Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It is dark, for it is always dark in the cells of Barad-dur. That is where he must be, for that is where he always is.

He stretches out a hand, but he keeps stretching, farther and farther. He extends his other arm, lifts it above his head. Where are the walls?

There should be walls.

There are always walls, always there when he closes his eyes, when he stretches too far in any direction, when his mind gropes too far and fetches up against them, bruising itself every time. Sometimes he can forget, can train his gaze on the horizon, can feel Halbarad walking beside him, breath steady as his steps, and feel that this world is the real one and can forget what he has forgotten. 

At night, it is harder, for the world becomes quiet and the brightness no longer hides him from the Eye. He can’t see the boundaries of his prison anymore, but he knows they are still there, and knows that he will one day stretch far enough to touch the edges of it. He is still there, and part of him always will be, and one day he will go back to them.

He reaches out ahead, into the darkness, hand still finding nothing to touch, and he takes a step. There’s water, silent, cool, still, and sand that washes out between the toes of his right foot when the wave withdraws. He takes another step into the water. It’s warmer already, and he remembers a time, oh, age upon age ago, when he had stood thus at the edge of the sea. His brothers had thought him afraid, but that had not been why he stopped. He wasn’t afraid, at least, not of the ocean, but he had been waiting: waiting for the sea to take away all of the sand beneath his feet, to pull a little more of it out with each wave. He wanted to know how long it would take, wanted to see if he could keep standing once it was all gone.

He hasn’t thought of that in a very long time. Had he once been a child?

There are children here, shining bright as the stars, with eyes dark as the spaces between them. 

The water is lapping at Maglor’s ankles, hardly cold at all now.

‘What if we get lost?’ the children ask, their eyes dark and serious, bright and laughing, gap-toothed, freckle-cheeked, a Man child, an Elf child, children that are both, neither, more. He loved them, loves them still, fears for them, but he does not deserve to love them, not when he has brought them here, to this dark place in his heart.

‘Stay where you are and I will come find you. If there is danger about, hide quiet and safe, but do not run away.’

The children laugh and they ask for a song. Maglor tries, but there is something that claws at his throat, that muffles the sound with its growls whenever he tries to sing. The children watch him, serious again, with eyes that forgive nothing.

‘If we are hiding, how shall you find us?’

‘You forget.’ He lets the thing in his throat speak for him. The water is up to his knees and as warm as blood.  ‘I am very wicked. I found you once and there is nowhere you can hide that I cannot find you again.’

He is wrong, of course. One of the children is gone forever, lost somewhere Maglor cannot find him, and only one remains.

That child takes his hand in the darkness and says, ‘What if you get lost?’

A wind rises and steals any answer he could have given.

Maglor woke to sudden cold and a night that was but little brighter than his dreams, the stars hiding themselves behind a thick pall of clouds. There was no moon.

The others weren’t far, he knew that, even wrapped in the shreds of his dream. Ciryon and Halbarad were camped in the little birch grove by the riverbank. Almiron was west of the road somewhere with the others. Aglaril was on watch. When he sat up he could see her sitting on a rock by the Baranduin, just another dark shape in the gloom.

Maglor was alone, for lately he couldn’t abide to be close, couldn’t carry the weight of conversation, of eyes watching him, tired unto death of making sure that he showed nothing that might betray their fragile unearned trust, certain that even the warm light of the campfire showed every mark the enemy had left in him.

He’d already slipped somehow, exposed too much to Halbarad, because the night before, when he had offered to keep the watch, Halbarad had refused to leave Maglor and sleep, sitting the whole watch a stone’s throw away. He had shifted once, opening his mouth as if he had wanted to speak, and Maglor already knew what he would have said: you are useless, you are weak and broken, squalling child, little sister, the unwanted, the tag-along, the stray, you take and take and give back nothing, crying always for attention, and you ask for trust? For love? You do not even know what these things are . He heard it always, in his own voice, his father’s, Saruman’s, but it would have been too much to hear it from Halbarad, so he had stood up and walked to the edge of the clearing, blood rushing loud in his ears, wishing he could still run, for if he could have, he would have gone then, west on the road, until the road ran into the sea, and perhaps he would not have stopped there. He couldn’t do that anymore, not when even walking wearied him and made him ache, so he had just stood there letting silence build between them, brutal and impenetrable.

Now, Maglor looked at the road, at the path that could bear him to the sea if he were brave enough, and he looked the other way, and then he stopped, because he saw them, and he was already too late. He tried to shout, but maybe sleep still held him, for his voice would make no sound, and he was slow, so slow as he pulled on his boot and fumbled for his leg. His fingers were huge and clumsy and he could not make sense of the buckles and the straps, and he kept trying to call out, even though he could hardly draw breath.

He threw aside the leg and grabbed his crutch and his spear and heaved himself upright. He ran, or tried to, stumbling and skidding down toward the ford. Aglaril heard him first and walked toward the road, a dark shadow against the fog that was rising from the river, but she turned to him, away from the doom that rushed ever nearer, even as he tried to say no, behind you, don’t look at me, you fool. His throat burned like he’d been screaming.

The wind rose, just as it had in the dream, and it carried with it the sound of hoofbeats, and the feeling of darkness filling Maglor’s throat, lapping about his ankles, warm as blood.

Aglaril heard it at last and turned away from him, then she was running, shouting, drawing her sword. She reached the road and stood firm, too brave, too stupid to do otherwise. There were shouts from the trees and the Dunedain were running to her aid, too slow, too slow.

The Nine fell on Aglaril like rocks falling down a mountain, and she could not stand against them. 

He saw Eradan and Almiron, with swords and fire. Halbarad’s bow was singing and the Riders did not fall, but he knew that Halbarad hadn’t missed. Halbarad never missed. Aglaril fell in the road. He was close enough to see how she struggled back to her feet, determined still, and he saw her struck down again, cuffed like a troublesome dog, dragged into the Baranduin, and he saw her trampled beneath their hooves in the mud and the water.

Maglor reached the road.

The wind now bore the scent of a drowned city, of death and rot and the growth of the things that fed thereon. The song stopped (is that what it had been?) as he choked on the stench and Riders stopped and turned. They knew him. “ You are ours,” they say, “ beloved of the tower. You will return with us, you will stand beside us, above us, you will be forgiven, you will be made whole, if only you will lead us to our prize.”

“Blackbird, we must run!”

Maglor didn’t know who that was, Blackbird was someone he had lost, someone that was taken from him in the cells of Barad-dur, a stranger who sang and walked and loved. He was someone that Maglor cast aside himself, even before that, while he still walked free beneath the sky.

“I didn’t mean it to be that bad for you,” a buzzard had told him, picking at his corpse.

He threw himself at the riders, a curse on his lips and a madness in his heart, a rage that it was not enough that he must fear these things still, but that they should hunt him down, harm his comrades. Even now they were fighting beside him, these unlikely friends, these mortals who had allowed him into part of their brief lives, even when he had less than nothing to offer in return, and he saw them falling, wry faces and rough jests all prey to the terror of the Nine. The fog from the river was so thick that he could hardly see, so heavy that he could hardly move. (And yet he can see the water, crawling slimy and sluggish over the bodies of his friends, mud and blood and slime, rot and shit and decay, and the bloated rotting faces of everyone he has ever loved).

A cold hand touched his shoulder, and he could not win against them, but he would have died before he let one of them touch him again, so he whirled, a wild strike with the sharp edge of the glaive, the force of all his terror behind it. His vision cleared and he saw Halbarad’s face, his face full of light (brightest thing Maglor can see), eyes wide and worried, hands filling with his own blood, desperately trying to gather himself up, to hold himself together, Beleg falling to Turin's curse, but this Turin standing tall and unmoved. He has seen this before, in the halls of Barad-dûr.

"He sees his death. He sees you, Maglor," Sauron had warned him.

Perhaps it had been a mistake to forget that.

Chapter Text

The rangers found each other at the crossroad in a summer’s foggy dawn, dew soaking their boots. It was a fair morning, the air soft and pink where the fog had taken the sunrise and spread it out, the road winding peacefully into its pearly haze.

Of the six who had guarded the ford, only four remained.

The Riders had pursued them southward and east, but the rangers had slipped away, dashing into thickets and hedgerows where the horses could not follow. The Nine had not sought them long, their little guard was not what the riders were after in these lands. In the end, after all these years of guarding and watching, they’d hardly even slowed the enemy down.

Halbarad was stiff, but not dead. He had spent the night wedged in between a hollow tree and a patch of brambles. Every time he had shifted, the thorns had pricked him and now he had a tear in the sleeve of his tunic to match the one across his belly. That one was a nice clean slice, just the faintest bloom of blood at its raw edge. Beneath it was a long but shallow cut. It had barely bled, and was already scabbed over. It was itchy, but at least his guts had all stayed on the right side of his skin.

Downriver, Maglor was picking his way along the banks, trying to find any sign of Aglaril. The events of the night before already felt more like a nightmare than reality, jumbled and unreal. All Halbarad knew for sure was that after Maglor struck him, Almiron had hauled Halbarad bodily away, fighting the whole time. 

“If he’s set on killing anyone who tries to help him,” he’d told Hal later, “well, he can either help himself or kill himself, or both, but you don’t have to be part of it this time.”

Almiron had been close to Hal’s father, and hadn’t ever managed to stop looking out for him, even though Hal was old enough to have stiff knees and white hairs in his beard. He wasn’t overly fond of Maglor.

They found Eradan in the road near the crossing, his body stiff and cold. He’d been young, only recently gone out to the rangers and Halbarad was sad that he hadn’t gotten a chance to know him well enough to mourn properly. Almiron knew him better, had trained up the young man, while Hal had gone haring off to the south, so Almiron was the one who carried him to the birch grove where they had camped and laid his cloak over him. 

They joined Maglor next, searching the mud and the tangle of branches and fallen trees at the river’s edge until the banks became impassable and the sun climbed toward noon.

Aglaril was gone, her body washed away downstream, and they could not even lay her to rest.

Maglor gave up last. Halbarad watched him make his way to the edge of the trees and stopped when he saw Halbarad looking his way. He went back to the hole that he was digging.

It would be a shallow grave; they didn’t have the tools or the time for more. They wrapped young Eradan in his cloak and laid him in the shallow trough, and they brought stones from the river's edge and piled them over him.

Ciryon held his sword. They were of an age with each other, and had been friends. He wanted to bring it back to Eradan’s family. He’d had a young sister who loved her brother very much and Halbarad hoped that it would be a long time before she had any use for this gift.

“We should sing for him,” Almiron said. “He always liked the old songs. And her. Aglaril had sharp ears. She’ll hear us, wherever she is.”

Hal nodded and Almiron began, his voice soft and rough and the others joined in. Hal was no singer, but neither were the rest of them. It wasn’t about how it sounded. It was about how it felt, to sing the old words as loud as you could, with your friends beside you. It felt good, right, to send him away thus, the four of them, standing close, hands beating time in the air, voices loud and raw and defiant.

Maglor stayed away, a dark figure in the trees, silent. Hal wanted to reach out to him, to pull him close, to make him sing with them. He wanted to sob until he melted away, like a sandy bank falling into a flooding river, but tears wouldn’t come. What right had he to mourn when his failure had done this?

When they broke apart, Maglor came closer, face blank as any mask.

“Thought you were supposed to be a singer,” muttered Almiron as he passed. Maglor did not reply, but Hal could see how his jaw clenched before he turned and stalked away.

“Don’t,” said Hal quietly, always too late to do any good.

“What?” said Almiron, “Am I supposed to not see how the two of you have been with each other? You don’t trust him anymore, and I never did to start with.”

“That’s not true,” Hal protested, but it rang false in his own ears, and he wondered when it had become a lie.

“He almost killed you,” said Almiron. “That was an accident, I know, but he’s not safe, Hal.” Almiron grabbed his arm, making Halbarad look at him. “I’m not saying this to be cruel, understand? And I’m not even saying anything about what he means to do. He came back different, Hal, and who wouldn’t? But he’s hurting bad, and he’ll hurt you worse. And I don’t mean this,” he plucks at Hal’s ruined tunic. “And I don’t just mean you. Last night, he went mad fighting something we got no business fighting, instead of retreating when you called it, and it’s pure fool’s luck that we didn’t lose more than we did.”

“So what do you want me to do? Send him away?”

“I know better than to ask you to do that, lad. I’ve never known anyone that loves the way you do. Just be careful, for all our sakes.”

“I wouldn’t –”

“Hush. I’m not accusing you of something. Last night was the most scared I’ve ever been, so I’m not my best today. I’m worried.”

“What do we do, Almiron? We had one task, and it was beyond us.”

“Well, I reckon Aragorn ought to know, for starters.”

“I’ll go. It’s my failure. I’ll tell him.”

“It’s no failure, Halbarad.”

“I’ll tell him. And I’ll bring Maglor with me. So you won’t have to worry about that.”

Almiron shook his head, bushy eyebrows drawn together. “Hal, I don’t quite think you comprehend what I’m worried about. But it’s a good idea regardless. When will you go?”

“I hurt you,” Maglor said as Halbarad packed his gear.

He had gathered his things already and buckled on the false leg. Now he stood over Hal, waiting. He wasn’t wrong, but Hal suspected he was talking about the wrong hurt.

Halbarad’s campsite had been ridden over in the attack, and he kept hunting for things only to find them broken and strewn about the clearing. He held up a tunic, stiff with sand and with a hoofprint clear to see at the shoulder, little holes torn in it where the nails had caught. He sighed and shoved it into his pack.

“You did,” Halbarad said, “and now I don’t have a good tunic.” He fingered the edges of the hole, determined to make a jest of it, for to do anything else would break him. Maglor was staring at the skin beneath the tunic instead, at the cut.

“I meant to kill you.”

“Well, I’m terribly sorry to disappoint, then.”

“Stop mocking me.”

“If it troubles you so, then buy me a new tunic,” Halbarad said.

“I saw it,” said Maglor, his voice soft and sharp. “I saw myself strike you, and I saw the blood, I saw your hands - they just - they filled up with blood - like it was water.” He was holding up his own hands, palm up, and looking at them like he could not believe that they were clean. 

“Look here,” said Halbarad, frightened and sharp because of it. He pulled up his shirt. “It is barely a scrape, hardly even bled. I’ve done worse to myself with a bit of parchment. I chose a poor time to surprise you. That is all it is.”

Maglor stood and hefted his pack, “I will be your death, Halbarad. You are a fool to trust me, and I must be a madman to stay.”

“Then why are you still here?” asked Hal.

Maglor didn’t even look at him after that, just stalked off toward the road, leaving Halbarad to scramble after, cursing himself.

“What is it?” 

All day, Maglor had lagged behind, watchful, muttering. Halbarad had worried that he was walking too fast, but when he had stopped once to wait for Maglor to catch up, he too had stopped, staring at him from a few yards behind, until Halbarad had shrugged and gone on, just looking back occasionally to make sure he was still there at all.

