August, Honey by Perching  

It was a dark and stormy night when Maglor reined in his horse outside the gate of his brother’s fortress and shouted, “Why in the depths of Udûn isn’t this thing open?”

He couldn’t see or hear much through the driving rain, but somewhere behind the bars, the cool light of a crystal lamp flared to reveal a guard wrapped in a cloak. Under their hood, they had a mouth, probably, and a pair of squinting eyes. “Who dares invoke dark Udûn, the Morgoth’s first and most terrible dwelling place, at the gate of his greatest enemy, Maedhros Fëanorion, lord of Himring?”

“His brother Maglor! And it’s called a figure of speech!”

The lamp wavered. “What? Who?”

With a curse, Maglor wrenched back his hood. “Maglor Fëanorion,” he cried, “lord of the Gap!”

Lightning flashed. Thunder rumbled. The guard fell on their face.

Also Maglor’s horse spooked, and instead of taking a moment to appreciate the clichéd but incredibly satisfying experience of having the world thunder at one’s words, Maglor was obliged to spend that time bringing her under control. When at last he was no longer in imminent danger of being dumped onto the stones, the gate stood open. He guided his horse through and stopped under the arch of the gatehouse, dizzied by the sudden calm. The wind shrieked but did not touch him.

Meanwhile the guard had recovered themself. “My deepest apologies, lord!” they exclaimed, raising the lamp towards Maglor as he wiped rain out of his eyes. “We weren’t expecting you!”

“Obviously not. But why not? I sent ahead a pigeon.”

The guard’s eyes flickered sideways towards the raging storm. Maglor grimaced. “I take your point. Tell Maedhros nothing is on fire. That would be impressive at the moment! Rather this concerns the… personal matter of which I wrote in my last letter.”

Perhaps it was pathetic to run to his older brother as he had as a youth whenever some object of his affections—and there were many—broke his heart. Probably it was. Certainly! But sitting in his quarters reliving the last brush of Tingil’s hand against his arm, the last sad glance over his shoulder, was hardly less so. At least this way, he could drink himself under the table without the risk of being discovered there the next morning, stale-mouthed and squinting, by a hapless subordinate.

While Maglor grimaced harder at that memory, the guard summoned two others out of the gatehouse. One dashed off into the rain towards the front doors. The other set a block near Maglor’s left foot. Maglor dismounted and gave his horse one last pat. They had met but a few hours before, and Maglor didn’t even know her name, but she had served him mostly well. She side-eyed him.

“Take it up with the Elder King,” Maglor told her and handed over the reins.

She was led away towards the stables. Maglor squinted after her and slowly lifted his hood over his head. The guard said, “Would you like to come in and sit down for a while, lord? While the storm passes.”

“Are you suggesting I cannot make it one hundred feet across the courtyard?”

“No! Of course not! I’m sure a prince of the West such as yourself will barely feel the storm! However… you are looking rather—”

Maglor gave the guard a friendly slap on the back. They squeaked. He sidled forwards until he was level with the inner wall of the gatehouse and experimentally stuck out an arm. The wind shrieked, drowning out the still spluttering guard. With a sigh, Maglor pressed onwards.

I barely feel the storm, he told himself as he walked. I am a prince of the West. I barely feel—

He shoved open the doors. Lightning flashed once more, throwing the great austere entrance hall into stark black and white. The doors closed on the thunder. In the quiet and the warm lamplight, Maglor swayed. Across the hall, Maedhros said, “Maglor! What under the stars are you doing here?”

“Maedhros,” Maglor said and no more.

Maedhros crossed the hall in the blink of an eye. He patted Maglor with his hand, first his arm, then his shoulder, then his hood, and with deft fingers he pulled back the hood to reveal Maglor’s face. “Nothing’s on fire. All right! But something’s wrong with you.” His mouth pinched. “I take it you and Tingil are not betrothed.”

Maglor slumped into Maedhros’s chest. Maedhros, stiffening, said, “You are sodden!” But he didn’t push Maglor away, so Maglor let his head drop onto Maedhros’s shoulder. Maedhros patted him between the shoulder blades. “There, there. Let it out.”

“I’m not crying.”

“There’s no shame in it.”

“I’m literally not.”

“You’re so wet you might as well be,” Maedhros said and put enough distance between them he could hand Maglor a handkerchief.

Maglor used it to dry his hands and his face. Already under Maedhros’s touch he felt better, warmer, less like his heart lay shattered in his chest, and that left more room for feeling pathetic. “I’m sorry. Thank you. I know I should’ve at least waited out the storm, but you know me. I was—”

Maedhros’s eyes flickered.

Maglor stilled. “What is it?”

“You’re not my only surprise visitor,” Maedhros said with another pat. This one felt apologetic. Lifting his voice so that it carried across the hall, he added, “Stop lurking!”

Around the same door from which Maedhros had come, a man appeared. He had familiar dark braids, a wide mouth, thickly lashed eyes, but Maglor knew him by the long callused fingers which he had watched draw music out of the harp hundreds if not thousands of times.

Fingon.

The floor gave way like cracking ice and dunked Maglor into the freezing water below. Was that metaphor offensive to Fingon? He didn’t care. “Fingon,” he croaked. “What under the stars are you doing here?”

“I could ask the same of you,” Fingon said as he crossed the hall. “In fact, Maedhros did ask the same of you. What is this about a betrothal?”

He came to a halt at Maedhros’s side. The white dressing gown he wore swayed for a moment longer before it, too, stilled. It was trimmed with gold, and of course Fingon of all people pulled it off, managing to look more relaxed and proper in golden bed clothing than Maglor would have thought possible for anyone.

Maedhros was also dressed for bed in a long shirt and loose trousers. Maglor wondered what he had interrupted. Had they already been under the covers, tucked against each other as Maedhros caressed Fingon’s cheek or something equally sappy? Had they been curled in Maedhros’s loveseat by the fireplace? While Maglor battled his way up Himring, had they watched the storm from a window, laughing and trading kisses?

