to all things housed in silence by queerofthedagger  

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Maedhros

Valinor

Maedhros’ childhood and youth are blissful ones.

Firstborn to parents who adore him, the first grandchild to a grandfather who wants nothing more than a growing family. Elder brother to a sibling born not too long after him, just long enough that he gets to dote and protect him. Elder brother to more siblings, to cousins and a whole brood of children that all, too, adore him.

That he adores in turn, and back in those blissful days, there was yet little strife, no bitterness. They spend their days roaming the forests surrounding Tirion, spend summer days at Alqualondë, spend late nights at festivals in Tirion’s glittering streets. And when they are not, his parents take them across the continent, to dark, vicious seas and into deep caves, atop swindling mountains and beneath star-struck skies.

He spends his youth in his father’s forge, his mother’s workshop. In Aulë’s halls, and in Finwë’s palace, and swept up in the rush of the Valar’s celebrations, ever adored as Fëanáro’s eldest, his brightest, the most beautiful child in all of Aman.

His mother named him such, and so it must be true. His brothers after him are only ever more proof of such a thing—the most skilled in song; the one chosen for Oromë’s hunt; the mathematical prodigy; the most skilled second to only their father, and ever on.

He grows up in bliss and peace, and he is not ignorant of the tension between his father and his uncles, but back then, it matters little. It only ever seems like a small thing, a counterweight, because there has to be one thing, at least, that is not utterly perfect.

Perhaps he would have valued it more, if he knew what was to come.

He grows, whip-smart and well-spoken. Finwë takes him to court and along to meetings with friends and adversaries, and Maedhros loves it—the word games, the subtlety, the strategy and thought and cunning that goes into all of it.

He knows his brothers think it dry, but he has never once lost an argument against any of them. It is hardly his fault that they fail to see the connection.

He still spends much time in his mother’s workshop, watching her work, sculpting alongside her occasionally. He does not have her outstanding talent, but he enjoys the process and peace of it.

Time that is not dedicated to his family, he spends increasingly with Findekáno. Findekáno, who can ever be found in the stables, and who will coax Maedhros out of whatever library he has holed up in. Findekáno, who will drag him back into the forest, race him across golden fields, push him into cold forest lakes, his touch ever lingering.

Maedhros learns of love, then, how it burns. He is no stranger to fire and heat, but it takes a year until he lets himself fall into it, into Findekáno’s laughing eyes and waiting hands.

This, too, is bliss, even as by then, things around them seem to darken.

Ever his father seems to grow angrier, more bitter. Behind the doors of their home, they get into fights increasingly often, Maedhros’ own temper slow to kindle but bright to burn.

And oh, Fëanáro knows how to kindle it. Where Nerdanel will purse her lips and leave the room, and where his brothers will try their best to avoid the confrontation, Maedhros can never quite stand to do the same. He knows his father, knows how fierce and all-encompassing that love can be; knows that, at the root of it all, this, too, is about love. He cannot just stand by and watch Fëanáro break things out of sheer stubborn pride.

So, they fight. So, it changes little. His father’s descent seems as steady as it seems inevitable, and all Maedhros can do is make sure to have his own space to retreat to, to have his brothers over regularly, to keep good relationships with their uncles, aunts, and cousins.

It is a balancing act, one that he manages for much longer than he should, by any right. Because the truth is, too—

Well, the truth is that it is never a question of loyalty. He and Fëanáro may disagree, they may fight, may not speak for days on end until their tempers cool. But at the end of it all—at the end of it all, they are family. Have been for rolling, endless centuries, and there is no version of this in which Maedhros would choose anyone, anyone at all, above his parents and his brothers.

Exile

So, of course, he joins his father in exile. His father goes; his grandfather does; none of his brothers truly contemplate staying behind.

Maedhros, deep down, has an irrational hope that it might help, that some distance from Tirion and its endless games of politics will get his father to focus on something else again.