This time, when Halbarad looked back, he saw him standing stock-still in the center of the road, face up as if sniffing the air.

“Nothing,” Maglor answered, voice oddly flat. “A dead deer, maybe.” 

“Keep up, then. I want to be in Bree by sundown tomorrow.”

Maglor didn’t answer, and Halbarad was grateful. He was angry somehow: at Maglor, at himself, angry in a way that surprised and shamed him, and it made him harsh, made him sharp, and that, in turn, only made him angrier and more ashamed of himself.

They walked long into the night, despite weariness, because walking was easier than facing another night of strained and weighty silence between them. 

Even terror and grief can only keep one afoot so long, and Halbarad couldn’t hide his weariness anymore, feet unsteady on the road. He’d already had several sleepless nights even before the attack, ruminating, recriminating, certain, once again, that he could fix things all alone if only he willed it hard enough. 

Bright summer stars were spreading out above and he stared up at them, almost surprised to see them as untouched as ever, shining with the same light that still glinted at the back of Maglor’s eyes. He stumbled, had hardly had the energy to keep lifting his feet above the low curly rushes that grew on the Greenway. When Maglor came up beside him and touched his elbow, Halbarad thought he must be dreaming the soft rough voice and the gentle hand.

“Come on,” Maglor said, “there is a nice place beneath those oaks, if you’re willing to risk my memory.”

“I don’t care if you lead me to a bed of nettles, as long as you let me sleep,” Halbarad muttered, but he followed Maglor through the thick brush at the roadside. As promised, the undergrowth soon cleared and he found a bed of moss and soft grass beneath gnarled old trees that looked as if they’d stood there for longer than many kingdoms.

“See?” said Maglor, with a grand gesture, “I’ll keep watch, if you can trust me. As penance.”

“And for what sins are you atoning?” asked Halbarad, already spreading out his cloak. He was too tired to contest the offer.

“There are too many to count,” said Maglor, shrugging off his pack. “Too many to ever make right. But I want you to know that I’m sorry for –” he took off his hat and hung it on a broken branch. “Well, take your pick, I suppose.”

Halbarad looked up at Maglor, standing above him tall and severe, crowned with oak leaves and stars, and thought that however hurt he might be, he’d never stop being grateful that Maglor had come back, had stayed.

“Do you think that it feels the same for us both, when we lose someone? Men and Elves, I mean.” It wasn’t the question he had meant to ask, but it was close enough.

If Maglor was bothered by the change of subject, he didn't show it. “Do you want me to speak for all my kindred, Halbarad?”

“No more than I can speak for all of mine. Speak for yourself. That’s all I ever ask.”

Maglor looked away as he spoke. “For many of my people, to lose one of our own isn’t permanent, or so they say. They -” and Halbarad did not miss the skepticism there, “They say that we may all return when - well, I don’t know when. When we are healed? When we are forgiven? Who gets to judge either one? I don’t think that I can go over the sea, and I do not know what awaits me beyond death. Does that make me more like a Man? To think of death as a final parting? To fear it as a lasting end?” He looked back at Halbarad. “I am very old, Halbarad, and I thought that I had already lost everyone that I might ever love when my last brother died.” His mouth twisted, his eyes bright. “Until I met you,” he said, “and now I –” he trailed off. “Fuck.”

Halbarad waited, not sure whether to pursue it or let it go, not sure whether Maglor would run away again, or if it was he who was too frightened to follow.

“Does it never become easier, then?”

“Oh, certainly,” Maglor said. “All you have to do is stop loving people.” There was something very old and very sad in his voice. “You aren’t like me. I’m not brave enough to love the way you do.”  

“Do you regret it?” he asked instead, and bunched up his cloak to tuck under his head.

Maglor didn’t answer. Perhaps it had been a foolish question. “I am sorry for your loss. For your friends.”

“They were your friends, too, or would have been if you permitted it,” Halbarad said.

“Maybe so,” said Maglor. 

Maglor woke him before dawn and Halbarad didn’t know whether or not he had slept at all, for he looked no more or less weary than he had the night before, eyes still deep sunk, reflecting light like coins from the bottom of a well. If they could keep their pace, they could reach Bree by nightfall. Whether they’d be able to rest there or not remained to be seen.

  They saw no one else on the road, neither passing them, nor coming up behind. It was not unusual, after all; grass overgrew the Greenway for a reason, but Halbarad still hadn’t quite let go of the horror of the attack and found himself looking over his shoulder every few steps, until he had a pain in his neck.

Maglor was even worse, and the silence of the road seemed to sharpen his fear until he could not contain it, and had to stop, ears cocked, shoulders tense, almost vibrating with watchfulness.

“Nothing is hunting us,” Halbarad had said, trying to convince himself as much as Maglor, and Maglor flinched as if from a blow, pulled up his hood, and shouldered past Halbarad.

Halbarad finally lost his patience after the third time that he had to pause, while Maglor left the road and climbed unsteadily atop a tumble of stones to watch the road, eyes narrowed.

“Blackbird, you are not what the Riders seek.”

  “Maybe not, but they found me, nonetheless.” Maglor stalked back down to the road. The false leg made his movements just a bit stiff. It put Halbarad in mind of a water bird picking its way through the shallows, dignified and awkward all at once. “Can you be sure that I did not lead them to you?”

  “Is this something you’ve remembered, or something you fear?”

 “It’s the only thing that makes sense,” said Maglor, fierce and certain.

 “Well, explain it to me, then. You love to tell me what a fool I am.” The wind was picking up, with the cool downdraft that signaled rain. He sighed and ran his hand through his hair.

 “I didn’t escape, Halbarad. They let me go.”

 “I know this. You told Elrond, and Elrond told me.”

 Maglor made a noise of disgust. “Of course. Everyone is so free with my secrets. Does that leave me anyone I can trust?”

 “Surely you can trust Elrond.”

 “Why? The Wizard sold me to Sauron, but who gave me to Saruman?” He sneered. “Don’t try to tell me to trust you. I know what I have and what I cannot, and you are everything that I wanted, so you cannot be real. If you were real, you wouldn’t forgive me.”

 “You won’t tell me what you think you’ve done.”

 “I don’t know what the Nazgul are hunting, and I can’t remember what we are guarding. But I know that they suddenly knew where to look. Who else could have told them?”

 “I don’t believe that you did.” Halbarad said.

 “You don’t know me,” said Maglor. He turned to Halbarad with a smile made frightening by how uneasily it sat on Maglor’s face. “You know what you are willing to see, you know what I’ve decided to show you. I am a liar, and I don’t know what I said to make you trust me, but it wasn’t true. Make no mistake. There is a reason that there are not many left as old as I. It’s not wisdom or skill, and it’s certainly not luck. I have sacrificed everything already to save myself, and you, your king, all these kind little people will be no exception. They aren’t done with me, Halbarad. I should have died there.”

 “Stop.”

 Halbarad grabbed at his elbow, not sure what he wanted, to stop Maglor, shake him, hold him, just reassure himself once again that he was truly here, alive, because he could not stop thinking of Aglaril, alone and unfound, somewhere in the river, on the shore, because he had only just managed to stop himself waking up every morning still certain that Maglor was dead, alone and unfound, somewhere in the south, and the mourning was different, but it echoed and he had never wanted so much to lay his himself down and weep. Maglor wrenched his arm out of Halbarad’s grasp, fear raw on his face. Halbarad put up his hands, something aching in his chest.

 “I’m sorry, Blackbird. We can’t – I can’t do this now, Blackbird.” He shifted his pack and walked on.

  Behind him, Maglor called out, “Oh, of course! Because we are honored errand boys of the king. How generous that he allows even me to serve him —“

  Halbarad stopped and turned. “Please, Maglor.”

  Maglor bit off whatever he was going to say next, clenched his jaw, and followed.

  There were clouds gathering in the west. It would be a wet and cheerless night.

Chapter Text

They reached Bree after sunset, not that it was easy to tell in the downpour. Rain had come in over the afternoon, darkening the sky early. Even without delays, they would not have beaten the weather and Halbarad, who was feeling both childishly attached to his anger and guilty about it, was relieved that he couldn’t find another thing to blame Maglor for.

“Where’re ye coming from, then?” asked Harry, picking at his teeth. He’d just finished dinner and Hal had smelled meat and bread when he’d open the gatehouse window.

“Away south, down by the ford.”

“Ain’t nothing down that way,” said Harry.

“That’s why we left,” replied Halbarad. 

It had been a lost cause from the first. Harry didn’t much like the rangers at the best of times, and if he would’ve maybe stirred himself to open up the gate on a clear night, he certainly wouldn’t bother now, not for them, not with the rain coming down like it was, not when he was warm and fed.

“Where’re ye heading?” 

“We’re taking the road east.”

“So ye won’t be staying in Bree, then?”

Hal gritted his teeth. “Just the night.”

“Ye and yer…friend, back there. I didn’t mind much when they said he went missing, ye know. He ain’t our kind o’ folk.” Harry said this as if Maglor weren’t right there to hear it, but Hal saw him watching for a reaction. “Why don’t he talk to me?”

Hal darted a glance over his shoulder. Maglor had been watching the road behind them, and Halbarad would have thought he wasn’t listening, if he hadn’t spoken up. 

“What did they promise you, Gateman?” 

That got Harry’s attention. “Who?”

“You know. You smell of them . Of rot and fire and creeping things that should stay buried.” Maglor’s voice was as deep and cold as a grave. “ They have trained the Eye on you and there will be no escaping it, no hiding, never again, not though you should beg him for release. They are his hands in the world, and They will gather you up, bring you to him, and you will be his forever.” He turned to the window of the lodge, and Harry took a step back as Maglor leaned close to the little grate and thrust his face before Harry’s, his scars livid in the lamplight. “I should know.”

Harry slammed the shutter down.

“Well,” said Halbarad, after a moment. “He definitely won’t let us in after that.”

“He wasn’t going to anyway,” said Maglor. “Come on.”

Halbarad followed him around the edge of the village to the south. After a while they came to a place with a few logs laid across the ditch and where the hedge gave way to a high fence with a sturdy gate in it. Here Maglor stopped and leaned against the wall where he pulled up his tunic and started working at the straps that secured his leg.

“What are you doing?”

“Can’t climb with it,” said Maglor, pulling it free of his thigh and passing the leg to Halbarad with no more explanation. Then he leapt up and caught hold of the top of the wall, scrambling up as light as a squirrel. Halbarad was stunned that he had somehow forgotten the way Maglor moved, transfixed by the flash of a smile as Maglor perched atop the gate and reached down. Halbarad offered his hand without thinking. “The leg,” Maglor hissed, “Bulls come through the gate.”

Halbarad passed it up and winced as Maglor dropped it over the side and disappeared. After a moment the gate opened a crack and Halbarad slipped inside as quickly as he could, obedient when Maglor motioned him to silence. Inside was a pen, churned up to mud with a few sad looking trees dotting it. The inhabitants were mostly sheep, huddled under the trees, barely distinguishable as soggy humps of grey wool in the dark. Of greater concern were the geese, staring at the intruders with murder in their hearts.

“Maybe we should go back,” said Halbarad.

“No,” said Maglor. “I don't know about you, “but I want to sleep in a bed tonight, with a wall between me and the dark. Stay out here, if you’d rather.”

That was a lie. Maglor could barely stand to sleep indoors at the best of times, and it had only gotten worse since his imprisonment. He had told Halbarad so, before they had forgotten how to talk to each other. Halbarad blinked the rain out of his eyes and looked at him. “Do you really?”

Maglor looked at him with rain streaming down from the brim of his hat, his ribbons and feathers all damp and bedraggled. “Of course not, but I thought you might. What I do want is a fire and far too much to drink, and if you let me at least keep the windows open, I can accept the rest.”

One of the geese hissed.

“Oh shut up,” said Maglor. Then he started to hum. It was a strange tuneless song, and when Halbarad tried to pay attention to it, he found that he couldn’t, that it was slippery somehow and stopped him from thinking of much of anything for too long. He shook his head to clear it, and when Maglor saw him, he grinned.

They trespassed their way through a series of outbuildings and over another fence, and eventually back to the road, escorted by a frighteningly docile flock of geese and an amiable donkey. Halbarad couldn’t help but laugh as they ducked beneath a portico and back onto the public street.

Outside the Prancing Pony, they stopped beneath the eaves to try to shake some of the rain from their cloaks and count up their coins. Their ill luck held true, for they did not have near enough for a room, not without Maglor’s songs. Halbarad hated to ask. He wouldn’t ask, no matter how angry he still was, but Maglor just shrugged and tried to squeeze some of the water out of his hair, by now long enough to flop tangled into his face. They could hear the murmur of a crowd even over the rain. Bad weather always filled the inn.

“I hope you weren’t craving a quiet evening,” Maglor commented as he reached for the door. 

Before he could touch the knob, a group of Bree-land hobbits tumbled out into the night, complaining loudly about the weather, paying the two of them no mind, even as Maglor stumbled back against Halbarad.

“Ah, sorry,” said Maglor, and Halbarad wanted to grab him, to hold him still and close, and tell him that he was the one who was sorry, but he didn’t move fast enough to catch Maglor, who had pushed himself away from Halbarad as if his touch burned, squared his shoulders, and opened the door.

Within, it was exactly as noisy and crowded as Halbarad had feared. Maglor was already making his way over to Barliman, half hidden behind a tray full of dirty mugs. The innkeeper was happy enough to see him, especially once the local crowd spotted him. A little cheer broke out for the Bree-land Blackbird. There were no empty seats, but someone found a stool and planted it atop a table.

Maglor climbed stiffly to his perch with a grand wave and Halbarad wondered if everyone could see how false it all was, wondered how often he himself had been taken in by the act. Maglor peeled the lute from its oilcloth and began to tune it as someone passed up a tankard of ale. He made a joke that Halbarad was too far away to hear, and someone laughed while Halbarad looked on, envious, willing Maglor to look at him, to see him watching, to understand all the things he didn’t know how to say to him. Maglor lifted his tankard and drank, deeply, desperately, and when his gaze crossed Halbarad’s, it held, and Hal could feel the pain in it, echo to his own, the great snarled knot of unspoken words pulling ever tighter. Maglor grinned then, bright and false, and leaned down to drift a knuckle along a pretty girl’s jaw, laughing when her cheeks went pink.

Halbarad turned away. 

He found Aragorn in his usual corner, eyes narrowed as he watched Maglor.

“Interesting performance tonight,” he said as Halbarad approached.

“I suppose,” said Halbarad, who didn’t have much heart for it.

“What happened?” he asked, moving his feet from the chair he’d had them propped on so that Halbarad could sit. “You’re wounded.”

“It’s nothing.” Halbarad looked around quickly and leaned his elbows on the table, wanting to be fast about it, but dreading the consequences at the same time. “The Nine are here. In the Shire.” He took a breath. “They came on us at Sarn Ford two nights ago. We couldn’t stand against them.” It was the sort of news that never grew easier to tell. “They crossed the river. We lost Aglaril and Eradan. I thought – it doesn’t matter what I thought.”

