Spark by GoldSeven

Heartbeats

All light had failed.

There was only darkness. Darkness, and him, and the pain. The pain was the only thing that was not dark. When Maedhros closed his eyes, the pain even blocked out the darkness, drowning it, mostly red, sometimes white.

There were no stars; even they had failed. Maybe they were still there somewhere, above the reeking fumes and smokes of the furnaces of Angband. Maybe they were already gone. Maybe the world was already gone. He had no way of knowing. Sometimes, it would rain, but the rain was black and oily, and it stank. There was no clean thing left in the world. It burned in his eyes and in the many wounds upon his body.

There were no voices, no sounds except the wind. The Orcs did not come up here. He thought that, ultimately, that was why they had chained him here. Down in the dungeons, even when they’d tortured him, there had still been something in him that had fought. Just seeing their faces had filled him with a burning fire of hatred, and the hatred had fuelled him, fuelled a will to live, and fight, that they had not been able to quench.

When they had brought him up here, his first thought was that they would, finally, kill him. Morgoth himself was there, and Maedhros thought, vaguely, that surely now he would finally succeed at something at which his father had failed – to be slain by Morgoth in person. He felt an irrational, morbid rush of amusement at the thought. Even then, his body barely alive, his spirit had still been burning, rekindled by the sight of the Black Enemy, the Silmarils blazing in his crown. Even then, he was determined to fight, with his spirit if not his body. Then it had happened quickly. They released the shackles that bound him, and he could feel his anger burning at his inability to rise, to strike, flaring hot enough that he almost felt he could burn them with its brightness. Morgoth himself had bent down to place a single hell-wrought bond on his right wrist, and they had hoisted him up, and left him.

At first, he hadn’t been able to comprehend that they were not coming back. Down in the dungeons, they would leave him for hours or days at a time, sometimes to wait for him to recover and sometimes just to wear him out, to leave him alone with the insecurity and the fear of more pain, but they would always come back. Now, nobody came.

In this first time since they had hung him up, he had still been able to grasp the chain with his left hand, pulling himself up with all the strength he could muster to take the strain off his right wrist, holding on with screaming muscles until he had to let go again.

They did not come back for him.

He broke his right shoulder at some point, dragging himself up again and holding on far too long, fearing the pain that followed when he let go, until his left hand slipped with exhaustion and he dropped.

After that, he couldn’t pull himself up again. It was when things stopped to matter. He was here, alone with the darkness and the pain and the despair that slowly grated away at the spark of anger that had kept him alive, had kept him himself.

Later, when he was back in the other world, the one that was clean and had light and people in it, they told him that it had been years. Decades even by the fast, soon-fading reckoning of that new, fast, soon-fading age. He had no way of agreeing or disagreeing. When there is no Sun, no Moon, no stars to mark the passing of time, what happens to time? Does it stand still, congeal like blood? Does it cease to exist?

It didn’t cease to exist; he knew that much. If nothing else, time was still there, another grim companion in his long, slow torment. But it wasn’t measured in years. It wasn’t months or days. It was heartbeats.

Painful, laborious heartbeats, the only thing that still marked time. Hundreds, thousands, millions. Too many to count. Too many to bear. The anguish and despair grew with every one of them, until there was nothing else left. The spark that had sustained him was gone, as was the feeling that there was something he needed to do, something that had kept the spark alive.

Oath.

Silmarils.

Everlasting Darkness.

And even then, the heartbeats kept coming. He wished for them to stop. They should have. He had no right to be alive, no right to still be breathing, for his heart to keep up its dogged, determined persistence to beat. But something forced it, something that did not come from within him, but something that chained his spirit to his body just as the bond chained his wrist to the stone. He was here for ever. It was not a thought, much less a thought that frightened him. It was more than a thought, and at the same time, much less. Conscious thought had become too complex, too exhausting. It was a conviction, one that was not so much frightening as simply there. Even fear had ceased. Fear meant something that pertained to the future, and he didn’t have that. The line between a heartbeat and eternity became blurred, and finally ceased to be. There was the darkness, and there was the pain. Degrees varied.

When the darkness around him lifted, it barely registered. It had become interwoven, inseparable with the pain, yet something had intricately unravelled it and taken it away, leaving only pain behind. It did not make sense. Why would the darkness go but leave the pain to stay? His eyes, once used to watching the Mingling of the Lights and seeing the Silmarils in their radiance, watered with the absence of darkness. The light grew as bright as the rays of Laurelin, and with it, a tendril of something like hope entered his heart. He didn’t comprehend it; thought was reduced to fleeting notions, elusive like water running through fabric, but he wanted to cling to that tendril, nurture it, so that it might grow into something to sustain him once more. When the light disappeared again, he felt a wild, senseless grief, but it returned, and continued to do both – disappear and return – with a regularity that made him depend on it anxiously, as proof that the world consisted of something besides pain. Sunrise. Sunset. He learned the words later, in that other world, the one that was clean.

He didn’t count the sunrises. Counting would have meant to reassign an importance to the passing of time, and even the vague notion of that sent him reeling. But he awaited them.

Then one of them brought change. It brought sounds. Trumpets, and voices; blue banners flying far down below. Clean sounds. Clean colours. Things that belonged so firmly, so violently to a forgotten time that he would have been sure he was imagining them, but he knew that he could never have, as imagination was something completely beyond him. But the blue of the banners, the patterns picked out on them in silver, stirred something half-buried beneath layers of pain and despair.

“Fingolfin,” he whispered.