Maglor did shed a tear then. Maedhros pulled him close while he hid his face in the handkerchief, and Fingon made an awkward noise. “I’m sorry! You don’t have to explain anything. Maedhros and I were playing a war game. Would you like to join us?”

Maybe Fingon and Maedhros had been making out as Maglor climbed Himring, but if that was the case, in between they’d also genuinely played their war game. On the table in front of Maglor lay a map of northern Beleriand, and on top of that were placed wooden blocks in bright colors—blue, yellow, red—and also one in black. “I am the fire-drake,” Fingon said, resting two fingers on the black block. He’d slipped into their native tongue as soon as they were ensconced in Maedhros’s private rooms. “Russandol is the Noldor. Can he slay me? He hasn’t managed it yet.”

“Every time I think I have you,” Maedhros said as he came in with the warm spiced wine Maglor had requested, “you reveal some new trick.”

“Yes. Because every time we thought we had him, he revealed some new trick.” Fingon tossed Maglor a vexed look. “And in the end, we didn’t slay him. Could we have if he hadn’t fled? I don’t know.”

Maglor took the wine from Maedhros. When he looked at the map and the colorful blocks, he thought of endless headache-inducing meetings which he survived by daydreaming about galloping across Lothlann. He thought, also, of Mithrim and of his attempts to come up with a rescue plan that didn’t end in certain death. “You’re doing this for fun,” he said, flat.

Fingon shrugged. “For fun and profit.”

Maglor was glad Fingon and Maedhros had found each other. Really he was. With his free hand, he pushed the blocks off the map and began to roll it up.

Maedhros laughed. Fingon frowned, but before long he shooed Maglor away to do the rolling himself. He was deft at it, as Maglor wasn’t with one hand, and seconds later he was evening out the ends. Maedhros approached the table, still chuckling. “Don’t worry. I’ll make time to slay the dragon tomorrow.”

“I expect you will,” Fingon said. “The fate of the Elves depends on it.”

They smiled at each other, and Maglor backed away from the table until his knees hit the loveseat. He collapsed into it. He was happy for them, he reminded himself as he drained his glass.

Fingon turned towards him. “If the war game doesn’t—”

“Will you leave?” Maglor said.

Fingon’s mouth shut.

“Elentári,” Maglor said. “I am sorry. Forgive me.”

Maedhros shifted forward, but Fingon held up a hand. “No forgiveness necessary. I know I’m not who you expected when you came to visit your brother! I’ll leave you to him.” He glanced at Maedhros. “Shall I move to the guest chamber down the hall?”

“No,” Maedhros said. “Macalaurë can take that one.”

“All right. Good night,” Fingon said and disappeared into a bedchamber. That one was, unlike the guest chamber down the hall, a part of Maedhros’s private rooms, meant for Maedhros’s hypothetical future spouse. It came complete with a door adjoining it to Maedhros’s bedchamber. Maglor knew this because it was his chamber when he visited. Except, apparently, when Fingon was visiting also.

Thunder rumbled. Maedhros sat on the loveseat. “Cáno,” he said.

“It isn’t him. It’s…”

But Maglor couldn’t say what it was. For all that Fingon and Maedhros’s relationship was obvious to everyone who had eyes, they had never admitted it to anyone. They fancied it a secret, though how Maglor didn’t know. They at least knew that he knew. After all, it was not respect for their secret that kept him quiet but knowledge that bringing it up would get him nowhere. The one time he had, Maedhros had laughed him off. So how could Maglor say that witnessing their happiness with each other made him want to drown himself?

“Cáno,” Maedhros said. “What happened?”

Maglor breathed out. “Yesterday I asked Tingil to marry me. He said he wasn’t going to marry someone who doesn’t love him.”

“Do you? Love him?”

Maglor reached for a pillow to throw at Maedhros’s face. There were none. What kind of loveseat didn’t have pillows? And more importantly, “What kind of question is that? I asked him to marry me!”

Maedhros raised his arms and said nothing. It was his idea of tact.

“I drank myself to sleep last night! I rode here through a storm, knowing naught else to do in my despair!”

Maedhros’s mouth pinched. He raised his arms higher.

Maglor stood, grabbed a pillow off the armchair, and couldn’t quite bring himself to lob it. He covered his eyes with it and said, “I want Findecáno back.”

A few moments later, Maedhros stood in front of him. Maglor knew this by the warmth of Maedhros’s body and by the hesitant hand that brushed his elbow. “He would probably be better at this than me,” Maedhros said. “If you say you love Tingil, then you love him. You have always loved differently than I do. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m sorry,” Maglor said, lowering the pillow. “I’m acting childish. See? I do love him. His refusal of me has reduced me to this.”

Maglor had loved Tingil the day they’d met when all Maglor had known of him was his long dark hair and his hands callused by the bow. Maglor had loved him more when he’d discovered how Tingil adored hounds and horses and most of all when he’d witnessed Tingil’s fiery bravery. It was not that Maglor did not love Tingil. It couldn’t be. It was only that Tingil hadn’t been able to admit that he didn’t love Maglor.

“Yes, of course,” Maedhros said.

“I need another drink.”

“Of course,” Maedhros said. “Of course.”

When Maglor stepped out of the guest chamber the next morning, Fingon stuck his head around the door to Maedhros’s rooms and crooked two fingers in Maglor’s direction. “Quick!” he said. “While Russandol is gone.”

He’d startled Maglor out of a vision of hot breakfast waiting in the main hall, so Maglor fixed him with a practiced expression of impatience he usually reserved for misbehaving subordinates and his brothers. “Quick what?”

“Come quick to my chamber. I want to ask you something.”

Your chamber, is it, Maglor thought, but he followed Fingon through Maedhros’s rooms. It wasn’t, exactly, that Fingon was wrong. The buttercup yellow bedspread was his doing, as was the harp in the corner which saw more use from Fingon than it ever did from Maglor, who had never favored string instruments. And then there was the crown jewel, the dragon scale on the mantel, which Fingon had gone so far as to frame. So even though Maglor had chosen the tapestries of rolling plains and left a jar of Orc fingernails beside the dragon scale, he could only say that the chamber was his and Fingon’s together, not Fingon’s alone. It could not be, and had never been, either of theirs alone.

