Pieces of the Stars by Nibeneth

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Chapter 3

“All right, you two. We need to have a talk.”

A long shadow fell over Elrond and Elros’ rock fort in the courtyard. Maglor stood over them with his hands on his hips.

Elrond peered out from under his birch-bark hat—the symbol of his status as Captain of the Fort. “What’s the password?”

“I’m not playing a game,” Maglor said, unamused.

“You still need the password to get into the fort.”

“I don’t need to be in the fort to talk to you.”

“We can’t hear you from all the way inside the fort, sorry,” Elros said with a shrug. “You can send an envoy who knows the password!”

Maglor put on a pleasant smile. “The password is ‘I can always take down your fort to build an outhouse.’ How does that sound?”

Elrond and Elros exchanged looks and raised eyebrows. “That’s not the password, but we can make an exception,” Elrond said.

“I am glad to hear it. Listen, I can hear you singing rude songs from my window, and it needs to stop.”

Elros looked up with wide, innocent eyes. “I don’t remember singing any rude songs.”

“We don’t even know any rude songs,” Elrond added.

“Really?” Maglor crossed his arms. “Are you saying I heard a different pair of twins singing the ‘Thingol Has No Balls’ song just a moment ago in this very courtyard?”

“Um…”

Maedhros, drink in hand, approached the scene while Elrond attempted to come up with a viable explanation. “Thingol was your great-great grandfather and a respectable ruler,” Maglor said, earning an amused huff from his brother.

“It’s a good thing you can substitute anyone else’s name for his, as long as it has two syllables,” Maedhros said helpfully. He paused a moment and then glanced upward, looking thoughtful. “Besides, there is nothing wrong with not having balls, and it’s cheap to imply that there is. I’ll bet you can come up with something much funnier than five-hundred-year-old soldiers’ taunts.” With that, he flashed a gold-toothed grin and wandered off, having left Elrond and Elros with newfound inspiration and Maglor with a new fire to put out.

Maglor pinched the bridge of his nose. “If you must sing rude songs, at least make them up yourself. And not at dinner. Come along and get washed up.”

Elrond vaulted over the fort, still wearing his hat. “Can we eat outside?”

“Maybe. Are you going to bury your dinner again?”

“No.”

“Good answer. Yes, you may eat outside if you want to.”

Elrond and Elros went inside and washed their hands and faces with only a small scuffle over who would be Captain of the Fort once the meal was finished. Dinner was grated carrot fritters, salad, and a slice of melon—the gardens overflowed with produce at this time of year, and Elrond didn’t even consider burying his food. He took his plate out to the trestle table in the courtyard and tucked in without waiting for anyone to join him.

“Milk, Elrond.” Maglor’s long arm appeared in front of him with a small clay cup. “Both of you drink up. It will make you grow tall and strong.”

Elros sat next to Elrond on the bench and wrinkled his nose at his own cup. He guzzled the milk down, shuddered, and started on his dinner to smother the taste. “You can make me drink it but you can’t make me like it,” he muttered. Maglor only raised an eyebrow and took his own meal to the bench on the other side of the courtyard, where he often like to view the rising moon.

The rest of the household trickled outside as the warm evening deepened. The sky was clear but for a few scattered clouds stained gold in the gathering dusk, and already the brightest stars twinkled in the heavens. Rythredion sat at the table with the boys. Hestedis only loitered on the steps for a few minutes, eating while standing up before going back inside. The others sat and talked where they wished. Alagostor did not come out until most of them were almost finished, but when he did, he carried two plates. He sat next to Rythredion with his own and placed Maedhros’ on the opposite side of the table. Elrond figured it would just get cold, but Maedhros actually came outside a moment later to join the meal. Instead of sitting at the table, he took his plate to the patch of grass in the center of the courtyard and lay flat on his back.

They had seen more of Maedhros that summer than they usually did. He maintained a level of drunkenness that made him quiet but not unconscious, and he occasionally wore clean clothes even if his hair was still uncombed. It made Maglor happy to see him up and about during daylight hours. Sometimes he would delegate a small task to him, but Elrond couldn’t tell if Maedhros appreciated or resented the gesture.

Elros finished his fritters and salad and busily nibbled every bit of melon away from the rind. He kept looking over at the rock fort and bouncing his leg, which Maglor noticed.

“Not tonight,” he said. “It will still be there tomorrow.”

