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Every time Fingon had appeared at Himring, it had been the lord of the place who had met him upon the stairs to the fortress. Today was a particularly chill windy day, and he’d been looking forward to having someone taller to block the wind, as petty of a thought as that might be.
The person who met him upon the stairs was a match to him in height, hair, and name. Maglor stood against the wind, like a lone tree help upright out of sheer stubbornness. Thankfully, those of Fëanor’s bloodline had never wanted for stubbornness, and he managed his vigil in the cold with something akin to grace.
“Maglor,” Fingon began, pulling his charger up short. The horse’s breath came like puffs of smoke in the chill, white against the grey of the land. Fingon prayed that Maglor wouldn’t hear the surprise in his voice as it passed his lips: he’d been expecting the elder brother, not this one. Even injured, Maedhros had met him upon these stairs, and his heart raced as he fought down the new worries that had sprung up in his mind.
“Wrong brother,” said Maglor with a laugh. He laughed too much now, as he had since they’d crossed from Valinor. It wasn’t the right kind of laugh, either: the emotion never reached his eyes, which remained dull and grey as the winter skies. Still, it was a marked contrast from the Lord of Himring (who hadn’t laughed once since Fingon had found him) and the rest of Fëanor’s grim brood. Sometimes he thought Maglor meant to hold enough light and hope inside of him for their family to survive on that alone, but it was a fool’s errand when the other six were fell, vengeful ghosts of who they had been, and the laughter in Maglor’s own heart was a parody of the actual emotion at best.
However, it couldn’t hurt to try, and he had to give Maglor credit for an attempt at cheerfulness and for seeing through him so easily. He knew it was Maedhros who met Fingon upon the stairs at each visit, appearing out of the fog unbidden as if he could sense Fingon’s arrival like he could sense the coming of spring. Maybe he could: Fingon had yet to ask.
“Where is he?” Fingon asked as he handed his steed off to a stable hand, following Maglor as the other began a quick ascent up the stairs. His host was silent as they ascended, and he moved differently from what Fingon remembered. Long, easy strides had been replaced by an almost feline, stalking grace, but there was a savagery in it that there had not been before the Oath. It chilled him in a way even the creeping fog could not.
Maglor moved unfairly fast up the stairs, while Fingon fought for breath despite his best efforts to not show his fatigue. He was a warrior and a prince, and by no means out of shape, yet Maglor moved effortlessly, the stairs barely registering under his feet as a hinderance.
Fingon sighed, the sound lost to the wind. Perhaps his father was right, and the brothers had grown more feral as the oath festered and grew within them. From the reports he’d heard, Celegorm was basically a beast at this point, living in the woods with that dog of his and remaining away from anything resembling civilization. He had been a great hunter, once, ranging the woods freely out of a desire to do so. Now, there was very little doubt in Fingon’s mind that Celegorm was running away from whatever thing plagued him here.
He assumed that “thing” was Curufin, who was easily the most unpleasant of the brothers, and his lip curled at the mere thought of the younger Fëanorian.
Fingon had been so caught up in his own thoughts that, when Maglor did finally get around to answering his question, the sound of another voice caused him to jump and he found himself fighting to regain his footing on the stairs. Fingon cursed bards under his breath: they always had the strangest sense of what was appropriate timing.
“He’s drinking,” Maglor said, “to answer your question. I’d been thinking about how to delicately word the reason as to why the person you desire to see most isn’t here to meet you upon the stairs, but there’s… Well.” He laughed again, the sound nearly snatched by the wind as soon as it had appeared upon his lips. “There’s no right way to word that one. He’s been drinking since breakfast and I thought it best to leave him be.”
Fingon’s feet stilled for a moment, until he remembered they were supposed to be walking and willed them forward. “That’s not like him at all,” he said. “Even when in pain he’d refuse alcohol to so much as numb it.” And, he thought to himself, we both know Nelyo despises any lack of control. “Why now?”
