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He is very young the first time he speaks to Nolofinwë properly. Maitimo has met his uncle before- in festivals that his father could not quite bring himself to avoid- but not ever like this.
Still, he consoles himself, if ever I had to speak to him, at least isn’t in the public public.
It’s about as private as Finwë’s home ever gets. There’s shrubbery all around them, and a fountain trills somewhere in the background, enough to muffle sound even if it doesn’t impede conversation. Maitimo actually mistakes his uncle for someone else- those braids and robes are, in his father’s words, insufferably common- but it would be too rude to rescind an invitation to sit simply because of his father’s opinions. Or at least that’s what Nerdanel says, whenever she visits Indis’ rooms and returns with new, Vanyarin ideas for her statues.
“Maitimo,” says Nolofinwë carefully. He sits down, though, and smiles at Maitimo with concern. “Are you certain you should be here? It’s quite dark- and it looks like it’ll rain soon-”
“If it rains then I’ll go inside,” says Maitimo. “And Amil told me that I could sit outside today. I’m not going back before Tyelko stops screaming.”
“I wouldn’t either,” says Nolofinwë, suddenly looking less like a responsible adult and more like someone far closer to Maitimo’s own age. “Aro- Arafinwë- is at that stage where he’s almost done screaming, only it arises sometimes when I least expect it. The other day I refused him some peaches and he threw himself on the floor! Heedless of the bruises!” He shakes his head. “I had to keep him from cracking his own head open.”
Maitimo snorts. “That’s nothing. Tyelko wanted to speak to the birds today, only nobody could take him. He climbed Indis’ tree because he saw a nest in there, and broke both legs getting down. It’s why he’s screaming right now.”
“Valar above.”
“That’s what I said.”
“Fëanáro always did say that you were the perfect son,” says Nolofinwë wryly. “No falling out of trees for you?”
“Well, I was the eldest. I had more of their attention, didn’t I?”
“Spoken like a true politician.”
“Atar says I’d be good at it.” Maitimo shrugs. He thinks he likes Nolofinwë, but there’s something to the last line that bothers him; something that sits on his uncle’s face like a mask made to mimic skin, but not flesh itself. “I think I like it, but I’m not certain if I want to spend the rest of my life keeping people out of trouble.”
“Your aunt,” says Nolofinwë slowly, “Findis, that is- she didn’t choose a craft for decades. She completed one Mastery and then began another. You needn’t choose now, Maitimo.”
“I probably won’t,” he says. “But… well. Atar wants me to go into the forge, and I know I don’t like that very much. Do you think I could choose this and then stay out of that?”
Nolofinwë laughs, and the nameless tension shatters. “Yes, if you think it necessary.”
And that is how you set a proper trap: Wait for someone to relax. Breathe out. Look relaxed. Ask.
“Is that what you plan to do?” Maitimo asks innocently.
For a long moment, Nolofinwë does not answer him. Long enough that Maitimo considers snatching up his own cloak and fleeing. This is the first time he’s wheedling information out of someone he doesn’t know, and it’s frightening, it’s… it’s…
“Yes,” says Nolofinwë, words rushing together. “I cannot compete with your father. Not in the forge. And I will not give him more to mock me with; there is enough already. But I am- I will be changing things, if I do that. Forging my own path. You do not understand, Maitimo: your parents have shielded you from most of the court. The reality is that I do not know if I can. That’s the truth.”
It’s exhilarating.
“Atar also says that we can’t make decisions out of fear.”
“I am not afraid.”
“You looked afraid,” says Maitimo. “That’s why I asked you to come sit. You looked unhappy.”
“Maitimo,” sighs Nolofinwë, but he slumps back instead of leaping to his feet. “Someday, you’ll learn that happiness is not so simple.”
“I know,” says Maitimo impatiently. “D’you think my father likes to kill people?”
Nolofinwë stares at him. “What kind of a question is that?”
“I heard someone in the market saying that. About Grandmother. And Father. Wearing your colors.”
“I would never-”
“Fine,” says Maitimo, waving away Nolofinwë’s outrage. “The point is that happiness isn’t simple. Sometimes we do things we don’t like because we don’t have a choice. Or because the alternative is awful.”
“It isn’t,” says Nolofinwë haltingly, “that the alternative is that bad.”
“Liking to talk doesn’t make you less of a Noldo,” Maitimo tells him. “Just like not liking forge-work doesn’t make me less of a Fëan á rion.”