Elros grumbled something about their ancestors not having to go inside when it was dark, because it was always dark. The reds and golds of evening were fading into deep purples and blues. All around them crickets sang in the foliage. Elrond spotted bats diving for insects in the corners of his eyes. Evenings like this, when they all shared a meal without arguing about crop yields, seemed easy and uncomplicated. Isolation was freedom and the forest was a shield. And Elrond enjoyed the others’ companionship. Maybe it was temporary, but it was not unpleasant, and he wondered if there would still be evenings like this in the king’s house.

A bright flash illuminated the sky. Elrond blinked against the spots it left on his vision—all around him, Maglor’s household exclaimed and jumped to their feet.

“Do you see that?”

“What is it?”

“It looks like—”

Elrond rubbed his eyes. When he opened them, the brightness remained in one piercing white star in the rosy western sky.

He knew that light. He remembered it in black hair and white linen, the foam upon the shore and the cries of birds, a beauty inextricable from his mother’s sorrow—

“Macalaurë!” Maedhros stood, eyes wide and single hand slightly extended toward the light. He spoke in old-fashioned Quenya, an echo of a world that Elrond would never know. “Surely that is our father’s Silmaril?”

Maglor did not respond for a long moment. The two of them could not tear their eyes away from the light, and Elrond had to look away when he realized that tears streamed freely down both brothers’ cheeks. “If it truly is, after we saw it cast into the sea, then it rises now by the power of the Valar,” Maglor said at last in the same language. “Let us be glad that its glory is seen by many, and is yet secure from all evil.”

Maedhros sank to his knees, still gazing at the star. Its light cast the terrible scars on his face into harsh crags and valleys and his tears into streams of silver until at last he folded in upon himself as if shielding his face from a blow.

The star remained, unwavering. Elros took Elrond’s hand and squeezed it tight. The star blazed in the west as the sky faded into velvet-black, and both sets of brothers remained under its light long after the others had gone inside.

Weeks passed, and still Elrond sought the star’s light every time he went outside. It faded in sunlight but it was the first star to appear in the west every evening, and sometimes he would wake early to see it shining in the east, the last to disappear with the dawn.

Neither Elrond nor Elros could concentrate on their lessons, and Maglor could not concentrate on tutoring them. The angles of the world seemed to have changed under the new star: shadows seemed sharper, sounds seemed louder, and every sensation was like a slap. Elrond, bound to the earth as he was, could not say whether it was the star or only their perception of it, but he knew that its appearance was the moment when everything changed.

They had known that Maedhros’ well-being was fragile as a snail’s shell, but the whole compound still flinched when it cracked. He withdrew once more. He raged and wept and cursed the star and his father and Maglor and the Valar and himself, breaking anything he could get his hand on and turning on his own flesh when there was nothing else to destroy. Maglor and Alagostor stayed with him day and night, wrestling away knives and pieces of broken pottery and splintery shards of wood and trying to keep him contained in his chambers where they had already tried confiscate anything he could use to harm himself. Maglor had previously made efforts to hide the reality of Maedhros’ condition from the boys, but now he lacked the extra resources to do so.

“Sing! Practice your lines! Just—just keep up with your lessons like usual,” he said distractedly to Elrond and Elros, who loitered in the halls. They were too anxious to play. Notwithstanding the unfolding crisis in the great house, the star seemed to set a prickling fire under their skin like nothing else ever had.

Dutifully, they turned to their studies. Days passed, and Maedhros got worse. Osgardir once again took up residence in the great house. More of the household joined the fight to keep him alive. It did not take long for Hestedis’ patience to wane. Elrond heard her approaching footsteps on the stone floor but he still jumped and snapped his chalk on his slate when she shouted.

“Maglor!” Her voice startled a roosting sparrow out of the rafters of the main hall. “This is intolerable!”

Maglor looked up from the extracts of valerian and skullcap he was straining. A lock of hair had escaped from its hasty tie and fallen over his face, which was shadowed with fatigue. The crease between his brows deepened. “What are you talking about?”

“Maedhros!” Hestedis bared her teeth. “This insanity has gone on long enough!”

He threw down his oil-spotted rag. “I can do nothing!”

“You can free the rest of us from it!”

“What do you expect me to do? Turn him out into the woods?” Hestedis opened her mouth, but Maglor interrupted her before she could speak. “How long do you think he would last? Maybe a week?”

“At least he would only be a burden on himself!” Hestedis snapped.

“My brother, your lord, is not a burden.”

