Hymn to Disturbia by Tyelca

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Chapter 1

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Hymn to Disturbia

 

It was true, Maeglin thought through the stupor that affected his mind. The small pendant the Dark Lord had given him protected him from the heavy fighting in the streets he knew so well; like a ghost he slipped through the alleyways, sometimes watching in a detached fascination as yet another Elf he knew was decapitated, or when a sword was driven through the chest of any of the countless Orcs that swarmed the city. Most often, though, he sped by unnoticed. A frantic feeling in his chest urged him onward, from the outer edge of the city he’d been assigned to defend and where he’d let Morgoth’s army enter unhindered, to the Southern Wall where he knew Tuor was. He did not know what he planned to do once he arrived there.

Yet another wide street was filled with the sounds of battle and Maeglin knew that if he wanted to be on time (on time for what? a distant part of his mind asked) he needed to be faster. Glancing up, Maeglin jumped and pulled himself up on the low-hanging roof of white stone, where he took a moment to catch his breath and look around.

Gondolin was not his home, not truly, though it was the place where he’d lived for the biggest part of his life. The city was beautiful, and white, and surrounded by mountains on all sides. It was a trap waiting to be sprung. Now the white streets were dotted with black Orcs in black armor and red, so much red, shining so bright in the morning sun.

Maeglin felt his stomach rebel, but he took a deep breath and forced it down, and with it, the overwhelming feeling of guilt. Was this what he had wanted? A cry that was half-laugh, half-sob made it past his lips, and Maeglin forced himself to remember that the one thing he wanted was not yet in his possession. He continued on, Anguirel drawn in his hand. He was close now, so very close to all that he’d ever wanted. Just one more obstacle in his way, just one more mortal who had to die.

He neared the Southern Wall now; the black shadows had not yet broken through here so Maeglin touched down upon the streets once more. His feet made no sound as Tuor instructed his forces and watched them march away with a worried frown marring his face. He remained alone, and Maeglin saw his chance. He approached from behind and slowly, as to not make a sound, drew his father’s sword. For a short moment Maeglin saw Eöl fall down again, from these very same walls. A spark of hatred welled up in him. He remembered his father’s last words, cursing him to meet his end the same way. While Maeglin did not believe in curses, he had always avoided this place as much as possible. The memories connected to it were terrible enough. But he had come here for a reason, with a mission, and he wasn’t about to let his thrice-damned long-dead father come in between he and his prize.

“Tuor, son of Huor,” Maeglin greeted, but his voice was cold. Tuor turned around and his eyes narrowed. “Maeglin Eölion,” he returned, warily. “What brings you here? Isn’t there a battle you ought to be fighting? A battle you insisted on fighting?”

“I think you know what brings me here, Tuor,” Maeglin said softly. A voice was screaming in his ear, telling him it wasn’t too late yet, that he could still turn back, that he didn’t have to betray his uncle’s trust, the same uncle who’d taken him in and raised him as his own when his father killed his mother. But standing right before him was the mortal who’d taken Idril from him and given her a child. The boy needed to die too, Maeglin remembered, if Idril would ever consent to him. He could not have her be reminded of Tuor every day. Her heart should be empty, so that he could fill it and there was no room for anything or anyone else. No old ghosts to haunt her.

Tuor took a cautious step backwards and hefted his own weapon, a mighty axe. “My life is not yours to take,” Tuor stated calmly, but Maeglin saw his muscles tense, ready to defend himself. “If not mine, then whose?” Maeglin asked rhetorically.

“Mine,” a new voice interrupted. Idril came marching nearer, closely followed by her son Eärendil. He looked so much like his father, but Maeglin only saw his beloved’s eyes in the face of an enemy. Those eyes did not belong there; the small face was all wrong. The expression of fear and anguish, however, was exactly as it should be. He advanced, but Idril blocked his way. She was dressed in battle-uniform; gone were the long dresses he admired her so much in. Her figure was accentuated by the tight cloth, and leather plates protected her body. Her hair was bound and she held a long knife in her hand.

“Step back, Cousin,” she commanded coldly. Without thinking, Maeglin obeyed her. Her grey eyes then moved to her husband, and Maeglin hated how easily that thought came to him. “Are you alright, dear?” she asked Tuor. When he nodded, she motioned for him to get their son and leave. Tuor acknowledged the gesture and moved away, taking Eärendil’s hand and putting his large axe on his back.

It wasn’t until they’d turned the corner that she refocused her attention on him. “What do you think you’re doing?” she hissed between her teeth. “The fighting is the worst in the Western District, an area supposed to be under your protection. What are you doing so near to my husband, with a drawn sword no less!” She had always known of his disapproval of the mortal.