Perhaps recognition of this was why they’d begun, some few dozen years ago, to leave each other notes.

Fingon had already extracted Maglor’s latest note from the bedframe. He picked it up off the bedside table, smoothed out the creases, and with a flourish presented it. Maglor looked at it, and Tingil looked back. His braided hair was pulled into a knot near the top of his head. Around his neck he wore a choker Maglor had gifted him. He was laughing.

Fingon said, “Why have you drawn me a portrait of my brother?”

“What?” Maglor said.

Fingon raised his eyebrows like he well knew Maglor had heard him the first time.

“That’s not your brother.”

“Obviously it is. It says Turgon right there.”

Fingon pointed to the word Maglor had scribbled under the sketch. Maglor said, “It says Tingil.”

“No, it doesn’t. There’s no—” Fingon blinked. “Stars above, Macalaurë. Your handwriting really is a tragedy.”

“When Russandol was learning to write again,” Maglor said slowly, “he once told me that his writing with his left hand had finally surpassed that of mine with my right. I congratulated him. He said that meant he still had a long way to go.”

Fingon laughed. Maglor took the paper out of Fingon’s hands and folded it, then reached over to stick it in a pocket of Fingon’s robes. Fingon made no protest, watching Maglor curiously. “All right,” he said at last, “but who’s Tingil?”

Maglor sighed.

“I see. So you proposed to a man who looks exactly like Turucáno?”

“Findecáno.”

“I’m sorry. Never mind.” When Maglor sat on the bed, Fingon joined him, crossing his legs in front of him. His knee came within an inch of brushing Maglor’s hip. He said, “Russandol is better at this than me. But I’m the one here. Do you want to talk about it, or do you want me to shut up?”

Maglor put a hand on that knee. You are both atrocious at it, he might say, but instead he drew a circle around Fingon’s kneecap with his thumb. It was hard to speak of it, but Fingon ought to know, if only so that there was less chance he would put his foot in his mouth again.

“I met him on the plains two months ago.”

Fingon tilted his head. He opened his mouth, then closed it. “Oh,” he said.

“A short time, I know. But the moment I saw him, I—”

Beyond their chamber and across the living room, the door opened. Maglor’s stomach sank. “Findo? Are you ready?” Maedhros called.

“No!” Fingon said. “You’re interrupting a heart to heart!”

Maedhros appeared on the threshold. “Cáno. You’re up,” he said, sounding pleasantly surprised, which Maglor found offensive. He looked between them. “Do you need rescuing?” he added, and Maglor’s offense deepened.

“I’m just fine, thank you.” Maglor removed his hand from Fingon’s knee. “I thought you’d gone to breakfast.”

“I went to speak to the cooks about some last minute changes. Then I planned to drag you out of bed. But it seems I can skip that step.”

“We can have our heart to heart later, yeah?” Fingon said, flashing Maglor a smile. “It can wait till we’ve eaten.”

“Yes,” Maglor said stiffly. He sat still as Fingon’s attention slipped from him to Maedhros, as Fingon rose and, with two fingers poking at Maedhros’s chest, pushed Maedhros out the door. Maglor wished, fervently though not without guilt, that Maedhros had taken longer to talk to the cooks. Barring that, he wished he had it in him to take his horse and run.

He allowed himself exactly three moments to fantasize about that, then stood and followed Fingon and Maedhros out into the corridor and, eventually, to a breakfast of omelets stuffed with mushrooms, Maglor’s favorite. Not above enjoying the fruits of Maedhros’s last minute meddling in the kitchens, Maglor ate three.

As he was finishing off the last one, Maedhros said, “We ought to go somewhere.”

“I said so two days ago,” Fingon said, “and you said you were too busy.”

“I can make the time. I’ll wrap up a few matters today, and we can leave tomorrow.”

Fingon hummed, glancing at Maglor. It should’ve pleased Maglor that Maedhros wanted to do something for him that he would not do for Fingon, but oddly it set his teeth on edge. Fingon had come all this way. Maedhros ought to have made the time for him.

Maglor looked away towards the other breakfasters, Maedhros’s people, who had risen at their entrance but seemed not to notice them now. “Not the Gap.”

“Not Himlad, either,” Fingon said. “I am sorry, but I spent the night at the Pass on my way here, and I’ve had my fill.”

Maedhros said, “South, then. We’ll see what Amras is up to.”

If Maglor hadn’t been able to go to Himring, he would’ve gone to Thargelion where Caranthir would’ve regaled him with drink and song once he was done scoffing at Maglor’s sorrow. But in the company of Maedhros and Fingon, the south didn’t sound so bad. Fingon liked hounds and horses and hunting, and alongside the right people, Maglor did, too.

“It’s decided, then,” he said, looking back, and Fingon raised his glass.

Late in the afternoon, Fingon went out to check on the horses, and Maglor followed him. “Which one is yours?” Fingon asked, his eyes flickering around the stalls. “I don’t see Súllin.”

The mare Maglor had ridden through the storm stuck her head out over the stall door and tossed it, snorting. Maglor pointed. “Súllin is lame, so I had to take a different horse, but I didn’t catch her name. All I know is that she’s of Súllin’s line. Be careful! I do believe she hates me.”

“She might well if you didn’t even bother to learn her name! That was rude of you, Maglor. But why should that mean she hates me?”

Fingon approached the horse and raised his hand for her to sniff, but she only tossed her head again and turned away. That led to a lot of useless clucking and cooing, which went on until Fingon glanced at Maglor and saw his face.

Fingon stepped back and shrugged.

“See?” Maglor said. “Guilty by association.”

“I could win her over,” Fingon said. “You could, too, if you tried. You don’t know her name, so why don’t you give her one? She’s a beautiful dappled gray. How about Celebraen?”

Maglor joined Fingon at the stall door. “Fingon would have me flatter you until you were fooled into pledging your undying loyalty. I don’t think either of us are interested in that. I’m interested in a working partnership. If you agree to take me south, you’ll return to Lothlann with tales of adventures your friends couldn’t even imagine. How does that sound?”

