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“Are you well enough to ride?”
The chill of the October night is nothing like ice, but Maedhros shakes under his great leather coat.
He does not know how Maglor cannot tell, for his brother’s arm is wrapped around his shoulders, is guiding his right hand to his horse’s saddle, is lifting him up into his seat.
Alexander shifts his weight, and Maedhros almost falls off the other side. He grasps the horn of the saddle, and steadies himself.
Maedhros drops his head, closing his eyes to the bright light of the half-moon above. Closing his eyes to the tall figure sitting just ahead of him, astride a black devilish creature that stamps its hooves and nickers, eager to begone.
Maglor must take Maedhros’s weakness for silent strength, for he steps away to his own dappled mount, his boots soft in the ruin of this night. In the dust of this hellish town.
(it is hell, not a purgatory, because Maedhros was damned before he entered, and though he rides away he will never leave it)
(never leave that room, with the awful bedsheets tossed aside, and the clothes abandoned, and the cry of a father who has seen his son a twisted rod of iron, useless in the one task he thought he could discharge with sinful ease)
Darkness does not alleviate the pain that pierces the back of his skull like nails, nor does it blot out Athair’s profile, skin white in moon-light, nose and brow proud and unforgiving of error.
(and now he knows, now he knows)
Maedhros bites down on his tongue, to hold back a whimper unworthy of an eldest son. Suddenly he is drinking of his own blood. It is foul, fallen. Athair must and will disown it.
Without word or signal, Athair digs his spurs into the belly of his horse, and the creature brays roughly, startling Maedhros into opening his eyes.
They begin the journey back. Athair rides ahead, because clearly Maedhros cannot be trusted to lead, nor even to prowl about, seeking secrets vital to the survival of his father and brothers.
Maglor follows behind, but Maedhros can spare him no more thought. His whole body aches, every bone, as though he had been dashed to the ground from some great height.
If only it were so. Unfortunately, the mountains are away on the horizon, snow-capped monsters hidden in shadow, looming over miles and miles of grassy plains that never seem to end, and Maedhros will not reach them for days or weeks or maybe ever.
The mountains are glorious, Finrod once said in passion as yet unfanned by the drink Maedhros quaffed in lazy elegance.
Maedhros had little idea of the essence of glory then, and he has none now.
His teeth click against each other and he sways on his horse as the tall grass ahead of him seems to roll up and over and keel to the side—but no, that is Maedhros slipping to the left, to the ground—and Maglor catches his elbow, shoves him aright.
The horses walk on.
Maedhros cannot glance at his brother, for to do so would risk too much. Evenness of breath, the mask of just-getting-by.
(if Maglor were to reach out, to touch his cheek again, as he did back there...like Mother was wont to do)
Maedhros sobs wildly and leans forward in acute pain. The saddle-horn digs into his stomach, and he pushes down into it.
Athair doesn’t flinch, or whirl in his seat, and Maedhros buries his face in Alexander’s rough mane.
Last night the stars were beautiful. Caranthir said so, in a whisper only Maedhros could hear.
Maedhros did not look then, and he does not look now.
His innards roil like he has consumed spoiled meat, only he hasn’t eaten anything since a biscuit in the morning. He has lost even the day’s bottle of whiskey, recently vomited it over the scuffed wooden floors of a saloon’s upper room.
Maedhros shudders, again, and not for the last time.
Athair saw him. Saw him sprawled half-naked across a bed of sin, Thuringwethil’s claw-marks scored across every inch of his chest, his back, his sides. They sting him now, and as Alexander catches sight of the camp ahead and breaks into a trot, Maedhros’s rough shirt catches on the drying blood, scraping open the wounds anew.
Athair fled the room. Maedhros tries not to think what his father will say when they ride into camp. When they dismount. When the strangers look on in disinterested disdain. When his brothers—
He can’t finish the thought. Hot bile shoots up his throat, and he’s vomiting again, over Alexander’s shoulder, and Maglor’s horse has to step across the trail he leaves behind.
Maedhros forces himself to sit up straight, to wipe his mouth with his coat sleeve, to wipe it as clean as it can physically get, and he shrugs off the trembling hand on his shoulder, but he can’t ignore the approaching scene.
The campfire grows larger, his brothers nearer, and Athair has still not said a word.
Maedhros’s headache has crept like a heavy black spider from the back of his head to his temples.
The words Athair will use. He has employed them before, in warning. “No son of mine!” he will speak in the coldest fury.
(it has ever been a balance, between being the good son, and a good son)
(Maedhros is rarely either, though he has tried—oh how he tried)
(if he were a good son, he would never have offered himself up to Thuringwethil)
(if he were the good son, he would never have surrendered his breath to her, not without struggling, grasping her arms, throwing her to the side. he would have grabbed her by the throat, forced her to confess her connection to Morgoth, and Athair would never have had cause to walk into a prostitute’s room, or blush with shame over his eldest son’s debauchery)
Maedhros has no defense prepared, and does not think to look for one.
Can he make a plea for forgiveness?
Forgiveness for what, exactly?
Once, in a nightmare, Maedhros proved himself a disappointment, and Athair struck him such a blow as to release him from consciousness.
Maybe he should ask for this instead.