Vátyë Hilya Nin (You Must Not Follow Me) by Isilme_among_the_stars  

“Who will you be in the new world we make?” Fingon asked me with a quaint smile playing on his lips. The moment was a quiet one, couched in dusky skies and deep stillness. Fingon, for once, seemed perfectly tranquil, as if he had at last found the central point of the rapidly spinning axis that set him in endless motion. I lived for these rare moments when the world slowed, and I could almost believe there were only two people in it. Fingon stretched out, his lithe legs disappearing into the long grass, graceful back arched to gaze thoughtfully at the deepening purple sky.

“I know who you will be,” I tried to evade, running one perfect strand of dark hair between thumb and forefinger.

“Ah, but I did not ask about me, beloved.”

Lavender hues mirrored in his sky-blue eyes. I carded fingers through glossy hair, pressing gentle lines into his scalp, as my thumb caressed the tip of one perfect ear. I could not meet his eyes as I spoke. “I do not know.”

Fingon’s laughter wrapped me in warmth that slid comfortably between my ribs and coerced my heart into beating a little faster. In one fluid movement, all the grace of a dancer singing through his lissome limbs, Fingon pivoted to sit cross-legged before me. His hands, so gentle despite their callouses, rested on my cheeks as he searched for something in my face. “Meldonya, you’ve fought so hard for peace,” he said. “Yet you neglect to dream of the day it comes?”

“I never dared to hope it would come, until now,” I confessed, meeting his eyes at last.

“I know.” He was so earnest, the trace of old concern telling in the crease of his brow.

The truth was not precisely that I never believed peace would come, but that I could not see myself in it. Though I’ve never said as much, Fingon guessed this long ago. I saw the desperation in his eyes when the thought of the world turning onwards without me wormed its way into a phrase or action.

He leaned in, breath warm against my cheek as he whispered into my ear. “Craven. Dare to imagine, just this once.”

I closed my eyes, breathing in his spiced scent. “I don’t need to imagine. Peace will be just like this, only more.”

He kissed me then. Softly and sweetly his lips whispered against mine.

“I know what I will be.” I dropped the words onto his tongue as our lips parted to taste the sweetness of each other’s mouths. “What I always have been.”

“And what is that?” Fingon asked, tangling his fingers in my hair with a slight tug that felt so, so good.

I traced a line of kisses across one flushed cheek and breathed the promise into his ear. “Yours. The rest is just details.”

It was not an answer, really. Not the kind that Fingon had been looking for. And yet, it was the truest answer of all.

“I shall hold you to that.” His voice half-teased as the press of his soul against mine made it a solemn promise, rooting me to this world in a way no other can.

This land sings for Fingon. When we touched I heard its cadence too. His mind was full of sunrises, fine mists of rain cooling summer-burnished skin and galloping wild through gilded plains. I did not cut you down from that mountain, he seemed to say, to watch you break yourself upon the rock of endless war. I want you to truly live.

We’ve long had a strong connection. What lay hid deep in the fertile soil of our hearts through the conflicted years grew to flourish while I recovered strength at Mithrim’s shores. In those days no great plains or rugged ranges separated us, the most insurmountable obstacle my state of mind. Early on, the living tendrils stretching between our souls were oft the only means to reach me, when fear, shadow and pain outweighed promises of care. They grew strong enough to reach over the mountainous peaks that rose between us in time, curling tighter with the press of need or the rising of our blood. That is how he has glimpsed inside my darkest nightmares, and why he fears less the vagaries of this battle and more the future beyond it. For he knows a world replete with the stillness of peace is one I claim no right to and no longer know how to exist within. I, in turn, have seen the malice in the great wyrm’s twisted face through Fingon’s eyes as his arrows drove him to retreat, and felt the thrill of battle-joy blow wide his senses as he drove hordes of orcs into the gelid waters of the firth. I have felt his adrenaline-charged hands tremble at outset of an encounter, and the bubbling relief in his chest after too many near misses. This is why I, the architect of this onslaught, fear it far more than he. Fingon, vital and true, has ever meant more to me than my own continued existence. And he trusts too much, does my king.