His voice had a strange sound. It did not belong here, and for several heartbeats, he didn’t want to hear it again. Then he realised that, though it might not belong here, it belonged with the ones that were down there. If he could only make his voice reach them, then the pain and darkness would stop.

“Fingolfin!“ he screamed. „Fingolfin! Fingolfin!“

There was no reply but the echo of his voice, distorting it and casting it back in wild disarray, fin-nolo-fin-nolo-fin, as in mockery. But the mockery was lost on him. There was not enough Nelyafinwë left in him to feel mocked by the sound of the name that had so infuriated his father.

“Fingolfin!“ he cried again, fighting the red anguish threatening to overwhelm him with the exertion, even as the tiny spark within him flared with desperate strength. There was a purpose. And it was unshakably strong, being the only purpose he had known for as long as he could remember. “Fingon! Fingolfin! Hear me! Fingon!“

A wave of agony washed over him then, and though he fought it wildly, he could not struggle free from under it. His world descended into the familiar swirling red and black, shot through with white stabs of agony running through him, drowning out the blue and silver banners below, drowning out the purpose.

When he surfaced again, the Sun had set. The sounds and banners were gone.

The spark flickered, and died.

No more waiting for the sunrise. Each passing sunrise seemed to have turned into a mockery of him. The world existed; he knew it now. He could see it. He had heard it. He had cried out for it. And it had turned its back on him and left him here. Time had resumed; but he wanted no part in it. Sunrise, sunset, sunrise, sunset, he turned away from them, turned inward, back to the heartbeats. It was easier there, well-ordered. Heartbeatpainheartbeat. They ran into one thing, one thing that was easy to comprehend as it was always there, always uniform, always the same. Heartbeatpainheartbeat. No more sparks. He didn’t want them. They upset the uniformity and order, and brought more pain, inside and out. Heartbeatpainheartbeat.

Then, a voice that sang.

Words

Words and music. Two things that were so far removed that it took Maedhros a while to even realize they were there. His mind still did not understand them, but his heart did, at least in part. It recognized them as something to break through the endless cycle of painful heartbeats, and left him no say in the matter. He suddenly found that it had the music, and the words, as if it remembered them from a time long ago, though that seemed impossible. They came automatically, forcing themselves out of him with such strength that he couldn’t hold them back. He sang the words, sang the music, without having any recollection of how to sing, or how to speak.

He fell silent with exhaustion, and found that not only his song, but also the other had stopped. There was no despair. He accepted it, as he had accepted everything for so long, until a voice cried out to him.

Fingon.

He stood there, a spectre from a different life, a tiny figure cut out from paper and stuck into the wrong picture, at the foot of the precipice far down below. He was an intruder, a disturbance of the perpetual state of pain. He was there. Weeping. Existing. The sight of him brought more fleeting but powerful images flickering across Maedhros’ consciousness, of Fingon standing beneath Mindon Eldaliéva, motionless, the day they had parted. Maedhros saw them but didn’t understand them, could not remember why they had parted, why he had been so angry or Fingon so sad.

The idea of rescue did not enter his mind. It was a concept he had lost long ago. Any thought of beginning was too staggering to take hold, chaotic, unsettling, uprooting. For Maedhros, the appearance of his cousin meant only one thing, a thing simple enough for him to grasp.

End.

End of pain, end of despair, end of heart beating.

“Shoot me,” he whispered.

Maybe he hadn’t whispered. Maybe he’d screamed. It didn’t matter; Fingon would hear. That was why he was here.  He was here to make an end.

Maedhros closed his eyes, awaiting the arrow.

It did not come. For a while, he didn’t dare to open his eyes again. Already, the image of Fingon standing down there was fading in his mind; it was inconceivable that he should still be there when Maedhros opened his eyes, simply because he had never been there before. He wanted to hold off that realisation for as long as he could.

Then there was a wind that forced his eyes open, a great golden wind like the voice of Manwë, a blur of golden feathers, and then Fingon’s voice, close to his ear, speaking words. Fingon’s hands and arms. It was too much. Too much that was unfamiliar. He could feel Fingon there, could hear him, but he did not understand the words. With his left arm, Maedhros clung to his cousin, though he did not have the strength to support his own weight, little though it was, brittle as a bird. The pain shifted, as suddenly his body was supported, the weight no longer on his right arm. There was no relief, however, just a different kind of pain that was even worse than the old one for its novelty. He was whimpering, but it didn’t even occur to him to feel ashamed for it.

More words. Fingon’s face swam before his, talking. Maedhros could only shake his head, over and over. He couldn’t understand why this took so long, why there must be so many things, the golden swirls, the hands that touched him, all the tugging, all those words. Too many words. They seemed to want an answer.

“Kill me,” he begged. No other words would come to mind.

Fingon’s eyes, sorrowful. The flash of a knife, blinding pain.

Wind and cold, roaring in his ears, Fingon’s voice and hands; more pain, so much more pain. For a while, the world consisted of these things. Maedhros found himself trying to sink back into that old well-ordered state, but everything was too complicated now to be put into any order. It distressed him, not just the blinding pain that seared through his arm and his entire body, but the realization that he was alive though he need not have been, all those words and touches, the biting cold. It filled him with despair, agony, the realisation that this was not the end, that Fingon made him continue to live. He begged for death again, but all he got was more words.

Then the rushing wind stopped. More hands touching him, more voices, some shouting. A blur of voices and touches, unfamiliar things all. Even the pain was unfamiliar. Something soft under him, hands holding him down, more pain. The rim of a cup against his mouth, water he did not know how to swallow. He tried to push them away but he didn’t have the strength.

