Work Text:
Maedhros felt the sharp edges of the rock against his back as he swayed slightly in the harsh northern wind. His right arm had long since gone numb, but the jagged surface of Thangorodrim always seemed to find a new way to dig into his skin, creating fresh wounds that would scab over, only for the scabs to be ripped from him and the futile healing to begin anew. He lowered his head and stared at the rocks and sparse vegetation below, then blurred his eyes and allowed his mind to drift. On the best days he could almost believe that he could will his fëa to slip from his hröa and wander through time and space, exiled and wraithlike, to lands that he had given up his right to inhabit.
This time, he envisioned a small glade near the midway point between Formenos and Tirion, where beams of Laurelin’s light broke through the tree canopy and gilded the wildflowers on the forest floor. Birds sang and grass cushioned his bare feet as he strode towards the thick trunk of an oak tree at the edge of the clearing. He sat and leaned his back against a pillow of moss, then took a small leatherbound sketchbook and pencil from a pocket in his robes. Thick, auburn hair spilled over his shoulders and he pushed it behind his ears before he opened the sketchbook and examined his current work in progress.
He was satisfied that he had captured the curve of the nose, the bow of the lips, the length of the eyelashes. The expression of the subject was fierce, determined, his eyes bright with ambition. Maedhros smiled fondly, and was just beginning to consider how to capture in pencil the glint of a golden ribbon running through a plait when the music of the birdsong changed. He looked up, cocked his head and strained to hear. A rich, deep voice was singing in the distance, the notes of his song weaving harmoniously through the sounds of the forest. It was a familiar tune, one of Valinor, and Maedhros began to sing along, delving into his memory to recall the words. He ignored the hoarseness of his voice, the way his dry lips cracked as they moved. He focused instead on the imagery contained in the lyrics: they spoke of the beauty of the trees, the flawless green of each leaf in a land free from decay. They sang of the wild animals that roamed the land, of their thick coats and colourful feathers, and Maedhros incorporated these into his vision of the glade as stumbling fawns and bright hummingbirds gathered at its edges. A gust of wind blew and he shifted, causing a piece of rock to dig into his ankle. He determinedly refocused on the glade, saw the green hue of the light through the canopy, desperate not to lose the sound of the voice, and he continued to sing along, calling the voice to him, and heard it grow in volume. It was much closer now; he would see the singer soon, and he looked around eagerly for his arrival. The voice stopped. Then, ‘Russo,’ it said.
There was too much grief, too much devastation in the word for it to belong to the glade. Maedhros closed his eyes, opened them again, and focused on the rocky expanse below him. There was that face, the face from his sketch, though thinner and more tired than he remembered. Maedhros’ eyes traced the same curved nose and full lips, the same meticulous plaits with the same gold ribbon carefully folded through, and those same grey eyes which were now wide and looking up at him in horror. ‘Finno,’ Maedhros croaked. ‘Please.’