From That Rubble by StarSpray  

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Nine

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“I am not alone now,” he said, thinking of Daeron, and also of Elrond and his family, and of Galadriel, and—

“No, but you miss your brothers.”

“I shouldn’t,” he said. “They’re right there. They’re—”

“They are changed, as you are changed.”

“I can’t be who they need me to be.”

Nienna folded him into her embrace. She was very warm. Maglor let himself lean against her, feeling the soft fall of her tears on his hair, and the strength and quiet power of her being. “They need you as you are,” she said, “and you need them, do you not?”

- High in the Clean Blue Air

 

- - 

 

The day before he was to leave with Amrod and Amras, Fëanor ventured back the house, where he found the ceiling in one of the large parlors caved in. They’d once hosted parties there. Now the spot where Maglor had first dazzled their family and their guests on his harp—made for him by Finwë, before he had started to learn how to make his own—was covered in a pile of plaster and stone and broken wood. Fëanor sighed, and turned away. He went back to the old schoolroom, and carefully cut out the plaster from the part of the wall where Amras had drawn the family. It had been in the back of his mind ever since he’d first seen the clumsy little figures. He went carefully, not wanting to damage it any more than it already was, and once he had the plaster free he wrapped it up in soft leather to carry back home, where he put it into a box marked with signs of preserving and protection in his workshop. 

He spent the rest of the morning cleaning out his forge and doing other small tasks so everything would be ready for his return come springtime. Then he went to visit Curufin once more. 

The girls were busy with Rundamírë when Fëanor arrived, so he and Curufin went out walking through a nearby park. “Are you taking the palantír with you when you go?” Curufin asked. 

“Yes.”

“You don’t have to, you know. We didn’t mean for it to be—”

“I know. I want to—if nothing else, I want to be able to check on you sometimes.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Of course you will, but I’ll miss you.” They both fell silent as they passed a few others out for an afternoon walk. Then, when they were alone again he said, “Curvo—I haven’t yet looked for it, but…do you remember what I said and did just after the ships burned at Losgar?”

“You mean moving inland…?”

“No, directly afterward. I suppose it wasn’t after they burned, but while they were still burning.”

“Oh.” Curufin shook his head. “I don’t, but why would you need to look for it?”

“Because I don’t remember,” Fëanor said. He kept his gaze on the path at their feet, unsure if he really wanted to see whatever Curufin’s face was doing. “I should be thanking you for the palantír, really, because there’s—there is quite a lot that I don’t remember with any clarity, after the Darkening. I need to correct it.”

“I know that you were angry with Maedhros,” Curufin said after a moment, “but we never spoke of Losgar—after he came back, we never spoke of you at all.”

“It is a very bad habit of our family, not to speak of those who are gone,” said Fëanor. 

“I suppose that’s true.”

“Not that I blame you—”

“It’s not that we didn’t miss you, or mourn you. We just…” Curufin shrugged, folding his arms over his chest. “Calissë’s asked me about it a few times since Maglor and Maedhros came back from Lórien. I don’t know what to tell her except that it’s complicated. No, don’t apologize,” he added when Fëanor opened his mouth to do just that. “You don’t have to keep saying it—not to me.”

“It just feels as though every day I find something new I need to apologize for.”

“Well, I’ve already forgiven you for all of it, including everything you haven’t thought of yet. And—there is a lot that we want you to see, but there are things you shouldn’t—”

“I know.” Fëanor put his arm around Curufin’s shoulders and kissed his temple. “I’m all right, Curvo, really.”

“You and Maglor and Maedhros say that an awful lot,” Curufin said. “I’m not really sure I believe any of you.”

“Your brothers only just got back from a very long stay in Lórien. If they say they’re all right, I think you can believe them.”

“And you?”

“I promise, Curvo, if I’m not all right I will tell you.” Fëanor kissed him again. “Don’t borrow trouble.”

“I know. I’m—”

“And don’t you start apologizing.”

