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"Why do we not have a mother?" Elrond asked one day over the remnants of the evening meal, the last light of the sun slatting through the high windows, splashing over the fine ceramic and silverware. Across the table Maglor stirred, but it was Maedhros who answered. A thing which was unlike him, all of the twins' more delicate inquiries were usually directed to Maglor's purview.
"Oh, my sweet, sweet child." Maedhros said, the fingers of his left hand clenching and unclenching. "Your mother...your mother..." And here he faded off, Elrond looking up at him, confusion wrinkling his tiny brow.
"My mother what?" he prodded.
"We made your mother leave you." Maedhros said bluntly.
"Why? How?" Elrond questioned quickly.
"She did wish to give to us that which belonged to us." Maedhros replied. "It was the light you remember that she withheld."
Elrond was young, too young to have anything but a few distant memories of the one who had birthed him, yet he remembered the light that had hung about her neck. "I remember the light." Elrond responded.
"It is a thing named Silmaril." Maedhros supplied.
"Silmaril." Elrond parroted, testing the new word. scrunching his eyes as he worked to properly pronounce it, then looking back up at Maedhros.
"She did not wish to give it to us." Maedhros repeated, the words a cry for justification.
"But, it was yours." Elrond objects.
"She believed it be hers, so she fled, bearing it with her, and leaving you and your brother behind." Maedhros plunged on, then paused, giving time to Elrond to mull over his words.
"But, weren't we also hers?" Elrond asked mere moments later, with the bewildered innocence of a child. "Why did she not take us with her?"
"She considered you to be of lesser value than the Silmaril." was Maedhros's answer, delivered on short tones.
Elrond hung his head.
"If I had been your mother, if you had been my sons, I would have taken you with me, or, I would have stayed, and fought to the last breath to protect you." Maedhros continued suddenly.
Elrond's head rose.
"You are like our mother." Elrond pointed out.
"No, I am not." said Maedhros shrewdly. "You have no mother."
There was brief moment of silence, broke by Elrond's next words.
"You are right, you are not a mother, we have no mother." Elrond said. "But you are our Ada. You will always stay with us."
"You do not know that I will stay." said Maedhros.
"You just said that you would. And so you will." retorted Elrond.
The words echoed in Maedhros mind, and he understood them for what they were, not a confident statement by an exceptional child, but a desperate plea.
You will always stay with us...
Stay with us, Ada, please...please...