The Mirror Crack'd by AdmirableMonster  

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Aurë Entuluva

LAST TIME on The Mirror Crack'd: Anniavas and Maedhros had a breakfast date.

THIS TIME on The Mirror Crack'd: The celebration of Yule begins, Anniavas works himself far too hard, and Limral gets her very own PoV section.

Minor content warning for panic attacks & unhealthy attitudes feat. Anniavas's general maladaptive perfectionism

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Anniavas yawned and stretched.  It was past late and probably getting on for early, but he had nearly finished the taste-testing of the latest batch of different tea-blends.  It was almost there, he thought, staring up at the white snow swirling in the blackness of night above the greenhouse roof.  So close to perfection—they would be there.  They had to be there.

Yule was an important celebration for Himring, although Anniavas was unclear if it was originally an Elvish custom of Aman, an Elvish custom of Beleriand, a custom from some other people, or all of them at once.  His mind told him that the longest night of the year had been celebrated among the folk of Angband, but it could not stitch together the disparate beliefs into a cohesive whole.  In any case, the relevant point was that it was an important celebration, and that there was apparently a competition each year among the folk of the gardens and the kitchens to see who could produce the most appealing food or drink.  Anniavas intended to win.

In service of this, he had not been sleeping much, and he had been requesting help from other members of the tea gardens.  To avoid having to spend too much time at his other duties, he had brought Limral into the gardens, so he could feed her and take care of her other needs more simply, and she was now curled up on the pallet, nose on her flank.  Occasionally she made soft noises or twitched her legs.

He raised the cup of tea to his nose and sniffed it carefully—he kept fighting himself over simplicity versus complexity, black versus herbal—no, he shouldn’t use herbal, if the tea had no wakening properties, it might not be qualified in the competition.  But he might use green, which was milder than black.  One especially nice one of these was a green with a fragrant flower mixed in that had a beautiful, late-summer quality to it.  The trouble was, the green tea was particularly troublesome to brew, and it would become bitter if it were only slightly too hot or steeped for only a moment too long.  Was it wise to trust himself to be able to brew it perfectly on the day of the festival?  His success rate had been growing, but was still nowhere near perfect.  And if he made a single error—

Someone cleared their throat behind him, and Anniavas whirled, cursing as the teacup nearly slipped between his fingers.  “What?” he snapped, then stopped himself.  It was Melweril, and the diminutive head gardener did not look happy, arms crossed, one foot tapping. 

“I was hoping I would not find you here,” she said.

“No one else was here, I’m hardly impeding anyone’s work,” Anniavas said, irritably—too irritably, probably.  A stab of pain entered his temple over his bad eye.

“Except for the fact that you have been in a terrible temper for a week and that you’ve been asking nearly everyone in the tea garden to come in and help at odd hours of the morning,” Melweril said.

“I am trying to ensure that we win this competition!” He put the teacup down with too much force, and it made an ugly noise, too loud in the stillness of the garden.

She sighed.  “Anniavas, you’re not a thrall anymore.”

Why were his hands trembling?  His body had never behaved like this before.  It was disconcerting and unpleasant.  “I know I’m not a thrall!  I am trying to demonstrate my talents by winning the competition for us!”

“By pushing yourself and everyone around you far too hard, at a time of year that is meant to be for reflection and renewal.”

He snorted.  “Renewal happens whether we want it or not.  It’s built into the fabric of the world.”

“Really.”  She waved a hand at the gardens.  “I suppose that’s why we have to take such care to tend these plants, to replant them, to enrich the soil.”

“One cannot stop renewal,” he said bitterly (and why did this make him bitter?) “And reflection has never served me.  I have nothing to reflect on.”

“You have several month’s worth of memories in Himring,” pointed out Melweril.  “And you have some bad habits, like trying to win a friendly competition at the cost of everyone’s sanity!”

Gods, he was so close.  Why couldn’t she see that?  Why couldn’t she understand how important it was?  The pain in his temple turned into a sharp throbbing. “Just let me finish this, I won’t ask anyone for help again if it’s forbidden.”