Aragorn’s face gave nothing away, still as if he was carved from wood.

“How many?” he asked.

“Fear and darkness may have fooled me, but I think I counted all nine. At least four of them crossed the Brandywine. The rest chased us back to the Greenway. Almiron and the others are spreading word. We came to warn you.” He lowered his voice, even though no one was paying them any mind beneath the spell of the music. “Have you had any news at all? Of the hobbit? Of Gandalf?”

“Nothing.” Aragorn rubbed the place between his eyebrows. “From what he told me, the hobbit should have left already. But, then, he also expected to have returned to travel with him. If one plan has changed, maybe the other did as well.” The song came to an end and a cheer went up around them. “It could be that Gandalf has come back and spirited him away without leaving word. It could be that Frodo left as scheduled, with or without Gandalf –”

“In which case, he’s on the road without help.”

“Or it may be that he didn’t leave, and is sitting in Bag End right now waiting for Nazgul to come knocking.”

“None of those sound very hopeful,” said Halbarad.

“Gandalf vouches for the sensible nature of Bilbo’s nephew. My hope is that he had the good sense not to take the road out of town.” He looked closely at Halbarad again and gestured at his torn tunic. “And what of you?”

“It’s nothing,” said Halbarad again. “He,” Halbarad nodded toward Maglor, “tried to stand and fight. It took some doing to dissuade him.”

“It’s not the worst harm you’ve taken in the last few days, I surmise,” said Aragorn, and Halbarad was ready for blame, but far too weary for gentleness.

“I’m sorry.”

“For being wounded?”

“You gave me a task and I failed.” He swallowed around tears that would choke him if he let them.

“Did you think that a handful of rangers would triumph over all the Nine, Hal? If there’s fault, it’s with me for setting you an impossible task.”

“Aglaril was my friend. For a long time.” His throat closed up when he thought about saying more.

“I know.”

“And Eradan - he was so young. Ciryon will have to tell his sister. I should not have left that for him.” He shook himself. If he went on with the self recrimination, Aragorn would only be kinder, and he did not think he could bear that now. “What will you do?” he asked instead.

“I think I must try to find him. If Gandalf is indeed missing, the hobbit will need a guide to the house of Elrond. I’ll watch the lands nearby. Even if he’s traveling secretly, there is a good chance he’ll make for the Pony, hoping for word of Gandalf, or to leave him a message, if nothing else.” He sat back, thoughtful. “Can I beg another favor of you?”

“Always,” said Halbarad.

“Careful, Hal. One day I’ll ask too much of you.”

Halbarad shook his head. “I’d do it anyway.”

“I need someone to go to Rivendell. Tell them that Gandalf did not come to the Shire. Tell them the Nine are abroad. If I can find Bilbo’s heir, I’ll hide him as far as I’m able, but if the Riders find us, I will be no more able to protect him than you were. There are those in Rivendell who can stand against them.”

“We can leave at dawn.”

“Maybe not quite so early.” Aragorn glanced from him to Maglor, who had paused between one song and the next, caught in a moment of inaction, his shoulders hunched, head low. “He looks - hm. You aren’t the only one who is weary, I think.” Halbarad looked as well. Maglor had lost flesh again, grown more unkempt. The things he’s stolen from Glorfindel sagged loose about his shoulders, their once fine colors stained. How long it had been since he’d seen Maglor pick up any of his magpie trinkets?

Halbarad’s stomach felt cold and hollow. He hadn’t noticed.

Aragorn was watching him. “Rest tonight, Halbarad. We’ll see little enough of it in the days to come.” He leaned back and looked up at the smoke stained rafters of the common room. “Do you know Eradan’s sister?”

“Not well.” Halbarad stirred himself from his distraction. “She was a little blond thing, last I saw her, but that’s been ten years ago now. Ciryon is bringing word to his family. Almiron is going to Aglaril’s mother.”

“That’s right, her father died when she was young. I’d forgotten that.”

“Yes. It happens too often.”

“It’s a hard thing for a child, growing up without a father,” Aragorn remarked.

Halbarad supposed they should both know about that, each in their own way. Aragorn had been too young to know his father, and had amassed a great collection of surrogates in his place. Halbarad had been older when his father had stopped recognizing him. Aragorn missed what could have been, while Halbarad knew exactly what he had lost. They were different wounds, and different marks, but they all hurt just the same.

Aragorn frowned into his mug. “I think I’d like another. Have a drink with me?”

Chapter Text

The Pony was packed that night, and Halbarad half expected to find himself in the hayloft again, but Nob led him to a ground floor room with an apologetic shrug. It was one of the hobbit rooms, with round windows and ceilings low enough that while Halbarad didn’t exactly have to duck, he felt as if he should. Maglor was going to hate it.

“I’ll be sending ye some dinner back with the Blackbird,” said Nob.

“Ah, you know –”

Nob gave him a wink. “It ain’t on yer account, sir, but I reckon the he’ll not mind ye sharing his own.”

“He arranged it?”

Nob shook his head, tipping back on his heels to look up at Hal. “Nae, that one’s not so reasonable as to look out for his meals. Sal, in the kitchen, wanted to send him a thank ye.”

Bemused, Hal nodded. “Send my thanks in return, then.”

The hobbit bustled off and left Halbarad alone in the stuffy little room.

The rain had started to let up and the windows faced leeward, so Hal opened them up. It was still blowing, though, sneaking in to buffet the flame in the lamp and to fill the room with dancing shadows. With it came sounds from the common room across the courtyard, mixing with the rain-patter. Maglor was still playing. He’d be at it for another hour at least. Maybe Halbarad should have stayed to listen, but Aragorn had caught him drooping into his ale and had insisted that he go rest.

He sat down at the table and tugged off his sodden boots, dried mud flaking off and dirtying the floor. His stockings were wet through and they left wrinkles pressed into his skin when he pulled them off. He flexed his feet and examined them in the lamplight; his toes were pale and smelly as a fish-belly, the bones knobbly, copper hair curling on the knuckles. He’d gotten a blister on his ankle, big and shiny swollen from walking in the wet. He poked it, then stood to hobble to his pack where he thought he had some clean rags and a bit of ointment from Rivendell.

His knife was at his belt, right where it should be, right where it had stayed, ever since Maglor had left for Lothlorien more than two years ago, something else that had changed without Halbarad noticing. He wet one of the scraps of cloth with water from the washbasin and returned to the stool. He stuck the sharp tip of the knife in at the side of the blister and slid it out, watching the fluid well up in a shiny drop before he wiped it away. He smeared a bit of the ointment over it, pungent and green smelling, then wiped off his knife.

Maglor had made the knife for him, or remade it, rather. When he’d stolen it from Hal it had been a wretch of a thing, the blade nicked, the tang loose in the handle. Maglor had reworked it in secret at the forge in Archet. Halbarad had never learned anything of smithcraft. That was work for people more settled than the Dunedain had become, but Maglor had sworn that what he had done was not so special, that it was merely his own knife again, just fixed, even though it was given back to him sharp as a whisper and fit perfectly to his hand.

He tilted it in the lamplight, to watch the flames run bright along the blade, picking up the pattern where the metal had been folded upon itself, making the leather of the grip, now seasoned with the touch of Halbarad’s hand, glow warm and rich. They’d barely been friends when Maglor had made it and at the time it had seemed like too much. Now Maglor could not remember it, and Halbarad could not forget.

There was a cheer from the common room, and voices lifting together in a familiar song. They were mortal voices, though, loud and imperfect. He strained to hear Maglor’s among them, listening for the strange resonance and faint uncanniness that he still dreamed about, even though Maglor hadn’t sung for him since before he went to Mordor, and maybe never would again. Was it terrible of Halbarad to grieve that loss, when Maglor was still here and alive?

He opened his pack and laid out all of the damp things, washed up as best he could in the basin, and then wrapped himself in a blanket to dry, watching the fitful light dance on the walls.

And Maglor?

Maglor had been scraped bloody by the last few days, when he was already raw from the days before those. He had only just begun to believe that the world around him was real, that he could sleep and not risk waking up someone else, in that tower that stank of drowning. He had almost thought that he was free, that he could one day be healed. The Riders had found him, had risen from the night with rot and death and cold flame that made his throat burn with choking, and stolen away everything that he was trying so hard to believe in.

“ Come back ,” they had said. “ Come home. You are ours.”

Halbarad didn’t know because Halbarad couldn't hear them. Halbarad couldn’t hear Him, couldn’t feel His voice buzzing in his very bones, couldn’t feel the mark of Him everywhere on him, everywhere in him. Maglor knew there was no part of himself that was clean, no place that was not tainted, and he knew that it was only a matter of time before the seeds of the rot, planted in that darkness, would take root and flourish inside, before the corruption bloomed.

He’d played that night, though, played like he was still a thing that deserved to touch a song, and he didn’t understand how it was possible, how he knew songs that he didn’t remember writing, how his fingers could find the notes, how the words rose up inside of him only to die in his throat. He’d almost wanted to sing for these strangers. He didn’t know why Halbarad didn’t jump up, grab the lute from his hands and curse him. Aglaril was his friend. She’d been sharp and brilliant. He couldn’t sing for her, not even when she was gone, and when it was his fault that she died, he couldn’t give her even that small honor.

He let the lute fall silent and climbed down from the table. Halbarad was gone, off to bed like the wise man he was. Maglor swayed. He was drunk, but not drunk enough. He wanted wine enough to drown in.

The night was wearing on and the more respectable folk had gone back to their rooms. The ones who were left had crowded around the barrels, calling for one more ale, one more wine before the drinks were put away and all of them shooed off to whatever beds they could find.

Beside him was a woman, with pretty red-brown curls and pale blue eyes, like ice in the sun or the heart of a fire. She bumped him with her round hip, and then looked at him and smiled.

“Ay, Master Blackbird,” called Nob over the heads of the little crowd. “We’ve saved a bit o’ pie for ye and Hal.”

Maglor waved his acknowledgment and turned back to the woman. She was really very pretty, her dress the color of the wine that stained her lips. She smiled up at him and leaned close.

“Well?” she said, like she’d been waiting for him to speak, like she knew exactly what he was thinking.

“I have someone,” he said, but he didn’t move away.

“Doesn’t have to mean anything,” she said, letting her breasts press soft against his arm. “Just a tumble. Friendly, like.”

He leaned down, lips close to hers. Her breath smelled like wine, like he could drown in it. “I’ve no coin,” he said.

“Shame,” she said, her voice vibrating in his bones, and Maglor didn’t think she was so pretty after all, with her voice that buzzed like a million wasps and her eyes burning cold, “I’d have made it nice for you.”

There was a trunk in his mind, locked and stuffed in a cellar, and it was full of armor that stank of a battlefield, and memories better forgotten, and all the choices he’d failed to make because he was too afraid.

He bent and kissed her and the wine-taste filled his nose, and it was the scent of fruit rotting in the sun, skins discolored and bursting, like carrion on the ground, guts sticky and sweet and red, the buzzards circling, his mouth full of the same wine-sweet rot just as it had been when he’d first taken a knife to the things he loved and cut a piece of himself away, his thighs sticky, sickness roiling in his belly, and a copper coin still braided onto a length of dark hair, cut off ragged and thrown on the ground. 

‘You left something behind when you came here,’ Sauron had said.

The truth was that he had left it behind before that, hadn’t he? He remembered all of it now, and it felt like a betrayal even though he couldn’t remember who he was betraying or why it mattered. 

He reeled back, knocking into the man behind him.

“I’m sorry,” he said, choking, not sure who he was addressing: the man, the woman, himself. 

He looked around for the woman, to say he was sorry, to make her explain, but she was gone and the only people around him were men, the disreputable sorts of folk who stayed late in the common room because they couldn’t if they didn’t drink themselves into a stupor, the sorts of folk who would meet an insult with violence.

Folk like him.

Maglor turned to face the man he’d jostled.

“Watch yourself,” said the man. He wasn’t someone Maglor had seen before, just another traveler passing through. He was big, with broad shoulders and a thick neck. His nose had been broken and his eyes were small and hard as stones. He looked at Maglor like he was trying to weigh the pleasure of punching him against the price of finding another place to sleep. 

Maglor had never met this man, and yet he knew him. He knew how to push a man like this, knew what would happen if he did. He had known men who would kill another over the smallest of insults and then sleep soundly. He knew men who would look at someone desperate and set the highest price they could manage. Most importantly, this man was definitely there, and definitely himself, and he would not speak to Maglor with a voice that stung and buzzed and crawled or reach for him with hands burnt to bone. He might try to murder Maglor, but that was only fair, because Maglor was a murderer too.

Maglor let his lips stretch wide, grinning with all of his teeth. He put his hands on the man’s chest and gave him a pat.

“Oh,” said Maglor, “it’s you!”

The man looked at him with all the affection one would give a steaming pile of pig shit.

“Don’t touch me, you prancing catamite.”

“Oh, you don’t understand,” he simpered, leaning close. “I’ve been looking for you all night.” he stepped back and hooked his thumbs in his belt, leaning back to look down at the man. “I was wondering what that stench was. I’ve known corpses that smell fresher than you, friend.”

The blow, when it came, was solid and Maglor didn’t duck it. It landed on his jaw and knocked him into the table behind him, knocking over beers. Someone shouted right in his ear and Maglor shook his head to clear it. 

“We could stop there,” the man suggested, rubbing his knuckles. He put his hand on his belt, just beside a long hunting knife.  “Don’t need any more scars, do you?” 

Spilled beer was soaking cold through his trousers. Maglor groped for one of the mugs, still smiling around a mouthful of blood. He threw it, deliberately missing the man’s head and shattering on the wall behind him. The man turned to look, bemused.

“You’re a madman –” was all he managed before Maglor pushed himself off the table and lunged for him.

Chapter Text

Halbarad was half dreaming when the door flew open, bouncing off the wall with a bang. He squinted at the figures in the door, faintly backlit by the light in the corridor.

“Ara – Strider?”

“Keep him here, Hal,” Aragorn said. 

He had Maglor with him, his hand gripping the back of Maglor’s neck, holding on tight. Maglor managed to look both furious and wretched all at once, a bit like a wet cat. Aragorn just looked disappointed. Halbarad would have shriveled up and blown away if he’d been the recipient of that look.

“It wasn’t as bad as it could have been,” he said, as Maglor shook off his hand and stalked into the room, “by which I mean no one died and no one local was involved, but I’d suggest you leave early after all.” 

“What-”

“See if you can get him to explain himself, Hal,” said Aragorn. “I’m not having any luck, and I don’t care to keep trying.” He closed the door with a bit more force than was really necessary.

“What happened to your mouth?” Halbarad asked, when they were alone again.

“A mistake,” said Maglor. He limped over to the little round window and leaned on the sill, swaying.

“Are you drunk?” he asked.

“Not drunk enough,” said Maglor.

“Drunk enough to start fights?”