“Oh, sweet cousin of mine,” Maeglin said, a smile on his face and his voice soft and caring. “I know the fighting is worst in the Western District. I know my blade was not sheathed. But that is not what matters here, is it?” He cocked his head to the side and a lock of black hair fell over his face as he took a step forwards, then another. He was so close now, so close… He could smell her hair and her skin and the aroma teased his senses. He lifted a gloved hand and softly touched her cheek. “My sweet Idril,” he trailed off. He imagined he could feel her soft skin in his palm and savored the sensation, committing it to memory.

“Answer me, Maeglin,” she spoke. “Did you intend to murder Tuor?” Maeglin tightened his grip on her chin and sought her eyes. “Yes,” he whispered. “Yes. And Eärendil too. Do you see this blade?” He swiveled it so that it caught the light at a thousand different angles. “I shall lay it at his throat, slowly, softly, and press until a single drop of blood appears. Ad do you know what I’ll do then? I’ll lick it off, right from the blade, until my tongue gets cut too and my blood is indistinguishable from his. I shall then reapply it on this very blade, and cut your son’s throat, slowly, very slowly, so that my blood shall mix with his. And finally I shall throw him over this very wall, like your father threw mine off. And then I shall finally have peace and they will be no more than ghosts in your heart, gone with the wind and of no consequence. And then, you will be mine, won’t you?”

“Never,” she bit out. “Do you hear me, Maeglin? Never will I be yours. Your tongue is vile and your words are poisonous.” She took his arm and forced it away; her slim frame belied her strength. Maeglin reminded himself she had survived the ice, and that he should not underestimate her.

Her eyes roved his stature, outlining his clean armor, his shining sword that he still held in his hand, his loose hair, as if he went to a concert or party instead of to war. “You,” she said as she stumbled backwards. “You betrayed us. You let Morgoth’s forces in, you betrayed Gondolin’s location! Oh, sweet Varda,” she ended in a whisper. “You doomed us all.”

Maeglin threw his head back and laughed clear and loud, with a slight edge of hysteria. He heard it, but did not care. “My darling Idril, I did it for you! Everything I did, I did for you!”

“Monster,” she whispered. Then, more stronger: “Monster!”

Rage evaporated his elation. “I am a monster? I? Who had to wait and watch you all this time, keeping my distance and only admiring you from afar. And then Tuor came! An unlucky mortal with only vague warnings and who was granted refuge here, the same way I was granted it all those years ago! What was it about him that made you fall for him? Choose him? What did he have that I didn’t? Was it a Valar-sent mission? Was it mortality? Are you attracted to impossible odds, is that it?”

“No,” Idril managed. “He has a good heart.”

Maeglin didn’t know how it happened. The words pierced straight through his many defenses into his heart, where it awakened something deep and primal. His mind went blank. As through from afar he saw himself jumping forward, grabbing Idril by her shoulders and crushing his mouth to hers. She tried to break free, but he held her tight. Close.

At first the pain in his abdomen didn’t even register, but after a few seconds it made itself known as a warm liquid trickled down. He opened his eyes and looked straight in a set as grey as the steel that now penetrated his stomach through the cracks in his armor. A savage grin curled his lips as he pushed Idril away. “You are going to regret ever doing that, sweet princess,” he snarled. He pulled the knife out and the hilt came away in red. For a second he looked at the color, truly looked, and saw his face reflected in the warm hues.

Fitting, he reflected, that there would be one object that shared their blood. He changed his grip on the hilt and flipped the knife, and in one swift move he’d pressed it against Idril’s throat. “If I cannot have you, my beloved Cousin, your pet mortal will not either!”

Maeglin slashed, the movement of his arm soothingly familiar and horribly wrong. The blade made contact with Idril’s soft skin, and it broke under the pressure. A thin red line appeared and then a weight barreled into him and his hand was forcible pulled away.

Furious, Maeglin looked up and saw little Eärendil standing there, breathing heavily and looking scared. The boy shuddered under his piercing eyes, but did not back down. “Eärendil, leave, now! Go back to your father!” Idril ordered her son, but he didn’t listen. The boy who had so clearly run away from his other parent planted himself firmly between Maeglin and his mother, declaring that his mother would not be hurt again. It was a foolish move and they both knew it. That’s what came from these hybrid children, Maeglin concluded. Poor quality of mind led to ill-informed decisions that in turn led to early and gruesome deaths, and it was better that way. A world populated by an Elf-Human crossbreed race was not a world Maeglin wanted to live in. Not that he had much time left, with the gaping wound in his stomach.