Maedhros and Celegorm had left the city that morning to return home to Nerdanel’s house. Fëanor spent the afternoon with Curufin and his family, but did not see Caranthir or the twins at all; Amrod and Amras came for him early the next morning, dressed for travel and clearly eager to be at their own home again. 

“Maglor and Daeron are leaving today too,” said Amrod as they left the city behind, “though of course they’re off to Alqualondë, and we won’t see them on the road.”

“How long are they staying there?” Fëanor asked, curious to know if their plans had changed at all from the vague ones Daeron had mentioned.

“Depends on how well it goes meeting Daeron’s family, I suppose,” said Amras. “His parents live there—I don’t know if you’ve heard.”

“He mentioned it.”

“When did you speak?” Amrod asked, eyebrows shooting up in surprise.

“He came to speak to me when Maglor was away at Formenos.”

“For what reason?” Amras asked. 

“To apologize, he said, so it isn’t continually awkward when we meet in the future.”

“Well, that’s good—that means it went much better than you were thinking it did, with Maglor,” said Amrod. Fëanor shrugged. “If anyone would know Maglor’s thoughts on it, it’s Daeron.”

“Not any of you?”

“He told me something of it,” said Amras, “and I did tell you that he wanted to speak to you again, just not yet—remember?”

“I do.” Fëanor also knew that Maglor’s songwriting was a very convenient excuse, and that it was better not to let his hopes rise too high, and to temper all of his expectations. What had not gone well was his encounter with Maedhros, and if it came down to it, his sons would choose one another over him—as they should—and especially Maedhros and Maglor. 

“Will you tell us what did go wrong, when you first met Daeron? He’s always been very vague about it.”

“I made some assumptions and then made the mistake of voicing them,” Fëanor said after a moment. “According to Daeron, neither of us were at our best at the time. I certainly wasn’t.”

“What assumptions did you make?” Amrod asked. He and Amras were getting bolder with their questions. In spite of the appearance of cheerful fearlessness they had projected from the start, Fëanor had only just started to realize how cautious they’d really been in the beginning. “He’s very good at appearing far more cheerful than he really feels—it was rather startling the first time his smile dropped and he snapped at one of us.”

“Startling is one word for it,” Fëanor said. “I just—he seemed not to really care about anything.”

“Well, now you know that that really means he cares an awful lot about everything,” said Amrod. 

“Yes, I suppose. It’s obvious now that he cares for your brother, so…”

“He does,” said Amras, “and he makes Cáno very happy.”

They passed by Nerdanel’s house; Fëanor glimpsed Huan sniffing around the garden, though he did not see Nerdanel or either of his sons who were there. It was nearly time for the plum harvest, which had always been a very happy occasion whenever their family could join Mahtan’s for it. Past Nerdanel’s house the road ran south, more or less in a straight line, with other roads of various sizes branching off of it every once in a while; Fëanor had traveled very few of them, since they were all made long after he had died. 

“Where, exactly, do you two live?” Fëanor asked as they finally left the road some days later. They retrieved their bags from the horses, who Amrod then gave a sugar cube each and sent them on their way—back to Tirion, or to some other stable, or just to roam where they would, as most horses in Valinor did. Many were very happy to spend their days being pampered and spoiled by the Elves, but there were many herds of wild horses roaming the land as well, and in the eastern part of Valinor there was very little fear of predation. 

“Not too far now!” said Amras as he hoisted his pack onto his shoulders. “Just up this mountain, but there’s no road—not even a good path for horses. We’ll be walking the rest of the way.”

“Why did you choose to come all the way out here?”

“We like the quiet,” said Amrod. He pushed a branch out of the way and held it until Fëanor passed. “When we first came back even Ammë’s house was a bit overwhelming—and it’s very quiet there.”

“It was,” Amras corrected him. “It’s not nearly as quiet now, especially when Caranthir and Celegorm are both at home. But back then the quiet made everything even worse. Anyway, we thought about going to join Oromë’s host, but that was worse than even Tirion on a holiday. Then we heard that some of our old friends from Ossiriand had come to these mountains, so we came looking for them—it was a little awkward in the beginning, but we settled in the end close enough to visit but not so close that we’re always seeing other people.”