Deep, deep down, he knows it to be a lost cause. His father, whenever he finds something, anything, is like a dog with a bone until its resolution. All of Finwë’s children and grandchildren have this in common, and Fëanáro and Maedhros perhaps most of all.

There is little else he can do. Findekáno asks him to, eyes dark and angry as his own father looms like a shadow across his shoulder, that last hour they see each other in a backstreet of dimly-lit Tirion.

A goodbye, they both know, and yet neither of them wants to admit it. Maedhros’ chest feels tight. He keeps his chin raised.

“You would not do anything other,” he says, daring Findekáno to contradict him.

Findekáno scoffs. “Of course, I would not. And yet, my father would never put me into such a situation.”

“Would he not? Is he not doing so already?”

“He was not the one—“

“No, he is not,” Maedhros agrees, but his voice is sharp. “And yet your father cannot exactly claim innocence in all this either, can he? Melkor’s lies spread among us all, after all.”

“It was not my father who raised his weapon first. If he had been, we would not even be standing here, would we, Russandol?”

They would not. There is no use in claiming otherwise, and they both know it.

There is nothing else to say; any promise would ring false, any attempt to soften the blow of it come out as cowardice.

They part. Maedhros lets his anger move him onwards, lets him settle into Formenos, make the most of it.

There will be endless time to set things right, if such is their fate. And if not—well, if not, they will learn to live with that, too. They always knew that theirs was a precarious relationship, at best.

Maedhros never quite gets himself to truly believe that.

They are twelve long years, at Formenos. He writes countless letters that he ends up feeding to the fire, his own pride too sharp-edged to let him send any of them.

He knows without knowing that Findekáno’s experience is most likely similar—the worst thing, after all, about all this is that it hurts them both the same. That they know this. That it does not, cannot change anything.

When the darkness comes, Findekáno is still the first thought on Maedhros’ mind.

Whether it is the same everywhere in Aman. Whether Findekáno is safe. Whether Maedhros will see him again.

It spurs him on, makes the anger boil and spit within him as he has to drag his brothers away from their grandfather’s mutilated body, as worry for their father sits like a vicious beast in his neck, driving them forward, toward Tirion.

The white city upon its hill is wrapped in darkness, too. The torches and shadows cut everything stark and imposing, and Maedhros keeps his brothers together, makes them search for Fëanáro, for their cousins, their family. Refuses to think about what he will do if he finds any of them with their innards smeared across white marble.  

He finds Findekáno first, like a moth drawn to flame. Whatever anger lay between them dissolves in the darkness, and Maedhros pulls him close, almost choking on the relief.

It is a short-lived thing, but it is relief, nonetheless.

“Is it true?” Findekáno asks, pulling back. His face is fierce and furious. “Is Finwë—“

Maedhros immediately wants to pull him close again, hold him against himself, shield him from the upheaval around them. Never has Findekáno tolerated such a thing, not even as a child; Maedhros does not try to do it now.

“Yes,” he says, swallows. “How have you news of it already? Does my father know?”

Findekáno’s expression twists at the mention of Fëanáro, but it is pity, not anger. Maedhros feels like everything around them is shaking apart, and there is no way for him to hold on to any of it.

Fury washes through him anew at the cruel, pointless unfairness of it all. Is it not enough what has been made of his father, these last few years? Is it not enough that ever there was bound to be strife between their families—now Finwë, the one they could all agree to love no matter each of their shortcomings, should also be taken from them?

“Russandol—“

Whatever Findekáno is about to say is cut short as the crowd around them falls silent. In the square ahead, Maedhros finally finds his father—or, perhaps rather, what is left of him.

Maedhros has seen his father in many states; blissfully happy, most often when he was still young. Focused on his work, his eyes bright with the pleasure of invention. Angry and bitter, cruel in words and deeds, even against his own family, too often in recent years.

Grieved, too, Maedhros has seen him before. None of it has ever been like this, like someone had taken his father and cracked him open alongside Finwë, all tender, ugly parts exposed to the unforgiving darkness.

