Never Let Me Go by Elisif

Chapter 1

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I broke his wrist, jerked his frail arm upwards against the gyve while he was momentarily distracted, forced my hand down and felt the pitifully frail bones easily snap under my grip. He screamed, high-pitched and blood-curdling; when he at last paused between convulsing sobs for breath, I thrust one of my gloves at him, forced it between his teeth.

“Bite down,” I told him. “Or scream, whichever makes it easier. Do not look, and I promise I’ll be as fast as I can.”

Somewhere between crippling, shuddering sobs he nodded; he did not speak until I had the dagger held ready over his newly broken wrist, fighting to ignore his cries of pain that I knew would shortly be immeasurably worse as I prodded his wrist around the break to ensure the location of the cut.

“Findekáno…”

I glanced over at him, pushed back against the stone, so rigidly tense it looked as though his hollow and emaciated ribs were about to burst. His eyes, raw and bloodshot, found mine.

“What if I fall?” he whimpered.

What if I fall?

“Oh Eru…”

The realisation of what him being capable of falling would physically entail, the conscious thought of bone sliding free of flesh and his arm slipping free of his wrist very nearly threw me backwards off of the ledge; bile rising in my throat, I turned my face away from his and back towards the wind, partly out of fear that I might be violently sick, and partly out of abject shame: whatever my own fears at that moment were, Russandol was unquestionably suffering them multiplied beyond my comprehension. Fighting for composure, I drew his body forwards against my own; he cried out- a hollow, pitiful sound- at the resulting tug on his bound and now broken arm as he rested his head on my shoulder and I forced my right arm around behind him, tried not to flinch and gag as the wide expanse of my palm and fingers touched warm blood and I realised his entire back compromised a vast open wound.

I could feel his tears trickling my neck as he sobbed onwards, his skeletal fingers desperately clinging to my shoulder. Softly murmuring the lullaby I had sung below the mountain, I stroked the paper-like skin of his cheek with the knuckles of my left hand and with finger and thumb pressed gently beneath his skeletal jawline, I raised his blood and tear-soaked face to inches from my own, leant over and, eyes briefly closed, kissed his shuddering forehead, tasted the blood and ash caked on to his filthy hair.

His eyes opened weakly.

“I will not let you fall,” I told him, my own voice now quaking. “Whatever happens, I will never let you fall.”

I will never let you fall.

I brought the dagger down hard against his broken wrist and began to cut through sinew and flesh while his blood-shot eyes were half-closed and otherwise occupied, before he had a chance to formulate a response.

I had not realised how difficult it would be. Not the cut itself; that was straightforward enough, easy even, for the flesh was half-dead and there was in truth not much of it through which to cut. It was causing him so much pain and having no choice but to continue causing it while he shrieked at me to turn back and to stop and to just let him die, anything, anything but this, that nothing and no one could ever have prepared me for.

 

I pass easily into the Fëanorian encampment, the sentries doubtless already informed of my coming for I could see even from a distance that they had their bows lowered, even the senior guards atop the stockade joking and smiling at my approach. One, who doubtless had not seen me returning, half-starved myself and clutching my all-but-dead-cousin and caked from head to toe in blood and vomit, shouted out praise for valiantly rescuing his King and bringing him who had been thought dead home in remarkable health; I bit down my lip to stop from laughing, remind myself that Russandol had informed me he did not intend to tell his people nor his brothers all the details of his captivity and release at my hands when he returned home, hoping thus to regain some small measure of dignity, and asked me to do the same; I will honour his request, as I had not had the grace to honour another far more urgent plea.

I leave the guards, ignore with some difficulty the hushed comments regarding my lack of a steed and the shame of a Prince entering their encampment on foot and pass by the outbuildings in the direction of the stables, following the scents of damp hay- rotting in fading warmth of summer’s end- and the stink of horse dung from the training yard.

Russandol is seated on the other side of the tiltyard, with a somewhat sour-faced Curufinwë standing behind him, brandishing a wooden training sword, raising it into the light and allowing his brother to cautiously adjust his grip on the hilt. His left arm hangs limply at his side- surely he could not have already abandoned using a sling? It was only a few months since he had the arm permanently bandaged to his side the joint wouldn’t dislocate if he sat up too rapidly. He could not have healed that quickly, could he?

