Phantom Pain by Fuin  

---

Phantom Pain

---

Fingon flexes the bandaged fingers of his sword hand before he half-rises from the narrow makeshift bed huddled into a corner of the command tent. Every bone and muscle in his body aches. The thrill of the fight on the dark plains of Valinor has long since faded into thorough exhaustion; the fury and the fire with which he met the enemy after millennia of peace and the almost-bliss of the Blessed Realm have dwindled to a mechanically done chore and a desperate obstinacy. Who would have thought Dagor Dagorath, the Last Battle, would turn into months-long static warfare, and that the hosts of the Free Peoples of Arda would clash, clash, clash against Morgoth's hordes of Orcs and evil Men, of foul beasts and Umaiar, of Balrogs and Fire-drakes, again and again without either side gaining the upper hand? 

“You ought to rest some more,” reprimands Maedhros from his desk where he is hunched over a stack of notes and reports, and decrees bearing High King Fëanor's seal. 

“I can't,” says Fingon. 

He pulls back the rough-spun blanket and lifts the hem of his tunic, winces as he examines the cut in his upper thigh and applies some of the pungent salve to it. He had taken the wound five days ago, by an orc captain's scimitar in a single moment of inattention. Ídhiel, his most trusted healer, neatly stitched the wound. But the aftercare falls to him, for Ídhiel is dead, as are two thirds of their healers. 

“How's your leg?“ 

“Healing. Better than it was in the morning,” replies Fingon through gritted teeth, though he already dreads to put on his armour which momentarily sits on the stand in another corner of the tent. 

He asks for Maedhros' health in turn, and the grunt he receives in reply probably means have-been-better-have-been-worse—which is about as specific as if he would not answer at all. An untouched bowl of the same gruel they have been eating for weeks sits on his desk. There is not much variety in the diet of commanders and soldiers, kings and peasants alike, except for the gruel becoming thin and thinner by day. 

“You haven't even eaten.“ 

Maedhros shrugs. “I left it for you. This hröa of mine is still quite new and—” 

“Neither needs as much food nor rest, I know, while mine has grown old and weary, and frail, apparently, over the long millennia of peace and idleness. You've mentioned it,“ interrupts Fingon. They have been over this many times. The next thing though, he says for the first time. It is hurtful, but their nerves are stretched as thin as the gruel, and the thought has festered within him long enough: “And there's no reason not to exhaust that new hröa of yours until it may go no further, for this world has not much time left anyway—and you would not mind to leave it behind earlier yet, to redeem yourself dying an honourable death in battle. Starving next to a bowl of food, though, is not especially honourable.“ 

Maedhros' jaw clenches. Putting down the quill in his left hand and the notes in his right, he gives Fingon a hard stare. “Moryo is still fending off the Fire-drakes down in the hills alongside the Haladin host while we're stuck here. Reading his report is hardly exhausting, and I do not feel my precious life is immediately endangered right now.“ 

Fingon does not take the bait offered as a distraction. The situation has hardly changed, compared to the last fortnight, or Maedhros would have mentioned it. 

“You don't even try to deny it.“ Maedhros averts his gaze with a sigh. 

There is a Darkness in his eyes where there had been Light in his first life. It seems a mismatch with his fair face that is free of scars, except for a small recently gained one across his cheekbone. Sometimes, that Darkness is hard to bear. Sometimes, when Maedhros turns his eyes away from him, Fingon feels a relief he regrets in an instant. 

When he does not receive any further reply, he casts a glance at the map covering the oak table that takes up most of the space in the tent. He blinks twice as it blurs before his eyes—getting up has made him dizzy. But he says nothing of it, and the moment passes. The markers on the map have barely moved in those few hours he rested. Again, the now-empty spaces of the golden figurines that used to mark infirmaries fill him with just as much dread as those many black ones indicating the hosts of the Foe. 