“I am sorry, Russo,” Findekáno says, as if he sees it too. Maedhros nods, swallows; brushes his mouth against Findekáno’s temple and then goes to join his father, the fire in his own blood finding its kindling on Fëanáro’s face.

Much like Makalaurë, Maedhros knows the meaning and weight of words. Finwë, after all, had taught him well.

Joining his father in his Oath is a deliberate choice, perhaps more so than for any of his brothers.

He will have vengeance. He will reclaim what was stolen, as is their right; as might yet keep his father from succumbing to his howling grief as Fëanáro’s mother did. They will leave this land and its darkness, and whatever they will find on the hither shores will perhaps not be easier, but it will be theirs. Maedhros believes this; knows, sees, how many others do, too.

It makes it easy to dismiss Findekáno’s horror at the Oath, to disregard Findaráto’s watchful eyes as they make for Alqualondë. They will leave, because there is nothing to stay for. They will do what they must to achieve it. He is right beside Fëanáro when his father raises his sword, and it feels just, feels righteous, the blood that stains the shore. Feels like finally there is something to channel all that bristling fury into, Finwë’s dark eyes and his brothers’ terrified, pale faces running before his mind’s eye, over and over and over.

Maedhros comes to, in the aftermath, Findekáno across from him. There is blood on Findekáno’s face, a stark, crimson streak across his cheekbone. Maedhros raises his hand to it, and Findekáno flinches as if struck.

They stare at each other, Maedhros’ heartbeat loud in his ears. The air smells of salt and iron.

“Come,” Maedhros finally says, sheathing his sword. “We must go on.”

Findekáno follows. Maedhros has a sense, a fleeting touch in the back of his mind, that this, this is the moment that one day will haunt him like no other.

The truth of the matter is that Maedhros’ temper has ever burnt as bright as his father’s, but never as long. By the time they disembark on the new continent, the intermittent days have swept away his rage, and left only nauseous horror behind.

He had known what he was doing; they all had. There is but one path open to them, onward and forward.

He still wants his vengeance, his redress. Finwë still lies dead, and their father still howls and raves, half-mad with grief. Maedhros can merely think more clearly now, can see the beginning and end of the path that they are on, Mandos’ Doom echoing in their wake.

Maedhros refuses the torch, after his father laughs at his question, fell and fey-- Now what ships and rowers will you spare to return, and whom shall they bear hither first? Fingon the valiant?

His father’s eyes flash, but Maedhros is well-versed in his father’s anger. It is his own, after all—no matter what they do to each other, there will always be this.

And so he watches, silent and heavy, as the boats go up in flames. Thinks of Findekáno, left behind, the promises they never spoke now shattered between them.

As the flames dance, he wonders if perhaps it is for the best. Unlike them, Findekáno and his family may yet find forgiveness.

He cannot bring himself to believe that a mercy, even now. Cannot think of Tirion as anything other than crimson-red treason against them all.

This is the point where the screaming starts. This is the point where everything falls apart.

Early Beleriand

He refuses to let Fëanor see Amrod. He makes sure Amras eats and sleeps. He lets Celegorm lead the main host and stays close to their father, the only one with even remotely a chance to stop him if it should become necessary.

Not that he has done a great job at it, and he keeps replaying the scene—the screams, the smoke, the limp, heavy body in his arms. The red, blistering skin. Keeps thinking of the boats, the Teleri’s greatest joy; thinks of the rest of their family, abandoned to their fate.

He cannot change the past. He fails at changing anything else, either. They defeat the Orcs, and he spends mere moments re-ordering their people, but by the time he turns back, his father is gone.

Another victim to fire, and they repeat their Oath at his behest, as he lies dying. They will avenge him—what else could they possibly do? As he has to drag Curufin away from the scattering ashes, his brother’s arms burnt from clinging to their father’s remains in a twisted mirror of the burn marks on Maedhros’ own arms, from saving their brother’s life, Maedhros wonders just how much more he will be made to lose to darkness and flames.

