Swan Song by Ithilwen

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The Kindness of Strangers

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Chapter 5 – The Kindness of Strangers

Over time Maglor's life slowly settled into a predictable rhythm. He helped around the house, he made love to his wife, he spent the evenings relaxing with his family and whatever guests came by. Things seemed peaceful enough, at first.

The clouds blew in gradually.

Fingon came to visit often, and Maglor was glad to see him not only because he enjoyed his cousin's company but because he knew how much more his brother enjoyed it. But then the day came when a stranger claiming he was Fingon asked to come inside the house. Maglor, who was the only one of the family actually inside at that moment, took one look at the man and knew he was definitely not Fingon and quite sensibly refused to let the fellow in, but the man wouldn't leave. He just kept knocking, and Maglor kept refusing to admit him until Maedhros (who'd been out in the back garden) walked in and heard the noise. He opened the door, over Maglor's objections, and asked the stranger standing on the doorstep, "What's wrong, Fingon?"

And the stranger laughed and replied, "Thank you for coming to my rescue, cousin. Your brother wouldn't let me come in." And as he watched his elder brother let the stranger inside, Maglor realized to his horror that the fellow must indeed be Fingon, whom he'd seen and recognized without difficulty at least a half-dozen times since he'd arrived at his grandfather's house. And yet, even knowing that, when he looked at the man and heard his voice, he still saw only a stranger. Both ashamed and frightened, he retreated to his room, hearing the stranger calling out to him as he left, "It's all right, Maglor, no hard feelings."

Much later that day Maedhros sought him out and told him gently, "No one is going to lie to you here, filit. If someone claims to be a relative or a friend, it's safe for you to believe them, even if you don't recognize them right away." After that, Maglor opened the door to anyone on general principles, whether he knew them or not. But as far as Maglor was concerned, that did not solve the problem: he'd forgotten the face and voice of someone he'd thought he'd known, that until that moment he had known. For the first time, he truly realized how little trust he could place in his own memory.

Of course, that was better than the time his cousin Angrod called. Maglor had no memory whatsoever of a cousin Angrod; he didn't even recognize the name.

Then there was the morning he was sent out to the hen house to quickly gather a few eggs for the family's breakfast. Half an hour later, when no eggs appeared and the rest of their breakfast was on the verge of burning, Aurel found him inside the barn tending the horses. A few gentle questions revealed that Maglor, on the way to the hen house, had been distracted by the sight of their farm cat running into the barn; he'd followed, out of curiosity, and when he spotted the horses he set to work currying them and giving them their morning grain, having by then totally forgotten about his original task. After that there was the time he completely forgot to milk the cow, and the time he forgot to take the laundry down from the clothesline before the coming rainstorm broke, and the time he forgot to start dinner…

Some days were definitely better than others, but after a few such incidences the rest of the family quickly agreed amongst themselves that one of them would always have to help Maglor work on any truly important task if they wanted to be sure it actually got done.

He tried as best he could to hide it, but Maglor soon realized he was hopeless with money. He remembered that copper and brass coins were worth less than silver, which in turn was worth far less than gold, but try though he did, he simply couldn't remember how many coppers were in a brass coin, how many silver pennies added up to a gold piece. Sent to the village to purchase some pastries, he looked at the confusion of coins in the purse Nerdanel had given him and could not figure out how much to hand over to the baker. Too proud to ask for help with such a simple task, in desperation he handed the woman a gold piece and hurried out of the store with his wares, hoping it had been enough. Later that day he was shamed when, looking out his window, he'd spotted the baker woman down in the courtyard talking to his mother, and he realized he'd underpaid. On his next trip, he gave the baker woman two gold pieces. (After hearing the story of how Nerdanel's befuddled son had given the village baker woman at first two week's, and then a full month's, wages for a dozen pastries, the local merchants all agreed to set up a credit account for Mahtan's family in order to spare both Maglor's pride and the family's savings.)

His handwriting was atrocious; he kept mirror-reversing tengwar, changing the entire sense of words. The result was often gibberish to anyone outside his family, and even they frequently struggled to make sense of what he'd written. At least he could still read, after a fashion. He could, if he made a great effort to concentrate, keep his attention focused long enough to decipher a paragraph or two of text – but no more. By the time he'd reached the bottom of a page, he'd have forgotten entirely what he'd read at the top of it. An entire book was completely beyond him. He'd managed to keep that shameful fact hidden for longer than he'd hoped; it wasn't until Maglor's greatest loss (at least in his eyes) became apparent to all that reading books aloud became the primary family evening pleasure.