Maglor paused to turn around and regard the man following him up the stairs. His eyes passed slowly over Fingon, as though he were looking at a tome he’d poured over time and time again, but was only now comprehending the meaning behind the words.
“You have never been here in the third month of the year, have you?” Maglor asked, the corners of his lips tugged downward into a frown that finally matched the rest of his family.
It was a strange question from a stranger source. “No,” confessed Fingon. “I never have. Why?”
Maglor’s eyebrows shot up, a realization dawning. “Oh,” he said, but he did not share the revelation with Fingon and instead turned to climb back up the stairs.
They continued in silence until they’d made it to the fortress proper. The moment they’d reached the top, Maglor spun around and caught Fingon by the shoulder, taking him by surprise.
“You deserve to know,” he said, “because it’s you, and because I believe my brother would want you to know, if you were asking on a different day.” His fingers were strong, stronger than the clamps the brothers used in the forge to hold metal in place. “And,” Maglor continued as Fingon fought the urge to take a step backwards, “you are probably the only one he will permit around him for the day. Everyone else has been met with threats and curses before they have so much as reached the threshold of his room.”
Fingon coughed. “Lovely.”
“I don’t…” He tripped over the words, throwing Fingon off once more. “You shouldn’t go to see him without knowing why though.” Maglor had many flaws, but he’d never once been unable to twist language to his bidding. Now, something seemed to hold his tongue. He fought it, fought both the wind and whatever had hold upon him for command of the words, dipping his head so that Fingon could not see his face.
“Today is the anniversary of our father’s death,” he managed, all but choking on the words. “I’m not sure any of us can forget it, really, but it was Nelyo who took it the worst and, since his return…” His voice was barely loud enough to be heard over the howl of the wind. Strong-voiced Makalaurë, reduced to whispers. It’s ironic, though not the worst of ironies to happen to these brothers. Fingon bites his tongue: that particular comment was best kept to himself.
“I’ll go see him,” Fingon replied, no hesitation or second thoughts in his heart. Has he ever hesitated when it has come to Maedhros? He can’t think of a time he had. Even with conflict, animosity, and a thousand ugly unspoken things between them, he hadn’t hesitated. A little drunkenness wasn’t about to stop him now. “I am sure I have seen him worse than he is now. I was there the time he was drunk in Tirion, after all, and nothing will be worse than that.”
It was false hope and he knew that Maglor could tell because drunk-in-Tirion-upon-Túna Nelyo and drunk-in-Himring Nelyo were as different as Manwë and Melkor, but Fingon smiled brightly and Maglor smiled back.
If the emotion didn’t quite reach either set of eyes, neither was willing to comment on it before they parted ways.
Fingon had Himring memorized despite only ever visiting once in a blue moon and never lingering more than he’d absolutely had to. Holding the west was difficult in its own right and he wasn’t about to leave his father to do so alone. Fingolfin was a good king and Fingon was proud to stand by his father’s side in all things.
It was for this reason that Fingon couldn’t comprehend why it was that Maedhros was still so stuck on Fëanor. The man had been a terrible leader and a worse father, and yet somehow Maedhros couldn’t disentangle himself from Fëanor and his legacy. In Fingon’s opinion, it was ridiculous to fret over a dead man who had caused so much strife while alive, but then again, the mere memory of Fëanor made him grate his teeth in disgust. The hardships he and his family had endured on the Grinding Ice were still, in many ways, fresh wounds. Fingon was unable to see himself forgiving that incident in the near future. Or, well, ever, but he wasn’t about to voice that aloud here.
He was so lost in his own thoughts that he almost smacked nose-first into Maedhros’ door. Drawing back, Fingon moved to knock, but before his knuckles so much as brushed the wood a gruff, “Away,” echoed from within. “If it is important, you can find me on the morrow.”
A lesser man would have turned tail in that moment, but Fingon was not a lesser man. He had marched into the Angband itself armed with minimal supplies and his own courage, undaunted. As much as Maedhros might have thought himself imposing, Fingon was not intimidated in the least. Without hesitation, he shoved the door open.