Nolofinwë slumps even further, until he’s mimicking the fountain of the weeping lady behind them. But then he sighs, and reaches out a hand, and pats Maitimo’s knee.
“Courage, then,” he says quietly, and tilts his face up to Maitimo’s. Nolofinwë’s inherited most of his features from Indis- more than most people think, because they see his dark hair and his silver eyes and don’t look any further- but right now there’s something there that makes Maitimo think of odd flowers, dripping honey and pollen, something so full it must overflow. “Courage, and patience, and kindness. And from these shall come greatness.”
Maitimo grins back at him. “That’s the spirit! K á no should turn that into a song. It sounds like it belongs in one.”
“And you,” says Nolofinwë, eyes remaining intent on Maitimo’s face, ignoring his levity. “I’ll be ensuring you follow in my footsteps, little Maitimo, whether you want my interference or not. Your gift with words cannot be squandered in my brother’s forge. Speak to Findis about it. She’ll convince Fëanáro.”
“If Atar finds out you want me around, he’ll drag me back home before you can blink.”
“Courage,” says Nolofinwë, clapping a hand to Maitimo’s shoulder and rising to his feet. “Courage, and-”
“-patience, and kindness,” finishes Maitimo. He ducks his head, then sighs. He had known the path he wanted to take before ever having this conversation. And if it takes Nolofinwë to push him into actually walking that path… well, it isn’t as if he has to tell anyone else that. “Yes. Fine. I know.”
“You’re a good kid,” says Nolofinwë.
He ruffles Maitimo’s hair, just a little, before he tilts his head and walks away. A moment later, his father and Kanafinwë appear from the path that Nolofinwë hadn’t taken, and Maitimo smiles, lips carefully covering his teeth, and doesn’t mention his uncle once.
The next morning, he sends an application for the School Of Oratory. He doesn’t ever step foot again in his father’s forge in Tirion.
…
There are flowers in Beleriand that Nolofinwë never saw in Aman. There are a few that remain common to both lands as well. One of Fëanáro’s people- a botanist- with a voice that strikes the balance between soothing Maitimo to sleep without reminding him of Sauron’s perfection- spends many of the days of Maitimo’s convalescence explaining it to him for wont of other, more interesting subjects. It’s a complicated theory, tying together something about species dying out, Yavanna being an incredibly petty Vala, starlight not being enough for proper energy production, and half a hundred other variables. It manages to put Maitimo to sleep better than anyone else ever manages. Nolofinwë knows, because Nolofinwë hasn’t been able to spend more than half a candlemark inside of Maitimo’s tent with Harma’s blathering in the background, no matter how guilty he feels about his nephew’s predicament.
A fortnight later, when Nolofinwë visits again, Harma’s lectures are still ongoing. Nolofinwë can see the way Maitimo shifts: his eyes take on the faint cast of someone locked in a nightmare, and he goes a little grey every morning that Harma bounces in with more diagrams.
“Perhaps,” suggests Nolofinwë, “Maitimo might enjoy a walk out and about.”
Maitimo looks at him with more gratitude than he’d shown to Findekáno after dismounting Thorondor. Of course, that might have to do with the fact that Maitimo had been barely conscious when he dismounted the eagle, but Nolofinwë will take his victories where he can.
“I’m not sure he can walk,” says Curufinwë.
“It was my hand that was cut off, not my leg,” says Maitimo immediately. “And weren’t you the one complaining last night about Tyelpe not getting enough exercise? I can take him for a walk.”
“He’s not a dog to be walked-”
“Tell Tyelko that,” says Maitimo, folding his arms over his chest.
“Leaving aside your insulting insinuations, I’m not sure that taking a turn about the camp will help.” Curufinwë tosses his head, but it’s less smug and more… something else. Nolofinwë narrows his eyes at it. “I burned the leather instead of tanning it yesterday. The wind hasn’t carried the smell off yet.”
“I can walk to the lake.”
“If you think I’ll let you take my son with you to the lake with nothing more than a cane to defend yourself…”
The snide asides have curdled into biting comments, and Nolofinwë sighs at it. Maitimo hasn’t been able to tolerate the smell of burning flesh- or any forge-work- since Findekáno rescued him, and it’s understandable that Curufinwë doesn’t feel comfortable letting his son go out with an uncle who hasn’t left his sickbed since he got his hand cut off, and of course neither of them will come up with a solution in place of just snapping at each other.