He'd lost his music.

Oh, it was still there inside him; he could hear it beating against the confines of his head, a resplendent winged thing desperate to be released to fly. But the first time the family had all gone to the small village inn for an evening of public merriment and someone passed him a harp and begged, "Play for us, Maglor!", no sounds came forth from either his hands or his throat. He knew he knew songs, many dozens of them – but at that moment, he could not bring the words, or the melodies, or even the titles of any of them to mind. It seemed that memories of the people and events in his life were not the only things his traitorous mind was determined to erase. To Maglor at that moment, it felt as though the expectation he saw in all those eager faces had completely frozen his scattered wits, as if it was the Helcaraxë rather than a friendly crowd in front of him. Mercifully, his wife quickly came to his rescue, removing the harp from his hands while telling the small crowd that her husband was too tired to play right then, but Maglor knew she'd spotted the panic in his eyes and he was ashamed. The harp had quickly been passed to Fingon, and when his cousin began to play a melancholy lay, Maglor closed his eyes, grateful for a socially acceptable excuse to weep.

Afterwards, his family tried hard to convince him that it was simply a one-time incident, the sort of thing that could occasionally happen to anybody, and for their sake he pretended to agree, but in his heart Maglor knew better. He'd been performing in front of larger and more demanding crowds than the one in the village that night long before he'd even reached his official age of majority; he was far, far too seasoned to be so incapacitated by mere nervousness. This frozen state was a new thing, and he had a terrible suspicion that it would not be going away.

Time proved him right. At home, it was sometimes different; occasionally if he picked up his harp and simply fingered it without thinking, the result was a melody rather than merely a discordant set of notes, and if someone in his family named a specific song he might manage to recall the words (especially if the others began to sing first). But more often than not, nothing came and he was left standing there mute, the chaotic jumble in his mind effectively freezing him into silence.

Nor could he write new music; the same concentration problems which dogged his reading also kept him from composing anything of consequence. He'd manage a couple of lines at most before his attention wandered and allowed the nascent song in his head to slip away forever. When he turned away from whatever had distracted him and back to the piece, he'd find himself contemplating a dead thing. No amount of willpower, he found, would bring the stillborn tune back to life.

He was no longer a bard.

Music had always been the heart of his life. Even during his long, lonely years of exile, it had been there for him, as his other loves had not. It was the one thing in his life he'd always wanted, the one gift he'd always been sure of, the only area of his life where he'd always and justifiably felt proud of his accomplishments. He was born a musician; that was his very essence: a commanding voice, forging gold.

And now, suddenly, he was not. But if he was no longer a bard, no longer the greatest voice of the Noldor, then what was he?

Maglor thought he knew the answer to that question. Nothing. He was nothing. A hopeless cripple, a useless mouth to feed, and a burden on his kin. And how he hated it!

And he also grew to hate his family as well, who cruelly taunted him by refusing to see him so. How he came to despise their gentle concern, and their seemingly endless patience with his limitations and his mistakes, and their smothering love! He hated the way they refused to return his sullen anger, the way they mocked him by hiding the resentment toward him that he was certain they felt in their hearts. Maglor knew he contributed nothing of any value to the family sufficient to offset the burden his presence placed on them; how dare they pretend otherwise?

For he knew it was pretence; once or twice he'd overheard them talking amongst themselves about him when they thought he was elsewhere and unable to overhear, and in his absence they'd felt no need to cloak their true feelings under a disguise of syrupy-sweet affection.

"Why is he acting like this? When he first came back, Russandol, I was so happy; now I feel like we're living with an Orc."

"He's angry, sister, at how badly hurt he is, and he's taking it out on us. Estë warned us about this, remember?"

"Her warning us does not make his current behavior any easier to bear, son. It may be time for us to make it clear to him that we, too, have our limits."