Let it never be said that the house of Fingolfin wanted for stubbornness, either.
“Maedhros,” he began, making a point to side-step as soon as the door was opened, narrowly dodging a bottle that came flying past him and out into the hall. It still brushed against his braids, just barely.
“Your aim is improving,” said Fingon, finally sticking his head back into the room. “Thought you might’ve gotten me, there.”
Maedhros’ face was a mix of shock and anger, but both emotions melt away upon sight of Fingon. His face was a snarl of scars: Angband weathered him beyond where he should have ended up, taking a face that had been round and almost childish and transforming it into a gaunt plane overwritten with lines. This should never have been his fate, yet here they were, and it was far too late to go back now.
“Kano,” Maedhros said, relief at the other’s appearance replaced by the slightest display of shock as realization dawned. “How did you get up here? I wasn’t there to- “
“Maglor brought me up,” Fingon replied swiftly. “Not to worry, he was a gracious host. Though he is not as tall as you and I suffered horribly for the wind.”
Maedhros’ lips twitched upwards in an almost-smile, though they do not part. If his teeth were a little sharper than they had been before he’d set out to treat with Morgoth, well, Fingon could pretend to ignore them. It was the eyes that were impossible to ignore, the slit pupils that shrink in the light, or how the irises glow bright in the dark like a cat’s. Now, however, Maedhros’ pupils fill back out in the evening dimness until they almost resemble a normal circle.
“I apologize for being an ungracious host,” he said with a sigh, leaning back in his chair. “I forgot your arrival was today, of all days.”
“There’s nothing to worry about,” said Fingon lightly, though there was clearly plenty to worry about. Empty bottles, with designs suggesting they were dwarvish in origin, littered the floor at his feet. Of course, Maedhros would go straight for the strong stuff, rather than wine or something equally palatable. “You are a lord here,” Fingon continued. “I’ve been terribly spoiled, having the lord of the place personally greet me and lead me up. It was bound to happen eventually, when duties got the better of one of us.”
“Don’t grow complacent,” Maedhros hissed under his breath, but whatever composure he’d been using to hold himself upright and together upon seeing his younger cousin had dissolved, giving way to the fluidity of drunken limbs as he slumped in his chair. “My behavior is not something you should overlook, let alone excuse so readily.”
“I’m not here to overlook it,” Fingon replied, moving to take a seat upon the bed. “And I’m certainly not here to excuse it or to pardon you of the sins you think you’ve accumulated,” he continued with a huff, kicking his travelling boots off and onto the stone. “I’m here to talk.”
Maedhros snorted, eyes slipping closed. “There is nothing to talk about.”
“I disagree!” Fingon bounced on the edge of the bed. “Your father has been dead for years now, Mae. Why are you still so caught up in it? In him? It seems awfully foolish from where I’m standing.” He flopped back onto the bed as Maedhros tensed in the chair. “He’s gone, there’s nothing left to influence you beyond ashes and bad memories. Whatever sins he bore are not your- “
His words were interrupted by a spray of glass as another bottle hit the headboard, shattering. Fingon didn’t dare to move, his breath catching in his throat. Maedhros had risen from his chair and was breathing hard, whether from exertion or anger Fingon is unsure. Tantrums had never been something he’d associated with Maedhros, and even bursts of anger without an immediate apology were once so rare as to be a phenomenon. But those days are gone now, the Maedhros of the past replaced with someone fey and fell and tempestuous, someone like-
“You are fortunate,” Maedhros grit out, “that my aim really is that good now.” A stray piece of glass fell to the stone with a tinkle. Fingon forced air back into his lungs: this display had startled him more than Maedhros’ previous losses of temper, but it hadn’t started him enough to feel vulnerable even with the other looming above him. Ever-defiant, he glared up at Maedhros.
The eyes that met his burned with a hidden fire behind them, and for a heartbeat of a moment Maedhros was the spitting image of his father. Spirit of fire, something screamed in the back of his mind, and whatever clever retort he’d had dissolved like sugar upon his tongue.
