Just One Victory by Feta

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The Fire

Now in the heat of battle, Balrogs are approaching. But there is no reason to flee them, because Findekáno always knew it would come to this. He knew it from the moment that thawed ground touched his feet and he had survived the ice-journey. He knew that once upon a time in Paradise, he had bound himself to fire, and now it would take nothing short of flames to destroy him.

 

 

The Fëanarians had abandoned their abodes to the north of Lake Mithrim and moved to the south, upon hearing of the crossing of the Helcaraxë; they left abandoned homes convenient for their cousins, but it was a gesture of fear and shame rather than generosity.

Still, Findekáno found it nice to curl up on the floor of a dwelling where, at the time, he supposed that only days ago Maitimo had slept. He basked in the comfort of the feel of a roof against the driving rain, and the surety that the next day, he could traverse to the other side of the water and curse his lover with far more force than Mandos himself.

But it was not meant to be.

He stood on a sandy beach while Makalaurë told him of Fëanáro’s death – “Balrogs… there was nothing we could do…” – and all that he could think was that someday there would be nothing to do about himself, either. The wet sand clung to his shoes, and he concentrated on the rippling surface of the lake rather than the news that was being stoically delivered.

For sure there was nothing to be done about Fëanáro, but the same did not hold true for his eldest son; and the news of the loss of Maitimo felt as sharp as nails to a grieved Findekáno. And so began his search for his cousin.

Throughout all those long and silent days surrounded by iron and grey stone, he fancied that he could feel his lover burning with him in unison; that their matching white fires were one and the same; that both lived and struggled against the same indomitable metal walls and prison gates. He fancied that the mountain he climbed was mocking him silently, and still he pressed ever onward.

All for nothing. All for the sound of harsh wind and stifled cries and mile upon mile of impenetrable rock.

Two days after he ran out of food, he turned back toward Hithlum. He had never realized how much hurt could overcome him by the simple act of walking the other way. Several times, he tripped over loose rocks or crevices, which felt like a sign that he was moving in the wrong direction. If he could have been called valiant for the daring act of coming on this futile search, it was nothing compared to the metallic will that was required to turn around.

Upon his empty-handed return, forced to face Makalaurë and say those words – “I could not find him… I could not find a way in… I am… I am sorry…” – he saw something die in the singer’s eyes. It never came back.

His father was less compassionate. “It is just as well,” Nolofinwë stated coldly, in a tone that was not to be disagreed with.

“I suppose so,” Findekáno replied stiffly.

He did not speak to his father of his lover again for a very long time, nor did he reveal to him the nature of their relationship. This seemed to suit Nolofinwë just fine.

 

 

Makalaurë was another matter.

It was just as difficult to meet the now-king’s eyes as it was to lie awake at night and come to terms with the fact that he might not see Maitimo again until the end of Arda. Nor was it easy to attend a council and watch Fëanáro’s six youngest sons bicker among themselves while the one who could tame them was beyond help.

No one liked the Fëanarians, but Findekáno liked them least of all.

He hated their short tempers and their perfect hair and ruthless swordsmanship. He hated that they were driven and determined and oftentimes rude. Their closeness and pack mentality and various skills angered him to no end.

Most of all, he hated how much he used to love them.

 

 

One night in Hithlum, Findekáno had a dream.

He saw himself climbing that three-peaked mountain, clinging to the cold, grey stone, which was razor-sharp in places and smooth in others. Everything was obscured by thick fog, but high above him was auburn hair and the pale skin of a half-cousin who did not seem alive, but was not yet dead.

He saw himself clutching Maitimo, this skeletal Maitimo, pressing him against the rock and fumbling with the band of steel that shackled his cousin’s wrist to the mountain. He saw that beautiful face bury itself in his shoulder, a left hand clutching him as alternately he or his cousin murmured each others’ names, or variations on:

“I should have… I should not have… I am sorry… Please forgive me… Oh, Eru…”

He saw himself press a sharp blade against the pallid skin of an arm.

He woke up.

 

 

“I suppose so,” he had said to his father. And he pretended that he did indeed suppose so. After a while, when he got used to the concept of never-again, he could imagine that passion had faded, and ancient memories were enough to sustain him.

Ancient memories. He tries to recall one, tries to decide if it is real or a desperate delusion. It appears to be the latter. There is something not quite true-life about it.

In a garden, at the mingling of the lights, sometime in the first half-century of his existence. Tall trees and thick, winding flora shield the two of them from view. Behind their barrier of flora, a young Findekáno and Maitimo lay side-by-side, watching the clouds.

“That one looks like an orcco,” Maitimo announced, pointing to a mass of white haze.

“What’s an orcco?”

“I’m not sure, exactly. But they are evil. Or at least, I think they are. Grandfather talks about them.”

There was a silence. Then:

“That one is you.” Findekáno gestured at another cloud. “And that one is me.”

