And Finally A Love Poem by Elwin Fortuna

Chapter 1

"Never argue with rivers," Finrod says, leading them through the halls of Nargathrond to his own suite of rooms. "Many of these caves are natural formations, and we have, ah, edited them rather than carve out massive new ones, for the most part. We learned the hard way not to debate the course of the river, when in early days we suffered floods from breaking through walls that should have remained standing."

His cousins have arrived for their first visit to Nargathrond, and Finrod feels like he is babbling. They follow him quietly, Maedhros with his eyes fixed on Finrod, Fingon glancing around curiously at the rock formations and carvings he can see. Finrod quenches the urge to go on about the way he's designed the halls to flow, and the specific carvings he's chosen, and changes the subject entirely.

"We'll have a private dinner tonight," he says, looking back over his shoulder to catch their eyes. Maedhros smiles softly, Fingon raises his eyebrows and gives him a sultry look.

It's been many years since they were all three together, and Finrod does not plan to waste a single moment of it. Long ago, at Lake Mithrim, as Maedhros recovered from his ordeal on the walls of Thangorodrim, Finrod found himself in their company often. It started as an attempt to brighten Maedhros' mood, and give Fingon, who had become a close friend as they travelled the Ice together, a chance to rest, but Finrod ended up spending days with them both.

Where it crossed the line from friendship into something more was always a little hazy. Finrod knew that Fingon and Maedhros had been lovers in earlier days, and was not surprised to see them resume that relationship now, cuddling down against each other at night, trading kisses and looks of devotion between them during the day. What was a surprise was that they also cast longing looks at him, and one evening as Finrod prepared to leave them for the night, they both held out their hands in an unmistakable gesture of invitation.

He had smiled, and slipped into bed next to Maedhros, and Fingon had leaned across and kissed him, sweet and long. And then Maedhros had kissed him too, and all three of them were breathless in the warm darkness.

They had talked it over extensively, after. They had duties and responsibilities, and they were not the sort of people who particularly liked to be in their lovers' pockets all the time anyway. They weren't cut out to live together, even if that would have worked in any sense.

They were happy to arrange to see each other as frequently as possible, and in each of the places that they met, whether two of them or all three together, to grasp on to each other and seize each chance with all the hands they had available.

"If I don't touch you, it's a mistake, in any life, in each place and forever," Maedhros had whispered, softly, as after love their heads lay on his chest, before their first parting, the dark hair and the golden mingling at his throat. And that was all the vows they needed or wanted.

-----

He watches them from his chair after dinner, sitting curled against each other on the nearby couch, Maedhros reading, Fingon playing something incoherent and wandering on his harp, striking graceful notes here and there that never form into any specific tune. And his heart is overwhelmed with love for them, and his mind sees, as it always does in these quiet domestic scenes, their deaths.

My left hand will live longer than my right, he thinks. And, softer, behind all the chaos, but clear as if it was a vision, words float in his mind: Shadow and Flame. This is how they die.

Not together, in a last heroic stand. Such things are not for these two, or even the three of them. It would be far too kind a fate.

No. Shadow and flame reaches out for Fingon, crushes him. It is quick and brutal, and Finrod winces sharply at the impressions of overwhelming, instantaneous pain that shocks (that will shock) through Fingon's body.

Maedhros, on the other hand, embraces the shadow and the flame, drinks it like a drowning man drinks water. He drowns in it, falls into it, burns in it, is buried in it. Finrod can see his eyes, haunted, stricken to the bone, and knows that the end must be a consummation devoutly to be wished, with those eyes.

He wants to save them so desperately that he can feel the words clawing in his throat, begging to be screamed out. It is as if he is giving birth to those words, and must hold back. To share too much of what one sees is dangerous; you can cause the very fate you hope to prevent, or even make it worse. It is bad enough already.

For if he looks deeper, he can see his own death, and it is the first of the three of them.

Never expect your lives to finish at the same time.

When he looks at his own death, he can only see the dark, and in the dark, somewhere, a low persistent growl. He shivers, hearing that echo down the years, and Fingon catches it, glancing up from his harp.

"What, Ingo?" he says, turning to face Finrod. "You cannot be cold in this warm room."

Finrod wraps his arms around himself, shaking his head silently. Maedhros sets his book aside, and he and Fingon look at each other, seeming to share some kind of communication between them. They rise and make their way over to his chair, Maedhros on his left side, Fingon at his right.

My left hand will live longer than my right, Finrod thinks, chilled.

"Cousin," they say, and each of them takes one of his hands, pulling him up between them. He sees his hands go around them, vanish behind their backs, and sighs.

"Do you think that there are different theres and elsewheres?" he asks both of them. "Do we live one life, or does each choice we make spark a new life, a new line of choices? If different decisions were made, would our lives be different?"

Maedhros breathes in against Finrod's hair. "Perhaps in a different universe I was never defiled and I never betrayed anyone," he says, softly, soberly.

Fingon glances up at him, about to launch into a well-worn train of thought about how Maedhros is not, and didn't, but Finrod looks at him, and he comes back to the point. "Perhaps I am somewhere patient," he says, self-deprecating.

"Perhaps, here," Finrod begins, feeling the thought out, "when I say that I don't want to be without either of you, somewhere else I am saying that I never want to be without you again. If we made different choices all those years ago, we could have stayed together, lived together. There would be no Nargathrond, no Himring."

"But probably a Barad Eithel," Fingon says. "And you know that never would have worked - all of us together all the time!"

Maedhros smiles. "When I touch you, in each of the places we meet, in all the lives we are," he says to them both, "it's with hands that are dying and resurrected. In some lives I have two hands, and they are vanishing, one around each of you." He pulls both of them into the circle of his arms, and they stand together, the three of them. Behind his back Finrod and Fingon clasp their hands together, holding Maedhros up between them.

Finrod still has his assiduous fears, and they are cherished in some deep well of his heart. But he leans into the caresses of his lovers, squeezing them close.

He knows he will not be able to hang on, not in this life. His hands are webbed like the wind-torn work of a spider, his palms are like rivers, and they are slipping away moment by moment, all to their own separate and horrifying fates.

Never expect your lives to finish at the same time.

Never argue with rivers.