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He had not expected to wake after the Balrogs.
That assumption had been proven wrong. Now it seemed that waking was all Fingon was doing. He could never keep his eyes open for long; sometimes due to the pain, and sometimes due to whatever medicine the Man who had called himself Strider had managed to procure.
The first few wakings had been decidedly wet; he had a dim memory of being placed halfway in a stream although the hot and peeling pain that covered much of his face at least suggested why. He had not managed to fight Balrogs without burns.
He was sure he had burned at least his hands too, but he couldn’t feel the pain of those. He hoped it was because they had healed or because of the herbs he kept glimpsing Strider making compresses out of.
If it was not, he supposed he would have to appeal to Maedhros to teach him all of his tricks.
(If Maedhros had made it out of the battle. If the reason the reinforcements had not come as planned had not been because Maedhros and all his other cousins were laying trampled in the mud somewhere, a feast for crows, or worse - )
(If Morgoth had taken Maedhros again - )
The nice thing about all the blankness between waking was that it left little time for worrying.
“The battle,” he managed to croak out the next time he awoke with a modicum of strength.
Strider was there in an instant, propping Fingon’s head up to better offer a tin cup of cooled broth. “Drink first,” he said, and Fingon felt far too thirsty not to oblige.
“The battle,” he insisted when the last of the broth was gone. It hurt to speak, but he had to know. Plainly they had not won, but what news was there? Were they pursued? Did this Man know of other survivors?
“I know not,” Strider said gently. “When I found you, you were alone.”
Fingon frowned. That was - that was odd. He should have been found in the very midst of the battlefield, and even if he had been the only one Strider had found alive, surely he would at least consider himself to know something of the battle by its aftermath.
Unless he had been carried off the field - hidden somewhere in safety - only for his rescuers to lead away some pursuit and not return . . .
It sounded terrifyingly plausible.
“I have to find them,” he said, scarcely knowing who he meant. His brother? His nephew? His cousins? His captains?
All of them. Any of them.
The battle had failed, but they were not yet ruined yet; if he had survived to stand against Morgoth still, so must some of the others.
“You are not yet well,” Strider said firmly. “Far and away from being well.” The extent of the concern in his eyes was not something Fingon wanted to think about too deeply. “Would that we were closer to Rivendell! I have not Master Elrond’s skill, but I will do what I can that you may at least be well enough to ride there.”
He didn’t recognize the names, but the meaning was clear enough. He could not argue with it, exactly; he could barely move, much less start an expedition. The pain was distant, but that didn’t change the grinding sounds his bones made when he tried to move them.
Still.
“Someone had to make it,” he insisted. The darkness was tugging at him again, but he pushed against it.
“Alright,” the man said gently. “And who should I say is looking for them, if I find them?”
Muddled as his head was, he couldn’t judge if it was safe enough to tell this near stranger that he had the king of the Noldor entirely at his mercy. It was a fearful thought, and Fingon was ashamed of it when Strider had shown him nothing but kindness, but he had learned caution bitterly and well.
Few other names suggested themselves in his current state, however. ‘Turgon’ and ‘Maedhros’ were the names that kept insistently returning to his mind, and they would be no better.
He needed a name not borrowed from elsewhere - or, failing that, a name no one would know, at least not if they were a Man, Edain or otherwise . . .
“Maeglin,” he decided.
For who outside of Gondolin would know his nephew’s name? He had only just learned it himself.
Strider reared back, he thought, but it was hard to tell with the darkness so quickly claiming him.
He next awoke to Strider humming what sounded suspiciously like the Noldolante.
“Which verse are you on?” he rasped. Maglor had reached a truly obscene number the last time he’d heard, and he’d shown no signs of stopping.
Strider paused for so long that Fingon stopped blinking up at the forest canopy overhead and pushed his arm down in an attempt to force himself to sit up for fear something had gone badly wrong.
White hot pain stabbed up his wrist, though his hand was still terrifyingly numb; it had been there at least, he told himself forcefully when he had at last emerged, panting, from the haze of pain.