Elrond Peredhil has vowed to reorganize what is left of their healers, at the cost of his diplomatic mission to balancing the frail relationships between the House of Fëanor and the Sindar led by Elu Thingol and Olwë of Alqualondë, and King Thranduil's Wood-elven folk. Fingon's throat feels tight at the thought of how Orcs riding terrible winged beasts swept down from the dark skies and with swords and claws brought death upon the wounded warriors and the lightly armed healers tasked with their care. They should have expected this, and protected them. By now, they should expect anything. 

 

As soon as he has finished thinking the thought, a sound from outside distracts Fingon. The tunic he has slept in is not apt to receive guests, but an unannounced visitor at this hour ought to bear an urgent message. He steps to the entrance, pulls back the canvas—and takes a sharp breath in astonishment.

 “Ídhiel?“ He asks in joyful disbelief. “I have been told you were amongst the casualties!“ 

Her face is white as bone before the dark behind her, her hair is unbraided and tangled, the reddish gown torn. A pang of pity hits Fingon at the vision of her state. After the horrors she must have been through, it is unsurprising that her face is twisted in sorrow, that she moves erratically and gracelessly. 

“Come in, Ídhiel, and sit down before you tell me what brings you here. There's even some food left, if you'd like.“ 

“Wait.“ Maedhros' voice is cold. 

Fingon turns to him. He is not going to argue about whom he shares that sparse meal with, which Maedhros has kept for him, or—whether it is the sight of Maedhros' eyes widening or an ingrained reflex acquired in a hundred battles; Fingon's reaction is just quick enough to ward off the dagger and to wedge it from Ídhiel's clutch. 

Attacking, she has lunged forward. In the light radiating off the Noldorin lamp above Maedhros' desk an enchantment has been lifted, and Fingon now clearly sees that the reddish colour of her gown stems from dried blood that had gushed down the chest from her throat, slit open directly above the high collar. 

Ídhiel—Ídhiel's corpse!—staggers but for a moment before she, though unarmed, charges at him again, slashing wildly with unnatural, claw-like fingernails. Fingon evades her. From behind, he hears Maedhros pushing back his chair, swearing. Her dagger is still in Fingon's hand, but this is—this was?—Ídhiel, a fellow Noldo, his trusted healer whom he has known for many millennia. A friend even. A tide of images from the dawn of time rises in his mind, blood-red waves crash against the quays of Alqualondë. The dagger is still in his hand and he does not use it, not against an Elf. He evades her again, quickly, but in the crammed tent, he hits the table with the back of his thighs. The markers on the map clatter. Ídhiel's whole body hurls forward, Fingon raises his arms to protect his face from her clawing fingers. It gives her an opening to bite down on his lower arm. Crying out, he lets go of the dagger at the same instant he realizes that there is nothing Elven left about the countless needle-sharp teeth digging into his flesh. 

They both tumble to the ground. Fingon tries to push her away with his sword arm wedged between her jaws and his uninjured hand against her neck. There is a ringing sound from the back of the tent—Maedhros drawing his sword. Fingon’s thumb pushes into the wound that is Ídhiel's throat, tearing it open wider. Yet she does not relent, clawing at him with unearthly strength, leaving bright red marks crisscrossing his chest. The fallen dagger is out of his reach now, his sword even farther. 

But Fingon needs to keep her off his own neck for just a moment longer, as he hears Maedhros move toward him, climbing over the damned table. Leaping over him and Ídhiel grappling on the floor, Maedhros drives his sword down in between Ídhiel's shoulder blades. Its tip breaks through her skin below the sternum, and stills a well-calculated finger's breadth above Fingon's own chest. 

A fierce fire burns in Maedhros' eyes. For a split second, Fingon is torn between relief and horror about him not hesitating to raise his weapon against what looks like an Elf he is acquainted with. The decision is to be made later though—greater horror lies in the ineffectiveness of the blade in Ídhiel's heart. Her teeth are still sunk in Fingon's arm. Her claws are still reaching for his neck. Unable to reach his throat, they dig into his flesh right above the clavicle. He cannot stifle a dismayed cry. 

Maedhros pulls his sword back. A gooey lump of congealed blood drips onto Fingon's stomach; cold sweat starts to drip from his brow. 