No- when he rises, passes the sword to his brother and walks forward, I can see him limping slightly as he walks, wincing with each step into the deep mud.

“Findekáno.”

Forgetting all composure, my boots sinking into the trampled mud of the tiltyard, I run forwards, fling my arms around him in an eager, not entirely decorous embrace.

“Am I ever glad to see you!” I whisper, my words muffled by the folds of his cloak; he is still thin, but no longer dangerously so, and his hair had yet to grow back past the shoulder, but the differences from when I saw him last are striking.

And not entirely desirable.

He does not return my embrace. Not in kind. His reluctant response is agonisingly tense; after only a moment, he lets go, awkwardly withdraws his arms from where he had placed them stiffly behind my back, hides the left beneath his cloak and uses the right to readjust the glittering copper circlet on his head, avoiding my eyes.

I try to hide my dismay- it has only been two months, Russandol!- as Curufinwë steps up behind him, the wooden sword resting on his arm, a distinctly unwelcome expression on his face.

For a moment I wonder if he means to chastise me for not paying my appropriate respects to the King in Exile that he forsook to unceasing torture and I spoon-fed and washed and all-but-mothered for a period of four months, but thankfully his intentions are otherwise.

“You are welcome here,” he says. “Perhaps-“

Russandol awkwardly lays his hand on Curufinwë’s arm.

“I am certain Findekáno would love to see what of the encampment has been built since he last visited,” he says. “Would you be of a mind to inspect the brick-works with me, cousin?”

Inspect the brickworks?

Before I can respond, he lays his palm in my own and, maintaining a stiff and unfamiliar grip on my wrist, walks me across the tiltyard, past the dung-scented stables and scattered outbuildings and into the forest surrounding the encampment, the glade of beeches dappled in a radiant, autumn-bright, shade of gold, my boot-heels sinking slightly into the damp mess of rotting leaves underfoot.  

Overhead, the soft trills of a nightingale echo; a cold wind slices through the birches, and just as I pause to wish I had brought a cloak with me, Russandol smiles and flings his arms around me in a rough, one-handed embrace.

 “Oh Arda, am I ever glad you came back!”

Resting my head against his chest, returning the embrace and breathing in the scent of his hair I smile.

“Aren’t you glad to see me?”

“I am but- Inspecting a brick-works, Russandol? What could possibly make you think that I-“

“The brick-works are down in the village, a short walk through the forest here,” he says. Then, looking down and toying with his wrist, he adds: “Our camp has as yet no privacy to speak of.”

“Is it not finished yet?”

“No. My brothers have rather high standards, I’ll admit. At least they followed through on my request for bed-screens, that made at least some difference…”

I remember the state he was in regarding being looked at it when I sent him home to his brothers and feel a sharp resurgence of guilt somewhere deep within.

“Come,” he says, tugging at my hand, and we walks onwards, deeper into the glade.

Despite his sudden burst of confidence in greeting me, his immediate difference in stance is striking and not entirely an improvement; he slumps, toys incessantly with his right arm, limps slightly, head bowed. It is some minutes before we speak again.

“You had me fooled for a moment there Russandol. I genuinely feared-“

He stops.

“I am sorry Findekáno, to have been so cold with you. But should Curufinwë find reason to slander me-“

He strides nonchalantly on ahead, ducking under the branches; I pause with my arm held to the lingering arm of a beech overhead.

“You fear that Curufinwë has it in mind to usurp you?”

He pauses, turns around, stares at the dead leaves on the ground, cradles his right wrist to his chest.

“Nay, I fear that…”

I step forwards, straighten upwards.

“That you do not come across as a King and must feign the part.”

Not meeting my eyes, he says:

“Yes.”

I take a further step forwards, lay my hands gently against his cradled arm, look upwards.

“And you think yourself Morgoth’s thrall for being unable to leave Thangorodrim in your thoughts, and judge yourself thus unworthy to rule.”

“Yes.”

I sigh, draw his heavily padded arm back against my chest and give it a gentle squeeze.

“You aren’t and you needn’t. You only need time-“

His expressions sours; he withdraws his arm from my hold, turns away and continues on ahead, green-tinged mud splattering against the back of his legs.

