Chapter Text
Maglor meant it when he told himself, decades prior, that it would be better were he to abandon the world and remain hidden. He stayed quiet as the construction was continued; his life, it seemed, had grown loud enough without his intervention. He saw fit to let it carry the duty of noise, which had once been his quite willingly.
He stayed quiet also as the newly-finished houses were filled and their inhabitants took up joy, the sound of what he thought to be modern music and bright, ringing laughter chasing away the shadows on the beach. He kept close what darkness they left him with, and soon grew weary of their endlessly light presence. It felt strangely reminiscent of Galadriel, or perhaps the Maiar in Valinor— when compared, they are hauntingly similar.
His voice had left him long ago, by then, and in sorrow he thought back to times where his song had broken bones and boiled blood; had he wielded such strength still, perhaps he would have chased the Secondborn away. As it was, he did not, but in him grew a longing to return to his peace, and so he turned to his other strengths. He might have been a minstrel once, but the ages left him scarred and battered, and with his hair reaching down to his knees in dark mats, he seemed more a wraith than an elf.
In his raiment of rags and shadow, he ensured that he was seen, staggering like an orc across the sands of the beach. Shouts of outrage and disgust rose up in the homes where before it had been pleasure, and within the shelter of his darkened face he smiled for the first time in thousands of years, grim and satisfied. Men flooded through the doors, some in anger, some in concern, some with gleaming, blunted arms of steel, and Maglor fled, feeling wilder than he had since his theft of the Silmarils. His feet sunk into the sand and behind him voices shouted with words he didn't understand, and he broke through the border of the forest so that it wrapped him in its security.
When the voices stopped ringing, he returned to his alcove; he went out again the next night. Again and again he stalked the shores like a beast of Morgoth, and one by one the houses went dark and quiet, as they should be, he thought. He did not regret breaking his word to himself, because this, he knew, was a victory; he had long forgotten the relish of a battle won. His brothers, when they came, whooped and hollered in the first signs of joy he had seen from them in years.
When the last house was vacated, he settled in triumph. He was stirred, then, and his long stillness was broken; even now, Maglor knows, he is restless again, the way he was in the beginning. The way he was when he spoke to the gulls and traversed the shores. The confidence he had is gone, however, and his spirit grows thinner— yet calmer, he thinks— in the comfort of his hard-won silence.
Now he takes up his wandering again, frequently, and on occasion he ventures even into the depths of the forest like he did that night, purely to relish in the knowledge that it is his alone. This is joy, he is certain, or at least contentment, for even his brothers have not come to heckle him in quite a time. The world, it seems, is all the lighter, thanks to the silence and the shadows holding dominion over the beach once again; with a wild laugh, he calls it a paradox.
Maglor feels safe at last, bathing in the freedom that, this time, he has won. He fears the Secondborn no longer, and indeed his thought does not drift to them, except in exultation.
That is, perhaps, why he is taken by surprise.
The houses were filled seasonally, he remembers; when the world grew hot and nature was at its greenest, they would file in with those great rumbling beasts of metal and stay until the leaves turned yellow. After a few years Maglor began to watch the trees and track the seasons, so that he would know when to expect them. He, of course, had abandoned that habit once he had thoroughly chased the Secondborn off, and now pays little attention to the passing of seasons aside from the chill in the air in the colder months.
He hears the great, quaking rumble, and for a long moment, he does not move. The sound of it feels as though it drives into the ground and echoes up his bones, and deep within him something recoils, but from what, he knows not. At first, he thinks it a storm— an odd dry-land thunder, because the sky is clear and the distant waves are calm— or perhaps a quaking of the earth, shifting to swallow. But the rhythm, he feels, is off— this is no storm.
Maglor’s head jerks up from where it was bent over an oddly shaped root, because that doesn’t make sense. The Secondborn do not come here anymore, and he knows enough to be sure that their metal beasts cannot operate themselves— the world has done stranger things than an irregular storm. He knows it is wishful, but it has been years since he pulled his terrifying beach-creature act, and if they are here, which in his mind he is certain of but in his heart he is not, they surely cannot be here for any reason other than to leave.
He waits as it grows louder and comes closer, and expects to hear it keep going until the sound dips again and they are gone, but it does not pass. The sound grows, almost like a shadow raised by a bonfire, and it grows even when it should have faded and left, like everything else—
Eru, he thinks, they really are here, and if they are here, it is for the season.
Maglor doesn’t scramble to his feet immediately, and instead throws himself to the ground with a ragged, barking noise. He tells himself that he is wrong, and that they are most certainly going to leave any moment now, and his triumph was not for nothing, but he knows in his fëa that he is lying to himself. He knows what it sounds like when the Secondborn make their arrival; he had been subjected to it for years, all of them set to stay for a time he thinks he would be unable to bear again.
