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Maedhros allows himself to avoid thinking about it for exactly ten days.
He has been returned, at last, to Aman’s ever-same splendour. He visits his mother for a tense afternoon, pays his honours to his uncle and king, and lets himself be informed of who else has returned. Who has not. He endures Finrod’s carefully polite company, and he cannot bring himself to meet his eyes, even as he forces the apologies that he owes past his teeth. Shame like this is a newfound experience; it is hard not to resent it for that.
Those are not days that instil much hope in him for chances of new beginnings, but Maedhros learns that he is more practical than he once was, on Valinórë’s shores.
He owes Fingon a visit—a chance, at least, to say his piece. So visit, Maedhros will.
Fingon lives by the coast these days, south of Tirion and Alqualondë, down where Ossë is free to whip the sea into frenzies. Maedhros enjoys the journey, riding slow and savouring the silence. With every mile, he settles more into his skin, breathes easier without the weight of eyes on him, watching closely while he tries to drag his mind through centuries of molasses.
It has been centuries, he has been told. It is easy to believe, with the way everything feels disjointed and grating—the world an imposition after endless years of being only non-body, non-person.
He arrives in the late morning of the third day and finds a larger estate than he expected. Stables span a wide area behind the white-bricked farmhouse that crowns the top of the cliff, and it continues inland into sprawling fields that are dotted with idle horses. Old trees line the cliffside, and it all looks so terribly like Fingon that Maedhros does not know how he could have expected anything else.
He leaves his horse and follows the path that curves around the main house, part curious to see as much as he can before Fingon might rightfully send him back on his way, part deep-seated familiarity with Fingon’s habits making him certain that he will not find Fingon inside, on a day like this.
He is proven right when he rounds a corner and finds training grounds in the open courtyard, a simple fenced sand pitch with some straw-filled figures, a weapon’s rack, and Fingon in the centre, spinning like silver in the sunlight. His chest and arms are bare, and his hair is braided in the simple style he got used to wearing in Beleriand’s unending battles.
Maedhros recalls the familiarity of reassurance, seeing the golden thread flash in the light. Remembers what it looked like, mud-caked and trod into the ground, and grips the wooden fence with his left, until his knuckles turn white.
Fingon must have noted Maedhros’ approach, but he stops not in his dance until he turns naturally. He is close by then, and he stills only when the point of his sword comes to a halt, mere inches from Maedhros’ throat.
“Last time the Noldor found themselves in such a display, you and yours were banned into exile, and then set the world aflame. What shall it be this time, Russandol?”
Maedhros grins, something familiar and heedless slotting back into place. “You will slay me no more than my father slayed yours.”
Fingon’s eyes narrow. “We shall see. Take a sword.”
Maedhros considers protesting for the duration of a half breath; then he rounds Fingon, whose eyes follow him keenly, and takes a sword.
It has been centuries, Maedhros has been told. Holding a sword once more—the heft in his hand, the cold steel, the calm control settling over him—is the first thing since his return that makes him feel not like a stranger within his own skin.
Fingon gives him barely enough time to fall into position before he advances with three swift steps, blade glinting in warning before Maedhros meets it. The blow shatters the calm day, reverberates up his arm and into his shoulder that does not ache with it. Maedhros disengages and steps back, finds his balance not as secure as he expects it. Fingon, once more, gives him no time to recover, and they are dancing, then, push and pull, a routine, now, almost as old as time.
Across their blades, Fingon’s expression is focused. He betrays no emotion, no wrath or surprise. He must have heard of Maedhros’ return, of course, yet this is not what Maedhros had thought to be met with.
He is not sure what he had thought to find, truth be told. First and foremost, he had, shameful like a coward, tried not to think about it at all.
“You still fight with your left,” Fingon says, factual observation. He presses in, the shock of his weight forcing Maedhros back.
“It feels most natural.”
“Then why do you hold back?”
“I do not—“
Fingon’s blow from above lands harsh and vicious, unsettling Maedhros’ balance once more. He grits his teeth, catching it at the last moment.
Stepping back, Fingon raises a brow, and there, now, is the blaze of him—chin tilted proud, and a storm in his eyes. “This is unbecoming, Russandol. Own what you did; fight me like you mean it.”
This is not what I have come for, he ought to say. He ought to lower his weapon, surrender, apologise. His jaw hurts with the force of his restraint, and across from him, Fingon grins—a jagged thing, beautifully awful, and as ever, still, too convinced of his own sanctity.
Maedhros spins his sword once and advances without pause. Fingon parries just in time, swords and bodies coming together, breaking apart. The air is filled with the harsh clang of steel and their panting breaths. Beneath the cliffs, the sea rages. With every blow, every circle across the court, instinct and long-familiar motions return to him, his own and Fingon’s, both.
Beleriand left them neither room nor need to hone their skills for leisure, but Maedhros knows the way Fingon fights, perhaps better than he knows anything else about him. It is a relief, in truth, to let his muscles take over and his mind go quiet, and he presses once more those advantages of height and strength that once made him such a terror to Orc and Elf and Man alike.
Fingon matches him step for step, as he has ever done. His expression is fierce, one sharp furrow between his brows as he twists and turns, agile where Maedhros is tall, tactical where Maedhros prefers brute force.
Maedhros gains no advantage, this body still new and unschooled, and Fingon shows him no mercy. It is, in the end, a short but brutal fight, and Maedhros has no doubt that the absence of chance for exchanged words, platitudes, apologies is no coincidence. He retaliates in kind, violence a language between them as well-worn as, now and here, misfitting. What way to escape it, though?
As ever, there is none. He uses the opening Fingon leaves on his left through old instinct, and throws a punch with his right, right below Fingon’s bare-skinned ribs.
The air wheezes out of Fingon’s lungs, a split-second in which Maedhros does not press on, and Fingon meets his eyes for the first time without disguise.
Maedhros, of a sudden, recalls with perfect sharpness the last time their eyes had met, across the heaving field of death between them—Anfauglith choking, yet again, upon their Doom.
Fingon’s sword slices through the air with a sharp sound, and comes to rest against Maedhros’ throat for the second time, today. Warmth trickles down his cheek until he tastes blood on his lips. Across from him, Fingon’s eyes are very dark.
“Luck,” Maedhros says, flashing his teeth, but he drops his weapon. Only when the blade hits the sand does Fingon lower his own, though he does not let it go.
“I did tell you to fight like you meant it,” Fingon says, running the thumb of his left across the cut on Maedhros’ cheek, gathering the blood—a mimicry of tenderness. “It is not my fault if hundreds of years in Nienna’s company still have not taught you to take orders any better.”
Maedhros’ mouth twitches, charmed despite himself. “There might yet be hope. Will you listen to me?”
Fingon looks up from his thumb, meeting Maedhros’ gaze. He brings his hand to his mouth, and sucks Maedhros’ blood off it, a slow, deliberate savouring that seems blasphemous in this place, and leaves the air between them charged. Fingon’s face remains inscrutable, his eyes as dark as the sea.
“Return tomorrow,” he says. “We will see how you fare, then.”
After a pause that rings across the open solitude, Maedhros inclines his head. So this is what it will be like, then; forgiveness, not as something gifted, but as a breaking.
Maedhros, as ever, will let Fingon wield any blade upon him that he judges just.