Idril had taken out her own sword, but was powerless with her son standing between the two combatants. Maeglin advanced on the little boy that barely reached his waist, red knife in his one hand, Anguirel in the other. “It was unwise of you to return here, Eärendil,” he spoke. “What you witnessed cannot be undone, so you shall be undone instead.” From the corner of his eye he saw Idril rush forward, but she was not fast enough to stop him. He knew; and a savage joy welled up in his chest, forcing her to watch as he slew her son. He raised Anguirel and prepared to let his arm fall down.

Idril cried, but where Maeglin expected the boy to crumble, he saw his own arm dangling down as his sword clattered onto the stone pavement. He turned his head and looked over his shoulder, where a large battle-axe was embedded in his flesh, cutting through muscle and sinew alike and partly tearing off his arm.

“Don’t you dare touch my family,” Tuor growled and Maeglin winced in disgust as small drops of spit landed on his face. He amended his earlier thought: a world populated by Elf-Human crossbreeds and by Humans of the same foolishness and dishonor as Tuor was not a world he wanted to live in. However, since he knew his death was not far-off now, there was no reason not to do Beleriand a favor and take at least Tuor and perhaps even Eärendil with him.

Anguirel was out of his reach, but unknown to Tuor, he still held the knife in his other hand. Idril did not look at him; she was too busy making sure her son was alright. These deliberations took less than a second, and Maeglin feigned defeat as he fell to his knees. He heard Tuor approach, slow and cautious, Maeglin felt the first stabs of pain penetrate the violent mood in his head, but he pushed it away. The thrill of battle dimmed the wound in his abdomen enough that he could ignore it, and he willed it to do the same to his almost-severed arm. The axe was still buried in his shoulder, which meant Tuor was most likely unarmed now.

Maeglin waited until the mortal was close enough to touch and counted his heartbeats as he did so. He was rapidly losing blood, he knew, but he was of the Eldar race and he could last for a while yet.

With speed Maeglin rose to his feet, turning as he did so, and stabbed the knife in Tuor’s arm. The Human stumbled back, not having expected the move, but there was a fire in the dark eyes. With a roar Tuor charged again, and, weapons forgotten, he wrestled with Maeglin on the high precipice of the Southern Wall. They fought like savages, all elegance and poise forgotten, and all Maeglin’s attention was focused on his opponent. At that moment he did not care for Idril anymore, did not care for her hybrid son with her eyes in the wrong face, did not care about the White City being painted black and red.

At one moment he held Tuor’s head in his single functioning arm, and pressed to close off the throat. He felt Tuor struggle beneath him, but he had the upper hand now. He would win this battle and with it, their very own war.

They were now on the very edge of the Wall, and over Tuor’s shoulder Maeglin could see the black depths of the abyss. It seemed to gaze up at him, draw him in, but Maeglin was stronger than the ghosts of his past. Tuor grasped up, desperate for something to hold on to, something that might help him escape Maeglin’s deadly grip. Maeglin threw his head back and laughed, and tears streamed down his face, and the full realization of what he’d done downed on him, an immeasurable weight that pushed him down.

Tuor’s hands grasped what they’d been looking for, and Maeglin was yanked forward. The surprise made him loosen his grip just a little and Tuor took the opportunity to get free. In a single movement he rolled over, and now it was Maeglin who hung over the edge. His wounded arm was pushed underneath him, and the blade of the axe dug even deeper in his flesh.

“This madness ends now,” Tuor panted. With one hand he kept his grip on the small token Morgoth the Betrayer had given him, and with the other he turned Maeglin over and pulled his mighty axe out. It made a squishing sound when it came free and for a moment Maeglin closed his eyes as dizziness threatened to overtake him. When he opened them again he saw the spinning, hateful and welcoming darkness of the chasm below, and felt his body being pushed down. With his one good hand he tried to find something to hold onto, but his fingers only encountered smooth rock.

“Goodbye, Maeglin Eölion,” he heard Tuor say as from a great distance.

Then he fell.

Maeglin had never truly appreciated how high the city of Gondolin was located, how deep the valleys below lay in the shadow of the White City. He had never imagined how warm the rays of the rising sun were on his face as the wind blew around his face. He had never realized that the brighter the light, the darker the shadow was that it cast. He didn’t know if he were the shadow or the light, but in his final moments Maeglin cursed the Betrayer for his own treason, and damned his father for a curse he didn’t believe in.

And then it was over.