“Who says I started it?” said Maglor.

Halbarad sighed and got up from the table, wrapping the blanket tighter. “There’s water if you want to wash up. I’m going to bed.”

“Halbarad –”

Hal looked over at Maglor, his face shadowed, eyes catching the lamp like sparks. 

“I was supposed to bring a pie.”

“It’s alright.” Hal sat down on the edge of the bed. “I’m too tired to have enjoyed it.”

Maglor dragged a chair over to the window and sat down, head tilted so he could see the sky. The clouds had broken up, revealing the moon in bright little puddles. Halbarad fell asleep like that, watching him watch the sky.

Maglor dreams of water again, dark and warm as blood. A sky stretches starless above, and bones of some great animal stand stark out of the sea, swarmed with seabirds, chattering raucously, fouling the great spine on which they roost. Lightning flashes beneath the waves, and the voice of the birds is as one, and they call him by all of his names.

His brother is there, and his breath whistles in his chest when he speaks, the hunter’s eyes all that Maglor can see of him.

“Were you sweet?” he asks.

“You left me,” Maglor says. “All of you.”

“Because you wished it,” says Celegorm, and he dips his head below the water.

There is something alive in it. Maglor can feel things moving about his feet, twining sinuously about his legs. The water is up to his thighs now. Celegorm hasn’t come back up and Maglor wonders why he isn’t afraid.

There are walls in the bones now. Maglor finds a gate in one, and goes through, to a basement, with a trunk that smells of battle, and a man who says it will be easy, nice, good, and he touches him everywhere, calls him beautiful while he fucks his mouth to silence.

Maglor woke with the taste of a shout on his lips, unsure if he had made a sound, wet between his legs. Halbarad was on the bed facing away from him, huddled on the edge, as if leaving him space. His breath was slow, sound asleep. Maglor curled up close, his face against Halbarad’s broad back, and let himself weep.

In the morning, they pulled on their damp things and left the inn in silence. 

The rain had left cool, fair weather behind it, smelling of woodsmoke and damp leaves. Bright-jeweled dew festooned the grass and low weeds beside the road and Halbarad’s breath steamed faintly in the morning air as they left the village. When they stepped into the low grass beside the road to let a wain pass, they left dark green footsteps to mark their path. 

It suited Halbarad’s mood in a strange sort of way. The anger he’d felt the previous night had drained away with the rain, taking with it the edgy fear that had kept him moving for the last few days. In their place was a weariness and a yawning sort of grief, hollow and quiet. 

Maglor was quiet, too, seemingly lost in thought as they walked, and Halbarad wasn’t certain how to reach across the chasm that stretched between them, or whether he should even try.

The limp that Halbarad had noticed the night before had not gone away, but Maglor said nothing, face drawn tight with pain. 

“Do you need a rest?” Halbarad asked, coming up beside him.

“No. I can go on.” Maglor took a long time to answer, as if he had to come back from somewhere far away and when he looked at Halbarad, it was as if he saw someone else.

Halbarad frowned. “I think I’d like a bite to eat,” he said. “Let’s stop at those stones up ahead.”

When they reached the stones, Halbarad unshouldered his pack with a sigh. Maglor dropped his own and sat heavily, eyes closed, hands clenched upon his knees.

“Teach me a song,” he said, his voice soft and harsh. 

Startled, Halbarad searched his memory, but all he could dredge up was the sad ones.

“You should have asked Almiron,” said Halbarad, surprised when anger flared back to life in his chest. “He knows more of them than I do.”

“I know, Halbarad,” said Maglor, his voice raw. “Please.”

Maglor could have had all the songs he wanted, standing with them back there by the Ford, when the rest of them had sung for Aglaril, he reminded himself. Hal wanted to hang onto his anger, to cradle it close, but he’d never been good at that sort of thing, not when Maglor had asked him for something, not when it had so obviously pained him to need something.

So Halbarad sang a song his mother might have sung before she passed, the one he’d always thought of as her favorite. It had been a sad song to sing to a child, all about death and departing, but maybe it was just that most of their songs were like that. It wasn’t the best choice, in any case, for the parts diverged and went their own ways, while Halbarad only knew the melody, and that only sketchily. 

“Again,” Maglor said, when he was finished.

So he began again, and when he reached the end, he went back to the beginning without being told, and Maglor didn’t stop him, tuneless and unlovely though his singing had always been. He kept going, until Maglor’s breath eased, and the song faded off into the grass and the breeze and the warmth of the day.

“I’m sorry,” Maglor said.

“I, too,” said Halbarad.

They shared a small meal and then Halbarad stretched out in a patch of sunlight.

“Half an hour, only,” he said.

Maglor nodded, and picked up the lute.

Hal dozed off to the sounds of a song his mother had loved.

More days followed, and they faded one into the next, Halbarad walking behind Maglor, both of them watchful of the land around them, the road before and behind. Halbarad also watched Maglor as if he wouldn’t notice, like the weight of his pity wasn’t already dragging at Maglor’s every step. It would have been so much easier if Halbarad hated him.

They risked Weathertop and Halbarad trapped a couple of squirrels for their dinner while Maglor made a fire.

“There,” he said, when they were in the pot with some wild onions and sour apples, and a precious pinch of pepper, “that will be more filling than we’ve had in a bit.” They’d been rushing, making their meals as they walked, handfuls of hazelnuts, strips of salt pork, and yet more apples. Maglor passed most of his back to Halbarad.

Maglor had nothing to do but watch Halbarad as he cleaned the squirrels, while he sat huddled into his cloak, shoulders hunched, and something in him drew tighter and tighter, like a harp string about to snap. 

Halbarad hung the pot over the fire and came to sit beside Maglor, carefully, certain not to be too close, like Maglor would break if he touched him.

“What is it?” Halbarad wanted to talk to him, but the only words Maglor had would make things worse.

He had found a piece of himself in Bree, a discarded part of who he had been, had learned the truth that, no matter Halbarad and everyone had told him, he was the same faithless craven he had always been. He remembered a man in Gondor, remembered the deal he’d made and how useless it had been. He remembered things he hadn’t known then, not with the speaking part of his mind, but somewhere deep and frightened beyond words. 

He hadn’t planned to return.

“Blackbird -” Halbarad said, and Maglor couldn’t bear to hear it.

He stopped Halbarad’s lips with his own. He would offer pity and concern and Maglor did not want it, did not deserve it, did not need it. There was nothing hurting Maglor that he had not done to himself, after all. 

Their breath was hot between them, and Halbarad was open beneath his mouth, gasping into the cool night air. Maglor could feel him shaking, his hands trapped between them, careful fists like he was afraid to touch Maglor. He was going to be gentle, because that was who Halbarad was, and Maglor couldn’t abide it. He could not prove himself against gentleness. Kindness could not make him feel the way he deserved to feel. 

“Not like this,” said Halbarad.

Maglor took a shuddering breath and stopped.

Halbarad was still, breathing against his cheek.

“Thank you,” he said, voice soft and rough.

A sound escaped Maglor, half laugh, half sob. Halbarad didn’t know how little he had to thank him for. “There was a man.” He sat back and watched Halbarad. “In Gondor.”

“When you went away?”

“Yes.”

“I assume there are many men in Gondor,” said Halbarad gently. “I’m guessing you mean to tell me about something you did with this man.”

“I sucked his cock. He fucked me.” It was as if someone else was speaking. He wished instead that it felt like something someone else had done. “See? You were right. I’m beginning to remember.”

Halbarad frowned. “I’d like to know more, I think.”

Maglor didn’t want to tell him about it, didn’t want to show him this wound, old but badly healed, festering below the flesh. 

“It was good,” Maglor said. He made himself smile, tilted his head so the firelight would catch his eyes. He wasn’t beautiful anymore, but sometimes it helped to pretend. “A relief. I was free of you –” he floundered. He’d been so good at this once, he’d known how to cut straight to the bleeding heart of things, how to hurt someone enough they’d want nothing more from him. He couldn’t remember enough of Halbarad to lie, and so the truth would have to serve. “Did you think that someone like me could love someone like you? You’re a sentimental, hopeful fool if you believe anything I ever said to you.”

Halbarad laughed and Maglor felt naked, like those kind green eyes had seen straight through every bit of armor he had. Had he always been able to do that?

“Try that again, if you really want me to believe it,” he said. 

So, while their dinner simmered cheerfully on the fire, Maglor told him, of Gondor, and the Buzzard, and what he had bought and how he’d bought it. 

"Did you want it?” Halbarad asked.

“I must have,” said Maglor. “I let him.”

Halbarad stood and went to stir the stew, groaning as his knees crackled.

“That isn’t the same,” he said, his back to Maglor. “I worry that you don’t know that.”

“I could have -”

“What? Fought him? I don’t doubt it. Killed him? Of course. I do know who you are.” He came and sat beside Maglor again. “You believed that you needed this disguise, yes?”

“I didn’t. It certainly didn’t help.”

“Yes, but you didn’t know that.” He sighed and rubbed his eyes. “Listen. If you had something, and someone came to you, desperate and frightened -”

“I wasn’t -”

“Hush. I’m not talking about you, remember? But if someone came to you: would this be the price you would ask?”

“You want me to call it rape. Does that make you feel better?”

“I don’t want you to call it anything in particular. I want you to understand that this man chose this price because he saw that you couldn’t refuse. There are many ways to force someone.”

Maglor was choking on the memory, throat full of the taste of wine and bitter seed. “I wasn’t forced. They say that an elf who is forced will die, that the violation upon their spirit is so grave that they cannot survive such a thing.” He gestured at himself. “Apparently I still live.”

“ They say many things. That doesn’t make them all true,” said Halbarad.

“Don’t,” he spat. “It wasn’t – that.”

Halbarad nodded. “I'm not a jealous man. If you had sought comfort on your journey, I wouldn't begrudge it. That isn't what this was, and I think you must know that. Did he hurt you?”

“He didn’t have to. Haven’t you been listening?” Maglor wrapped his arms around himself.  

“Why do you deserve to hurt?” Halbarad asked.

“I don’t remember you. I don’t know what we had before that.” He had to look away. “I meant to die, Halbarad. I thought it would be easier, better, if there wasn’t anything left. I gave you up, yes, but it should have hurt me worse to do it.”

Halbarad cleared his throat. “If I may – you don’t seem like a man who hasn’t been hurt.”

“I – I can’t –” There was something in his throat, choking the words before he could say them.

“We have time,” said Halbarad softly. “We don’t have to say everything all at once.” He put his hands on his knees and stood. “I think supper is ready.”

“You aren’t angry,” Maglor said.

Halbarad looked down at him, face in shadow, firelight behind him. “You’re wrong about that,” he said, holding out a hand.

Maglor took it, and let Halbarad haul him to his feet.

“Look at me,” he said. “Am I a liar?”

“I don’t need to,” said Maglor, but he looked anyway, at that face that was plain and open, eyes green as grass on a rainy day, sunburn peeling across a broken nose, bushy copper beard. He looked and let himself see what was there: worry and the exhaustion, grief and frustration, but not disgust, not pity. “I know that you aren’t. And you know that I am.”

Halbarad nodded. “Then you have to believe me when I say that I don’t mind your lies.” He smiled like a hunter who had laid a perfect snare. “I am angry, Blackbird. Violently, killing angry. But I’m not lying when I tell you that the people I’m angry at aren’t here.”

“I —” Oh, and his voice had turned traitor again, a howl trying to climb up his throat. He put his hand over his mouth to hold it in. He was going to fly apart at any moment, shatter into bits, melt like ice and soak into the ground.

Halbarad’s face softened and he reached for Maglor, stopping himself to ask, “Can I?”

Maglor couldn’t speak, but he nodded. Halbarad wrapped him up in his long arms and let him bury his face against his neck. He was still holding himself together, hand at his mouth, the other one wrapped around his belly, but Halbarad was holding him, too, keeping any of the broken pieces from getting lost. How could something he couldn’t remember feel so much like home? He took the hand from his mouth and put it around Habarad’s back, feeling the hitching of his breathing.

“Why are you crying?” He asked against the scratchy wool of Halbarad’s tunic.

“I’m not,” said Halbarad, voice rough and sweet against his hair. 

“Liar,” said Maglor.

Chapter Text

In the morning they cached some wood for whoever would camp there next, and went on as soon as it was light, following the familiar road east. 

While their talk the night before had untangled some of the knot of things that lay between them they both remained uneasy, brooding over their worries. Halbarad kept spotting things that he wanted to tell Aglaril about when next he saw her, the reality of her loss always catching up with him a moment too late.

Maglor’s moods were harder to read, for he’d been very quiet, almost audibly chewing over the memory he had found. Halbarad had wondered if he should say something, intervene somehow between Maglor and his guilt. He had tried to ask, but Maglor had just shaken his head. 

Conscious of the need for whatever speed they could muster, of the danger that might stalk the friends on the road behind, they paused little and walked late into the night.

They were cautious with each other, Halbarad noticed, trying to keep each other in sight, not moving toward each other too fast, distant, but not too far; close, but not touching. Halbarad thought that it should have been maddening, but it was oddly pleasant, a sensation of finally building something entirely new rather than mourning the forgotten thing they’d had before.

One night, Halbarad woke to find Maglor holding him tight and whispering into his hair.

“What is it?”

“It was a dream,” was all that Maglor said and when Halbarad reached up to touch Maglor’s cheeks, he found them wet. 

Hal didn’t think to ask whose.

A few days later, they reached the Last Bridge in good time, but in poor spirits. 

Maglor’s mood had gone strange, and he seemed barely to notice Halbarad beside him, turned inward and muttering beneath his breath. Halbarad only caught a few words, for he was speaking the old tongue of the elves in his own strangely accented way. The little he understood did not sound cheerful. 

The very air felt strange, pleasant sunniness like a mask over some deep unease. It took Halbarad a moment to realize that the land about them had gone silent. No bird winged through the sky above, no squirrel scolded them from the trees. Their steps drummed loud upon the road and Maglor’s whispers were like a rising wind in his ears. When they stopped, his heart hammered too loudly and he couldn’t hear anything over its sound.

“We should leave the road,” said Halbarad, barely able to raise his voice over a whisper. He stayed, rooted to the spot, his breaths coming short and shallow. Why could he not move? The sun was hot on his forehead, but he felt cold, right down to his guts, like he was dying, like he was already dead.

“Halbarad, can you see me?” Maglor’s face was before him, eyes urgent as flame. 

Halbarad swallowed and nodded.

“Follow, then,” he said.

Hal did, not allowing himself to look anywhere but at Maglor as they fled the road, skipping into a fetid, nettle-ringed ditch, their burning stings on his hands recalling him to himself. He rubbed them together as they crouched, knee deep in the mud and weeds, watching the road. 

It was only two of the Riders, but they came through like a gale and passed eastward on the road.

“That’s good,” said Maglor, when the rat-tat-tat of a woodpecker released the woods from the spell. His hands were shaking, but his words were steady, almost casual.

“Is it?” said Hal.