“-if it’s safety you’re worried about,” says Nolofinwë, silencing everyone in the immediate vicinity, “-then there’s no call for it. I’ll accompany them. I can get Itarillë to join us too, I’m sure. She hasn’t been outside in far too long.”
The silence grows into something thorned with discomfort, but Nolofinwë refuses to acknowledge that. The seething respect that the Fëanorians show him now- after Maitimo’s rescue- had been irritating at first, perhaps, but he’s able to see the humor in it now that Curufinwë looks so torn between saying something scathing and not defying Maitimo’s edicts.
Nolofinwë had never seen Fëanáro’s face turn quite that shade of red. It’s not his brother’s- or his nephew’s- color. When they’d been children, Nolofinwë had told him that, but Fëanáro had listened about as well as he’d listened to any of Nolofinwë’s advice.
“Fine,” Curufinwë grates out finally. “Keep him safe, Uncle. Brother.”
“King,” corrects Maitimo gaily, and ignores Curufinwë’s growl as he stomps away. Then he turns to Nolofinwë, and his smile turns the faintest bit more jagged. “Well. We’ll meet Tyelpe at the entrance. Is Itarillë-”
“She came with Í risse to trade for arrowheads,” says Nolofinwë. “But she hasn’t been around anyone near her age for far too long. I’ve seen what happens to children that grow up without other children, and I’d not see her suffer such a fate.”
“It isn’t that bad a fate,” says Maitimo, whose only experience with other children as a child had been in the spare festivals Fëanáro attended, before Makalaure was born.
Nolofinwë, who’d had a similar experience with only Findis- who’d always been too obsessed with her own pursuits and chasing after Fëanáro’s coattails- and Lalwen- who’d been infuriatingly young enough to consider Nolofinwë less of a friend and more of a mentor- only smiles back.
“No,” he says gently. “Not that bad, was it?”
Maitimo rolls his eyes back, and then hauls himself out of bed. He hadn’t overestimated his capabilities either, Nolofinwë thinks critically: the muscles in Maitimo’s legs don’t tremble, and he remains as staunchly upright as he’d ever been in Finwë’s court. There’s something of defiance in the jut of his jaw as he gazes down at Nolofinwë.
They pick their way out of the camp, gathering Tyelpe and Itarillë on the way. Maitimo himself doesn’t say much until they settle in a quiet hollow beneath a tree the likes of which Nolofinwë’s never seen before. Tyelpe and Itarillë skid about the shore, gathering shells and river-smoothed stones, but Nolofinwë pays more attention to Maitimo: his nephew’s face turns up to the green-latticed branches above them, glowing gold beneath the sun, and softens more than Nolofinwë has seen it since before Fëanáro held a sword to his throat.
“It’s rather beautiful out here,” says Nolofinwë quietly.
Maitimo nods once, shortly, but Nolofinwë’s fairly certain he isn’t irritated. “I was- hanging. On Thangorodrim. The bare sky above me, nothing else. I was so high up there- I thought I’d never have anything over my head again.”
“Is that why you haven’t left your tent since Finno’s rescue?”
“I was recovering,” says Maitimo reproachfully. When Nolofinwë only arches his eyebrows, he sighs. “Perhaps. I hadn’t thought about it. You do many things when you’re that afraid, and not all of them make much sense in hindsight. Or even as you’re doing them!”
“Mmm. I’d wondered.”
“Wondered what?”
“Whether the crown you offered me was because of the fear.”
Maitimo goes very, very still. Then he leaps to his feet. “The children,” he says, and his voice is so sharp it feels rather like slender daggers of ice.
Nolofinwë follows him out of the tree’s drooping cocoon to an empty beach: a burbling river, a shining sun. A pile of stones on one end, like a cairn made for a doll. And no children.
“Go back to the camp,” says Nolofinwë sharply. “I’ll-”
“-they’ve gone north,” says Maitimo, white-faced. “You’re not as good of a tracker as me- and I’m not going back.”
“You’re still-”
“I’m fine,” he snarls. “They’re not going to take the children. Not them.”
“-unarmed,” finishes Nolofinwë.