“Hold her still, I'm taking off the head!“ Maedhros barks. 

Fingon gives an approving grunt, but it turns out a struggle—he lets go of her throat while trying to push her away from his body with the other arm and his knees. Finally, he gains enough space for Maedhros' blade to strike upwards, severing Ídhiel's head, and one arm right below the shoulder. Her claws and teeth are still buried in Fingon's flesh. He grabs the cut-off arm by its wrist, draws a sharp breath as he tears at it and the grip on him loosens. The fingers twitch and seem to reach for him still when he flings it away, his blood dripping from the fingertips. 

Ídhiel's jaws meanwhile bite down on Fingon's arm even harder. His bones must be close to breaking now. Horrified, he smashes the severed head against the ground once, twice, thrice, not heeding the sharp pain of teeth tearing at his muscle and tendons. She rolls her eyes wildly, but does not let go. Tangled strands of black hair cling to the once-familiar face, now that the braid has been cut from it alongside the rest of her body—the body that, headless, now rises from the ground and turns toward Maedhros. The mutilated arm Fingon threw away begins to drag itself across the floor, fingers moving like spider legs. He gives it a hard kick before it can grab his ankle, sending it flying against the tent canvas where it leaves a dark red spot. Accompanied by the squelching sound of muscle and guts being torn apart, Maedhros slashes at what is left of Ídhiel's body, the cuts as deep as they are futile. In his eyes shines a flame of impassive determination, as if he was fighting yet another Orc, and not this thing that the healer has become. 

It is all too clear that Maedhros has never known the peace of Valinor in his new life, that he went from war into Darkness and then into war again. Not discerning between enemies, he will cut down whatever, or whoever, stands in his way. Ídhiel's mangled corpse, however, evades his next strikes with impossible swiftness, guts spilling from its stomach. The remaining arm is still grabbing for Maedhros. Fingon reaches for the fallen dagger with his left. 

Prying and hacking with the blade, he finally rids himself off the severed head. Blood wells up from the bite marks the many sharp teeth leave behind in his flesh. Ignoring the throbbing wound, he turns to Maedhros—only to find that not much is left of Ídhiel, her torso hewn in two, one leg taken off below the hip. And still the bloody body parts move on their own, they twitch and wriggle on the ground. Maedhros strikes at them grow more frantic. Visibly, he is losing his impassive demeanor. 

Fingon joins him in the revolting act, tearing apart the healer's remains, until finally, finally, they still. 

 

They both take a deep breath.

Relieved, Fingon notices that Maedhros is unhurt save for minor scratches—as Fingon should be, too, had he not hesitated to raise a blade against what used to be Ídhiel. The interior of the command tent—the ground, the canvas, the table with the map, the makeshift bed, the desk, and both Maedhros and Fingon—is covered in oozing body parts. Fingon's own bright red blood mingles with the darker corpse-blood. From the overturned bowl on the desk, gruel drips into the mire. 

“Have you ever encountered something like this?“ asks Fingon, breathing heavily. 

Foul things rising from too shallow graves is not a thing unheard of. But many Fingon had seen in Beleriand of the First Age had moved slowly, and less purposefully. Greater and fiercer wraiths possessing bleached-out bones and shrouding them in some resemblance of life he remembers, too. But the mere stare out of their cold eyes had filled him with dread. None of those he could have mistaken for being an Elf in truth, however much their faces might have looked like one. 

Maedhros shakes his head slowly. “Not exactly like this, no…”

Fingon raises his eyebrows. Clearly, there is something more he does not say. 

“But I'm not sure this is over, yet”, Maedhros adds, his brows furrowed. The sounds of fighting and of yelled commands outside the tent ring in their ears. 'Of course, this is not over', is what he feels the urge to say. But it is obvious that Maedhros means the enemy, means Ídhiel, most trusted healer, whom they have just slain. 