“They are still hunting. If they found what they wanted, they’d be rushing south, not tarrying on this stretch of the road. We should stay out of sight. They’ll have to turn back soon and we don’t want to meet them.” He gave Hal a sideways look. “Are you well?”

“Let me breathe for a moment. By the One, they’re almost worse by daylight!” He wanted to laugh suddenly, fear leaving his body in a great rush. He let himself flop onto the slope, finding a patch of briar for his troubles. “And you? I don’t think I could have moved if you hadn’t roused me, but you seem,” he cast about for any word that wouldn’t sound surprised, “unaffected.”

Maglor offered a grim smile. “I’m as shocked as you, believe me.” He stood and held out a hand. “They’ll turn back soon enough. Let’s find better cover.”

They kept to the trees after that, cutting across rough country until they found a deer trail leading through the brittle undergrowth. The day had grown warm and clouds of insects swarmed in every shaft of sunlight that filtered down to them but, soon enough, Halbarad found a track he knew and from there they made good progress, stopping for only a few hours rest in the dark hours of the night. 

They struck the Bruinen south of the ford and made their way back north along the ridge of higher land beside the river. There they sat above the road for a long time, watching for any sign of the Riders before finally venturing from their shelter.

“What do you see, oh, Ranger of the North?” Maglor stood lookout above Halbarad, as he examined the chaos of hoofprints on the road.

“I would say they turned back here and have already passed back west,” said Hal, “unless there is another pair of riders on this part of the road.” 

There were drops of something dried dark in the dirt of the road. Halbarad picked at it and rubbed it between his fingers where it smeared into the rustiness of blood. 

“They’re using their horses ill,” he commented.

“No, Halbarad. The Nine aren’t kind masters." Maglor snorted. "How long since they were here?”

Halbarad frowned. “It is hard to say. Perhaps a day? We shouldn’t linger.”

They forded the Bruinen, low at that time of year, stepping carefully from stone to stone, not wanting to leave tracks in the sandy banks of the river. Halbarad trailed behind with a switch of pine, sweeping away their tracks in the dry dust of the road. The birds were still singing happily, so with another watchful pause and a long look around, they ducked quietly from the main path. Maglor led the way from there, scent of pines rich in the air as he stepped over a white stone and onto the secret track.

“If I had any sense,” he announced, not loudly, but very clearly, “I’d have forgotten how to get here.”

The back of Halbarad’s neck was already prickling. They were watched. “A warm welcome, I see.”

“I’m not sure whether that’s for me, or for the Nazgûl,” said Maglor, just for Hal’s ears.

“Is there – ” Hal spotted movement among the trees and heard the creak of a bowstring. “Is there something you haven’t told me about how you left last time?”

“Well, the lute was not a gift,” Maglor offered.

“Nor were the coins, nor the poppy, nor my favorite cloak,” said a voice behind them.

“Blackbird,” scolded Halbarad.

“I won’t say he doesn’t deserve it,” said Glorfindel, fairly illuminating the path with gold, “but don’t be too hard on him. It was something of a relief to us that he had the presence of mind for thievery.” He stared at them for another moment, all noble and leonine, then said, “Don’t let him kill me, Halbarad,” before he grabbed them both.

“Um,” said Halbarad, too startled to do anything but return the embrace. 

“Light, you two stink,” said Glorfindel, not letting go.

“You know,” said Maglor, spitting out a strand of golden hair, “I think I preferred the Nazgûl.” 

Glorfindel led them quickly to Elrond’s study, where the lord of Rivendell was at his desk, dictating something to a scribe. Maglor dropped his pack unceremoniously, and threw himself into the most luxuriously upholstered chair without a greeting. His leg had been paining him and the limp Hal had noticed in Bree had only gotten worse.

Halbarad hovered uncomfortably near the door.

“Please, gentlemen, take a seat,” said Elrond, lifting an eyebrow at Maglor.

The startled scribe was still gaping at them, quill forgotten in their hand, ink blot spreading across the page. Elrond gestured, and they swallowed, gathered their things, and scrambled out of the room.

Halbarad claimed the now vacant chair, since it was wood and would not take any harm from all the baths that Halbarad had not had recently.

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that this is a social visit,” said Elrond, “But I’ll offer you some wine anyway.”

“I’ll want a river of it,” said Maglor, “but later. Go on, Halbarad. There’s less guessing in your memories.”

“Ah, I hardly know where to begin,” he said, still perched on the edge of the chair. “Have you heard any news of Gandalf since spring?”

“I have not.” Elrond’s expressions could often be described with some variant of ‘grave,’ but his furrowed brow had crossed well beyond that. “I haven’t seen him since you brought this one,” he gestured at Maglor, “back. I’ve tried to send messages. I don’t know whether I need to warn him about Saruman’s actions, or demand an accounting of his own, but either way, I need to speak with him.”

“He was due in the Shire in September, but he did not arrive. Should I assume you know his guess about Bilbo’s treasure?”

Elrond’s gaze flickered to Maglor, “I do.”

“Fear not,” Maglor said, “I have no idea what either of you are talking about. You can keep right on not trusting me with your secret. I recommend it, in fact.”

Hal flushed with shame. “It’s not – it’s time I told you–”

Elrond’s eyes narrowed. “Halbarad -”

“He already knows!”

“Clearly not,” said Maglor, sitting up straight to look at him. “I've told you this."

“Can we possibly postpone that conversation?” asked Elrond. “It’s not precisely news that Maglor has forgotten things, after all. I’m presuming that your sudden and rather frantic appearance has something to do with the presence of the Nazgûl.”

“Right, yes. They are also in the Shire,” Hal said, forcing his attention back to Elrond, “and they are watching the East Road.”

“Yes, they were spotted by the Ford a few days ago,” said Elrond, “How many?”

“Nine crossed the Baranduin. They have since separated. At least two crossed the Mitheithel, but turned back.” Maglor said, his head now tipped back over the arm of his chair.

Elrond’s hands were fists on his desk, knuckles white. “And the hobbit? Bilbo’s nephew?”

“He was supposed to leave the Shire, to come here, with Gandalf.”

“Who is now missing,” finished Elrond.

“We think,” said Halbarad, “that they have not been found.” It was not enough certainty for comfort and he knew it. “Our hope is that he was able to leave the Shire in time. Aragorn is looking for him in the wild and will guide him to Rivendell if he can. We left him in Bree ten days ago. The Nine watch the road, and even if Aragorn can find them, their chances of reaching Rivendell are slim. He begs for your aid.”

Elrond was already on his feet, at the door, summoning back the poor scribe who had just left, “Send me Erestor.” He turned back to them. “Estel shall have whatever he asks. We still have some here who can face the Nine.” He grimaced then, as if just remembering something. “Maglor -”

“On my best behavior, Lord Elrond.” Maglor shifted to sit properly, “Quiet as a mouse, even.” He didn’t smile so much as bare his teeth. “Trust me.”

Elrond looked at the rafters and murmured a prayer.

Chapter Text

“Glorfindel, of course,” said Erestor, making a note.

“Oh, of course,” parroted Maglor.

Erestor huffed and set down his quill. “And what, exactly, is your objection?”

Halbarad had only briefly met Erestor before this. He’d gotten the impression that Elrond had been making some effort to keep him and Maglor away from each other, for good reason, it would seem.

“I agreed with you,” snapped Maglor. “Of course, the perfect, golden, revenant will save us all from the danger. Why are we here, then? Send Glorfindel alone and call for the wine!”

Elrond pinched the bridge of his nose and glanced at Halbarad who wasn’t at all certain how he was expected to help. 

“What of your sons?” he finally asked.

Elrond looked to the east where night was rapidly falling. “They left for the mountains a week ago. They are expected to return before the snow, but I’d be surprised to see them sooner.”

“Galdor arrived the other night. I expect he would be willing,” said Erestor.

“Good, ask him,” said Elrond. “Glorfindel, Galdor, Narandir -”

“What of Arwen?” asked Maglor, now cleaning his fingernails with a knife. It wasn’t Halbarad’s knife, and he hadn’t seen Maglor with it before. He strongly suspected that it was Erestor’s, based on the way the counselor was eyeing it. 

Erestor scoffed. “You jest.”

“Am I? She’s a more than competent rider, and the resemblance to Luthien is striking. She’d give them pause, I’d wager.”

“You propose that the Lady Arwen should risk herself. Is that what you are suggesting?” 

“I am suggesting that when I tell Arwen what is afoot, she will go regardless. May as well send her out with her father’s knowledge and blessing.”

“You forget yourself!”

Maglor only stared at him, but Halbarad noticed that he had shifted his grip on the knife.

“Erestor,” said Elrond, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“My Lord, you cannot be considering this!”

“You know as well as I do what my daughter will want to do. I learned long ago that I cannot protect those I love by denying their choices. I won’t lie to my daughter about this, not even by silence. Also, you never met Luthien, Maglor. You told me so yourself.”

“Ah, well, none of us can completely shed our histories, after all,” said Maglor. “Who’d have thought my brother would have such a loyal servant -”

Elrond buried his head in his folded arms. 

“-That one would attempt to lock up Luthien’s heir, even after all this time!”

Erestor stared at him for a long time. “Have you forgotten who you are?”

Maglor laughed. “I keep trying, but I haven’t had as much luck as you have, it seems.”

Elrond lifted his head. “Erestor, I think that’s all for this evening.”

“Oh course, my lord.” He nodded, “Halbarad.”

“Quiet as a mouse?” Hal said, once the door had closed. 

Maglor stood up and poured himself a cup of wine.

“What is wrong with your leg?” asked Elrond.

Maglor gave Elrond a look. “Nothing is wrong with the leg that I have.” He took a sip of the  wine and frowned at the glass. “It’s the one that isn’t there that hurts.”

“Let me see,” said Elrond.

“It’s nothing. Too much walking in the wet. It will heal.”

“Only if you rest. Let us skip the argument. You’re about to tell me that you want to go back out. I’m about to tell you that I won’t let you go while you’re injured”

“I’m not injured,” protested Maglor.

“You are limping,” said Elrond. 

“Of course I’m limping,” said Maglor. “Someone cut my fucking leg off.”

“Has he been sleeping?” Elrond asked.

“Don’t talk about me as if I am not here!”

“Blackbird,” Halbarad began, fairly certain nothing he could say would help. He wondered if it was difficult to get a position in Gondor. Perhaps he could apply for asylum. “I’m tired,” he stood and went over to Maglor. “You’re tired. We are both hurt, hurting. Where you go, I go, you know that.”

Maglor sighed. “And so you are asking me to stay?”

“Just for now.”

Maglor made a sound of disgust, and swallowed the rest of his wine, slamming the empty cup back on the table so that the other glasses rattled.

“Fine,” he said, dropping back into the chair, and set about unbuckling his false leg. “Let’s get on with it. But let’s all stop pretending that I’m anything but broken. It’s a farce, and I’m tired of it.”

“You aren’t broken,” said Elrond, pulling over a footstool.

“What would you call it, then?”

“He’s right,” said Halbarad, surprising himself. He hadn’t meant to say it out loud.

Elrond and Maglor both looked at him, eyebrows lifted in such a similar expression that Hal had to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from laughing.

“Things that are broken can be mended.” He looked at Maglor, feeling as if he suddenly understood something that Maglor had been trying to tell him for months. “But they can’t be unbroken. They can be made whole, but can’t be made unchanged.”

Elrond smiled. “Just so,” he said.

Elrond kept his leg, saying he’d have his workshops look at it and see if they could stop it from chafing. He also kept Halbarad, asking him to look over maps and mark out the routes that Aragorn favored. They were both pretending that they weren’t planning to talk about him as soon as he left the room, and Maglor was tired enough that he didn’t care to stop them.

Erestor was waiting for him in the corridor. 

“I’d like my knife back,” he said.

“Ah. I’d quite forgotten. You know how my memory is.” He slipped the knife out of his sleeve and held it out. “I haven’t forgotten you, though.” He dropped the knife into Erestor’s palm. “It’s good to see you again, Erestor. The new name suits you.”

Erestor replaced the knife in its leather sheath and turned away, ready to ignore him. Something inside of Maglor twisted.

“Does Elrond know who you are?”

“Were,” Erestor corrected, not turning. “I renounced my oath, my loyalty to your family, to your brother, all of it. What we did at Doriath was terrible. Unlike you, I chose not to continue doing it.”

“What happened to those children?” Maglor asked. “I’ve always wondered.” He turned his attention to a carved sideboard, trailing a finger along a vine. 

“Will it make you feel better?” Erestor asked. “Will it make all the other deaths sting less to hear about the two you let someone else kill? Or do those two only matter more because they were princes? We only began the job. You finished it.” He looked Maglor up and down, dismissive. “Or tried to.” He again made as if to leave.

Maglor remembered it. From the window had come the low-tide smell of fish and salt and seaweed, the clatter of the dry reeds, but in the room there was lamp oil and orange blossoms and a low sound that had pricked at his ears, and scratched at the back of his mind: a song that wasn't one of his own.

Elwing had leapt, and leaping flown, away away from the wrack and ruin they had made of her home. She had broken her family and what remained of his and they had failed again, all of them. Maglor didn't knew where Maedhros was. When Elwing jumped, he had stood, expressive as stone, and then left the tower room, leaving Maglor and his brothers alone, the twins resting on the floor, blood soaking through the woven reed mat.

The sound, again: not a song, but a sob, and the children, twins, hair like raven's wings and eyes like stars. Maglor had his knife in his hand, blood to the wrist already. His brothers, their own little twins were gone, and it would be no trouble to slay these two. Maybe it would have even felt like justice.

He still didn't know what had stopped him.

It was a strange relief to meet someone who remembered who he was then. Elrond and Halbarad would insist on lying to themselves. When Maglor inevitably hurt them all, Erestor, at least, would not be surprised.

“Did you leave us because my brother was a monster, or because he was dead?" Maglor asked. "It’s easy to deny your history when there’s no one left to tell it.” He smiled. “I wonder what Elrond will say when he hears.”

At that, Erestor whirled, and shoved Maglor against the wall, forearm across his chest.

“I have never denied my history,” he snarled, “and I know exactly what your brother was.” He let Maglor go. “I also know that he was right about you.”

“Don’t talk to me about him.”

Erestor lifted an eyebrow. “You began it, you coward. He was a horror at the end. We all were. I’m not proud of that. But what about you, you fucking craven? You followed just like I did. Did you think that being sad about the things you did would mean that you weren’t guilty? Do you think it matters that you knew that what we were doing was wrong, when you went right on doing it? Maybe you weren’t the one who decided to go to Doriath, or to Sirion, but you still went. You tell yourself you had no choice, that the decision was made by your father, but that’s a choice all its own. There’s always a choice.”

“Are you speaking to me, Erestor, or to yourself?” The words came out rough, and he bit the inside of his lip to stop himself from saying more.

"I could ask you the same thing." Erestor straightened his robes and started down the hallway. “Tell Elrond anything you wish. He already knows it all.”