“Vána comes wandering through every few years or so,” Amrod added. “She’s taught us a lot.”

Though it wasn’t suitable for horses, there was a path up the mountain—difficult to find at first, but easy to follow once they did. As they went higher the air grew cooler, and signs of autumn began to show in the first hints of change in the leaves, golden and blushing red, and in the chill of the wind that swept down from the mountain peaks very high above where snow remained year-round. Amrod and Amras pointed out landmarks and favorite spots as they went. Birds came at times to land on their outstretched hands, and the twins laughed at whatever the blue jays and sparrows had to tell them.

Finally, they came to a cheerful meadow, through which a clear stream flowed, and where a cottage stood. It was cozy and just big enough for the two of them and a guest—or perhaps two guests, if no one minded being a little crowded. They had their beds in a loft over the main room, which was full of soft cushions and sturdy furniture, and woven rugs on the floors. In the window that caught the most sun hung a silver chain from which dangled prisms. Amras walked by and dragged his fingers over them, a gesture of long-ingrained habit, and the swaying set the rainbows cast on the floor and the walls dancing. 

After they unpacked, Fëanor got to watch the twins go over the house and the little garden behind it, looking for all the things that had gotten worn down or broken in their absence, while they also made a list of what needed to be done to prepare for the winter. Firewood was the main thing, as well as hunting and a visit or two to their friends among the Laiquendi to trade for other staples to fill their cellar. Amras set off after a day or so to take care of the latter, while Amrod recruited Fëanor to help gather firewood while also showing him around the woods that surrounded the meadow. “It’s not really anything like Tirion, I know,” Amrod said as they returned to the house, dragging a large fallen log behind them.

“It suits you,” Fëanor said. Amrod grinned at him. “What do you do in the winter when there’s no getting down the mountain?”

“Well, it’s rare that we’re snowed in so we can’t leave the house,” said Amrod. “There’s always things to do, friends to visit, and there’s still wandering and hunting. When we aren’t doing that we just get cozy by the fire. I have a spindle now, and Amras has the knitting needles that Grandmother Ennalótë gave him not long after we came back from Mandos.”

Fëanor wiped his arm across his forehead when they dropped the log where it could be split into firewood. “Did you ever take up lace?”

“Grandmother Míriel taught me a little bit, last winter. I have the bobbins somewhere; maybe I’ll do a bit this winter, I don’t know.” Amrod shrugged, and stretched his arms. “Do you ever do anything like that?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Fëanor opened his mouth, and then closed it again, realizing he didn’t have an answer. “I don’t know.” Before, he hadn’t been able to bear the thought of it—he hadn’t wanted to learn anything of his mother’s craft if she could not be the one to teach him. Now, of course, there was nothing to stop him. Míriel would be thrilled, he knew, to share her work with him, just as she had been thrilled to share it with both Amrod and Caranthir—though, she’d written, Caranthir’s interests lay more with the process of dye-making than with anything that happened afterward.

“Spinning isn’t very hard,” Amrod said after a moment. “I could show you—if you wanted?”

“I’d like that very much.”

They left the log where it was for the moment, and Amrod led the way inside. He went to a basket near the hearth, full of wool waiting to be spun, and picked up two drop spindles. “Cáno made these for me last winter,” he said, holding them out. Fëanor took one, running his fingers over the wood, sanded and polished to silky smoothness. The wood was pale, and the grain seemed odd. “He made them out of driftwood,” Amrod added, which explained it. “He’s got a whole chest of pieces—I don’t know what he intends to do with most of it, but he made these for me and two others for Grandmother Míriel.” He picked up the basket of wool. “Let’s go outside. It’s not really complicated, spinning, but it will take a bit of practice to really get the hang of it.”

“Most things do.”