Maedhros bares his teeth, and then he turns, and throws something into an orc’s throat- an orc that Nolofinwë hadn’t even seen- with such furious precision that it halts the entire company’s progress. It takes Nolofinwë a moment to realize that Maitimo had had a knife tucked up his sleeve the entire time. The next orc gets a stone to the eye, and their sword wrestled out of their hands; the third gets cut down before they can so much as scream.
Nolofinwë unsheathes the sword he’d whetted on his son’s killers’ bones, and sets to work.
By the time they’re finished, Maitimo’s drenched in black blood.
The orcs are dead.
The children are-
“I don’t need a sword to kill some orcs,” says Maitimo flatly. “And I gave you that crown because I can see how this will end if I let it.”
“The children-”
“-are upstream.” Maitimo nods in the opposite direction of the orcs, where, to Nolofinwë’s relief, little Tyelpe is teaching Itarillë how to hold a crab without getting pinched. “I saw the tracks going in that direction, but smelled the orcs. Better they not see how close they came, yes?”
“Wash off,” says Nolofinwë. “I’ll distract them. Take them around the bodies.”
“It’s that bad?”
“You don’t look much different from a Telerin ink-catcher.”
Maitimo blinks, and the hard edge to his gaze relaxes into amusement. “Let’s hope this will be easier to wash off.”
“If you cannot,” says Nolofinwë, “you shall have found something to unite Curufinwë and Turukáno. They will both kill us before letting us out with their children again.”
“Bah.” Maitimo flicks his hand as if swatting off a fly, before he kneels and yanks the knife out of the first orc’s throat. Nolofinwë swallows at it: it’s a breadknife, sharpened into something glittering and malevolent. He’s fairly certain that nobody else knows that Maitimo has such a weapon; they’ve all been too afraid that he’ll hurt himself to allow it. “What they don’t know can’t hurt them, and Curvo’s always been a bit of a bear about Tyelpe. Did you realize that the tanning mistake was Tyelpe’s, not Curvo’s? Not that he’ll ever admit it.” He snorts. “The kid won’t get proper teeth if his father insists on chewing for him all the time.”
“Wash off,” advises Nolofinwë instead of answering him. He’s found that it’s the only way to handle the Fëanorians when they start complaining about each other. “I’ll loop around to the path from the other side.”
He wipes the blood off his face and the clothes, but the majority splashed on his hair doesn’t show up on the dark locks. Nolofinwë gathers the children while Maitimo’s still busy with his hair- one of the few advantages to dark hair, Nolofinwë thinks wryly- and they pick their way slowly back, stopping at every little oddity that catches one of their eyes. They’re stopped at a rangy bush sprouting purple, bell-like flowers that the children start weaving into crumbly wreaths by the time that Maitimo returns to them, shirtless and soggy about the ears but looking better than he had even on those hot, sick days in Mahanáxar waiting for Oromë to return from chasing Morgoth.
Sitting silently never had been one of his strong suits.
“You never used to have foresight,” Nolofinwë says lazily.
Maitimo flicks a bead of water over to him, but doesn’t sit down. “It’s common sense, isn’t it?”
“Maitimo-”
“Maedhros. We’re using Sindarin nowadays.”
“Using new names is one of those things that might not end well if we take it to the logical conclusion.”
It takes Maedhros a minute to understand, before his face darkens. “I do have some family pride left.”
“Aren’t we family?”
“Only half,” says Maitimo- Maedhros- and smiles at Nolofinwë like a wolf. “I would’ve thought calling yourself king like that would be too much on the nose. Patience was always something you excelled at.”
Excelled. Aman had taught Maitimo how to sharpen his words, but it was Angamando that had taught him the hatred to really wield them with such abandon. Excelled, thinks Nolofinwë, gut clenching on something sour and hard. Excelled.
“I never named myself Finwenolofinwë,” he says finally, but it’s a weak excuse, and he knows it.
“You called yourself a king and now you balk at the crown,” says Maedhros venomously.
Nolofinwë sighs, gripping onto the shards of his own temper. “Well, I’m not greedy enough to snatch at your father’s inheritance from my own bedridden nephew who was just rescued from three decades of torture! I have that much decency left in me!”
He’s yelling by the end, and he hadn’t meant to, but there’s a reason why he’d dragged Maedhros out of the camp. They can’t have these discussions in front of anyone else. They dare not have these discussions in front of anyone else.
“Grandfather,” chirps Itarillë, and Nolofinwë looks down to see her handing him a wreath half the size of his head. “Put it on!”
