The Old Eagle by Agelast

Chapter 1

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Kingship was a heavy burden, even for those who had entered into it, as Elros had, with a clean heart and a determination to do good by his people. As expected, the latter took most of his time, until it seemed to him that his new-but-growing family was but a distant memory. That brought him short. It only took a few hints from Azarzîrân, his wife, for Elros to decide that he would have to do something about that. They set a day aside for Elros to spend some time with his children.

Yet, when the day came, Elros was rather taken aback by how much the children had grown since he had seen them last. A tall, solemn-faced boy waited for him there. A girl, not much younger, played on the carpet with another child, a round-faced toddler of about one and a half years. They all looked up when Elros came in.

Surely the boy could not be his son, Vardamir, who was but a baby himself! But there could be no mistaking it -- the boy was the image of his mother, with the dark hair and eyes that marked him as a part of House of Bëor.

Theirs had been a love-match, though Elros knew that he put his advisers at ease by marrying a woman of such a famed and ancient House. When he and Azarzîrân were alone together, they had laughed about it. But beneath their laughter was relief that they fit together so well.

Vardamir did not race forward to greet him -- that was Tindómiel who did that, almost falling to the ground in her haste. “Father!” she said, her small hands beating against his robe as he bent to pick her up. “Have you brought me something?”

“You are not suppose to greet our father that way, Tindómiel, and you nearly tread on the baby,” Vardamir said, as a good brother ought.

But Elros only laughed and boasted her up. She was light in his arms. If Vardamir favored his mother’s people, there could be no doubt that Tindómiel was a daughter of the House of Hador. Her hair was still baby-fair, though no doubt it would darken a little as she grew older. She was a lively girl, more eager to play outside than to heed her lessons. Elros had much sympathy for that -- it seemed to him that of his children, Tindómiel was the most like him.

“I have brought nothing with me, my love, except myself. Am I acceptable?”

Tindómiel looked at him with narrowed eyes before saying, “Well, yes, I suppose you will have to do.”

“Mother said that you would spend the day with us,” Vardamir said, gathering up the baby in his arms. Who Manwendil most resembled was still a mystery -- his hair was dark, but that signified nothing -- they all were dark except for Tindómiel. He was fond of nothing more than chewing on the ends of things. He acknowledged Elros with a slight widening of his blue eyes and clung close to his brother’s side. But he was a trusting baby and did not cry.

Elros began to herd his little flock to the fireplace and the over-stuffed chair that sat there. Though it was technically spring-time, there was a cold wind coming over the water and the day was gloomy and dark. He had been planning to lead an expedition around the city, but now it seemed better to sit beside the fire.

Elros sat on the chair with Tindómiel snug on the chair, and Vardamir on the floor with Manwendil on his lap. Elros asked them, “Would you like to hear a story?”

Vardamir looked skeptical -- was he too old for stories now? -- but Tindómiel nodded. “An adventure story,” she said, “with lots of blood and gore. And no romance,” she added.

“I want to hear a history,” Vardamir said, which made Tindómiel groan aloud.

“You are so boring,” she shot back, and Vardamir’s cheeks grew red.

“Brat,” he hissed at her.

“Now, now, children,” Elros said hastily, hoping that there would be no fight. He had faced many an ugly battle, but it was the scuffling of his children that made him nervous.

“Ata, story. Please?” Manwendil asked softly. And the matter was thus decided.

Elros said, “Yes. All right. I will tell you a story from my childhood. It was almost a hundred years ago, and so it is a history of a sort. And I was too much of a child then to think of romance, Tindómiel, so I hope you will be satisfied.”

And so Elros began to speak:“You know that my brother and I were raised by two Noldorin gentlemen whose names everyone knows. I cannot claim to have any special insights into their motivations -- they never discussed those with me, nor with my brother.

I say two -- but it was Maglor who took up the daily tasks of taking care of us and teaching us what little we could learn. Wandering about Beleriand in those days was in itself an education! Ai, he did try his best by us. We grew to love him in the end, we could not help it.”

“But Father,” Vardamir interrupted him, frowning. “He kidnapped you and Uncle Elrond, didn’t he?”

Tindómiel piped in, saying, “How could you love him?”

Manwendil also gurgled inquiringly.

“We-ll,” Elros said, reluctant to begin all that now. “You see, once my mother… left us, there was no one else to take care of us. And Maglor didn’t have to take us in.”

“You were like boy-hostages,” Tindómiel said, with troublesome gleam in her eye.

“Not at all,” Elros said hastily. “But sometimes I did try to -- well, wander off. Maedhros caught me one time.”

His children gasped as they understood what he had said.