“It’s not forbidden, you’re being ridiculous—Anniavas—”

It was getting cold.  The tea was getting cold, and he hadn’t tasted it, and all of a sudden he couldn’t taste anything—it was all collapsing around him, because he had done something wrong, he hadn’t done this the right way—

(He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe, he was wrong, he is not the one—)

(He misstepped, he misstepped—)

leaves scattered across the earth, a song, cold, cold, cold as ice—

(he can’t BREATHE)

Mint, sharp—too sharp.  Anniavas wrinkled his nose.  “How long did you leave that to steep?”

“—my voice.  Anniavas?”

The world appeared around him, sudden and violent.  It wasn’t tea—it was fresh mint, crushed and held beneath his nose.  There was firm ground underneath him, the crumbling stones of the path.  A sharp rock was poking at him in an uncomfortable location. A cold nose was pressed into the back of his neck.  A soft hum seemed to echo around the place before fading.  He knew that voice.  Whose voice—

Eirien’s.  The remaining half of his vision cleared to show him that she was crouched in front of him, her silver hair drawn back in a loose plait, dark circles showing under her black eyes.  

“There you are,” she said softly.

“What?” Anniavas asked blankly.  Limral padded around to the front and lay down, pushing her head into his lap.  He did not have the heart to move her, and she looked up at him with soulful, worried eyes.

“You were somewhere else.”  She sat back on her haunches.  “Melweril fetched me.  What happened?”

“All I did was tell him to stop fiddling and go to bed!” Melweril’s voice was high—frustration, fear?  Anniavas felt scattered, as if his mind had been taken out of its box and then stuffed back in, not quite properly so that it didn’t quite fit.

“It’s all right, both of you.”  Eirien yawned.  She was always so timid, Anniavas thought, but she didn’t seem timid now.  Her eyes—like Anniavas’ single one—had nothing of the shimmer of Treelight that he had seen in some of the other occupants of Himring, but right now she seemed almost luminescent anyway.

Song, he realized suddenly.  She had been Singing, and even as she spoke, it was still layered beneath her voice, leaking from her throat out into the rest of her form, making her somehow more real than anything else there, except the crushed mint leaf pressed between her fingers, because it was the mint leaf she had focused the power on.

“Why?” Anniavas said slowly.

“Why what?” Eirien had a flat nose, almost triangular in shape, which she wrinkled up.

“You’re a healer.  If I needed healing, why not use your power on me?”

“Oh, well—it can be too much.  Song can be used to harm as well as heal, and sometimes your fëa retains an impression of it.”

There was that, Anniavas supposed.  Perhaps more relevantly, there was the artifact sunk into his spine, which might not interact well with a frivolous use of Song.  Why should he have needed a healing to begin with?  His head still stabbed with pain, and now there was a heavy ringing feeling reverberating through his skull.  Limral whined, and he absently scratched her behind the ears.

“You need rest,” Eirien said.  “That’s most of your trouble.”

“But—the tea—I was so close,” Anniavas protested.  The too-big panicked feeling that had come upon him earlier did not seem to be swelling out of his chest anymore—instead he felt hollow and wrung out—but there was some reason, he was sure there was some reason that he needed to keep going.  Exhaustion was irrelevant.

“No buts,” Eirien told him firmly.  “Not even Lord Maedhros is allowed to ignore one of the healers telling him to rest.  Go to bed.”

“You can sleep here if you like,” Melweril said tentatively.  She was pacing back and forth, apparently ill-at-ease. (What had he said, Anniavas wondered, in the paroxysms of his panic?  What new and fearful thing had risen to the surface of his mind, only to be sucked away again by the sharp scent of a mint-infused Song?)

He did not say, Of course I can sleep here, I have often slept here.  What if that was generally impermissible?  He ought, by rights, to have sought permission from the head gardener, ought he not?  Limral interrupted the churn of his thoughts; he had stopped scratching her, and she butted her head pathetically into the palm of his hand.

“All right,” he managed.  “Thank you.”

They were still there, Melweril and Eirien, when the ringing in his head dragged him down into sleep on top of Limral.

* * *

Nights were long in Himring, especially in the winter, and the night before Yule longer than most.  Maedhros never slept particularly well, and he was anticipating a relatively early morning.  Although Yule began with the sunrise, which was late on the day before the longest night of the year, as the lord of Himring, it was his duty to lead the ritual to greet the Sun, and that required time to prepare.  Still, he wasn’t expecting to be woken by the soft creak of the door opening and shutting and a pair of bright eyes shedding soft radiance into the dimness.

