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"Get out of the way." Maedhros said, his voice even and calm, too calm and as cold as ice.
But Maglor didn't move. He could not move. Steel rang as Maedhros unsheathed his sword, and Maglor's silver eyes widened, the blood-darkened metal a lash across them."Maitimo, you cannot."
"Do not dare tell me what I can and cannot do." Maedhros hissed, advancing on his brother with sword held aloft. "Now move."
Maglor's sword, his knives, were all scattered, none within reach, and even his arrows were spent, but his body remained. He flung himself to the ground, over the small, shivering bodies at his feet.
"If you slay them, you will first have to slay me." Maglor said, his hands clutching the children to his breast. Maedhros's grip tightened on this hilt of his sword, eyes fastened upon the kneeling figure before him.
"Stop this foolishness, brother." He entreated in softly, though his eyes did not lose their stony hardness. "This is the most merciful way for them." And it was. He had already murdered the kin of these two babes, why should he not now grant death to them, and free them from what awaited them?
But Maglor's eyes blazed with sudden fury. "Damn mercy, I care not for mercy!" he snarled, beautiful voice warped by hideous anger, a scream-note so intense Maedhros stepped back, seeing for a moment in the reflection of a foul face in the dying light of the day. But the apparition vanished as soon as it had come, leaving only the drawn and bloodied face of Maglor in its stead.
"If you wish to have mercy, have mercy upon me, brother." Maglor whispered, words so faint Maedhros barely caught them. Pressed to his armored chest, trying to leech heat from the cold metal, the children began softly crying, thin hiccuping wails that without warning were joined by a sob more deep and melodic.
Maglor clutched them even tighter, attempting to sooth them even while he still wept. A stream of words fell from his lips between his sobs, carried on his lovely voice, set to a tune of sorrow.
The scene of his brother, kneeling with two children resting against him was a familiar one to Maedhros, and even more familiar still was the song Maglor sang. A lullaby from ages long gone, a song that a mother with red hair once sang, to two children such as the ones he held...
The sword fell from Maedhros's hand into the mud before Maglor, a spill of memories flooding his mind. "Ambarussa..." he said, his tones unstable and hushed. Maglor raised his head, the trails of his tears silver in the dying light, like gleaming veins of mithril shot through his face.
"Peredhel." he corrected. "Elros, and Elrond."
Elros.
Elrond...