“Maedhros? Did he hurt you?”

“Let me tell the story,” Elros said, with a little frown. “It is a very small story, and perhaps it has no point to it. But it’s all true, nightingale.” He kissed the top of Tindómiel’s head, as she snuggled up close next to him.

‘“It was a spring day, not a bit like this one. The sky was clear, for the most part, and already little buds had appeared on the trees. Maglor had decided that that day that we would learn the most boring subject possible -- I’ve forgotten what it was, if I ever knew it. Elrond knew that I was about to run, and tried to dissuade me. My brother… he was older than me by a minute, but sometimes it felt as he had a century on me.

He was content to learn what Maglor had to teach -- theirs was a true meeting of minds. I rubbed my belly and pleaded with him, silently, to help me. After a moment of deliberation, he looked up and asked Maglor a provocative question and while Maglor struggled to answer, I sneaked away.

At first, I had only wished to circle back to the tent where the provisions were kept. The woman who kept guard over it had an unexpected sweet spot for me. However, on my way over, I caught the flash of brown wings, and a nightingale’s song.

It was the first bird of spring! Now, I believed the foolish superstition that if you caught the first bird of spring, you could get her to give you a wish. So of course, I followed her into the forest that circled our little camp. My mind was quite blank of any thought besides looking out for my next step. I walked a long time before my legs tired. I never did find that bird.

It seemed to flit and flirt about, always out of sight after the first moment. Only its song was clear, joined at times by the chorus of other birds. Finally, frustrated and coming back to myself, I sat on the trunk of a fallen tree. I did not recognize the place I had reached, and a thousand worries assailed me.

This was Beleriand at the end of her days -- her woods were not safe for anyone, much less for a mostly-mortal boy without a weapon. I knew I had been foolish to follow that bird -- which had abandoned me anyhow. As the shadows grew long, I began to hear noises -- of loud voices, voices that belonged neither to Elves or Men.

I sprang up from my spot and looked to hide myself. There was space between the trunk of the fallen tree and the ground. I was small enough to wedge myself into it, and hide myself a little with the piles of leaves that littered the forest floor.

The Orc-band was small -- I could make out only three Orcish voices -- and from their conversation, they were as lost as I was. They were not looking for me, anyway. One push his large and smelly behind on the trunk of my tree, and I could see the rough stitching of his boots. My heart was pounding hard against my chest. I was sure he could hear it. I was sure that I would be soon caught and eaten, and my thought was that my brother would surely miss me. Who else would he blame on cold mornings for eating more than his share of porridge?

Just then, the Orc moved his feet and I thought I saw something red between the still grey-brown of the woods. Someone started to shout and I could hear the sound of heavy bodies falling. I lay still, until I heard footsteps coming toward me. A sword, black with Orc blood, was pushed into the soft loam of the forest floor and a familiar voice said, “You can come out now.”

When my brother and I were very young, the nurse Evranin, who had been our mother’s nurse as well, would tell us that if we were not good, Maedhros One-Hand would come and take us away. Maedhros One-Hand was supposed to taller than most trees, and nearly always covered in blood, and so, he was a person one would rather not meet.

One night, my mother came in as Evranin was describing in detail how Maedhros One-Hand dragged out bad little boys out of their beds and left them in the woods to die. I had never seen my mother so angry. She dismissed the nurse right away and we never heard more of Maedhros One-Hand, until we got to see him ourselves.

He greeted our arrival into camp, clinging to Maglor’s arms, with a curt greeting that was in the sharp language he and Maglor used when they did not wish for us to know what they were saying. It was only lately that Maglor had gotten around to teaching us any Quenya.

I scrambled out of hiding spot and looked up at Maedhros, who did seem taller than most trees then. He said nothing, but picked me off of the ground like I weighed nothing. I wished I were nothing, to save me the embarrassment of this moment. I expected Maedhros to start scolding me at any moment, but all he said was, “My brother is driving himself to distraction, looking for you.”

I asked in a quiet voice if Elrond knew that I had gotten lost. He smiled then, his grim face unexpectedly lightning. If a smile was supposed to make him seem less terrifying, it did not.

“You brother said he had no idea where you were. He was under the impression that you were in the provisions-tent. Tell me, son of Eärendil, do we not feed you enough?”

My stomach growled just then, loud enough for Maedhros to hear. “There’s your answer,” I said, feeling as bold as brass. Maedhros did not deign to reply. Instead, he set me down when he realized that, aside from being very dirty, there was nothing wrong with me at all. He set off into the direction of the camp (I presumed) at a quick pace.