And yet, there was still a softness at the edges of those features, a softness Maedhros had once been known for. It was hidden behind the scars and severe expressions that had taken residence upon his face, but the softness still remained.
Somewhere in that recognition, the reminder that the boy from Tirion yet lived, Fingon found his voice even as his heart stuttered out an uneven beat.
“Then, why do you do this?” he demanded, still not willing to back down, still maybe looking for a fight. He’d been looking for a fight since Maedhros was dragged back alive from Angband. They’d had their share of shouting matches, of cursing and clashing swords, but never once had Fingon gotten the chance to have the fight he’d been waiting for since crossing the ice. He didn’t want to think about that other fight, now, but it was always hiding in the periphery of his thoughts whenever he saw Maedhros.
Eventually, they would have to finish that fight. Eventually, one of them would have to cry, and it would not be him: he had spent enough of his tears on the other.
The fight went out of Maedhros at the sight of Fingon’s expression, fire fleeing from his eyes and back to the corners of his existence. “You would not be able to understand it,” he said after some period of deliberation. “Fingon, you…” He sighed, running a hand back through his hair. It didn’t help. “Your father has never accomplished anything on the same scale as Fëanor.”
As though he could feel Fingon’s protests, he continued, “And yet he is righteous and of noble bearing, steadfast in heart and mind alike. Fingolfin is a true king and ruler, but he will never have the legacy of Fëanor: he will never be half the creator my father was.”
Fingon couldn’t argue with the last half, at least, yet for a moment he saw a flash of what might have been his father’s legacy, blue and silver bright against black, but he had never been particularly gifted with his precognition and he couldn’t find the words to suit the pictures. Shaking himself out of it, he instead pressed Maedhros for a refute as he sat up on the bed. “What of what was given up? What of the things that your father lost, or threw away, for what he made?”
“Is greatness not worth whatever the cost may be?” Maedhros replied bitterly. “The Doom of a people, the blood of another, the loss of a family…” Sadness settled too naturally across his features. “Is greatness not worth these things and more? There is no price put upon true greatness, upon a true legacy.”
“Mae,” Fingon pressed, “your father doomed all of us to a fate that, I think, none of us has even begun to understand. Those he didn’t doom, he killed, and those he could neither doom nor kill, he cursed. He left all seven of you cursed and alone.”
Maedhros rounded upon the figure on his bed. “He did no such thing- “
Fingon was just as quick to find his feet, bare skin meeting cold stone. “Don’t pretend you can’t see it!” he shouted back. “Of all seven of you, you’re the only one who can see both sides of that greatness, of that legacy!” He prayed there were no servants present in the hallways: he’d already gotten a reputation back home for shouting at Fëanorians. He didn’t need to be touting around the same reputation here, where there were considerably more Fëanorians.
Maedhros cursed at him, foot connecting with a bottle and sending it flying across the room, but All Fingon could do was stare at the other in confusion. He didn’t recognize the curse, not at first, but Maedhros’ eyes widened, and a sudden realization of why and what hit Fingon as the other collapsed back into his chair, defeated by his own words.
They remained in silence for a long time after that, Maedhros’ head in his hand, fingers rubbing at his temple, but he was the first to break the silence. This time, Fingon allowed him to talk without interruption. Maybe, this time, he would try listening before speaking.
“Of course I can see both sides of it,” Maedhros said with a snort. “Only a fool or a sycophant would be unable to see both sides of my father. He is- was- a great man. No one else could have done what he did, of that I am sure, and I am sure of very little these days. No one else could have forged the Silmarils, not even Aulë himself.”
That was openly blasphemous, but they were already damned, and Fingon was inclined to let it slide this time.
“No one else,” Maedhros continued, “could have crafted such a damnably binding Oath. No one else could have led an entire people to doom and freedom simultaneously with naught but their words. Which, for the record, I cannot fully decry: while happy, we were blind in Valinor. His was just…may not have been the best way to get us out or make us realize that the Valar were yet hiding knowledge from us.”
