Many Journeys by Elleth

Allay Your Little Fears

The Union of Maedhros is decided in council, but not even Maedhros himself is without doubt. A vignette featuring Maedhros and Alphangil. 

"Then it is concluded. War shall he have, and hatred undying," Maedhros said grimly, but he smiled, and there was terror in that smile. "The council is dismissed."

Only three people remained in the chamber when all others had filed out - a feast awaited the Elves, the Dwarves, the Edain of Fingon's following and the new-come Men from the East who had allied themselves to Caranthir and Maedhros.

Maedhros slumped in his chair and rubbed a hand over his eyes. "I need some air. Will you walk with me?" he asked Fingon and Alphangil, but Fingon shook his head regretfully. "They expect me down at the feast. I will join you in your rooms after."

Dancing music began to play in the courtyard below the windows, and cheers followed as the council filed out. "If you can still find them then," Alphangil remarked with a half-smile. "I have seen how those Men of Dor-Lómin will drink you under the table, my love."

Fingon laughed. "Then if I do not join you, look for me under the tables in the courtyard."

The door clapped behind him, leaving Alphangil and Maedhros alone, and she crossed the room to the head of the table where Maedhros sat as Lord of Himring, with Fingon's empty chair beside him.

She came to stand behind Maedhros and wound her arms around his shoulders. "I am going to walk with you, if you allow it."

"I do," said Maedhros quietly and gratefully. Resting his hand on the small of her back, he steered her from the room and, instead of taking the grand stair down, led her through the halls of his home until they emerged onto Himring's northward ramparts, and from there turned their back to Anfauglith and Thangorodrim looming far closer than could be any comfort. A short distance away, the ramparts met a rock wall, and steps led down to a small, sunken garden, a copse of trees at its back, and a pond. They were hidden from the view toward - and gaze of, Alphangil could never shake the thought - Angband here, and Maedhros stopped by the water, breathing in deeply, but he could not hide how shaky his breaths were.

She stopped, concerned, touching his shoulders.

"What is it?"

"To evil end shall all things turn that begin well," Maedhros quoted, words that had long sown some dark fear in the back of her mind since she had first heard them. "My heart tells me that we have doomed ourselves - that I have doomed us, forging this Union." His voice was flat, cold and so afraid that Aphangil felt it pass through her like a birthing pang.

"Come to me," she said instead of replying, holding out her arms for him, and Maedhros entered into them desperately, leaning his face into her shoulder at first, until finally his knees gave out and he knelt on the grass before her, his face pressed into her chest, his right arm around her hips and his left reaching up to grasp her shoulder so hard that it hurt.

Alphangil bent down to kiss his wild hair and fought back the sudden rise of choking tears herself.

"We will live," she whispered. "Maedhros, we will live."

Chapter End Notes