Fëanorians in 600 Words or Less by eris_of_imladris

Brave

Maglor Headcanon: Maglor is a good father to Elrond and Elros, whether circumstances draw them together or apart.

Elros’s mind is far away these days, adrift in a great sea. Waves of pain wash in, soothed by warm blankets and a cool green paste applied by the expert hands of his brother. Elrond is a proper healer now, and he has been a king for many years, but it still feels like their first parting, many years ago. The primal fear of the unknown still remains; for all the joy he has known in Númenor, no one can tell him what happens next.

“Lord Elrond is here to see you, Your Majesty,” a voice says, and Elros squints at the speaker but he is gone before the king gets a good look, replaced by the solemn-faced, long-haired elven brother who has come to say goodbye.

“You received a letter,” Elrond says, his voice shaky but somehow strong, bringing back even older memories. “No one else could read it. It was written in a particular style of Quenya…”

The hand in Elros’s is warm, and the parchment swims in front of his eyes as he focuses on the letters. They are slanted, but strangely familiar. “Atar?” he rasps out, thinking of the slanted writing he once knew.

“No, it’s Atya… Atya has written to you,” Elrond says, and a brief memory of why Maglor writes rather than Maedhros is enough to make him shut his eyes, enough to bring back the yawning chasm of fear that threatens to swallow him whole.

“To my son, Elros, who has made the bravest choice…” Elrond reads and Elros is lost in Maglor’s words, enraptured as he once was by his childhood lullabies. The voice sounds the same as he did so many years ago, when Elros was small and confused and parentless, where Maglor’s words were often the only things that made sense.

A memory jumps, unbidden, to the front of his mind, and he is a small child again, standing between the two remaining Fëanorians as they looked up into the sky, beholding the bright new star. It had not looked so distant, like the other stars, for he knew what this was – and how it threatened him.

“But how are you going to go to the sky?” Elros had asked, suddenly more worried about losing his new parents than his old.

“We are not,” Maedhros had said solemnly, but Maglor had knelt beside him and smiled through the pain.

“We will stay with you,” Maglor had promised, and he sang a story of the bright new star that made it feel so close that Elros could almost reach out and touch it.

The letter is just as close, and he can feel Maglor beside him. The magic of his words has not dulled over the centuries, but now it is different, for now Elros sees a kindred spirit, a letter from one lost soul to another. He tries to smile, hoping his death will not be alien like the stars but close like the songs. He tries to keep Maglor’s face in front of him, ever smiling, ever guiding, finding him a way forward past the fear, and he clings to the hope he finds in the words as he begins to fade.

He does not hear the final line, which speaks of “another, hidden in a crevice,” but Elrond remembers these words after his brother is laid to rest, and scours the area for something only he could find. His stoic façade finally breaks as he unfolds a piece of parchment:

“To my son, Elrond, who has made the bravest choice…”