Chapter Text
Oropher narrowed his eyes. "People you barely remember?"
"Fuck."
"Hey!" shouted Voronwë, seeing Maeglin take a step back in fear. They ran over, relieved to have found him at last. "My lord, there you are. Is he bothering you?"
"Everything is fine, Voronwë," said Maeglin, but his voice sounded strained. "I think I ought to return home. I begin to tire."
"No, I think you ought to explain," said Oropher. "How do you not remember your own spouses? You have known the princess for now over a century--"
Voronwë tried to come to stand between them. "Get away from him, Lord Oropher--"
"From what Collas said to me, you ought to be more cautious about asking questions whose answers you are not ready for," said Maeglin. "Morgoth stole my memories of Gondolin, if you must know! I have been trying to recover them!"
Voronwë turned to him slightly. "You do not owe him answers, my lord!" They had to get him back home before this became a worse incident than it already was.
"He asked," said Maeglin, still looking past them towards Oropher. "And I look forward to finding out how he shall next slander the dearest people of my heart."
Oropher bristled. "I am sure you do! And I have options! I could say that you were lied to about your past, that you were coerced into doing or saying things you had not the context to refuse -- your marriage, Collas said, was recent. Was it before or after you forgot?"
Voronwë, taking in a breath to harangue him for even thinking such a thing, found themself shoved to the side as Maeglin slapped Oropher across the face.
"My marriage is none of your business," he seethed. "You have no right to pry into our personal affairs, no matter how politically important our alliance is. They have proved to me that we were betrothed before I was captured, and I have witnesses who will swear that our bond was formed by accident in the attempt to call my spirit back to my body. I have a city of witnesses to tell me who I was! If they were lying, I would know!"
"Please, let us get home," said Voronwë, knowing it would do nothing.
"My wedded órëasumo and my husband have been better to me than I ever could have dreamed when I first awoke not knowing them. I thought they would be like Collas's wife and husband, who only ever hurt her, but even without my memories I have come to love them again! Bring any of this up to them and I will lay a curse upon you and your house," said Maeglin. He took a deep breath, straightened himself up, and said, "Yes, we should go home, Voronwë. I think this outing was too much for this stage in my convalescence."
Voronwë almost felt sorry for Oropher.
"I have everything on the list," Maeglin said calmly as he entered the house, followed by a frazzled-looking Voronwë.
Tuor glanced up from the paperwork Idril had shoved onto him so she could go to the glass workshop. "Welcome home, my -- love," he said, pausing to correct himself and then continuing with the original word. "How was the market?"
"Uneventful, but I am more tired than I expected I would be," said Maeglin. "I think I ought to take a rest before I start baking anything."
"Let me put everything away, then," he said, and took the basket.
Maeglin gave him a smile that hurt his heart, and hurt him threefold by going on his tiptoes to kiss his cheek. "Thank you."
As soon as he had gone far enough away as to not be able to hear, Voronwë turned to Tuor and said, "It was a nightmare, my friend! He slapped Lord Oropher (who was asking for it, really) in the street, and threatened to curse him if he brought anything up to you or Idril!"
"Then why are you telling me?" said Tuor.
"Just because he's recovered greatly doesn't mean he is fully himself again; if he had been he would have remembered to threaten me as well," they said. "I hardly want to get on the wrong side of his curses if he does threaten."
How odd it was, to know Lómion to be unhealed from the lack of threats! But it was true; he never before would have failed to impress upon Voronwë his demands.
"Tell me more of what happened," Tuor urged, and they told him all. By the end, he was unsure whether to feel terrified or relieved or guilty or overjoyed.
Voronwë squeezed his shoulder. "You have nothing to worry about, wipe that sad look off your face!" they said gently. "If he is so willing to defend you in public, and even confess to love, you need not fear losing him, and Oropher is thoroughly put off from popping up to cause more problems."
"You may be right, but..." He sighed. "He has had hardly any qualms about lying since he awoke; I would be unsurprised if he had only said what he thought could help the situation."
"Is it really necessary to have a whole second pining stage? This is ridiculous," said Voronwë.
Tuor put his face in his hands. "I fail to see how he could think me any better than those animals who used to court him in his old home! My friend, if you knew! He only just told us of how they gladly would have tricked him or compelled him into marriage, and when first he returned to us he had no reason to believe us any different. What he must have thought of me!"
It felt good to unburden himself, especially to one so dear and trusted who was not at the center of the issue.
"And he has come to trust you and care for you again nonetheless," Voronwë pointed out. "If he wanted to leave, he could have told Oropher and been given sanctuary, easily. You must trust that he knows his own heart best, and that he only wanted to avoid worrying you."
"I suppose you must be right," said Tuor, and cracked a smile. "If he slapped someone, he must no longer be afraid we will hurt him for acting out, after all."
After a full hour of fighting with himself, Maeglin went to Idril's workshop, carrying the pigments he had found for her at the market. He forced the honorific off his tongue, with less effort than before, and spoke only her name.
"Idril," he called. "I found the pigments you wanted me to fetch. Should I bring them in?"
"Please do! But I have just finished this piece, so there is very little room," she called back.
