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I hate it here.
There is an eerie justice in this that I do not like at all, for the Maglor of eight months ago vowed to hate it all too--but his sentiments stemmed from the tender bruises of a broken heart, and mine are all bittered and blackened by what I and my family have done.
Rumil told me days ago, when I returned from wandering the rocky edge of Mithrim lake, that the land would be beautified by spring and summer.
I was offended, I own, for it is not lack of beauty that drives my animosity for the west. I am a poet. I can find beauty in any landscape. My journal is scrawled with notes and verses that sing of the red stones and the titan trees and the way the sky is limned with light even when clouds turn it grey.
Rumil does not understand me, and I do not understand Athair (if I ever did), and so I am left clinging to my brothers, since I care naught for anyone else in this place.
Only--I think my brothers care little for me anymore.
Celegorm and Curufin have always vexed me, and Caranthir will not speak his mind as I would wish, but I used to be able to throw an arm around them and feel a little affection in return. I never valued that, before. Never thrilled to a friendly touch as Maedhros does--or did.
Losing Maedhros is too much for me, but if it is happening, it is all my fault. I spoke cruel words to him when we arrived here, as we lay near each other at night, and though he has forgiven me, my first glow of relief is fading.
He and Celegorm and several others rode out in search of Athair's elusive smoke, and I have circled the lake and crouched down by the stream and stared at the sky while I wait, until Athair ordered me to stay inside.
"You are not a child, Maglor," he said sternly, and in Curufin's hearing, which made me feel especially spiteful. "Why did you think it was wise to stand in sight of an arrow or bullet, or worse?"
That is Athair--to believe there can be something worse than a bullet, and to believe it with certainty because he is likely right. Athair has been in the mine and the forge from morning 'til night, and I have seen some of what he makes there.
Now I wait inside, by the only window in our sleeping room, and I bite my nails. It is a loathsome habit, more Celegorm's than mine, and I am twenty-two and a murderer, so there should be nothing childlike left about me.
What if my brothers do not come back?
I cannot write poetry when I worry like this, but nor can I write the tormented reflections I used to when Athair and Mother fought at home. Thus I tear at my hands.
From the doorway, Maedhros says, "I thought you had vanquished that habit."
He is tired but whole, windblown but with no wild, animal grief in his eyes.
I have come to be grateful for these things.
I knit my fingers together and say, "What habit?"
Then I wonder if I should have embraced him, if he will take my stillness as a chill.
But no--he lifts his hat from his head and drops it beside his pack, and then he clanks across the floor, for he has not yet removed his spurs. I have the only chair, so he sits down at my feet and rests his head at my knee.
I am dumbfounded before I remember to be delighted.
"Mother of God," says Maedhros, sighing, "That was a long ride."
This is reconciliation; the truce I wished for. No, more than a truce. My brother is washing away my sins because he cannot bear to be parted from me. There is a little cruelty in me, maybe, but I cannot help but be glad.
Slowly, I lift my hand to his hair and begin to comb my fingers through it, working out the tangles and the bits of twig or dried grass that have found their way into its waves. I spread the whole mane across my knee, and Maedhros turns to accomodate me, slumping comfortably even with his heavy coat still bunched around his shoulders.
"You will have to begin braiding it, soon," I tell him. "Like a native."
"I shall be a sight," he says vaguely, and I know he is thinking of something else.
"What did you--" I begin, but he interrupts me abruptly and says,
"Cano, do you believe in dreams?"
It is like me, I suppose, that my first thought stray to waking ones--wishes and hopes and all that seems to me to fall on the opposite shore of my hatred.
Maedhros likely does not mean this.
"Dreams?" I ask.
"Aye." He twitches a little when my finger tugs at a snag, and I say quickly,
"I am sorry."
"It did not hurt," he says, which is probably a lie. "I...I dream of being trapped in a dark place. I have been taken away and I cannot find--any of you. There are only endless halls."
"Is there anyone else in the dream?" I ask, frowning.
From the shift in his jaw, I know he is biting his lip. That is Maedhros's habit, and Athair tried to train him out of it when we were small by spreading a foul-tasting ointment on his mouth, but that only ruined his appetite and Mother put a stop to it. Therefore, despite my brother's fair looks, his mouth is always a little chapped, especially in winter-time.
"No," he says quietly, as my hands finish detangling and settle on stroking back the silky copper strands with hands I hope remind him of our mother's. "There is no one else there."
Afterwards I learn from Athair and Rumil that the smoke came from powder blasts in the mountains, as if foundations and cellars were being carved out, and I wonder why Maedhros did not tell me this.