Strider was there beside him, hands easing Fingon’s arm back into place, and now humming a song of comfort with a surprising thread of power. “Peace,” he sang quietly, “peace.” After a moment, he added, “I am sorry. I should not have sung that with you still recovering.”
“It is a good song,” Fingon managed. Then, because after all this he at least deserved an answer: “What verse?”
Strider hesitated again, until Fingon twitched his other arm threateningly. It worked, which was at least yet another point in favor of Strider not being of the Enemy, if he so little desired pain.
“The Fall of Gondolin,” Strider said reluctantly.
That -
No. No, that didn’t even make sense.
“You said you had no news of the battle,” he said. “Even if - surely Maglor has not heard already. There can be no verse of it yet.” The last was said to reassure himself more than anything.
Gondolin could not have fallen. Even if they had been utterly routed, surely Gondolin had not fallen.
Strider’s pause was longer this time.
“Maeglin,” he said gently. “What year do you think it is?”
Fingon’s mind decided that statement was quite enough strain, thank you, and promptly sent the darkness rushing back.
When next he awoke, he said nothing. Instead, he lay there with his eyes closed, contemplating the scratchiness of the bedroll he had almost certainly stolen from the obliging Strider, and considering other, far more worrisome possibilities.
He could have lost time, certainly, with his injuries. Not years of time, however - and he was certain that these were the injuries he remembered gaining. Surely nothing else had quite the heat of a Balrog’s fire, and surely no future fight would so perfectly recreate these wounds.
This could be a trap of some kind. He could have been captured.
The problem with this theory was that he could not see the point. Of capturing him, certainly; but what possible long game could Morgoth play with this as his premise?
The air was too clear for this to be Angband, for this to be anywhere close to it, and if they were far from Angband, there was too great a chance he would escape. Surely after Fingon’s last time in Angband, Morgoth would take no chances.
He hummed a quiet note, trying to take the measure of the Music of the world. He was no genius at it like Maglor, but -
But.
But this was not the Music he had expected.
It was . . . changed.
Did he know what year it was?
. . . and did that mean Gondolin had fallen?
He did not want to face it, but he hadn’t gotten this far by refusing to face things. He swallowed. Cleared his throat.
“Will you sing it to me?” he croaked. “The verse about how Gondolin fell?”
His last brother was dead.
Assuming that this was not some elaborate lie of the Enemy’s, his brother was dead.
Idril had been allowed to sail West - Idril and her son - but his brother was dead.
Idril’s fate, more than anything, convinced him that this was no tale of the Enemy’s. Such fate, a fate beyond his greatest hope, was surely nothing the Enemy would provide.
He was glad.
But it did not change the fact that his brother was dead.
He suspected there was more to the story than Strider was telling him; there had been awkward pauses in the song that Maglor never would have allowed. He was hesitant to ask about them, however, as he had a terrible suspicion he knew what had caused them.
Nothing about his nephew’s fate had been said. He was abruptly regretting his choice of alias; apparently it was not unknown after all, and Strider was avoiding it for fear of digging up unpleasant memories.
He suspected this meant his nephew was dead.
He did not want his nephew to be dead.
He was crying, he realized distantly. He was crying, and he could not reach up to brush away the tears as he should. They felt cool against his cheeks, at least; cooler with the brisk autumn breeze that had begun to shake the thinner branches of the trees.
It had not been autumn when he had ridden off to war.
“I am sorry,” Strider said gently. Then: “I will get you more water.”
He appreciated the moments of privacy. He appreciated too that when Strider returned, he wiped the tears away under the pretense of bathing the burns on his face.
He was the last of his father’s line in Beleriand, he realized. Not the last alive, thank the Valar, but the last in Beleriand.
“Who is king now?” he croaked.
Strider’s gentle movements paused once more.
That had never yet been a good sign.
“Thranduil rules over many of the Sindar and Silvan,” he said carefully.