He reached for his dagger.

“Nelyo, it’s me,” hissed Celegorm.

Maedhros sighed.  He didn’t put the dagger down, but he relaxed his grip on it slightly, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He didn’t bother to protest that he had been sleeping; Celegorm certainly knew that.  Although they had not spoken in great detail since Fingon’s very decided victory, Maedhros knew his little brother, and knew also that he was too stubborn to keep his tail between his legs for long.

“What do you want, Turko?” he responded.  He might have chided Celegorm for his lack of deference to the lord of Himring, but, truth be told, ‘Nelyo’ was a hopeful sign.  He wasn’t sure how long it had been since anyone other than Maglor had referred to him by his childhood nickname.

“I need to talk to you, and I don’t want to do so officially.”  Celegorm’s soft leather soles padded back and forth on the cold stone of the room.  “It’s about Anniavas.”

“I will not have him imprisoned,” Maedhros said, his voice turning from wood to stone.  “He has done nothing wrong, and has risked much for my sake.”

“Damn it, I know,” snarled Celegorm.  “It’s not as if I don’t know why you’re grateful to him, I’m just trying to ensure—” He cut himself off.  “I think you were right,” he said begrudgingly, which was quite unusual to hear from Turko.  “I think he really does not remember, and when he saved you, he did so freely and for no other reason.  But that does not mean he is not a threat.”

“And what would you have me do?” Maedhros asked.  “Every person who has passed beneath Morgoth’s ministrations may be a threat, whether they will it or no.  This is my realm, not yours—and it is not Nargothrond.”  Orodreth had written to Maedhros of what Curufin and Celegorm had done.  He had been angry—rightly so—and had written to Maedhros not as Celegorm’s brother but as his liege-lord, though Celegorm had sworn no fealty to his older brother.  

Celegorm made a choked, bitten-off noise, then stood still, breathing harshly.  “Have him swear fealty to you,” he said, after a minute, voice strained.  “So you can be sure of him.  So that he can be sure of him.”

This was so unexpected that Maedhros barked out a laugh.  “You don’t trust him, yet you want me to have him swear to me?”

“I do not trust—” Celegorm breathed harshly.  “He knows too much of foul creatures.  And I told you, they avoided him as if they sensed some kind of power.  I think he learned from Sauron, Nelyo.”

Maedhros instinctively quieted his first response.  It was possible.  He remembered little of the nightmarish extraction of the fragment of cursed metal from his shoulder, but enough.  It had not been only Anniavas’s slight, hunched form he had seen, with its cropped mop of red curls, but also the movements of another, far more ethereal, far more powerful, far less Elven.  He could not claim that Celegorm was wrong.

“It’s possible,” he said tightly.  “But I do not distrust him now.”

“If he’s Sauron’s apprentice, what happens when he gets his memory back?” Celegorm pressed.  “If you have him swear to you, it’ll slow him down, at least.  Hell, Nelyo, he wants to.”

“No.” After his father’s death, Maedhros had perfected the art of the single, immovable negative that he had first learned from his mother.  He knew Celegorm was aware that it was final, and he also knew that his younger brother was heedless enough not to care.  “Shall I be the one to thrash you next, Turko?” he asked.  The threat hung in the air.

“Oh, fuck you,” Celegorm said, his voice weary, twisted, heavy with emotion.  “After everything I’ve done for this family—”

“After everything you’ve done to this family.  Whatever our father claimed, the sons of Fingolfin and Finarfin are our kin as well.”

There was a long, heavy pause.  Then Celegorm spoke again.  “Fine,” he said, voice almost jaunty now.  “Go get yourself killed.  See if I mourn you.”

Maedhros knew well enough that that particular tone meant there was nothing else to be said, and he didn’t bother trying.  As Celegorm slipped back out of his room, silent as a wraith, he lay back and stared into the darkness, trying to decide what this apparent attack of helpfulness on one of his more troublesome brothers’ parts portended.

As it turned out, he had not woken all that much earlier than he would have anyway.  Sían, his seneschal, came in to wake him just a few minutes after Celegorm had left.  The Sun would be rising soon.  

