Smoke by Elisif

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Chapter 1

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The scent of smoke was on the air. Waves of blackened ash and cinders coupled with the bitter wind that had directed them south had whipped and twisted the formerly softly falling snow into a whirl of foul-tasting grey, obscured the sky and much that lay below it from view.

Whether this Thangorodrim-sent mockery of his and his brothers’ already miserable state had been intentional, Maglor did not know.

Shivering, he raised a hand to wipe the snow from his cheek, flinched as frozen metal touched his cheek; he had forgotten that he was wearing gauntlets, dressed for war rather than winter.

There is space for either your armour or your harp, they had told him. You’ll have to choose.

There had been no choice. Squinting through the snow, he glanced back at the harp-case still reassuringly strapped to the palfrey’s side, touched the case’s side simply to assure himself that it was still there.

Even ignoring the impracticalities of his chosen attire, it was among the coldest winters in Maglor’s memory. He tried hard to remember the last time he had felt truly warm; three months ago he suspected, when he, Maedhros, and Amrod had parted ways from Celegorm, Caranthir, and Curufin, the first softly falling snowflakes of the winter melting on his brothers’ hair in the gentle sun, fallen autumn leaves still damp underfoot; that same day, the flurry had become a blizzard and Autumn had turned to Winter.

 Their first with no home at all to return to.

Just ahead of him, his elder brother’s palfrey drew to a sudden halt; Maedhros glanced back at him through the blackened snow.

“Amrod says there is a cave not far to the east where we may shelter,” he said, turned his steed to the left, urged Maglor to follow, which he did, through gritted and chattering teeth. He looked ahead, squinted through the all-but-blinding snow; how Amrod could recognise anything in this sea of white and grey, let alone details almost certainly recalled from a hunt he had pursued centuries ago was quite beyond him, but he had long ago learned never to doubt his youngest brother in that regard. It would not be the first time that Amrod’s near-perfect memory had proved to be as much of a blessing for his elder brothers as it was an inescapable curse for him.

They plodded onwards through the deepening snow; the fury of the blizzard was still growing, the soft snow whipping past their faces turned to minute slivers of ice when he heard a sharp cry of:

“Over here!”

He drew the palfrey sharply back; Amrod’s hand was pointed towards the merest sliver of black against the white hillside, a crack in the earth he would never have otherwise have seen. With a hunched nod of thanks, he followed Maedhros and rode into the damp and freezing cave, breathing a sharp sigh of relief as he did so.

He rode far enough into the cave for his Amrod to squeeze through behind him; he leapt from the back of his own saddle, nearly slipping on the ice coating the uneven floor, armour clattering; he cautiously reached under the weighted bundle of his harp case for one of their loosely wrapped bundles, rummaged through it for a lantern and matches, struck and match and held aloft the lamp to survey the cave.

The light was not sufficient to judge the cave’s size, but Amrod, leaping from his saddle and edging forward to stand beside him, grunted:

“I’ve been here before. It’s safe.”

Maglor, readjusting his gauntlets and assuring that his quiver and bow were securely over his shoulder, nodded in agreement.

“Well, we might as well set up camp,” he said. He set the lantern down; he joined his brothers in the task of unsaddling and tending his horse, unloading the many packs and bundles from its back.

He untied his gauntlets with stiff and awkward fingers, tugged them free and laid them atop the saddle; hands freed, he unbuckled the straps that secured his harp-case the palfrey’s side, then cautiously propped the heavy instrument against the saddle-seat to momentarily readjust his grip.

 A low humming noise sliced apart the eerie stillness; a swift rush of hot air passed by his face and he heard the sudden crunch of an arrow burrowing its way into wood and leather.

“Attack!”

He screamed; he very nearly dropped the harp but managed to duck down and lay it gently on the stone floor before seizing his own bow as he rose, wrenching the drawstring back with arrows flying past his unguarded face and firing swiftly into the shadows. As he grappled for another arrow, he shot the briefest of glances across the cave; he saw Amrod raising his bow and sprinting into the shadows towards the unseen foe, Maedhros ducking into the dark corners of the cave, reaching for his sword; Maedhros was unarmoured, helpless as an infant in a bow-fight Maglor remembered with a sickening lurch as he shrunk back from yet another arrow, raised his bow and hollered at his brother to get out of the cave and save himself.

“Maedhros!”

In his panic, he misfired; the arrow fell to the ground a few feet ahead of him with all the force of a child’s toy, while the rebounding bow string struck the unprotected inner side of his arm, the sudden agonising pain causing him to drop the bow and fall screaming to his knees.  

Unthinkably, he paused for a gasping breath; the sharp whizz of an arrow jerked him back to reality and he had just enough time to fling himself forward onto the rough and icy rock, tasting blood as his face scraped across the icy stone while the arrow passed by where his face had been only a moment before.