The horse made no reply.

“Do you like honey cookies?” Maglor said.

The horse’s ears pricked. Maglor leaned against the stall door. “Fingon,” he said sweetly, and to the horse he said, “They’re a rare treat, aren’t they? I happen to know that Maedhros keeps a stock of them. There’s one for you right now if you agree, and more if you do well.”

The horse turned to face Maglor. When he held up his hand, she brought her nose close to him but didn’t quite touch him. Her dark eyes stared into his, and he thought she was saying she was waiting. Maglor held his other hand out behind him, palm up. A cookie dropped into it.

He grinned. “As promised,” he said as he presented it to her. She snatched it up and then, with a flick of her ears, seemed to agree.

Maglor’s triumph lasted one glorious second before Fingon tapped the stall door. The horse’s attention swung to him. He smiled at her, holding up two more cookies in his palm. As he fed her, he stroked her neck. “Good girl, Celebraen,” he said, and Celebraen bumped her nose against his hand and whinnied. Fingon looked at Maglor and winked.

Later, they stood on the walls outside the stable, looking down at the little village that marched down Himring’s southern slope. “So you won’t stoop to flattery,” Fingon said, “but bribery’s just fine.”

“I’ll stoop to flattery. Have you heard some of my work?” Maglor said, and Fingon snorted. “I do what works. I didn’t think flattery would work.”

“Should I be insulted? You’ve given me some high praise over the years.”

He was teasing Maglor, but Maglor said, “After what you did…”

“Yes,” Fingon said. “Trust me, I know! It’s all anyone remembers about me anymore, besides maybe the dragon, and that’s in part thanks to you. Maybe it’s true that I deserve the praise. But on a personal level, I doubt you like me that much.”

He glanced at Maglor with his lips quirked. His hair was dark enough Maglor usually thought of it as black, but in truth it was brown, and in the evening light this was revealed. The sun had gotten caught between the strands, lighting them gold like Laurelin had so often in Valinor, and a piece of straw was caught there, too. Maglor lifted a hand to it. Fingon’s face was cast in shadow, but Maglor could still pick out his features: his gray eyes looking out from under thick lashes, his quirked lips chapped by the wind.

He was laughing a little. “Maglor?” he said. But when Maglor’s hand lingered in his hair, he fell still. “Maglor.”

Maglor drew his hand away. “You had straw in your hair.”

“I see that,” Fingon said.

Maglor stepped out of reach. He had to be truthful with himself if with nobody else. It wasn’t just that Fingon and Maedhros were happy with each other while Maglor was alone. It was also Maglor’s old infatuation, the one that had begun across the Sea in Tirion and refused to die in all the long years since, the one that was hopeless.

It wasn’t unlike the disaster with Tingil, except in all the ways that it was. Maglor said, “I like you fine,” and looked away and out over the village. If Fingon thought Maglor’s behavior odd, let him put it down to heartbreak. It was true enough.

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In the grasslands of East Beleriand, Maglor made for a poor companion. He, Fingon, and Maedhros traveled with Amras, which helped when he needed a buffer or someone to whom he could flee but which couldn’t make his mood bright. He spent a lot of time wandering far afield, either on Celebraen during the day or on foot in the evening and at night, and sometimes he found a spot in the long grass to sit still and quiet and sink into his thoughts for a while.

It was in such a spot that Fingon found him in the middle of the night two weeks after they left Himring. “Macalaurë,” he sang softly, and Maglor started. Fingon eyed him. “You should be more alert, sitting out here alone.”

“Are you saying my brother can’t keep his lands safe?” Maglor said. Fingon rolled his eyes and stepped close enough to touch, and Maglor met him with a knife at his waist. Fingon froze. “In my hand,” Maglor explained. “If you had touched me…”

Fingon grabbed Maglor’s wrist and twisted it away from himself. “So you’re not as defenseless as you might’ve been. Still.”

“What are you doing here?” Maglor said.

Fingon sat down in Maglor’s space, jostling Maglor’s shoulder with his own. “I might ask the same of you. I’ve never seen you like this. I thought you’d be composing tragic love ballads by now, but you haven’t been composing anything.”

“I am sorry,” Maglor said, “to disappoint.”

“That’s how I dealt with it, you know. Composing these grand tragedies. I’d long given up on composing, or I thought I had, but it turned out I had a little more in me, just for that. It helped.” Fingon shrugged. “It’s unnatural to see you but not hear you. That’s all.”

Maybe Maglor would’ve been offended if he’d listened to any of Fingon’s words past the first few. As it was, he said, “You’ve dealt with it?”

“Yes! Or something like it. I have courted people before! And the time I started composing again, there was no courting, but I wished for it. I just realized it too late.” Fingon frowned and glanced away. When he looked back, there was something off about his expression. He was feeling awkward, Maglor surmised. It was strangely endearing that Fingon felt awkward talking about his love life. “It wouldn’t have worked out anyway.”

“Who would dare reject valiant Findecáno?” Maglor wondered.

“Don’t mock me,” Fingon said. Maglor waited. Fingon swallowed and said, “He was one of Fëanáro’s.”

All at once Maglor remembered it. Though Fëanor’s father and his sons and many of his followers had held themselves to be banished from Tirion so long as Fëanor was, others had traveled freely between the city and Formenos. For Maglor’s sake they kept tabs on Fingon and Finrod’s appearances on the performance circuit. Maglor cared little about Finrod, but he received each scrap of news about Fingon with an eagerness that ought to have been a clue. Those scraps told him that Fingon was performing his own compositions again and that most of Tirion was eating it up, but also that anyone who wasn’t interested in sucking up to the usurper’s son judged his work to be what it was in truth: a total waste of time and space. That last opinion had woken within Maglor a vicious glee.

