the ashes that remain by TheChasm  

It is long before any word comes to him. The rumour on the breeze is that the sons of Fëanor, betrayed and defeated, are fled by secret ways into the East; and Fingon, preoccupied with the logistics of his own retreat and the flight of his people to safety, has no time to investigate further. What a bitter irony, that he finds himself so much more capable a King in defeat than he ever was in the battlefield! And there are long nights to dwell on his bitterness in the months that follow the battle – bitterness that he has failed so utterly, burned down the legacy his father left him without even the glory of a final desperate stand; bitterness at Turgon for saving him and Húrin and Huor for paying for his retreat for their own lives; most of all, bitterness for Maedhros, who did not come.

It was his allies, he hears, the sons of Ulfang who were secretly in service of the Enemy. Bitter, too, that wary, mistrustful Maedhros should have been betrayed the one time he relied upon an ally! No: Fingon cannot forgive it. And he thinks that Maedhros must know that, must be too ashamed to send to Fingon with news of himself.

He is not really afraid, in truth. Perhaps that is selfish in itself – perhaps he yet trusts too deeply in Maedhros’ forgiveness, leans too much on the debt he will always insist Maedhros does not owe him. Often he has wished aloud Thangorodrim did not change them both in the way it did; but he has found it convenient, too, to remember how it has yoked them together. And anger has opened up greater rifts between them, in the past: froze Fingon solid for thirty endless years, only for his grudge to melt in an instant when he learned the truth of what happened at Losgar. It will happen again, he thinks: Maedhros will find him at last and tip back his head in surrender to expose his slender white throat, and rasp out an explanation for Uldor’s treachery while Fingon presses his lips to the point where his pulse hammers hot beneath his skin. And it will not be long after that before he surrenders up his anger, too. He has never been very good at being angry with Maedhros, however hard he tries.

If only he would write! It has been months. Perhaps he has grown angry in his turn, with Fingon’s long silence. Well, let him sulk: Fingon has enough to attend to here in the Falas, where he has joined the remnants of his folk to Círdan’s beleaguered people. Little word reaches them here of Eastern Beleriand, and Fingon has no time to go chasing after ghosts. He was not made for this slow and patient work, the long rebuilding once the flame is burned out.

It is a courageous rider who makes it through Morgoth’s siege and to Eglarest at last, as spring waxes into a humid coastal summer and the one-year mark of their undoing grows close. Battered and dusty, he draws aside his cloak to reveal the star of Fëanor pinned upon his tunic, and asks breathlessly to be taken to see whichever lord of the Noldor dwells in this city; he seems surprised to be led to Fingon.

“Forgive me, my King,” he says, falling to his knees. “We hoped — but there had been no word of your survival.”

“There is no High King of the Noldor,” Fingon tells him wearily, “and he who bore that title might as well be dead. But we do what we can with the ashes that remain. Tell me, what news of your lord?”

The messenger nods. “Long did the sons of Fëanor wander rootless in the East,” he says, “but Lord Maglor has come now to Amon Ereb, and dwells quietly in Ossiriand. He dispatched me on my errand the very day he was settled.”

“Maglor?” Fingon repeats. A spark of anger within him, brighter than he thought himself capable of now. “So he has not even the courage to write to me himself? Give me the letter.”

The messenger’s hand is shaking oddly; but he passes over the letter – sealed, Fingon notes with displeasure, with Maglor’s own emblem of the star and harp. Fingon’s own seals were all left in Barad Eithel to be looted by the marauding orcs. He cannot say why the news that Maglor kept one of his own should raise in him such irritation.

The letter, more annoyingly still, is penned hastily, and in familiar address:

Cousin—

I know not whether you live, although I chose to believe that Morgoth would have displayed your head as a trophy, and paraded the news of your death to all with eyes to see it, had he been able. He had not the chance with my brother; I was too late to save him, but I spared his body that indignity at least. Forgive me: I sat down to write intending to break the news to you gently (should you live to hear it), but grief has all undone me, and I have not the words to be gentle any longer.

He was slain by Uldor the Accursed, who turned upon us even as Glaurung drove our two hosts apart. What else ought I write? That he fought with courage and valour, that he came near to overcoming the traitor, that he would have succeeded had I only been close enough to save him? I will not burden you with my own regrets. Nor can I offer up some comforting lie — that it was painless, that he died with your name on his lips, that his spirit goes now to its long and peaceful rest in the Halls of Mandos. We the Oathbound know what fate awaits us.

All I will say, then, is that I am sorry. Someday I will make him a lament; for now, as you see, I cannot bear to write his name.

Maglor son of Fëanor

How long, in the darkness of the Helcaraxë, did Fingon nurse his anger without cause? At times he thought it the only thing keeping him warm; and how much colder he was, when it burned out for good on the shores of Middle-earth, when he was told what had become of Maedhros. Here, then, is another lesson he failed to learn in time — but there is no chance now of some mad and desperate deed that they will name heroics, no path open that will redeem them both. All that is left is the hard edge of Doom, and the chill of the long defeat.

He was not made for this.

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