Point of No Return by Agelast

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Chapter 1

Brief note about names: Phinû - Finwë
Ruskô - Fox
Berô - Valiant
Ronyê - hunter (f.)
Elû - Thingol

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Maedhros opened his eyes and saw a sky full of stars.

He blinked, but they were still there. It was dark, besides the stars, for his Silmaril was gone. The one he burned everything else for. Maedhros lifted his hands up to his face and felt a temporary rush of relief. Here, at least, things were as they should be: His good hand was still badly burned and his prosthetic just a melted piece of slag.

There were no signs of his ship anywhere.

He was lying on his back on deep, velvety grass, the sort that gave off a green scent as soon as it was crushed. Maedhros sat up and looked around. He was definitely on a planet, and it was night. The stars, again, were very bright, brighter even than they would look from the bridge of his ship.

Maedhros saw that he was on the shores of a lake so large that it seemed to reach the horizon -- or perhaps it was not a lake after all, but a sea? The water lapped against a rocky beach, lapping softly murmuring to itself, singing and arguing.

Experimentally, Maedhros tried to rise. He found, to his surprise that he could, though he stumbled, his bare feet protesting as he left the grassy carpet behind and stepped onto the rocky little beach before the lake. Maedhros bent down and tried to cup his burned hand. It could not do it so well, and he drank only a little.

The water tasted almost sweet, and certainly fresh. He drank as much as he could before he stumbled back to his old spot on the grass -- or close enough, anyway -- and laid down.

So, despite his best efforts, he wasn’t dead. (Unless Mandos was far trickier than Maedhros had come to expect.) He supposed it was only to be expected, after all -- didn’t he know by now that his plans were always doomed to failure?

He remembered some fiery chasm opening before him, a rip in the stars. The Silmaril in his hand. It told him that he had a choice, and he had chosen… No, nothing, those were desperate imaginings of a dying brain.

So.

Why was he here?

Fingon too was gone -- whether it be his shade, Maedhros' delusion, whatever he had been, he was gone as if he had never been. No, he had never been. No Fingon, no Silmaril, nothing.

Maedhros turned his body until his face was pressed against the grass. He should be tormented, heartsick and unhappy.

He was, but that did not stop him from falling asleep almost right away.

*

Maedhros felt something warm and wet press against his neck. “Getoff,” he muttered, pushing against a large, furry head. A memory bubbled up, irresistibly, a brother’s laugh, a stick poking at his side. Wake up, Laurelin has been waxing for hours! Celegorm was always true to his name.

No. Wrong. Celegorm was long-dead, and Maedhros rolled over and came face to face with a -- wolf? The wolf licked his face. Wrong again. A dog that looked like a wolf.

"Are you all right?" said a young voice, coming from somewhere above him. He crouched down, to get a better view of Maedhros. “The others thought you might be some creature of the enemy, but Berô wouldn’t come near you then.”

“I don’t understand you. Go away.” Maedhros frowned -- why was this fool speaking so oddly? He could still understand him, but it was difficult, like listening to sounds underwater.

“You can’t just lie here,” said the man, pushing his dark hair from his face, and Maedhros knew him, knew his face. Had known that face ever since he had been born, in fact. The face Maedhros knew was older, certainly, but it was the same, and long-beloved. O Grandfather! This is all your fault! Why couldn't you love all your children equally?

Everything clicked into place and made a new, horrible kind of sense. Maedhros looked past -- him -- to the water. Churning, whispering... To Cuiviénen there is no returning.

Impossible.

Except there he was, a witness to the impossible.

Maedhros tried to keep his voice casual when he asked: “What is your name?”

The man -- really, he was still a boy, still growing by the looks of it -- laughed. “So you have some manners! I am called Phinû. Who are you?”

Of course you are.

“Ruskô. Fox,” Maedhros said, without blinking.

“Odd name,” Phinû said calmly, “but it fits the rest of you. I have never seen such hair in all my life! It does look like an animal pelt… Is it real?” He touched Maedhros’ hair experimentally, tugging at it before Maedhros pushed him away.

"Don't touch me," Maedhros muttered sullenly.

Phinû paled a little when he saw what was left of Maedhros’ hands. “So the enemy did get to you,” he said, pity warring with alarm on his face.

“That story is very long and extremely boring. Now,” Maedhros sighed, “have your people invented liquor yet? I ask because I have a mighty need for it.”

“I’d rather have the story,” Phinû said, with a determined look that Maedhros certainly recognized.

