The Hammer Does Not Fall by Cirth

Chapter Four

A/n: So some aliens abducted me and I travelled in space for a few months and then I got involved with these cool underground fairies who made the best rhubarb pie ever and then a spider in my room died so I was involved in funeral stuff and –

Um, anyway. It's good to be back. I'm just posting what little I'd written months and months ago. I thought inspiration would strike me and I'd be able to finish the chapter, but woe, that has not happened; I've only added a paragraph and haven't edited anything. I might finish this chapter someday. Today is not that day.

Merry Christmas. o/

Chapter Four

It was half past noon. Maedhros had been sitting before the gates of Irmo's gardens four the past two hours, though the Valar had informed him that they would send him a letter the moment Maglor awoke. He was quite finished with letters; a day of waiting would have felt like a fortnight to him. If Maglor awoke, he wanted to know immediately.

A bead of sweat dripped down his temple. He made no move to wipe it away. Instead, he fidgeted with the tassels of his satchel, which contained a book he had intended to read; he had not even opened it.

Above him, the leaves of an elm rustled and whispered with the breeze. It was around the time when apples and acorns ripened; but trees here did not shed their leaves. Maedhros remembered Beleriand, where many trees would blaze like fire in the throes of death; he recalled being awe-struck by the morbid beauty. At times, when work was not pressing, he would sit at his window and gaze at leaves of blood and sunshine and earth until they broke away from their branches and fluttered to the earth, like dead fairies. It was so common that people had to create a word for trees that did not die in winter.

He jumped when the lock on the grilled iron gates clanged open. Irmo stepped out and nodded at Maedhros. "You can get him now." He held open the gate.

For a moment Maedhros did not move. His hands went still over the leather of his satchel. Then he stood up on nerveless legs and trundled numbly through the gates. Irmo shut and bolted them once more, and told Maedhros to follow him. The white stone path lay like a winding ribbon amid the gardens. Strings of little bells, hung on the boughs of the trees, sang a faint, sweet tune with every soft gust of wind. Maedhros registered this, but was unable to enjoy it.

Irmo glanced at Maedhros questioningly. Not a hair escaped his flaxen braids, not a wrinkle marred his cotton attire. His eyes were clear and bright and blue as the heavens.

Maedhros beat down the bitterness that rose in his chest. "Does my brother have his memories?" he said, striving to keep his voice steady. His heart was hammering. He had gone through the worst-case scenario in his head over and over again, trying to de-sensitise himself to it. If he thought about it often enough, surely it would come as less of a shock than it might have otherwise.

Irmo turned his gaze to the path in front of them. "He does not remember anything. Not even language. He is as a child."

Maedhros took a deep breath to calm himself down. His head swam. He stumbled twice, but managed not to have his face befriend the ground

They reached a large pond overhung with an arching willow tree. The fattest frogs Maedhros had ever seen sat atop the lily pads that spotted the surface of the water. In the bower of the tree, two men occupied rickety wooden chairs. Maedhros drew a sharp breath when he recognised Maglor, lolling back in his seat and gazing at the swaying branches with wide eyes. The knees of his ill-fitting breeches were stained with dirt, and his disarrayed curls tumbled about his shoulders.

Maedhros walked quickly towards them, almost tripping over his own feet. "Maglor?" he asked. Can I call him that? he wondered. Is it even Maglor if he doesn't have any of his memories?

He shook his head. This was Maglor. In a new body, perhaps, but what of it? It was the same soul, and likely the same mind.

Maglor grinned at him, and Maedhros pressed his lips together, because he had not seen him smile that way since the Years of the Trees. The elf seated in the other chair offered a sympathetic look, but did not speak.

Maedhros found himself at a loss for what to say. Questions hurtled into each other in his mouth, pushed insistently against his closed lips; but if Maglor's mind was a blank slate, he would not respond to anything Maedhros said, in any case. In something of a daze, Maedhros leaned forward and wrapped his arms around Maglor in an awkward embrace.

***

They had been sitting in silence at the kitchen table, with three candles for light. Maglor lay asleep in the bedroom; it had not been terribly difficult to put food in him and get him dressed – a small mercy. Elrond crossed his arms over his chest while Maedhros tried to salvage the dying flame of one of the candles with the curve of his hand. Outside, the night was buzzing with the sound of cicadas.

At length Elrond spoke. "What do you want to do?"

"Cry."

"That's nice. I meant what do you want to do that's productive?"

"I thought I would wash the dishes and get on with sweeping the floor."

"Maedhros."

"I won't give you a medal for remembering my name."

Elrond emitted a frustrated noise and put his hands on the table, as he was wont to do when he wanted to make a point. It was rather unnecessary, not to mention classless, Maedhros thought blandly. "Do you have a plan as to what you are going to do with him? How will you integrate him into society? Will you teach him to read? Have you spoken with Lady Nerdanel about any of this?"

"There are too many questions and only one Maedhros," said Maedhros, picking some dirt from beneath his nails and then scratching his temple. He looked up at Elrond, who was sporting a fairly bloodthirsty expression, and continued, "Worrying will not help me. And overly detailed plans have a tendency to fail – so I will see how things go. Right now I will provide my brother food and a home, and try to get him to remember, somehow."

"What if he doesn't remember?"

"Then I will tell him everything." It would not be the hardest thing he had ever done, though he guessed it could scrape the list for one of them.

"We will."

Maedhros sighed. He supposed saying, "He's my brother, not yours, and don't you have a wife to attend to?" would not be of much help. At any rate, Elrond did not deserve to be up to the neck in the quagmire of Fëanorian family affairs; he'd surely had enough already. He griped, "Get out of my house and put your nose back in your own." He said it in his mind, which was good enough, because Elrond rose from his chair and announced that it was late, and that he ought to be going, and that if Maedhros needed him for anything, he only had to send a message.

Elrond slipped through the door, quiet as a shadow, and Maedhros, without being told, knew he would not be seeing him for a long time.