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In darkness, a hand emerges from the cot beside him and rests softly on the shoulder of Maglor.

“If we are to do it, we must do it now.”

Maglor is not asleep, there exists no herb nor sedative that would have made it so in this moment, not for the cold, the perpetuating damp, the stench of the dead and dying, the pounding, creeping rush of dread ever renewing itself in his chest.

Five hundred and eighty seven years upon it. 

Maglor cannot see his brother, sequestered in the tent, for the Noldor had never the advantage of those who were born under the stars. Only the dim glow of his eyes, purged of all but resolve.

For a moment, he considers pretending not to wake, buried safe beneath all the furs left to him. But surely Maedhros can hear the pounding of his heart more clearly than anything. And it hurts. It hurts. 

The camp is one of refugees, not soldiers-- the men of Brethil, the displaced Sindar and Noldor of Nargothrond now lost beneath the churning waves, moving always to higher ground. The last of the Fëanorians would never have been accepted into the golden armies of Valinor, even had they wished-- but they had never even considered such a thing. When first the shining ships of the West began to shake the coast, all either of them had been able to consider was the tiny children sleeping wrapped in their bloody cloaks.

The children kept them safe. Kept their hands free of iron, their heads above water through this new and terrible world. No kin’s blood had dirtied them since that fateful night along the Falas-- they bore no flags, wore no crowns, though by curse or charm no one failed to recognize the sons of Fëanor. Fifty years they carved out through this Dagor Rûth, as the last remnants of society faltered and crumbled. The children stopped asking, before long, for their Emel. Listened, with care, to the tongue of their captors. There came Atya instead, a strange-eyed trust. What else could they do? What else was there left to them but love the orphans they made? 

Elwing would have known how to raise them. Would have known how old they were, at least. How unnaturally fast they would grow. What made their touch numb and heal what should have rightfully stayed in pain, their child’s words soften, carry with them Arda’s music-- She would have understood. She was younger than the twins are now, with children already.

But they had done what they had done.

Never had they lied to the twins, not outright. Anything asked would be answered. The questions became harder as they grew, two little heads, four wide eyes so dark brown they were as baby calves, wronged and commanding. Still, it was a decade before the night on the cliff grew its blades. 

Did you kill her?

No.

Is she alive?

We do not know.

But would you have done it? Would you do it again?

We… will never do it again.

(...)

They are here for the twins. Raising arms only to defend the poor masses from the scattered waves of Morgoth’s army. Just to live the same as the rest. Nothing more.

Maglor, in the throes of sleeplessness, rises from his cot, taking ahold of his brother’s hand. Raising it, instinctually, to quiet Maedhros before the twins can hear.

But they do not sleep in this tent anymore. The sea has risen ten fathoms since the last time Elrond and Elros would not sleep alone. The twins themselves do not even sleep side by side now, not always. Elrond barely sleeps, running between tents, setting wounds and soothing hurts with his soft-spoken calm. And Elros now keeps company with Haleth’s men, his hair cut about his shoulders, never less than three of them hearkening to his words. They are so fast. It has all gone so fast.

The brothers face each other, a taut silence.

“Maitimo… it cannot truly be over. Must we be sure? There is no precedent. We have seen horrors beyond anything we might have dreamed. Who is to say if Morgoth’s chain should hold?”

“You know just as well as I what it was we saw.” Maedhros’s voice is rough. Harder than it was in younger years, all scar tissue. “There is one which rests in the sky, every night. The same color, clarity, intensity of light, no matter the distance. When we returned that night, Elrond pointed to the sky and called ‘Ada’.”

Maglor stares blindly through the darkness, hair loose in curtains over his face.

“Then, as the battle rages on to the north, upon last dawn-- two points of light, shining as nothing else in all Arda as they flew. Eru, Makalaurë, it shook the ground,” Maedhros pleads, hand fast on his shoulder.

And a moment of silence, full and heavy as no other. 

“They have the jewels, háno. I understand.”

A breath-

“I almost-- hoped that, in the battle… they might be destroyed. But nothing he made could ever die.”

Maedhros’s hand clings to his brother’s, always sickly warm, despite the chill. “You would have us lose that light?” he asks dimly. It betrays a deep, nauseous hurt. Maglor’s hand, nonetheless, shakes. 

