From That Rubble by StarSpray  

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Twenty Seven

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You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
- “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

 

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As the winter dragged on, Fëanor wrote to Maglor—and sometimes to Daeron—and heard back more often than he had really expected to. His correspondence with Daeron mostly consisted of linguistics and some of the dozens of questions Fëanor had about his travels in the far east of Middle-earth, which he was now free to ask. Many of them Daeron couldn’t answer, which he explained at length in his replies, but he’d seen so many different places and done so many different things that Fëanor kept asking anyway, and ended up with a lot of answers to questions that he hadn’t thought to ask instead. Maglor’s letters were cheerful and chatty, and sometimes punctuated with little bits of rhyme about his cat or about the plum trees outside of his window. He wrote of his brothers and asked after Fëanor’s projects and his cousins and aunts and uncles, and sometimes wrote out stories—real ones—of his travels in Middle-earth. Fëanor carved another box and started keeping the letters inside it. 

He did not, however, write much of Maedhros. Fëanor suspected that was more out of habit than anything else. But he asked Celebrimbor once, after he had taken Calissë and Náriel to spend a few days outside of the city, “Is Maedhros all right?”

“Yes,” Celebrimbor answered, smiling. “He seems—well, he seems to me as though a great weight has been lifted off of his shoulders. Maybe another has taken its place, but it’s one that can be more easily ignored, if you know what I mean.”

“I’m not sure I do,” Fëanor admitted. “It it something that should be ignored?”

“Well, no, not generally speaking. But there isn’t really anything he can do about it. It happened, and it’s terrible—but it won’t happen again, and eventually dwelling on it will do more harm than good, so he’s trying not to dwell. Or brood, if you want to use my uncles’ favorite word for it. He’s also been painting all winter. Whatever it is, it’s absorbed him more than any project since he came back from Mandos. In a good way. You’ll see when you next speak with him.” 

That was something. Fëanor thought about writing to Maedhros himself, but that felt invasive. He was back in a holding pattern of sorts, waiting for his sons to decide what to do. Having now spoken at least once with all of them, though, it felt less oppressive. What had felt like a vast chasm between them had shrunk to something far easier to cross, something that could be bridged. Or at least something across which their voices could carry more easily.

Spring came, and the cherry trees blossomed. The gardens were awash in daffodils and hyacinths, and birds started reappearing to sing in the hedgerows. He started walking through the cherry orchard again—a habit he’d somewhat fallen out of over the last year. He was glad to return to it; that half an hour of quiet under the trees did more to help settle his mind than he had realized, though it also kept his father at the forefront of his thoughts. Missing him felt worse, now. He still hadn’t heard anything from his mother, and of course the Valar had remained silent. It would be foolish to expect them to act so soon, but he hated not knowing what might or might not be happening. 

One morning he came back to his rooms to change for breakfast, and found Maedhros there, examining one of his bookshelves, trailing his fingers along the leather bound spines. 

“Good morning, Atya,” Maedhros said, turning to face him. 

“Good morning,” Fëanor said carefully, letting the door fall shut behind him. “I didn’t know you had returned to Tirion.”

“I’ve been at Curvo’s.”

“Is everything all right?” Fëanor couldn’t really think of any good reasons Maedhros would turn up in his rooms so unexpectedly. Indeed, so far every unexpected meeting between them had gone badly at best, and disastrous at worst. 

“Yes, of course,” Maedhros said now. “I just—wanted to see you.” 

Fëanor stared at him, certain he hadn’t heard correctly. Then he thought that he shouldn’t really feel as shocked as he did—hadn’t Fingon forewarned him? It was himself Maedhros was unsure of now, not Fëanor, and that seemed borne out by the way he looked away, shoulders hunching just a little before he caught and corrected himself. 

“I made something for you.”

The something was on the sofa, wrapped in paper and twine. Fëanor went to unwrap it, carefully tugging the knots free and pulling on the paper until it revealed a painting. The canvas was set into a simple but elegant frame of dark wood, but the painting itself—

It was a scene out of Cuiviénen, it had to be, the backdrop filled with unfamiliar stars, lighting the sky and reflected on the water below. It shimmered brightly against the darker paints. But the painting’s subject was not Cuiviénen itself—it was his parents, Finwë and Míriel dancing together on the shore. Míriel’s hair shimmered silver like the stars, and Finwë had been caught in laughter, both of them young and vibrant and so clearly in love. 

Belatedly, he remembered that Maedhros was still there, and probably waiting for a reaction. “This is beautiful,” he said, and couldn’t quite stop himself from reaching out to touch his father’s face. The paint was cool and smooth under his fingertips. He thought it must be the most thoughtful gift anyone had ever given him. “Thank you.”

“I used the ithildin you sent me.”