*

They had not invented liquor yet, at least not the sort that Maedhros preferred. But there was a brew, made from the needles of a certain pine tree, that produced a pleasant, numbing effect that Maedhros found invaluable for the next few days and weeks. (And years.)

(He had to learn the language quickly -- not everyone was as intelligible as Phinû.)

His arrival at Cuiviénen was greeted by suspicion, all around, and not even Phinû’s (rather puzzled) attempt to vouch for him did do much good. That was fine by Maedhros. Between his hands and his eyes, he had to admit, it had been a long time since he seemed like a savory prospect. So he tried to be as humble as he could, and when asked questions, he told the truth -- or as close to the truth as he could.

Maedhros knew that it was an unlikely thing, to be accepted among them. He was prepared to go, to wander this new Arda once more, before Phinû spoke up again. “Here is one,” he said, gesturing to Maedhros’ hunched form. “Here is one who has escaped from the enemy, beyond all imagining. He seeks to shelter with us, to share our bread. Will we turn him aside?”

“Yes!” shouted a voice in the crowd. “They do not come back, the taken. How do we know he does not belong to the enemy?”

Maedhros felt his temper rise, but he kept his tongue in check. He looked to the ground and tried to seem innocent. It was not a very convincing act.

“If we turn him away, how much better are we than our pitiless enemy?”

Someone else asked, exasperated, “What would you have us do?”

Maedhros looked up. “Watch me.”

“What?” Everyone, including Phinû, was staring at him.

“Watch me. See what I do. Follow my footsteps. If you see that I have done wrong, or brought danger among you, you can throw me out, kill me --”

“We do not kill our kin,” Phinû said, firmly. “And our kin all that have voice.”

“Then, do we have a promise?”

Around the circle, there came sounds of assent, however reluctantly given.

 

*

So, Maedhros was allowed to live among the Tatyar, of whom Phinû was the unofficial leader. He had been since his parents had been taken, while hunting. They had been missing for several star-cycles now. He also, for whatever reason, was the one mostly likely to watch over Maedhros’ activities.

“I still find your story very hard to believe,” Phinû said, one day as they were fixing fishing nets by the firelight. “To escape, even as grievously hurt as you were!”

“I had help -- my friend came for me… But he is dead, and so is the rest of my family.”

“So you are not one of Unbegotten, I wondered. Your eyes are so strange, I thought --”

“Don’t think of my eyes,” Maedhros snapped. “Think about your people, and what’s best for them.”

“I don’t need you to tell me that,” Phinû said. He took out a little bag from his cloak and shoved it into Maedhros’ arms. “Here,” he muttered, “for your hand.”

Maedhros took the bag, and found within it a balm wrapped in leaves. It did lessen some of the pain he felt, and the swelling went down enough so that his hand was useable again. His other wounds seemed to have healed well enough. As for his prosthetic... well, it was useful to hammer away at things anyway. It never shattered or broke down further.

(Maedhros wished he could tell Curufin that nothing less than a Silmaril had destroyed it. Truly, his best work.)

*

This was not the Cuiviénen he had grown up reading about, or from his grandfather’s stories. Young Maedhros, before committing himself to the keeping impossible oaths and the occasional slaying of kin, had fancied himself quite the scholar. He been quite insatiable in his quest for knowledge, drilling both Finwë and Rúmil on their recollections of the Great Journey and what they left behind. In their tellings, Cuiviénen had been primitive, but not this primitive. They’d had wheels, for Eru’s sake.

Berô brought back a stick for him to throw. Maedhros picked it up and threw it across the field. So, a different Cuiviénen, then. In a different Arda? A parallel world -- a slower world? Maedhros smiled, suddenly, and he thought that he was living in one of his father’s wilder theories, the sort even Fëanor could not test. It almost made it worth it.

Could he change things, though? Should he?

I would, I will change everything. Everything must go.

A bark.

Berô dropped the stick into Maedhros' hand, his tail wagging and ready for another round.

 

*

Maedhros made himself useful -- indispensable, in some ways. He was his father's son, after all, and while the materials he had to work with were far more crude than anything Fëanor would have accepted, Maedhros took what he knew and made -- weapons, mostly. The woods around Cuiviénen were dark and deep, and more things lurked in it than just animals.

*

Years passed like this, without much change.

*

Well, there was a change, actually.

Maedhros found, to his delight, that he was sufficiently ancient to grow a beard. And he did exactly that. It was a soothing thing to stroke, and helped him think. It was a lovely beard, though Phinû told him that it made him look more like an animal than ever.

"Envious," Maedhros said, and stroked his beard.

"True enough. Perhaps we should try to find you a wife -- I have heard that some of the women find such excessive hair oddly alluring."

