Chapter Text
Another day of aimless wandering. Another dismal night spent under canvas.
Every evening, once the tents were pitched and dinner eaten, Maglor would come and sing them a lullaby to make them sleep. To ensure they got enough rest, he said, for they were growing children. To keep them from waking the whole camp with their nightmares, said Elrond to Elros. To keep them from running, said Elros back.
They wished he wouldn’t but they knew what they were to him even if he liked to pretend otherwise.
“Call me Maglor,” he had told them, on the second day, once he had changed out of his bloody armour and the twins had stopped screaming and sobbing long enough that he could get a word in edgewise. “Or Father. And this is your Uncle Maedhros.” Uncle Maedhros, still dressed in gore-crusted mail, had snorted.
They did not call him Father because he was not their father and because Elrond thought it hurt him that they didn’t, just a little. Maglor they called Maglor and Maedhros they did not address at all, any more than he addressed them. He at least did not pretend and Elros said he liked him better for it. Elrond thought that monsters were monsters no matter the masks they wore.
It was an argument they’d had often, shut up in their tent awaiting Maglor and awaiting sleep.
It was not one they had thought to hear echoed outside the canvas.
“Which one do you like best?” Not a whisper. Battle plans and burials, a description of their mother’s fall; Maedhros never cared if they overheard.
“No.” Maglor at least tried to speak quietly but his was a voice meant for screaming commands across a battlefield and singing stone walls into dust. They heard him just as well as his brother.
“No?”
“You’re trying to upset me.”
“Sometimes you have to be cruel to be kind. I think you’ve forgotten why we took them.”
“And sometimes you’re cruel for no good reason at all. They’re children.”
“Yes.” A scrape of metal suggested a shrug. “Which one?”
“It won’t come to that. Gil-Galad isn’t foolish enough-”
“How many times have we said ‘it won’t come to that’ over the ages? It will come to it and it will be easier if you accept it now.”
“I’m not going to murder children to make a point.”
“ A child,” said Maedhros, as mildly as his hoarse croak of a voice allowed for. “Singular. One to warn and one to trade. I’d almost forgotten how convenient twins are.”
“You are trying to upset me.” Even bitter realisation sounded sweet in Maglor’s voice.
“How many people are dead at our hands? The count is staggering. Monumental.” A crow’s cackle of a laugh. “Indeed the Haudh-en-Ndengin stands as testament to our failures. Do you think two children make a difference either way?”
“You did.”
A pause.
“We needed hostages. Then as now.”
A longer silence.
“Elrond.”
“Which?”
“The quiet one.”
“Sensible. The other bites.”
“I hate you.” Said with little rancour. “He would hate you.”
“Yes.”
Another pause and then the sound of booted feet walking away. The canvas twitched aside and bright-eyed Maglor came to kneel beside their bedrolls. “What shall I sing for you tonight?”
Elros had his eyes screwed shut to keep the furious tears at bay. Elrond ran his tongue over his teeth. He would not bite but he squeezed his brother’s hand and said, “The Noldolantë,” to watch Maglor’s face fall.