For all intents and purposes, the responsibility should not threaten to crush him alive in the aftermath. Their father had not been of sound mind since Finwë’s death—longer, even, if one were to consider those years in Formenos, and what led up to them.

And yet; it is Maedhros, now, that his brothers look to. That Amras expects to fix his twin, that their people expect to lead, that Celegorm and Curufin test themselves against, the moment they get the chance.

He still thinks of Fingon, abandoned and furious. Thinks of their mother, how she had refused to say farewell to any of them. Thinks of his father, once ever fierce but joyful, demanding but full of love, laying the same Oath on them once more, even as he must have seen, much like Maedhros, that doom was already nipping at their heels with every step they took.

When Morgoth’s request for parley comes, Maedhros knows it to be a trap. Knows, too, in some deeply buried corner of his mind, that he stands no chance even as he takes more men than he agreed to.

Later, he will never be quite able to tell what drove him to do it—stubbornness, perhaps; the same furious self-righteousness that Fëanor had shown when he pursued Morgoth’s host. If his father can do it, so can he. Except.

Except that Maedhros does not pay with his life. It is a lesson hard-learned, that he should not aim to imitate his father in anything.

Beyond those first few days in the pits of Angband, Maedhros has no concept of time. Days of torment lie behind and ahead of him. Sometimes, no one comes to see him for days on end; others, he is sure the torture must stretch through night after night after night.

It takes what feels like aeons, but they tire of him eventually. At first, the mountain peak is almost a relief. At first, he can still curl his fingers around the manacle, hold himself up; can, every once in a while, lunge around to hold on with his left hand, keep the weight off his wrist.

It is short-lived relief. The wind is cold up here, and Maedhros is weakened from endless nights in Morgoth’s dungeons. Every part of his body hurts. Rain and hail make him shiver against the rough, unforgiving stone.

No one hears him up here. It is the only mercy he finds for a long time.

At first, he thinks Fingon another nightmare, another hallucination produced by Morgoth or his lieutenant.

When he understands that it is real, that it is Fingon’s voice meeting him up on the accursed mountain—when he understands, it is almost worse. A wretched, forsaken place, in a wretched, forsaken land; the thought that their betrayal may have yet spared his most beloved cousin from this fate had been the only comfort left to him.

It crumbles, with Fingon’s gold-plaited braids gleaming far below, in the newly risen light in the sky.

He begs for death. Is not granted this either, and he might have known; might have known the mockery of being saved for what it is, if he was not so glad to see Fingon’s face once more.

The knife sawing through skin and sinew and bone is terrifyingly real. When darkness claims him, Maedhros gladly lets it, Fingon like a pillar against him.

The Abdication

Recovery is sheer frustration. Maedhros misses the days when he barely knew what was happening to him—snatches of time, of faces, of sensation. There was pain, yes, but there was blissful ignorance, too.

He gets better. He refuses to do anything but, refuses to carry Morgoth under his skin now that he has escaped, but it is an exercise in patience that he does not have.

He makes up for it with stubbornness, but he can see the horror on his brothers’ faces, can hear them whisper when they think him asleep. He knows Maglor’s guilt is eating him alive, and he no longer finds the words to lighten its weight.

Fingon rarely leaves his side. There is betrayal buried deep in the black of his eyes, too, and Maedhros lets it. They do not speak of Alqualondë. They do not speak of Losgar. They do not speak of the Ice. Fingon’s eyes follow Amrod’s scarred face through the room, and Maedhros does not speak of how the scars on his arms are a match from the same fire, not something else he brought home from Angband.

What use is telling Fingon of his inaction? It changes little; Fingon is marked by his own scars, carrying an endless desert of ice now right beneath his breastbone.

Fire and ice—Maglor would, once, have scoffed at the triteness of the metaphor. Maedhros cannot help but think it apt, nonetheless—ever complementary; never quite made to find peace alongside each other.