“Is he not?” She seized a handful of blood-splattered sheets from a basket by the doorway and threw them at Maglor’s head. He stepped aside, eyes thunderously dark.

“Do we cast out those who suffer? Who are ill? When did that become who we are?”

Hestedis cackled. “We only claim principles when it suits us, else we never would have drawn blades at Sirion!” She picked up a clay jug and Maglor tensed, but she only brandished it in front of him. “He drinks all night! He sleeps all day! He uses our food and medicine and labor without so much as running the still for an afternoon! And then he decides he wants to cut himself open and bring all our work to a halt while we drop everything to patch him up!”

“Watch your tongue, Hestedis!” Maglor glanced sharply at the boys. The captain noticed.

“How noble of you to spare a thought for their innocence!” She lifted the jug above her head and smashed it down against the stone floor. Liquor and pottery fragments went everywhere—the boys flinched, but Maglor did not.

“I cannot force my brother to become well again,” he said in a voice that had gone flat and cold. “I can encourage him and provide for his needs, that is all. But I will not abandon him in his madness.”

“Of course you won’t.” Hestedis’ lip curled. “You won’t suffer your own consequences if you have him to suffer them for you, like he always does.”

Elrond blinked and Maglor suddenly loomed over Hestedis. His left hand was at her throat, the tips of his long fingers making visible depressions in her brown skin.

She looked coolly up at him. “You’ll never make me afraid of you,” she said.

“You only have the capacity for spite.” Maglor narrowed his eyes, tightened his grip, and then released her. They faced each other for a moment, eyes locked, and then both turned away to attend their previous tasks.

The main hall was quiet but for the crackling fire and infused oil bubbling through the straining-cloth when Maglor squeezed it. None of them said anything for a long while. Elros, restless, flicked the stub-end of his chalk off the edge of the table. “Can we play outside?”

Maglor ran a hand over his hair, smoothing back the stray lock only to have it fall once more. “Stars, yes, go play outside. Play outside as long as you want.”

Time marched on, and at last Maedhros regained a tenuous stability. The household seemed to hold its breath as if the slightest relaxation would cause another total collapse.

Elrond and Elros returned to their usual lessons and games, making up rude songs and fighting over who would be the Captain of the Fort until Maglor again threatened to dismantle the fort to build an outhouse. He did not expel Maedhros from the compound, and Hestedis did not bring it up again. The boys always asked to eat dinner outside as long as the warm weather held, and they usually received permission, but neither Maglor nor Maedhros joined them.

Strange, urgent winds blew through the forest. Lights appeared in the sky, sometimes shifting ribbons of turquoise and violet and sometimes twisted chains of copper and gold. Most days proceeded like any other. Elrond and Elros woke up, washed their faces, and ate flatbread and honey with milk for their breakfast before turning to their lessons. Maglor taught them to play small recorders and regretted it when they began generating rude songs with two-part harmony. When he reached the end of his patience with their tootling throughout the halls, he moved them on to a pair of lap harps that had seen better days, and when they had absorbed the basics they began putting their rude songs to recorder-and-harp accompaniment. After that, Maglor relented and let them apply their skills as they wished.

The wind changed directions. Out of nowhere the chickens started screaming at the sky and trampling their own chicks into the dust. Mules bawled at nothing, lashing out against their handlers, and the dogs whimpered and curled up into balls in the darkest corners they could find. As soon as it had come, the spell ended, and the elves were left to pick up the pieces of their animals’ confusion.

Beans withered on the vine while the barley generated three times as many stalks overnight. Birds rose shrieking from the trees without provocation. The light of the full moon took on a strange, heavy cast as if shadowed by clouds, but the sky was clear. Goats labored to give birth to kids with too many legs and not enough eyes and skin too delicate to contain their insides, and then died alongside them. Just before the autumn equinox, the sun did not rise until what should have been midday, and then returned to its usual cycle as if nothing had happened.

One of the mousers in the great house chose the dark gap under the boys’ bed to bring her six kittens into the world. They were so loud for such tiny creatures! Elrond and Elros ran to Maglor when they found them, and he brought a dish of kitchen scraps for the exhausted mother. She let the three of them handle the kittens for a short time before taking them back into the nest with her. Elros, with his hands full of blind, squirming kittens, burst into tears because they were so beautiful and so small , and when they were strong enough to venture out from under the bed he spent long hours teasing them with feathers and pieces of string.