In Beleriand, Fingon had known the very specific expressions he wore when he recalled the horrors he had beheld in Angband. Now though, it is hard to recognize them on his youthful and almost-unscarred face. His prediction might well be based on something he witnessed in Angband—or perhaps it is not. Fingon looks around, chunks of flesh and bone litter the blood-drenched floor, and he cannot imagine how there would be any way in which this would not be over. But he has told himself to expect anything. His gaze meets the eyes of the severed head. 

They stare back at him from under the table. 

They are not the eyes of something dead.

They blink. 

Then, Ídhiel's blood-stained lips part as if she were breathing one last time, and a dark mist rises from her mouth—a mock image of how breath can be seen in freezing air. A like thing seeps from other parts of her body, and the mists mingle to a dark cloud of fleeting, twisting shapes like bodies writhing in torment. 

"Do not let it get into your mind”, says Maedhros with a rough voice. 

At the sound of his voice the spirit turns, insofar as one can tell that fog turns, toward him. Suddenly, as if caught in a gust of wind, it rushes forward. Maedhros braces his shoulders. Ídhiel's vicious dying breath twists around his body. Like a swarm of flies it flocks around the thin red lines her claws had scratched into his leg and his sword-arm earlier—but as if it were mere flies also, he fends it off with just a simple shake of his arm. The fog circles Maedhros' lightly injured limbs once more, and loses interest. 

This time, Fingon does expect it to turn on him. It seeks blood, and he is bleeding quite heavily. He steels his fëa against the onslaught. But still, as the twisting shapes clash against him and swarm to the bite wound in his arm, the punctures above his clavicle, and the claw marks across his chest, their force make him stumble. The fog bores into his open wounds, searching and finding a way into his blood vessels. 

Blinding pain runs up his veins, and then, as the spirit seems to writhe deep within his chest, he feels something tug and tear at his fëa. Fingon hears a cry as if from a great distance, and only when Maedhros calls his name from even farther away, he realizes it has been his own voice crying out.

 Distantly, he notices his body on the ground again, convulsing. He can feel the spirit clawing at his thoughts and mind, and the very core of his being. But Fingon's fëa stands like a fortress against the intrusion. Its white walls are high, the barred gates are of adamant, and upon the battlements his own spirit holds steadfast in its defense. Still in the form of a dark fog, the enemy encircles him, crashes against the walls like the waves of a storm-tossed sea, yet it gains no ground. Instead, it begins to lose its ominousness, for Fingon can feel some of its substance at its edges. There is some remembrance of life there, and some of death—and somewhere in between, he finds a vision of a mortal Man's fëa. 

Having understood what he faces, Fingon pushes back against it, his will pouring down upon it like molten gold from his own spirit-walls. Clashing with the fog, he catches a glimpse into the Man's fëa: Twisted it was in life, twisted it is in death still. It bears hate and wrath, against itself as well as against all that is unlike itself, but regret and fear lie buried in it, too—and so much of those. All its dreadful deeds in life and all its wicked thoughts in death are spun into strings of darkness, and like the reins of an unruly horse, they are firmly held by Morgoth's hands, a shadow within shadows in the Mortal's memories.

Summoned by the Foe had he been as he returned from outside the circles of the world when the Walls of Night were torn down and the veil between Arda and the spheres of mortal fëar was ripped apart. Now, no way is left for him to escape his master, but torment he might yet avoid by going forward, by taking possession of another body and doing Morgoth's work on the battlefields. 

Fingon feels a pang of pity for the lost Man's fëa, yet his body is not to be a vessel for Morgoth's servant. He cannot grant him any mercy, nor has he any means to cut the strings that bind him to his master. 

The golden light of Fingon's will drives through the dark fog, and the writhing shapes of it are torn apart. Three times, they unite again, and counter Fingon's charge, but the Mortal's fëa stands no chance. It turns to flee. Fingon knows there is no choice for the Man but to return to Morgoth; to be punished for failure, and to be sent out onto the battlefield again in another stolen body, and to die once more—an unending cycle to be repeated again and again, until Dagor Dagorath will come to an end.