Recovery is making an art form out of stubborn refusal to give up, and so, recover he does. He talks to his brothers until they no longer flinch at his address. He talks to Fingon until they can look each other in the eye for longer than a blink.

He eats, and does his exercises, and once his healers and his family are gone, he pushes out of bed and repeats them until he is shaking and nauseous with exhaustion.

More often than not, Fingon finds him so. He never tells Maedhros to take it slow, his dark eyes a mixture of understanding and guilt that Maedhros, in his less gracious moments, hates more than if he had been pitied.

He swallows it, most of the time. They swallow a lot of things, these days.

It is the only thing to get them through, truth be told. And even then, they barely do.

The first time Fingolfin comes to see him, Maedhros expects a lot of things.

He expects anger. Expects accusations, perhaps even pride, and scorn, a demand for explanation for why his eldest keeps dooming himself for Maedhros’ sake.

He is not keen to answer any of those questions. Is not sure he could convincingly appear trite enough to fool his uncle, when they have once known each other well, spending endless days in Finwë’s court over treatises and theoretical documents.

In retrospect, it all seems ludicrous. What stakes had there been, in blissful Tirion? None and none; like children they had been, playing pretend.

All this is to say that Maedhros expects a lot of things. He does not expect the grief that bows Nolofinwë’s shoulders, that darkens his eyes.

“I am sorry for your loss,” Fingolfin says, and he looks at Maedhros, but sees Fëanor, Maedhros can tell.

“I am, too,” he says, even as it is a lie. He is sorry for what became of his father; he had too many years of solitude and reflection to be sorry that it did not go further.

But Fingolfin had lost his own father, too. It would be easy to forget that—had been, in fact. But now, here they sit, an accumulation of bitter grief festering between them.

Now, it is only them left to see this through to its bitter end. Maedhros is not fool enough to believe it a kinder outcome, but perhaps a less explosive one, one that might yet have hope of not tearing their family apart for good. What is left of it, anyway.

“I am sorry too for not coming sooner to see you,” Fingolfin says, settling into the chair beside Maedhros’ bed that Fingon had vacated not long ago.

Fingolfin, too, looks worn thin and weary, much like his son. He meets Maedhros’ eyes without flinching, though, and Maedhros can see it, then—someone who has led the main host of their people across the Ice and through death, through doom and beyond endurance, and come out on the other side of it, still kind enough not to kill Maedhros where he sits.

It would be simple, too; some strength Maedhros may have regained, but it is merely enough to have a clear mind, the run of his room, and enough of a careful mask to stop his brothers from fleeing from the sight of him.

Maedhros sighs, and smiles. “Uncle,” he says, conviction blooming certain within his chest. “Have you yet thought about the future of our people?”

He does not tell his brothers. Does not tell Fingon either, and swears Fingolfin to secrecy as they plan—the one demand he sets. He can tell that Fingolfin dislikes it, but he is too much of a strategist, as Maedhros well knows, to let all this fail for the mere principle of the matter.

It takes Maedhros another year to regain enough strength to go through with it. To wield a sword again left-handed, to stand tall and ignore the pain in his shoulder without a grimace. To order his brothers and people, so that they know, once more, that his authority is not to be questioned.

In some ways, it is easier. He is not the same naive son who felt like he would buckle under the weight of responsibility. Who went to a parley knowing he would be overwhelmed, incapable of imagining the consequence of such a thing.

Maedhros has learnt, now. He knows the stakes. Knows that his brothers and people can see it in his face, some of them still failing not to flinch from the ruin that Morgoth has made of him.

Not quite a ruin, yet; it is active, gruelling work to sculpt himself back into being any kind of person at all, but sculpting, Maedhros does.

His mother had taught him well, after all.

So, when he stands before the gathered hosts of their divided camps, he stands tall. He knows what is to come, the accusations of betrayal from his brothers and Fingon both—for keeping it secret, for not asking counsel, for such a decision in the first place.