Winter came, and with it came a long string of days so warm that the elves went about their business in short sleeves and sandals. The trees were bare and the days were short, but Elrond and Elros slept without blankets and with the window open until suddenly the compound was blanketed in three feet of snow.

Over the sheets of ice the new star still shone like a cold, distant fire. Frost refracted it into sparkling rainbows, and when the snow melted and the sun returned in springtime, its pure white light collected in drops of dew on the grass. It remained the single constant in a world whose patterns could no longer be predicted.

“Elros.”

“Mmm.”

“Elros!” Elrond poked his brother in the ribs, earning an uncoordinated swat from the lump under the blankets.

“What do you want?” Elros’ tousled head emerged. His face was screwed-up and grumpy in the darkness.

“I…” Elrond frowned. “I’m not sure.”

“Then why did you wake me up?” Elros yanked the blankets over his head and said nothing else.

Elrond blinked. It was fully dark and he couldn’t tell what hour it was. The air felt thick, like it had built up in his ears and nostrils, vibrating in time with his heartbeat. He listened hard for a few moments—why was he awake? Had there been a noise that jolted him out of peaceful sleep? A sudden draft?

But there was nothing, only darkness and the sound of Elros’ deep, even breath. He’d gone back to sleep. If he strained, Elrond could hear owls hooting in the woods, and the rustling of needles in the breeze. It seemed important that he was awake, but he couldn’t begin to figure out why—

“Elros!” he cried, and then the earth bucked under him like a wave in a storm.

Sparks exploded behind his eyes when his head hit the floor. He tasted blood. The whole room shook, rattling him like a bean in a cup. He couldn’t stand. The roar of crumbling rock and splintering timber filled his ears and head and body as he scrabbled for a grip on something, anything—

Fingers, a wrist, and then Elros’ hand closed around his arm, yanking him forward and under the bed while chunks of stone and plaster rained down where he had been. The shakes came in waves, he couldn’t see, he couldn’t think, he couldn’t hear himself screaming even though his throat was raw. There was a mighty crack—the bed frame pressed against his shoulders, he couldn’t lift his head, the earth tilted and rocked and he didn’t know how long it lasted, seconds or minutes or days as he covered his head and screamed and screamed until dust filled his throat and eyes and he choked and wept and waited to be crushed. He didn’t know which way was up, what was real, where he was or what was happening—the creak and crash of destruction rang through his bones and he didn’t realize it was all over until he heard his name.

“Elrond!” Elros’ voice was faint and cramped in the darkness. All was still. “Elrond!”

“I’m here!” He struggled, but he was stuck: the bed frame across his back, along with debris all around him, kept him where he was.

“Are you hurt?”

Elrond’s head pounded where he had hit the floor. He felt like he was rolling even though he couldn’t move. “I hit my head. I don’t think it’s bad. Are you all right?”

“My leg hurts and I’m stuck.”

“Me too.”

Neither said anything for a moment. Only the sound of their breath punctuated the ringing silence. Elrond struggled again, but the rubble all around him did not budge. He was truly stuck, and the more he tried to get out, the more he wanted to scream.

“What happened?” came Elros’ voice again. His presence and their shared predicament dampened the fire in Elrond’s throat a little.

“I think it was an earthquake,” he said.

“What? Why?”

“I don’t know! They just happen!” Elrond blinked hard against the dust in his eyes. “Someone will come and dig us out!”

Elros paused. “What if they don’t? What if we get squished before they do?” His voice wobbled. “What if we suffocate? What if we get eaten by rats?”

“Shut up! Don’t say that!”

“We’re going to die down here!” Elros was crying, and Elrond’s own eyes started to well up at the sound. “We’re going to get eaten by rats!”

“Elros!”

Once the tears started falling, Elrond couldn’t stop. Between gulps of air, Elros kept up a half-intelligible stream of terror, rats, suffocation, death. The images stuck in Elrond’s mind: gnawing teeth, crushing pressure, a lonely end beneath a broken bed frame and tons of crumbling stone. His head was pounding, his chest was tight, and he couldn’t stop crying.

He struggled again. A bit of rubble around his left hand stirred, and he struggled harded. The stone scraped at his skin but at last he felt Elros’ dusty fingers against his own, and he gripped them tightly. Elros squeezed back, and the two of them wept together in the dark ruin that had once been their own bedchamber.

