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"So cold. So dark," Maglor whispered as he stood on the shore of the unknown sea, the black, frozen waves lapping at his bare feet, "I do not like it." He turned to Maedhros, who stood beside him, gazing past the horizon. "I wish we would leave this place."
Maedhros put an arm around his shoulder, and sighed. "We will be gone soon enough. You know how father is." He patted Maglor's shoulder and his arm slipped away as he turned to leave, "Come away from the water."
The chill from the waves soaked Maglor to his bones, and he stepped back, just out of reach of the roll of the water. "I have a terrible feeling from it." His mouth twisted as he searched for more to say, sought within himself for a why . He found none. Just a dark, trembling fear of the sea within him; one that he could not shake even after the shore was out of sight.
***
As they marched along the shore, towards Alqualondë, Maglor felt a tension in his gut that tightened with every step. Every wave that crashed against the shore was a wave of unease washing over him. His anticipation, his anxiety, were heading to a peak, but what he feared he did not know. Not until after they arrived, after they stood on the blood-stained sand, did he understand his heart’s warning.
He waded knee-deep into the sea, the salt water burning his scrapes and cuts as he desperately tried to scrub the blood of his kin from himself. Even when his skin was red and raw and his fingernails caused new scrapes to sting in the ocean water he did not feel clean. Wet and cold, he stepped deeper and deeper into the water, running his hands over his face, over his hair, as if the sea would wash him of his very sins. Water splashed into his mouth as the water level had risen to his shoulders. No, not risen, he was still walking forward. Walking towards his--
Hands on his shoulders pulled him back, back towards the shore. He cried out, sobbing as he felt dry sand under his feet again. Down on his knees, drenched from head to toe and all of his skin burning from the bite of salt, he cried. Maedhros, who had hauled him back to land, kneeled before him, stroking his hair, but offered no soothing words. There were none. They had done something unthinkable, and the only thing left to do was move forward. Move forward, and do not look behind.
***
Looking behind them was the only thing that saved him. Amrod lay on the sand, barely alive, but alive nonetheless. The panic in Amras’ eyes haunted him, but not more than the terrible look of his father. The pain and anger that shone together on his face were like nothing Maglor had ever seen. He was truly frightened of his father, for the first time.
Maedhros had boldy boarded the ship, before their father could stop him. Amras had tried as well, but Fëanor had held him back. Two sons was enough, he would not even risk a third. Amras’ screams and cries were drowned out by the roil of the sea and the crackle of the fires. When Maedhros pulled himself onto shore, hair singed and soaked and coughing up soot and seawater, he dragged with him their younger brother, in far worse shape. They laid him on the shore, still breathing, though labored. While Amras sat at his side and clung to him, crying, and their father and brothers hovered around, Maglor took Maedhros to the side.
He hugged Maedhros with all of the strength he had in him, causing him to wheeze. “Sorry, sorry,” He said, and wiped his eyes, “Here you are again, pulling your brothers out of danger. Where would we be without you?” Maglor shook his head sadly, and took Maedhros’ hands in his.
Maedhros winced, and recoiled. “Do not think of it. I am just happy that he is safe. That we are all safe.”
“Ah, your hand!” Maglor reached for his left hand again, taking it gingerly this time, and turning it palm-up to see the injury, “You’re burned…”
“The door handle was hot…” He sighed and looked down at his palm, “It is not so bad. It will heal. I am not so sure about...” His eyes drifted up and back over to where their family was, all standing around their brother as he lay on the beach. He was being tended to, but many of their supplies had been still on the ships. They had nothing but what was on their backs, and they had no knowledge of anything that grew in these lands, so Hope was the best the two of them could offer their brother.
Maglor looked out towards the fires, out towards the sea, and shivered. The ocean, the shore, once again proved an ill place. He would avoid it to his last days, if he could.
***
Blood in the water. Blood on the sand. Blood in his hair, blood on his hands. Not again, not again, not again .
Maglor was sick on the beach. Ambarussa were gone. Gone, just like the rest of them. Gone like their father. Gone like the Silmaril.
Maedhros rubbed between his shoulder blades while he cried and heaved, offering no words of comfort. Just like the first time, just like the last time, there was nothing he could say. At least this time they were able to bury their brothers in the sand. At least this time they had something to bury.
"Why do we keep doing this?" Maglor could barely speak around his hiccups and wails, "Who are we?"
Maedhros did not answer. They both knew why. They both knew who, what they were. Kinslayers, monsters, damned by their Oath. They had come to treat, to negotiate for the Silmaril. How had it come to bloodshed, again? Maglor couldn't even remember.
He looked out at the sea, his eyes following from the mouth of the river to the waves rolling dark on the horizon and a shiver crawled up his back, and he retched again, clenching his eyes shut. In all of his nightmares, he was by the sea. Always there was blood and ash and tall, dark waves crashing over him. With every sin the waves climbed, and the smoke thickened, choking and drowning him even while his head was above water. Now he saw these horrors with his waking eyes.
Every body had been dragged onto the beach, and piled together in a great mound. The smell of smoke, of burning flesh and hair, made him feel sick again, but he stomached it. He had no right to grieve, not for those who were the casualties of his own selfishness. They had thought, at first, to bury them, but soon they realized what an impossible task that served for only two. Everyone had perished, or fled, and they were alone in the aftermath of their self-wrought chaos.
Or so it had at first seemed. They had been found while moving corpses to the beach, a pair of twins, hardly six years of age. Maglor had thought it a sick irony. Their twins had been lost, just as were Elwing's own twin brothers.
They were taken hostage. To be used as a bargaining tool, collateral for the Silmaril. But Elwing never returned, and they were never come for.
***
For the first time, the chill of the sea soothed him. Even as it overcame him, and choked and threatened to drown him. The frigid sea was the only balm for the wretched searing in his hand.
No, wretched only were the deeds that brought the pain upon him. The Silmaril won had been no prize for Maglor. Only another source of pain, like every step of his journey to take it back.
He needed to be rid of it, and he cast it to the most terrible place he could think of to be its final prison.
Even then, his oath, his compulsion drove him into the water after it. He fought its call, his urge to dive down and reclaim it. Until it must have drifted so far and so deep that its pull couldn't reach him anymore, and he was lost in open water.
A fitting end, he had thought, but even as he accepted his fate, the sea performed one last cruelty by laying him gently on the shore. The waves rolled over him as he lay exhausted on the beach. Too tired to move, too overcome with unfamiliar emotions to even think. He felt like a hollow piece of driftwood awash on the shore.
And he laid there, for time uncounted. Watching the stars and the moon and the sun soar past him overhead. Everything moving so fast and so slow around him, unheeded.
The call of the Silmaril, of the sea, and the land beyond never left his ears, and thereafter he wandered ever upon the shores, singing in pain and regret beside the waves.