But he hadn’t thought long about why Fingon had started composing, putting it down almost at once to arrogance and to malice, an attempt to usurp Maglor’s place as Fingolfin wanted to usurp Fëanor’s. To vengeance, maybe, against Maglor who had arrived on Tirion’s music scene and immediately shown Fingon up. For a while Fingon had hated Maglor for that, and though afterwards their rivalry had turned friendly, perhaps he’d spent all those years holding on to the resentment. It had been, after all, Maedhros who’d first urged them to get along, and back then Fingon couldn’t stand to displease Maedhros. Perhaps he’d never really liked Maglor at all.

In his better moments, Maglor knew that was paranoid and ridiculous. For a little while at least he’d genuinely had Fingon’s affections. Still he’d put down Fingon’s spurt of composition to some desire to get back at him. It was a cruel irony to learn that it hadn’t had anything to do with him.

“Did I know him?” Maglor said.

Fingon went shifty-eyed. “No.”

Interesting, Maglor thought. “Don’t lie.”

“I’m not!” When Maglor fixed him with an unimpressed look, Fingon sighed and said, “Maybe you did. I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You brought it up.”

“I didn’t bring him up. I brought up my coping mechanisms,” Fingon said primly, and then he turned to glare at Maglor. “You deflected. I was trying to have our overdue heart to heart, and you deflected.”

Maglor hadn’t actually meant to deflect, but he shrugged and let Fingon think what he wanted. Fingon knocked their shoulders together. “So you’re not composing tragic love ballads. You’re not composing anything at all. Why not?”

It would be easy to answer Fingon with a lie of his own. Maglor might simply say that wasn’t how he coped, thank you very much. Fingon would surely think of the times in Tirion when Maglor’s music had turned unrelentingly tragic for a season. But he wasn’t cruel. He would only press the point a little.

Maglor said, “Tingil thinks I don’t love him.”

“Do you?” Fingon said.

Maglor almost laughed. Always together, Fingon and Maedhros! “He thinks there’s someone else. He said he feels like I don’t see him when I look at him. That I see that someone else.” He shook his head. “For two weeks I’ve been thinking, and—he was right. That’s why I haven’t been composing. I don’t know who I’d end up writing about.”

After a moment, Fingon said, “It could be interesting. Artistically, I mean. A piece that says it’s about one person but is actually about two.”

Maglor laughed and shook his head again. He hid his face behind his hand. “I don’t want to write about either of them.”

Fingon said nothing. When Maglor lowered his hand, he met Fingon’s eyes. Starlight shone in them, and Maglor’s chest ached. This was foolish. He’d always felt his emotions strongly and had never been ashamed of that, had thought of himself as the sensitive artist whose art was better for it. But he’d also, usually, known when and how to let go.

“With the someone else,” Fingon said. “Is there a chance of…?”

“No,” Maglor said as much to himself as to Fingon. “He’s happy with his own someone else. And. And.” Fingon waited. Maglor said, “He was one of Nolofinwë’s.”

Fingon’s eyes darkened with something terribly like pity. “Macalaurë.”

“We have talked. But I don’t know that he’s ever truly forgiven me.”

“Surely he has. Our peoples have been reconciled for hundreds of years. And we’ve learned—or so I hope—that the strife between us was ever the Enemy’s poison.”

Maglor breathed out. “Have you forgiven me?”

“I wouldn’t be sitting here if I hadn’t.”

Maglor looked away, unable to stand Fingon’s gaze on him. It wasn’t a kindness to hear it said like it should’ve been obvious. Fingon said, “Did I never say? I thought I’d said. For years I did hate you. I won’t deny it. But at the Mereth Aderthad, I decided I must be done with anger. So I forgave you.”

Maglor would never forget the Mereth Aderthad. That first night after he and Maedhros and what few of their people they’d brought with them arrived, there was singing and dancing late into the night by the Pools of Ivrin. Fingon sat on a rock with his harp on his lap, drawing much of the attention, but Maglor did his best to ignore him. The last time they’d seen each other, Maglor had taken Fingon’s arms in his hands and thanked him. Fingon had glanced at Maedhros standing just out of earshot and then back at Maglor, and the chill of the Ice had come into his eyes. “Don’t thank me,” he’d said. “I didn’t do it for you.”

It became hard to ignore him when he said, loud and clear as a bell, “Macalaurë! Is that you over there?” Maedhros, who stood near Fingon, leaned in to speak into his ear. Fingon laughed. “Some of you haven’t had the pleasure of hearing my cousin’s song,” he said to the crowd in the tongue of Middle-earth. “You’re in for a treat!”

So Maglor was bullied into a duet. Afterwards, some adoring fan handed Fingon a glass of wine. He gave it to Maglor and reached his hand out again, and another glass appeared in it. Maglor and Maedhros exchanged a glance over his head as he sipped the wine and praised it to whoever had given it to him as if they themself were the vintner. Perhaps they were. Or perhaps Fingon was drunk.

“He had some this afternoon while we were in the hills,” Maedhros said, “and since then he’s had more. They really like his music.”

“Surprising as it may be, I can hear you,” Fingon said.

“You take him. I’ll entertain for a while,” Maglor said. It wasn’t a selfless plan. Already he felt the anticipatory buzz of having a new audience’s attention on himself alone.

But Fingon reached for Maglor. “Steal my audience if you must, but don’t steal Macalaurë! I want to talk to him.”

“Give me your harp,” Maedhros said. Fingon did, and that was it: Maglor was stuck with him.

At Fingon’s behest, they sat on the slopes of a hill far from the party, so far the torchlight didn’t quite reach them and they were left in shadow. Fingon leaned against Maglor. “I’m not that drunk,” he said, “but luckily for you, I won’t complain. I’ve been wanting to talk to you! And you’ve been avoiding me.”

Maglor drained his glass and stole Fingon’s, who instead of protesting tipped his head onto Maglor’s shoulder. “I’ve been here for less than a day,” Maglor said.

“So has Russandol, and I’ve seen him plenty. But not you. No, you were tired and wanted a nap—”

“That was true.”

“—and apparently that nap was more important than greeting your kin—”

“I spoke to Nolofinwë.”

“—and then at the party, greeting your Sindar friends was still more important than—”

“I didn’t think you’d want me to greet you!”