Indistinct voices, the rumble of wood and stone being excavated, and then light and fresh air spilled over Elrond’s face. He blinked—he’d fallen asleep. There was no telling how long it had been.

“Elrond? Elros?”

Elrond tried to respond, but dust caught in his throat and he coughed.

“Are you down there? Can you hear me?” Shovels rang out on the rubble. The light grew brighter.

“We’re here!” Elros called. A chorus of voices burst out in response: We’re coming! Are you hurt? Hold on! We’re almost there! Slabs of stone fell away with grunts from the rescuers, wooden beams sent down small rockslides when they were removed, and in a shower of gravel, a pair of dusty hands finally appeared under the edge of the bed frame that sheltered Elrond and Elros from the destruction.

“There’s a pocket down here!” said Alagostor’s voice from very close. “Boys! Are you there?”

“We’re under the bed!” Elrond said. Alagostor withdrew his hands and started shoveling faster.

“Good! Try not to move too much! We’ll get you out of there safe and sound!”

“Are you hurt?” That was Osgardir. “Are you having any trouble moving or breathing?”

“We’re stuck, but we can breathe,” Elros said.

“Good! Excellent! Maglor, we found them!”

Elrond struggled against the wood and stone still trapping him from the shoulders down. A shovel struck the earth above, and a river of debris slid into the space they had previously cleared.

“Hold! It’s unstable underneath!”

“Is there any other angle?”

“No, it’s all too deep—just go carefully.”

“Here’s a beam. Could be useful.”

“Yes, good, let’s just open the hole a little wider. Alagostor should fit—he’s the skinniest.”

“Ready and willing.”

Elrond grabbed Elros’ hand again. He was too weary to struggle any longer, but his brother’s warm, living fingers gave him strength. They were alive. Rescuers had found them. Soon they would be free, soon the nightmare would be over and they would be safe again. No darkness, no rats, and no crushing blanket of stone would swallow them up.

Another pair of boots crunched on the broken rocks above. “Elrond? Elros?” It was Maglor, his voice shot through with anxiety. “Can you hear me?”

“Yes!” Elros squeezed Elrond’s hand tighter. “We’re both here!”

“Thank the One. We’re almost there!”

They worked tirelessly, lifting out rocks and timbers and bracing unsteady pieces of masonry to get closer to the boys without another rockslide. Even so, it took a long time to clear out gravel inch by careful inch. Light and fresh air once again filled the space beyond their bed frame, and then Alagostor wriggled into the gap.

“There you are!” His dirt-streaked face split into a relieved smile. He chipped carefully away at the debris with a hand shovel until Elros could move his other arm. “It won’t be much longer. Elros, I’m going to get you out first, all right?”

“All right.”

It was slow, dirty work to dig Elros out without triggering a cave-in. Elrond was thirsty and cramped and needed a privy, but watching Elros finally crawl out from under the bed fortified him. Alagostor took hold of Elros and called to the others to help pull him free. “I’ll be back in a moment, just hold on a little longer,” he said to Elrond. “Almost there. You both are so brave.”

Alagostor wriggled back out of the hole and returned for Elrond a moment later. Again he excavated the debris packed in around him, being careful not to disturb anything that could fall and crush them, and when Elrond could finally move his legs and slide out from under the bed he nearly cried in relief. Alagostor pulled him up and out of the earth and the tears finally came when Elrond felt the sun on his face and gulped in cool, fresh air. Maglor, holding Elros close in one arm, scooped Elrond up in the other—Elrond clung to his dusty tunic and buried his face in his hair and both boys cried for a long time, unashamed and unaware of everything else around them.

“I am so glad you two are safe,” Maglor said.

“Right, it would be hard to tell the king that they got squashed in your care!” someone joked nearby.

“That is not the only reason.” He squeezed Elrond and Elros close. “Far from it.”

Elrond and Elros’ side of the great house had collapsed into a pile of rubble, and the elves who counted engineering among their skills ruled the rest of the house unsafe in the long term. In the rest of the compound some buildings had fared better than others, but animals lay dead in barns reduced to kindling and all of the wells had been contaminated with soil and sewage from outhouses whose pits had been disturbed in the quake. What remained of the walls had all come down, leaving everything unsettlingly exposed to the wilds beyond them. They had no choice but to rebuild, but they were Noldor and they would make it happen.

Two had perished in the earthquake. Berenas the tanner suffocated when the roof of her house collapsed upon the bed where she slept, and Rythredion died when a falling chunk of stone struck him on the head.