Chapter Text

Elrond kept Halbarad in his study until the sun had set, poring over maps with those who would ride out in the morning, doing his best to remember every place he and Aragorn had camped, the routes he liked, all of those things. By the time they were done, Hal was tongue tied and exhausted. 

“You said there was a spring there?” Galdor asked, pointing at the map. 

“I think?” Halbarad said. “Somewhere north of the road, at least. We were west of the Trollshaws, at least, but it’s been years.”

Arwen touched his elbow and glanced at her father. “I think you’ve been on the road all day, and that we can find our own water.”

Elrond stirred. “Right. I’m sorry, Halbarad. You’ve done us a service, and in return I’ve been a terrible host.” He stood. “I think Erestor was having a meal sent up.”

Glorfindel winked at Halbarad. “Don’t worry. He already promised Elrond he wouldn’t have it poisoned. Besides, he likes you. ”

Arwen stifled a laugh at that, while Elrond ushered Halbarad into the corridor. 

“You remember where Maglor’s rooms are, I’m sure. Do you plan to sleep there as well?” Elrond asked, face carefully blank. “There are plenty of other places available if not –”

“I do,” said Hal, interrupting before either of them said something they’d wish they hadn’t. He’d slept in them, or had tried to, when Maglor had been brought back from Mordor. Maglor himself had been in the healing rooms, feverish and raving. “Thank you.”

“Has he-” Elrond paused. “Has he recalled anything else?”

Halbarad stopped, heart pounding in his ears. “Bits and pieces,” he said. “It isn’t for me to share.”

“No,” Elrond shook his head. “Of course not. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“It was Gandalf who told him about the ring,” Halbarad said, unable to stop himself. “Surely, if he trusted him -”

Elrond stopped him with a gesture. “Gandalf isn’t here, Halbarad.” He rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “If I believe what Maglor says about Saruman, then I don’t know that I should trust the aims of any wizard.”

“And you don’t trust Maglor.”

Elrond made a rather complicated face in response to that. “I know that you love him. I am happy that you love him, that he has this chance with someone who doesn’t feel the weight of his history. But please understand that it’s not so easy for me.”

“You’re as bad as he is,” said Halbarad, suddenly too tired for politeness.

“Oh?” Elrond was just a bit too calm for comfort, but Hal kept going because he had clearly lost all sense of self-preservation.

“It’s this dance you two are doing, where you pretend that you mean nothing to the other because you’re both afraid that he’ll disappear again, or do something worse. Trust me,” said Halbarad, smiling wryly, “I have an intimate understanding of that fear.”

“Very well, explain it to me, then. Tell me how you do it, and I’ll remind you that our situations are not remotely similar.”  

Halbarad opened his mouth, then closed it again. 

“Ah,” said Elrond. “I’m sorry, Halbarad. That was unkind.” He fidgeted with his sleeves. “I do understand what you mean. Maglor and I have spent a whole Age of the world and more each convinced that the other was happier for our absence. Can you blame either of us for being slow to believe that we were mistaken?”

“I’ve seen my death, Lord Elrond,” Halbarad said. “I’ve had dreams since I was a child.”

If Elrond was startled by the change of subject, he didn’t show it. “Arwen mentioned that you were sighted.”

Halbarad shook his head. “It’s nothing so clear as that. I dreamed of my mother’s death, my sister, my father. I know that my own comes soon, in battle.” He swallowed and looked away from Elrond. “I know what everyone thinks of us,” he said. “They think that I martyr myself for him, that I care for him from mere obligation, or pity. Or they think me a fool who doesn’t understand what he has done, and who he is.” He shook his head and looked at Elrond again. “I won’t say that it is reasonable, the way I love him, and I won’t claim that he hasn’t hurt me. But I don’t have the luxury of time, and I don’t intend to waste any more of it.”

“Need I remind you that the worst of Maglor’s crimes are not for you to forgive?”

“You needn’t. I’m not even talking about him anymore, or not only him, at the least. I don’t think that anyone is owed forgiveness. What I do think is that it is foolish to fear the loss of someone so much that you give up the time you still have with them. None of us, Elf, Man, Half-Elf, have time for that.” Halbarad had said more than he meant to say to anyone, much less Lord Elrond Halfelven. 

“It’s a good reminder, Halbarad,” said Elrond, with a familiar twist to his mouth. “While you’re telling hard truths, save a few for Maglor, would you?” He patted Hal on the arm and went back to his study.

Halbarad let out a breath and fled the corridor.

Across a courtyard and up several flights of stairs were the rooms that Maglor had claimed. They were slightly shabby, as if this was where the things that were a bit too worn for the official guest rooms had been banished, but more comfortable for it. There were no other guests in this wing of the house, but instead storage areas and workrooms for scribes. Across a narrow alley was the laundry, and the baths beside it. When the wind was right, little gusts of humid air would make their way up to the windows. Most of the time, though, they only let in the smell of pines and the light of stars.

Maglor was waiting for him, sitting at a table with a jug of wine and a pair of glasses to hand and an open book at his elbow. Even from the doorway, Halbarad could tell that he wasn’t reading it, but just staring at the page. 

“Are you going to tell me why Erestor hates you?” Hal asked.

“Same reason as everyone else, I imagine,” said Maglor, closing the book and filling a glass. He pushed it toward the empty chair. “I wasn’t sure you would want to sleep up here.”

Halbarad sat down.

“They’re bringing up food.” Maglor frowned, drained his glass and filled it again. “We should talk, I expect, and then I want a bath.”

“We should,” said Halbarad. He took a breath, but couldn’t figure out what to say from there.

“The things I’ve forgotten,” said Maglor, “I often don’t know that I’ve forgotten them until someone tells me so, or the memory comes on me.”

“Like in Bree.”

Maglor nodded. “I had thought I knew everything. I thought it must be impossible to forget even a step of that journey.” He swirled the wine in his glass. “I find something new everyday.”

“Is that not good?” Halbarad asked.

Maglor grimaced. “You tell me. Today I learned that all this time, I’ve known what we were guarding in the Shire.”

“I’m sorry,” said Halbarad. “I should have told you when first you said you didn’t remember.”

“No!” Maglor set down his glass with a thunk, wine slopping over the edge to pool on the table. “You should not have trusted me with this.”

“I didn’t make that decision,” said Hal, “not then. Do you remember Gandalf? Mithrandir?”

“He was at the Council, with my cousin, and Saruman.”

“It was after that, but we met him on Weathertop, traveling with Aragorn. He didn’t speak it plainly, but you understood.”

“Well, I don’t understand now. A hobbit has something. I have been paying enough attention for that.”

“Not just a hobbit,” said Halbarad. “Bilbo.”

Maglor’s face didn’t change, and Halbarad cursed himself.

“You don’t remember Bilbo Baggins.” Hal grabbed his own cup of wine and drank. “You are - were - friends. He sat with you —after.” 

Maglor’s eyes narrowed.

“Why would I lie?” Halbarad exploded. “What would I gain from that?”

Maglor stared at him, caught off guard. “I didn’t think you were lying.” He sighed. “Though I’ve accused you of it often enough. It’s hard when one cannot trust his own mind, and isn’t used to trusting others.”

“I can understand that, I think.”

“So.” said Maglor. “I have another friend that I’ve forgotten, and that friend is fleeing the Shire with a treasure which Sauron is hunting.”

“No, I’m telling this badly. Bilbo lives here. It is his heir who is bringing the ring.”

“The Ring,” said Maglor. He lifted his glass to his lips, then stopped and set it down again. “The Ring. The one that was taken and lost, the one that Sauron would tear the world apart to regain? You tell me that a hobbit and a man are toddling about in the wilderness alone, trying to bring that thing here while the Nazgul hunt them? And that Elrond thinks this is a good idea?”

“I think Elrond thinks it is the only idea,” said Halbarad, “but yes, that is a fair summary.”

“And I knew this. And I was sent to Mordor, and questioned by Sauron and all the Nazgul, and you are all wondering why they suddenly know where to look?”

Halbarad set his jaw. “Believe it or not, I have considered this possibility every day since we were attacked. I’m not a liar and I’m also not a fool.”

“Then why have you let me stay with you?”

“Because I do not care!” Halbarad said, loudly enough that he was glad of Maglor’s isolated little nest. “I do not care what you did to survive! I care that you did it, and that you came back to me.”

“Halbarad –” Maglor pressed his hand tight to his mouth, closing his eyes.

Halbarad waited. Outside the windows, a wind sighed in the pines and a snatch of song drifted up from somewhere nearby.

“I am afraid,” said Maglor, his eyes still closed. “I don’t remember what I did to make you love me. I can’t be whatever I was before. I couldn’t, even if I remembered.”

“Do you think that the last years have not changed me, Blackbird?” Hal reached across the table, his hand open. “I mourned you and I blamed myself for your death, and then I blamed myself for believing you dead. I was angry with you for a long time.”

“You’ve refused to be angry with me about all the reasonable things,” said Maglor, wiping at his eyes. 

“I’m not very reasonable where you’re involved,” said Hal, ruefully. “I was angry that I didn’t go with you, that you didn’t send for me.”

“I –” Maglor leaned forward and took Hal’s hand.

There was a tap at the door. Halbarad startled and looked at Maglor.

“Go on,” Maglor said, “I’m not going anywhere.”

Dinner was a simple affair, fluffy egg bread and fruit and cheese, things that would sit easy on an empty and anxious stomach. Maglor wanted to protest being coddled, to find fault with it somehow, as if it would somehow make the kindness easier to receive. Halbarad set the tray down on the table and looked at his hands.

“This is stupid,” he said with something not quite a laugh. “I’m so hungry, but I can’t eat it. It’s too nice, and look at us.”

“Ah,” said Maglor, “You finally know how it feels.”

Halbarad gave him a blank look, and then laughed. “Alright, yes, I take your meaning.” He held out his hand again, this time showing it to Maglor so he could see the dirt in the creases, the grime under his nails. “In this case, I think a bath will set us right, though. Do you want to come down with me?” he asked. “I can bring up a tub, if you’d rather.”

“No, I’m already pretending I believe you when you say nice things to me. Let’s not make it worse with favors. ” He took Halbarad’s hand and stood, not backing away when it put them almost chest to chest. Halbarad’s cheeks were pink behind his beard. “Hand me my walking sticks?”

“Did you know,” Maglor said as he navigated his way down the steps, Halbarad behind him with his canes and clean robes, “that I’ve never visited the baths here?” He paused between one and the other, adjusting his grip on the rail, then swinging his leg out to a step three below where he’d begun. “Unless I’ve forgotten that, too.”

“I don’t think so. At least, not with me.” Halbarad made a thoughtful noise. “I don’t think you’ve ever bathed in my company, now that I think about it. You were private about it.”

“Of course I was. Am.” He stopped at the bottom of the stairs to wait.

“What’s different tonight?” Halbarad asked, passing back the walking sticks.

“I don’t know,” said Maglor. “Everyone already knows all of my secrets. Why try to hide the rest?”

Halbarad paused, a worried line drawn between his eyebrows. “I don’t want you to feel as if you don’t have a choice in this.”

It was cool outside, and the air smelt like the soap they made in Imladris, like lemon blossoms and thyme. Maglor stopped in the alley and waited for Halbarad to face him.

“I’ve had many choices taken from me of late, it’s true.” He thought of Erestor, who was not so different from Maglor, and yet had found a home and a way to shed his secrets, who had said that Maglor was afraid of choosing for himself, and who wasn’t entirely wrong. “And before that, I denied myself choices, or took paths that left me only bad ones, and said I couldn’t be blamed for my actions. If I have choices now, it’s because you’ve insisted on giving them back to me.” 

“And you are choosing…to take a bath?” Halbarad asked.

“Call it practice,” said Maglor.

The baths were empty this time of night, lamps out, the coals in the braziers banked for the night. The water came not from the river, which was frigid with snow melt, but from a spring in the mountains which ran hot. The waters had been directed here, where they fed both the baths and the laundry.

“Do you mind a light?” Halbarad asked, as Maglor sat on a cedar bench and looked around. “The moon is bright enough for elves, maybe, but take pity on me!”

“I don’t mind a light.” It smelt of wet stone and was so quiet that Maglor felt he shouldn’t speak.

Halbarad must have felt it as well, for he struck a light and brought the lamp over in silence.

“We can undress here,” he said, “and through that curtain, we can wash. Beyond that are the pools, if you want to soak for a bit.” 

“You are an expert.”

“When you were ill,” Halbarad said, with a shrug, “the chair and my back had a difference of opinion. Elrond suggested the heat might help.”

Maglor could well believe it. Elrond had made the same suggestion to him, as well, but the idea of bringing all of his scars and secrets out where they could be seen had been too much to endure. He wasn’t entirely certain he was ready to risk it now.

“We can take turns,” said Halbarad, “I can wait outside,” like he’d heard Maglor’s thought. More likely, he’d just been still too long. It happened sometimes, that he lost track of where he was.

“No,” said Maglor reaching out for his hand.

“Stay.”

Chapter Text

They undressed in silence, Halbarad feeling strangely shy as he peeled off the layers he’d been sleeping in for days. He had always been a bit self conscious, taller and broader than most people around him, pink pale where the sun didn’t hit, and covered with unfortunate red hair. Even so, he was no prude about it, usually happy enough to strip down for a swim or a bath, no matter who was around. Tonight, though, he felt different, his skin soft, too fragile to be exposed, like some sort of strange molting bug. 

He had no idea how Maglor must feel.

He kept his eyes to himself as he bundled his dirty things and set them back on the bench near his boots. Maglor was already waiting, and Hal could feel his bright dark gaze on his body.

“Wondering what you were thinking?” Hal asked, making himself stand and be seen. He picked up the lamp, feeling his mouth twist. He wanted to say something else, to make sure that Maglor knew it was a jest, and a lighthearted one at that, but he couldn’t make the words come.

“Halbarad,” said Maglor, and there was laughter, hidden, but present in the lines around his eyes. “Look at me. Am I a thing of beauty?”

Hal looked, and being given permission, found that he couldn’t stop looking. He’d seen Maglor before, surely, he thought. They’d been lovers, hadn’t they? How can he not have seen Maglor? Maglor had seen him, certainly, but casting his memory back, Hal thought that he’d only seen pieces: the length of a thigh, the curve of a hip, a slice of flesh revealed when clothes were pushed aside, skin showing soft in the moonlight, arms and shoulders bare for hot and dirty work, but never all at once, not like this. He’d never seen him without his chest bound, certainly, never seen how the dark hair between his legs also grew curly on his thighs.

Looking at him felt like a luxury that Halbarad hadn’t realized he’d been denied. He was tall, and still too thin for his frame, the strong bones of his wrists sticking out, the missing leg giving him an off-balance look, that thigh thinner than the other. His skin was brown, darker than Halbarad’s, smooth where it wasn’t scarred. Halbarad had braced himself for those, the scars he knew to expect from Maglor’s time in Sauron’s keeping, the marks of a whip gnarling his back, the brand on his face, bite marks on his chest and slashes on his arms, all things he’d seen glimpses of during his healing. 