He just wanted it all to end, wished they would stop talking to him, stop touching him, stop hurting him, stop making him drink, stop making him be.

It didn’t stop. And finally, Maedhros just let it happen. He tolerated the cups, the words, the pain, even the touches, like an animal that is docile enough to do what it is told, following leads and simple commands without question.

And very slowly, meaning began to attach itself to these things, and he began to understand again what they were, began to differentiate, understand reasons, and recognise correlations.

Water. Tiny drops of it at first. Once they had gone past the raw, scraping sensation in his throat, they actually felt pleasant, cooling, soothing, something he hadn’t even known he had missed. Then more than drops, half a cupful of it. The first few times, he couldn’t keep it down, coughed it up again, gasping for breath, weak as a kitten. On the fourth or fifth time, it stayed down. On the twentieth, there was something else in that cup, with a sweet fragrance that brought relief from pain.

Words. Most of them still came too fast, and in too great numbers, for him to make sense of them. Some of them he understood immediately. Russandol. It meant him, he remembered that. It meant closeness and love. Others took longer to grasp, as their meaning was so vast, so alien. Safe. For those he wasn’t able to follow, he found that after a while he took a simple, naïve delight in them, like a colourful woven blanket wrapping him that had no particular pattern but was familiar and comforting.

After a while, he found that he could make sense of the words if he concentrated hard. But it tired him, and most of the time, he was content to just let them wash over him, creating a backdrop that differentiated his being from what he had known for so long.

The pain was still there, and less uniform than it had been. It abated after the cups, became a dull pounding in his right arm, and it was worse when they touched him. But even then, he realised after a while that they were treating his injuries.  At times, changing the bandages on his arm and cleaning his wounds made him reel from the pain, brought the return of the swirls of red agony drowning out everything else, but Fingon was there, holding him in silence, as though he had noticed that talking irritated Maedhros.

The first moment of absolute clarity that Maedhros remembered was lying in bed, under soft covers, padded in the soft, floating sensation of being halfway between sleeping and waking. He just lay there with his eyes closed, and breathed. Breathing, at last, was easy. There was pain, but it seemed remote, wrapped in something soft just like him, but slightly further away. He recognised the sensation as the one following the draught they gave him. He could tell it was dark in the room, but it was a soothing darkness. And it was clean. The air, too, was clean, crisp and dark, fragrant with the scent of grass and trees and elderflower. With it came images and memories, for the first time clearly etched and vivid, of leaves and laughter. He nurtured them in his mind, held on to them, even managing to separate the simple images from the complicated. Grass, leaves, elderflower were simple. Some of the snatches of conversation that crept into his memory were not, but he wrapped them securely into the simple ones, like bread to keep fresh for later use.

Then, another time, also at night, he opened his eyes. He didn’t move; motion still meant pain, and there was more of it this time than the last. Perhaps they had just cleaned his wounds again. They seemed to clean them a lot, as if there was something in him that kept them filthy. There was a window to his right, in his field of vision, and through it, he saw the night sky, branches of a tree with stars scattered into them.

He finally began to unravel some of the words, even the ones not addressed to him, spoken by others who thought he didn’t hear. Even this he understood. It was actually easier to make sense of the things that were not spoken to him, as it left him more at leisure, less involved, distant.

“You should just let him go.”

It was daylight beyond his eyelids, but he kept them closed. Making sense of what he was seeing and what he was hearing at the same time still wore him out.

The voice that had spoken was further away than the hand now lightly touching his, his left; and Maedhros realised there had to be two people present, feeling a slight sense of achievement at the thought.

The same voice spoke again, without getting an answer from the other. “It’s been three months. Whatever Morgoth did to him, it broke him. The healers say that the stump is not healing. He will not recover. You have to accept it.”

“He has been making progress.” Fingon’s voice was soft, calm. “It’s small, but it’s there. He is still strong. I didn’t bring him here to let him die.”

A pause, then, “Why did you bring him here?”

 “For healing.”

An even longer pause. “You’re not just talking about his hand.”

“No, atar, I’m not.”

It was a lot to make sense of. Maedhros approached it little by little, unwrapping small portions of the conversation at a time. Some of it was more challenging; he left that for later. Stump. Healing. But there was one sentence in between that resonated with him, so strongly that it rekindled something half-forgotten. Anger. Determination.

Whatever Morgoth did to him, it broke him.

This single sentence suddenly filled him with a burning desire to prove he was alive, and unbroken.

Guilt

Turgon’s voice was cold. It was always cold when Maedhros heard him speak, which was seldom. Fingolfin’s and most of the others’ were usually rather flat around him, even the healers’.

“His brother is at the gate.”

Fingon turned from his chair at Maedhros’ bed to look at his brother standing in the door. “Which of them?” he asked in surprise.

Turgon laughed without humour. “Does it matter?”

“It does. Can you imagine Caranthir walking through our camp? There’d be blood.”

“It’s Maglor. So there probably won’t be blood. Not that he’d deserve it any less.” Turgon’s voice was dark with resentment. “Atar allowed him to pass. Mainly because he had the decency to request, not to demand.”

“Leave him in peace,” Fingon said wearily. “He is here to see his brother, no more.”

“Why did you have to bring him here?” Turgon said bitterly. “He’s got more than enough brothers on the other side of the lake whom it wouldn’t hurt to have their share in nursing him back to health. And maybe they’d have better luck with him.”