“Our grand tormentor is defeated, and yet we-- we cannot have enough. We have lived half an aeon without it. What would we even do with them? We cannot present them to our father. We cannot relight the trees, nor reunite them with their sister.” A catch in his throat, as he realizes how his voice raises, and it returns barely above a whisper. “I do not wish to fight with you, please, it has been so long. Let it stay this way.”

 “What is done is done. Nothing is going to stay this way, no matter our choice. If we stay, we will drown.” He retorts, pulling a hauberk of mail heavily over his head. “Get your things, and quietly. It doesn’t need to be painful. We can keep talking. But it must be outside the camp.”

An intake of breath.

“I wish I was not your brother,” he whispers. “I wish he was not my father.”

A heavy, frozen second of silence.

Maedhros slaps him across the face. 

Not hard, but it is Maedhros. It is always harder than he intends. He follows it quickly with a kiss, as if in apology, right at the cheekbone, right where it stings. Maglor feels his brother’s face against his own. It is wet, tinged with salt. He is nauseous.

He did not hear it, when his brother began crying. Maitimo has always been good at that. And he retorts, still, with vitriol.

“I understand. I could be a solo beast of burden. It would be much easier, with just the one hand.”

It cuts.

Nevertheless, Maglor begins, methodically, the process of dressing, of arming, as if pulled along by intangible strings. Heavy metal. All prepared by blind touch. Recalling, of course, that it was Maedhros who had to convince him to take them in. Held them, cleaned their wounds as Maglor hid in fear of a child’s retribution.

It is past the crux of the night. There are celebrations abound, fires and haggard cheers of men and elves for the proclaimed defeat of the Dark Lord. Maedhros stares from afar upon them, almost wishing to join, the bubbling of such great hatred and relief at the Lord of Angband’s misery it brings lightheadedness. 

The world has been saved. But not for them.

They carry no lantern, in silent march from the muddy camp. The traditional cloaks, bearing an eight-pointed star. A deep red. Unstainable, unmistakeable.

The stables are set aside, borrowed from an abandoned mannish cottage in the fields of Dimbar. Only one sits there now, a twelve-year old mortal asleep beside his pony. The horses that they ride now are young, used only to carry supplies and travel. But they are noble creatures. One beside the other, the younger’s sleek and dark, the older’s a draft horse, a tall beast of great muscle.

Hanging back, Maglor rests his hand against the nearest tree. He watches his brother hang in the shadow, holding the tie in his mouth as he braids back the great mass of his hair, face stone. One handed, he has learned to twine it between the fingers, that same thick, unruly hair of their mother, so heavy but refusing to grow long down her back. It is hers, save for the grey in it, the ravaging of the wind, the neglect and knots threatening always to mat. His eyes are distant, faded and colorless as heavy cloud.

“I judge the stars landed in the Taur-Nu-Fuin. The nearest edge of the camp should rise in the hills on the Pass of Anach. A few hours’ ride, in good time.” 

Maglor leaves his hair loose more often, the Sindar fashion. It falls longer that way, he looks softer. But he finds himself following suit, concentrating only on the movement of his fingers. Over, under, pull it taut, but not too-- the movement of his mother, hand over his hands, when all were soft and calloused only by instruments of creation. That alone.

“And… where, from there? If we-” An aborted thought, quick and neatly replaced. “We cannot bring them back to this place.” He frowns. “Our banner carries no weight against the might of Valinor. We are two, worn and made hollow by this bitter land. They will pursue us. If we make this choice-- if even it is a choice--” Maglor chokes on his words, for a moment thinking of his harp, his finer clothes, the few trinkets of the old land they had left to them. But quickly it leaves, and there is the pit of his love. The twins. 

Maedhros hardens. “We must leave this all behind. We could rebuild, after... Wherever the water stops rising, if it stops. As long as we have them, at least the two, we are free.” And his words gain speed, more insistent on themselves as he continues. “We will be absolved. The burning, the soot that clings to our breath, the constant drive, the fear, it will cease. It must.”

His hand grips his brother’s shoulder, nails digging into the leather. There is more emotion in his face than Maglor has seen in him for nigh on a century. Yet the statement feels empty, as if he follows a script, words reworked ten thousand times before slipping from his tongue.

“Two jewels for two children, then?”