Maedhros rose and went to the hot springs, where he washed himself.  Sían helped him dry, which was more difficult for him to do one-handed.  After he was thoroughly scrubbed, he entered the steam, working himself up into as much of a sweat as possible before.  This purification ritual was said—mostly among the Noldor—to echo the way the trees had sweated or wept light (or had they? for those from Valinor, all those days seemed like a dream).  

Once he was covered in sweat, he entered the water briefly and re-emerged, ready to be garbed for the day.  There were as many different Yule outfits as there were folk in Himring, but Maedhros wore a white robe—white for winter snow, for death among the Sindar—with a green sash and collar—green for renewed life.  Only his red hair marked him as Fëanorian.  He would not deny who he was, but on the shortest day of the year, he would reassert that his most important identity was as the Lord of Himring, that fortress-bastion against the dark.  To underscore his lordship over the others, Sían also placed upon his head an enchanted crown of tiny golden wildflowers.  (Maedhros wished he could feel their sweet little songs, but it had been many years since he had lost his attunement to the great Music.)

Thus suitably garbed, he made his way to the eastern wall and climbed to the top of it to wait for dawn.  Sían followed him to the courtyard, then peeled away from him as he began to mount the wall. Instead of the wall, she clambered up the crooked hawthorn tree that had stood there since before Himring was founded, seating herself securely in its central fork.  There she waited, a quiet patient shadow.

As the sky lightened in anticipation of the Sun, more and more of the folk of Himring arrived in the courtyard.  Celegorm, despite his presumed frustration with Maedhros, was one of the first.  He had dressed himself in hunting leathers, and behind him followed a charming little parade of the several-month-old wolfhound puppies from the kennels.  At the end of the line was Limral, and behind her, Anniavas.

He wore a long brown tabard carefully embroidered with the image of a hawthorn tree in full blossom, over soft brown leggings and a pair of slightly lumpy fur-lined moccasins.  A warm grey cloak was flung over his shoulders, but the hood was not up, and his growing red curls spilled over his one good eye and the ruin of the other.  Someone had tucked a sprig of green leaves behind his ear, but some minor incident had rendered it slightly askew, dangling rakishly.  Maedhros clenched his fingers against the sudden, absurd urge to go down there and tidy his hair.

The first ray of morning sunlight shot suddenly up over the eastern hills.  A great cry rose from the throats of the waiting crowd, as everyone called out their own greetings to Arien.  Then Maglor’s voice rose in swift and cheerful song, a simple tune that everyone in Himring would know.  Maedhros let him sing alone for one round and then joined in, though with his ruined voice he could do little more than a cracked chant.  It didn’t matter, though—if anything it encouraged the others to join in.  It would be hard to sound worse than the lord of Himring did, after all. 

They were on the second repetition before Anniavas joined.  Maedhros was trying not to pay too much attention to him—he couldn’t quite understand why Anniavas was taking up so much of it to begin with—but he heard it instantly because, rather than taking up the same melody, Anniavas’s voice rose in only slightly hesitant counterpoint.  He had a surprisingly good singing voice, strong-voiced but high, almost a contralto.  Limral’s nose lifted and she let out a soft howl, and then all the other puppies started to howl as well, a whelming cascade of companionable un-Elvish support.

Maedhros glanced at Maglor and saw that his brother was delighted—which had its own risks, but it was Yule, after all.  He let the song grow faster and build until he saw Hemmoril shake her head ruefully and drop out, and he nodded to her.  If Hemmoril couldn’t keep up anymore, they would soon lose most of the rest.  She laughed and gave Maglor a rough prod between his ribs, and he blinked his eyes several times, coming out of his musical daze before drawing things smoothly to a soft decrescendo as the crown of the Sun’s head appeared over the horizon.

As the Sun’s light broke over the walls, Maedhros watched as people turned to one another, hugging and laughing.  The energy shifted from reverential to celebratory in the blink of an eye.

“My lord,” Sían said softly.  “You will be wanted to judge the competition of the kitchens shortly.”

Maedhros nodded, hiding a yawn behind one hand and trying very hard not to sneak another look at Anniavas.  It was going to be a long day.