He knows why he does it, though. The strategic value, to assuage the Nolofinwëan host. The personal one to their familial relationships, even if between some of them, there will never be peace again—not in this life, at least. The necessity of it all, if they want to stand even a sliver of a chance against Morgoth.

And a mere sliver it is, Maedhros knows this better than any of them. But he counts on that sliver, he must. And so he says, voice certain and unwavering, “I have decided to relinquish the crown to Nolofinwë, the rightful heir in the wake of my father’s death. He shall be High King of the Noldor in this land, and lead us in our endeavour against the dark enemy. I trust fully that he will lead us well.”

He watches as, around them, chaos breaks out. His brothers are yelling, and Fingon is staring at him from across the clearing. Fingolfin is beset by his own people, distrust and bafflement running through their ranks.

None of them knows what is to come, Maedhros thinks, biting his tongue. They all think they do, Tirion’s darkness, flames and Ice and Mandos’ Doom, clinging to them like shadows, making them recklessly bold in their conviction that surely, surely the worst now lies behind them.

And yet, none of them know, truly, of the ruin that yet awaits them. Maedhros is long past hope, and yet he wishes that it may yet take them a while, until they, too, have to find out.

The Long Peace

He builds up Himring from the ground. He fortifies it, builds a shelter for their people. He makes sure his brothers do the same, that they thrive, that they are as safe as they can be.

He keeps close contact with Fingolfin, ever a balancing act of diplomacy that does not seem like he wants to take influence.

Fingon has not spoken to him since he removed east. Maedhros tells himself that it is for the best—must be—and finds himself looking west from Himring’s battlements more often than he can explain in any rational way.

He takes Maglor along to Fingolfin’s great feast. Those are joyful days, splendid and defiantly hopeful, so much so that Maedhros is caught up in it all.

He and Fingon reconcile, at last, pressed together by their dancing people by chance, and Maedhros’ inability to deny Fingon’s sharply smiling request for a dance.

“Will you avoid me for another decade?” Fingon murmurs into his ear as they move, and Maedhros should, he should.

Instead, he bows his head, whispers back, “Would you let me, if I tried? Even if I admit to you now that it makes me feel like I was young, and stupid, and yearning again?”

Fingon laughs, eyes warm and sharp like a summer storm. “What do you think?” he asks, and in the end, it is as simple as that.

Maedhros is too selfishly glad for it to do anything to sabotage it. What use, after all, in pre-emptive misery? He knows what is to come; he shall be damned thrice over if he lets Morgoth ruin what joy can be found before the inevitable conclusion.

They establish the siege. It holds. Maedhros still does not dare to hope, but year after year passes, and that, at least, is something.

It matters not that he knows what they have all become, what they are hurling toward; they will have lost already and worse if they let it crush their defiance in advance, and so, he does not. He meets Fingon, and rides out with Maglor, with Finrod, with the Men and Elves and Dwarves they meet. He attends Fingolfin’s court, and hosts feasts in Himring’s great hall. He makes it a sport to hunt Orcs and fell creatures until the mere sight of his face makes them flee before him.

Those are joyful years, even as the darkness lurks. Maedhros holds onto each one of those moments as tightly as he can, and does not look at the way they keep slipping through his fingers regardless, piece after inevitable piece.

The Dagor Bragollach

Morgoth’s retribution, when it comes, is as devastating as Maedhros always knew it would be. He stands on Himring’s highest tower and watches as every place filled with people he loves gets hit at once—from Barad Eithel over Dorthonion to Himlad, to the Gap and up to Mount Rerir.

The North burns, and Orcs fall upon Himring until Maedhros has no time left to worry for his family. To do so would mean death, and so he fights, and fights, and fights. Makes sure his fortress holds, and grits his teeth against the urge to ride out, to send messengers, to do anything other than what he must.

Himring holds, and yet, the cost is astronomical. Dorthonion gone, most of their strongholds fallen, except for Himring and Barad Eithel.