He obeys wordlessly, avoiding Maedhros’ eyes the whole time. Itarillë seems to understand that too: she’s always been precocious for her age, and losing her mother’s seemingly lent her sharper eyes than elves twice her age; she’d decided, in her quiet way, to single-handedly keep up her father’s morale- and with him, more than half of Nolofinwë’s forces- and had gone about maintaining that with single-minded ruthlessness while on the Ice. Not many people have realized it, but Nolofinwë’s seen Írissë sending sad looks to her niece when she thinks people aren’t paying attention, and Findek á no- never very good with children in the first place- seems to have been even more unnerved by Itarillë’s determination, and has been avoiding her ever since they arrived in Beleriand.
Her hands are quite gentle on his hair, no matter how she pulls, so Nolofinwë submits to her fussing quietly. By the time Itarillë is content with how the crown sits, Nolofinwë’s got his temper somewhat back under control, and her eyes are like bright stars as she circles to the front and studies him: looking less at his hair, Nolofinwë thinks, amused, and more at his expression.
“It suits you,” she says sweetly, and kisses him on his cheekbone before skipping back to Tyelpe.
After a moment, Nolofinwë turns back to Maedhros. “I was angry at your father,” he says tersely. “We all do foolish things when we’re angry. By the time I’d decided it was enough, it was too late. We’d lost too many on the Helcaraxë. My people weren’t going to stop.”
Maitimo, silently wringing out the water from his hair, nods slowly. “A sled going down a slope, gaining such speed it will hurt to stop no matter how one tries to stall it.”
“Maedhros.”
“It wasn’t fear,” he says, and there’s a note in his voice that makes Nolofinwë go very, very still. “It’s common sense. Right now, Morgoth has the Silmarils and our hate, and our people shall rally against him. But if ever that changes… there must be a king that will not ruin us. That will look to them, and not to further their grief.”
“There will always be people who refuse to obey me!”
“Not if I tell them not to,” he snarls, before his hand clutches the folds of his shirt- and, Nolofinwë suspects, the breadknife hidden within.
“Maedhros.”
He continues as if Nolofinwë hasn’t spoken, voice forcibly light once again. “Moreso if ever I’m not there. You’ve seen what happens when I go missing: thirty years! Thirty years of doing nothing!”
“So I’m supposed to corral your brothers?”
“You’re supposed to take on the rest of my duties,” says Maedhros dryly, “and leave me to handle them.”
Nolofinwë covers his face with his hands, and laughs helplessly. “You would make it sound like I’m doing you a favor.”
“You didn’t accept it as a gift.”
“If I had, Curufinwë would have taken a sword to my guts.”
“Mmm. True enough.” Gently, Maedhros reaches up to the crown on Nolofinwë’s head, touching it with the very tips of his fingers. “These flowers were not here before the Sun rose. Harma believes that the seeds lay beneath the earth, sleeping, since the Years of the Lamps. And this is the first time they’ve bloomed since then. They drip honey if given enough water and strength.” He looks down at Nolofinwë defiantly. “Do you know what they’re called?”
“No,” says Nolofinwë softly.
“Kingsflower.”
Ah, thinks Nolofinwë, and, Excelled, and also, very, very briefly, High King of the Noldor.
They’re all furious in Beleriand. They’re all terrified. They are, all of them, so, so desperate.
“Not much of a crown,” he murmurs.
Maedhros meets his gaze. Smiles crookedly. “No,” he agrees. “Not much.”
…
“Explain again,” says Maedhros levelly.
The poor messenger quails, but rallies admirably. His dark hair is braided with a strange kind of moss, which is unique enough that Maedhros takes note of it. The rest of his attention’s on the words coming out of the messenger’s mouth.
It’s stupid.
It’s all so stupid.
Maitimo rather desperately wants to throttle his brothers. He’d thought he’d been so clever, hadn’t he, thinking to keep the youngest members of their family safe as reserve forces instead of having them lead their own, but he hadn’t considered how none of them- not Aredhel, not Galadriel, certainly not the Ambarussa- were the kind to de-escalate a situation.
Aredhel and Galadriel had challenged Amrod to a wine-drinking contest, but had added some strange mushrooms to his wine instead of actually drinking properly. Which, while in poor taste, might not have done anything- they had four battle commanders, after all, which was double that of any other major force- but then Amras, who’d never learned to take any kind of joke, much less one incapacitating his twin, had responded by poisoning all of the Fingolfinian horses.