I had good reason to fear; designs went awry from the start. Our clarion calls rang at dawning of Midsummer’s Day, east to west, marking a beginning. Yet my hosts remained at the far border of Anfauglith, traipsing to meet some deception of the enemy that proved phantom. Hithlum’s forces were to stand in readiness, an anvil awaiting the hammer strike, while our foe champed at the bit, heedless they would soon be crushed between. I fail to understand why they did not, only that something greatly disturbed Hithlum’s troops. The surging of equine strength against Fingon’s thighs as he charged untimely flared a miniature inferno of panic inside my soul. Caught in the east by baseless rumour, I cursed the delay. For three days, balancing at the cliff’s edge of my mind, each momentary flash of the western battle was a piton to cling to. I scrambled onto solid ground, air coming more easily into my tight lungs as Fingon swept powerfully across Anfauglith. Then, the tide turned. Second-hand devastation at the fall of a dark-haired Mannish Lord tumbled through my chest. And as waves of sorrow flecked with impotent rage washed over me, I wished desperately to spur my horse on to a gallop. Instead, I cursed and raised tooth-ridged wheals on the insides of my cheeks. Infantry could not move any faster.

This morning, as the hammer finally swung toward the anvil, we all hoped; our reunion a jubilation casting golden nets of greeting and relief spilling through the unseen world. This fight could be salvaged still. Even Turgon, ever chill and distant after the loss of his wife, brushed against me briefly with warmth. For one bright hour it seemed the tides washed again in our favour, and we pressed our advantage eagerly.

But now all goes ill. Cries of confusion and bitter betrayal rattle through our ranks, forced now to redden their blades on those once thought allies. The faces of faithful Men, striving against their own wretched kin lest they themselves be slain, contort in confliction and pain. Yet worse, the dragons come forth, and were it not for our dwarven brethren, their flame would have swept us from the field as chaff on the wind. Our well-laid plans, months of careful strategy, built only a house of cards. Now it collapses. All we can do is flee, dragging as many survivors as we may out of its ruin in our retreat.

Backwards I stumble, searching vainly for skirmish-free paths out of the battle, when Fingon flares into stunning colour within. This mindscape is stronger than any we have shared before. I see through two pairs of eyes, thrum with two beating hearts and stand in two worlds, and I am not prepared for what I see. Ash and flame rear up before him. Elvish mail and banners strew the blighted ground, and I perceive with terrible insight that Fingon stands alone. He meets his foe with proud head held high, though his tired limbs scream for leave to collapse. And with a steady gaze he meets the enemies fire-pit eyes, unbending, though his heart flails within his chest and the heat pouring off the legion of balrogs blurs his vision.

“Vátye hilya nin!” he cries aloud, you must not follow me!  The words are meant for me, I realise, for there is no one else left to hear them. His presence is a firebrand twining a cacophony of senses together, searing a command into my soul, at once kind and cruel. It is a command he expects will be his last.

“Aurë entuluva! Áva hilya!” Day will come again! Don’t follow!

Fingon raises his sword in a feint and swing that crashes painfully against the balrog’s great black axe. I block a blow with my own blade. Fingon sidesteps, ready to strike again, on shaking legs. His nimble dance begins to falter as I duck beneath a crude scimitar. If I could grow wings, I would fly to him. If I could sing the whole field asleep as Lúthien did the throne room of Angband and spare him what must come next, then I would not hesitate to do so, even if it drained my last strength. For there is no possible ending I can see in which Fingon is not overcome. And I cannot fly to him. I cannot sing this away no matter how much I wish it. The next blow aimed at me I barely deflect, spear tip glancing off breastplate, too close to the soft place under my arm that opens as I swing.

Beside me Maglor’s booming voice cuts the thick air. “Maedhros!” he snaps, “pay attention! I’ll watch your back all day, but I cannot mind your front as well.”

The pert reply I prepared dies on my lips as a dreadful lash takes Fingon from behind, burning the air from my lungs as surely as it does his. My sword arm stutters momentarily, pulled back in reflex. That is all it takes to come undone. When the scimitar breaches at my hip, I try to pretend that I don’t welcome it. It may be too late for me too, beloved, I think into a small and private part of my mind that remains walled off.

“Maglor,” I choke out. As my brother spins to face me, I cleave to his widening eyes like the lifeline that they are.