Barad Eithel, which no longer harbours a king. The tale of Fingolfin’s last duel comes weeks after the battle itself, and slams into them all the harder for it.

Maedhros rides west as soon as he can. Swears his fealty anew to the Nolofinwëan High King in public, and weathers Fingon’s grief and rage in private.

What did you expect? he never says. What do you think where else this will yet lead us?

He knows Fingon can read it on his face, all the same. He is no longer sure for whom it is a kindness, that neither of them says it out loud.

The accusations follow, in wine-drunk hours of morning, too little sleep ever having made Fingon irritable.

It used to be endearing. Nowadays, it merely means that those things they swallow back otherwise will finally meet the air, from Losgar over those long months at Mithrim’s shores, up to the times that Fingolfin had called them to arms, and they had not hearkened.

Maedhros has no justifications, and so he offers none. Fingon eventually burns himself out, and by the time Maedhros returns east, they have fallen back into their careful equilibrium of clinging to each other, and ever factoring out all those things that could yet shatter them to pieces.

They have grown well-skilled at it. Maedhros can never tell if this will not just be another weight on the scale of their ruin.

The Nirnaeth Arnoediad

The story of Beren and Lúthien’s success reaches Maedhros on the back of the report of his brothers’ disgrace.

He rages for days, decimating practice dummies on the training grounds.

They have fallen far from grace, it is no secret. Ever seem Celegorm and Curufin to make it their personal goal to underscore it, though, and Maedhros—

Well. He could punish them publicly, humiliate them, disavow them. It is not like he has not fury enough, like he would lack the support from Maglor and Fingon alike.

It is not what they do, though. To abandon the loyalty of family would be to abandon what remains to them utterly, and really, what would it change, at last?

The Oath—oh, Maedhros knows they all see it differently. He never seems to be able to quite make up his own mind on it. He knows Celegorm is convinced it holds no power over him, and yet he has turned into a beast the likes of which he would not have deigned to hunt, in happier days. Maglor is convinced it has powers unbound, and yet it has been years since any of them have been truly driven by it.

The truth, most likely, lies somewhere in the middle. Maedhros can feel it, every once in a while. Other times, looking back on Angband, and Alqualondë, and what is yet to come, he knows that it is nothing but himself making choice after choice after choice.

He cannot tell which truth he finds worse. Only knows that, once he hears of Beren and Lúthien’s success, something so terribly close to hope stirs within his chest, it is much more comforting to believe that it is, in fact, anything other than that.

To convince Fingon is a simple matter. Ever since his father’s death, has he been both desperate for hope and eager for a plan. It is not like there are many roads left to them, either.

Between them, they draw up plans of strategy, of supply lines, of distribution of forces. They have ever worked well together, and Maedhros revels in it, in those years, the easy intimacy and comfort they fall back into, in spite of everything.

He ignores the threat of failure that looms over everything. He knows Fingon does, too. The truth is that they are impatient with it, eager, giddy. They are desperate too, Morgoth’s advances since the Bragollach only ever growing more devastating.

They forge alliances. They deal with the fact of those who only agree to march under Fingon’s banner; do not speak of those who refuse their call altogether for the actions of Maedhros’ brothers.

They do not speak of Turgon.

Years of planning fly by, and Maedhros has long since been past hope, but—

But. He thinks of all their plans, of the luck they have had, every once in a while, no matter the Valar’s proclamation. Thinks of an eagle coming at Fingon’s behest, and for Fingolfin’s body. Thinks of how it would feel, how it would truly feel, to see Angband’s pits torn open. To hold his father’s jewels once more.

He refuses to contemplate the alternative.

This, in the end, is ever Maedhros’ greatest mistake.

He knows from the moment dawn breaks that things are wrong. They suffer delay after delay. It is too much to be a mere coincidence, and yet, Maedhros presses on, because they cannot leave Fingon to it.

Above everything, he cannot yet again abandon Fingon to his fate.