Maedhros understood that this time, it meant him. He hadn’t heard Turgon utter his name once. It was always “he”. But then, what name would Turgon have used? He had never been close enough to call him Russandol, and none of his other names still fit him, or would be uttered on this side of Lake Mithrim.

Over the past weeks, Maedhros had listened. The smell of elderflower outside his window had passed; spring had turned to summer. Fingon had been talking, about seasons and summer and winter, even though he could not have been sure that his cousin actually listened. Maedhros still hadn’t spoken yet or given much recognition, mainly because recognition seemed, to him, like a huge step he wasn’t ready to take yet. He had long since ceased to feel like a docile animal, but actively talking to anyone was still an almost frightening prospect. For the most part, he had been content to just lie there and be a passive part of the life around him, but he knew that, at some point, he would have to take that step. The urge to ask questions was growing, but he still held it back, for fear of their answers – and for fear of having to answer their questions in return.

He had understood that his brothers were not there, that he was in Fingolfin’s camp on the northern shore of the lake, that the people of Fëanor were encamped on the southern shore now, and that there was practically no exchange between the two peoples. He had heard fractions of conversations that had allowed him to piece a few things together, by what had been said and still more by how it had been said. There was grief here, and anger. Fingon remained the only one whose voice held none of it. But gradually, Maedhros had become aware that much of the anger here was directed at his father. And, by extension, at him.

“I had to bring him here,” Fingon said, slowly and deliberately, “so that some of us may be reminded of the idea of forgiveness.”

Turgon turned and left.

“You came across the Ice,” Maedhros said suddenly. His voice sounded both raw and weak.

Fingon stared at him, and Maedhros could tell how much he tried to keep his surprise from showing, for his sake, so as not to upset him, but he didn’t succeed very well. Fingon’s face had always been an open book. Joy at seeing his cousin awake, hearing him speak, mingled with distress at Maedhros’ words as plainly as if he had voiced both.

“I was starting to give up hope of ever hearing you speak again,” he finally said, quietly, reaching out to stroke his cousin’s hair.

It irritated Maedhros that Fingon was starting a second topic without even addressing the first. Niceties and conventions were something he had no energy for.

“You came here though we left you,” he went on bluntly. Talking was more exhausting than he had feared it would be.

Fingon withdrew his hand, taken aback, sensing that it was not a gesture Maedhros appreciated right then. He looked at him for a few moments, then seemed to decide that it would be easier to give his cousin the answers he needed, rather than putting him off with things he did not want to hear.

“Yes, Russandol, we did.” He contemplated telling him more, it was evident in his face that he went through several things to say, but then said none of them.

“You… had losses,” Maedhros said, his voice faltering. He could see the answer in Fingon’s face.

Maedhros closed his eyes. Thinking was easier without seeing. But the images that now came, unbidden, of Fingolfin’s host making its way across the Grinding Ice because Fëanor had deserted them, were so unbearable that he opened his eyes again. Fingon was watching him with worry in his face. As if it was he that had to feel apologetic. Apologetic simply for being forced to bother Maedhros with these things.

“It’s over,” Fingon then said, a bitter tone in his voice. “It’s all over. We are here. And so are you.”

“And so am I,” Maedhros repeated, in a whisper. There was so much more, so much he wanted to talk about, but even if he had had the strength, he wouldn’t have known what to say, or where to start. I didn’t want to leave you. I never thought my father would. But I didn’t speak up against him either. I could have spared you this but I didn’t. I never thought you would go the other way.

He must have drifted off to sleep again, or unconsciousness. The two were hard to keep apart. Even the pain reached him in both.

When he woke, Fingon was gone. Maglor was sitting in his place, head bowed, forehead rested against Maedhros’ left hand he was holding in his. He sat motionless, and it was plain he had been that way for a long time already.

Maedhros closed his eyes again, suddenly wishing his brother would not notice he was awake. He felt strangely like an intruder upon something private. It occurred to him that Fingon had tactfully left Maglor to be alone with his guilt, since nothing Fingon could have said would have rid him of it. Maedhros wished he could do the same, but even if he had been able to, he was the cause of it.

“Forgive me, Russandol,” Maglor whispered at length, possibly not for the first time. “Please forgive me.”

Maedhros couldn’t stand it; couldn’t stand Maglor’s guilt. At the same time, he knew that this guilt was something that might never lift. He didn’t blame his brothers, he truly did not. But he felt that Maglor would blame himself even if nobody else did. It occurred to him that Maglor had been head of the House of Fëanor for some time now, a position that he could never have wanted. Had it been his decision to leave their eldest brother to his fate at the hands of Morgoth?

There was no resentment at the thought. The absence of it surprised Maedhros a little. Would he have done the same? No, the question did not apply. He had not done the same. He had gone charging off in a hare-brained attempt to treat with Morgoth, even though their father’s fate should have warned him. It seemed incredible how naïve they had all been. Try as he might, he wasn’t able to blame them for becoming wiser after his capture.

He wished to tell Maglor this, but he felt too tired, and already, the perfect reasoning he had just thought out was beginning to blur, and he couldn’t think of where to start.

He opened his eyes with difficulty and gave Maglor’s hand a light squeeze. If Maglor was taken aback at finding him awake, he didn’t show it, but Maedhros could tell how much it cost him to meet his eyes. He wished he could have sat up, been strong, comforted his brother as he had done when they were children. For the first time in an eternity, he found himself wondering what he looked like. With Fingon, it had not mattered. Judging by the look on Maglor’s face, he was not a cheerful sight.