Fingon tried not to snort. Not the best way? There was the understatement of the year.
“As for your father…” Maedhros pressed on, unaware of Fingon’s inner struggle. “He is wise and just and fair. He acts for himself and trusts that his children, who he has equipped with eyes to see and minds to think critically, will come to their own just and fair conclusions. He guides you, but he does not force you to aa specific answer. Our father did no such thing: we were taught to keep our eyes on him, taught to be distrustful of those who disagreed with him and his way of thinking. We were never taught to think critically or to examine the opposing side: we were simply taught to distrust all who he did not approve of, which included most of the population of Valinor.”
Maedhros settled back into his chair, lost in thought. “When Morgoth stole the Silmarils and killed grandfather… Swearing the Oath, swearing against all who would stand against us (for who was not against him, in my father’s mind?). Swearing it, that first time, was for us as easy as breathing.It was everything we had been taught, the culmination of an upbringing. At that time, we couldn’t even begin to comprehend the words that had passed our lips and what they would hold.”
Fingon felt perhaps he should say something, but instead he simply hummed to show he was still listening, that he was interested, and he allowed Maedhros to continue.
“It wasn’t until after the words had bound us than any of us thought about it beyond fleeting consideration. It was not until after this, after Alqualondë, that I began to think about the implications of what we’d done. Not until seeing you there, ankle-deep in the red water…” He took a shaky breath. “You had been so convinced that you were supporting us, that you were helping, that we were in the right, and…”
Maedhros ran his hand back through his hair. It fixed nothing, the red curls remaining a tangled snarl upon his head. “And the blood, dripping from your blade, the look you gave me. For the first time of many I wished I could pull those words I’d sworn out of my stomach and pour them into the sea, that I could take the sin you’d shouldered because of my father, because of me, and carry it for you. In that moment, you were more than justified to turn from me.”
Fingon remembered the moment with a shiver: how sure he’d been of his own actions, the initial shock at cutting someone else down and ending a life but also the surprising ease with which one expired against a sharp blade. He’d left Maedhros in the water, then, forlorn and alone.
Even now, he felt he’d been justified in doing so. To hear it from the other’s lips confirmed it, but there was no pleasure in hearing that he’d been right.
“And even after all that,” Maedhros’ voice had grown almost faint. “You had dirtied your hands only to be forgotten by those you would sacrifice for, abandoned on a far shore to cross to a new land in a way more torturous than…than….”
He trailed off, unsure of the words he sought or how to give them voice. Even upon finding them, his voice remained clipped and unsure.
“I had hoped you would turn back, but I remembered your ambition and could not deny that you and Artanis would have crossed the Ice three times over to have a chance at being rulers in a new world, and in that moment, I was terrified in a way beyond even what I had heard of in Angband. But I have no doubt that the tortures upon the ice were greater than they were in that place.”
Fingon wished to protest, to say that it wasn’t that bad, to explain that it was only that his brother’s wife had died, that they’d had to eat the horses, that maybe a few toes were lost and that he’d never experienced the tortures of Angband, but in his heart of hearts he was not ready to forgive Fëanor, or his sons, or even Maedhros for that sin. Not yet, anyway.
And perhaps not ever, he thought. Even the knowledge he had now did not undo the sleepless nights spent crying upon the Ice, convinced he’d been abandoned by the friend he’d tarnished the edge of his sword with elven blood for. No, this was a wound that would be long in the mending.
“Despite all this, I did nothing to hinder my father or change his mind. We argued, yes, but it was the arguing of a belligerent child, and nothing came of it. And in the end, there was only death for him as well, a death I cannot forget: ash and nothing more, the taste of the Oath in my mouth a second time no more than a handful of dust out of a barren land, bitter and acrid. The words, that time, were hollow: sworn to doubly damn us as my father knew his own time was up and he could not damn himself a second time.”