Fingon fell silent.

“Don’t scold me for avoiding you when you’ve made it clear you want nothing to do with me. At least the Thindar like me!”

In a small voice, Fingon said, “I like you.”

“Do you?”

“I do. That’s the problem.”

“I don’t care what the problem is. I need to know what you want from me. Figure it out, and I’ll give it to you.”

“That’s a dangerous promise to make.”

“I’m making it.”

Maglor didn’t know how Fingon took the words, because Fingon didn’t reply. Maglor wished he could see Fingon’s face. He bumped his head against Fingon’s and breathed out, relieved, when Fingon’s only response was to lean more of his weight into him. They’d sat like this sometimes on the slopes of Túna while their horses grazed. Then Maglor hadn’t understood what he felt. Now he didn’t want to assume what Fingon did.

Eventually Fingon slept. Maglor let him, slowly finishing off the second glass of wine. When Fingon’s head fell forward, Maglor set the glass aside and lay down so that Fingon could lie pillowed by his chest. Fingon began to snore as he always did when he’d been drinking, and Maglor stared into the sky and felt that he held something fragile and precious in his arms.

His mouth opened in a silent plea. He closed it. When he opened it again, he said, “Findecáno.”

Fingon stirred. “Macalaurë?” he mumbled.

“No,” Maglor said. “No. I didn’t mean to wake you. Go back to sleep.”

Maedhros was walking up the slope. Fingon sat up and rubbed at his eyes. He looked at Maglor and said, “Stars. Did I fall asleep on you? I’m sorry.”

“No,” Maglor said.

Fingon frowned, but his gaze was drawn away. “Russandol.”

“Is everything all right?” Maedhros said. “You’ve been up here for a while.”

“I fell asleep.” Fingon frowned harder. He glanced between Maedhros and Maglor. Then his face began to drain of blood.

“Findecáno?” Maedhros said.

“I think, uh. I feel a bit sick.”

“I should’ve brought water. Do you want to stay here while I fetch some?”

“That’s all right. Actually I’m going to take a walk.” Fingon stood and, after an awkward beat, nodded at Maedhros. “Alone.” He turned and trudged towards the top of the hill, and Maglor watched Maedhros watch him go.

“What happened?” Maedhros said like it was Maglor’s fault.

Maglor didn’t answer. He should’ve jumped up and followed Fingon into the hills, but he felt fixed to the spot where he lay. He said, “Someone should go after him,” around a mouth of wool, and a moment later, Maedhros did.

Back under the torchlight, Fingon’s rock had been claimed by the flautist from Doriath whom Fingolfin had pointed out to Maglor earlier that day. Maglor didn’t mean to listen to him, but the judgment of any and all music was his second nature, so he judged Daeron, begrudgingly and only to himself, as competent. Finrod judged him as the best flautist he’d ever heard, which Maglor knew because Finrod appeared next to him gushing about it. Maglor replied tersely until Finrod twigged his mood and left him alone.

But Aredhel had business with Maglor, too. At least Maglor saw her coming. Her white gown helped with that, as did the white flame in her eyes. “Where’s Findecáno?” she demanded.

“How should I know?” Maglor said.

“I saw you run off with him.”

“So I did. Then he ran off with Russandol.”

Aredhel sighed. “I should’ve known.”

Maglor raised his eyebrows.

“I know he hasn’t seen Maitimo for fifteen years, but he had plenty of time for their reunion this afternoon! Meanwhile I also haven’t seen him for a while, but has he talked to me at all? No. Running off with his boyfriend for the—”

“His—”

Aredhel and Maglor stared at each other. “His boyfriend?” Aredhel said. “Oh. You didn’t know.” She paused. “Don’t quote me. I’ve never seen them, and Findecáno won’t admit it. But it’s pretty obvious. Findecáno’s always talking and wondering and talking some more about what’s going on in the East. He spent more time on your side of the lake than ours after he rescued Maitimo. He rescued Maitimo. And”—she rolled her wrist in the direction of the hills—“they sneak off for private chats every chance they get.”

Maglor wanted another glass of wine, but maybe it was for the best that his hands were empty. Wine wouldn’t help with his sudden lightheadedness.

“Findecáno’s lucky he’s a man. If he were a woman, everyone would be talking about it. He’s outright said that he loves Maitimo! Can you imagine if I’d ever said that about Tyelcormo? I’d never have heard—Macalaurë? Are you well?”

“I’ll find Findecáno for you,” Maglor said, and he turned on his heel and left.

It didn’t take long to track them down. They sat on the other side of the same hill Maglor and Fingon had maybe half an hour ago, their backs to Maglor and their shoulders brushing. Maglor paused well above them, his half-formed confrontation dying on his lips. They weren’t sitting happily. Though they touched, Fingon’s body seemed to twist away from Maedhros’s. He stared at the ground, and his hands clutched his knee.

Maedhros’s stump settled on the small of Fingon’s back. Fingon shuddered. “I hate—” His voice broke. “I look at him, and I wish— I—”

As Maedhros shifted his arm to Fingon’s hip and pulled him in, as Fingon turned towards Maedhros and buried his face in Maedhros’s shoulder, Maglor burned. “I know, Findo,” Maedhros said. “I know.”

Maglor didn’t know, but he could guess. So he fled.

Hundreds of years later, under the star-strewn sky of East Beleriand, Fingon looked at Maglor with wide eyes. “I really thought I’d said.”

“Would you have been telling the truth?” Maglor said. “You decided you were done with anger. Fine. That’s not the same as forgiveness.”

“Isn’t it?”

“You wouldn’t say so if you’d seen yourself at the Mereth Aderthad! I believe that you wanted to forgive me. I also believe that you struggled with it. I never knew how you would speak to me moment to moment. At least on the lake you were always cold.”

Fingon opened his mouth and closed it. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t. Please don’t. You ought to have struggled with it. You ought to still be struggling with it. Do you think I’ve changed?”

“I don’t know, but. Your father’s dead.”

