Scion of Kings by janeways

Chapter 3

Special thanks to Fionn (ecthvlion) and Ioann (struckinarda) for beta reading, and thanks also to you readers! Your support keeps me going, so please - let me know what you think!

Dappled sunlight played across Maedhros’s right hand, patterns of color and shadow filtering through a canopy of leaves in the shade of his mother’s garden. Bumblebees and dragonflies hummed through the air around him, alighting on flowers as bright as any gem his father ever wrought. Such a lovely, warm spring day—well, Maedhros mentally corrected himself, it was always springtime in Valinor. Always vibrant, always alive. It was strange, how a few centuries in Himring (and, alright, more than a few in the Halls of Mandos) had made him forget this, the simple luxury of a comfortable wicker chair, a gentle breeze, and the warmth of the sun on his skin.

But then, even as a boy in Tirion, Maedhros had never been one much for excessive luxury, and so he had brought the latest batch of letters from Beleriand—Middle Earth, he corrected himself again—to read while he whiled away the afternoon. It crossed his mind that he whiled away too many afternoons.

‘Finno would probably have laughed at that,’ he thought. It was true, he had never been one for pure relaxation, preferring instead to find his enjoyment in the expansion and exercise of the mind. When he read for pleasure, he read non-fiction as much as stories or poems or plays, and even when he did choose literature, he always availed himself of an accompanying commentary to read afterwards, so that he might compare it with his own analysis.

And so whereas his cousins and brothers treated letters from friends and relations in the East mostly as personal matter—or at least as personal as such things could be when you were born of a large and noble family, and your letters were thus semipublic affairs—Maedhros read them the way one might read a newspaper. (Indeed, Tirion’s local journal was known to have gleaned an item or two of interest from letters to the younger House of Finwë). Turgon was the only other cousin he knew of who treated these letters as much like formal missives as friendly notes. Maedhros was not necessarily comforted by this knowledge.

Thus, he found himself reclining in his favorite chair, on a sunny afternoon, with what could have easily been mistaken for paperwork on his lap. He had just finished Elrond’s letter—again. That boy had always been a little reserved, Maedhros felt, able to speak forthrightly and yet not always openly, his frankness revealing little of his heart. For this, Maedhros supposed, he may have had himself to blame. Regardless, the result was that, in order to determine much of what Elrond actually felt on a matter—be it his love life or the state of politics in Lindon—Maedhros was required to do a fair amount of reading between the Tengwar, as it were. Having gleaned as much as he could from Elrond’s letter, Maedhros turned his attention to a short letter, just below Elrond’s in the small pile addressed to him (or sent his way, at least, letters like these often being passed around in a family like his). It bore a seal he did not recognize: blue wax and a lion’s head. Curious, he turned it over.

To Maedhros, from Gil-galad.

And in a moment, the world stilled and caught its breath.

*

He noticed the penmanship, before anything else. Strong, assured, but a little prim, like there was something roiling just below the surface and threatening to burst through at any moment. Hardly noticeable, to the untrained eye—to someone unused to such strict control themselves. (Maedhros was used to it.)

He skimmed the first few lines. In a letter like this, the first paragraph was always skimmable, a fact he knew from long centuries of princely duties and even longer letters from Turgon. As he neared the end, he slowed, beginning to read quickly through the rest, mentally trawling for anything of import.

Ah, there it was. I confess I write to you with more than felicitations and warm wishes. Something about Sauron, or war, or how to best interpret the Black Speech, or “Would you please apologize just one more time for that Kinslaying business,” or—quickly, Maedhros’s eyebrows knit together in confusion. “His parents?” Maedhros asked himself aloud. “Why in Eru’s name should he ask me of all people about…”

Oh.

Ohhhh.

Oh, shit.

*

“Ohhh, another one?” Fingon visibly lit up as he snatched the letter from Maedhros’s hands to see for himself. The gold of his tight braids glittered as they swung, catching the candlelight that illuminated the dark bedroom. “Does this mean I get to sign his begetting-day cards like I do Elrond’s? Oh, when is his begetting-day? Do you think it’s soon? Do you think we ought to go buy a present, just in case?”

“Eru Almighty,” Maedhros muttered.

Not noticing, or at least pretending not to, Fingon continued, “Do you think he’ll want to call you ‘Ada?’” A thought struck Fingon as he looked up at Maedhros, the epiphany breaking over his face like a sunrise. “Do you think he’ll want to call me ‘Ada,’ too?”

“You do know I’m not actually the boy’s father, don’t you?” asked Maedhros with the quirk of an eyebrow.

“Of course I know that! But you’ve never let little details like that get in the way before!” Fingon retorted matter-of-factly. In a gentler voice, but no less earnestly, he asked, “But you will tell him, won’t you?”

“Of course I will,” Maedhros replied automatically, wondering how on Arda he would ever do it.