The sky had darkened enough so that the stars were visible between the mostly-bare branches of the trees. I shivered a little, for the air was still cold. Maedhros’ legs were longer than mine, and soon I fell behind. I wondered what he would do he turned to see that I was no longer behind him.

I didn’t have to wonder for long. He stopped abruptly and turned back to me. “Move quickly. The woods are not safe.”

“But I’m tired,” I said -- and I am ashamed to say that there was definitely a whining note in my voice. “And hungry.”

Maedhros stared at me but then seemed to understand that looking at me with his terrible eyes would have no effect on me with the state I was in. So he sighed and said, “Come, I will carry you again.”

“No!” I said, hurrying to where he was standing. My neck hurt from looking up at him. “I am not a baby.”

“Babies do not tend to wander needlessly in the woods, no,” he said drily, and picked me up anyway. I was sullen for the rest of our journey, even after Maedhros soon gave me hazelnuts from his pack to eat. After that, I grew drowsy and fell asleep. I woke up when we had reached the campground, and saw Maglor come running to us with a shout, with my brother at his heels.

“Elros!” Maglor cried, and began to speak to Maedhros very rapidly in Quenya, which I only half-understood. Maedhros put me on the ground, where Elrond was looking at me, wide-eyed.

“I thought you were going to get something to eat,” he said to me in an accusing voice.

“I was! But I saw a nightingale…” My voice faltered when I realized that both Maglor and Maedhros had stopped speaking and were looking at me.

“What sort of nightingale was it, Elros?” Maglor asked.

Annoyed, I said, “The regular kind! What other kind is there?”

*

During dinner, Elrond told me that our great-great-grandmother, Melian, once used nightingales as her messengers. “I knew that,” I told him. “But the one I saw today could hardly been one of hers.”

Elrond rolled his eyes and said in a patronizing voice that of course they weren't. And anyway, he continued with a slightly malicious smile, “They wouldn’t be able to give you their message anyway. You never pay attention to these things.”

“Oh,” I said coldly, “I did not know Maglor was teaching you how to speaking to birds and beasts, only stuffy verb construction in stuffy old Quenya.”

“You can hardly read, Elros.”

“I don’t know why I have to read. No one speaks Quenya except Maglor and Maedhros…”

Elrond’s attention shifted to a place over my head. Judging from the neutral look on his face, I knew to pick my next words with care. “One-Hand.”

“Yes,” Maedhros said above me. “My brother wishes you two to get to bed. Do you have any objections?”

Elrond and I exchanged anxious glances, shook our heads and retired to our little corner of Maglor’s tent, where we slept. It was difficult to be angry at your brother when you happen to be curled up next to each other like rabbits. When Maedhros closed the tent-flap, and all was dark and quiet except for the sound of Elrond’s breathing next to me, I decided to stir.

“Elrond,” I said.

He did not speak but I knew he was not sleeping.

“Elrond.”

Finally, he sighed and said,“What is it?”

“What did Maglor say to Maedhros when he came back to camp with me?”

Elrond was still for a moment before he turned to look at me. At that time, we were mirror-images of each other -- the same black hair, the same grey eyes. When I saw that Elrond was peering at me, as if he wanted to get a glimpse of my fëa. “You must’ve fallen asleep when we first saw you. Maglor thought you were dead. He said not again.”

Not again. I was silent for a moment before I said in a quiet voice. “Do you think he was thinking about our uncles?”

Elrond had weaseled out the whole story from Maglor several months ago, but I could not quite believe it. It made no sense to me at all that after destroying an entire kingdom, and perhaps killing countless children as well, that Maedhros One-Hand should have a crisis of conscience over two little boys left in the woods.

I did not like to think of them, my uncles. I knew my mother had been thinking of her brothers when she named us, but to me, Eluréd and Elurín were like ghosts. Always at the edge of my thoughts, but never quite real.

Elrond balled his hands into fists and looked upwards into the darkness. I knew that he was thinking the same thing. I was not skilled in mind-speech as Elrond was, even in those days, but we had no use for it. We knew each other’s mind as well as we knew our own.

“Promise me you won’t die,” he said, turning his head towards mine. His voice was suddenly fierce.

I said nothing, only taking his hand into mine, until his fists unclenched.’

*

Tindómiel pressed her face against Elros, her bright blue eyes boring into his. “Is this the end?”

“Not quite,” Elros said soothingly. Just then, the door opened and the queen came in, carrying a basket of fruit and pastries with her. Azarzîrân laughed to see the excitement her entrance had caused -- she kissed Tindómiel and Elros on the cheek and sat down next to Vardamir, taking the sleeping Manwendil from her son’s arms. “The halls and gardens were very suspiciously quiet today,” she said, “I wondered where you all had gone off to.”