Finally the day came when Maglor decided he'd had enough. The morning had started out badly when he managed to burn breakfast despite his grandfather's assistance in the kitchen, and only proceeded to get worse, culminating in a ferocious argument with his wife over some triviality he now could no longer remember. The aftermath of the fight had seen Aurel weeping in their shared room and Maglor storming off in a blind fury. That afternoon had found him striding through the dense woodlands north of the small village, contemplating his options. His formerly-incandescent rage, while not entirely gone, had burned down to a small coal, and he was beginning to regret the harsh words he'd thrown at his wife earlier that day. Done was done, though, and he could not see himself going back, not after the way he'd treated her. And it was certainly unlikely anyone in the family would welcome him back even if he did decide to return. No, returning home was out. But his other options looked bleak. Though he hated to admit it, brutal honesty forced him to admit that he probably couldn't survive for long entirely on his own. Living off his uncles' or cousins' charity would be even more humiliating than living off of his grandfather's; he rejected that possibility at once. Perhaps he could return to Lórien? He knew little of gardening beyond tending his mother's vegetables, but he was willing to learn – assuming, of course, he thought bitterly, that I'm even capable of learning anything new…

"Well met, Maglor son of Fëanor."

Startled out of his reverie, Maglor looked up to see an unfamiliar man standing before him on the forest path. He studied the man carefully, searching his memory as best he could, but came up with nothing. Apart from being dressed entirely in grey, the stranger was utterly nondescript – but there was something about his eyes that made Maglor certain he was very, very old. "Forgive me," Maglor replied, "but I do not think I know you."

"I would not expect you to," the stranger replied. "You may call me Olórin. May I join you?"

The name meant nothing to Maglor. He shrugged. "Suit yourself. I do not own the path."

The stranger fell into step next to Maglor, and the two men walked side-by-side in silence for a time. Finally the stranger said, "Forgive me if I pry, but you seem heavy of heart, son of Fëanor. I find this surprising. Should you not be happy, now that your long exile from these lands is finally over?"

"Returning here was a mistake. I should have remained in the mortal lands."

"Why do you say that?"

There was a certain freedom to be found, Maglor realized, in conversing with a total stranger he was unlikely to ever meet again (or recognize if he did). And there was something about Olórin's manner which encouraged openness. For the first time in weeks he felt he could speak frankly. "My body may look hale enough, but my memory, my mind… they are broken. I can no longer think as I once did, no longer work. A child is more capable than I am now. Here I am nothing but a burden to my family."

"And were you not also a burden to them when you were there?"

Maglor shot Olórin a startled look. "Of course not! I was alone there, they were free of me –"

"There is more than one way of being a burden, Maglor," Olórin replied gently. "Your wife, your mother – all through the years of your exile they knew nothing whatsoever of your fate. Did you ever think to ask them which load they found more bearable: the burden of caring for you here, or the burden of worrying about you while you were over there?"

"Oh. I had not considered that," Maglor admitted, suddenly feeling rather ashamed. He walked silently beside Olórin for a long while before speaking again. "Still, there is no denying that even here I am burdening them, and I do not wish to do that."

Olórin nodded. "That is understandable. Maglor, do you remember how your brother lost his hand the first time?"

"Yes, that I remember. Fingon cut it off, to save him from Thangorodrim," Maglor answered. "What do you mean 'lost his hand the first time'?"

"He has lost it twice, Maglor; that is a new hröa he wears. Unlike you, he did not return from exile, but died and was rehoused. You should ask him about his hand, if you talk to him again," Olórin answered.

"I… I did not know that," Maglor replied, shocked to realize he had no memories of his brother's death. "I had merely assumed –"

"It's not important now. When Fingon brought your brother back from Thangorodrim, I understand he was nearly dead. He was confined to bed for weeks; you had to feed him, bathe him, tend his wounds, even diaper him. And even after he could walk, he still needed a great deal of assistance, especially at first. What a chore helping him was! You must have resented it."

"That was different!" Maglor replied sharply.

"Why?" Olórin replied softly. "Because it was his pride that was humbled then, rather than yours?"

Maglor turned away, his face flushing and his heartburning with a mixture of indignation and shame. Olórin placed a hand on his shoulder. "That is the problem, is it not?"

Maglor made no answer.

"This is not a thing you can flee, Maglor son of Fëanor. Your mental limitations and your knowledge of them, and your shame in them are going to follow you wherever you go – even to Lórien, should you return there. Let go of your pride and your shame; they are hurting you, and hurting your family, far more than any of your other difficulties. I know it will be difficult, but it is not beyond your power. Have the courage to let your family love you, even broken as you are."

