Heart-stung by Agelast

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Chapter 1

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What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies.

 

I.

He felt a pain like the breaking of a rib, a thread cut.

Maedhros was on foot now, his horse had been killed from under him some time ago. Disoriented, he staggered back and took a hit. A troll, stark white and hideous, gained on him. He spun on his heels; the clank of armor did nothing to disguise the unmistakable crunch of bones. His bones. This is how it ends, a high and panicky voice shouted in his head, but one of his warriors came forward and thrust his sword into the creature’s wide belly, and then was battered aside, like a doll belonging to a petulant child.

And then Maedhros was back, his sword seemingly welded back into his hand. He hacked at the creature’s body until black blood gushed from its wounds, until it was felled, until he had cleaved off its head.

The battle ebbed and flowed around him, both on the ground and in the air. What a sight it must be from there! The sky above was black with smoke, and molten with flames. Winged things swooped down and brought death from above, and everywhere there was a monstrous cacophony, a constant roar of many voices, screaming, shouting, dying.

A stiff wind blew through the battlefield, taking with the heavy scent of fast decay.

The fighting continued, but they were being pushed back, farther and farther away from Fingon’s forces. There was no hope, now, that they should meet. Through the thick, filthy air, Maedhros strained to see Fingon’s banner, blue and silver, but through the murk he could not make it out.

Little by little, it seemed to him that the fighting eased, and Morgoth’s forces seemed to shift westward, towards Fingon’s line. Soon, the battlefield seemed to have emptied, except for the dead and dying, and he looked around for a place to sit.

He finally found one in a ruined shelter, sat down on a lump -- of something or other. Dust rose. Maedhros wished so terribly to sleep. Something stirred weakly under his feet, he crushed it with his heel, with no thought of whether it was an ally or not.

Other elves came trickling in, and some of Bór’s folk too, and a makeshift hospital coalesced around him. Eventually, he looked around dully, to find if any of his brothers had made through the slaughter. He found Caranthir sitting quite nearby, with a great gash on his head, the blood painting his face even redder. Maedhros came over and they stared at each other for a long moment before Caranthir, moved by some phantom spirit of generosity, dug out from a pack at his side stained and half-empty waterskin and offered it to him.

Maedhros’ lips were dry and the water tasted stale and faintly bloody, though the taste could have come from his fingers or his face. He drank it almost dry, before Caranthir’s noise of protest stopped him short. Then, wiping his mouth, Maedhros spoke, his voice scratchy and hoarse, as if he had been screaming all the while. Perhaps he had been.

“We must find the others.”

Caranthir grunted. “If they yet live.”

*

They did yet live, all of seven of them, by some miracle or, more likely, by Morgoth’s especial design.

Maedhros, seated once again on a horse (that wasn’t his, it was one of the few still living), afforded one last look at the battlefield. That wide and broken plain, once dry and gasping, had now been suffused with a glut of blood, beyond all compare.

Try as he might, Maedhros could not see any glint of gold in the horizon. Nor silver. Nor blue.

*

The news came months later, from a ragged and nameless Man of Dor-lómin, who was still dressed in the threadbare colors of the House of Hador. A deserter, perhaps, and survivor because of it. He claimed to have news of all who were lost. He twitched and shied away from the stares Maedhros and his remaining followers gave him. But he was starving and they had food, and so as he ate their meager bread and nibbled at their stringy meat, with great gusto and concentration. And silently.

Finally, Maedhros had had enough. He asked for whatever news the Man had. He was not an old man, this soldier, but the elements had dealt harshly with him. He spat, and a glob of spit landed near Maedhros’ boot.

Maedhros repressed the urge to snarl. “Speak,” he said instead, and the Man swallowed hard and did, stumbling over many words in his confusion.

It was as they had feared and as they had guessed. Maedhros took the news of the High King’s death with a stoic expression on his face.

His hand pressed absently against his side, as if to nurse a broken rib.

 

II.

A single candle lit Maedhros’ sickbed, and all else was dark.