He did not know that name. It meant Thingol had fallen, which boded ill; anything that could get past Melian’s Girdle was a threat to them all. “And the Noldor?” he pressed. It must be Orodreth, he supposed, but he suspected that if it had come to that, Maedhros could have successfully pushed -
“There is now no king of the Noldor in Middle Earth,” Strider said.
In that sentence, he heard the last of his cousins obliterated.
“Ah,” he said.
When oblivion was not kind enough to come, he tried, once again, to push himself up with his arm.
That did well enough.
When he awoke, he felt like he was floating, a sensation he blamed partially on either herbs or Song, and partially on the fact that he was on the best horse he had been privileged to ride in many a year.
Possibly the fact that he had any horse - any warm, living thing to touch - was biasing him.
He gradually came to the awareness that he was more or less tied to the saddle in a position that would surely be uncomfortable if he could feel much of anything. He could dimly hear Strider’s voice somewhere ahead, presumably holding the reins; he was singing of speed now, of courage and strength and haste, and Fingon took comfort in that strange thread of power that was so oddly familiar.
It was far better than hearing any more elegies for his kin.
He would need to hear them, he knew. He would need to face them if he was going to atone for leading them all to ruin; if he was going to avenge them in this endless, hateful war.
It felt like hot bile in his throat to have nothing left but that; to have nothing to protect, nothing to preserve, only the cold comfort of vengeance.
But for now, he could not even have that, so he contented himself with tilting his head back so that he could see the stars.
There was one he could not quite look away from, and he could not for all of Arda think of why.
It was still night when he next awoke, though he would have placed no bets on it being the same night. There was a fire now, and no movement.
There was also pain, and that terrible grinding sound when he tried to shift how he was propped up against the saddle bags.
Someday, he would once more be a credible warrior of the Noldor instead of an inconveniently shaped piece of luggage.
It was an unkind thought, and he chided himself for it, even if it was directed at himself.
He was a magnificently shaped piece of luggage. If a somewhat damaged one.
His position at least allowed him to look away from where Strider was tending the campfire and up toward the stars once more.
His eyes locked on the same star as before. He considered it for a long moment.
“There is a Silmaril in the sky,” he announced, in case Strider had possibly not noticed. It was probably old news to the Man, but he had to tell someone; the news was bubbling up in him like a rather incredulous fountain.
He would have to tell Maedhros; they would have to figure out some way to sail to the stars, or see if the Eagles could fly that high, or -
He could not tell Maedhros, because all of his cousins were dead.
(If he got the Silmaril and managed somehow to find Maedhros’s corpse and placed it in his hands, would that be close enough for the Oath? Would that count?)
(Or were Maedhros and his brothers lost forever to the unforgiving Void beyond the stars?)
Strider looked up sharply. “There is,” he agreed. “There are three, actually, though we will not see the other two tonight.” His eyes raked over Fingon searchingly, for a moment uncomfortably intent, like he could see into Fingon’s very soul.
It reminded him of Artanis, who actually could.
Artanis, who would certainly insist on being queen if there was no one left to stop her.
Artanis, who was dead.
The concern in Strider’s eyes grew even sharper, and Fingon was abruptly and absurdly certain that the Man could see his soul.
“They are meant to be a symbol of hope,” he said. “Though not all have felt that way. Here.” He rose and moved nearly soundlessly to Fingon’s side, reaching into his belt to withdraw a small flask that he offered.
“I do not know that wine will help,” Fingon said apologetically, though it was tempting.
Strider almost smiled. “It would not,” he agreed. “This is miruvor. Now that your hroa has stabilized enough for it, perhaps it will help sustain your spirit.”
Fingon almost reached for it before he remembered better.
Strider made no remark on his near misstep, just bringing it closer to his lips. Fingon drank gratefully, closing his eyes at the clear, rushing warmth of the taste.
For a moment, he felt rather as if he was wrapped in his father’s embrace.
“That,” he said after a long moment, “is good miruvor. Shockingly good.” Certainly not anything touched by the Enemy.