Shuddering, Fingon becomes aware of his aching body again. Maedhros is holding him tightly against his chest with his right, Fingon's head rests on his shoulder. 

Maedhros' left hand, though, clutches the hilt of his sword. His eyes are widened, the jaw set. 

“It is gone,” murmurs Fingon, softly brushing Maedhros' white knuckles with his fingertips. 

“How could I be sure of it? This may well be a trick of the Enemy.“ He pulls Fingon even closer to himself, but does not let go of the weapon. 

“Russo, it is gone,” insists Fingon, “I may have suffered a few scratches, but my fëa is not bested by some mortal Man's foul spirit.“ 

In the Halls of Mandos, Fingon must have been forced to look at Míriel's tapestries depicting Maedhros spilling Elven blood in Alqualondë and Doriath and at the Havens of Sirion for a thousand times—until his fëa gave in and Námo's Maiar were convinced to have healed him of his love to one on whom the wrath of the Valar lay from the West unto the uttermost East, and into the Dark beyond. 

It is easy sometimes, to pretend the man he saw there would have been an entirely different person when he looks at Maedhros' fair face while he draws strategies and plans out the movements of the Noldorin hosts, outwardly calm and composed. It is easy to pretend when, in the rare moments they find time and privacy for it, their bodies lie intertwined and they both tentatively begin to believe that the touch of the others' skin is real, and not remembered in Tirion bathed in moonlight, or hallucinated within the depths of everlasting Darkness. 

It was not so easy to pretend Maedhros was anyone different than that murderous vagabond shown on the tapestries, when Fingon had seen the expression—grim yet haunted—in his eyes as he tore Ídhiel's body apart. It is not easy now, when Maedhros is not fully convinced that the spirit has not taken possession of Fingon's body. Fingon feels his heavy breathing, can see him clearly struggling with himself. 

He trusts Maedhros with his life. He trusts also, that he would take it away if the enemy were to turn him into something that is not Fingon anymore—yet this is, decidedly, not the right time for it. 

“It is gone,” he repeats, “Russo, do you hear me? Look.“

 Fingon's fëa reaches out to Maedhros. He is well aware that he might suspect this, too, to be a snare set by the Foe, but Fingon needs to try anyway—and Maedhros does indeed reach out to him in turn. Their minds and spirits touch, and embracing each other the borders between one fëa's end and the other's beginning blur. Fingon sees the golden light of his own as Maedhros perceives it, not only free of Morgoth's shadows, but much clearer and brighter than it ought to be. Maedhros' fëa burns with a white flame, but it is tainted with hues of shame and regret, and dulled by the memory of blood and Darkness. Fingon draws his tormented spirit closer to his own, just as Maedhros now holds his body in both of his arms. 

“Finnonya,” rasps Maedhros, his shuddering breath brushing over Fingon's hair, “I was certain you were lost and I would have to destroy whatever remained of you. One day I will bring ruin upon you, and I… I'm terrified of it.“ “

It is the Enemy only who brings ruin now, Russo. And it would have been the right thing to do, if—” He swallows. Ídhiel's eyes are glazed over now, dead at last. Fingon cannot help but think about how the spirit took control of her mind and body, entering into her veins through her slit throat. 

“I wonder, whether there was something left of her still. Why else do you think, would she have come here, of all places? She was a friend, and she had been here just a day before she died, after all.“ 

Maedhros gently touches Fingon's cheek with the bloodied fingers of his right. “Do you remember how my hand hurt, whenever the weather changed, or when I had driven my body to exhaustion, or when nightmares had haunted my sleep, and how I used to feel a memory of my fingertips twitch and tingle at other times? There is some remembrance there, in the flesh, that does not correspond to what the mind expects to perceive. It might be it was her hröa only that found its way here, and not the fëa.“ 

