The Forgotten King by theeventualwinner

Chapter 1

Read Chapter 1

Are you dead?

Sometimes I hope that you are.

I sit here, in the midst of our forces, our banners fluttering defiant in the morning breeze over the white canvas tents of our camp. Enmeshed in councils of war where our generals preach this tactic, that resistance, to hold the lines here or press forward there; such mechanisms of battle complex yet crude, novel yet repetitive, and they hold my attention little. This golden crown wears heavy on my head, the light shines dull off facets of woven metal, once gleaming proud but now scuffed, imperfect. It never really fit anyway. It was not made for me.

The commanders drone on, moving this battalion here, cornering the enemy there, and I smile, and nod, and make all the kingly gestures I can think of, but inside it's like I'm breeding wastelands, indeterminate clouds of dust looming over skeletons and corroded memories. They lie forgotten; scattered across mournful, barren plains, a graveyard of imagination, its populace of lonely dreams wandering feral. I am surrounded, a constant flux of advisors, courtiers, comrades-in arms, kin, our bickering brothers swirl around me, but I am still alone.

All I can think about is you.

You said you knew what you were doing. I told you, I begged you to stop, to think, to throw aside this reckless hatred, to have patience and trust in your people. You were our king; you didn't have to do this. Someone else could have gone, some other emissary to bring forth your words, your terms. It didn't have to be you.

Gods, I would have gone in your place. You only had to ask. But you didn't, and you wouldn't. I hear whispers that pride runs in the family, like iron flows through blood.

You said it would be all right, you promised me you would come back. And all that time you were speaking the shadows lurked with fatal potential; tainting trust, poisoning hope. And even now, in those moments where it's just me and the night I wonder and I despair.

How could you think he would surrender? Our enemy, the dark Vala, that broiling void of hatred, spewing entropy, cleaving ruin, how could you think he would surrender?

And you told me you brought reinforcements. You told me you would be safe. But you lied, like he lied. Crimson splatters across the rocks, golden armour hewn by jagged swords, gnashing teeth. Our soldiers, my friends, smashed apart by those fiery demons that laughed through their bloodlust, grinned warped and sadistic as blood drips from iron broadswords, inches limpid through stained chainmail, ruptured cuirasses, cracked hauberks; eye sockets staring blank and hollow into the void. Caught helpless in the ravening, through oil-slick flames and clotting shadow they fought, and they died. In those final screaming moments darkness drowned out the stars.

And he sends word to us, some obscene mouthpiece spitting bile and rotting promises at our feet, at my feet, and all our hopes come crashing down around us. My brother, our king, a prisoner, a thrall of Angband, the plaything of a twisted god and his macabre angels. Unless we surrender, throw away this hopeless war and bow obedient to their infernal majesty, lick the iron-shod boots of tyranny, debase ourselves in vile prostration.

But I swore those words, as you did; in another land, another time, that night running with flames, dripping with viscera. Never to surrender, never to falter from our prize, an oath unbreakable, unforsakeable. Forever we are hounded, it will pulse eternal until oath-breaker fail and be cast into the empty chasm of night, or the end of all days fades out its beat in cold, dread silence.

And this decision is left to me, the next in line, second eldest of the Feanorians. Now king by birthright of our banished people, this responsibility thrust upon me by sneering fate, tragic happenstance. I never wanted this, the duty to rule thrown so brutally down, this abhorrent choice to condemn either our people, or you, my beloved brother, to damnation everlasting before the nightmare lord. This choice I never should have had to make.

So what am I supposed to do?

I know what you would ask of me, what you do ask of me. You ask me to leave you in their hands. Abandon you to the deepest dungeons; their whips that part muscle from bone, knives that slice jagged and crude through skin, gaping livid wounds spilling blood across the thirsty stones. Their vile perversions, knotting scars and groping hands, seething burns collapse to blisters taught and weeping; hot, panting breath billows from eager jaws, foul and sneering and mottled with red.

And there will be no end for you, my brother.

No, they will not let you die, but make you live on in despair, raw and infinite, fair king of the Noldor but a thing for humiliation, for pain.

You force me to do this to you.

And it feels like a part of me is dying; traitor it screams (you're worthless) and breeds squirming maggots of doubt that gnaw and scrape like shrapnel on bone, sowing tendrils of guilt, fever-dreams of shame clawing up through me, (you're pathetic, he is your brother and you did nothing, you didn't even try), but I have to, I have to make this choice, and please, please know that it destroyed me to do this (please, Maedhros you have to know, ((traitortraitortraitor)) no, you have to understand I never wanted this, any of this, but I can't save you and I'm so, so sorry), I have to let you go, to leave you to suffer so we can be free.

((You are made of nothingness, and he deserves the sun))

Sometimes I hope that you've died.

And when my time comes, in the golden halls of Mandos under glimmering starlight we will meet again, and brother I will tell you, tell you over and over again until I hold my heart in my hands, still beating, beating, beating and it's running down my arms, until it bleeds into the gentle grasses and the flowers bloom vermilion, that I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry, and I know there's no words that either of us can say but I'm sorry, I abandoned you, I left you for dead in the hands of your torturers and I can never make that right.

And maybe you will hate me, scream at me, curse me in every language from Valinor to Middle-earth, and I would only stand there and agree. But maybe you will forgive me, and we would smile and talk about the carefree things of old, just sickeningly smile and pretend like it never happened.

I don't know which one is worse.

But brother, please know that I will never forget you. Though fields of churning chaos separate us, though I sit here a king in silver armour; know that it's your crown I wear. Its radiance punches harder my failure, squeezes tighter that knot of guilt hot and throbbing buried so deep down inside, as every step I make, every breath I take should be yours, shining clear under azure skies.

After everything else is gone, kin forsaken and empire crumbled, I will never forget you.

I will never forget what I did to you.

After everything else, I just…

I just thought you should know that.