Strider truly smiled then. “It was made by a master,” he said. “There is none better on these shores.”
Fingon was fully prepared to believe him; for one thing, it was truly excellent - for another, if there was no king of the Noldor left, then he feared there were terrifyingly few of his people left on these shores.
He thought he understood now, a little, how his father could have ridden out to face Morgoth alone. It sounded tempting, just now.
But since he could barely move, it would just have to wait.
Strider’s voice broke into his dark thoughts. “Drink some more,” he said. “You will feel better.”
Fingon drank. It gave him the courage to ask, “How bad is it?” He tried to glance down, to see for himself, but the rough bandages covered too much to be sure. If his armor had still remained, he could have guessed more from what had been warped and what torn, but Strider must have given it up as a lost cause long before they began traveling; he was only in the quilted garments that had been under the armor now.
“Bad enough,” Strider said quietly. “I have done what I can; I hope it was enough that you can bear the travel. Master Elrond has healed worse if we can but reach him.”
“We’ll reach him,” Fingon assured him, ignoring the waves of pain that even speaking brought.
They would reach this healer Strider spoke of; Fingon was sure of it.
He had kin to avenge.
It was the last clear night he had for a while. The travel wore at him; the jolting of the horse shook his crushed bones, and the glare of the sun grated against his burns. It was hard to hold a thought through the haze that overtook him, though Strider’s Song sometimes slid through it and took hold.
Once, he almost thought he heard the beginning of a horn’s call, but he told himself he was imagining it.
There was nothing left for it but for him to hold on.
He felt it when they passed through the protections at the edge of the valley. A bit of strength rushed back into his limbs; his mind felt clearer.
Not enough to speak, but he cracked his eyes open at least.
There was a city, he saw. Not one he knew, but clearly elvish. It was - odd. He couldn’t quite put his finger on how. But it was at least not the wilds.
The sentries hailed them but didn’t stop them, his guide clearly well known. It felt as if he blinked and they were deep in the city, in an elegant courtyard with a tall elf-lord hurrying down the steps to embrace the travel stained Man before him.
Fingon had assumed that Strider was sworn to this lord, as Ulfang and Bor and so many others had sworn, but even his sluggish mind could recognize that he was at least partially mistaken; the elf-lord who could only be Master Elrond had pressed a kiss to the top of Strider’s head and embraced him like a lost son, crying out, “Estel! We had expected you this past fortnight. I had begun to fear some evil had befallen you.”
There was, he noted dimly, almost a resemblance between the two figures. And they both looked a little like . . . a little like . . .
“I am well,” Strider - Estel? - promised. “But I found strange company on the road, and he is sore in need of your healing.”
Master Elrond turned at once to Fingon, and Fingon struggled to do more than blink sluggishly.
Strider held the elf-lord back with a warning hand. “He said his name was Maeglin,” he said, and Master Elrond froze. “Though I have reason to doubt it; his eyes shine like one who has seen the light of the Trees.”
Ah. He had forgotten to account for that in his clever disguise. He tried to speak, to explain himself, but his tongue felt thick in his mouth.
“Estel!” another voice cried.
He knew that voice.
“I hear strange tidings from the sentries. What is this about - “
Maglor’s voice cut off.
Fingon painstakingly raised his head to look at him.
His cousin looked almost as he had last seen him, though less bedecked for war.
But he was hale. Whole. Hearty.
Breathing.
Fingon felt abruptly as if a band around his chest had been loosened just enough for him to breathe.
Maglor looked furious.
“Findekano.”
Fingon tried, and failed, to speak.
“I ought to have your guts for lute strings. I ought to take your bones for drum sticks. I ought to use them both to rewrite your elegy into something more appropriate. Where have you been?”
“Hello, cuz,” Fingon managed, and fainted.
He awoke on cool, clean sheets, by a broad window that let warm sunlight and a pleasant breeze through. It was the most comfortable he had been since the battle.
The effect was somewhat ruined by the angry Feanorian pacing a hole in the floor by the foot of his bed.