“Yes,” Halbarad said, remembering he’d been asked a question. “You are.”

“Well,” said Maglor, glancing down at himself, and then back at Halbarad with a look that felt like a caress. “If you want me to believe that, then you must believe me when I say I find you beautiful as well.”

“Ah.” Halbarad cleared his throat, and gestured at his own thigh, afraid that the moment might be taken from him if he was greedy enough to touch Maglor. “What happened there?”

Maglor glanced down at his leg where a large burn scar stretched shiny.

“Dragon,” said Maglor.

“Oh,” said Halbarad. 

“And here?” Maglor reached out and put his cold fingertips on Halbarad’s shoulder.

“Orcs,” said Halbarad, for once without the missed-step feeling of realizing that Maglor had forgotten something, just a warmth at his own memory and a strange faint pleasure that he could tell Maglor about it. “You were with me. You saved me.”

Maglor looked surprised. “Really?”

Was Hal foolish to think that he seemed pleased?

“Come.” Maglor held out his hand. “Tell me about it while we wash.”

The washing room was floored with slate, cool beneath Halbarad’s feet. He carried the lantern with one hand and held back the curtain with the other for Maglor to come through. There were windows in here, high along the walls, so that they could see tops of pine trees and stars twinkling above. Hal dragged a pair of cedar stools from the wall and helped Maglor sit.

In this room, water was stored in cisterns of thick earthenware, layered with straw to hold the heat in. Halbarad claimed a bar of soap and a cloth and filled a basin from the spigot. Maglor watched him the whole time.

“You first,” said Maglor, as Halbarad set the bathing things on the floor. He took the soap and one of the washcloths. “Go on, sit. It is my turn to do something for you.”

Halbarad closed his eyes as Maglor squeezed the rag over his head to wet his hair. “You always surprise me,” he said, cracking an eye open. Maglor rubbed the soap between his hands, working it into a lather. It smelled like lemon rind and herbs. “I thought you were upset, before.”

“I was,” said Maglor, combing his hands through Halbarad’s hair, tugging at the knots in a way that was just shy of painful. “Likely, I still am.” He soaped Hal’s beard as well, rubbing at the joints of his jaw. Halbarad hadn’t even noticed that he’d been clenching his teeth. “I’ll remember tomorrow, no doubt.”

“I’ll prepare myself, then. For now, this is nice,” Halbarad said. Maglor dumped a palmful of water over his face, making him splutter.

“Lean forward.” Maglor shifted behind him to straddle the bench and bent to swish the rag in the water.

Halbarad obeyed, letting his head sag forward, water dripping into his face. He licked the faintly soap-scented water from his lips and thought he could have stayed like this forever, quiet and a little sleepy, with Maglor’s strong hands on his back, touch firm and tender, like he was an instrument that Maglor wanted to play.

The water was cooling and he could feel the goose flesh rise as Maglor rinsed off the soap.

“Cold?” Maglor asked.

“No,” said Halbarad.

  “Mm,” Maglor said. “And everyone says I’m the liar. Come here.” He scooted close and wrapped an arm around Hal’s waist, his body hot against Halbarad’s back, slippery with the water and the soap. 

He squeezed the cloth over Halbarad’s chest and spread his soapy fingers wide across his ribs, like he wanted to gather as much of Halbarad in his hands as he could, as if there was a very real risk that Halbarad might break apart beneath his fingers and fly away. 

“I–” Halbarad said, as he gave in and relaxed against Maglor’s chest.

Maglor rested his chin on Hal’s shoulder, breathing against his neck, hands straying over his chest, scrubbing through the coarse hair on his belly and kneading his soft flesh. He made a sound, a little sigh, and shifted against Halbarad, pressing himself tighter against him, one hand moving slick up his chest to rest possessive against his throat. Halbarad closed his eyes and swallowed as he tried to hold himself still even as warmth spread heavy in his belly, down to his cock, not hard yet, but it wouldn’t take much, not the way he felt tonight, like he’d finally decided to pull out all of his own loneliness and vulnerability, exposing his soft belly to Maglor’s beak and claws.

“Wash yourself.” Maglor pushed the rag into Halbarad’s hand.

He did as he was told, soap slick on his cock, between his legs. He tried to be fast, because it felt too good to touch himself, and they were just here for a bath, weren’t they? A bath, and then food, and then a rest. 

Maglor turned his face against Hal’s neck, lips and nose pressed against his skin. A kiss on his neck, a sudden tightening of the arms around Halbarad and then teeth. Halbarad bucked his hips, thrusting into his hand, moaning. He could feel Maglor smile against his neck then lick hot over the bite. He slid his hand down Halbarad’s belly to grasp his cock, thumb swiping over the tip, smearing the wetness.

“Someone could see,” Hal gasped, because he knew how little Maglor would care.

“Oh?” Maglor let go, gently mocking. “Do you not want me to?”

Hal whimpered. “You’re still a cruel thing,” he said, craning his neck back to kiss Maglor, mouths hot where they met, a kiss like the best kind of burning. “I want you to. If you want to.”

“What a shame,” murmured Maglor, “because I changed my mind.”

Hal closed his eyes and stilled himself. He’d misunderstood. “I’m sorry -”

Maglor laughed, the sound vibrating in his chest. “No, Halbarad. I’m teasing you. I shouldn’t, maybe.” He squeezed Hal tight. “I don’t know what we were like before, I’m going to get it wrong. You must tell me.”

“No,” said Halbarad. “I’ll tell you, but I don’t think you’ll get it wrong. Maybe we’ll find something I don’t like, and if we do, I’ll tell you. Maybe you’ll find something you don’t like, and I hope you’ll tell me. But that’s not wrong, that’s learning. We only had a little while. We were still learning each other, then, and we’ll learn each other again, now. 

But,” he swallowed, his cheeks going hot, “I’ll tell you one thing now. You can be rough with me. You can hurt me a bit, make me wait, anything you want. I’ll do whatever you ask,” Hal said, reckless and truthful.

“That’s a dangerous offer, Halbarad.”

“It doesn’t have to be all the time. Or at all. Just,” Halbarad reached for Maglor’s face, the angle making it difficult. “Know that you can.”

“Is that so?” said Maglor, his hand at Hal’s jaw, holding him so he couldn’t look away, his eyes dark and half-lidded. “You like it when I’m a cruel thing? Does it make you hard?”

“Find out for yourself,” said Halbarad.

Maglor nodded, his eyes shadowed, and he kissed Halbarad again, grasp bruising tight at his jaw, neck straining against the angle, then let him go, let his head sink back against Maglor’s collar bone. His hand slid Hal’s belly, teasing, raising chills it its wake, finally touching him, working him back to hardness in no time, his other arm still holding, hand tight at Halbarad’s jaw. 

Hal moaned as Maglor nosed at his ear, sucking hard at the ticklish flesh beneath the hinge of his jaw.

“Hush,” said Maglor, shifting his hand to cover Halbarad’s mouth. “Someone will hear,” he said, taunting.

“You’d like that,” Halbarad mumbled.

“I can’t hear you,” said Maglor, pressing two of his fingers against Hal’s lips, forcing them between his teeth so he couldn’t talk anymore, couldn’t close his mouth properly, couldn’t do anything but be touched, pleasure drawing tighter and tighter in his groin, Maglor’s body behind his, rocking in time with his motion, fingers in his mouth, calluses rough against his tongue, pumping in and out in time with his own hand, spit running down his chin.

“There,” Maglor said, pulling his hand from Hal’s mouth, “I think that’s enough.” He gave Halbarad’s cock a friendly pat, making him jump. “Help me wash my hair.”

Hal stared at the ceiling, the stars laughing at him from the high windows. He was panting like he’d run a race. “You can’t be serious.”

Maglor put his hands on his shoulders and pushed him forward. 

“Of course I’m serious. I haven’t had a bath in weeks.” He stood up and stretched, wobbling a little bit on his one leg. “Get some warm water in that, would you?” He pointed at the basin.

Halbarad stumbled to his feet and poured his dirty water down one of the grates in the floor, returning with fresh. He poured some of it over Maglor’s bent head. His hair was still dark, though now streaked with silver in places. While always curled and inclined to be rather unkempt, Maglor had let it grow knotted and wild as it had come back. Halbarad would have liked to help with it, but he’d suspected the offer wouldn’t have been appreciated. Maybe that had finally changed.

He stood in front of Maglor, trying to comb soapy fingers through his wet hair, while Maglor trailed the tips of his fingers up and down Halbarad’s thighs, closer and closer to his cock, still hard. 

He leaned close and kissed Halbarad’s thigh, his cheek pressing against Hal’s cock.

Halbarad froze, staring down at him, soapy hands tangled in his hair, watching as Maglor kissed along his length, then took him in his mouth, hot and wet. He closed his eyes as Halbarad watched, eyelids bruised purple with weariness, brows tense. His shoulders were tense, too, the whole line of his body held rigid. It had been a long time since he’d seen it, yes, but he hadn’t forgotten Maglor in a hayloft, touching himself while Hal fucked his mouth, greedy hands all over him. He knew what pleasure looked like on him.

This wasn’t it.

Hal tightened his hands against Maglor’s scalp, not to pull him down, but to hold him back. Maglor let him, and didn’t open his eyes as Halbarad pulled out and sat beside him.

“I’m sorry,” Maglor said, still not looking at him. “I thought I would be able to.”

“Nothing to be sorry for,” Halbarad said, reaching out then thinking it would be best to ask. “Can I touch you?”

Instead of answering, he just sagged against Halbarad’s side. Hal tugged him close, arms around him as Maglor let out a long shuddering breath.

“It was good,” he said, voice muffled against Hal’s arm. “I felt good. For a while. And then –” he stopped and pressed his face against Halbarad. “I can only remember the things that hurt.”

“Was it something I did?”

Maglor was still for a long time.

“I want you to cut my hair,” he said, sitting up and looking at Halbarad. “I want you to cut it all off. That man in Gondor, he pulled my hair, and after, I cut off a piece that meant you, and I left it there. They cut off the rest in Barad-dur. I’m defiled everywhere, Halbarad, and I can’t grow a new body. Is it strange to want there to be one part of me that is new, that was never touched?”

“So, you don’t want me to touch your hair?” 

“No, I want you to cut off all of my hair, and then be the only one who touches it.”

Chapter Text

Halbarad had thought the washing room was cool, but that was before he found himself barefoot in the alley, wrapped in a towel and shivering. It had seemed like a good enough idea at the time, just to dash over to the certainly deserted laundry and find some shears, but he was already regretting it, even before he had burst through the door and found it not at all deserted.

He cleared his throat.

“Can I help you?” She set down the basket of laundry, and gave him a leisurely look. She was very tall and very thin, with dark skin and hair that was piled atop her head such that it exaggerated the effect. “Are you looking for a robe, perhaps?”

There was nothing else for it. Hal laughed and gathered the towel even tighter around his hips.

“Eventually,” he said. “At the moment, I was hoping to borrow a pair of shears.”

“Borrow?” she said, with a quirk of her lips. “I thought I heard Lord Maglor over there.”

Hal’s cheeks warmed at the thought of what else she might have heard. “I’ll make sure they’re returned,” he said.

She walked over to a work table and rummaged beneath. “I don’t much care,” she said, chuckling. “These aren’t mine. But if they don’t come back, tell him I’m sending Tavoril after them. She’s from Eregion and nothing much scares her any more.”

“Thank you,” said Halbarad, shifting his grip on the towel to take the shears. “I suppose he has a bit of a reputation.”

The laundress grinned at him. “Oh, he’s a terror, don’t get me wrong. But he saves the worst of it for the lords. He came down here once, all his bedding in his arms and threw it at me. Then he went rummaging until he found the old rattiest things we had and said if he ever found anything else on his bed, he’d set the whole thing on fire.” She shrugged. “We’ve gotten along, since. I give him soft things and in return, he doesn’t burn down the house.”

“Compromise is important,” said Halbarad. “Thank you – ?”

“Oh, I’m Cuthoniel,” she said.

“Thank you, Cuthoniel. I’m Hal -”

“Halbarad. Yes, I know. We all know,” she said, eyes twinkling ominously.

“Right. Of course.”

“Have fun, Halbarad,” she said, and to his great horror, she winked.

“How do you want it?” Halbarad asked.

Maglor could see his face in the hand mirror that Halbarad had found, looking worried, like he thought Maglor would break if he touched him wrong. It was easier to look at Halbarad than at himself, because if he looked at himself he’d have to acknowledge that maybe there was something worth worrying about.

“Don’t much care,” he muttered, “as long as it’s off and I don’t have to brush out the knots.”

“I’m not very good at this sort of thing.” Halbarad was dithering, his hands hovering above Maglor’s head.

Maglor glanced back at his own face in the mirror, starting with the brand on his cheek, that Eye easier to bear than his own. He made himself meet his own gaze, that light unfading, somehow still unsullied, cursing and burning him from within, too clean for a face like his. He tossed the mirror aside, gently, he thought, but Halbarad still winced. 

“You can’t make it worse,” he said.

“You may be underestimating me,” Halbarad answered, combing the fingers of one hand through Maglor’s hair. He pulled a strand out long and snipped it. A hank of hair, barely longer than Maglor’s thumb, fell into his lap.

He sighed. “Give me those.”

Halbarad passed him the shears, and Maglor could hear the intake of breath as he took a big chunk of hair from right above his forehead, and snipped it short, barely leaving an inch. He passed the shears back.

“Like that,” he said.

“Are you sure?” asked Halbarad. 

“Oh, yes, you’re right. Best leave the rest as it is.” He could cut the rest himself, probably. He’d done it before, for mourning. After his father died, for Fingon, for his brothers. He wasn’t sure who he was mourning this time. Himself, maybe.

“Get on with it,” he said, gruff because he might weep if Halbarad didn’t finish the job.

Halbarad heard the unsaid thing, the way he always did, and he put a hand on Maglor’s shoulder, warm and steadying. Maglor leaned back against his thighs, hoping that Halbarad would understand what he couldn’t say.

“Alright,” said Halbarad. “Tell me if you need a break.”

“It’s only hair,” Maglor began to say. Halbarad combed his fingers through the tangles, and Maglor couldn’t breath because his heart was too loud, and the stones were buzzing with laughter and fire. He reached up to touch Halbarad’s hand. “Don’t stop,” he said. “But would you sing?”

“Of course,” Halbarad said.

He began a song that Maglor had never heard before, but one that he knew, just the same.

“My love is merry like a rose

She sings bright songs where e’er she goes

Her voice is sweet as lilies fair

The sun shines golden in her hair.”

He had no great voice. Halbarad was right about that. He tended to go flat and waver on the long notes, but it was a warm sound, for all of that, and he punctuated the rhythm with snips of the shears, letting the locks fall onto Maglor’s shoulders, into his lap. It seemed like a great deal of hair, when it had barely grown back enough to reach his shoulders.