His father. Maglor had loved him. Not as Maedhros had, with stress creasing his eyes whenever he spoke of him, with the conviction that Fëanor was unwell and needed the steadfast aid of his family to heal. Maglor had loved Fëanor blindingly, all-consumingly, as convinced of Fëanor’s righteousness as Fëanor was. Until Amrod. Even then, while Maedhros had tended to Amras and Caranthir had sat with Maglor as he shook apart, Maglor had said, the worst of his sins, “It was Ambarto’s fault. Not ours. Not—not—”

Maglor dropped the knife and shoved Fingon.

“I’m sorry!” Fingon said. “But it’s true. I could never have trusted Fëanáro. I trust Russandol.”

Maglor shoved Fingon again. “Don’t speak of me as if I were a puppet. Don’t speak at all! How can you understand it? Valiant Findecáno, who, being perfect, has always thought—”

Fingon laughed, loud and long.

“What,” Maglor said, “is your problem?”

“Is that what you think of me? Is that what you think I think of myself?” Maglor’s silence was apparently answer enough, because Fingon lifted his hands palms up and said, “You’ve done me more wrong than I have you. That is true. But I’ve done wrong. Have you forgotten that these hands are stained the same as yours, that I stained them for love of my kin? If I can’t forgive you, then how can I hope for forgiveness for myself?”

Maglor lifted his own hands, took Fingon’s in them, and guided them down to his knees. For a long time they sat like that. Then Maglor said, “So you’re actually being selfish,” which earned him a wan smile from Fingon, and, “I am sorry. Did I ever say that?” To Amrod most of all, and to Maedhros who would’ve welcomed Fingolfin differently, but Fingon who had met Maglor in Middle-earth with eyes chill as ice was not forgotten.

“You said so at the lake,” Fingon said.

“You weren’t ready to hear it. Let me say it to you again.”

Fingon shook his head. “You’re too late now! I’m done with apologies. Keep them to yourself.” He paused. “Except for one.”

“Oh?”

“Well.” Fingon squeezed Maglor’s hands and let him go. “I hope I’m not overstepping in saying you owe an apology to Tingil. You don’t see him when you look at him? Really, Macalaurë.”

They looked at each other. “I proposed to him!” Maglor said in tones of horror.

“You did! Does Russandol ever tell you he despairs of you?”

“Not in so many words.”

“Sometimes I do. And that portrait! I’d think the other person was Turucáno if I didn’t know you find him dreadfully boring.”

Maglor winced. Fingon came closer to the truth than he knew, so close Maglor felt the need for a witty rejoinder to distract him but failed utterly to think of one. At least his distress seemed to prompt not realization but sympathy. Fingon swayed forward and said, “Forget him. If your someone else has someone else, then forgiveness or no, he’s out of your reach. But I’m here. We can be unlucky in love together.”

Maglor made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. “I know about you and Russandol.”

Fingon’s expression was total blankness. Maglor waited for him to comprehend, wondering if he’d admit it at once or deny it as Maedhros had. It hardly mattered. Fingon was much worse a liar than Maedhros was. Maglor would see the truth of it.

“What about us?” Fingon said.

“Don’t give me that.”

“It’s all I have to give. We’re not secretly—” The realization dawned on Fingon’s face, and he exclaimed, “Macalaurë! We are not secretly fucking!”

Maglor snorted. “That’s not how I would’ve put it, but.”

“Where did you even get that idea? Was it Írissë? I don’t care that I don’t know where she is. I’m going to find her and I’m going to—”

Maglor turned to look across the plain. Once Fingon’s rant was over, they could get to the part where he caved and admitted it. In the meantime, Maglor didn’t care to listen.

It was an odd reaction, though. There seemed to be no nerves, only frustration. Maglor frowned, picked up his knife, and slid it into the sheath on his hip. When he glanced over, Fingon lay on his back with his hands over his face. “—spreading it around!” he was saying. “And she doesn’t even understand how blind she is!”

“You’re not lying,” Maglor realized aloud.

Fingon threw his hands into the air. “No!”

The ground shifted under Maglor. In the space of a moment, Fingon and Maedhros, secret lovers, Maglor’s truth for over two hundred years, became Fingon and Maedhros—what? Friends? Maglor thought of Maedhros pulling Fingon close on that hill, of the shine in their eyes when they looked at each other. He thought of Fingon saying, He was one of Fëanáro’s.

Maglor grabbed Fingon’s wrist and hauled him up. “Let’s go,” he said over Fingon’s yelp. “I have a bone to pick with my brother.”

Their camp consisted of two tents, one for Maglor and Amras and the other for Fingon and Maedhros, an arrangement that had come about at Maglor’s blind behest. Maedhros and Amras had started a fire between them. Maedhros sat next to it, singing and slapping his knee, and Amras danced. When Maglor and Fingon neared, Maedhros broke off and said, “Join us! Some dancing will do you good, Cáno.”

“You fool!” Maglor cried. “How can you so thoroughly miss what’s right in front of you?”

Amras stuttered to a halt. Fingon and Maedhros said together, “What?”

Maglor shoved Fingon forward. “Findecáno’s been pining after you since the days of the Trees, and you’ve done nothing about it! Instead you’ve taken him for granted and strung him along, and I will not stand for it!”

He could’ve used some lightning and thunder behind his words then, but the sky was clear and the night still. As his companions stared at him, the only sound was the crickets crooning to each other.

“Findecáno,” Maedhros said.

Fingon went to him. They stood close and whispered, and Maglor’s attempt to eavesdrop was stymied by Amras appearing in front of him. “Have you gone mad?” Amras hissed.

“Just you wait,” Maglor hissed back. “They’re going to start making out any moment now.”

The thought made him sick to his stomach, but he’d long ago accepted that he’d lost any chance at Fingon’s favor, and he refused to stand in the way of true love. If he steeled himself, he might even manage to congratulate them on figuring it out at last before he retreated to his tent to scream into his blankets.

Amras, oblivious to Maglor’s noble sacrifice, eyed him with skepticism.

