quiet in the midst of it. He, the only one who had not raised his hand against one of their own. He offers no comfort, no reassurance. Tells none of them that they had not meant it, had not known.

Amras is grateful for it as he is for little else, now.

The others do not speak so either, not anywhere that Amras can hear. He knows they think it, though, can see it in the tilt of Celegorm’s chin, the harsh glint of Curufin’s eyes.

But then, what right does he have to be angry, to feel the rage licking at his bones? Had he not done the same thing? Does he not tell himself so, through long, dark nights, while Amrod dreams of terrors beside him?

Early Beleriand

They barely settle into a camp before battle is upon them once more.

Amras stays back, with a handful of healers. No one argues.

He has an inkling that this, too, is Maedhros’ doing, and the gratitude tastes acrid on the back of his tongue.

Their father does not return. Amras wants to rage and rage and rage at how much the mere fact still hurts.

He does not take part in the funeral rites—what point, after all that has happened? What point, when there is not even a body left, Fëanor contrary even in death?

Amras does not attend. Curufin finds him after, hollow and wild-eyed. He has never looked more like their father than he does in his mad grief, and Amras would feel compassion if he were capable of still feeling anything at all.

Most of what Curufin says, Amras barely hears. But then, almost at the end, Curufin turns, one last time. Meets Amras’ eyes, sneers. Says, “It was not he who named him Doomed, you know. You should remember that. You should pay him some—“

Amras throws the heavy-set goblet before he knows it.

That is a lie.

He knows what he is doing. Knows it as the words register, as he finds the nearest, heaviest object. Knows that he will not miss, always a sure shot. Knows what it could do, if it hits its mark the wrong—the right—the wrong way.

The heavy, iron-wrought goblet slams into the back of Curufin’s head with a sickening sound, and Curufin goes to his knees—one smooth move, shock rocking through his body, his gasp loud in the healing tent.

Do not disturb the resting, Amras wants to taunt. He says nothing.

Then Caranthir is there, appearing out of nowhere. He takes one look at the scene before him—Amras, positioned before the cot where Amrod sleeps. Curufin cursing, spitting mad, a hand pressed to the back of his head, but kneeling, still.

“Right,” Caranthir says, voice tight but even. He grabs Curufin under the arm and pulls him up, almost effortlessly, and then drags him away.

Amras meets his eyes once, when he turns back. It is the last time that he speaks to Curufin, for a very long time to come.

Maedhros is captured. Amrod, slowly and agonisingly, recovers.

Amras spends his time in the healing tent, then in the hut that their people built for them. He helps Amrod wash and eat. Helps to change the bandages. To take care of his hair, which grows back only in some places and not in others.

Amrod rarely speaks to him. Says, once, in the dark of night, “I do not blame you, you know. You did not want to go from the start, and we all would have been wiser to listen to you. But we did not, and so, here we are.”

And so, here they are—Amras, still capable of telling when his brother lies. Amras, no longer capable of speaking that truth past the guilt lodged firmly within his throat.

Maedhros ’ Abdication

By the time that Maedhros is returned to them, Amrod has healed as much as he ever will.

There is still stiffness to some of his muscles, especially when the weather turns damp and cold. The scars marring him still stand out starkly within their camp, still make people flinch.

They make Amras flinch, too. He has long since learnt to hide his reaction, the substantial roll of nauseating guilt that sweeps through him every time he meets his brother’s eyes and finds one of them scarred and discoloured. Has long since learnt that Amrod can tell regardless, and that there is no use, no use at all, for them to try and talk about it.

Amras can hardly blame him, after everything.

Some nights, shameful nights, he wishes for the simplicity of those first few weeks of their exile—after Alqualondë, but before Losgar. How easy it had been, then, to think himself purer, less fallen from grace, than the rest of them. He who did not want to leave; he who mourned for Aman and all they were leaving behind. He who already had a whole family ready to take the blame for all that was awaiting them, an Oath like a noose trailing in their wake.

And now? Now, well, now. What could the Oath possibly still make them do that they have not already done to each other tenfold?

Maedhros returns, a mutilated, broken shell of himself.

Amras looks at Amrod, scared of what the sight will do. Amrod, who, ever since he had woken up, insisted alongside Celegorm that they could not just abandon Maedhros to Morgoth.

Amrod, who now looks at Maedhros with something like recognition. Amras can feel his stomach sink and feels more wretched than he ever thought possible.

It takes countless turns of the newly risen moon before Maedhros is at all responsive.

He mainly speaks to Fingon, when he speaks at all. He sleeps a lot. He screams.

He reminds Amras of Amrod in those first couple of weeks, if things had somehow, inconceivably, been a hundred times worse yet.

It comes as no surprise then when, once Maedhros is better—for whatever meaning of the word—Amrod spends a lot of time in his room.

Amras finds them once, early on, slipping into the room unnoticed. It is dimly lit and warm, despite the constant Mithrim cold.

The picture he is met with strikes him motionless, and he lingers by the door; Amrod on the edge of the bed, Maedhros propped up on pillows. He has his one remaining hand raised, fingers pressed to the scarring of Amrod’s face.

“I am sorry,” he says, his voice rough as it now ever is.

Amrod swallows, smiles, the scars moving with it. For once, he does not look like he wants to flinch away from someone paying attention to them.

“Out of everyone, you are the least to blame. And after all, we match now, do we not?”

He touches Maedhros’ face in return, the wrecked mess of it. Maedhros still looks haunted, but he smiles back.

Amras leaves the room as silently as he arrived. He thinks, perhaps, he finally understands how Maglor must feel, watching as Fingon accomplishes so easily what all this time, Maglor could not.