With a similar kind of mushroom, Maedhros suspects. Not that it matters. The result remains: the reserve forces cannot bolster Fingolfin’s army, and Hithlum remains too exposed.
Dangerously exposed.
Amras hadn’t known it, but Maedhros has a scouting report from quite a panicked Aegnor on his desk before him, describing a new orc army marching down Thangorodrim, aimed directly at Hithlum. Fingolfin can hold out for a certain period of time, but without anyone around to help him…
“Fine,” he says tightly, when the messenger stumbles to a halt, looking like he rather wants the stones to swallow him whole. “Take the news back to them, would you? Tell the twins- and I’ll know if you edit it in any form- that if they’ve managed to kill our king before he can even be crowned, I’ll offer them the same death that Fingolfin was given. And it will be my sword that deals it.”
The messenger pales to the color of dried out aspen wood.
Maedhros nods, and then stalks out of his room before he loses what little’s left of his temper. There isn’t anyone who can make up for a reserve force, not really. Maedhros is the only one close enough to make it in time, but to do so would all but collapse their eastern flank’s supply lines.
Still. Better sacrifice one flank than the entire war, and without Fingolfin uniting them, their fragile alliance will crumble like so much of the dirt that Maedhros will make Amras eat the next time they meet.
It’s quite genuinely the quickest that Maedhros’ forces have had to leave camp, but it pays off: though they’re drooping and exhausted and shoddily armored, they manage to arrive at Hithlum only half a day after the reserve forces would have. Morgoth’s forces are caught between Maedhros’ army and the walls of Hithlum.
Maedhros gives in to the temptation of cliche in the privacy of his own mind; Fingon, taking the risk of actually riding out through the orcs instead of sending a messenger, has no such reservations.
“I thought you announced back in Tirion never to serve in a forge again,” he says gleefully.
“Hello to you too, Fingon,” says Maedhros wryly.
Atop his horse, Fingon is level with Maedhros, whose horse is currently suffering from a torn ligament in her leg. He looks unaccountably pleased with himself; his hair is rumpled, golden ribbons knotted more to keep them in the hair than to keep it neat, and Fingon always works out his anxieties by keeping himself neat and well-attired.
“It’s just that you wielded the hammer so well, Russo,” he says. “So well. And- well- Atya might find insult in comparing Hithlum to an anvil, but we did acquit ourselves in bolstering our defences and giving you something to smash the orcs against, didn’t we?”
“You shouldn’t have come yourself,” says Maedhros.
“You’re not the only one the orcs are afraid of,” says Fingon, and then leaps off his horse to hug him close.
“It’s not safe-”
“Yes, but it wasn’t safe for you to come either, Atya will have words with you about that- protecting the young ones is all good and fine, but-”
“-I’m not protecting them from you,” says Maedhros grimly. “I’m protecting them from me. The next time I see them won’t be pleasant, and we don’t have time for yelling in a war-”
He explains why, and Fingon stares at him like he’s thinking of leaping headfirst into the army still getting steadily demolished behind him.
“I hadn’t realized,” says Fingon, finally.
Maedhros sighs. The surprised joy in Fingon’s face has faded away, and he misses it- Fingon tends to be cheerful even in the grimmest times; Maedhros will never forget how determinedly, gratingly cheerful he’d been on Maedhros bedside- but the war’s gone on for long enough that it’s wearing them all down. Perhaps it would’ve been better for Maedhros to wait for the army to be fully destroyed, or even to speak to Fingolfin first.
But he hasn’t, has he?
“It isn’t getting better,” says Fingon.
“No,” agrees Maedhros. “It’s a matter of whether Morgoth kills us or we kill each other, now.”
“And let Morgoth wipe up the mess after us.”
“Yes.”
Fingon’s eyes are quite bright beneath his ridiculous helm. “We can’t let that just happen.”
“No.” Maedhros swallows, and touches the pouch tucked safely into his armor. It’s the one thing he’d paused for before leaving the camp, and he’d spent the full ride to Hithlum convincing himself that he’d been too optimistic for even considering it. But Fingon looks at him, Fingon who saved him, Fingon who still trusts him, and Maedhros trusts in that more than he’ll ever trust himself ever again. “But I do have an idea.”
“Lead on, then, my hammer,” says Fingon sweetly.
Maedhros laughs, and pulls out the pouch.