* * *

There were so many smells.  Fast Bright thought she knew smells—the comforting smells of horse and horse manure, the big brown and metal smell of the friends-of-horses, the sharp bitter-ash scent of her best friend—but today was very different from yesterday or any of the other days that she could remember.  There were far more smells today than she had ever met before!  And all of her friends were very patient with how much she needed to run around and find out where all these new smells were coming from.  Best Friend didn’t even complain when she ran between his legs and nearly made him drop the cup he was trying to put in front of Old One-Hand.  She tried not to do it again, though, because he made a tiny noise and smelled of pain, and she thought he might have burned himself.

It wasn’t just Old One-Hand.  Several of the pack leaders were seated at the long tables that were so frustratingly tall for someone of Fast Bright’s size.  Food and drink was put in front of all of them—which she felt was very unfair when none of it was put within reach of the dogs.  Her siblings agreed, all of them milling around and whining, though Fast Bright didn’t beg.  She only sat very quietly and panted, trying to stay near Best Friend’s feet.  Frustratingly, he was paying much less attention to her than he normally did.

After the pack leaders ate and drank, they talked among themselves, and now Best Friend did pay attention to her, and to the others.  He crouched down and scratched behind her ears—just where she liked it—and spoke to her in a soft, worried voice.  He was obviously very worried about something, so Fast Bright washed his face and put her paw on his knee, which he always liked very much.  

“I can’t believe Melweril wouldn’t let me work on the tea anymore,” Best Friend said to her fiercely.  “And I’m sure I left it to steep for too long.  He’s going to hate it, I know he is.”

Anger and anguish vibrated in his voice, and his scent was muddled.  Fast Bright didn’t have any experience with this, and she whined anxiously.

Horse Feet wandered over and lay down next to them, asking Best Friend for belly rubs, and inquired why she was unhappy.

When she explained that there was something wrong with Best Friend, and she didn’t know what to do, Horse Feet shrugged, whipping his tail back and forth energetically until Best Friend obligingly rubbed his stomach.  He was probably in heat, Horse Feet told her knowledgeably.  He had watched some of the horses when they were breeding, and they got all worried like that.

Fast Bright wasn’t sure she liked that.  If Best Friend had babies with Old One-Hand, would he decide he didn’t want to bother with her anymore?  But Best Friend rubbed his face against hers, said, “Good girl,” and when he stood back up he kept his hand on her head, so maybe it would be all right.

Old One-Hand and the rest of the pack leaders had stopped talking to one another and were looking over at Best Friend and several of the other Himring folk, who had also served them food and drink.

“Why do I even care,” Best Friend asked Fast Bright, but he straightened up and stood straight like a tree.  

“We’ve conferred with one another,” said Old One-Hand, then paused and looked at the other pack leaders.  

One-Who-Howls shifted awkwardly.  He wanted Old One-Hand to be the one to speak, because Old One-Hand was the oldest of the pack, and everyone deferred to him.  But Old One-Hand seemed hesitant.  Fast Bright whined, wagging her tail a few times.  One-Who-Howls laughed and elbowed Old One-Hand, saying quietly in his ear, “Even Anniavas’s pup is impatient.  Just get on with it.”

Old One-Hand growled, but not threateningly.  “Everything was delicious.  It came down to the impossibility of deciding what stood out the most, when the tea and jam were so crucial to enhancing each other’s flavors.  So we chose both the jam and the tea.  Congratulations.”  He rubbed his hand across his forehead.

To Fast Bright’s surprise, Best Friend made a little noise and then squatted quickly so he could grab her and put his face into her neck.  He was making sad sounds, and she could smell that he was leaking water the way two-legs did when they were upset, which was strange, because he also smelled very happy, and so did Old One-Hand.

Fast Bright sneezed and licked his face.  She supposed if he wanted those babies so badly she could wait a few months until he’d gotten it out of his system, since he was so happy at the note of approval in Old One-Hand’s voice.

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Chapter End Notes

"Turko" is Celegorm's canonical nickname, a shortening of his father-name Turcafinwë.

"Nelyo" is similarly Maedhros's canonical nickname, a shortening of his father-name Nelyafinwë.

"Sían" means "gift here" and is from Chestnut_pod's Elvish name list