“They say you’re getting stronger,” Maglor said, in what Maedhros recognised as a feverish attempt to talk about something more cheerful. He knew it was a lie. The healers were still sceptical of his recovery. “They say you’ll recover, aside from –” He broke off.

Maedhros made himself hold Maglor’s eyes, and his hand, with as much strength as he could. He wanted to say something, wanted to assure Maglor that he was right, that he was going to recover, but felt too weary.

Fingon returned a little while later, carrying a carafe and clean bandages. “I don’t want you to think you’re not welcome,” he said to Maglor, “but the wound needs cleaning. The healer will be here in a minute.”

Maedhros half-expected, half-feared that Maglor would offer to stay nonetheless, and was glad when he rose slowly, with a final light squeeze of his brother’s hand. Cleaning his wound was still painful despite the draught they gave him, and he didn’t want Maglor to witness this. He had enough to deal with on his own without having to worry about what seeing him in pain would do to Maglor.

Maglor didn’t go at once. In the door, he turned abruptly and looked back at Fingon.

“Tell me,” he said, and it was plain to see how much the question cost him. “How did you know?”

Fingon cast him a blank look. “What did I know?” He walked around the bed to Maedhros’ right side, and Maedhros heard him set down the carafe on the small bedside table.

“That he had no part in burning the ships. That he was going to come back for you.”

Maedhros couldn’t see Fingon, but there was no answer. An expression of bewilderment crossed Maglor’s face.

“You didn’t?” he whispered. “You didn’t even know?”

“Does it matter?” Fingon’s voice came, quietly, after a long pause.

Maglor turned and left, and Maedhros understood that it mattered to him. That Fingon had come to his rescue even though he had thought him as good as an enemy, when his brothers had not.

He found Turgon’s righteous anger easier to deal with than Maglor’s guilt.

Fingon reappeared on his left, a cup in his hands. Maedhros feared that he would ask questions, or offer gratitude that he did not feel he deserved, but he only slipped an arm under Maedhros’ head and supported him as he helped him drink.

The door opened, and Aramon, the healer, came in, with a bowl of water and clean towels. As the healer set to work, Maedhros allowed Fingon to gently turn him away from his right arm, almost glad of the pain that brought, at least, a respite from having to think.

Maimed

His broken shoulder was finally healing. The healers had expressed their amazement at the fact, but for Maedhros, it didn’t bring much of a change for the better. Progress and healing were still slow. He could turn his head without passing out from dizziness, and he found he could even move his right arm again, but it felt so strange, alien, and raw, that he mostly remained lying the way he was, still enduring them doing almost everything for him. And there was something else, a nagging fear of something unspoken. He had not had a look at his right hand in all this time.

“What aren’t you telling me?” he finally found the courage to ask Fingon one evening, after the bandages were changed and the healer had left.

Fingon became just a bit too preoccupied with rearranging the covers. “What do you mean?” he asked.

“My hand won’t heal, will it?”

Fingon looked down at his hands. It was slightly more difficult to read his face when he was not meeting Maedhros’ eyes.

“Don’t lie to me. I hear you talking, you and Aramon. I see Maglor looking at the blankets over my right arm, as though he was mortally afraid of something. And I have a feeling it’s not the blankets. The way you still hold me when Aramon changes the bandages even though I’ve long been able to bear it, not letting me look. The way my arm… is starting to feel like an arm again. But my hand still doesn’t feel like a hand.”

Fingon made no reply. Maedhros could tell that this was the conversation – however one-sided – that he had been dreading, and that was all the answer he needed.

“It’s crippled,” Maedhros surmised, bluntly.

Fingon rose with a jerk. “I won’t lie to you. No, it won’t heal.”

Maedhros lay awake for a long time that night, biting his lip and staring into the darkness, fighting a definite feeling of ingratitude.

Even aside from his injuries, conversation topics were limited. Maedhros refused to talk about Angband. Fingon refused to talk about the Helcaraxë, and Maglor seemed determined to talk about nothing consequential at all whenever he visited, even though this infuriated Maedhros. In retaliation, Maedhros had developed an almost vicious sense of humour that was the only way he had of feeling in control, and he was not particularly selective in who took the brunt of it.

Someone who brought a welcome change was Aredhel. She was the only one among Fingolfin’s people who seemed utterly unperturbed by the feud dividing their houses, or by Maedhros’ alleged need to rest, or her family’s bitterness. She was the one least bothered by the bluntness of his words. She did not come often, but when she did, she brought topics of conversation that were as harmless as they were honest. And she didn’t pity. She talked to him exactly as she would have long ago, before Fëanor’s banishment to Formenos, when they had ridden far and wide over the plains of Valinor, as if they were just reclining in the grass after a long day’s hunt, ready to jump up and ride on any minute. Mostly, she talked about the plants and animals of Middle-earth, comparing them to what they had known in Valinor, and the changes that Sun and Moon had brought to the world. Maedhros found her presence refreshing.

“Do you still go riding, and hunting, little sister?” he asked her. All his brothers had called her that, much to their father’s dislike. “Are any of the beasts of Middle-earth safe from you?”

She then gave him a strange look, a wistful smile.

“Riding is so much more fun with a horse, cousin.”

She touched his forehead, and left.

 Maedhros was in a foul mood when Fingon came a little while later with a cup of broth.

He eyed the cup crossly and looked up at Fingon with a defiant expression. “Help me sit up.”