The dark gave an impression of gigantic, looming places, of palaces long since put out of mind, across a frozen ocean. Fingon’s hands were cold as he pushed away the heavy velvet curtains that hid Maedhros from view. He should not have been here at all, but he had argued and badgered his way through the line of his relations to get here, into Maedhros’ quiet room, where his cousin still slept, and a single candle burned.

Maedhros’ face was white as the sheet that surrounded him, his bright hair cut almost to his scalp. Fingon swallowed his outrage at this latest insult to his cousin’s dignity. No doubt those who had done it had had good reason for it. And hair grows back, he thought, his eyes lingering on the bump in the blankets where Maedhros’ right arm lay.

A noise, halfway between some lost word and sigh, interrupted his thoughts. Maedhros’ eyes cracked open, steely-grey, and only slightly softened with sleep. Ah, there you are, he seemed to say, and shifted into in a seated position. He then adopted an attitude of heavy expectation, of waiting for the ax to fall, for the sword to swing. They had much to talk about after all, much to explain to each other.

Maedhros pushed away his blankets away. The stump of his right hand was yet neatly bandaged up, inoffensive in every way except by its very existence.

Fingon sat on Maedhros’ bed and angled his body towards his cousin’s. They watched each other, suddenly wary in each other’s company. Silence reigned for a while, until Fingon stirred, impatiently. “Have you taken a look outside?”

Whatever Maedhros was expecting, it wasn’t this. He lifted a weary eyebrow at Fingon, neither saying yes or no, but Fingon took it as an assent. He got up and ventured forth to the window and pulled back curtains of the large, southern-facing windows. The late-afternoon light filtered into the room, golden-yellow. Motes of dust swirled upwards, disturbed by his movements. From Maglor’s worried reports, Fingon knew that Maedhros had not let the cleaners into his rooms for almost a week now. And, indeed, the whole place smelled close, and if not of sickness, then certainly not of good health.

He pushed back the final set of curtains, the ones of Maedhros’ bed, with a sigh. “There are entirely too many curtains here.” He fingered the material idly. It was thicker and much more fine than the cloth that made up his own cloak.

Fëanorians, of course, would have the best of everything.

Maedhros blinked at the sudden influx of light. He struggled a little with his bed sheets, and when free of that, swung his legs out of the bed. He wore only a nightshirt; Fingon could see the lines of strain on his shoulders, and how thin and wasted his legs seemed to look.

Maedhros compressed his lips and furrowed his brow. “Come here,” he said. With anyone else, it would have been a plea.

Fingon came, and together, with some missteps and stumbling, they at last made it to the window. Maedhros leaned against him, hip to hip. They were almost the same height, though Fingon had no hope that he would ever quite catch up with Maedhros in this regard.

Fingon tried to keep his grip light, as unobtrusive as possible. Maedhros was even lighter than he looked, and he looked fragile indeed. He moved, in seemed to Fingon, more through a fierce sense of determination than any great strength.

Fingon felt a familiar surge of love and admiration for Maedhros, the kind that burned in his belly and spread to his heart, thawing that organ out still farther. Once, naively, he had thought that nothing could ever have parted them, nothing could have made them doubt each other. But he knew better now.

Maedhros turned to look him. He laid his hand flat on the pane of glass. “Open this?”

“Yes, of course,” Fingon said, reluctant to let him go. But Maedhros remained upright while Fingon opened the window. It took some doing, even with the superior Noldorin craftsmanship that had obviously gone into making it. The cold made the joints seize a little, and when Fingon did manage to open up the window fully, a strong, cold breeze came into the room, ruffling Fingon’s hair and pulling at Maedhros’ nightshirt.

Though the sky was clear in the light of the setting sun, the wind brought with it a promise of a night of rain. Before them stretched the lake, of clouded silver, and the dark lines of trees beyond it, and beyond that, mountains wreathed in shadows and in mist. And beyond that.... He couldn’t yet say.

“A new world,” Fingon offered instead, setting his hand down to rest on the windowsill.

Maedhros nodded and put his hand next to Fingon’s, and they looked out together.

 

III.