Amras returned after two days, accompanied by a handful of others, all bearing winter supplies. Fëanor was greeted cheerfully, as though none of his sons’ friends knew who he was—though they surely did, he thought. Even if they chose to live away from the rest of the Eldar, they had to get news. It was refreshing, though, to be treated as though he were just anyone else, new to the mountains and likely to run into trouble in the snows. 

“We’ll see them again soon—they’ll trade for some of the things we brought back from Tirion, and probably for some favors, if you’re willing, Atya,” said Amrod when the visitors left, and all the supplies had been put away and they could settle into the twins’ normal autumn routine. “And then come winter we’ll meet by the lake to go ice skating—but of course we’ll show you the lake sometime much sooner than that. It will be some time yet before it freezes.”

“How do you send word to your brothers, or hear from them, when you’re up here?” Fëanor asked.

“Birds will carry notes for us sometimes, if we ask nicely—but we don’t usually bother, except to let them know when all the paths are snowed under. But this year we’ll have the palantír—we should write to Curvo and remind him that they can be used for talking, too,” Amras said to Amrod. “I think we all forget that most of the time.”

“Because none of you ever used them for their intended purpose,” said Fëanor, amused. 

“They’re so heavy!” Amrod protested. “Of course none of us wanted to be dragging one around when we went off traveling.”

“They aren’t that heavy,” said Fëanor, though it was true that the stones were heavier than they looked like they should be, and heavier than was convenient for travelers. He never had been able to solve that particular problem—but it was another thing to think about, if he ever did try to make more. 

“Tyelko did bring one when we went out to Ekkaia,” said Amrod. “That was mostly to put Ammë’s mind at ease—he used it a few times to speak to her while we were traveling.”

“We passed it around once or twice to look for Cáno, though it didn’t work very well,” said Amras. “We found you, though—I think you were teaching yourself Westron.”

“I probably was,” Fëanor said. He’d spent a lot of time surrounded by books that summer, particularly in the beginning before he got up the nerve to have a proper conversation with Fingolfin. “That or Sindarin.” He’d learned enough in Middle-earth to be getting on with, but had not been anywhere near as fluent as he wished to be by the time he died. Even now sometimes it felt odd and wrong to speak his sons’ Sindarin names.

“Why did you stay there—in Imloth Ningloron, I mean?”

“Apparently it was Nolofinwë and Elrond’s plan to invite me there anyway,” said Fëanor. They were all lying in the clover watching the clouds pass by; the day was cool but not cold, perfect for lying out in the sunshine. “So if things went wrong they could go wrong somewhere far away from Tirion, I suppose.”

“Elrond was going to invite you to Imloth Ningloron?”

“If your brother agreed.” Fëanor folded his arms behind his head and stared at one of the clouds. “Then I upset all their plans anyway, so…”

“Can we ask why?”

“Why what?”

“Why did you go to Imloth Ningloron before anyone invited you? Didn’t anyone tell you that Cáno was unlikely to be happy to see you?”

“They had.” Fëanor kept his gaze on the cloud. “But listening to what others told me—that’s what started all the trouble in the first place. You’d all made your feelings clear enough—but I wanted to hear it from Cáno himself, if he felt the same.” He’d also just needed to see him, to see that he really was there, that he’d really made it home, alive and safe. Even now he couldn’t really regret it. 

“That’s fair,” said Amras. “Though you did take us all by surprise, and that didn't help matters.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Fëanor said quietly. 

“We know.” 

They saw quite a lot of the Laiquendi over the next few weeks. They proved that they did in fact know who Fëanor was, and brought him all kinds of problems to solve and things to make or fix in exchange for favors in kind as well as preserves and wine and mead and other things they had made. Fëanor enjoyed listening to the twins laugh and speak with their friends while his hands were busy; he liked this glimpse, even better than what he could see in the palantír, of what their lives had been like in Beleriand—better than Beleriand, because no one needed to go armed here or to worry about what the Enemy might be doing. 