Fingon raised his eyebrows. “Aredhel has certainly taught you manners again.”

“Please,” Maedhros added, no less defiantly.

Fingon looked him over. “I’d really like to give your shoulder another week or two before….”

“Well, I don’t. My shoulder has had six months. I don’t want your pity, and I don’t want you having to feed me. I do think I’m strong enough to hold a cup of broth.”

Fingon set down the cup. “If I didn’t help you, am I right in assuming you’d do it without my help?”

“Yes.”

Fingon heaved a sigh as he snatched up several pillows. “Aramon is going to kill me.”

“Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the wrath of a healer, Fingon the Valiant armed with pillows.”

“What I’m afraid of is undoing all the progress you’ve made so far, Russandol the Irresponsible armed with a tongue that’s fouler than an Orc’s.” Fingon slipped an arm behind Maedhros’ back, careful not to jostle his shoulder, and gently sat him up, propping the pillows behind his back. Maedhros clenched his teeth against the pain all down his right arm, knowing that Fingon was looking for any sign of weakness – that, and the very plain “I told you so” on his face. He was breathing hard as he signalled for the cup, but holding it himself and drinking unaided was worth every bit of pain.

“Feeling better?” Fingon asked, somewhat dubious.

“Invincible. I’ve drunk a cup of broth without help. I’ll be challenging Morgoth to single combat next.”

Fingon looked at him sharply for a moment. Maedhros could tell that he was hurt, and he felt vaguely sorry, but was too proud to admit it.

“Well, it’s nice that your fighting spirits are returning.” Fingon took the empty cup from Maedhros. “I’ll take that.”

Maedhros watched him go, feeling light-headed. It felt as though all the blood had suddenly rushed from his head and was pooling in his right arm. His hand was throbbing almost unbearably. Gritting his teeth, he gripped the covers and pulled them back, looking for a pillow to prop up his hand  and relieve some of the pain, and stared down at his arm in shock.

He didn’t know what he had expected. What he had not expected was the sight of his heavily bandaged right arm, ending in a stump.

 Dizzily, he cradled his right elbow with his left hand and brought it up. Despite all that had happened, he had not been able to imagine something like this. He had seen prisoners in the dungeons of Angband with their feet hacked off, still alive, crawling around on their hands and knees. The first time, his captors had made a point of throwing him in cells with those as his neighbours. He had seen a lot of Orcs with eyes burned out or ears chopped off (probably in sport). Seeing his own maimed arm in front of his eyes was something he had never imagined possible, something grotesquely out of place. Even as he stared at the place where his right hand had been, he felt it throbbing with pain, every single finger, though there was nothing there.

He now realised he had never wondered how Fingon had freed him.

He became aware that Fingon had come back, and was standing motionlessly in the door. Maedhros looked up sharply, and the sudden movement sent black specks dancing in front of his eyes. He caught himself with his left elbow, falling back into the pillows just as Fingon rushed to his side to catch him. Maedhros weakly pushed him away, but Fingon held his hand and refused to let go.

“I’m sorry, Russandol,” he said, his voice firm. “It was the only way.”

Maedhros didn’t answer.

“Don’t think I didn’t try everything else first. Forgive me.”

“I asked you to kill me.” Maedhros’ voice was barely a whisper, and he was shaking.

Fingon looked at him for a few heartbeats, his eyes suddenly hard. He released Maedhros’ hand with a jerk and stood.

“Fine,” he said. “That can be arranged. Not that it doesn’t seem like a waste. Shall I get my bow?”

Maedhros said nothing, half-lying, half-sitting in his pillows, staring at his cousin, his whole body shaking. They faced each other, neither of them speaking or relenting for a long while. Finally, Fingon sat down on his chair again, gripping his cousin’s left hand, his eyes never leaving Maedhros’.

“You just said you didn’t want my pity. So you won’t have any of it. Stop pitying yourself. You’re alive. You’re free. And you’ve drunk a cup of broth without help. What happened to your fighting spirit?”

Maedhros was breathing hard, furious with Fingon for using his own words against him. “How shall I fight, if I can’t hold a sword?” he hissed.

“You’re strong enough to hold a cup of broth. In time, you will be strong enough to hold a sword. Not today, not tomorrow, but you will. And you will wield it. Everyone here gave you up, Maitimo. Including me, at times. You proved us all wrong by sitting here. Do not let that beat you.”

“Don’t call me that,” Maedhros whispered.

“Yes, I do. I don’t care how many hands you have, or how long it’ll take your hair to grow back. Because that doesn’t matter.” Fingon looked at his friend’s maimed arm, and cast around for another pillow. “Maybe it would help to put something under it. It probably hurts when you sit up.”

Maedhros watched wordlessly as Fingon picked up a pillow, gently lifted his right arm by the elbow, and set the pillow under it, carefully easing the arm down. He searched Fingon’s face for any sign of revulsion, but couldn’t discern any.

“Better?” Fingon asked.

Maedhros nodded mutely. The throbbing abated slightly as the blood was able to flow back more easily.

“Good. You need some rest, I think. Are you comfortable? Can I leave you like that without you doing anything rash?”

Maedhros nodded again.

Fingon reached up to brush a strand of hair out of Maedhros’ eyes. “I’ll be back later. Get some sleep.” He rose, and headed for the door.

Maedhros closed his eyes, pressing his hand against his forehead, wishing he could stop shaking.

Strength

“So… Fingon has told you.”

“I found out on my own.”

“We thought it would be best not to tell you until you… were stronger.”