He came fully in, and searched for the proper places for everything he carried, though all her boxes and drawers were scattered on the tables. Idril herself put her latest enchanted jar, which she had told him yesterday was meant to keep food fresh for a year, away to cool, and began to clean up, stripping off her heavy gloves.
They worked in comfortable silence for a time.
At last Maeglin said, "There was a bit of trouble today. I ran into Lord Oropher, and I revealed to him inadvertently that my memories were gone. I sent him away, and he understands he risks my ire by speaking of it, but I wished to tell you."
Just because it was implied that he must keep it secret didn't mean there would be consequences. Not for him, not from his partner, and if Oropher caused trouble she would even shield him.
"That is worrying," she admitted, "but I do not blame you, and I am glad you told me."
"Please do not worry our husband about it," he said. "He need not be informed, I think, but I would not keep it from you."
At this she gave an honest smile, and a bucketful of memories flooded back into his mind, of the way she made the world go quiet with just her company, of how they had spent many nights awake lying on the grass and looking at the stars and melding their thoughts together.
"As I said, I am happy you came to me and trusted me with this. If you think it is no trouble, then I will abide by your judgment," she said, eyeing him carefully. He had noticed how careful she had been with her words of late, and their husband, too, and his law-father; always choosing their phrases to reinforce that he was safe and loved and respected.
It was rather sweet, he could admit, even if he felt coddled by it. "Thank you. Also--" he fidgeted with the jar of pigments in his hands "--there was something Lord Oropher said. He apologized for his outburst, and clarified that he wishes the three of us to have a true wedding, so that he may be assured that I am not taken advantage of, though I know not if his opinion has changed after what I revealed."
"I do not plan on caving to him, but if you wish for a wedding, we shall have one," she said.
"I -- when my memories are back, I would not be averse," he confessed. "I have come to care deeply for you both, even before I started to remember, I think. But I would like to be myself at my wedding, and not whatever I am now."
"You are still yourself, Lómion. Everyone changes, though not usually in this way, and those who love them love them still." She cupped his cheek in her hand and turned him towards her. "When you are ready, make the wedding rings, and we will set the date."
She paused. "But there is something you wish to ask."
"There is. I thought -- I hope I am not presuming -- I thought tonight I might stay with you. The three of us and Eärendil all together. I remember enough to miss you," he said.
"If that is what you wish, then so shall it be."
That night, curled up between Idril and Tuor and holding sweet Eärendil in his arms, Maeglin felt safe. Truly and entirely safe, as if nothing in all the world could hurt him.
And that night, he dreamed his life.
He awoke in the morning light to birdsong, and a heart so full of joy and sorrow and grief and love that he felt he might burst.
"Arincalima," he breathed, and nudged the little one. "Arincalima, awake, awake, your Ada has returned!"
Eärendil yawned. "What's going on, Ada?" he asked blearily.
"I remember everything, eaglet, and I am going to make you the biggest cake in the world because I love you so much!" He kissed Eärendil's dear little face all over, rewarded with cheerful childish giggles that woke his spouses -- his betrotheds -- his spouses, his dearest friend and his love, all of them together at last in truth.
Maeglin flung open his mind like shutters on a clear spring day. I remember! I remember!
Soon they all four were weeping from happiness in a tangled embrace, unwilling to let go as if for fear his memories were anchored only by their touch.
"I ought to make us breakfast," said Idril at last, trying to stand, but Maeglin pulled her back down.
"You cannot cook," he said, and his smile grew even wider. "You cannot cook, and I know you cannot cook, because I know who you are again and that is someone who gets in trouble with the kitchen staff when she tries to make anything that doesn't have flour in it!"
"Just checking," she said with an answering grin. "And for your information, I was going to make pancakes, which I am very good at."
"Oh, well, if it's pancakes," he said.
"What do you think, little one? Should we let your Ammë go make breakfast?" said Tuor.
Eärendil shook his head. "Ammë has to stay and cuddle us, or we have to go with!"
"Then I guess you're coming with, because you are going to be hungry soon," said Idril, scooping him into her arms and taking her happy wiggling child to wash up. "Come downstairs when you're ready," she called over her shoulder.
As soon as Eärendil was gone, Maeglin turned to his husband (his husband!) and poked a pointed finger at his chest. "Why do you still feel guilty? You did nothing wrong. Even if I am still slightly mad at you for being very frustrating to my forgetting self's sensibilities, and I am going to murder Voronwë for telling you what happened yesterday."
"I cannot stand the fact that I have made you unhappy," he said, and might have continued if he were not cut off.
"Shut up," said Maeglin, and kissed him. "The only good thing about this whole affair was that I fell in love with you all over again. And I do not feel like being sentimental any longer than I have to, but I will remind you of this until it sticks. You and Idril were nothing but good to me since I woke up, I would've run otherwise, and I stayed on purpose. If anything, I am glad I failed to drive you off with all that."
"Then is Oropher going to get his wish about the wedding?" said Tuor, his voice wobbling on the edge of tears but his tone light.
"When spring comes, I think he might," said Maeglin. "Now come on, we have to help Eärendil set the table, and tell everyone the good news!"