Left Behind by Himring

Chapter 7

A last conversation with Maedhros.

'You are still looking at me like that,' she said abruptly to Maedhros one day.

'Looking?' he asked, although by the expression on his face she guessed he had at least an inkling of what she meant.

'As if I had the answers and could give them to you--why my people betrayed you. But I don't. Yes, they are my people--I knew them or thought I did--I understand some things--some reasons--but not the reason. I don't have that answer. As far as I can tell, it could have gone the other way...'

'Don't say that!' he said quickly, as harshly as he ever spoke.

She looked at him, wide-eyed.

'It means I could have prevented it,' he explained, tensely.

'I didn't mean that!' she said. 'I didn't say that! Maybe the outcome would have been the same, even if you had acted quite differently. Or maybe you could have done exactly the same, and the outcome could still have been different. Maybe...'

She saw the acute pain, suppressed, in his mouth and eyes.

'I don't even remember some of it all that well,' she confessed. Her hair was white by then. 'But you do, don't you?'

He was an elf, after all, and elvish memory not always a blessing.

'I do,' he said.

Chapter End Notes

This sequence ends well before the Second Kinslaying.
I think Ulrica probably did not live to see that time and, if I decide she did, after all, I think I would tackle that in a different story.