“Father is telling us a story of his childhood,” Vardamir told her.

“It is a very wandering tale,” Tindómiel said.

“I’m still here, you know,” Elros said, feeling a little hurt.

“I like it, Father,” Tindómiel said confidentially. “But you must admit it is not going very fast.”

“Hush, my dear,” Azarzîrân said. “Let him go back to his story.”

And thus, with her vote of encouragement, Elros continued.

*

‘We moved camp the next day, and as we rode, the forests that surrounded us began to give way a rougher, more rocky landscape, cut with a fast-moving network of rivers. Once, this place had been a part of the kingdom of Nargothrond, but now, it was wild and nameless, and we passed through cautiously, wary of both the beasts and strangers we might see. When, finally, the horses need to rest, we set up camp near a ruined watchtower, made with the golden stone of the region. On the entrance, someone long ago had carved the symbol of the House of Finarfin, but only a noisy family of rooks guarded it now.

I tried to convince Elrond that it would be a fine idea to explore the place, but my brother did not see it that way. Instead, he turned his back to me and curled up with a book. I was a little cast down for a while, wandering around camp and occasionally getting yelled at for stepping on someone’s arrows, or nearly burning my boots on the fire.

It was Maedhros, of all people, who took pity on my distracted state.

“You there,” he said, glancing up to the sky. It was still a few hours until midday and most of the others had already dispersed to their daily tasks. He looked down at me, his eyes cool and appraising.“Come with me.”

“Me?” I said stupidly, already trotting behind him. I wondered if he actually knew my name.

“You’re the one who likes to wander?”

Well, at least he knew who I was. Reluctantly, I nodded.

“We’re going hunting.”

It was still early enough in the season that game was scarce, although as young as I was, it was hard not to notice that had been scarce for a long time. The land seemed emptied out -- not only of its people, but also the wild things that had once made their home there. But still, I took a great deal of pride for being taken hunting. I had my new (and first ever) hunting knife, and a bow and quiver full of arrows that I was not half-bad at.

Certainly, I was better than Elrond, but a half-blind bat would have been better than him.”’

“Interesting,” Vardamir said, taking a note from a book that seemed to have materialized from nowhere.

“Go back to the story!” was the general demand.

‘“I need not have bothered with all my preparations, in truth. We stalked through rocks and scrubby woods in search of rabbits or an odd partridge or two. We caught nothing that day, nor the day after. On the fourth day of the hunt, it began to dawn on me that the whole thing was unusual, and I was not sure why Maglor had allowed his brother to take me on this pointless endeavor. I had by this time grown heartily sick of eating the stale waybread that, on the long course of its journey from its making to me, had changed from something presumably edible to a sand-colored rock.

“Is life worth living?” I asked Maedhros one the way back home, nibbling on my waybread rock.

“What?”

“It depends on the liver!” I said, laughing heartily at my own joke. The look he gave me would have made a grown man fall to his knees. But I was neither grown nor a Man (yet), I was mostly unaffected.

“You are an odd child,” Maedhros said, looking at a stop far over my head.

“You are an odd adult,” I shot back.

Maedhros gave me one his strange grins, like a death’s head mask with a candle burned behind it.

“Very true,” he said.

I thought that Maglor had finally decided that I was not worth teaching, and wished now to put all of his energy on tutoring my brilliant brother. Maedhros had been tasked (I thought) with teaching me what he could, of killing. Perhaps he could make a warrior of me, since Maglor had thus far failed to make me a scholar.

In truth, I did not mind the change. In addition to the hunting trips, Maedhros began to teach me the sword. The one I practised with was light and slim, more of a long knife than a proper sword at all. But it cut, all the same, a face that I realized when I stumbled after one of Maedhros’ sudden lunges and sliced open my palm. The blood welled up immediately, and I stopped, too surprised to start bawling. I looked up at Maedhros and saw his face was pale and drawn.

I did not know why a kinslayer like him should be so disturbed by the sight of blood, especially mine.

My wound, such as it was, was cleaned and bandaged in a matter of moments. Maglor declared that this would be an end of my sword fighting lessons, until I grew old enough to properly defend myself. I begged him to reconsider. I cited all the positive effects my training was having on me: after taking all my aggression on the stuffed straw-man (one-handed like its maker), I hardly fought with Elrond anymore. And though I still could not read in Quenya, my shooting had improved greatly at the daily practice of shooting at nothing.

“And also, your brother is dying for company, even mine,” I said, though I knew that I shouldn’t say so. Maglor stopped putting away the bandages and looked at me. Like his brother, Maglor had a very penetrating glare. I shifted in my seat, but did not back down from my stance. Finally, he nodded.