“Do you believe that yourself? Do you think I need to be coddled like that? Or is it what you need to believe, to convince yourself it is not truly Elven blood on your hands, and, ah, everywhere else also?“ Fingon forces the sliver of irritation from his voice. “Then, I will gladly let you believe it, to not further strain your consciousness. You have done the right thing, painful though it may be. And you would have done right to slay me had that spirit succeeded in taking hold of me. I am telling you, I would not want to—to be chained to the Foe in such a way, or to witness myself hurting you or anyone else. If any such thing should befall me, I trust you to make the right choice.“ 

Maedhros shakes his head. Denial, clearly, not disagreement. After all, he bore many things in his life that no one should be made to endure. What would one more pain be to it, dealt out in mercy? “Do you have enough estel left in yourself for both of us, to hope it will not come to this choice?“ 

“I do,” assures Fingon, “I'll always do.” 

At the periphery of his vision, he feels, rather than sees, Maedhros' lips twist. “Yet you would not to do the same thing for me,” he says, and bitterness has crept into his voice. “For that same estel does not allow you to give up on me. See how you fussed about that cursed bowl of gruel earlier?—You'd rather chain me to a rock until some miracle were to happen, or a remedy to be found, ere you would let harm come onto me. Me, who is more than half an Enemy to Arda already!“ 

“You're insufferable,” breathes Fingon and lets his head drop against Maedhros' shoulder for a moment. He will not relent to a discussion about how past misdeeds and past failure must or must not inevitably lead to the world going down in flames—and he will not admit to the grain of truth in Maedhros' words. 

For all too much, Fingon wishes he were able to watch each of Maedhros' steps, to not let him fall into any of the Darknesses they encounter along the way. He is failing already. But there is no time to dwell on it any longer. Long enough they have been fighting their own battles already, instead of joining those outside in the camp. Fingon has heard one of his commanders calling the warriors into formation now and again, and he trusts the Elf's skills. But it is Fingon leading the Noldorin hosts into battle, Fingon who is remembered for being a hero of the First Age, and not for his own darker days. Even High King Fëanor had had to admit it, albeit reluctantly, when Fingon had offered his own name and renown to his service and thus to keep the Houses of the sons of Finwë from breaking apart. On the battlefield, his people follow Fingon, and he will not delay leading them any further. 

He will don his armour adorned with the star of the house of Fëanor then, and return to the battlefields of Dagor Dagorath, with all their old and their new horrors. 

What they met today in Ídhiel's body is merely the beginning of something greater and darker they cannot yet fathom. More of those spirit-possessed corpses have invaded the camp. In the plains, some miles to the west, the fallen Noldor are buried in rows upon rows of unmarked graves. There can be no doubt that Morgoth must have summoned hundreds of thousands of fëar. Many of the Edain and other peoples of Men have returned from beyond the circles of the world, but it has been reckoned that their masses do not amount to all of those who ever lived, and that a significant number would be missing. At last now, they are found—within the ranks of the Foe. 

 

There are some ointments and tinctures, and a few clean bandages stashed into a small box under the desk. Fingon takes the barest to treat his wounds, while his mind races somewhere else. He is unwilling to despair at the thought of all of his fallen friends, comrades-in-arms and those who had trusted his lead rising from their graves as servants of Morgoth. 

“Care to help me?“ Fingon stretches out his injured arm and winces as Maedhros bandages the wound, though his war-accustomed hands are gentle now. 

”I am thinking, we should draw out the Fire-drakes from the hills and face them on the burial grounds. Their flames will scorch the earth, and whoever rests in her bosom will be turned to ashes, and rise no more.“

 Gruesome it seems, to have the bodies thusly cremated, yet it may spare them worse a fate. 

“It might work,” sighs Maedhros, “or we will lose many to the flames who might have lived yet. I could not help but fear to bring all of this to a bitter end—and a would not an end in fire be a fitting death?—if it were not for you. I shall trust in you, as do our people. I rue what I said earlier, I shouldn't resent you for caring for my life.“ 

His fingers linger on Fingon's bandaged arm for a moment. “But all that trust will not be of much use to you if you do not see a healer soon.“ 

Fingon gives a mirthless laugh and gestures to the mangled torso and severed head. “Well,” he says grimly, “can you put her back together?“