Maedhros laughed. Maglor leaned around Amras to look at him and Fingon, but they weren’t locked in a passionate embrace or even touching. Fingon was grimacing. Maedhros said, “So was it Írissë?”

“You’re really going to deny it,” Maglor said.

“I really am. Shocking as this may be, I don’t have feelings for my cousin!”

Fingon grimaced harder. Maglor’s heart twisted. “You talk about him all the time. You spend every moment you can with him,” he said. “You have a special private nickname for him!”

“Findo?” Maedhros laughed again. “Do you know why I call him that?”

Maglor didn’t.

“I made friends with him in Tirion while you were still being dragged to every corner of Aman by our parents. You remember that, surely? He was only a teenager, and what a teenager he was! He hated his parents. He felt stifled, and he thought us free as birds. He said he wished we were brothers, because I was a better kinsman to him than any of his closer kin. I didn’t object! It stroked my ego, after all. And when I called you Cáno, I saw his jealousy. So I started calling him Findo.”

Maglor looked to Fingon. Though he wouldn’t meet Maglor’s eyes, he nodded.

“I love him,” Maedhros said, “as I love you.”

“Findecáno,” Maglor said.

Fingon still refused to look at him. Was his embarrassment because Maglor, so sure he saw what Fingon and Maedhros did not, had accidentally brought to light a long unrequited love? Or—

Amras coughed. “Now that that’s cleared—”

“The one of my father’s,” Maglor said.

“He wasn’t Russandol,” Fingon said. “Beyond that I will not say.”

Yet he was still practically cringing. The ground shifted under Maglor for the second time. Ambarto, he thought and almost laughed. Myself, he thought and almost laughed again for a different reason entirely. He’d never allowed himself to so much as wish it true, but now, lodged in his chest, there was not only a wish but a hope, a hope that ached.

And he had embarrassed Fingon enough. If he was wrong, he could at least join him in solidarity.

“I can’t believe you’re making me do this, you craven in nothing but love,” Maglor said and, before he could choke on it, “I will say about the one of Nolofinwë’s. I’ve known him since we were both children, and for a long time I thought he was an utter brat. His grandmother cooed over his mediocre compositions. He didn’t appreciate my critique. When I debuted on the Tirion music scene, he hated me for daring to be better than him. One day, he showed up at my door with the most stilted and inadequate apology I’ve ever heard on his lips—”

“Macalaurë,” Fingon said.

“—and he took me to his favorite spot outside of Tirion, and we spent an afternoon together eating honey and picking flowers. I’ll never forget it: his spirit, his laugh, his hair sparking with gold under the light of Laurelin.”

Fingon met Maglor’s eyes. Maglor breathed in and said, “I didn’t realize it, but I was gone for him that very afternoon. Maybe I would’ve had a chance then, before either of us knew what was coming. Afterwards, I thought I’d lost him forever because of it. I thought—I never thought—”

“Macalaurë,” Fingon said again, and he took two strides, grabbed Maglor’s arms, and—

“Ow!” Fingon’s hand flew to his lips. “You bit me!”

“You attacked me!” Maglor cried. He pulled Fingon in and leaned on him, dizzied by his heart trying to beat itself out of his chest, and then over Fingon’s shoulder he spotted Amras with a hand covering his eyes. Over Fingon’s other shoulder was Maedhros, gaping. Maglor swore.

Maedhros closed his mouth. “Your tent. Macalaurë’s tent, I mean. We won’t—disturb you.”

“Stars above. You’d better not,” Fingon said, and with a sharp tug on Maglor’s sleeves, he dragged Maglor away.

They’d barely ducked through the flap of the tent before his hand was on the ties running down the side of Maglor’s tunic. “No,” Maglor said. “Do it properly. Kiss me first.”

Fingon’s hand fisted in the fabric at Maglor’s waist. He met Maglor’s eyes with his own shadowed by the dark of the tent, and he cupped the base of Maglor’s skull and slid his fingers into Maglor’s hair.

He said, “Like this?”

The kiss was slow, gentle, almost teasing. For a moment Maglor let himself do nothing but take what Fingon gave him. But every line of Fingon’s body against Maglor’s was tense, the effort required to restrain himself made manifest, and that was invitation enough for Maglor to grab hold of him and deepen the kiss, to give him what he so obviously wanted.

So obviously, now! “I cannot believe,” Maglor said as he broke away, “we could’ve been doing this in some broom closet in Tirion.”

“Could we have?” Fingon said, eyes glinting. “You liked me, but did I like you?”

“You know, you never told me about the one of Fëanáro’s.”

“You want me to talk about someone else in the middle of kissing you? Well. If you insist.” Fingon kissed Maglor again, then pulled away the bare inch necessary to speak. “He was the most irritating, condescending jerk I’d ever met. I heard”—a kiss—“all about him all the time from my eldest and dearest cousin, who sung his praises to the dome of the stars and told me that when he insulted my performances he only meant to be helpful”—another kiss—“really, Findecáno. That’s how his father shows love. And then”—and another—“all of Tirion fell in love with him, and I hated him even more and never mind that he wore his hair with flowers in it like stars in the blackest of skies and that his voice made me want to weep and that with some perspective I could see that he did mean to be helpful, he was just awful at it, and—”

Fingon buried his face in Maglor’s hair. “And then there was this afternoon we spent eating honey and picking flowers.”

“Never mind broom closets!” Maglor said. “We could’ve been—with honey on our lips—”

“It would’ve been lovely and adorable, I’m sure. Now.” Fingon’s hand returned to Maglor’s ties.

Maglor shook his head. Fingon pulled back, and his hand fell away, but Maglor grabbed it and lifted it up again. His chest ached for the boys they’d been that afternoon outside of Tirion, the boys who’d died long ago. But the men those boys had become were here now, in a tent staked in the wilderness of Middle-earth, standing in each other’s arms.

Fingon said, “If you don’t want—”

“Elentári,” Maglor said. “I needed half a moment to think first. But if you don’t get on with it right now—”

Fingon, laughing, worked free a tie, and then another, and as he worked free the third he kissed Maglor, and kissed him, and kissed him.

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