He regrets it, as soon as he says it. Never, have they called the twins their children. Not in so few words. But it rings true.

When the two of them beset the lady Elwing, there was no debate, no fight. Their brothers were gone, their lands scattered. They had nothing left to them but the oath. Yet suddenly, it strikes him, how much now they have to lose.

Beat. 

“No more talk of the twins. You have seen them, their blood of man has grown them faster than any Elda. They are valiant, strong, wiser than the both of us if never taller. They do not need us any longer.”

It is said with love, admiration, great pride. And it is an excuse.

Maglor holds his breath. As much as his heart tells him the boys are still children, in Noldor society barely even adolescent, it is not only the blood of men within them, but that of Melian. Maedhros and Maglor have raised them as much as one might raise the grandchildren of the sea itself. 

Yet being grown does not prepare one to be alone. In the old land never was it so. Fëanor had his father an aeon, and still not a clue how to go on without him. He was nothing, as they are nothing without him. Ghosts, echoes.

Maglor worries always for the fate of twins. Of all twins, not just these. Of two half-forces, peeling apart. The raw edge would not hold, without their father, did not hold with the Ambarussa, always the forgotten. 

If they had only been closer, if only they had done their duty as the eldest, the second set of parents in a family so large. This love they gave instead to Elrond and Elros. And still.

It was then-- when the twins came of age, that all started to go wrong with their father. When the light was borne into the world, with greater fanfare than any of seven sons. These twins, now, too, though age is not what it was. They have seen it before. It cannot happen again.

“You know they will try and stop us. There is nothing for it.”

And there is not.

 Stealth has never been the strongest sense of the Fëanorians, ever heavy of hand and foot. They look to each other and approach, the wet snow crunching painfully with each step. The horses stir. The soft clash of the bit, the metal chains, the chance scrape of their hilts on the side of the wall.

The boy awakens, as Maedhros hoists himself atop the massive beast. His face all shadow, save the light of his eyes.

For a moment, confusion, the boy’s young eyes darting between the camp’s unorthodox protectors, the old cloaks upon them, the mail, the blades. The relapse.

He opens his mouth, braced to scream.

And Maglor, swift as without thought, slams his head into the wall.

Mortal, he lands limp in the hay. Breathing, but unconscious. 

It is enough. Maglor leaps atop his horse, as his brother looms above, sleepless under stars. Catching his gaze, from below… there it is. That minimal noise of approval. He has done what violence was asked.

They brace to ride.

Brisk, but slow enough yet to stay the noise. Away from the camp, a wide berth to cross the river, then north. The stars wheel above, the wet snow trampled already with mud, perforated with long grasses, grey in the night.

Quiet speech, stripped of emotion.

“To the Mindeb?”

A nod. “Hold your metal, stay close behind. Then at the river, abreast.”

The few trees make way for dilapidated farmhouses and firewood, a pile of stones cleared for a field long fallow.

A shadow lurks, huddled against the side of the wood pile. Their tree-born eyes are blind, but to Elrond, they are clear as day.

In his night robes, away from the camp, sleepless of paper and quill. 

His voice, from the darkness. Sudden, and grave.

“Atyar?”

It is Maedhros first, who halts his horse, an instinctual movement, close as terror.

Maglor does not want to speak, for fear it is his mind, and nothing else. But it runs ahead of him, in the darkness. The twins were never lost. Never had they need to call for them, in the dark. And yet.

“Elrond? Where are you?” He calls, quiet, voice shaking, composure an eroding cliff.

But the great grandson of Lúthien does not reveal himself. 

“Where are you going?”

It is accusing. Unbelieving. Pleading. Over all, utterly, horribly calm.

Maedhros lifts the reins, bracing again to move. Not a sound, but breath. Face hidden.

“What are you doing out here, aiwë?” He calls. It is an old nickname, one he’s surely not spoken since they were very young. “Come away from the fields. It’s not safe.”

And they see him then, walking onto the path, his eyes, his hair scattered with stars. In the night, he is nothing like an elf, nor a man, full already of a deep, desperate grief. “You were going to disappear. I knew it.”