In the end all that I can do for Fingon is hold him as Maglor holds me, reaching out with the best remembrance of an embrace that I can muster. There, in the bosom of our joined minds I take Fingon’s dread and agony and exchange them for love, wrapping his soul in what meagre comfort I can give. It is foolish for the Lord of Himring to let this connection stay open, I know, as chaotic jags of shocked surprise and powerlessness steal my ability to lead. But the part of me that is only Maedhros, tender and aching, cannot let it go. Maglor is screaming out commands that I cannot hear, dragging me backward on stumbling feet that I cannot feel. Where do I end, and where does Fingon begin? In the twinning sensate landscapes I can no longer tell which pain belongs to whom; it becomes an endless cruel static that hems me in.

Then both worlds shift infinitesimally toward stillness. For my company it is a mercy. A determined push from dwarven allies brings them alongside our remnant Elven host, forging a path away from the fray. We are afforded the barest breathing space. Maglor’s face swims in front of mine, brow creased, mouth twisting around the shape of questions I lack the wherewithal to understand. Sharp pain beneath his searching fingers sets in counterpoint the relief that overtakes his face as he presses and hastily binds. This wound, at least, will not kill me. My brother’s eyes, insistent and sure, quietly demand a response from me. So speechless, I grasp his hand, and we are stumbling upright, cutting a path eastward and away.

For Fingon, the stillness is a menacing inbreath. With his arms bound, useless, his foe languidly relishes the suspense building toward his next blow, ember eyes flashing with perverse pleasure. Sweat runs chill over blaze-heated skin, stinging Fingon’s eyes as he blinks it away. My beloved quiets his soul, breathing deep into our bond, nestling closer with mingled adoration and apology in a last embrace. It ends with a blinding flash of white flame.

There is a sky of deepest lavender above, and all around us the growing twilight turns grass to seas of faded sage as stalks ripple in the breeze. The air is warm, Fingon is warmer, and in this moment we are the only two people in the world. A simple loop of hummed melody purrs through his chest where my cheek rests, its strains marrying the rhythm of hands that card long, delicate lines through my hair. The world sings in time around us. Or, perhaps it is Fingon who hums in time with Arda’s song. As stars wink into being, one by one, his melody wavers and dies. When he speaks, his voice carries the faintest trace of uncertainty. “Promise me something, beloved.”

This, the only time he allows fear to break through before the battle, catches my attention. I extend my neck to see creases of care in the corners of his mouth. “Mm? What is it?”

“Promise me you will find your place in the world to come, beyond tomorrow,” he lowers his voice to a whisper, “whether I am by your side or not.”

“Why? Do you love another?” I tease.

His fingers still. Face as serious as I have ever seen it, he whispers, “I cannot be the only thing holding you to this world. One day, that may not be enough.”

His mind in that moment is full of ice-flows and cruel biting wind. I forget often that the shadow of that hellscape lies upon him, as surely as on my worst days I still hang from the mountain. Hope dies easily in such places. All his sunshine and wonder are grounded by lingering blights of permafrost deep underneath, and are all the more precious for it.

“I will have no trouble occupying myself when we must be parted,” I reassure him, thinking he worries that even in peace, duty must often come between us. “But it is only with you that I hear the universe sing.”

“Then you must learn to hear it for yourself. Arda will sing for you again if you open your heart to it.”

I do not trust that this is true. Every moment since I opened my eyes to freedom feels like stolen treasure; precious jewels I have no right to. Why would a world in which I thieve every breath sing for me? If I burn too brightly for oblivion, craving vital harmonies furtively overheard only through the one who stayed death on my behalf, that does not make them mine by right.

“You are not marked for death, meldonya” Fingon corrects, following the path of my thoughts. “I never cheated Mandos. You are meant for life. Sometimes a miracle is just a miracle.”

“You are an endless miracle,” I say, reaching up until my forehead presses his, kissing his sweet mouth until the bleakness passes us both by. But his tongue tastes of ash and blood. As the memory fades from my grasp, I find I have been dreaming on my feet. All is grey, lit with startling vermillion, as Thangorodrim belches great pyroclastic clouds into the air. Far from the mountain, where ash rains soft as snow upon a muted world, dwarves and elves together beat a retreat to the muffled moans of the wounded. I bite back my own cry as dull pain flares anew with returned awareness.

“Turgon’s forces make for the pass of the Sirion with the Hadorian men in rearguard,” a young captain informs Maglor. “The remnant from Hithlum, my brother among them, retreat with him. Their hope is to gather as many of the folk from the western settlements as possible.”

“And Fingon? Have we word of the King?” Maglor asks, voice hushed.