"You are saying that I should return home?" Maglor finally replied, turning back to face Olórin.

"I think you love your wife, and your mother, and your brother, and your grandfather, and that you would not be happy in the long run should you choose to live away from them," Olórin told him. "But where you go is your choice, in the end."

"After the way I treated them earlier, I do not know if they will want to take me back."

"You might be surprised at what a heartfelt apology can accomplish," Olórin said, smiling. "Come, I'll walk back with you. It's getting late."

The two walked silently side by side in the softly dappled shade of the forest for a long time before Maglor said, "I still do not recognize you, but from your words it is clear I am no stranger to you after all. Where and when did we meet?"

"In Lórien, during your recent stay there," Olórin replied. "I helped watch over you there, though you could not see me then, for I was unclothed."

"Our meeting today – it was no accident, was it?"

"No. Irmo arranged it. He has long been expecting this moment of decision."

They had reached the edge of the woods; ahead lay the road that would take Maglor back through the village to Mahtan's house. "My thanks for your wise words, Olórin. Please tell the lord Irmo I am grateful for his care of me," Maglor said, bowing slightly to Olórin.

"You may tell him that yourself tonight, in your dreams," Olórin replied, laughing. "Do you wish me to accompany you the rest of the way?"

"No. Some things a man must face alone," Maglor answered.

"Then fare well, son of Fëanor," Olórin replied. As Maglor watched, Olórin's body suddenly dissolved into mist and dissipated, leaving him standing under the trees alone. He sighed heavily, and started down the road to home.

*******

By sheer luck, the first person Maglor ran into when he arrived home was his brother, who was stacking wood in the fireplace when Maglor walked into the house. "Russandol, can I speak to you for a few moments?" Maglor asked. His brother gave him a cool glance, nodded warily, and got up onto his feet, setting the rest of the wood aside to deal with later.

"I need to apologize to you. To everyone," Maglor said. "I've treated you all horribly these past few weeks, and none of you have deserved any of it. Please forgive me."

"Apology accepted," Maedhros replied, allowing his expression to soften. He stepped closer to his younger brother and gently stroked Maglor's cheek. "I was wondering when you would finally get past it; frankly, I was beginning to despair."

"Get past what?" Maglor said, confused.

"Your anger at what has happened to you, filit. It was only to be expected – I remember how angry I felt at first, after I lost my hand – but it's made living with you damned difficult."

"I'm sorry," Maglor replied, not knowing what else to say.

"I know. You couldn't entirely help it, little brother. But that didn't make your behavior any less hurtful."

"It won't happen again."

"Oh yes, it will," Maedhros said softly. "Grief's not that easily mastered, filit. But I expect from this point on we'll see more tears and less anger, and that will be easier on all of us – you included."

"Promise me that if I do abuse any of you again, you'll call me on it," Maglor asked. "That you'll stop coddling me like a child. I am so tired of that."

Maedhros laughed. "Oh, I can safely say your free pass is over, brother. From now on we're going to expect you to act your age, instead of tiptoeing carefully around you while you rage and pout like a spoiled ten year old."

"Good," Maglor replied. "Russandol, may I ask you a question?"

"Of course."

"I'm ashamed to admit this, but I'd forgotten until now that you died after we stole the Silmarils from Eönwë. You went to Mandos, and were released – why don't you have your hand back?"

Maedhros sighed. "Do you remember, brother, when we first brought you back here, I told you that you'd learn that forgiving is not the same as forgetting?"

Maglor did not in fact remember that, but decided that admitting to that particular memory failure wasn't necessary at the moment. He nodded his head in affirmation.

"This," Maedhros said as he raised his right arm to display his stump to his brother, "was part of the price I had to pay in order to leave the Halls of the Dead."

"What!" Maglor was shocked. "I did not know Námo was capable of such cruelty –"

"Not cruelty, little brother – justice," Maedhros replied firmly. "As the head of our House after Father's death, the crimes of our House were my responsibility insofar as I made no attempt to stop them. Repent and atone though we may, those evil acts can never be undone, and their victims will never be entirely whole. Why, then, should I be whole? This is intended to serve as a reminder, to me and to others, that while the Valar have forgiven me for my crimes, they do not forget what I did."