The sentimentality of it is his second mistake. When all is said and done, Uldor may not have slain him, but he has recognised Maedhros’ greatest weakness, and he made use of it, succeeded at it.

When they reach the battlefield, the fight is already raging. This is the second sign that something has gone wrong, but there is nothing for it but to join the fray.

It does not take long until the betrayal reveals itself. Takes not long until they need to retreat, and everything inside of Maedhros is revolting against the idea of abandoning Fingon to his fate, but what else is there to do? He cannot sacrifice his people, his brothers, for the stubborn, desperate idea that he might yet save Fingon, out of everyone.

Always, it comes down to this. Always, Maedhros must choose. Always, it is Fingon who pays the price.

When, days later, a messenger brings him news of the High King’s death, Maedhros long-since knows. He sits in the tent they have thrown up in the woods south of Doriath. He listens to the news. He lets Maglor move around him. He stares at the canvas.

This is what you get, a voice murmurs in the back of his head. This is what you get for thinking that hope may yet grace you with its favour.

It sounds a lot like his father. Or perhaps, it sounds like Sauron. Truth be told, Maedhros has not been able to tell the difference in a very long time.

There is nothing to be said in the aftermath.

He does not fade because Maglor refuses to let him. There is irony in how the loyalty to his family has ever kept him from following Fingon, but Maedhros can no longer be bothered to find the humour in such a thing.

Amon Ereb is familiar as it is strange. The times he has visited the twins in their refuge down south have been few, and now, he rarely leaves his rooms.

The longer he stays there, the heavier the guilt becomes. He can see it in Amrod’s eyes, the silent accusation, the resentment. Cannot imagine how it must feel, after the things only the two of them had shared, white-knuckled recovery as they clawed their way back to something akin to living, only to watch Maedhros crumple before his eyes.

He tries, some days. Joins his brothers for meals, for conversations, painfully avoiding the state of Beleriand, or their resources, or the future. Then he will look at Caranthir and remember the traitor. He will look at Celegorm and see Finrod.

He will look at any of their people and hear the messenger’s words. There is no use in going back, my Lord. There is nothing left of any of them.

Prelude to Doriath

In a way, it is almost a relief when Celegorm finally takes charge.

In a way, Maedhros thinks, perhaps Celegorm had the right of it from the start; what foolishness, to believe them anything but doomed, anything but the monsters of this story.

Perhaps Maglor had the right of it, too. The Doom, the Oath, the inevitability of it all—no matter how often Maedhros had preached his own awareness of the hopelessness, had he not still thought they could win? That if only they held the siege, if only they defeated Morgoth, if only, if only, if only—

They had sworn an Oath. They had accepted their fate. They need to avenge their father, their grandfather, their family. They need to reclaim the Silmarils, lest all of this will have been for nothing.

Still, when Celegorm calls them together with ruthless determination in his eyes, Maedhros hesitates. There is no point in mindlessly attacking Doriath; no point in doing Morgoth’s work for him, no matter how far they have fallen.

Celegorm is reluctant to yield, but they attempt diplomacy first, or at least they call their letter that. Maedhros no longer has it within himself to put in true effort; what, after all, does this child know? Shielded beyond Doriath’s borders and in Ossiriand’s green peace, never once having faced the enemy that has been besetting his land?

They receive no answer. Amras, furious and fey, agrees to join his forces to Celegorm’s quest.

“What else is there, Nelyo?” Maglor asks, his tired face turned towards the stars. It has been a long time since he looked at them with anything other than resentment. “We swore an Oath; we need to reclaim those accursed stones. So Doriath or Angband it is, and we tried one of those, did we not?”

The mention slices deep like a knife. Maedhros grits his teeth and thinks, what does it matter? Fingon is dead already, so who is left to judge me, yet?

Celegorm calls. Their brothers cast their lot.

Maedhros knows the weight of words, knows, what a promise means. What it means to break it.

It is a deliberate choice, and yet—what choice is left to them, at last?

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