Maedhros laughed here, the first laugh since he’d come back from Angband, but it was a low bitter sound that carried no joy in it whatsoever. “Ai, to have burned there with him upon his funeral pyre! There is perhaps my greatest regret, and I realized it upon seeing Morgoth face to face.”
He inhaled shakily. “We will never, ever retrieve those jewels. We have doomed ourselves to a suicide mission or worse, should they fall into friendly hands. I should have cursed my father at his death and demanded he undo the wrongs he wrought, and yet…”
There had always been that and yet with Maedhros. Fingon chewed his lip. Every time Maedhros sought to denounce his father he would rush in to do so, stumble upon the final step and trip backwards over the last words.
“How do you curse a dying man? I cannot curse him, or relinquish my grip upon his memory and his Oath. If I cannot believe that he stood for something, then…”
Then perhaps you would realize you have free will and you could have saved yourself at any moment, Fingon wanted to interject, but instead he bit his tongue hard enough to draw blood.
“…then I have no reason to continue living,” Maedhros finished, the words finally slipping past his lips.
Fingon was suddenly thankful that he’d had nothing in his hands, for he would have dropped it. “Nelyo!” he shouted, caught off-guard. “What on earth- “
“Look at what I have done,” said Maedhros, voice level. “The pain I have already inflicted and the troubles I have already caused. This is only the beginning of what we will become, but there is no turning back. Without the Oath to sustain me, there is no reason to continue moving forward.”
“That’s not true!” Fingon cried, hopping to his feet once again. “There are plenty of reasons left to live, with or without an Oath, even with what you’ve done! There’s always a chance to repent and- “
Maedhros raised an eyebrow. “And which of the Valar do you suppose would allow me to repent? I have stood for nothing and fallen for everything, and now- “
“That’s not true,” Fingon interjected. “Maglor told me ages ago: you stood aside when Fëanor burned the boats. You could never have stopped all of them, not alone: I would not have demanded that of you. But you stood aside and that counted for something, I have to believe so! I didn’t even know, when I came to save you- “
“And that is what separates a hero from a regular man,” Maedhros interrupted in turn. “You had every reason to leave me for dead, and you still came after me. Findekano…”
His voice caught on the name, slipped on the final syllable, and he almost choked on it. Fingon could hear the tears somewhere in the word, but though he’s heard tears in Maedhros’ words before he had yet to see them upon the other’s cheeks.
That was the fight he most desired, Maedhros gasping for breath between sobs as he finally confessed the words that have been weighing at his soul, tears that have been decades in the making set free at last. It would never happen, but Fingon could continue to dream of that fight, dream of tears upon Maedhros’ cheeks instead of upon his own. Even now, he is trembling, caught between anger at the other’s disregard for his own life and sorrow at how far they have fallen, to arrive here.
“Findekano,” continued Maedhros, his voice taut. “For the sake of a worthless man and a fool you almost threw away your life. I was the cause of that. Because of me, you could have- “
Fingon moved too quickly for either of them to register until his fist had already connected with Maedhros’ face. The punch sent them both reeling, the noise echoing throughout the chamber.
“I could have died!” shouted Fingon, aware that his voice had jumped an embarrassing few octaves. “But I would have, because I’m stubborn and I’m selfish, just like everyone else around us!” The room went in and out of focus as he realized there were tears in his own eyes. Maedhros was staring at him with his mouth agape. He rubbed his swiftly bruising jaw, too shocked to speak.
“Did you ever think,” Fingon continued, “that maybe I saved you because I wanted to? Because I wanted my friend back? Because you deserve a life where you pick what your future will hold?”
The tears began, trickling freely down his cheeks even as he protested their existence: he’d promised himself no more crying for someone who was never going to cry for himself, no more crying for someone who was kinslayer, dispossessed, Oath-bound and cursed. But there was no stopping the tears now that they had started.
“I didn’t want you to have a life that was ruled by someone else, up until the end,” Fingon finished, choking up. “I wanted to see what your life might be like when you picked your own version of it and not the one that your father had already picked for you. I was selfish, and a complete fool, and I needed you to have another chance because I wasn’t ready to have you gone!”