"But –"

"Hush, little brother," Maedhros said firmly. "Remember – I consented to this. And it is just. Maglor, you have been so wrapped up in your own pain these past few weeks following your release from Lórien that you have not been able to see beyond your own suffering. Many of the Eldar despise us, with good cause. Once word of our deeds at Doriath and Sirion reached here, life became very difficult for Mother; some people blamed her for our actions, saying that the fault in us must have had its seeds in her raising of us. Our grandfather gave up his position with Aulë to come here with Mother to this backwater after I was released, to insure his grandchildren wouldn't starve; his work, and Mother's, is the only reason we have a roof over our heads. When Aurel told her parents she intended to resume her marriage with you, they broke off speaking to her, they were so angry. I hope in time things will improve, as we show our people we are truly repentant of our past deeds, but there is no guarantee that will happen. You are not the only one in this family in pain, filit. It would be good if you would try to remember that in the future."

"I will," Maglor promised. "Thank you, Russandol. Now if you'll excuse me, I have three more apologies I need to make – and one of them is going to need to be very abject indeed."

With that, Maglor left his brother to finish with the firewood, and set off in search of the rest of his family. He found his mother and grandfather working together in the kitchen preparing the evening meal; his grandfather accepted his apology coolly, while his mother's response, though quiet, was warmer. He asked about the whereabouts of his wife, and was told she'd not left their room all day.

Three down, he thought as he headed upstairs to speak with Aurel. One very big one left to go. Please let me find the right words!

When Maglor opened the door to their room, he saw his wife sitting in a chair next to the window, gazing fixedly out at the sunset. He walked quietly over to her side, and knelt down next to her so that he would be looking level at her rather than down at her, and placed his hand gently on top of hers. "Aurel, beloved, I am so sorry," he said to her softly. "I had absolutely no right to treat you that way."

"No, you did not," she replied, not looking at him.

"You have been more patient with me than I deserve, and more loving than I had any right to hope for after the way I abandoned you to go follow my father's folly, and you have given up more than I knew to come be with me, and in return I have repaid you with cruelty and bitterness, and all because I was too cowardly to come to terms with my own problems. I know I do not deserve you. But I would like to have another chance to make things right between us anyway. Will you give me one?"

"Yes – this time." She rose from her chair and turned to look down at her husband. "I won't lie to you, Káno. You have driven me to the limits of my patience. I think I will always love you, but right now I certainly do not like you. If things do not improve between us quickly, if you ever treat me again the way you treated me this morning – I will leave."

Pure fear surged through him, and for an instant Maglor was afraid his heart might stop. He slowly stood up, and fought to get the words out of a mouth gone suddenly dry. "I swear to you, Aurel – what happened this morning will never happen again."

"It had better not," she replied, but her voice was softer now.

Maglor put his arms around his wife and slowly drew her close. "It won't," he said to her, and bent his head down to place a gentle kiss on her lips. "I swore it, after all – and all Arda knows by now I keep my oaths. I can't promise you that I won't forget your face, or your name, or how we first met, or even that I'm married to you, but I can promise you I won't forget that."

"Káno," Aurel breathed as she laid her head against Maglor's chest. "There may be some hope for us yet."

*******

"So, it seems your wife has accepted your apology after all," Maedhros said laconically to Maglor when he spotted his brother later that day.

"Yes, she has," Maglor replied. "How did you know?"

"For one thing – you're still breathing," Maedhros said. "For another…" He paused dramatically, and gave his brother a sly grin.

"Yes?"

"Your bed creaks."

He dashed off before Maglor could properly retaliate.

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Chapter End Notes

I've taken a few liberties with the depictions of Maglor's mental problems here. The distractibility, difficulty concentrating, and difficulty with initiating tasks are indeed classic effects of lobotomy, but the memory problems are more typical of a temporal/parietal lobe injury. I figure Maglor may have gotten banged around a bit by some of those "strangers less than kind" during his later wanderings, and the resulting head injuries are the cause of most of his memory difficulties. Check out the Wikipedia article on "transient epileptic amnesia" for a better description of what's going on in his episode with Fingon.

Russandol ("Copper-Top") is a nickname Maedhros was given by his family, on account of his copper hair.

Hröa – "Body"

Filit – "Small bird." A childhood nickname my Maedhros gave to his brother Maglor.

Káno – A shortened form of Maglor's Quenya father-name Kanafinwë.