Maglor advances abreast of his brother, and they look to each other, beyond themselves. To move. To run, from everything. From the love, from the long nights warming them by the fire, teaching them Quenya, their first horse ride, first argument, the first time the twins asked what would happen if the Dark Lord were to fall. To strip it all away, to flesh, to bone, to marrow. There is nothing to it. Bloody blades, sandy shores, two tiny children, one dead brother, two dead brothers, five dead brothers and a father in flames, and so much good they’d done on these mortal lands. 

Elrond stands tall now. So young. Is his maturity forced, or natural? He will never be taller than his fathers. But he has been older than them for many years.

You will be called to abandon comforts, to abandon grace and mercy, to abandon fellow kin to whom your love was promised. You must be ruthless, and sharp, not flesh but iron, for it is not the wielder that cuts, but the blade. 

Ná, atar, ávatyara mello, atar.

Elrond’s approach changes, as the horses begin to move, tripping over himself. “Wait. Wait, I’ll fetch Elros, please, at least to say goodbye to--” And a breath, abandoning sense. “You’ll kill yourselves!” he shouts, and the walk becomes a trot, the trot a half-gallop. “No!” And he leaps before Maedhros’s horse, the black beast of momentum forcing him to the dirt, a crack, a cry, and two brothers who know at once that there is no turning back.

Nothing, then, but the wind, the falls of horseshoes, a single cry, final and pained.

“You promised.”

They ride into the night, hearing now nothing but the wind. There is a relief, in pushing their steeds to speed beyond reason. The muscle beneath them, the heat in this desolate cold. It is punishing. It is good.

Thank void, he is not alone. The light, it is all they wanted, as children in the night, a light, a light, a light. No longer would they be afraid. Maitimo and Makalaurë, before any of the others were born or died. At least there is this.

It is land they have known, they ought to know. They can pick it out, with difficulty-- the shape of a hill there, the curve of a ridge, the rising, at least, of the mountains. But already it has begun to slip away from them. The rivers overflow far past their banks, dead fish lie frozen to the drowned grass. A sea breeze blows stiff and salty far inland, an omen unshakable. Here the fields, dirt roads they trod a thousand times are trampled or burned, a sludge of thick mud, rotting carcasses. When their father foresaw with blinding eyes their domain in the mortal lands, did he witness this, as well? If he had, was it in pure sight, or did it come with the stench?

If he had, would it have made any difference? Or would he have led them despite it? Had he led them here, despite it? Knowing, even then, there was no glorious war.

It is less than two hours, altogether, before that light on the northern horizon is made clear. In the haze of the snow in dead night, near all energy has been sapped. Their eyes sting, hands sore and shaking from clenching the reins, spines bent. Maglor has made do, staring continuously at Maedhros from behind, that faceless wall of resolve. His wide shoulders hold the mantle of his thick and wiry hair, the worn and thrice bloodied crest of their father at his back, lined with grey fur of a wolf dead 300 years. They have made… good time. More than that. Never have horses run so fast upon mortal land, as if whipped themselves by the flames of the oath, speckling both rider and steed with cold and foul-smelling mud.

The light of the camp of Valinor shines gold and silver. Spilling from the Pass of Anach, it rolls up the hills, upon the scarred mountain, into the smashed ruins of what was Taur-Nu-Fuin, what was Dorthonion. Maedhros slows his beast, the fog of its panting breath and his own mixing, as the font of the fire mountain.

His face is borne to his brother. Maedhros’s mouth is open, red lips parted, the gold reflected in his eyes. “The light, it…”

Maglor clutches his chest. It has begun to burn, his heartbeat a terrible pain within him. The necessity, the body a compass, the machine of flesh the sons have been made. He knows where they are, the two jewels, down to the width of a hair. And his eyes water, at the sight of the makeshift city, banners emblazoned with two long-gone trees in purple and gold heraldry. 

“It looks like Tirion.”

“No.” His brother speaks, as soft as his damaged voice could make itself. “Alqualondë.”

“Don’t…” 

The word barely makes it from the singer’s lips, near buried in the cry of the wind. 

“Káno…”

“Don’t call me that. Not now.” He grimaces. On the battlefield, it was only ataressë. They kept it, through the attack upon Menegroth, the last time in which half the sons yet lived. It helped them, not to think. Not to feel.  “I am a soldier. Nothing more.”

The subject has not been broached for near a century. It is not something of which they speak. Maedhros is chastised. 

“Surely, it doesn’t matter any longer. This isn’t a fair battle.”