He’d recognized the ithildin, but hadn’t actually thought it was the same stuff he had made with Celebrimbor, decades ago now, while Maedhros had been away traveling to Ekkaia—he’d assumed Maedhros had gotten more of it from somewhere. “I didn’t think you would keep it,” he said. He set the painting down, the paper crinkling slightly underneath it, and turned to face Maedhros, who had remained by the bookshelf. 

He now had his arms folded over his chest, and his gaze lowered to the carpet. “Maglor made the frame,” he said. 

“That’s beautiful, too.”

Silence fell between them. There was so much yet unsaid, and Fëanor wasn’t sure where to start. Maedhros seemed equally unsure. 

It hadn’t always been like this. Once it had been so easy to speak to each other. They had been as close as Fëanor had been with his own father. He and Nerdanel had not waited long before deciding to have more children, but those few years between Maedhros’ birth and Maglor’s were full of memories that Fëanor kept carefully tucked away in his heart, simple and quiet and more precious than the Silmarils had ever been.

The only things Fëanor had ever made that couldn’t be broken were the Silmarils. Most other things could be fixed, even the things he had once thought irreparable, but nothing could be restored to the way it had been before the breaking. All he could hope for now was that the scars might be painted over with gold—that in the mending he might maybe make something better.

“Maedhros, if I speak now, will you listen?”

There was no hesitation at all. “Yes, of course.”

Most of what he wished to say would be a repetition of things he’d said before, but now they were both clear-headed and calm, and there was no fear of interruptions from eavesdropping brothers or meddling hounds, and so perhaps this time they could both be certain that they were heard and understood and believed. He folded his own arms, needing to feel like he was holding onto something, and waited until Maedhros lifted his gaze. “I’m sorry,” he said. “It still doesn’t feel like enough, but I am so sorry—and I love you. More than anything, I love you and all your brothers.” Those were the two most important things, the two things he would be repeating over and over until the end of time. “I wish that I could explain what lay behind all the decisions I made, but I can’t. Even after watching myself in the palantír I hardly remember—it’s like it happened to someone else, or like I had gone mad—”

“I think you did,” Maedhros said, voice very soft. And he would know, wouldn’t he, even better than Rúmil? He had been the one at Fëanor’s side through all of it. 

“It’s not an excuse,” Fëanor began.

“Maybe not, but it’s a reason.”

Fëanor paused to acknowledge the difference, though it seemed to him a very fine line at times. “I wish that I could say I would do it all differently, if I could go back and do it again, but I don’t think I can. I’m not sure there is a world in which my father is slain and I do not lose myself along with him. Cáno spoke of fearing that I would lie down and follow my father to Mandos there in Formenos if you let me see his body, but I think—that’s still what happened. It just took longer.” He had had a lot of time to think, both in the Halls and out of them, though he hadn’t yet spoken aloud some of the conclusions about his own life and himself that he’d drawn—until now. “I let grief and resentment rule me my whole life, even when I thought I had let those things go, and in the end they just—consumed me. And because of it all of you are still suffering, and…” And even if the Darkening had never happened, something would have broken. The foundations on which he had built all his happiness had been too fragile. And now? “I don’t know how to fix it. I’m sorry.”

“We don’t know how to fix it either,” Maedhros said. “We didn’t know how to fix us either, though—but we figured it out. The problem was never that we didn’t love each other, and it’s not that we don’t love you—it’s that we do love you. We always loved you. But you changed, even before Grandfather died, and—and it might be a long time before any of us can fully rid ourselves of the fear that you’ll change again.” He paused, and Fëanor wondered if he should admit to his own fears of the same. Before he could, Maedhros said, “Before I can fully rid myself of that fear. Please don’t apologize again. I forgive you, Atya. For all of it. I do. I don’t want to be afraid anymore. I miss you.”

Fëanor bit his tongue against the apology that wanted to come out anyway. Instead he asked—another thing he was going to be forever saying, if only because he hated the idea that there wasn’t anything he could do, “What do you need from me, Nelyo?”

Maedhros shrugged. “To just—keep doing what you’ve been doing, I suppose. Except you don’t have to keep acting like something will break if you try to talk to me. That already happened and I’m—I’m all right now.”

“Are you?” Fëanor asked.

“Yes,” Maedhros said, firmly enough that Fëanor wasn't quite sure which of them he was trying to convince. But both Fingon and Celebrimbor had said more than once that whatever still troubled him, it was not Fëanor, and all he could really do was take them at their word—and take Maedhros at his. 

So he said, deciding that they had both had enough of that sort of heavy conversation for one morning, “I was going to breakfast with Nolofinwë and Findis, and then go spend the day at Curvo’s. Will you join me?”

“Yes, I’d like that,” Maedhros said, smiling a little. It faded though, when he asked, “But—do they know—?”

“They know something happened, but I haven’t spoken of the details to either of them, and they stopped asking after your brother’s song overshadowed everything else. I don’t know what Findekáno might have told his father.” No details, he was sure, but what explanations he might have offered instead, Fëanor couldn’t guess. 