His hands were balled into fists at his sides, and Fingon could feel how close he was to yelling more at the idiot in the chair, how close he was to saying things he wasn’t sure he’d mean, or meant, or will mean in the future.
All Maedhros could do was stare in shock as the crown prince of the Noldor began to cry in his private quarters, over him and his fate.
“I brought you back for me,” Fingon said with a final huff, puffing himself up a bit to offset the fact that he’d made a fool of himself by crying. Again. “I didn’t bring you back for your father, or your brothers, or you damned Oath. And I certainly didn’t do it to watch you drown yourself in regrets and drink yourself to death!”
The ridiculousness of the scene hit all at once: the wine bottle littering the floor, the unbearable miasma of regret and self-loathing hanging over the room, and then Fingon in the middle of it all looking like an indignant cat, standing against Maedhros’ own thoughts as though he could hold them all at bay just by wanting a better fate badly enough. The corners of his mouth ticked upward into a grimace, then a smirk, and then the closest to an honest smile as he could manage. And then he was laughing: a real laugh, rough from disuse but real enough as he threw his head back.
Fingon finally spotted the tears that had crept their way down over his cheeks, mingling with the freckles that remain despite the new stars, speckling across Maedhros’ cheeks like Varda’s stars across the sky.
Fingon smiled back through his own tears, huffing indignantly. “Cry louder, next time,” he said. “I’ll never think you repentant otherwise.”
“You ridiculous, selfish brat,” said Maedhros, tears sparkling upon his lashes. “Promise me you will never do anything so rash again.”
Laughing, Fingon began to wipe at his eyes with his sleeve. “I promise, if you promise not to give up on your life so easily when I’ve only just stolen it back from death’s door.”
Maedhros lowered his head in a nod, eyes meeting Fingon’s. “I promise,” he replied, “to not give up on it so easily, with you around.”
With that, he rose from the chair, collecting a not-quite-empty bottle from his collection.
“Drink to it,” he said, taking a pull from the bottle before passing it across to Fingon.
“Gladly.” Fingon drained what little remained in one go, wiping at the wine that dribbled down his chin and threatened to drip into his robes: Aredhel would mock him forever if he were to come home with wine stains on his best traveling robes. Worse, she’d make him explain, and he wasn’t entirely sure he was ready to do that.
He wasn’t sure that Maedhros was ready to let others know about this vulnerable, doubtful side of himself, either.
“Gods,” Maedhros collapsed back into his chair, his posture relaxing ever so slightly. Fingon had gotten good at reading when his friend was tensed for a fight and when he was finally calm, but waking a man from night-terrors for a month tended to breed that sort of closeness between individuals, he supposed.
“Kano, am I really such a fool as to keep running in this same circle of thought every year?”
“Yes,” Fingon said without hesitation, because he had seen how Maedhros tended to get whenever his father was so much as mentioned and had no desire to beat around the bush. “But as to the next time, I have a suggestion.”
Maedhros raised an eyebrow to regard him warily.
“Invite me outright and tell me to bring more wine. I can’t stand this dwarvish stuff you seem to favor, and what little you have in good spirits here isn’t going to be enough for the both of us!”
-
Maglor had been relaxing, or as close as he got to such activities nowadays, when someone blew into his left ear. There was no warning, no noise, and his hands immediately went to the twin blades he kept belted around his waist during waking hours.
“Relax,” Celegorm’s voice said into his right ear, each letter sharp and clear and curled around incisors. “Just me, with updates.” There was a metness against the hand Maglor had dropped from the hilt of a blade, a soft snuffling that was followed by a friendly lick to his palm. “And Huan,” Celegorm added as the hound wagged his tail and pushed against Maglor’s hand in search of pets.