The abdication itself is a relief.

He would never say so out loud, among the outrage of their brothers, but it is. Finally, a chance to slip away from this godforsaken lake, from the suffocating politics of every movement.

Maedhros is in no condition to rule, even as none of the others see it. Mithrim is no place for them to stay.

Morgoth lies in wait in the north; their Oath lies in wait within the bones of them all. They cannot fall any further, and the best they can do—

The best they can do is to finally accept that. Maedhros, Amras thinks, is perhaps the only one who understands it, an immovable rock even in the face of all their brothers’ outrage.

The Long Peace

In the woods and open plains of East Beleriand, Amras finally learns to breathe again without choking on smoke in the back of his throat.

He lets himself think of his mother there, for the first time in years. It still slices him open, but he can bear the thought, at least. Can bear the knowledge that she would rightfully turn from them for good if only she knew.

He hopes she does not. Hopes his father sees, though, from wherever he is being tormented now. Hopes that he sees what he has made of all his children, scattered and accursed.

He wonders what Nerdanel would think of him now, full of vitriol where she had ever made it a point not to be.

But then, it had been she who had given Amrod his fateful name. Some days, Amras wonders if he ought not hate her for that, too.

Things do get better, is the truth.

He and Amrod find a balance again, find a common footing that does not constantly feel like walking barefoot across shattered glass. It is not the same as it once was—will never be the same again—but they build their keep atop Amon Ereb, steer clear of most of their brothers, and roam the wilderness.

It is good. And yet, it is living on borrowed time; Amras knows this, he does. Whether it is Oath, or Doom, or what they wreak upon themselves—there is only one way that all this may end.

The Dagor Bragollach

When the north burns, the belief becomes a fact.

It affects them less, in the immediate sense, and Amras, truth be told, is glad.

Amrod is itching for the fight, though, and is restless as the wind carries down the smoke.

Amras wants a fight, too, but for different reasons. Wonders if ever it will be his lot, to watch his family come to flame and ash. Wonders if it will ever stop, thinking of his father and tasting sorrow, underneath all that fury.

Caranthir arrives with his people a week after the smoke.

He looks beaten and changed. Looks like he had not only lost his fortress and land, but a piece of himself.

They do not ask. It has never again been easy, with any of their brothers but Maedhros, in the aftermath. Out of all of them, Caranthir is bearable, though; he is pragmatic, taking quarters and directing his people; adding to their defences, to their patrols, to their hunts and trades.

Beleriand changes in the wake of the broken Leaguer. Down south, they change with it. They adapt. They keep pretending that this can ever be anything other than waiting for the hammer to fall on them, next.

The Nirnaeth Arnoediad

When Maedhros calls, he calls on all of them.

Even if he wanted to, Amras knows that this time, there is no keeping Amrod from answering.

And so they answer. They muster their people. They coordinate with Himring for weapons, supply lines, for strategy. They watch as it becomes clear that ever since they have been ousted from Nargothrond, Celegorm and Curufin have played their hand at Himring with little success. How it makes them dangerous.

They watch as the fruits of their labour fall rotten, Nargothrond and Doriath both refusing to come.

Amras and Amrod call on their own allies—Elves of Ossiriand, Men who have not gone with the main hosts of their lords but stayed in their lands. It is no Nargothrond, but it matters.

Amras watches as Maedhros meets them with gratitude, adjusts. As there grows hope in his eldest brother’s eyes that makes dread run down Amras’ spine, ice-cold and foreboding.

He had felt it once before, long, long years back on the last eve in Tirion. He knows what it means.

He speaks not.

In spite of the dread, to be proven right is no relief, is nothing but a cataclysm.

It is proof, yes—of the hopelessness of it all, the inevitability of their situation. It is also witnessing another unmaking, to see Maedhros collapse into himself. It is to watch Celegorm and Curufin take advantage, watch Maglor do nothing, this time, and to stand by helpless, still.

They retreat to Amon Ereb, and so, Amras hunts. He keeps them fed. He works with Amrod and Caranthir to keep the fortress safe and well-equipped, as best they might.

He makes no effort to mitigate Celegorm’s scheming or Maedhros’ despair. He knows he has not the skill. Knows that it is only delaying the inevitable.

There is no way out for them. There is the Oath, there is their Doom, and above all else, there is what they have long since become.

They might as well accept it.

Prelude to Doriath

And so, when Celegorm calls—

Theirs—his and Amrod’s—is the largest remaining force. They had been in the rearguard at the Nirnaeth, had been on the opposing side of Ulfang’s men. Theirs is the keep, theirs are the supplies.

Any plan, all of it, hinges on them.

“What is the point in sitting here, waiting?” he asks, when he and Amrod talk about it, deep within the night.

It is how they ever talk now, wrapped in darkness. As if the mere act of looking at each other has grown too heavy.

“You know what it is Celegorm wants us to do,” Amrod says, and his voice carries no judgement, just intrigue.

“Yes,” Amras says, because he does. “And is it not what we must do? What we swore ourselves to?”

“Do not act like the Oath drives you now, of all times.”

In the darkness, Amras shrugs. “Ever it drives us. It is merely inconsequential, weighed up against everything else. Our father’s jewels, what do they matter to me now?”

“Why, then, consider supporting this?”

“Why not? We need to do something. We will not do anything we have not already proven ourselves capable of. Who knows, perhaps a shiny rock out of three may change something, after all. Any of it must be better than sitting up here, waiting for Morgoth to fall upon us.”

Amrod is silent for a long time.

In the end, he rolls close, presses his face to Amras’ shoulder.

“Then we will fight,” he says. He sounds resigned, and so finally, finally, Amras knows himself understood once more.

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