A Deed Unforgiven by LadySternchen  

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Chapter 16- Elros

Yes, I did skip the third kinslayig. Two is already two too many. And also yes, I made Nimloth live just long enough to take Elwing to the Mouth of Sirion before dying herself.

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“Will you not sit? So we can answer your questions in peace? Please?”

Elros glanced at Elrond, who gave him the curtest of curt nods, and the two sat down on the sandy floor, arms wrapped tightly around their knees. He rued his boldness now, rued having asked the strangers in anger why they had come tither, why they had made Nana disappear without even saying goodbye.

Tears threatened to spill from his eyes again the moment he thought of her, he missed her so terribly. It was bad enough that Ada was gone more often than he was here with them, but Nana? She had never, ever, left before. And then go without a farewell to them… even Ada insisted on farewells, so how could she go without?

A horrible, sickening feeling rose from his stomach to his throat, making his eyes sting and his chin tremble, but he must control his feelings, he must not cry now, not before these strangers. Elros did not trust them, and everybody knew that if one didn’t trust somebody, one must not show weakness.

“What happened to your hand?”

How was it that Elrond managed to sound interested and sympathetic rather than appalled? Elros could hardly bear to look at the redhead, scarred and marred and one-handed, with his eyes burning with a fierce, bright madness.

“Many terrible things happen in a war, little one.” the other stranger answered. “Especially when your foe is one as mighty and ruthless as Morgoth.”

Elros frowned.

“If Morgoth is your foe as he is ours, then why are they all so scared of you? The camp?You came with drawn swords and burning torches, and you shouted mad words. Nana fled before you. I thought you the foe!”

The dark haired stranger bowed his head, grief and pain in his fair features. Elros searched his face closely, looking for a sign that the stranger feigned his remorse, but could not find it. Whatever it was that had caused the two of them to look and act so menacing, it caused at least the two-handed one sincere grief.

“They are not wrong, not… really. You see, one can have more foes than just one, unpopular though this opinion of mine might be. Your foe’s enemies are not necessarily your friends, and for all intents and purposes, we are as much your foes as Morgoth’s forces are. Especially to your mother, we must be monsters. You see, it was us who attacked them in the wee hours of a winter morning, many a year ago now, killing your uncles and how many others, and mortally wounding your grandfather. All done just to take the…”

But he did not go on, a strange, rigid look transforming his face. Elros recoiled, frightened, remembering how the stranger had said they were monsters. Would they perhaps turn into orcs at any moment? Or something even worse, something that ate nosy Elflings?  Ada had sometimes told them of vast creatures that wielded fiery whips, would the strangers turn into a pair of those? Oh, he wished they had never come here, and moreover, never pried.

His motion seemed to stir something in the strange Elf, however, for his features relaxed once more, and he returned to his former gentle expression as though nothing had happened.

“Let us start again, shall we? Maybe with introducing ourselves? I am Maglor in the tongue of these lands, and this is my brother Maedhros. He does not speak often, you see.”

“Our grandmother did not, either.” Elrond said, his old care and pity back in his tone “Or so our mother once told us. She never talked again after our grandfather died, and dropped dead herself the moment she had brought our Nana to this place.”

Elros was not altogether sure how tactful it was of Elrond to -in effect- tell the Maglor that his brother might drop dead just like their grandmother at any moment, but he still marvelled at his brother for remembering such details. He was sure they had not heard of Nimloth and her fate more than once, and that must have been years ago already.

In any case, Maglor seemed to take no offence in Elrond’s bluntness at all, but rather nodded knowingly, his eyes soft with pity,

“’Tis the way of such hurts. But it grieves me to hear that we wounded your grandmother so, that we caused yet another death. It takes much sorrow to make an Elf lose their speech, and there can be no doubt that it was us, my brothers and I, who inflicted it. I saw her boys lying there. They were twins like you, did you know that? And they must have been roughly the same age as you two are now, only their hair was of a bright silver colour, not black like yours. And they died through our swords, helpless, defenceless children who have done no wrong in their lives. That hurt we can never amend, nor should we be able to. There is no redemption from such crimes.”