He also ventured out into the woods on his own, learning the trails and the landmarks around the twins’ little meadow home. He followed streams and found outlooks from which he could glimpse the wide meads of Yavanna in the distance, golden-green, with tiny herds of animals moving across them, and with silver ribbons of rivers cutting through the grass. The mountains in autumn were beautiful, the leaves turning gold and red and orange and falling gently all around him as he walked, the carpet of them on the ground swishing softly under his feet. 

Amrod often took to the trees themselves, and it made Fëanor wince every time—he couldn’t quite hide it, but neither Amrod nor Amras seemed to take offense. His discomfort with heights had no origin that Fëanor could remember; it just made him dizzy to even think about perching so high in a tree, or standing at the edge of a cliff or even just a high wall. Windows were all right, but if there was even the slightest chance of falling, Fëanor would much rather he—and everyone around him—stay away. 

Celegorm, he remembered, would always head for the nearest ledge, fearless and giggling through the lectures Fëanor gave him that never seemed to stick, but in spite of his restlessness never seeming to care that when Fëanor yanked him back he held on a little too tight for a little too long. Maglor had never been afraid either—and he had broken his arm falling off of the roof of Mahtan’s house, sometime when Caranthir had been small. 

It hadn’t been heights, though, that had killed any of his children, unless you counted—

Fëanor rubbed his hands over his face, cutting off that thought before it could go any farther. It made him feel sick in a way even standing at the top of the Mindon Eldaliéva never had. 

“Are you all right, Atya?” Amras sat beside him, leaning back against the sun warmed wood of the cottage wall. Above their heads was the kitchen window, where the prisms swung and glinted. 

“Fine,” Fëanor said. “Just—thinking. Where has your brother gone this time?”

“Oh, I don’t know. He’s impossible to track when he takes to the trees.”

“Do you ever do that?”

“Sometimes, but I move faster on the ground—and, well, he likes the secrets in the canopies, and I like ones among the roots.” When Fëanor looked at him, Amras grinned. “We don’t always go around pretending to be exactly the same. Only when it’s funny.”

“What do you find among the roots?” Fëanor asked. 

Amras’ smile brightened even further. “I’ll show you!” He grabbed Fëanor’s hand and pulled him up and into the woods, where there was far more happening in the dark and shady places under the tree roots and among the stones than Fëanor might have ever guessed. 

Another afternoon the twins showed Fëanor the lake they spoke of often—where later in the winter they would skate across the thick ice and build bonfires on the shore. Now it was still warm, good weather for fishing, and a waterfall plunged down a tall cliff face into it, sending mist billowing up to make rainbows in the bright sun. 

Somehow, as he and Amrod sent stones skipping across the lake’s surface while Amras fished some distance away, Fëanor found himself admitting to having visited Formenos—he hadn’t intended to, didn’t want his sons to worry about it, but Amrod seemed only curious. “Why go there at all?”

Fëanor watched the ripples from his last stone spread out and disappear. “I wanted to see my father’s grave,” he said. “I wanted to see what had become of everything.” One of the few bright spots he could recall from the twins’ childhood was teaching them how to skip stones across the Wilwarinen. Amrod had been more patient than Amras, who had soon run off to chase butterflies through the wildflowers instead. Now they were both remarkably patient, content to sit very still and silent for hours at a time just listening and watching the world move around them. “That lake used to be a place of happy memories,” he said, almost hearing the echo of his children’s laughter out of that far distant place and time. “Now it’s just…lonely.” 

“Maglor likes to say that lonely doesn’t have to mean unhappy,” said Amrod as he picked up a handful of his own stones, sorting through them almost absently. “But I’m not sure if he really believes it or if he’s just trying to make the rest of us feel better about having left him alone so long.”