Maitimo laughed. “You pointed to the same one twice, Káno.”

“No,” said the other, “they are two, but together. Like this. Watch.”

The dark-haired one scrambles onto his hands and knees, crawling on top of his half-cousin and lying himself down on top of him, propped up by hands in the grass to either side of the elder elf’s head.

“Like this,” he said again.

“You are a great deal heavier than a cloud,” Maitimo protested, and it was unclear whether or not he was teasing. “And we are not flying through the air.”

“Are we not?”

It was inevitable. There was no more stopping Findekáno from lowering his head, gradually, than there was Maitimo snaking a hand around the back of his cousin’s head and pulling him down more forcefully than gravity. Lips met, brushed, gently, and then separated.

“Look,” said Maitimo, motioning once more to the sky. “That cloud there… it reminds me of a ship.”

Findekáno turned his head to see for himself. The phantom ship reflected bright tree-light as it sailed away.

But of course, that never happened. There were no cloudy days in Valinor. A fabricated memory, it must have been; memory is a faulty thing; and the world feels that much emptier for it.

 

 

At one celebration or another, Findekáno pulled his tall cousin away from the festivities, into an abandoned corridor; unless, the opposite occurred, and it was Maitimo who dragged the other past their rejoicing family members and into privacy.

Whatever the case, a hand was in a hand, and as the dark-haired one grinned, the other said:

“I’m surprised that you’re here with me, Káno.”

He paused. “Are you?”

“Shouldn’t you be off with some fair maiden or other?”

“Shouldn’t you?”

Silence ensued, but was not uncomfortable, as Findekáno slowly, gently backed his half-cousin against the wall. By the time Finwë stumbled upon the scene, lips and tongues were gracefully interlocked in a way certainly not meant for his eyes.

The older elf stood, politely looking elsewhere, until they noticed his presence. Maitimo was the first to do so; he gently and carefully pushed Findekáno away from him.

Catching sight of their mutual relative, the latter addressed the newcomer cautiously. “I… Grandfather… My Lord… We were just…” In his near-panic, all charisma had flown away. If there was one elf who would have the power to forbid the past several moments from ever happening again, it would be the king.

A pause.

“Your father has been looking for you, Nelyo,” Finwë stated smoothly, speaking to Maitimo. He smiled. “I shall have to inform him that you are otherwise occupied.”

 

 

Maitimo fought the way he breathed; easily, almost pleasantly, going along with whatever sparring game Findekáno came up with, and winning each time. “What are we pretending now?” he would call, swinging his wooden practice blade in easy circles while the other elf got to his feet. “Am I an orcco again?”

“Yes,” said the young Findekáno, “You are an orcco. You used to be an elf, but you aren’t anymore, so I have to fight you.”

Maitimo scoffed. “How could an elf turn into an orc?”

“I don’t know. But they were. Grandfather said so.”

There was no time for a retort, because the dark-haired one charged, mock sword raised, and soon the two were locked in a frenzied battling, half sparring and half wrestling, in a lightning-fast game almost too quick to follow.

Moments later, Maitimo held his weapon triumphantly to his half-cousin’s throat. “A valiant try,” he said. “Maybe you’ll do better next time.”

 

 

“I suppose so,” Findekáno had told Nolofinwë.

Findekáno convinced himself that this was true.

He let the sting of betrayal make his thoughts harsh and cold. He told himself that burning ships meant more than the burning of a fëa, that Moringotto could do nothing that his lover did not deserve; that he himself meant nothing to Maitimo alongside that cursed oath; that any words or love exchanged in the holy land were void in this strange new world; that no one need know of the bond he might have shared with a cousin of whom he could no longer bear to speak.

He decided that when the ships were destroyed, Maitimo must have stood aside for no other reason than a sullen rebellion against Fëanáro. He decided that nothing set Fëanáro’s eldest apart from so many younger brothers, aside from his sheer and lilting beauty, and therefore anything he might have considered love was not more than shallow lust.

And he did not believe himself for a moment.

He stayed in Hithlum because it was a safer land than those to which his various cousins had traveled. He stayed in Hithlum because the desire for adventure and exploration had faded the moment it became apparent he would not be doing so with a redheaded lover by his side.

He was a perfunctory leader, going through the motions, smiling at crowds or doing paperwork or fighting a dragon. Valiant, they still called him. It made him vaguely sick, because it recalled earlier times and felt like a mockery of the way it was first spoken.

“A valiant try.”

 

 

He dreamed once more. This time, it was Fëanáro.

Findekáno saw himself in a vast desert, with a great white ship placed haphazardly in the sand nearby, his half-uncle standing not far off and clutching a burning torch.

“Come with me,” the other elf called, and if he could have been labeled mad, it was only in a pleasant sort of way.