Findekáno was like a millstone around his neck, but patience, as his mother said, was a virtue. Maitimo hoisted up Findekáno’s legs again with barely a sigh. Usually, Nerdanel said this a little impatiently, after Fëanáro fell into one of his passions again, but the general concept still held. Or so Maitimo supposed.

“Still tired?” Maitimo said, and his cousin nodded, burying his face in Maitimo’s hair. It seemed odd that a child as boundlessly energetic as Findekáno should suddenly wilt and stumble and demand to be carried home, but there it was. They walked through a garden, gently buzzing with the sounds of summer. Everywhere he looked, flowers bloomed, a confusing abundance of reds and yellows, blues and greens. Laurelin was just past its zenith, and the light was just a little thick and strong, like honey that could be moved through. It even stained the blue sky with faint washes of gold.

There was an apple in Maitimo’s pocket, a sweet red apple that he had been planning to eat, under a tree, while reading a book, somewhere away from brothers and parents alike. But his plans for the afternoon had been spoiled, somewhat, by finding his cousin hiding behind a hedgegrove, some way from the house. His little face had been woefully scratched up, and Maitimo had used his shirt to clean himself off. (He’d had no handkerchief for the task.)

When Maitimo asked him how he had come to be in this sorry state, Findekáno had refused to say.

Well, discretion was the better part of valour, Maitimo supposed. And besides, he knew where the blame lay. Tyelkormo, after all, was nowhere to be seen, though the two were supposed to be playing, for sake of better relations between their families. And then Findekáno had insisted on following Maitimo along all day, through his errands and now, wandering home.

They passed through the garden at last, and walked the stone streets to Nolofinwë’s house. Maitimo’s flat leather shoes slipped a little on the smooth stone, unused to the additional weight he carried. Findekáno was quiet, although if Maitimo strained his ears enough, he could still hear the faint snatches of songs that he hummed, tuneless but musical nonetheless.

Maitimo shifted his weight and smiled, and remembered the afternoon they had spent together.

Maitimo did not find his young cousin to be at all bad company. Findekáno did not insist on sweets as a means of persuasion, as Makalaurë had done his age, and nor did he wander off half as much as Tyelkormo did. (Though Maitimo had discovered, to his exasperation, that when Findekáno did wander off, he was even more difficult to find.)

But mostly his little cousin was content to follow him around and pepper him with questions, when he was not staring at him with undisguised awe. This pleased Maitimo more than he was willing to admit, for his brothers, as young as they still were, had grown entirely used to him, and thus had grown totally unimpressed with all that he did.

Finally, when they had come to a stone courtyard, not very far from Nolofinwë’s house, Maitimo set Findekáno down on a bench and stretched, pulling his arms back behind his head. His back gave a little protest and he uttered a quiet groan. He wouldn’t be giving rides to anyone for a long while yet.

Findekáno settled on the stone bench and watched him with wide eyes. “Cousin, were you always this tall?”

“No,” Maitimo said, sitting down beside him, and stretching out his legs. He was not showing off, he was certain of that. “I was once as small as you.”

Findekáno nodded solemnly. “A very long time ago.”

“Not so very long ago!”

They sat in companionable silence for a while, watching people hurry along, and also the ever-changing pattern of leaves playing on the stone wall in front of them. Findekáno demolished the apple Maitimo gave him, and began to nibble at the core. Finally, with the sticky touch that all little boys seemed to have, he pressed a hand on Maitimo’s arm and said, “Cousin, what is a friend?”

“What?” Maitimo must have fallen asleep; he sat up, slightly mortified. Findekáno gave him an indulgent smile. It looked a bit odd on his young face.

Maitimo coughed to hide his embarrassment.

“Er, well,” he thought about it, and then said, “One of father’s old tutors told me once that it was a friend is a single soul, dwelling in two bodies.”

Findekáno considered this, tilting his head in concern. “That sounds painful.”

“I think it can be,” Maitimo said, reflectively, a little surprised that Findekáno should perceive this.

“I am your friend, then?” Findekáno said this tentatively, as if he expected to be rejected, or, worse, laughed at.

“Yes!” Maitimo said with a laugh, which Findekáno echoed happily.

He clasped Findekáno’s small hand to his bigger one. “We are connected, you and I.”