And Phinû laughed at Maedhros' horrified expression.

*

Rumors flew around the various settlements that the Dark Rider was abroad again. He had not been sighted for many years, not since the disappearance of Phinû’s parents. So far, no one had disappeared. Maedhros went hunting more often now, since he had his own ideas on who the Dark Rider might be. On one of his lonely sojourns, he met an Elf even more taciturn than himself. Ronyê, she called herself, and she needed no other name. She had no kin to speak of, though she counted herself among the Nelyar if asked and if she chose to answer.

Together, the they hunted the Dark Rider, following even the slightest clue as to where he rode. Maedhros did not know why Ronyê sought the Dark Rider and she never told him. It was enough that their aims temporarily aligned.

One day (or rather, the period of time that Maedhros had decided to dub ‘the day’, timekeeping was hell here), they were walking through a deep forest when they heard a noise. It was not the sound of broken branch or a bird singing in the dark. It was the sound of hoofbeats, and it was coming toward them.

They found a place to hide, in a clearing of the woods. Ronyê disappeared into a tree, Maedhros, less adept at treecraft, readied himself as best as he could. His weapons were sparse -- a crude, but sharp knife, and spear would have to do. How he longed for a gun.

He heard the string of Ronyê’s bow draw tight. After a breathless moment, the rider came thundering through, unearthly light spilling everywhere. Huntress made her shot. “Whoa!” the rider cried out. “Stop that -- you almost hit Nahar.”

His horse -- large, sparkingly white -- threw back her head and snorted reproachfully.

In dark, Maedhros smiled.

Ronyê leapt out of her hiding place, knife in hand. She did not attack, but watched the rider narrowly. Maedhros made sure to stay behind her, but Oromë saw him and looked startled for a moment. He was in the form of a giant, block-like man, sand-colored and buff. His eyes were wide and green, his pupils split like a cat's. But of the two, Nahar was far more impressive.

“Greetings, stranger,” Maedhros said smoothly. “Who are you and what is your business here?”

“I think you know,” Oromë said. “Though you are but a stranger here yourself.”

“I don’t know,” Huntress said, her knife gleaming wickedly. “Why don’t you tell me.”

“Oh, yes,” Oromë said brightly. “I am here to save everyone.”

 

Maedhros and Ronyê exchanged twin looks of incredulity.

*

But, as it turned out, Oromë was very persuasive. He blinked his cat-bright eyes and smiled at the gathered crowd. He spoke and they listened. Phinû was the first to agree. His friend, that wild firebrand, Elû, stood with him. And eventually, the more circumspect leader of the Minyar did too.

*

“You are an anomaly,” Oromë told him in passing, later. “My siblings and I agree that you may be allowed to wander here on Middle-earth but we cannot allow you to carry your contagion to Aman.”

“Contagion?” Maedhros said scornfully. “Anyway, I have never wished to go back there.” But it hurt, all the same, to know that he would never see the Trees again.

Oromë said, “This is another Music. You bring in a discordant note.”

“Pardon me, I thought your brother did that.”

Oromë scorned and moved away.

(Maedhros had never liked Oromë, anyway. Furry bastard.)

*

“Ruskô, why do you have to be so difficult?” Phinû asked, as they were climbing up the rocky face of the cliff, intent on the summit, the highest of all the places around Cuiviénen. Maedhros, with his one good hand, scrambled up quickly, with no thought of grace. He was grateful for the rope. He was atop, while Phinû was still climbing. And talking. “When you came here, I thought there was nothing you would have liked better than to leave. I often wondered why you didn’t.”

Maedhros looked down at Phinû, still climbing, through his fingers were already on the ledge. He said nothing.

Phinû came up and sighed, his hands resting on his hips. His back was to Maedhros. Before him spread Cuiviénen, the lake stretching out to the horizon. It would the easiest thing in the world to push Phinû off the cliff and watch as he fell, down and down until his body smashed on the ground. One stroke, and Maedhros could erase the future. No Finwë, no Fëanor, no Maedhros or the rest, no Fingolfin, and -- no Fingon, either.

After all, I am not a kinslayer still?

But the impulse passed, and Maedhros shook his head. “I won’t go,” he said, finally. “Middle-earth is our true home. I would not be held as some plaything of the Powers, trapped in paradise not of my own making.”

Phinû turned and looked at him. “Not even if I command you?”

“I have had a king before,” Maedhros said gently, “I will have no other.”

*

I will stay. Maedhros watched the crowd of Elves move slowly away from Cuiviénen. When they return -- I’ll be waiting. Then, who knows what will happen?