Having left him alone—as though they’d had any choice in the matter. Fëanor thought about saying something, but didn’t. That guilt, whether it was warranted or not, lay between his sons and he did not want to interfere. Instead he said, “I have seen some of the places he lingered most often. He isn’t wrong—there is great beauty in the most remote and desolate places, and…” By now surely Celebrimbor would have installed the window in Maglor’s room at Nerdanel’s house, though Fëanor did not know whether he would have yet returned from Alqualondë to see it. He hoped that he would like it, in spite of Celebrimbor’s doubts. “Your brother always liked seeking out those places, even when he was young.” Maglor had always liked to go off alone—but it was, of course, very different to choose to take a solitary journey knowing you had a family who missed you and would be glad to see you return. For a very long time Maglor had not had anything like that, and whenever he thought of it that place under Fëanor’s ribs hurt. 

“Like Ekkaia,” Amrod said. He flung a stone out over the water with a quick flick of his wrist. It skipped a dozen times before finally sinking under the surface. 

Ekkaia was lonely indeed. “Why did you all go out there?” Fëanor asked. “I know why you left—but what took you all the way to Ekkaia?” 

To his surprise, Amrod laughed, and spoke of Gandalf and his meddling, the way he’d dropped hints to put Ekkaia into all of their minds. “It could have been worse though,” he added with a grin, eyes crinkling. “Historically when Mithrandir meddles in someone’s life they end up getting sent on some terribly dangerous but important quest. At least we didn’t have to face any dragons!”

He spoke lightly, but that journey had been dangerous. Just because there were no orcs did not mean Valinor was always a safe place, especially far away from all the cities and settled lands. “Curvo let slip that he had to stitch Nel—Maedhros up at some point.” He had to get better at not reaching for Nelyo before Maedhros. It was always harder when he had to talk about something terrible that had happened.

“That was on the way back.”

“What was on the way back?” Amras asked, coming to join them with several fish. While Amrod built a fire and Fëanor helped Amras prepare the fish for cooking, Amras described what they called the River Incident—which was a very mundane name for such a frightening event. Maglor had held back a swollen river with a song so they could cross, but a wild and apparently desperate hunting cat had attacked as soon as Maglor had gotten out of the water. Maedhros threw himself in between them and got knocked into the river as well as mauled—and when Maglor tried to pull him out, they were both taken by the flood that had come down when the power of Maglor’s song was relaxed. It was a horrific story, made bearable only by Amras’ reminder that Fëanor had seen them both since, and he did know that they were fine.

“Anyway,” Amras said, “that’s when the rest of us decided that Maedhros and Maglor weren’t allowed to be the oldest brothers anymore.”

“What does that mean?” Fëanor asked, startled into laughter by the sudden shift. 

“Mostly that they don’t get to complain when we go and poke them out of whatever bad mood they’ve worked themselves into,” said Amras, “and we get to protect them instead of the other way around. That hasn’t stopped Maedhros from threatening to toss us all into the river behind Ammë’s house for worrying at him, but I don’t think he’s actually done it yet.”

As much as he appreciated the image of his younger sons rallying around their older brothers, Fëanor couldn’t help but frown. “Does he need worrying at? I thought all that time in Lórien…”

“Oh, he’s much happier now than he was before they went to Lórien—they both are,” said Amrod. “The fire’s ready for the fish, Amras.” He leaned back on his hands as Amras placed a pan over the flames. “I think the rest of us are just too used to worrying, especially about Maedhros. Even when none of us were really talking to each other, we still worried.”

“Why didn’t you? Talk to one another, I mean,” Fëanor asked. Curufin had said they hadn’t known how, but he wanted to know what the twins would say too. The point of the palantír was to help him understand, because just listening wasn’t enough—but at the same time, only looking into the palantír wasn’t enough either. They needed both. When Amrod and Amras exchanged a look he sighed. “I’m not—I won’t be upset with you. I just want to understand.”

“We know,” said Amrod. “I’m just not sure how to explain.” 

Before Fëanor could decide whether that boded ill, Amras said, “It’s not that we hated each other, or were angry, or something, except that I think Curvo was angry at Tyelko for a long time.”

“That’s because Tyelko wouldn’t talk to him, because he’s an idiot,” said Amrod. 