Master Elrond, at least, looked considerably calmer, but he also showed no inclination to stop Maglor, which was fair. Few could, when he got into that state.
He tried to speak and found, to his delight, that for once his voice was not hoarse or pained at all. “Well met.”
Maglor snorted. “Well met, he says. Well met! As if it had been two weeks - “
Master Elrond held up his hand. To Fingon’s delighted astonishment, Maglor actually cut himself off, though his pacing increased its speed sharply.
“Well met,” Elrond said. “Uncle.”
Fingon started.
“Idril’s grandson,” Maglor clarified. “Congratulations.”
“Strider didn’t mention that,” he said, slightly bewildered at this sudden wealth of family. “Well met, indeed!”
“Yes, well, you claimed to be Maeglin,” Maglor said, as if that clarified anything.
“There was . . . trouble between Maeglin and my father,” Elrond said.
Ah.
“Estel is also your nephew,” Maglor added helpfully. “If you take the long view.”
“He is?” he asked in bewilderment.
“It is a long story,” Elrond said firmly. “Though one I will happily share when you have recovered only a little more. In short, though, he is most certainly kin.”
The terrible weight in his chest eased a little more. “I thought I was alone,” he confessed, hoping it would soften Maglor, at least a little. “When he said there was no king now.”
Elrond, surprisingly, colored. “Ah. That.”
“He turned it down,” Maglor said, nodding toward Elrond. “After Gil-Galad died.”
“Who?” he asked in yet more bewilderment.
Elrond blinked. Maglor, surprisingly, looked rather as if he had won a bet. “And there goes that theory,” his cousin said almost smugly, before explaining, “The king after Turgon.”
“There was no need,” Elrond cut in. “Cirdan and Galadriel guide their own people well enough, and I have mine.”
Galadriel.
So Artanis too was not lost to him.
Bit by bit, his world was stitching itself back together.
“Though if you wish to reclaim your title - “
“No,” Fingon said. “No, what do I know of the current state of the world? How could I lead?” He gestured almost absent mindedly before he realized that the movement brought no pain. He looked down in delight.
“They should heal completely,” Elrond assured him. “In time.”
“I will not need to beg Maedhros for tips after all,” he joked before he remembered again.
Maedhros was still gone.
Unless - ?
Maglor’s face crushed that hope quickly.
Elrond stood. “I will give you some time,” he decided. “I still need the rest of the news from Estel.” He paused by Maglor to gently squeeze his arm. “Please do not actually take his guts for lute strings.”
And then he was gone, and Fingon was alone with his cousin.
The silence stretched long.
“What happened to him?”
“Celebrimbor?” Maglor asked in mock confusion. “He was betrayed to his death. By torture.”
The breath caught in Fingon’s throat, but he pushed through it. “Your brother.”
“I had six once,” Maglor said, as if in reminder. “Let’s see. Amras bled out, Amrod’s skull was crushed in, Celegorm’s throat was slit - “
“Maedhros,” he said, though his heart was weeping for the others. “Tell me what happened to Maedhros.”
“Oh, him,” Maglor said, flinging himself casually onto the bed. “You happened.”
“No.” The protest is automatic. “I wasn’t even there.”
“You weren’t,” Maglor agreed. “Your servants said you were dead, in fact, and we were all appropriately devastated, right up until the hosts from Valinor arrived and word came trickling down the grapevine that Namo had never called for your soul. We thought you had been taken.”
Horror coiled in his throat.
“So when we took Angband - What? Did no one tell you?”
Fingon shook his head mutely.
“We won,” Maglor said flatly. “Congratulations. A bright, shiny new army from Valinor arrived, with the Valar’s blessing this time, and they broke down the gates of Angband and took back my father’s jewels. They said our crimes had stained our hands too much to have them, so they’d be taking the gems themselves. They never said what our mother had done that made her unworthy to inherit . . . but, of course, you never cared about our Oath. It was burning us then, goading us forward, but you know what Maedhros was like when he was truly set on something. He was convinced you were somewhere beyond those gates, just waiting to be rescued. Even the Oath had to yield to that iron determination to maintain the truce long enough to find you.”