“I do not have time and neither do our people. Morgoth does, as I have learned at a terrible cost. We cannot leave him with such an advantage, we-“

“Russandol?” I say, half-running to catch up with him, rapidly growing exasperated. Damn him.

“What?” he says, turning to his side. I cautiously lay my hands on his shoulders, slightly squeeze the left.

“You brought me here to escape from court and from your brothers. Perhaps it would do you well to escape from politics and the war as well?”

With an expression of pained admittance, he nods.

“Well then, distract me,” he says.

“With what?” I say, taking his arm into the crook of my own as we continue walking.

“I don’t know-“

“Tell me about you family, how they fare, their ordinary dealings…”

Ordinary dealings? Surely by that you can only mean memories. Grandfather Finwë, Mother, Elenwë, Arakáno…

“I- I started teaching Itarillë her letters…”

“Is she a more patient student than I am-“

I stop, draw a deep breath.

“And also how to shoot.”

 “No need to look so deathly guilty and bite your lip like that, Findekáno! I was never an archer, not seeing as I had to compete with Tyelko and Ambarussa for the title.”

“Yes, but… it was you who taught me how to hold a bow in the first place when I was a child. Remember? All I could think on at… at that moment, was your voice from my childhood telling me how to hold a hand steady and how to kill with minimal pain-“

Silence.

“Look- look at the way the light shines against the leaves, Findekáno. Isn’t it beautiful?”

With brisk detachment he continues prattling on about the sound of the nightingales overhead and rich green tone of the rain-polished moss against the tree-trunks; little poetic things we might have happily discussed in better circumstances, but our conversation is now cold and distant, both of us seemingly aware of having bypassed decorum in discussing the past. Where the line between the acknowledged and the as yet barely accepted is drawn between us I do not entirely know.

Does it matter? I recall him saying once, doubled over sobbing into my arms as though the fate of the earth depended on it. It is not as though I really have anything to keep private from you anymore.

He didn’t at that point; now he clearly does, and while I am relieved, not knowing how to respond, knowing he is reluctant to discuss certain matters with me is somewhat unsettling.

The glade is now thinning, the outbuildings of the encampment visible through the trees. Russandol’s limp has now resumed; I can sense him wincing and muttering something about wishing he had bothered to keep his arm in a sling before he left. I tell him to wait, fumble with my belt buckle, refasten the freed length of letter into a rough loop and bid him to bend down so I can fasten it around his neck, but just as I reach down to lift his arm into the makeshift sling, the wind rises and carries with it the scent of a certain late summer blossom, one that while unnamed is permanently imprinted on my memory.

That scent that was on the wind when Arakáno died. When my Father held Arakáno as he died.

My fingers stiffen around the silver buckle; I do not realise how long I have paused until Russandol lays his hand on my arm, eyes wide with concern.

“Findekáno? Is something bothering you?”

“No. It’s just my-“ I bite my lip. I would beat Curufinwë over the head with the death of my brother given the opportunity, but the last thing Russandol needs is further guilt. “My father. He- he had such strength, such resolve to continue even after everything we had lost… I doubt I would ever have such endurance.”

Russandol’s mouth twists; I suspect that even he knows how much of my Father’s strength is feigned (for there are but three bed-chambers in our encampment with paper-thin walls) and is reflecting on my lie. 

“Curious,” he finally says, glancing down at me. “In songs, we measure heroes by all that they can gain, but in life it seems rather that we hail them by the measure of what they can lose and yet stand tall.”

I slip my arm beneath his, gently take hold of his wrist.

“I suspect that makes you a great hero then,” I say.

“And you too,” he says. “Apart from the tall part.”

“Hey!”

He runs ahead, awkwardly owing to his limp, but with surprising speed all the same. I chase after him, sprinting through the now thinning glade shouting various insults, when with the speed of a falcon dropping from a mountain-top down on to its unfortunate prey, he stops, his back utterly rigid, arm dropping limply at his side.

The harsh crack of a smith’s hammer striking anvil is resonating from somewhere in the encampment beyond the trees, loud and clear, the dull thud that I know was once the sound of home for Russandol and now leaves him visibly convulsing with every pulsing strike.

Valar, not now.

Swallowing hard, I run forwards, gently lay my hand on his trembling shoulder.