Elros shuddered, but almost more at the self-contempt in Maglor’s words than at what he had actually said. He had, in fact, not known. That his uncles had been twins, yes, but not about their hair. He had always pictured them dark-haired like Nana, and like he and Elrond were. He did not want to imagine how scared he would have been in their place, how scared they must have been in the last moments of their lives. After all, he and Elrond had not really been in any danger, there had been no bloodshed, and yet the memory of the night that Maglor and Maedhros had come to Sirion was quite sufficient to chill his blood still.

The shouts and screams of the others, the firelight illuminating their settlement, the wild, furious looks on Maglor and Maedhros’ faces, and above all their long, deadly, gleaming swords. And the fey anguish in their voices as they had shouted, yelled for someone to take the Silmaril away, to flee. The terror in their mother’s eyes as she had flung herself off the cliff and into the rushing waves, leaving Elrond and Elrond behind.

But if Elros had thought that Maglor’s explanations would actually explain things, he had been widely mistaken. It had all made no sense, even less so now. If they did not want to kill anyone, then why the draw swords? And if they did want to kill them, why tell them to flee?

“You shouted. When you came to Siren, you shouted at us to flee.”

Maglor, possibly guessing Elros’ trail of thoughts, laughed bitterly.

“Try not to find the reason behind our deeds, little one. You cannot hope to comprehend them, as even I do not.”

“Explain, then.”

A strange boldness had gripped Elros now, perhaps borne from his grief and anger. He did not care at this moment if he was putting himself and Elrond in danger, he only wanted answers. And maybe Maglor understood this need, for he sighed deeply, and started to speak once more in his melodic voice, so that his words sounded almost like song.

“You see, the Silmarils are the works of my father’s hands, the greatest things Elven craftsmanship has ever brought into being. He valued them, and was proud of them, and in turn made us take pride in them, too. Only with that pride came fear, fear that they might be taken from him, a fear he could never quite quell, and one that proved all to valid when Morgoth stole the Silmarils in my father’s absence. Ah, I would he had only taken the gems then. But he did not. No, he did not. He took my grandfather’s life along with the Silmarils, and fled.
In his grief and wrath my father swore to pursue Morgoth, and we, fiery and proud as we were, swore the oath with him, to avenge our grandfather’s death, and to never rest until the Silmarils are back with their rightful owners. We did not think much of that oath as we took it, thinking us unstoppable and in the right, so surely all must agree with us?” Maglor laughed mirthlessly. “You can imagine that reality soon humbled us. But we would not be thwarted. So we became murderers. And thieves. Betrayers of our own closest kin. We arrived here in Ennor with our hands and hearts stained with the blood of the innocent. And here we went on murdering, though this time, it was Orcs. I do not know if that makes much of a difference, ultimately… but never mind. We secured the lands with fire and sword, we established realms, made free people our servants and let us be celebrated as the ones who brought them wealth, and safety.”

Again, a harsh laugh escaped Maglor’s throat again, a charring note in his otherwise so melodic voice.

“Safety. As if. Oh, our arrogance. I need not explain to you two that nothing of what we built lasted, neither realm nor peace. Our father fell before he could see even our first attempts at ruling. So really, maintaining the lie of our birthright became harder and harder. And then… then your great-grandparents did what we -despite all our boasting and scheming- had never achieved. They thwarted Morgoth. They stole back a Silmaril. Worse, the Silmaril had not burned Beren’s hand, as it ought to have done, mortal as he was, and that told us all that things were otherwise than we thought, though none of us wanted to admit it. At least it made us have scruples enough not to claim our father’s treasure from those who had single-handedly taken it from Morgoth’s crown, not when we were sure that Lúthien would rather face Morgoth a second time than yield the Silmaril to the slayers of her kin oversea. She, ah, made it known to Celegorm and Curufin that she would not forgive that easily, so we bid our time. We knew Beren must in time leave this world, as it is the way of his kin, and we thought we could easily wait. What are the few years of a mortal life to an Elf, after all?
Well, in time, Beren Erchamion died, and with him died Lúthien, and your grandfather inherited the Silmaril. Your grandfather who had not faced Angband. He who held it unearned. Towards him, we had no reservations. We asked him nicely at first. He answered in scorn. So we assailed them, him and all his family and people. Needless to say, we did not gain what we sought, but were only left with yet more innocent blood on our hands. And…” Maglor heaved a deep, sorrowful sigh “…truly without the ‘we’. Three of our brothers, Celegrom, Curufin and Caranthir, fell on the battlefield. We never buried their bodies, fleeing instead, hoping to save at least the twins. But Amras’ hurts proved too severe for the healing, and he slowly passed, after many days of fruitless fighting. And with his twin gone, Amrod had nothing left to withstand his own wounds, though he had at first deemed them minor. We buried them in the same grave.”