The wind howls, as they gaze upon the remnants of a light long forsaken. Maedhros busies his hand and teeth tying his steed to a post, a broken sign for a town now nothing but rubble. Nothing feels real about it, in truth. A dream, words exchanged under a blanket, small and forgotten by morning. But would there be morning, the shining defenses of Aman against the last remnant of a fallen house? (Their weapons are polished, sharp and clean. Out of any way to go, it is best.)

He is right. It doesn’t matter. And Maglor stares at the ground, as his brother dismounts, though his hair is compliantly braided, and cannot now hide his face when he speaks.

“You haven’t cared about me since we were children, Maitimo. You haven’t looked at me once since the number of mouths to feed in that house exceeded four. You only abode with me in this land because everyone you cared more for perished. And I could not blame you, for the only time I was ever given charge I left you to rot in the mountain of hell. Not because I had faith you could weather it. But because saving you was more trouble than it was worth.”

It spills from him as easily, as smoothly as the Noldolantë, an admission of guilt as free of weight as anything from Makalaurë’s blessed lips. Against his brother’s ragged monotone there is almost nothing of similarity, any attempt at song has been long beaten out of the elder, as dearly by Angband as by the success of his brother. But there is just enough, just barely enough to recognize the resemblance.

He tries, at first, to reject the claim, as the river of grief pours from Maglor. An old excuse-- knowing Maglor could take care of himself, trusted when the others could not be. But it dies on his lips, with what follows.

The resentment of an age, the blame of the eldest child is unveiled on his face. Maglor still on his horse, they are yet face to face. Maedhros comes to him, eyes wide, a scorned dog.

The second child bares his neck, waiting for the hand about it. Wanting it. But this time it does not come.

“I forgive you. I would not wish you perish in wanting of that.”

Oh. 

There is a flight in him, still, in the way he clutches the reins. Maedhros does not miss it.

“By the darkness everlasting, if you run now, I shall slay you myself before the oath has its chance.”

“You don’t mean that.”

There is no answer, though his grey eyes are tired.

The pain in his chest worsens. They cannot hold themselves back much longer, lest they be seen. 

Run into the light. Commit their sin. 

“...Right.”

Was it always meant to be them? Was there a tune within the Ainulindalë which sang of the soldier and the bard, discordant and uneasy, a string duet of harp and war-horn? How does it end? Soon? Together or apart? Is the only note which might mend their feud the sharp and cutting string of this final pact?

A hand sat on the hilt of his sword, hanging now on Maedhros’s right side. No more words. Both understand exactly what is left to be done. To follow the pain in their chest to its conclusion. 

A short march, cloaked and silent, across the trampled, broken ground, covering itself poorly in snow. It is over as soon as it begins. 

The divine infantry remains quiet, in the night, but never dark. The kinslayers are illuminated in full color, wandering in mute awe, adorned in their dark, tarnished armor. The tents rise high, draped with brilliant, sturdy fabrics, circles of fires and lamps set everywhere they might fit. All is displayed in the old Quenya, just the same as the moment they left. The presence is sickening, crushing, the golden elves, strong and yet unbroken by long struggle upon this barren land. At rest, mostly. But not all.

Barely can they breathe. They are drawn as if down a hill, without their wanting four legs tripping over themselves in desperate need. The light permeates the very air, even covered-- it is a song, a vibration, an ache in the most inner chambers of their hearts. They announce themselves, and they know it, the metal of their arms scraping, great unwieldy titans on trampled land. Yet they cannot stop. Only glance to each other, and slip between two tents. The camp sat upon dust crushed with diamonds, spattered in great gouts with the foul smelling, black blood of their defeated god. The trees have been felled to fit these bodies. And past bodies they walk. Many dead. More alive. 

Soldiers will always be stationed where such things may be kept-- there, the visage of dozens, maybe hundreds, kept awake through all such dreadfully dark nights, in wait for only such foolish knaves as these. 

Maedhros sets a hand atop his brother’s shoulder. The soldiers glow. It is remembered treelight, alone, as all Calaquendi on Beleriand. But the Noldor have diminished, spent by this land. The two brothers emit now only the faintest glimmer, light-starved. It is not so for the golden lances of Aman. The Fëanorians have no difficulty seeing their faces, which so resemble their own.