What did I do, he wonders, to have this be brought down upon me, and deserve it? Which crime of mine have you not absolved me of?
You step out for one walk, Maglor thinks grudgingly, and your home gets overrun.
He tosses an arm over his eyes and tries to convince himself to get on his feet, but his limbs feel like lead. All you have to do is walk around like you’re dying for a little while, he tells himself, and they’ll fly right off like spooked birds. It’s not that hard, you can start tonight.
It feels like a very grand task; to think, he was basking in his years-old victory only moments ago. Shrilly, he laughs, and rolls over so his face is pressed into the dirt and some of it touches his tongue. Karma, he thinks it— this is for him. He breathes in deep, and it rings too loudly in his skull.
“Perhaps they have come to kill you,” Maedhros says mildly, and Maglor shrieks jaggedly. He turns onto his back and pushes up with his palms to rest against the gnarled, odd root. Of course he comes just as the Secondborn do— he relishes in my pain. He’d thought he was done with his brothers’ abrupt appearances; they’d left him alone and at peace for so long.
He wills the world to slow down. He wonders briefly why it seems as though everything must happen in one moment.
They haven’t, he tells Maedhros, through his mind rather than his dead voice. Why would they be here for me?
Maedhros shrugs. “I’m certain at least one person ran off to tell horror stories of you. Is it so surprising someone decided to take action?”
Yes, Maglor says spitefully. He hauls himself onto his feet and, after a moment of deliberation, decides not to brush the dirt from his clothing— perhaps, if and when the need arises, it will aid him in looking disgusting and dangerous. Pushing past his elder brother with a sharp scowl, he begins a heavy trek back to the shore. Maedhros, regrettably, keeps pace with him, but he says nothing more until they reach a shadowed spot on the sand, where Maglor can more easily see the rows of vacant homes.
“It has been a long time, little brother, since any of us have spoken to you,” he says at last, a weighty tone at Maglor’s side. “I hope you have not felt neglected.”
Neglected? Maglor says, incredulously. I have felt at peace; you are a wretched thing, and oftentimes I feel I do not know you! You are a stranger, and not my brother. Be quiet.
He watches with narrowed eyes and a harsh twist to his mouth as the family of Secondborn flutters about a home all too close to his alcove. He might, he observes, have to sleep somewhere else until he has chased them off. He growls lowly, deep in his throat, and keeps his eye closely trained on their shapes as they flit to and from the door of what is to them, he assumes, their new home. He's close enough now that he can see what they are holding, but he is unsure of what exactly any of it is. Most of it is packed up in crates, except they do not look like crates— they are brown, yes, but that is not wood. He knows what wood looks like.
Maglor realises, abruptly, that he has never seen them arrive before. They might have all sorts of modern secrets he could not even dream of understanding.
The children flock outside of the door, only two of them cheering. There are four: three girls and one boy, from what he can see. The tallest girl holds the smallest— half of her size— on her hip, while the other girl and the boy run winding loops around their parents carrying load after load, and their sisters, and the greenery in front of the house. The man, who he assumes can only be their father, lugs the final faux-crate indoors and ushers the children in after him, and then he whistles loudly.
"Maglor," Maedhros says, then, and Maglor exhales sharply, straight through his teeth; he does not turn his head, does not acknowledge his brother, because rounding the house now is a great hound, tall and muscled and pale-furred, but dark in the face. For a moment, he swears he is looking at Huan.
He isn't, of course, and he knows it, because Huan is long dead and dear, and all that is dear in his heart must be far, far away, but he recoils and aches. The dog bounds around the corner and runs straight to its master's side, and the door is, thankfully closed behind it. Maglor laxes heavily, and somewhere deep within his fëa he twists; his gnarled hand burns, again, how it does whenever he is faced with something light.
Eru, he thinks, and shakes his head, I am not ready to deal with this. He hadn't been ready the first summer— he had waited years before taking action. He can wait years more, or perhaps only a year, or even months. But, he frowns frustratedly, he had thought he was done with this. He had not suffered years of intrusion only for it to return.
Maglor snarls severely and shifts where he looms around the shoreline. The door is closed, and they most certainly will not be lurking by the windows; if he hurries, he will not have to sleep elsewhere tonight at all. He hesitates only shortly, and begins to move swiftly across the sand, sight flitting between his ever-closer alcove and the door of the house.
Paranoia, he knows— they have only just entered. Still, he had thought it impossible the Secondborn would ever return to this shore, and they are here now; it is not unreasonable to fear another wretched turn of events.
Maedhros follows steadily at his heels, startingly. He'd not appreciated being ignored, it seems. "Maglor," he says again, harshly. He reaches out with a heavy hand— his only one— and it hovers for just a breath above his shoulder. Maglor steps ahead of it and does not look back, and Maedhros grumbles in irritation. Good, Maglor thinks— he should not be here at all. He slips lightly into the safe shadows of his alcove once he reaches it, and grants Maedhros a spiteful look.