“That would have been quite a feat.”

Maglor shot his older brother an almost anxious glance, not asking the next question: So how did you take it?

Maedhros was sitting up in bed again, propped up against pillows, as he had almost all the time since the previous day. His back, shoulder and arm weren’t taking it well, but he was determined not to give up any hard-earned ground. Sitting up had meant having his right arm in plain sight for twenty-four hours. He had risen to the challenge, having spent most of that time staring at the stump, trying to accept that it was a part of him now.

He could not deny that the discovery that he was maimed had left him badly shaken. It had cast a doubt on every single thing that he had been clinging to since first realising that his ordeal was over. Revenge. Strength. Normality. Fingon’s reaction had left him equally shaken, but now, with the benefit of a few hours’ thought, he had to admit that his reaction, brutal as it had been, had been exactly what he needed to jolt him from falling into despair. He had been badly in need of brutal honesty in combination with unswerving dependability.

It had to be said in Maglor’s defence that he had managed to tread a fine middle ground between staring at the bandaged stump – which he hadn’t seen before– and completely avoiding looking at it, for which Maedhros was grateful.

Seeing Maglor lost for words – or even worse, groping for the right ones – was a rare occurrence, and Maedhros relented, deciding to come to his rescue by answering the question he didn’t ask. “It will take some getting used to.”

Maglor seemed relieved, though he must have understood how much of an understatement this one sentence had been. “We’re all there to help, Russandol.”

“I was afraid you’d say that.”

Maglor fell silent again.

“I don’t want help.”

“What do you want?”

Maedhros thought about this for a while. What did he want? He knew he would need help. At least at first. But he couldn’t bear the thought of having to ask for it.

“I need you to be the one you’ve always been. Not just you. All of you.”

Trust Maglor to understand. “So that you can be the one you’ve always been.”

“Yes. At least most of me.”

Maglor nodded, and took a deep breath. “I decided to leave this for later, after…“ He stopped himself. “But maybe this is a good day for this, nevertheless.” He rose, and going towards the door he picked something up that he must have left just out of sight on his way in. Maedhros looked at him quizzically as he returned with a long object wrapped in cloth.

“Curufin made this. We found your old one in the place where…. It was charred and broken. It could not have been reforged, even if…”

Maglor’s voice trailed off, and Maedhros knew what he meant. His old sword, forged by his father, had been a two-handed weapon. They must have found it where he had been ambushed, the day he had set out to meet Morgoth’s embassy. Morgoth’s Balrogs.

“You asked me what I wanted,” he said, looking up from the parcel at Maglor.

“Yes?”

“I want you to finish your sentences. Please.”

Maglor heaved a sigh. “Even if you still had two hands to wield it.” It was plain how difficult it was for him to say these words. He extended the parcel. “Here. Open it.”

He held the parcel lightly in his hands while Maedhros awkwardly unwrapped it. He could see his younger brother’s hands twitch once or twice, but wisely, Maglor held himself back and did not try to help.

The scabbard was smooth, russet leather with gold worked into it, and Maedhros saw that the loops to mount it to a sword belt were reversed, to be worn on the right side, not on the left.

The sword was a graceful weapon, with a long, slender blade of folded steel patterned in intricate floral designs. The crossbar was inlaid with copper echoing the designs on the blade, as was the pommel.

Maedhros gripped it with his left hand to feel its weight. It felt heavier than it should have, and he was glad that Maglor still had a hand under the tip of the blade, unobtrusively helping to balance it.

“Curufin asked me to say that this is the best he could do on such short notice.” Maglor’s voice held a hint of amused exasperation. Curufin could be extremely vain where his skills were concerned.

“Short notice?” Maedhros said softly. “This must have taken months.” He laid the sword across his lap and ran a finger over the folded steel, staying well away from the edge. He could see that it was very sharp. He had never been able to match his father’s or brother’s skill in metalwork, not by a long shot and to his father’s severe disappointment, but being Fëanor’s son enabled him to recognise exceptional work when he saw it.

“It has.”

Maedhros looked up. “He started working on this a long time before I even woke.”

“Yes.”

“You didn’t give up on me.”

“No,” Maglor said simply.

“I don’t know what to say,” Maedhros whispered.

Maglor resheathed the sword and leant it against the side of Maedhros’ bed before he sat down again. “That is good,” he said. “I was getting tired of you snapping at me.”

Maedhros laid an arm around Maglor and rested his head against his brother’s shoulder. It was the first time he had actively sought physical contact with anybody since his rescue. Maglor gently returned the embrace, lightly chafing the side of his neck.

“Don’t do that,” he said softly. “Snap at me if it makes you feel better.”

“Maybe later,” Maedhros replied, his voice slightly hoarse.

Maglor smiled faintly. “I’ll look forward to that.”

Burden

The lake-shore lay under several inches of snow, the lake frozen and covered with a white blanket. Maedhros sat leaning against the trunk of a leafless willow, whose branches vanished into the ice, hung with glittering icicles like glass beads. The sinking sun threw long-fingered shadows across the icy lake and frozen fields, creeping behind the Mountains of Mithrim in the west, in what felt to Maedhros like a constant reminder that no hope would come from that direction.

He was wrapped in a warm cloak against the cold, his right arm in a sling to prevent him from jolting movements. The stump was still tender to the touch, but he knew that, in time, it would heal completely.

The lake lay to his right, the last rays of sunlight turning it into a glittering spectacle trying to catch his eye, but he was not looking at it. His gaze was to the northeast.