It is only another tent. No grandiose tomb was built in a day to house the greatest treasures of Valinor. There is no light that can be seen from inside that small and beckoning slit, save that of worldly candles, dim and flickering. Never have they been allowed to get so close. Even in the halls of Menegroth, the boy-king denied them its sight, naked of the heavy Nauglamir too large for his chest.

It would drive you mad, he cried, then, in conviction though his voice trembled, fumbling for a pristine sword, never yet wielded. I am saving you from it, as he was made kinslayer himself, the blood of their brothers just as red as his own upon his face, as his five year old child fled through the woods. They blazed with desperation, his eyes, that bright, innocent black that lived only now in the twins left behind. I am saving you. Please. 

Never have they asked to be saved. It is one of the few dignities they have left.

How far will they make it? Will they reunite with the jewels, before they are slaughtered? Will they have chance to lay eyes on their long-fought prize? They have tried before, to forswear the oath. How close to death will it force them, before their choice becomes their own to die?

The drowning doom in Maglor’s head is broken then, as Maedhros meets his eyes. 

And they stumble, two, into the light. 

The eldest holds up his head, as the soldiers brace, eyes belying immediate recognition. It is mutual, for Valinor has held the same faces for ten thousand years. He knows these soldiers, though a child he was to them then, no beast of burden and war. They were friends. Fishermen, hunters, their daughters and sons.

“Great soldiers of Aman,” he calls, and the old Quenya sticks to his tongue, his attempt at authority coming off unused and childish. “We are… Nelyafinwë and Kanafinwë, the last remaining of the house of Fëanáró Curufinwë. As announced, we come to retrieve what is ours by right. I beg of you, let us.”

None of the soldiers attempt, even, to speak. There are a few lightning glances, the clutching of weapons, of chests. 

But there, above them, descends a shadow.

Light as feather, the voice from it echoes with great power, the beat of wings on high. 

Maglor’s knees nearly drop at the sight of the herald. In raiment of brilliant white and blue, Eönwë shines, his robes loose, backless for his wings-- and from him is nothing recognizable. 

“Sons of the oath, I forbid my troops to become slayers of kin. We have come to liberate this land. We shall not fulfill thy self-destruction. We would let thee leave free, if thou might lay down thine arms. But if Silmarilli thou shalt take, it shall be their blood, and thy choice.”

The elves gaze upon the maia, their faces lit in his brilliance. If there is emotion in him, it is so untouched by sorrow or deceit as to be entirely lost on them.

None but he do speak, yet all ready their lances. 

Maedhros takes his brother’s hand. The heat of it is overwhelming.

Three words, and no attempt to quiet.

“Nelye talya, hánonya.”

And slaughter, long foresworn, welcomes them one last time.

There is no sense to it, no point where their bodies end and will begins. Against them is only defense, golden, overwhelming. A fleshy wall, in protection of the inconsequential, immaterial distance between hand and jewel. The crossing polearm, hands grasping for their cloaks, a tangle of cries. Only flesh. 

It is a force. The hand, the weapon, the throat, the fire. They are not Eldar, but steel, not Eldar, but mouths, but teeth, but pure descension, unreckonable in any form, unconscious, unceasing. It is not the slaying of kin, for the brothers in doom are only animal. It has driven them mad two thousand seasons. No more. No more. No more.

It is their voices, which scream just as loud as any. They are bathed in it.

And amidst a moment, a storm’s eye forms, in the swirl of bodies. Thick with the fëa of the slain, smoke and breath hang dead in the air. The wall of flesh subsides. And there are two brothers between it, throats ragged, knuckles red.

“Now, Russo,” is let from Maglor’s mouth, despite any insistence against it. Barely a breath, catching itself. “Now.”

He tears back the leather flap of the tent, slipping accompanied to blackness. And within it, a single crack of light.

White light. As prismatic vistas of color, moving, singing, gold and silver, and their father, and home, and home, and rapture, absolution, the stinging entirety of Eru’s heart borne on their father’s temple, adamant and unforgiving, a father whom neither of them truly believed waited for them in the halls. And Maitimo, his hand tight in Makalaurë’s, ill fitting, no different ever than it was, half an aeon melting away.

“One look.”

“Just the one.”

He wipes the blood from his eyes, fusing his dark lashes together, slick fingers fumbling. “We must away. We must away.”