He approached the other only slowly, each footstep a deliberate motion, and did not stop until the two of them were only feet apart.

Fëanáro held out the torch. “It is your turn,” he said.

His half-nephew accepted that which was offered, but then stood quite still, unsure of what to do.

“Go on,” said Fëanáro, “it is not difficult. Nothing could be easier.”

With each step Findekáno’s feet sunk slightly into the sand. It was several moments before he reached the ship. He turned back around to see the other give him an encouraging nod.

He held the torch to the white ship, and watched the flames spread.

 

Time wore on, and she came into Findekáno’s life as naturally as if she had always been there. She was petite and distinctly Avarin, and would not take no for an answer.

She was nothing like his first lover; she was the wrong shape and size and color and gender and when he was with her he could never meet her eyes for fear that in them, she would see that he was not truly free to love her. But then, averting his gaze was already a habit, and she was no different from the rest.

He was leaned back against a tree, eyes closed, while she kissed him over and over, when he finally found the words spilling from his lips as though his inquiry were the most natural thing in the world.

She smiled and answered that yes, she would be glad to marry him. She would like nothing more than to be his wife. He needn’t have waited so long to ask. They should tell his family straightaway.

She did not question him, but he questioned himself. Why had he asked such a thing? To spite the Valar who, with such an easy elegance, had disowned him.

To acknowledge the feeling that had come over him so long ago, the feeling that he in some way had been betrayed, the feeling that a bond that had been shared in Paradise was not quite so holy any longer.

Such an awkward and unsure sentiment is really no reason for a marriage proposal, but for Findekáno it would be an end to the constant fear that yet another elf was going to ask him who his secret lover was. Terrible reckoning, to be sure.

In the end, he did it to give himself a rationale to forget Maitimo once and for all. But it did not work out that way.

Nolofinwë, at least, seemed thrilled by his child’s decision. “You have made a good choice. I am very happy for you,” he told his son in private one evening, as they sat together in the moonlight.

Findekáno looked away from his father. “Then I’m glad that one of us is,” he replied. He stood and turned to leave, but a hand was on his shoulder.

Nolofinwë held him at arm’s length. “She is beautiful, and she loves you. I cannot imagine why you would…” He paused, and Findekáno held his breath, but the next question was unavoidable. “Don’t tell me you are still hung up on that boy?”

That boy. What a phrase for a half-nephew and a son-in-law and the only elf to look back at Losgar. What a name.

Findekáno had two choices, lies or truth. After years of averting his gaze to keep his secret safe, once more would not be a problem. But in a split-second decision, he went with the latter option. He met his father’s eyes. “That boy and I were married,” said he.

Silence. Echoing, penetrating, pervading silence.

The son continued. “This is not right. It is not supposed to happen. Grandfather got away with it, but he had the grace of the Valar. What do I have?”

Nolofinwë was watching him shrewdly; his grip on the younger elf’s shoulders was so tight it was painful. At last, he said: “None of us are in their favor any longer. You have made your own second chance, you are getting over that which is past, and I am proud of you. Do not be afraid of it.”

 

 

“That boy and I were married.”

The statement was careless, but tense with passion. So was the marriage itself.

After an uncomfortable greeting from Fëanáro, a Findekáno who had traveled a great distance to see his favorite cousin in exile was allowed to dart after Maitimo, up graceful flights of stairs into his bedroom, and then bolt the door.

Neither noticed a second brother who scampered after them, still clutching the small harp that he was never seen without. Neither was aware that he pressed an ear against the door, or peered under the crack beneath it.

“I’ve missed you,” one lover said to the other, and this sentiment was returned.

“It’s been too long,” Findekáno insisted with a sort of childlike dedication that Maitimo had always both loved and scorned.

“We can thank the Valar for that,” he said, his coldness not directed at his lover but at the gods who had kept them apart with their icy and unfeeling banishment.

It was a mockery, of course – “Thank the Valar” they used to say, in moments of delight. And now, if not for the decree of those high powers, they might have spent the past several years chasing each other down the streets of Tirion, stealing kisses in alleyways and dodging out of sight to hide from passing brothers.

Thank the Valar.

“It wasn’t – you can’t blame – Remember, it was – ” Findekáno abruptly stopped speaking. No need to lay blame and damage an otherwise perfect reunion.

No need to remember peeking through a doorway at a gleaming weapon that should never have been unsheathed, tightly clutching Maitimo’s hand and wondering: what happens now?

They stepped closer and closer together, until their bare feet were inches apart. This was followed by a silent stalemate, two elegant figures, two heads of glossy hair, two haughty princes, each waiting for the other to make the next move. Finally, Findekáno reached a leg out and nudged Maitimo’s toe with one of his own.