“Announce yourself before entering,” said Maglor, the words biting: whatever smiling demeanor he’d managed to keep up with Fingon present had been dropped entirely. The other brothers tended to forget: behind the pretty voice and well-planned lyricism, Maglor was as much a Fëanorian as the rest of them and was equally prone to the temper that plagued their line. Curufin had remarked once that Maglor was smoothed obsidian with sharpened edges: beautiful and polished, but as capable of taking a life as a steel blade. Now, looking at him, the comparison seemed apt.
But Celegorm only shrugged, moving to perch upon Maglor’s desk. He was as prone to a quick temper as any of his brothers, but faced with the others’ anger he was the one who managed to keep his composure more often than not. Maglor’s threats slid off him like water off glass.
“I thought you’d want an update on our eldest brother,” he said, teeth glinting in the last rays of daylight. Huan huffed, leaning harder into Maglor’s hand until he was rewarded with an ear scratch.
Maglor’s demeanor changed yet again, the serious frown dissipating as curiosity overtook him. “Oh?”
Celegorm grinned wolfishly, his tongue sticking out. “He’s quite properly drunk,” he continued, “but so is one Findekano, and I believe the lovely prince-ling is the drunker of the two.”
Maglor breathed a sigh of relief, the tension that had been held in his body finally dissipating. “I thought Nelyo really would kill him this time,” he admitted. “He was in such a foul mood earlier, and you would think, after all they have put each other though- “
“Making another pass at the kingship, are we?” said Celegorm with that same wolfish grin still plastered on his face. Maglor’s hackles immediately went back up as he added: “I jest! Only Curvo would think to go so far, not you. I know you worry, brother.”
Maglor took a deep breath and closed his eyes, trying to will his temper back down. Huan leaned against him for support, his presence solid and warm and reassuring. “How can I not?” he said once he’d regained control of his emotions. “None of us has exactly been quite as we were, before crossing from Valinor, and Nelyo has blamed father’s death on his own defiant behavior, unnecessarily. You know he thinks the sins of the world are actually the sins of one Nelyafinwë, at times.”
“He should be drunk more often, then,” Celegorm remarked with a flippant toss of his hair. “I find it helps, as do you from the looks of it.” He looked askance at the glass of wine perched on the edge of Maglor’s desk.
“Perhaps he should,” Maglor confessed. “At least the two of them are drunk and not at one another’s throats this evening, though I suppose the morning will catching them in its claws of regret soon enough.”
“You think so?” Celegorm sounded amused. “I don’t think they’ve ever remained at one another’s throats for long, and while we might all be able to hold a grudge for all eternity I am not sure the same can be said of our prince-ling cousin. Besides,” He reached out to snag Maglor’s glass of wine off the desk and drained it in one gulp. “I’ve never seen Nelyo with a hangover, not even with the amount he drank last year. He came downstairs and ran drills in the yard as though he hadn’t been too drunk to stand hours before.”
“However, Ñolofinwë’s eldest has a way of pushing him well past his limits. You know this,” Maglor retorted, looking affronted but unsurprised at the loss of his wine. “Why, I wouldn’t be surprised if he awoke feeling as if his head were being split in twain.”
“You only say that because you are the one who suffers such ailments, brother,” Celegorm remarked lightly. “Our eldest brother deserves every break the world will give him, and even these small things should be appreciated.”
Maglor couldn’t bring himself to disagree. “Keep an eye on them, Turko. Just make sure that we still have a lord of Himring in the morning! He has meetings he’s missed.”
With a nod, Celegorm hopped off the desk and landed lightly upon the floor, hardly any sound in his step as he made for the window. “I’ll see myself out, then,” he said, Huan standing up from where he’d been seated on Maglor’s foot to follow his friend. “You should get some rest as well, mother hen,” were the last words to pass his lips before he’d scampered out the window too fast for Maglor to catch and reprimand. Huan was gone just as quickly, and Maglor would be thrice-damned before he understood how a hound of such size could simply disappear.
With a sigh, Maglor settled back into his chair, reaching for the bottle of wine on his desk so he could pour himself a new glass. Despite himself, an honest smile crept its way onto his face for the first time in a long time, and he raised the glass of wine to his lips.