“We are all dying in some ways, Elros, some faster than others.” Then he ruffled my hair, a thing that I hated, and left the tent quickly enough.

The next day, Maedhros and I actually caught something. Several somethings, actually. First there were two skinny rabbits that had fallen into the two traps I had laid. Then Maedhros finally had luck with some partridges. Our luck was too good that day. It was bound to run out. On the way back to camp, I caught a flash of brown in the corner of my eye. Before Maedhros could warn me off, I loosed an arrow into the sky.

A dreadful shriek tore through the hills and I raced ahead, wondering what I had caught. Bleeding on a boulder and now whistling pitifully, I found my quarry. It was an eagle, old and with its feathers bent. His left wing had been torn badly by my arrow. What was left of that lay broken on the ground.

I cried out in shame, for everyone knew that it was an evil act to kill one of Lord Manwë’s birds (even the Noldor thought so) and here I had done exactly that. “I will climb up and get him,” I said, almost babbling in my distress. “We can nurse it back to health. Elrond could speak to it.”

“Hush,” Maedhros said, and I fell quiet. For a moment, I saw what Maedhros must have once been like: not the cursed kinslayer, clinging to life in old Beleriand, nor even the kingly Elf who had led armies -- to both victory and defeat, but rather Maitimo, who had been the older brother of six, who knew how to soothe a troubled child. I knew without being told that Maedhros would take care of it. I even relaxed, a little.

The eagle was big, but not as it happened, an Eagle. It could not speak to tell us its misery, but that was clear anyway. Maedhros had gathered it up in his arms, not caring that its blood stained his clothes.

“We will nurse it back to life,” I said again, thinking suddenly that I could make it into a pet of some kind. Maedhros shook his head and the eagle moved against his chest weakly, its eyes slits of light and dark.

Maedhros said, “No, it is too old and badly hurt. Elros, look away.”

“No!” I said, with alarm. “To kill an eagle is to be cursed! They say all your endeavors will be in vain!”

Maedhros smiled. “No need for more of that, I think.”

I sat down on the dusty ground and wept. I did not know who for.

We build a little pyre for the dead eagle instead of burying it, which would have been easier. But I felt that for a creature such as that, born to fly, it would be better for its ashes to mingle with the wind. We had to leave the pyre behind, still burning. The smoke would attract attention to us, perhaps unfriendly attention.

But I will never forget what Maedhros said to me as we made the long, weary way home. “Heed not to signs and portents, do not be cast down by imagined dooms. Do your duty, and do it well. I have no ken of the future, but I believe that you will be a part of it. Use your power well.”

“How can you say that? You are doomed!”

“I doomed myself… I don’t suppose the words ’a self-fulfilling prophecy’ means anything to you?”

I shook my head.

Maedhros sighed. “Makalaurë is certainly neglecting your education. You must not let Elrond get all of the attention, you know.”

“I hate Quenya,” I said sulkily.

“Nonetheless. What I mean is -- you can choose to be blessed and glad of heart. Do that, Elros, and you will have it.”

“You make it sound easily,” I said, still feeling a little pettish. “Didn’t you choose to be blessed and glad of heart?”

Maedhros stopped walking and looked at me, his eyes wide. “No,” he said. “It never occurred to me to be. I thought happiness was impossible and so it was.”

“I won’t do that,” I said.

“Good,” he said. “Be blessed, son of Eärendil.”

“Thank you, son of Fëanor.”

*

When Elros looked up again, Manwendil was sleeping in his mother’s arms. Both Vardamir and Tindómiel were quiet and looked as if they were deep in thought.

Azarzîrân got up with her burden and bent down to kissed Elros on his forehead. “It was a wonderful story, my dear,” she said. Manwendil stirred in her arms and began to make fretful noises.

“I think the little one is hungry,” Elros said, who felt quite famished himself. The fruits and pastries his wife had brought in had disappeared quickly into his children’s mouths. He hadn’t got a scrape of it himself.

“I think you are right,” Azarzîrân said, and walked to the other room of the nursery, Manwendil cradled in her arms.

Finally, Tindómiel said, “I do not think it is true.”

“What is true, dear?”

“That thinking something makes it so.”

“That is not what Father meant,” Vardamir protested. “Only that believing something so strongly will make it true. Whether it be a blessing or curse. Isn’t that right, Father?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Elros said, helping Tindómiel down from his lap. “I am but a simple king. I leave figuring out such knotty questions to those who are better able to handle it -- and those who have the time to pursue such long trains of thought. Come along, my dears. It is almost dinner-time.”