Sometimes that was all it took. The slightest bit of contact, even such an awkward, childish one, and they would be gone. This time, at first there was only a smile, and a bland, gentle statement from the elder of the two. “I keep forgetting how young you are, Káno.” They were so very close, close enough to each sense the warmth of the other’s skin.

The grin he returned, as his body trembled ever so slightly with anticipation. “Not so young. Not anymore.” At the time, it was an innocent remark from an innocent boy, eager to prove himself. Looking back, Findekáno realizes that he was asking for exactly what he got. He does not regret this in the slightest.

In any case, Maitimo’s kind reply was, “So you are,” but the subsequent actions on both sides were of passion far more than benevolence.

When Makalaurë questioned them the next morning, they denied nothing.

Sometime the next day, three elves sat on the floor of some unused room or other, stealing glances at one another in unsure silence. Then:

“Káno.” It was Maitimo who spoke.

The two of them turned toward him. “Which one?” they asked in an Ambarussa-like unison, Findekáno and Makalaurë Kanafinwë, similar in so many ways but in devotion to Maitimo most of all.

Maitimo took a deep, steadying breath. “Both of you,” he responded.

“What is it?” It did not matter which one spoke.

“I want…” A pause. “I want this to be a secret.” This was not a surprise announcement, and it was spoken with a force not to be easily disputed.

They watched him, wide-eyed. They looked like young ghosts, instead of a brother and a lover. The young Makalaurë appeared confused, but Findekáno nodded. “Me too,” the latter said quietly.

No one thought to use a phrase like to the grave; they lived in a place where death meant, at most, the still body of a grandmother, asleep in a garden. They were not ever going to die. It was inconceivable.

And, as it happens, they did not die, nor did they spill their secret. They inhabit diverse locations, now; they are far apart and divided in every way possible. The only thing they all still hold true to is that secret, that padlocked and buried secret – the knowledge that once, life held so much more.

 

There was no pretending that this new wife was his Maitimo. She knew not a word of Quenya, and Findekáno did not have the time or the heart to teach her. Her name for him was “Fingon,” and he learned to answer to it. At least this new title could not be shortened to “Káno” – to be called such a name by this usurper would feel treacherous at best.

It was not that he did not love her, in his own way. It was not that their marriage was entirely due to her determined perseverance or that he did not feel a rush of something as in the early hours of the morning after their wedding night she lay beside him, staring out the window or into his eyes.

The child, born one year later to the day, was called Ereinion. He loved the stars, and looked nothing like his mother.

“He has my father’s eyes,” Nolofinwë said by means of congratulation. This seemed to be the cue for everyone to make similar comments.

“He has your sister’s hair.”

“My uncle’s cheeks.”

“The same lips as your brother.”

“The same left eyebrow as my great-aunt’s nephew’s seventh cousin twice removed on my mother’s side.” That last one was not actually spoken. A Maitimo occasionally took up residence in Findekáno’s head, a playfully sardonic one who made the most inopportune comments and spent most of his time mocking anyone who walked by.

The real Maitimo would have added, in all seriousness, “He looks just like you, Káno, just like you.”

And this, at first, made the child a thousand times more beautiful, in Findekáno’s eyes.

After a while, this changed. After a while, every moment he spent with his son made him itch with resentment and self-loathing, and a horrible sense of doom. Findekáno was, after all, only half a fëa – and the thought that he could have created something so whole, so strong, filled him with more horror than wonder.

It was Findekáno’s idea to send the two of them, wife and son, to the Havens, but she went along with it. Amidst scrambles to plan a battle and achieve one sort of victory or another, Findekáno told her, “I do not want you to get hurt, either of you. It will be safer this way.”

“I suppose so,” she replied.

Those words.

 

 

He dreamed again.

This time, he saw Nerdanel seated cross-legged on the sand by the seashore. “Why did you do it?” she asked.

“I do not know what you mean.”

“Why did you leave him?”

He took a breath, steeled himself. “He left me.”

“Indeed?” Her gaze was shrewd; it made him feel as though he were about to melt.

For a moment it seemed that she merely swayed with the wind, until a strong gust came; she crumbled, and was blown away as nothing more than the ashes of a burned-out fire, carried on the breeze; the same end as was attributed to her Fëanáro.

When Findekáno awoke, he knew what he had to do.

 

 

And that is why, as Findekáno stands before a hoard of fire-demons, sword drawn, he knows that this is the end. His only regret is that he cannot do as he said, once, as his people marched away from Paradise, the curse of Mandos lingering in their ears.

“If I am going to die…” Findekáno had said.

Maitimo slipped his hand comfortingly into his cousin’s. “You are not going to die.”

“But if I am… I would like to be with you.”

Now, a Balrog cracks a fiery whip. Fire to extinguish fire. Things are not going according to plan. And Maitimo is not here.

Chapter End Notes

Thank you for enduring another flashback-dump; now that we've got some background sorted out, I'll do my best to make the plot go forward. :)

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