He scrambled after his bow, still some feet away, fell hard onto his chest as he fought to gain foothold on the ice; then he heard the sickening crunch of an arrow striking flesh, the drawn out hellish scream of a dying Orc, and then there was silence.

He opened one eye the merest crack, raised his bleeding cheek an inch off the floor, made out his elder brother striding towards him, the ever-blue sword still raised and ready.

 “Maglor, are you alright?”

He turned his head and grunted, dragged himself to his knees supported on palms scraped raw and bleeding, glanced across the chaos of the camp and with a sickening lurch saw the harp-case where he had laid it, the Orc’s arrow protruding from the side.

 “It shot my harp.”

He rose to his feet, stepping tentatively over the stray arrows and bundles now spilled across the cave, lifted the cumbersome leather case tight to his chest, looked down at the arrow shaft protruding from the beautifully tooled leather. He laid the case out on the floor, knelt beside it, snapped the shaft, tugged it free and flung it aside. With unsteady fingers he drew back the cover of the case; a lump grew in his throat as he took note of the blackened arrowhead lodged tight in the soundboard. He reached for his gauntlets, flung aside in the chaos of the attack; he found only one. He slipped it over his hand and, fingers now protected, with a whispered prayer on his lips he tugged the arrowhead free of the ancient wood. An ugly chink was left behind. A scar. Lips trembling, he lifted the harp free and cradled it tight against his chest, gently rocking it back and forth; he glanced upward and saw that Maedhros was watching him.

“I’m sorry brother,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

Shaking his head, Maedhros cautiously sheathed his sword and turned around, scanned the far reaches of the cave in search of their youngest brother. “Amrod?”

“Amrod!”

“I’m here,” they heard him grunt. Moments later he emerged from the shadows, dragging the dead Orc behind him by the scruff of the neck. With a sharp kick to the creature’s side, he flung it hard onto the floor of the cave, then gave it another kick before lifting his sword and plunging it deep into the Orc’s belly with a sickening squelch.

He yanked the bloodied sword free; then he raised it and brought it down again, this time into the Orc’s chest with a vile crunch of splitting bone.

He was preparing to lift it a third time when Maedhros stopped him.

“Amrod!”

He halted the sword, looked nervously back at his eldest brother; he bowed his head, muttered something about keeping watch, and then, giving the dead Orc a last hard kick in the ribs and slinging his quiver back over his shoulder, he stormed out of the cave.

Maglor still cradling his harp, Maedhros standing awkwardly beside the body of the Orc, they watched as their youngest brother faded and disappeared into the blurred white of the storm.

It was not until he was out of sight that Maedhros dropped to his knees, eyes still transfixed on the hideous and malformed face of the Orc.

“I wonder who he was,” he finally said. “I wonder- how long it took. How long he screamed.”

Maglor saw his grip on his sword handle tighten; the chink of the silvered blade visible above the sheath glowed faintly blue, as it had done without fail ever since the day that Curufin had gifted him the sword.

 “I wonder if I ever knew him,” he whispered.

With a gentle prayer muttered heavenwards, Maedhros leant forward and brushed the Orc’s eyes swiftly closed before tugging its frayed and ragged cloak free of its great weight and dropping it gently over the creature’s face.

His fingertips still clutched at the edges of the cloak, he shot a glance back at the entrance to the cave, then turned back to face his brother.

“If Amrod’s gone for now, we may as well light a fire.”

Maglor nodded.

With a sigh, Maedhros rose to his feet, readjusted his own cloak about his shoulders, and began to fumble about the cave for dry tinder; findings were scant, but he was able to supplant them with the Orc’s many broken arrow shafts and start a meagre fire with practiced ease and commendable speed, kneel down on the icy stone before the budding flames, rubbing his hand back and forth against his knee in a vain attempt to warm it.

Maglor, unsure of what to do with himself, leant back against the wall and began to tune his harp. It was a futile task at the best of times, as of now an all but pointless one with the effects of the damp and freezing cave taken into consideration. All the same, the utter familiarity of the act, routine unchanged even since he was a child in Tirion brought him comfort as nothing else ever could.

He gave the final tuning pin a much needed twist, smiled to himself as the last string turned from discordant and flat to clear and corrected; he allowed the echoes of the mellow pluck to fade of their own accord, then ran his fingers swiftly across the strings in the opening of a long unrehearsed melody. The notes were rushed and careless, not intended for performance, but Maedhros, not looking away from the embers of the fire, quietly said:

“Findekáno loved that song.”

Maglor very nearly dropped the harp. It was the first time in a nigh on a year that Maedhros had spoke his cousin’s name while in a state of wakefulness. The song was a heavily allegorised account of the Thangorodrim rescue, a heroic paen to both elves involved, composed and performed for Findekáno’s coronation. He rested a hand on the soundboard, glanced back at his brother.

 “I thought he hated it,” he said.

“He was only being modest. He never stopped singing it in private, though only ever every other verse,” Maedhros said, smiling slightly at the memory.

