Heat by ford_of_bruinen  

Heat

The blessed lands had been bathed in golden light during the long days and the warmth was like a kiss upon your skin. What they had not been was hot; he glared up at the sun making  its way across the sky, nor had it been humid. If he wanted to breathe water he would have gone to live among the teleri not taken arms against them.

 

This land, he decided not for the first time, was stupid. Stupid and insufferable and full of irritations.

 

Add insult to injury and the wood of his harp had started to warp and crack rendering the instrument useless. He would have to fashion another one if they were to linger in the area for long, though he supposed they wouldn't, if not he would stick with his now ancient lute that he usually carried on his back. It was yet to warp or loose a string, having been made across the sea of the very finest materials. Again the materials here fell woefully short.

 

Looking out over the sea, from the clifftop, he again cursed the sun, this time for the blinding glitter in the water where the fool girl had just flung herself.

 

Her jump had set off a flock of seagulls who  were now screaming as they circled above the shore and sea; detestable creatures, loud and tuneless - scavengers the lot of them.

 

Such a fool. All she had needed to do, had ever needed to do, was to give him the cursed jewel around her neck. Give up her curse and put it on him, together with all the other curses and blood he had drawn down on himself.

 

He looked down on his bloodied hands, he would need to wash up somewhere, someone had told them she had children and he supposed he should clean the blood of their relatives off his person before he went looking for them.

 

An odd pang twisted in his chest. Children. He never liked seeing dead children. And Kano would never forgive him, if they met again, if he now threw the beasts after their mother.

 

Forgetting his bloodstained hands for a minute he rubbed them over his face. Right. Children. He supposed they would now learn to be surrogate fathers, or uncles, valar knew no one here remained to mind them, dead or fled. Turning his back to the sea he saw his brother coming towards him looking haggard, pale, near a ghost of himself.
 

"Ambarussa has fallen," Maitimo said tiredly. He always seemed exhausted now. Exhausted but the fire of the oath still burned brightly in his eyes, hated, cursed, unforgivable and unbreakable.

Macalaure shrugged, trying to find his normal tone of amused boredom, but it had been hard to find since Nirneath Arnoediad. Ambarussa dead.

"Maybe for the best," he answered and it was still there, the detachment, and he meant it. No more blood, no more violence, no more crushing weight on Ambarussa's shoulders.
"If the bastard has a shred of mercy he will let the Ambarussa meet." So long since the ships burnt.

Macalaure snorted. "And with any luck we will find ourselves with a new set of twins. We can even raise these ones and what, brother will we make of them. Dreamers? Poets? Singers, perhaps" his voice was silken. "Such use this world has for those." He laughed, the sound a bit wilder than he intended. "No. We do not know those anymore do we. Steel and blood, spite and fury until they stare down on fallen kin, their souls empty, for an oath not their own." 

Maitimo did not answer. He rarely did.

Until they are staring into the heart of the abyss, Macalaure thought, as he looked at his beautiful brother, scarred, bloody and broken. Because brother dearest, we are already there.