“Gone.” The young captain’s voice cracks, too overcome to stem the flow of hideous words. “My brother saw the blue and silver banners, trampled into dusty ground turned to burgundy mud. His armour lay there, so badly crushed…”

Blinking does little to clear my stinging eyes, and I must swallow nausea that threatens to overcome me. Seeking within myself the Lord my people followed so eagerly into this mess, I clasp his shoulder firmly and impart advice that is as much for myself as for him. “Do not dwell on it. Don’t let yourself sink under the weight of the dead. The living need us.”

In Maglor’s pursed lips are an accusation of hypocrisy he is too kind to voice. Yet his eyes spark with a faint remnant of hope as I turn to him with plastered on resolve. “We must do the same in the east.”

Our flight is long and arduous; a constant state of vigilance sustained by fear that all remaining to us could yet be lost. Only after we have crossed the Gelion can I at last rest. As our host camps among the trees, the dream that I fall into is not memory. Rather, it is unsettlingly reminiscent of the waking world, except that this scene could never now be. And I wonder if I walk in Irmo’s garden this night, granted in dreams the mercy of one last communing with the one I have loved beyond all others.

I lie on my uninjured side, still weighed down by armour, cold and uncomfortable in the shade of a towering oak. Fingon is before me, the lines of his graceful body an ease-softened mirror to my own. Gone is the sage and mauve world of dusky twilight in which we last met thus, but his raiment, simple but fine linen of rich blue, is the same. He smiles warmly, the gold woven into his hair glinting in beams of moonlight that break through the trees. He does not shiver in the cool air, suffused still with the warmth of that night. And as fireflies dance to the song of the forest about him, Fingon’s bare toes, which twitch lightly in time to the same, worry them into flight. “You did not promise me, meldonya.”

“I did not,” I admit.

His unmarred caramel fingers brush a strand of hair from my eyes; sleek copper that has turned stiff and grey with caked on sweat and ash. “Promise me now.”

“What do you wish to hear?” I ask, catching his hand in my own and rubbing a calloused thumb over his palm. No traces of labour or violence mar his perfect skin. I cannot meet his eyes.

“Promise you will not follow me. Promise you’ll find a way to anchor yourself in the song of this world.”

“I cannot hear it without you,” I protest, taking his hand from my cheek to kiss each perfect fingertip in turn.

You will,” he promises, tipping my chin up to meet his earnest eyes. “Follow the river to the place the music is strongest, where Ulmo’s power yet lingers in its rivers.”

“What of you, dear heart? Have you found peace?”

The shape of his beloved face becomes wistful. “Yes, love. Though there is much I ache for, being parted from.”

“Then, may your path back to life be swift.”

“I hope so,” he agrees, brushing fingers lightly over my cheek again in a soothing rhythm. “You still have not promised.”

“I will follow the river south,” I say with shaking voice, making no mention of the unfulfilled bond and endless swallowing darkness that in our failure wrap like chains around my heart still. “I will take the long road through this world.”

“Good.” Fingon’s perfect lips press a fleeting gentle warmth to my forehead. “Until we meet again, meldonya.”

“Until we meet again,” I echo uncertainly, hoping this new promise will not be swallowed by that older, weightier oath.

“We will meet again, Maedhros,” Fingon tells me with a decisiveness that almost banishes my doubt. He rises then, graceful limbs bending as fluidly as a willow. I reluctantly yield his hand, selfishly wishing for more time though I know I grasp at an undeserved miracle, and that it is no kindness to wish him to stay; his perfect fingers slide softly from between my own. Fingon’s dancer’s feet step lightly over root and leaf without a sound, glossy hair fluttering lightly in the breeze as he slips between the trees. As the shadows deepen around his lithe form, and I try to etch every detail of this surreal scene into my memory, he turns to bestow one last flicker of warmth.

“Goodbye, beloved,” he says, and slips away into the dark.

Chapter End Notes

Meldonya = my love in Quenya

Ossirand (the land of the seven rivers) is known also to the Noldor as Lindon, the land of song. In Arda, legend has it that echoes of the creation music can be heard in the waters still, and the power of Ulmo runs through both the Sirion and Gelion while they remain. Maedhros is sure to hear Arda's song there right? Right?

So, confession time: this is the first time I've ever written a kiss! I usually gravitate to gen, but I hope you've enjoyed my first foray into a more romantic Russingon.

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