“And you could be forgiven for thinking that Carnistir was angry with everyone,” Amras went on, poking at the fish as he spoke, “but that’s just because he’s prickly. Well, less so now. A little bit.” He poked at the fish again. 

“We all changed in Beleriand,” Amrod said. “And we didn’t fit together like we once had. Like we still wanted to.”

“In Beleriand, by the time we went to Doriath, the Oath was the only thing holding us together,” said Amras. He did not look at Fëanor as he spoke. “For some of us it was the only thing keeping us alive, I think.” Fëanor didn’t flinch, but it was a near thing. He believed it, though—he’d seen how the Oath had worn them down, weighed on them and crowded everything else out of their minds and hearts, especially after the disaster of the Nirnaeth. 

“And then,” Amrod said, “we all came back and didn’t have that anymore, and didn’t know how to talk to each other or even really what we wanted to do. Carnistir had the easiest time, I think, settling back into life. I think Grandfather Mahtan and Grandmother Ennalótë helped him a lot. Especially Grandmother.”

Because Ennalótë was a gardener, and Caranthir loved gardens. Fëanor hadn’t looked for any of that, but he could easily imagine him digging his hands into the soil and smiling when he leaned in to smell the flowers, just as he had done in Thargelion in the spring. 

“Maedhros had the hardest time, because Mandos didn’t work for him and the Valar weren’t very careful about when they released him to find what he needed in life,” Amras said. “And of course the first thing he did was go and take up one of the palantíri, and the one time Maglor was easy to find…”

Oh. Oh no. “He was in Dol Guldur?” That was another thing Fëanor had not yet looked for—though he knew that he would, in time, whatever Curufin said to warn him away from it. 

“Yes,” Amrod said, and scowled when he added, “and none of us knew anything about that until he came here and Tyelpë met him in Avallónë and then told the rest of us. Tyelko was furious with Maedhros for keeping that secret.”

It was slightly confusing just how they had learned that Maedhros had known in the first place, for the information had taken a very roundabout route to get from Maedhros back to the rest of them, via Elrond and Maglor himself and then Celebrimbor. Fëanor hadn’t realized until that afternoon that Nerdanel had also known—but of course she would have seen it, for she had taken the palantíri from the old house for that express purpose. In the same slightly roundabout way, they brought the conversation back to the question Fëanor had first asked: why they hadn’t spoken to their brothers for so many years. The tense atmosphere between their brothers who stayed with Nerdanel, and the crowds of Tirion, had been unbearable, and so Amrod and Amras had simply retreated, and once they were away, it was easy to stay away. 

“It’s not that we ever hated each other,” Amras added—a repetition of things they had said before, as though they really wanted to make sure that Fëanor knew and understood it. “Although Curvo thought Tyelko hated him for a long while.”

“We just didn’t know how to talk to each other anymore,” Amrod repeated, still echoing Curufin’s own words. “We didn’t know how to love each other, after all that happened and all we did. We joke about being annoyed at Mithrandir’s meddling, but really that was the best thing that could’ve happened to us.”

“Hill cats and flash floods notwithstanding,” Amras added. He took the fish off the flames, and placed the next one into the pan with a loud sizzle. “You can probably find it in the palantír, but that would just be alarming yourself for no reason, Atya. Everyone turned out fine.”

They did, and he knew it, but he would look anyway—he was curious, and still not very good at leaving well enough alone even when he knew it would just upset him. He wanted to see for himself how they’d come together again, how they’d departed as little better than strangers and returned more like the brothers they’d once been and still wanted to be, with all that entailed—the laughter and the tears, the River Incident and the homecoming afterward.

There was no urgency to it, though—even the need to understand what had happened at Losgar felt far away. He could leave the palantír alone and enjoy the warm days and cool nights, and his sons’ laughter, and the sun-spangled surface of the lake and the songs of the birds as they paused in their long migrations to the south. 

There had to be balance, Rúmil had said. He was right, and Fëanor had been trying to take it to heart. The past wasn’t going anywhere; for now it was enough that he could be there in the present, picnicking by the lake in the sunshine with his children.