The chest, a tarnished thing, unwieldy. They smash the lock, inferior metal. It crumbles as ash.

Silmarilli. One for the elder, one the younger. Unchanged as ever they were in a child’s eyes a long age past. Indescribable. Terrifying. 

Always has Maedhros felt they looked back. And never, ever with pride.

The vision is short lived, for tears come. With no time for emotion, Maedhros slams his hand down against the latch, and its light subsides, as he lifts it from its resting place.

They flee, cutting their way through the brambles. All the muscle. All the faces. All that is left.

No one stops them.

It is far too easy, in the end. They run, arm in arm, forcing each other on, the small chest clasped for dear life. They run until the beat of their heart rises to their throat, to the edge of the light, a beacon unto themselves. The camp flees from them, now. They have proven now who they are. 

Above them, the herald Eönwë watches, as he watched his soldiers be slaughtered, passive. They suppose it is fair, to him. It proves a point. They have done as he said they would. 

Are they meant to respect him, to worship him as savior? Who are they, to do violence upon those that liberate this land from Morgoth, that liberate its people from the land, that liberate the land from Arda? What is there to be thankful for, in all of this? When did they ever ask to be saved, no matter how desperate their suffering? Why took it their jewel on the brow of another, one whose feet would never again touch the ground?

If not them, who was it saved for? What was left of it, torn from its tyrant?

Yet they should be thankful, at least for their children. Their… 

But the twins are not their children, are they. Not anymore.

When they stumble at last from the camp through the mud-churned snow, their steeds meet them, loyal even through the stench of death, the strange dizzying light. (If they stare at it, even through the crack too long the edges of consciousness begin to eat at them.)

There is no thought as to where. They throw themselves atop the horses, low, arms wrapped around the living muscle of the neck. Visions of severed muscle. Delirious from sleep-lack, their actions repeat themselves in mind’s eye. A repetitive process. Destroying a body. Are they done? Is it still happening? Who are they now? 

Nowhere they ride, the weeping beacon of Eru stifled beneath Maedhros’s cloak. It is darker than before, though with the light they flee. They see nothing, where they go, but the black silhouette of horizon, the deafening flood of stars above. Everywhere, an endless and heavy rush of water. 

There is no doubt they have veered west. They do not ride in return. Where they are going now, he does and does not know.

It is the first time since the last great rising of the tide that they have come this way. Now, in the darkest hour the smothered silmarils, white-gold, illuminate the viscera of a land decimated beyond any hope of return. 

Vast hillsides washed half away, the flesh of a thousand years’ sediment flayed across their path. Stone bridges washed out, farmlands rendered graveyard, great cliffs made of what were once gentle slopes. And about them, great chasms are torn in the earth, down, down beneath the hooves of the stumbling horses. They yawn, and spit, those not made ravines of rushing floodwater searing with the smoke and volcanic, red heat of the disturbed Ered Gorgoroth. As they rush past, Maglor catches a glimpse of a live tree split between one, the gore of its roots exposed, leaves singed and caught by the spit of the flame.

Clinging to that sweet, exhausted mare, Maglor’s tears leave a trail through the open plains of northern Beleriand. There is no more of Nargothrond left, and no end in sight to the rising water. There is nothing of the life they nurtured for a half-century, still held yet hours before.

Yet, this is all they could ever want. The Dark Lord has fallen. The sons of Fëanor hold the Silmarilli. 

Arda, it seems, opens its maw, waiting only for them to leap.

They are nowhere. A field, maybe, or a grove, before. The valley of dreadful death opens, and once, here, was the great Sirion.

Now, it is the ocean.

“...This is as far as it goes?” Maglor utters, though his voice is so quiet, and so high it barely sounds. “It… no. I came to the Sirion with Elrond, not… not a month ago.” A crack. “We collected reeds.”

His brother’s back was to him, this long and winding ride. And when Maedhros turns, that crack of light is held in his cloak, the layers of winter fabric. Held out in supplication, as the last piece of bread split in famine.

“There is no further to run, then.”

Before them is a yawning pit. Surely, they have ridden long enough to know they are not pursued. 

Who would follow them here? For what? Ha- the jewels?

“I carry these… as if I must ferry them to Adar. Or-- at least, the rest of our brothers. But.” A nervous, lost laugh, from the elder’s rough voice. “They are… all ours.”