Fingon couldn’t breathe. “He went back in.”
“Of course he did,” Maglor said, razor sharp and vicious. “Eonwe wanted us to surrender - said we could go home if we did - but he wouldn’t surrender and he wouldn’t fight, he just wanted to search until he collapsed, until he found you.” He paused. “And never mind that the whole continent was breaking under us by then.”
“What?”
“Another piece of news! Welcome to Middle Earth. Beleriand’s somewhere under the ocean now: the Valar sunk it. Along with my last brother.”
He thought the ocean had found its way to his lungs somehow. It certainly felt like it.
“He wouldn’t leave. Not without you. Not when we reasoned with him - not when I begged - finally I sang him to sleep and dragged him away with me, but I couldn’t - I couldn’t bear to bind him. I thought I could watch him closely enough.” Maglor looked away.
Fingon thought his heart might have stopped in his chest.
“I thought it was done, at least,” Maglor said dully. “Namo had rescued you both if no one else had, assuming Maedhros hadn’t been eaten by the Void. It was too late for anything else, so I threw myself and my remaining people on Elrond’s mercy, which has worked out well enough.”
“I don’t - “
“But you still weren’t dead,” Maglor said. “The Istari told us that when they came. My brother was, but you? No. So it seems my brother died - died in Angband - for nothing. So tell me, Fingon: Where were you?”
He was weeping. He couldn’t seem to stop.
“I don’t know,” he finally managed. “I don’t - Maglor, the last thing I remember is fighting in that battle. I don’t know what happened after.”
Maglor considered this for a long moment while Fingon tried to incorporate one more grief into his cavern of them.
“I believe you,” Maglor decided at last, and decidedly unhappily. “I suppose it is back to blaming myself then.”
“Or whatever took me,” Fingon suggested, mind still struggling under the weight of all these revelations.
(If he had known Maedhros would try to pay him back like this, he would have - he would have - )
(He didn’t know what he would have done. Something. Anything.)
(He never would have wanted it to have come to this.)
“Or that,” Maglor agreed with a sigh. “We should probably look into that at some point. We don’t have so much family left that we can afford to look the other way if it tries again.” He looked sideways at Fingon. “I am glad you’re alive. Incidentally.”
Fingon waved this aside. It was incredibly gratifying to be able to do that without agony. “I understand.”
“Of course you do. Fingon the Incredibly Understanding . . . I shall have to write a new ending to your elegy. It was very flattering, you know. I compared your death to the loss of Laurelin - there were some lovely parallels between all that gold in your hair and its golden light, and of course in those disastrous aftermaths . . . “
“Leading your brothers to their doom, you mean,” he said softly. “What did happen to the others?”
Maglor looked away again. “I probably should not be the one to tell it,” he admitted. “You would not have been pleased at what happened after your . . . fall.”
Fingon considered this. “You went after Luthien, didn’t you?”
“We did not! We went after her son. And her grandchildren.”
This also received due consideration. “I am glad I was not there for that,” he concluded. “I should have hated to have to pick a side.”
That startled a laugh out of Maglor. “Don’t let anyone else hear you say that. You’re supposed to be the accidental kinslayer.”
“I didn’t say - !” He cut himself off before he had to finish that sentence. “But the Valar have them now,” he checked. “In the sky.”
“Yes,” Maglor said. “Safely out of reach.”
Fingon frowned. “Surely you haven’t tried everything.”
Elrond paused in the doorway. “Oh, dear.”
“I did not corrupt Fingon,” Maglor said hastily.
“You’ve hardly had the time,” Elrond agreed dryly. “Please save any and all plotting until you’ve healed.”
“I’ll be a model patient,” Fingon assured him.
It was only. Well.
If he took Maedhros as his model, that really meant he should start plotting immediately.
And from the sound of it, it was his turn to try for a rescue.