…
Fingolfin stares at them both.
“One to crown, one to kneel, one to witness,” says Fingon, in that voice that’s trying to be persuasive but falls just short. “That was how Olwë was crowned, wasn’t it? It might serve to soothe some Sindar temper if we…”
“And who would kneel here?” asks Fingolfin, folding his arms over his chest. “One to crown, one to witness- leave aside the fact that we don’t even have a crown for this purpose- we don’t have enough people.”
“You have the two of us,” says Fingon quietly, drawing into himself. “And then- well, Aunt Lalwen will swear that she was here, if we ask her to. But I thought that we could do the crowning here. It would be- proper.”
“Here?” demands Fingolfin, startled.
It’s an empty corridor, dimly lit, glowing with only faint lamplight. Then he tilts his head up, and looks at Maedhros, who is watching not Fingolfin but the wall behind him, and Fingolfin realizes. It’s not just any wall: it’s the wall that Turgon had spent a week carving out of unyielding granite and then Angrod had spent another week coating in burnished bronze.
None of them had watched Finwë die save for Maedhros. None of them. Maglor had told Fingolfin, once, on those terrible nights that they’d still questioned whether Maedhros would survive, that Maedhros had commanded all of them to turn their backs to Formenos when Morgoth and Ungoliant attacked. He’d been the only one to bear witness to the terrible fate of his grandfather.
And Turgon has always had a way with his chisel that turns stone breathtaking.
“Maedhros,” says Fingolfin slowly.
He turns back to Fingolfin, but with none of Maedhros’ usual sharpness; this is as sluggish as if he were moving underwater. “Here,” he whispers. “One to crown: that must be Fingon, who is the reason for the reconciliation of the Noldor. One to kneel: that must be me, obviously, to represent that I do this of my own free will and joy. And one to witness: the first and highest of the Kings of the Noldor. Using a Sindar ceremony, aiming at presenting a united front to Morgoth… every symbol makes sense. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned since arriving in Beleriand, it’s the importance of symbols.”
Morgoth had used him as one for three decades, hadn’t he?
“And a crown,” says Fingolfin, pity biting at his heart. “You’ll need one of those.”
“A good crown. One without history, but no little amount of grandeur.”
“Yes,” agrees Fingolfin.
Maedhros smiles, and gestures at Fingon, who smiles back and reveals a golden circlet hidden in the folds of his cloak: deceptively thin-banded and abstractly ornate. Strands of gold arc up to meet at a point, capped by a gemstone that shines with the light of the Trees still.
“You could not have made this,” murmurs Fingolfin, touching one of the gold strands: there’s something in the curves that tugs at a memory, but before he can think more on it, he looks up at Maedhros and sees the faintly offended look on his face. “Not for your lack of a hand,” Fingolfin assures him. “Even in Aman, this would have been beyond your skill. Beyond any of your brothers’ skills, too, save for-”
“-Curufin,” says Maedhros, resigned.
Fingolfin nods, and waits.
“You’re not wrong,” he says finally. “I asked him to make it. Years ago, before we ever left Ered Mithrim. He needed something to keep his hands busy, and it was a dark time for myself as well.” He hesitates. “After we spoke in the woods, I knew what I wanted it to look like.”
Memory sparks in Fingolfin’s skull. “Kingsflower.”
“Is it?” asks Fingon, startled, and turns the crown to look closer. “It is! How’d you manage that?”
“Curvo’s always been more talented than he likes to let on.” Fingon makes a slight choked sound, and Maedhros grimaces. “Oh, he shows off nicely, but he’s always careful to keep his true abilities as hidden as he can.”
“I’m not sure I’d react that way to Fëanáro’s expectations,” comments Fingolfin dryly.
Maedhros shrugs. “Curvo’s always been special.”
And that’s how Fingolfin knows that his nephew does feel like he can relax in their presence: Maedhros speaks about his brothers to them, no matter that the rest of their family remains at odds, and doesn’t take care to keep his words completely complimentary either.
“You would kneel?” asks Fingolfin softly.
“To you?” Maedhros’ eyes are level and calm, shorn of all emotion as snow melted off a bare mountaintop. “Yes.”
His trust is doled out in such small parcels nowadays that it feels like more of a gift than the Trees-gleaming crown that he had forged for Fingolfin.
“Then who am I to refuse?” Fingolfin steps back, so he’s facing away from his father’s statue.