What? He replies angrily. He feels a wild sort of pressure building in his chest and, almost, he wants to laugh— both of his truest tormenters returned to him on the same day. He wishes Maedhros would leave, so he might roll in the sand and weep, as he did when the first of the Secondborn came. Leave me be now, Maedhros, he says, as though his brother has ever listened to him.
"No," Maedhros says disgustedly. "Look at you: weak and miserable, finding shelter in shadows. You were once noble and proud. This is what Men reduce you to? What can they to do you, son of Fëanor, once mightiest of minstrels?"
Maglor doesn't know. He doesn't think he can explain the horror he feels when faced with the truth of the world; the truth that he is part of it, and he is cursed to live in it for eternity. He turns from Maedhros and says nothing more.
*
The day after their arrival, the six of them trod down to the beach, dog racing ahead.
Maglor huffs and buries his face in the sand.
The dog barks loudly, overexcited, and the childrens' voices ring over it in delighted shrieks. He rolls so that he can keep a careful eye on them— most importantly, on the dog. He remembers the ease of which Huan sniffed out prey and friends alike, and it instills enough fear in him that he's willing to watch the Secondborn at play.
Maedhros is still there, hovering by Maglor's head and keeping the same careful eye that he is. "They are here for you, I am certain," he says, and when Maglor spares a glance at him his eyes are narrow. He nods to the pack of them. "They have brought a hound to track you."
The dog, as though puppeteered by Irmo and his affinity for comedy, immediately flops onto its back in the sand, legs in the air, and one of the children— the boy— laughs and rubs its belly. Maglor stares at it.
No, he says after a moment, and briefly his lips even twitch upwards. I don't think they have. Abruptly his faint smile stretches into a wild, joyless grin. Almost, I might say they are here for passive torture.
Maedhros raises his eyebrows, unimpressed. "You’d say unknowing also, would you?" He asks dryly. He scoffs and shakes his head. "You have to listen to me, Maglor. I am telling you, you need to get up. Drive them away, the way you did the first time— more direct, even. You were a warrior once."
You wish me to fight them? Maglor asks, grin slipping. With what weapons? With what voice? He sighs wearily. I don't seek to harm them, I only seek my peace. Seeing as you are with me always, it seems unachievable either way. He hisses suddenly, weariness gone, rising to look Maedhros in the eyes, anger driving through his heart in that hare-quick way it does when faced with his brothers and the reminder that what he feels from them now is agony. He does not often put a name to it, because he thinks the years have made him foolish and crazy, in that hand.
Maedhros looks almost eager in the face of his fury, and Maglor shakes his head to settle his heart. He turns fully to the gaping exit of his alcove and leans forward, elbows resting upon his knees and sand-matted hair sweeping in the corners of his vision. A shameful fit, he thinks; he will not give his brother satisfaction.
Maedhros moves to sit beside him again and sneers, but he says nothing— he doesn’t really have to. They’ve had that argument enough times, on Maglor’s shifting moods and restless minds. In those moments, he seems almost like Maitimo again; the concern is real enough.
Two of the children move into the sea, and from what Maglor can observe from such a distance it is the two rowdy ones. The middles, he thinks. The other two hang back, curled over books; just as, he recalls fondly, Caranthir had been as a youth.
It all feels very domestic, Maglor realises. He had shut himself away whenever the Secondborn used to come into view and raid his beach. He’d never seen them so… at peace. These ones do not remind him of Valinor’s light, as the others had. Perhaps it is because they are alone. Whatever it is, they have not made his shore unbearably golden in the Song.
“You are looking at them,” Maedhros says quietly, “like you think they are different. They have been here for one day.”
What? No, he says fiercely, rounding on his brother. I am allowed to observe things. I am allowed to notice. But do not think I am not endlessly wary!
“You are not being wary, brother!” Maedhros snaps in anger. “Look at you—“
The dog, Maglor notices distantly, is indeed looking at them.
He hisses violently and waves a hand in front of Maedhros’ face, pushing backwards deeper into the shadow and covering his tree-bright eyes with his hands. Quiet, he urges, as though his brother is anything more than an angry spirit spurned from Mandos. He needs silence.
He watches carefully as the dog tilts its head left, and then right, mouth agape in almost a smile, and then as it chuffs and turns to bound straight down the sand and towards the children in the sea. Maglor breathes a heavy sigh of relief. He presses a hand to his chest and leans far back, so he leans against against the wall of rock. He turns to look at Maedhros, perhaps in rare apology, but when he turns his head his brother is gone.
Ah, Maglor thinks, peering again at the sea where the dog splashes and plays. He laughs wildly, still quiet. He's angry with me. He shakes his head and rolls in the sand again.
I'll only be a coward for a little while, he tells himself, and then I will see them gone.