“Well done,” said Maglor, as Halbarad reached the chorus.

“You might keep me company,” said Halbarad, with another snip.

“No one wants to hear me sing,” said Maglor.

“Call me no one again,” said Halbarad, brandishing the shears, “and I will leave you bald.”

Maglor laughed, tears pricking at the corner of his eyes. “I’ll try,” he said.

“That will be enough,” said Halbarad, squeezing his shoulder again. He sang the chorus with a “Tra la tra lee oh tra la lee,” and went on:

 

“My love has lips as red as berries

Her kisses taste of wine and cherries

She lets me lift her skirts to reach

Her bottom, ripe as any peach.”

 

“Halbarad!”

“Don’t laugh,” he scolded, “Come, there’s one more chorus.”

Maglor did not know why, but he sang, his own voice sounding thin and unpracticed on the tra and the lee, and the tra la lee, but when they reached the end of the chorus, he didn’t stop.

“My love has eyes of green like grass

But he from me away shall pass

Sundered each from each we’ll be.

Oh love, fly not away from me!”

 

Halbarad had gone very still behind him, one hand on each side of his neck, shears on the bench beside him.

“When did you write that?” Halbarad asked, his voice very soft.

“I don’t know,” said Maglor. “There’s more, I think.”

“There is,” said Halbarad.

Maglor twisted to look at him at those grass green eyes, shadowed so deep, broad cheeks that were thinner than they had once been, lips that used to smile easier. 

How could he know that?

“I’ve missed you,” Maglor said.

“I’m still here,” Halbarad cleared his throat and sat beside him. “Ah, Light. I’m sorry,” he rubbed his eyes and sniffed. “I’ve missed your singing,” he said, “and a lot of things. I feel terrible about it. You were here.”

“I wasn’t,” said Maglor, understanding. “Halbarad, I don’t know. Tomorrow – an hour from now, even, I might not –”

Halbarad seized his forearm. “It doesn’t matter, don’t you understand? If you never sing again, it doesn’t matter, because tonight you did, and I got to hear it.” He pulled Maglor to him, arms tight around him, bare skin still damp and hot, prickly with the sharp ends of cut hair.

Maglor made a dismissive sound. “I haven’t forgotten how I used to sing, you know.”

Halbarad squeezed him then sat back to look. “You sound different. I can’t deny that. But you sound like you.” He brushed a lock of hair off of Maglor’s shoulder and made a face. “I don’t know how to describe the difference. Warmer, somehow. I might like it better.”

Maglor meant to contest that, to say that Halbarad couldn’t carry a tune if it had handles, but somehow, “I love you,” was all he could say.

“What have you done with your hair?” asked the hobbit, gawking up at him from a low squashy chair in the corner of Elrond’s study. 

He was old, with wispy white hair and a red nose and eyes that crinkled at the corners. 

“Halbarad put it outside for the birds,” he said, leaning his walking sticks against the wall and maneuvering onto a bench. “I aim to curse every nest in the valley.”

“As cheerful as ever, I see,” said the hobbit, climbing out of his chair and gathering up a pile of papers. “I suppose you want to talk to Lord Elrond. Come find me when you’re done, I hear you’ve forgotten some rather important tales, and I won’t let you hear mine from anyone else. I’ll be on the porch, with a spare pipe and the best leaf this side of the Shire.” He bustled out of the room, leaving Maglor alone with Elrond.

“Do I smoke?” he asked.

“You did,” Elrond said, setting a paper atop a stack and looking at Maglor over his folded hands. “Glorfindel has complained about it endlessly. That was Bilbo, by the way.”

“The Ring Finder. I gather we are friends.”

“I should have known Halbarad would tell you,” Elrond said. “Well, if it was you who told the Enemy, I suppose the damage is already done. Tea?” He went over to the hearth, where a kettle was steaming. “It’s too early for me to want wine.”

“Please.” It wasn’t too early for Maglor, but saying so would make Elrond worry, and he didn’t want to do that.

Elrond’s eyebrows lifted in surprise. “‘Please?’ Who are you?” He chuckled and wrapped his sleeve around his hand to lift the kettle. “I’m interested that you say you and Bilbo ‘are’ friends.”

“I’m growing used to the idea of having friends that I don’t know,” said Maglor. “I’ve already lost one friend I don’t know. It seems like a shame to give up more before I even have the chance.”

“I won’t deny that it’s a blow to my pride to see a haircut do what months of my healing could not.” Elrond poured the water and set the kettle back on the hob. “It suits you, by the way.”

Maglor took the cup he was offered, inhaling the dusty scent of mother’s daisy. “It’s certainly easier,” he said, rubbing his left hand across his head, tracing the line of a scar. “It feels light. Everything feels light.” Elrond was giving him a look which was both bemused and strangely soft. Maglor frowned. “It won’t last, I’m sure.”

“I’m sorry,” said Elrond, still standing over him with his own mug.

“Oh, sit down,” said Maglor, “and never say that to me again.”

Elrond did, and gave him a half-smile that Maglor hadn’t seen since he was a boy. “I wasn’t apologizing. I meant that I’m sorry that things are still so hard. Perhaps I’m a bit sorry that I haven’t known how to help.”

“That’s hard for you, isn’t it?” Maglor thought he should do something, perhaps reach out and pat Elrond’s shoulder, the way he’d seen Almiron do to Halbarad. It was a fatherly gesture, though, and Maglor didn’t have any right to it. “Did I do that to you?” he asked instead, very quietly. “Was it I who made you feel that the sickness of the world is your responsibility?”

Elrond looked away from him. “I don’t know how to answer that,” he said. The morning light from the window caught his eyes, turning the brown to gold. “Everyone else has left me, Maglor. My father, my mother –”

“Not of her own will,” said Maglor, just as he had when Elrond had been a young man, much angrier than he was now, but still not as angry as he’d had a right to be.

“I know,” said Elrond, as if he was comforting Maglor rather than the other way around. “Gone is gone, though. Then you and Maedhros. Elros. Gil-Galad.” He stopped.

“And then Celebrian,” finished Maglor, because he didn’t want Elrond to have to say it.

“And now I will lose my daughter,” he laughed, as if surprised at himself, “and Estel, too for that matter. Though maybe I shouldn’t mourn that so, for I already knew I couldn’t keep him.”

“That makes it no better,” said Maglor.

“It doesn't,” said Elrond. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and Maglor tried not to understand what he meant.

“Don’t,” said Maglor.

“It isn’t that I was alone,” said Elrond. “I have my friends, I have my children.” He raised his cup to his lips and sipped, grimacing at the heat. “I didn’t think that I missed you. I still don’t like to think that you were more a father to me than my sire was. In my darkest moods, I wonder what it means that all of my family has either left me already, or may yet leave me, but that you , you unrepentant villain, are the one who is still here. The one who keeps leaving, but keeps coming back. And what does it say of me that I miss you every time?” The loneliness in his voice was so old that it made Maglor feel almost young.

He touched Elrond’s shoulder. “I am sorry,” he said. 

Elrond took another drink of his tea. “Perhaps I should have gotten the wine after all.”

“You shouldn’t adopt all of my bad habits, little bird.” He set his tea down on his other side, and put his arm more firmly around Elrond’s shoulders. “We should have never known each other, you and I,” Maglor said. “I’m sure I should say that I would undo the things that brought me into your life. But I am a selfish and unrepentant villain, and I would not give up knowing you, not for any price.” He squeezed Elrond’s shoulders. “I look at you and I can feel that there is at least one thing that my touch has not ruined. I look at you and I can feel something like pride, something like hope.”

Elrond took a gulping breath and leaned against him. “Oh, you lying old crow. You’re just trying to make me feel better.”

Maglor laughed. “Does that sound like something I would do?”

Elrond elbowed him, sloshing tea onto his robes. “You’ve never made anyone feel better in your entire life,” he said, but he was smiling when he said it.

Chapter Text

He stands in the ocean, water up to his waist. There’s a light in the distance, a flash and a rumble as of a coming storm, but the sky above is clear and full of stars. His brother is beside him, floating languid in the ocean, chin beneath the water and nose above, pale hair spread like smoke around him.

“I hate you,” Maglor says.

Celegorm laughs, mouth open and filled with salt water. He plants his feet under him and stands, cheeks full, and the water fountains up through his pursed lips in a sparkling arc. The water splatters Maglor, warm and salty like blood and seed.

“Then why do you keep bringing me here?” He slings an arm around Maglor’s shoulders, affection and threat coupled. He doesn’t bother to wipe the blood from his lips. It runs down his chin, streaking down his neck to mingle with the hole in his chest. Maglor can see the stars shining through him.

“I don’t -”

“You do,” said Celegorm, “and you know why.” The lights beneath the sea flash brighter and the waves roar like flames. “Next time we’ll send Maedhros.”

“I’m sorry,” says Maglor, but his brother is gone, and a storm is coming.

“Blackbird!” 

They were camped in the woods north of Rivendell, just where the trees started to get wind-stunted and twisted, but before the fells started in earnest. After a couple of good nights of sleep, the boredom and worry had caught up to both of them and sent them back to Elrond, begging for something to do. Elrond had set them to riding circuits on the borders of Rivendell, watching for any movement in the wild, friend or foe. It was make-work, a concession to their restlessness, and Halbarad was endlessly appreciative of it.

Halbarad had been on watch when he had seen the faint light wobbling through the trees. He had no idea whether Maglor had been asleep or not, for he was upright and crouched beside Hal in an instant.

“Have I told you how terrifying that is?” he hissed, stringing his bow.

“Go hide,” said Maglor, sinking back onto the bedroll and picking up the lute. “If it’s friends, I’ll help them find us. If not,” he shrugged, plucking at the strings to cover their talk, “that’s what the bow is for.” 

“Try to look harmless,” Halbarad pressed a kiss to the top of his head.

Maglor twisted a peg and ignored him.

It was a tense wait for Hal, hiding in the shadow of a scrawny oak, watching the light bob closer and closer until he could hear footsteps approaching over the rough ground. Maglor played a strange and wandering melody that seemed to come straight from the autumn winds that had started to blow down from the north.

At last the light came into their little clearing, and a voice Halbarad hadn’t heard in years said, “I heard you were dead.”

Halbarad exhaled and lowered his bow.

“Are you disappointed?” asked Maglor, strumming a new chord, one of those complex ones that sounded terrible and discordant outside of a song. “Your friend Saruman is a liar.” 

Halbarad didn’t move. 

“He is,” agreed Gandalf, “about many things. You have that in common.”

“Tell me you didn’t know what he planned for me,” said Maglor. He put the lute to the side, and Halbarad could see his face in the faint light the wizard carried, strange and frightened.

“And you would believe me?”

“Come out, Halbarad,” he called, almost desperately, then turned to the wizard. “I would try, but it is hard.”

Halbarad came and sat beside Maglor, nodding a sheepish greeting as he tried to figure out what to do with his bow.

“Dunadan,” said Gandalf in acknowledgment. “As glad as I am to see you both, I am in a terrible rush.”

Halbarad glanced at Maglor. He wouldn’t have stopped Gandalf. He probably couldn’t have if he wanted to.

“What did Saruman tell you?” Maglor asked.

“He said that you came to his home to rob him, raving about your father’s works, and all the things stolen from you. He said that you came believing that he had one of your father’s seeing stones. He claimed that you fought with him, but that he bested you and gave you to his wolves.”

“So he has given up the lie that you never came to Orthanc, at least,” said Halbarad. “The rest is an obvious lie.” 

Maglor’s face had gone still. He’d never spoken to Hal of what had happened with Saruman, and it hadn’t occurred to him to question more. He and Elrond had fought about it, though. Halbarad had heard that. It had seemed such a small worry in comparison to everything that had happened after, but now he thought it had been a mistake not to pursue. 

“No,” said Maglor, soft-voiced. “It isn’t quite right, but it is more right than a lie. Sauron is still a wolf and I remain a thief and a failure.”

The wizard was looking at Maglor intently, Halbarad entirely forgotten.

“Why are you speaking with his voice, my friend?”

“What does it matter?” said Maglor, and the blankness in his voice made Halbarad want to shake him.

Gandalf looked at Halbarad, ferocious eyebrows bristling. 

“What did Saruman do?”

“He sent him to Mordor,” said Halbarad, because that was as much as he knew.

“To Minas Ithil,” said Maglor, a hint of a song in his voice, “to steal the Ithil stone.” He looked at Gandalf, a flicker behind his eyes. “He said it was the Council’s wish, and that Elrond’s sons would go if I did not.”

“You believed that?” It was such an obvious lie that Halbarad almost laughed. 

Gandalf rubbed his eyes. “Halbarad -”

“Blackbird! You have spent the last months accusing me, accusing Elrond, accusing everyone who loves you of lying to you, of trying to hurt you, and this is what you believed?”

“Halbarad!” Gandalf interrupted him and turned to Maglor. “No one warned you,” he said, taking Maglor’s hands. “Tell me what he said to you, Maglor. Not just with his voice. Tell me everything you heard. ”

Maglor looked at Halbarad. “I can’t-”

Halbarad lifted his hands, doing his best to keep any hurt from his voice. “I’ll go. I won’t listen.” He stood and squeezed Maglor’s shoulder. “But I’ll hear if you call for me. Try to tell him, though, Blackbird. Maybe it will help.”

He stood and walked away from the campsite, shuffling through the dry leaves. He was reluctant to go too far, but also afraid of the temptation to eavesdrop if he stayed too close. It didn’t matter, though, as soon as he was out of the circle of Gandalf’s light, he couldn’t hear anything but the sounds of the woods at night. Were they even talking?

He found a somewhat flat stone with a clear spot above it and lay there, folding his cloak behind his head and looking up, watching the stars unfurled above him, and listening to the quiet song of the wind in the trees. He might as well have been alone. He counted his breaths, counted the stars.The moon was waxing, and the stars around it were pale next to his brightness, but he still counted as many as he could. The wind was rising, and his heart sounded like hoof beats. Maglor was singing somewhere, a song of war and death and they rode together, side by side, with darkness fleeing before them and fire on their lips.

He didn’t know what woke him, a footstep? A voice? The stars were gone, clouds blocking all but the faintest smear of moon.

“I’m sorry,” said Maglor, climbing onto the rock beside Hal, body hot beside him. 

Halbarad choked on his words and curled up against him, letting Maglor wrap his arms around him.

“Sing,” he managed.

Maglor held him tighter, and he began a song, low and sad, in a language Hal had never heard, notes that were as soft and hollow as the wind, that cooled the heat of his tears even as they opened an ache somewhere deep within.

“It is beginning, isn’t it?” he said, when Maglor stopped.

“We don’t have long,” Maglor agreed, his chin against Hal’s cheek. “Mithrandir wants to hurry on to Imladris. I gave him one of the horses. We should follow soon.”

Halbarad tilted his face so that his lips were beside Maglor’s. 

“Let them wait,” he said.