Berenas’ friends prepared her body for burial. Maglor and Alagostor did the same for Rythredion. Elrond and Elros did not see them until they were dressed and laid out for the last time, still and solemn, surrounded by garlands of leaves and the tools of their trades. All their blemishes were hidden from view—with his polished helm covering his terrible wound, Rythredion could have been sleeping, but his hand was cold when Elrond touched it.

Death followed the house of Fëanor. They all spoke of those who had gone before in lonely accidents and great battles, sometimes suddenly and sometimes after long struggles with wounds and infections, all unexpected endings to lives that should have been everlasting. Each death was a heavy weight on those who remained. They either learned to live with it or they cracked under the strain, like Maedhros had.

Rythredion and Berenas came to rest in a green grove not far beyond what remained of the walls. Their friends dug their graves in the soft earth, arranged nests of greenery, and placed them gently on their sides with their knees bent and hands drawn in close as if they were in their own beds. Maglor crouched by Rythredion’s side for a long time, speaking softly and holding his hand. At last, white shrouds were drawn over them both, and all worked to cover them in earth and stack stones into a small mound over each grave. Elrond and Elros, thinking of how Rythredion braided their hair that first evening, worked hard alongside the others.

It was dark by the time the work was finished. Elrond and Elros walked back with Maglor, saying nothing. Elrond looked back over his shoulder one more time to see the two mounds illuminated in the moonlight.

“Námo takes all of the dead into his care,” Maglor said at length. “That is a constant. Funerals are for those who are left behind. We do not always have the privilege of saying a proper goodbye.”

Luckily for the community, the granary and a few of the most critical shops—carpenters, smiths, the infirmary—were still standing. For the rest, the elves raised a makeshift longhouse to serve as a temporary base for their rebuilding operations, and those without homes unearthed army tents and pitched them around the longhouse like a bevy of swans guarding their island.

Work began immediately. They needed clean water and sound outhouses, places to live and shelter for their animals. They needed walls. Underneath everything else they needed to be vigilant, and they needed to be ready for whatever might happen. Through rain and shine they worked: sketching, digging, excavating, sawing, hammering, chopping down trees and repurposing blocks of stone from the ruined buildings. Even Maedhros, unstable and one-handed as he was, helped distribute food and water to the workers. A palisade of sharpened logs went up in place of a stone wall. The remnants of the great house came down, and a new longhouse went up in its place with a main hall in the center, lofts above it, and sleeping chambers along the sides. They salvaged what they could from the wreckage, including most of Elrond and Elros’ clothes and some of their toys, but the bed that had sheltered them was a total loss. One of the carpenters instead built them a smaller bed each.

There wasn’t much room to play. No matter where they went, they were under the feet of someone trying to carry wood or herd animals into a new barn.

Maglor noticed and intervened before anyone tripped or got stepped on. “I don’t have a new lesson for you right now,” he said, “but I also don’t intend to let you just play until we get everything rebuilt. It is a dark world where children must learn, but I think it time you start training with the sword.”

Elrond and Elros both perked up at that. They often saw the elves sparring with one another or training alone—they moved so gracefully, centuries of practice showing in the way they dueled without fatigue or any wasted effort. It was captivating to watch, and now they would learn!

“Are you going to teach us that, too?” Elrond asked.

Maglor’s lips twitched. “No one would—or should—call me a master,” he said. “That distinction belongs to my brother.” He looked to the far table where Maedhros had taken to lurking since the longhouse went up. Maedhros lifted his shaggy head, and candle flames flickered in his pale eyes. The four of them said nothing for a moment.

“I’m in your way,” Maedhros muttered.

“You are not.”

Another pause. “I am not exactly a ‘fun’ tutor,” Maedhros said at last, lifting his ever-present drink to his lips.

“You do not need to be fun. There is no better swordsman among our people.”

Maedhros looked to the boys. “I am willing. Is this something you want?”

They glanced at each other. Maedhros remained rather frightening with his scars and his unpredictable moods and his gold teeth, but they only knew him from a distance.

“I’ll give it a try,” Elros said with a shrug.

“Me too,” Elrond added.

Maglor smiled. “Good. I think this will work out for everyone.”

As soon as it was light the next morning, Maedhros roused them from their beds and took them to a flat patch of dirt away from the worksites. He was allegedly teaching them to fight with swords, but there were no swords in sight, and he made no indication that he was going to get any swords from elsewhere.