His brother’s eyes are lit hauntingly, that cold grey, from beneath. The box opens, and light floods their faces, as death.

For a moment, they do not even glance at the jewels, lost in the desolation of another face so lit. There is a peace, in each of them. Silver shades of their skin and hair brought to first light again after five hundred years’ darkness. By the treelight of their childhood, that innocence they have craved to the point of slaughter, yet faces irrecognizable with grief.

Both, without a thought of resistance, obey their hand. To clutch, to cradle, to break or consume. 

“Oh,” Maglor sighs, drinking in for a quarter-second the full-body warmth, the sickening rush of power as the jewel brightens to his touch, brighter ever than the pithy sun. It does not cease, and he rides it, mistaking the light for love. He rides it, emptied, as comes the shaking, the blinding, the great-- heat…

And Maedhros, first, lets out a cry. Cut ragged and short, as someone far too used to quieting pain. Yet it shows on his face, eyes white and bloodshot mirrors. His lips trembling, as the veins and skin of his one remaining hand’s veins are taken by fire. First white-red, beneath the skin. Then black. It is as clear a rejection as any might possibly be.

Maglor stares only at his brother, though the light bathes them all around. To his knees he falls, knowing, in that moment that never again shall his hands have any use for a harp. If he drops the star now, into the mud, or if he clutches it for ten millenia, it shall be the same.

Purifying flame. Maglor presses close his flesh to the horizon of no return. He holds the Silmaril to his chest, praying to cauterization, and Maedhros is silenced by his pain. But freely, Maglor weeps.

The world around quiets with them. They are held by it. Maedhros falls into Maglor, for the first and only time, and is held, that braid of russet come wildly undone. 

A moment later, or ten thousand. White flakes, about them, fall, and the snow melts before it lands. But the ash stays. On the ground, in their hair, their breath. 

“Nelyo, will they kill us, if we keep their hold?”

“... I do not think they can kill. That is our duty.”

“Then… what are we to do, now? Soon… the sun will rise.”

It spills from him then, raw as a wound.

“Kano, the sun shall not see me again. Though it has been kinder to me than ever the truer light could. I could never love it. This light should never be seen. Not by anyone. It has brought naught but misfortune to any who gazed upon it.”

And Maglor held his brother’s face in his hands, and it seemed as if the countless scars on his face bloomed open, blood leaking from his dull glowing eyes. There was nothing left of Maitimo. What could he say that would change all the world? The sting of his palm across Maglor’s face remained. But that hurt was nothing, now.

“The twins will come looking for us. For good or ill. They will never stop searching.”

“And they shall not find me.” The elder stands, still heavy with the jewel. His hand flakes, as ash, and trembles with pain. “Not… burnt as the palms of Morgoth. Not my soul borne rotten on my skin. There is… there is one for the both of us. Our only inheritance. We ought to split.”

It is said with incomparable sorrow. An excuse hollow and transparent.

Maglor does not stand. He cannot find it in himself, stuck as a rock upon the cliff. He can only plead, his voice as weak and hollow as the last.

“No. Please.”

“What else, hánonya?” Maedhros breathes, as if the Silmaril were a weight consistent with its output of light. The depth, the density of a star. The consequence.

“I shall stay here. I do not know. I will stay here, a while.” Maglor echoes, bereft, clinging to neither thought nor choice. 

Maedhros tries to smile. But he cannot, with the flame engulfing his hand. He speaks softly, as if to a young child. One he loves, dearly, despite the deep shadows under his eyes.

“Then all I ask is that you do not follow me.”

“Had only we never been born unto this world. But then we would not have the twins. I would not have you.”

“You do not have me now, either way. We are alone.”

And Maedhros turns away, bowed and engulfed by that ragged, burned cloak, emblazoned with their star of doom. A pretty thing, their mother sewed them each a very long time ago.

“May Eru’s eye never turn upon you. May we be unseen by any god or man.” Maglor mutters, alike to prayer, and is stranded, absorbing the touch of the waves below, yet rising. The scent of burning flesh hangs bitter in the air, as his brother stumbles, a beacon in the dark, flickering, then gone.

Ah, the Darkness. Right.

The disassembly of brothers. Elrond, alone, will search, for three long ages of Arda. But they are never to be found.