Maedhros might as well have started dancing for the shock it came to his brother. He had not smiled since the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, not since... Maglor looked back at his brother, noted that he was still unsteadily rubbing his hand against his thigh. The fire had made little difference. He set aside the harp, riffled through one of the bundles for a spare cloak, paced across the cave and laid it across his brother’s shoulders, as always careful to give the right only the gentlest, briefest touch. Maedhros mumbled a thank you; Maglor stared into the flames and gave his brother’s left shoulder a gentle squeeze.  

“I never told you that it was Findekáno first, did I?”

 “First what?”

Maglor smiled.

“To tell me that he was- he must have been, Varda, forty-three? He told me how he felt about you, told me he feared you would only ever see him a child at best-“

Maedhros turned to him, mouth agape.

“Fortye-three? But that was-“

He laughed.

“Yes. When you told me and begged me to keep a secret of your feelings... I’d already been doing the same for their recipient for two years at that point.”

He tightened his grip on the cloak, toyed with the fringing.

“Why- why did you never tell me this?”

Maglor sighed.

“I keep my promises. And I had meant to tell you, but then...”

Maedhros stared into the embers. Quietly, he continued.

“I remember hearing the two of you speaking, after... you must have thought I was still asleep. Findekáno told you- he feared that his affections were his alone, that perhaps I was not the same, that I would one day tire of him and seek love somewhere else. After you left the chamber, I awoke and told him that not only had I overheard the whole conversation, but that I had always feared precisely the same thing. Then we both just started laughing and- I had forgotten what it was to laugh...”

He glanced down at the stump of his right wrist, raised it slightly.

“I loved him,” he simply whispered. “So much.”

Maglor joined his brother in staring into the silvered embers of the fire, fighting back a catch in his throat; he knew there was nothing else to be said. He gave his brother’s left shoulder a final squeeze, then slipped away into the cold shadows at the back of the cave. Back to his harp.

His fingers brushed gently across the soundboard, the thick callus on his thumb momentarily catching the base of a taut string, releasing a single note.

The harp was already out of tune.

There was only one thing to be done.

He drew a deep breath and began a scale, repeating the delicate succession of notes over and over with one hand as he adjusted the tuning pins with the other, cautiously twisting the pegs of coiled silver his Father had crafted and engraved with images of the two trees for him an eternity ago.

Just as he had always done it. Routine unchanged for nigh on a thousand years.

Until now. Try as he might, he could not draw his eyes from the unsightly chink in the soundboard, the ancient wood split and cracked by the Orc’s arrow, could not stave off the pain of the realisation that not even his harp had not been spared the ravages of the marred world; it too would now be scarred forevermore. He ran his fingers along the newly formed wound, caressed the unfamiliar gap with trembling fingers; it may as well have been his own Hröa that bore the wound for the sting it carried, an unseen, bleeding wound inflicted somewhere deep within.

Choking back tears, he wrapped the harp back in its silken cover sheet; he laid it gently back in the leather case, tied it shut, set it gently aside, reached out to assure that it was safely within arm’s reach. He riffled through one of the bundles for a spare cloak and tunic; he laid the crumpled tunic on the icy ground for a pillow, turned on his side with the frayed spare cloak secured under his elbows, closed his eyes and attempted to sleep.

A gust of icy wind blew across the cave, forced a waft of smoke from the meagre fire in his direction. He hated smoke; he snatched at his cloak with numb and white-knuckled fingers, clutched the frayed furs over his chilled face in a vain attempt to drown out the scent that carried with far too many memories.

A hull of white wood polished to the sheen of marble shuddering under the weight of a single spark; it creaks and groans as scarlet-tinged fingers of flame consume it from within, leap free of the gaps between the ship’s protruding bones. Rushed footsteps from behind, then a blood-curdled shriek and blood on his hands as holds back his soon-to-be-youngest-brother however hard he sobs and begs, fights tooth and nail to hold Ambarussa back from the far depths of the glittering sea.

Maedhros clutching at their Father’s hand, a promise on his trembling lips as he kneels down to kiss his forehead; his cold lips touch ashes and smoke, and he opens his clenched fist to find nothing but cinders that flutter heavenward to a starless sky on the breath of his muffled sobs.

A straggled lock of half-braided red hair laid out on a council table, its lingering scent of foul volcanic smoke and clotted blood haunting him all through the night in which he cries and begs for there to be any other way, any, and countless other nights to follow.

Flames issuing forth from Anfauglith; the glitter of a million raised swords and the screams of the soon to be unnumbered dead.

Smoke. 

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Chapter End Notes

Maedhros’ use of his cousin’s Quenya name is an indicator of intimacy between the two of them; I find it conceivable that Maedhros and Fingon would have continued using each other’s Quenya names in private. 

The idea of the permanently glowing sword was inspired by the story "Double Edges" by Elleth. I extend my due credits to her for coming up with the idea.