Elros looked around. “What are we going to fight w—”

“You are not ready to fight yet,” Maedhros cut him off. “Before you can fight you will learn how to move, and before you can move you will learn how to stand.” He gently nudged Elros’ forehead with the heel of his hand, and Elros stumbled back and landed on his bottom, mute with surprise. “Did you feel how easy that was? I applied no force at all.”

Elros, looking annoyed, scrambled to his feet. Maedhros continued. “Now, I want you to take a stance as if you were going to fight me. If I am this close—” he suddenly loomed over Elros, hand raised to push him again. Elros instinctively stepped back into a half-crouch with his right foot and raised his small fists in front of his face. His chin jutted out in defiance. Maedhros nodded once and backed off. “Stay like that. The body knows how to steady itself. You’ve spread your feet out to give yourself a wider base, and you’ve made yourself lower to the ground to make it harder for me to tip you over. You are also a smaller target that way. And look.” He nudged Elros’ forehead as he had done before. “You don’t budge. Now, I will teach you how to master this instinct instead of letting it master you.”

“Can I move now?”

“No. Stand like that so you can remember how it feels.” Maedhros turned to Elrond. “Elrond, it’s your turn. Take a stance as if you were going to fight me.”

Elrond had seen it happen earlier, but when Maedhros came in close it was still instinct that made him take a defensive stance with one foot back, his knees slightly bent, and his hands protecting his face. Maedhros stepped back, nodding. “See, your body knows what to do.” He pushed Elrond’s forehead gently. “And you don’t move. This principle is the basis of everything else I will teach you.”

Training was brutal from the start. Before Maedhros even mentioned swords, he had them learning to move while in their fighting stances, pivoting and side-stepping and never exposing their weak spots to their adversary. Elrond’s muscles ached in the middle of the night and he hated being roused early every morning to run a lap around the compound, but he was determined to do it all without complaining. Elros had no such inhibitions, and grumbled until he was too out-of-breath to say anything.

In his more spiteful moments, Elrond didn’t think Maedhros could be all that great of a swordsman. Maybe a long time ago, but now he was out of shape and soft around the middle.

“Today we will start with swords,” Maedhros said one morning while the boys panted on the ground after their lap. That revived them, and they pestered him with questions about what to name their swords and how many jewels were in the hilts all the way to the barracks, but they fell into another disappointed silence when he only got out wooden batons carved to look like swords.

“What? That’s not a sword!” Elros protested.

“Right now this is already more of a sword than you know what to do with,” Maedhros chuckled. “Come along! You will need helms and gambesons to practice in.”

Elrond thought he hated running, but he hated the borrowed gambeson more. “It smells like a hundred farts!” he cried, standing stiffly under the baggy, heavy garment.

“No, that’s the smell of practice. You’ll be grateful for the padding once you start hitting one another.”

If Elros hated running, he hated what came next even more, and he was not afraid to say it. Maedhros showed them how to attack with their swords and block incoming blows, and when they demonstrated the proper form, he had them begin sparring against each other. It was slow and awkward, and they both came away with bruises even with their helmets and smelly gambesons. Days turned into weeks. They kept at it. Elrond thought he was starting to understand it, but Elros grew more and more frustrated with each bout.

Elros threw down his sword after losing another bout to Elrond. “This is stupid! I’ll never be good at it!”

“You will,” Maedhros said gruffly. “You’re a little boy. No one is a good swordsman at your age.”

“Elrond is!”

“He isn’t good either, he just has three favorite moves. If you figure out what they are, you can best him.”

Elrond, suddenly self-conscious, ran through the last few bouts in his head, trying to think of what he was doing. He just did what seemed to work and didn’t think too hard otherwise. “I just do what feels right,” he said, trying to be helpful.

“No, you’re not experienced enough to be able to do that. What you’re doing is instinctively snapping at everything that comes close. Grass snakes can do that much. Keep your head on straight, think two seconds ahead of your opponent, and never let your mind wander.” Maedhros bent to pick up Elros’ sword and gave it back to him. “Square up. Use your brains, I want to see real techniques and not primeval flailing.”

For a moment, Elros looked like he was going to give up and storm off, but he simply grit his teeth and picked his sword back up with a determined gleam in his eye. “I’m ready.”

“Good. Elrond, are you ready?”

“Yes.” Elrond took his fighting stance, faced his brother, and prepared to attack once more.

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