“You don’t have to keep secrets from them for me,” said Maedhros. “I spoke to Arafinwë of it.” 

Fëanor hoped, with a sudden painful twist in his chest, that Maedhros had not spoken to Finarfin of his false memories because Finarfin might understand. He knew so little of what Finarfin had endured during the War of Wrath, except that he had wounds from it that still troubled him sometimes. But probably, he thought, swallowing a sigh, Maedhros had spoken to Finarfin because Finarfin wasn’t going to try to defend anyone involved. “Well,” he said aloud as he headed for the bedroom to change, “I suppose Arafinwë can’t think much worse of me than he already does.”

Fingolfin and Findis were both startled to see Maedhros arrive with Fëanor. Later, Curufin was less shocked but visibly cheered. Calissë looked briefly between them, gaze sharp and assessing, before running to Fëanor. He picked her up and kissed her as Náriel insisted that Maedhros go up to the rooftop garden with her, so she could show him the gardening box that her mother had helped her make so she could plant flowers of her own. “Did you make it right?” she asked. 

“I’m starting to,” Fëanor said.

She nodded, satisfied, and then said, “Want to come see the trick I taught Lossë?”

The next few days passed quietly. One morning Fingolfin joined Fëanor in the cherry grove. “Maedhros seems well,” he said. 

“He is.”

“And things are well between the two of you?”

“Yes.” It seemed impossible still that he should be able to say so—and yet.

“I suppose you’re still going to be secretive about last spring. Findekáno won’t say a word about it either.”

“I could tell you now,” said Fëanor. “It’s just…”

“I assume it is connected to something you did after the Darkening.”

“It’s…well, yes, but also no.” Fëanor stopped under one of the trees, and watched a few petals drift gently to the ground. He caught one, rubbing his thumb over the satiny smoothness of it. The air all around them was sweet-smelling and fresh; a bluebird was singing in one of the nearby trees. “I burned the ships, and afterward I all-but disowned him, because he spoke against it and then stood aside.”

“I knew he’d stood aside,” said Fingolfin. “I suppose I’m not surprised that you were angry—is that what he has been holding onto all this time?”

“Yes, but—” He hadn’t actually said the words aloud yet. He felt like he would choke on them. “Morgoth took that memory and twisted it into something that wasn’t true.”

Fingolfin had taken a few more steps ahead; now he spun around, eyes gone wide and round. “And no one noticed? I wouldn’t have, maybe, but not even Findekáno? His brothers?”

“They never spoke of it, afterward, and then he wouldn’t let any of the Valar in, which—can you blame him?”

“What is it he thought you did? How did you convince him the memory was false? It must have been very convincing indeed if he believed it even still.”

“It was,” Fëanor said, “and I didn’t. We might still be fighting over it if Cáno hadn’t been there—both at Losgar and last spring.”

“But what was it?

“He thought—that I was angry enough to wish him dead—to wish him burned alongside the ships, I think. He didn’t share the exact words.”

Fingolfin blanched, and then Fëanor could see the way his thoughts went back in time, and he wondered if this made clearer some of the things Maedhros had said or done in the wake of his rescue. “We all knew the Enemy was cruel,” he said finally, “but this seems beyond the pale. Whatever else you did or said, I never doubted that you loved your sons.”

“Well, they doubted it—even without the Enemy’s tricks.”

“They do not doubt it now.”

“They say not, but…” Fëanor sighed and looked back down at the cherry petal in his fingers. He let it go and watched it flutter down onto the grass. “And my mother still hasn’t written. Not to me or to Curvo.”

“Mine hasn’t been answering letters either,” said Fingolfin, “but I think she must be busy—they both must be. At the latest, we’ll see them both this summer.”

“Yes, I suppose so.”

Fingolfin reached up to pluck a blossom from the branch nearest his head. “Why cherries—do you know?”

“I don’t think there was any deeper reason than that he liked them—the flowers in the spring, and then the fruits in the summer. He favored the wood, too.”

“That’s right, he did—all the cradles he made for my children were of cherry wood, and most of the toys. I thought it was just because he had an abundance of it.”

“He had an abundance because he liked it.” They shared a smile, and turned to go back inside. 

As the spring rains came and went and the roads dried out, Tirion started to empty. There was still a lot of work to do—this time assembling all that had been made and taken out to the feast site. Fëanor was not needed for any of that; nor were Gil-galad or Celebrimbor, for Ingwion had gone out to oversee things. It would not be long before Elemmírë sent out her summons for all the musicians and singers of the Eldar. There was a sense of anticipation in the city now—a growing tension, different from the tensions of old in that it was relieved by laughter rather than anger. Maedhros started turning up in Fëanor’s workshop, often with his sketchbook. There was no reason for it except spending time together, like they had when he had been young. Sometimes he brought Náriel with him, and sometimes one of his other brothers. Most often he came alone.

Sometimes it was shockingly easy to forget for hours at a time that nothing had ever stood between them at all.