Elros inadvertently shifted closer to Elrond, and felt Elrond snuggle up to him readily. The thought of losing his brother was unthinkable, and Elros could relate only too well to this unknown Amrod, who had died out of grief for his lost twin.

“But still we had not achieved what we had sworn to do, so the oath would not let us rest, ever pushing us into pursuing the Silmaril, and that we did, first with fair words, then with threats. Your mother would not yield to our will, proving as headstrong as her late father. We warned her, pleaded with her, but she would not hear of it. She left us with no choice but to repeat the whole dreadful thing, and murder for the Oath a third time. But I would not. I would not kill helpless children again. I would not let my last remaining brother be utterly destroyed by yet another crime. So we yelled. And that, finally, seemed to be enough. You see now, that fate does not particularly favour us? We still do not have a Silmaril, and methinks that we shall never gain this one now. Tell me, how did your mother turn into a bird? I thought her an Elf, but surely no Elf can achieve that?”

Elrond answered before Elros could draw breath to speak, so he resigned himself to hugging his knees again, and listen to his brother tell the tale he had wanted recount.

“I didn’t know that Nana could turn into anything. But she always had it with birds, they seemed to love her, and talk to her, and do her bidding. They even watched me and Elros when we were smaller.” Elrond turned eagerly towards him. “Remember that? Remember when they would not let us steal the nuts? They would always take them out of our hands, and put them back.”

Elros nodded, but the memory made him miss Nana even more horribly than he had already done before, so he quickly stopped. He would he could turn into a bird, too, or a dolphin, and follow her west, west away.

Maglor, meanwhile, eyed them shrewdly.

“So it is true, is it not? That indeed Lúthien was borne by one of the Divine, that Maia that is said to have taught the birds their song. I myself thought it a myth, thought Lúthien just an oddity. But it fits. Oh, how it fits. You see, we are kinsmen, though you are of course well entitled to deny kinship with us. Eärendil your father is the grandson of our cousin. Turgon always had a special connection with the Ainur. Ulmo in particular seemed to love and favour him. How fitting for those two lines to come together. And of course, them both being half-elven… but that does not truly matter now. Well then, young lords, I am pleased to make the acquaintance of the only part-Maiar I ever heard of.”

“Will you come and see us often, then?”

Elros stared at his twin. When had they gone from mistrusting them to asking them to see them more often? Did they trust them all of a sudden? Were they friends now? Elros really could make not head nor tail of it.

“Do you want to be seen by us often?”

Elrond nodded enthusiastically, again before Elros had truly made up his mind.

“Your voice is beautiful. And you have a harp. Will you sing with us before we need to go back for the night?”

A warm smile lit Maglor’s face, washing away all sorrow.

“It will be my pleasure. I am… I was a minstrel, once. If you will it, I should be glad to teach you.”

“Oh yes!”

Elros and Elrond looked at each other, giggling. They often did this, shouting out their agreement or disagreement at the same time. Maglor chuckled as well.

“Only, keep it our secret that we meet here. I doubt your people will take kindly to you meeting us here, even if we avoided another carnage.”

This, finally, settled it for Elros. He loved secrets. And secret friends must surely be the very best.