There, across the peaks of Ered Wethrin, lay Angband. The day had been grey and cloudy, so he could barely make out the mountains, but the sky seemed pitch-black in the northeast, where Morgoth sent forth his dark fumes.

How long did it take him to notice I was gone? Maedhros wondered. Whom did he punish for it? How long will it take him to prepare his revenge?

He heard faint, light footsteps behind him. Fingon, to tell him it was time to go back inside where it was warmer. And possibly to tell him once again that his plans for the following day were not a good idea. But Maedhros had made up his mind about it.

“Just a while longer,” he said without turning. “The air out here helps me think.”

The footsteps halted.

Maedhros looked out over the frozen fields. “Is there always so much snow here in winter?” he asked.

“I have seen more.”

Maedhros had a sinking feeling in his stomach at the realisation that it was not Fingon who had joined him, but Fingolfin. He still did not turn around, keeping his gaze fixed at the distant mountains. In all this time, he had barely exchanged ten words with Fingolfin. He had had a feeling that his uncle had held off this conversation on purpose, not wanting to catch him at a disadvantage when Maedhros was weak, and vulnerable. But now that he was going to return to the southern shore on the morrow, he should have known that he could not avoid this conversation any longer.

He could hear Fingolfin sitting down somewhere to his left.

“So you are going back to your people tomorrow.”

“Yes.”

“You are going to walk?”

“Yes. Alone. As I said before… the air out here helps me think.”

“I am sure your brothers could have come with horses.”

“I would not have them come near your camp with horses,” Maedhros said firmly. “A day’s walk will be fine.”

They sat in silence for a while, their breaths forming small frosty clouds before their faces, dissipating quickly.

“Fingon told me you stood aside when Fëanor burned the ships,” Fingolfin said at length. “He also told me he had this from Maglor. Why did you not tell him?”

“Is it something to be proud of?”

“You do not seem to think it is.”

“I saw a wrong and did not try to right it.”

“You saw a wrong. Where all others did not. If nothing to be proud of, it is something that sets you apart.”

Maedhros was silent.

“And as for righting it… We both know how stiff-necked my brother could be.”

Maedhros finally turned to look at him. “Yes, that we do.”

Fingolfin sat on a tree root six feet away from him, watching him, his piercing gaze never leaving him.

Maedhros knew he was being measured. Fingolfin knew how stiff-necked the father had been. He was trying to determine how stiff-necked the son would prove.

Maedhros was the first to look away and turned again to the northeast.

“He is not idle,” he said.

Fingolfin followed his glance. “His Orcs fear the sunlight.”

“But you know as well as I that this will not deter him forever.”

Fingolfin’s silence was answer enough.

“But what will he find when he finally breaks forth from Angband?” Maedhros went on. “He might choose the night. He might choose a cloudy day. He might create that cloudy day himself. And when he does, will he find the Lords of the Noldor sitting idle in Hithlum, eyeing each other across a lake?”

Fingolfin looked back at Maedhros. “Will he?” he asked.

“One of the last things you ever said to my father was that you would follow where he led.”

“He should have remembered those words when he left us at the edge of the Ice. But we are here, and he is not.”

“No,” Maedhros replied softly. “He is not.”

“You saw him die,” Fingolfin said after a slight pause.

Maedhros did not answer. Fëanor had been gone for so long, and yet he had never had even the slightest chance to mourn his death. He felt that the first people with whom he wished to discuss his father were his brothers, not Fingolfin. Even though Fingolfin’s view of Fëanor was likely to be much closer to Maedhros’ own than he would likely find with some of his brothers, this would feel like betrayal.

“What were your last words to him?” Fingolfin asked.

Maedhros stared into the darkness ahead of him, where, somewhere, lay the mountain pass where Fëanor had died, unmarked by any grave or tomb.

I wish it had been words of love, or at least of farewell. But he was already far beyond that.  “The last thing I said to my father was to swear to him I would keep the oath. It was all that mattered to him.”

For the first time, a look of sympathy crossed Fingolfin’s face. “What a burden he left you,” he said quietly.

“That may be. But that burden is mine to bear.”

“How many burdens can one man bear?”

“I will bear as many as I must. I will not fail him.”

“No,” Fingolfin said sadly. “That at least I am sure of.” The last remnant of sunlight had vanished in the west, and his face was cast in shadow.

Maedhros fell silent again. Darkness had swallowed Ered Wethrin, and the dark fumes rising beyond them, but it seemed to Maedhros as if he could still feel their presence there.

Fingolfin rose. “Fingon did ask me to tell you to come back before you froze.”

Maedhros smiled slightly. “Thank you. I will.”

He turned to see his uncle slowly walking back towards the lights of the houses and tents of the camp.

“Fingolfin.”

The older elf halted.

“I never thanked you for your hospitality.”

“That is right, you did not.”

“Thank you,” Maedhros said softly.

Fingolfin gave a nod, then he slowly turned and went back among the trees.

Maedhros turned back towards the lake and rested his head against the rough bark of the willow behind him, closing his eyes.

No, he would not fail his father. But nor must he fail his people. And if keeping the oath meant dooming his people, then his only choice was to pass on the one burden that was his to pass on, and keep the other, that he would never be able to lay aside.

He would keep the oath. He would continue the war against Morgoth, as Fëanor had commanded him. And if such be his curse that his every endeavour was doomed to fail before he had even begun it, then at the very least he would fulfil his father’s legacy – to let his deeds be the matter of song until the last days of Arda.