“Russandol-“

 He does not respond; he sinks to his knees, hand held over his face, eyes vacant and empty.

The strikes continue unabated; was he following me through the forest without considering the destination, or did a newly assembled forge escape his knowledge? I have not told my brothers everything…

I draw a deep breath, lay my arm around his waist, gently turn him around.

“Come,” I tell him. “Let’s go home.”

I guide him forwards, supporting him with his arm held over my shoulder just as when I was – so recently- teaching him how to walk on near-ruined and atrophied legs, whispering words of comfort and trying to drown out the strikes of the anvil that echo from behind with every step.

“Shhh…”

Morgoth’s tortures are thoughtfully strategic, I know as much: did the Black Foe laugh for joy when first it occurred to him to make a son of Fëanor petrified of forgery and smithcraft, all his memories of his father now poisoned by their very nature, incapable of feeling the touch of iron against his skin or hearing hammer strike anvil without collapsing into near-hysterics from long-bygone pain and torment?

I saw my Father, he had said, teeth chattering in fever over the cup of broth I held to his bleeding lips, the one occasion when he had confessed the nature of a nightmare to me. I ran to him, but when I took his hand I saw that he was forged not of flesh but of iron, and I could not bear his touch though he called out to me. I was no longer his son.

I find an appropriate log for him to sit down on, seat myself beside him and wait for the hammer strikes to abate; I reach to hold his hand, but he keeps his face buried in his palm, shudders at every distant hammer-fall. At long last the strikes mercifully abate; swallowing hard, I stand, lay my hand on his shoulder, which I can feel trembling through three layers of padded and brocaded silk.

“Russandol-“

Slowly, he lowers his hand, meets my eyes.

“It was my fault bringing you here,” I say. “ I am sorry-“

“No!” he shouts, leaping to his feet, his anger having born him back to Mithrim with astonishing rapidity. “No. Findekáno, I can’t afford to be afraid of a Valar-damned anvil,I have to face my fears, I have to be strong, I do not have a choice. I have to be…”

He embraces me, arms around my neck, head gently resting atop my own.

Damn your pride, I think to myself, running my fingers through his hair- it is uncombed, sloppily tied back with a leather band from some days ago, most likely as an alternative to bearing the shame of asking for assistance with braiding it. Damn your father for dying and making you King.

I begin braiding his hair, fingers deftly weaving in and out of his scarlet tresses, wishing not for the first time that I was the taller one and could allow him to rest his head against my chest. With my eyes closed, our inherently backwards embrace very nearly creates the illusion that this is childhood and Tirion and that it is he and not I who is standing guard- strong, invincible Maitimo who no one can hurt because he is big and strong and old, who will keep me safe from nightmares, who is never afraid of anything, who will never, ever let go. Or it would, if he were not shaking like a colt damaged beyond recovery beneath my fingers.

With his hair so short, I finish the braids in a matter of seconds; not nearly enough time to calm him by any measure I know of. I brush the finished braids back from his face with my fingertips, gently lift his chin.

 “Maitimo,” I say, almost reverently. Though the words briefly form on his lips, he does not correct me; he knows that I when wield his old name, I do it as a protective banner before the world, as a symbol of the strength and endurance that I see displayed before me even if no one else does.

“Findekáno-“ he says, looking down, straightening his back, but before he can continue the unmistakable steam-tinged shriek of white-hot metal being plunged into Ulmo’s form resounds from the cabin behind us and he screams and buries his head on my shoulder, bursts immediately into wordless sobs. I hold him tight, stroke his trembling back,

“Shh… I’m right here,” I tell him. “It’s alright to cry, I’ll be with you for whatever lies ahead…”

Through some dreadful unforeseen irony, it is in this situation that I have no doubts as to how to respond. Meaningless words of comfort, quiet nods, the wiping away of tears, all contained within a gentle prolonged embrace… It is a ritual tirelessly rehearsed in the months past, almost instinct, a ceremony without variation. Until now. Because this time, I am adding a component I have only once before included: the unvoiced reassurance that I will never let him fall, that I will face with all the bravery I possess the horror that I know must come to pass before he is again capable of falling.

Because I know that so long as I yet live I will never offer him the choice of letting go.