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On the lake, it’s not reason but feeling that convinces Fingon to go after Maedhros, years of the glass wall between him and the world rising, thickening, until he stands always on the outside looking in at the people he wishes to protect. Reason comes later, justifying him. Like as not, I'll be captured or slain, he thinks, but if I am, we’ll be no worse off than we were before. The chance is worth it. Later still, against armies of Orcs, against the dragon, he has hours at best to think, at worst only seconds, but that’s no problem. He’s made his choice.
His father clings to him when he returns alive from meeting the dragon’s eyes. Fingon endures it, irritated, endures for a quarter of an hour a scolding worthy of a child caught sneaking out after dark. He demands, “What would you have had me do? Let the beast ravage our people?”
“Of course not,” Fingolfin says, “but I wish you would take a moment to think of yourself! You’re important to your people. You’re important to me.”
Fingon storms out. He makes a song in praise of his heroics and spreads it with gold dropped in the hand of a traveling musician, hears it echoed at festivals for years afterwards. Maedhros laughs at him for his arrogance. Unlike his father, unlike even Angrod and Aegnor, Maedhros doesn’t scold Fingon for saving lives. They spend most of their time together hunting Orcs, making a sport of it. One day Fingon falls from his horse attempting a leap he should’ve known he couldn’t make, and after Maedhros has dispatched the last Orc, he picks Fingon up off the ground and steadies him when he stumbles.
“Have you given yourself a concussion?” Maedhros says.
“I’m fine,” Fingon says.
“You’ve certainly given yourself a split lip.” Maedhros places his thumb over it and presses down until Fingon has to work not to flinch. Maedhros smiles. He leans in and kisses Fingon, licking blood into his mouth.
That night, they sit shoulder to shoulder in the grasses and speak of peace. Not the fragile balance they’ve won already, but true peace, Morgoth defeated and the Silmarils in the sons of Fëanor’s hands. “Imagine it,” Fingon says, “the joy of it! My siblings will open the Hidden City for all to visit, and my father will weep to hold his children in his arms again. Angrod and Aegnor will remember how they laughed in Tirion. And you! You will reconcile with all your brothers. You will dance again.”
“And where will you be in all of this?” Maedhros asks.
Fingon shrugs. “There will have to be a war first, and you know me. I’ll probably be dead.”
He means it as a joke. Later he will wonder how he thought it a good one. But Maedhros doesn’t scold him. He falls silent, his hand lifting to rub circles in Fingon’s back, and Fingon doesn’t notice anything wrong. He leans his sore head on Maedhros’s shoulder.
“Then I will be dead, too,” Maedhros says, “because I will be right there with you.”
“You will not. This is my fantasy, and in my fantasy you survive. You’ll lead a different front. You’ll be safe.”
“But you won’t be.”
Fingon looks up. Maedhros’s eyes gleam dangerously. The old irritation flares, and with it something like fear. A denial springs to the tip of Fingon’s tongue, defensive and unconvincing, then words cruel enough to distract entirely. Fingon waits until he can say, “I suppose it’d be romantic to die together. And I shouldn’t overshadow you: the Silmarils are yours. You can die with me, if you insist.”
Maedhros breathes out. “I insist.”
“Then Maglor will lead your people. He’ll do a better job of it than last time.”
Together they spin their story of peace, Fingolfin in the West reunited with most of his children, Maglor in the East reconciled with most of his brothers. Sometime after midnight they turn to the matter of their joint funeral, the divergent customs that will need to be woven together. “That will be the real test. If Maglor and Fingolfin can get through it without slaying each other, they can get through anything,” Maedhros says, and Fingon laughs and laughs.