For Olwë’s crowning, Finwë had crowned him as Ingwë stood witness and Olwë’s eldest daughter, Eärwen, knelt to represent all their people. This time, Finwë, tall and blank-eyed, stands over Fingolfin’s left shoulder, as is proper for the witness. Fingon is on his right, bearing the crown in his hands, waiting calmly, and Maedhros kneels on one knee.
One knee, not two: this is how elves swear their oaths. Not the complete subjugation of Morgoth’s fashion, but the older kind, the one that means I-choose-this-freely-for-now-until-the-end. The one that the elves of Cuiviénen had used to swear to their leaders, in the time before time.
Maedhros kisses his fingers, and then looks up at Fingolfin with those lovely, grieving eyes. “I swear this to you, as blood-kin and sworn subject: never shall I or mine raise their swords against you so long as we remain in our right minds. I acknowledge that the kingship passes from Fëan á ro’s line to Nolofinwë’s, and with it my and my line’s right to it. I do this in the hope that our people understand our-” he hesitates, briefly, before forging onwards with grim control, “-desire for unity.”
“Understand they shall,” says Fingolfin softly, before he, too, kneels. “I swear this to you, as blood-kin and sworn liege: to care for those that swear allegiance to you as my own, to work with all purpose and ability towards defeating Morgoth and returning that which belongs to your line to your hands, and to treat all of you and yours with the dignity that they deserve.”
Per the true ceremony, Fingon should not speak.
But Finwë cannot, and they have no other now, and so he does:
“So is it sworn and seen. May your hands remind you of what has been done.”
Maedhros clasps Fingolfin’s elbows, and he doesn’t look quite so worn or bitter any longer: suddenly, abruptly, he reminds Fingolfin nothing so much as pure, luminous white fire.
“May your sword remind you of what cannot be undone.”
All the blood of Alqualondë and the Helcaraxë. Fingolfin’s stubbornness. Fingolfin’s rage. Morgoth, the threat that Fingolfin’s just sworn his life away to defeat. His sword must carry all of this. All of it.
Even as he’s lost in thought, he jerks at the feeling of the crown on his head. Maedhros steadies him, though, and nobody else is there to realize. Fingon’s voice goes very soft and gentle as he states the last line:
“And may this crown remind you of what is yet to be done.”
Fingolfin cries out as the lamps around him flare, turning the corridor bright as day and then brighter. But Maedhros keeps him steady through it, and Fingon’s hands come down on his shoulders, and when Fingolfin finally blinks the white spots out of his vision, he realizes that, in the depths of the flame, he’d seen a blazing Morgoth dragged out of Angband, bound in chains and crownless.
And hope burns in his chest anew.
…
He had not told Fingolfin one last thing about the kingsflower. It hadn’t been that Maedhros hadn’t wanted to: he’d forgotten about it, right up until he received the letter bearing Fingolfin’s seal. The last letter Fingolfin will ever send. It sits on his desk still, ink gleaming, parchment thick. Soon enough Maglor will come through the door and ask for an explanation, and Maedhros will have to explain to him that this war has taken even more from them than he’d expected. The political implications alone are staggering.
Maedhros cannot believe that Fingolfin isn’t in Hithlum even now, snarling defiance and stamping his pride and his strength into his people. He cannot believe that he’ll never get the chance to tell him this one last secret.
For the kingsflower is beautiful, and its nectar is sweeter than honey, and its petals are a dark, fluttering purple: but its fruit- oh, its fruit is poisonous enough even to a Firstborn.
I killed you, thinks Maedhros, and it is as gentle in apology as it is furious in self-loathing. I killed you.
He will kill everyone he loves, and ruin everything he loves, and survive to see the darkness that comes after.
He crowned Fingolfin with kingsflower.
Did he ever think this would end in another way?
(He had hoped. How he had hoped!
But- still-
Courage, and patience, and kindness, Fingolfin had said. Had lived by. He had been kind by far with Maedhros and Maedhros’ brothers; he had been patient with all of Beleriand for so long; he had had courage enough to ride to Angband’s very own gates.)
Courage, then, thinks Maedhros wearily. Courage, and patience.
But it was kindness that let Fingolfin trust me even after all that came between us. It was kindness that made him take that crown. It was kindness that killed him.
Courage and patience, enough to swallow the world whole and leave it drenched and drowning.
But not kindness any longer.
Never kindness.