Back at Amon Ereb by Aprilertuile

Back at Amon Ereb

This story follows my story titled : Leaving Sirion

Read Back at Amon Ereb

It took them a while, traveling more carefully coming back to the fortress than leaving it, but they were finally back to Amon Ereb. The fortress of their now deceased little brothers.

Entering the place, it hit him all that much that neither of his brothers would ever come back. That out of his 6 brothers, only Maglor was still there.

And yet, amidst his renewed grief at the fresh loss of the twins, Maedhros could feel the eyes of at least one of the half-elven kids on him, making him uneasy.

He steeled his resolved and turned toward his brother:

"I'll see with your seneschal of the current situation of the fortress, you can take care of your living blackmail material.

-They're not matching bookends, brother, stop treating them like object. Maglor snapped annoyed.

-They're not guests either, as far as I'm concerned. You prefer for me to arrange a place for them in our cells?

-I'll take care of them.

-That's what I thought. Lead them to the baths while you're at it, and find them clothing that fits. I'll arrange with our cooks to have food prepared for them.

-Don't forget that they need food thrice a day brother. Arrange for regular meals to be sent to them. Maglor warned.

-As much as possible yes, indeed. And keep Erestor with you. One can never know when backup might be useful."

Maglor sighed but dismounted and left with the children, leaving the fortress and their people in the capable hands of his brother.

"He was crying inside. One of the children, Elrond? Elros? whichever of them it was, said.

-Ah... El...

-Elrond."

At that, the second child threw such a look at his brother that Maglor doubted of the veracity of the fact but...

"Elrond then... You need to stop that.

-Stop what?

-Reading my brother's mind.

-I wasn't.

-You said he was crying inside.

-Yes. Because he was.

-That's reading his mind.

-Not his mind. His emotions. Mother said it wasn't the same. The mind is logic and the heart is emotions. We were reading his heart. And we can't help it, his emotions hurt." Protested the second child. Elros? Elrond?

That... Might complicate things tremendously.

Maglor led children to the bath and sent for a servant to prepare a room near his own, and to find children clothing.

"Why did he say he'd let us die if we ran away when his heart said he was afraid?

-Because long ago we... We... That is... Look... What we did to your home... We did it once before. Well twice but that's not relevant to your question.

-Why?

-Because. So we did it once before. And from that place we attacked, there were twin children and... Some people took them to a forest to abandon them to die, and Maedhros tried to find them, but he couldn't.

-Why?

-Because he was injured and it was very cold, and there were other dangers, and if he had stayed he'd have died himself, and because he found no traces after a very long time searching and there was no point. The children couldn't be still alive after so many hours in the cold and with the predators around."

And he would not say he had thought his brother dead by the time he came back, but nothing stopped him from thinking it loudly.

"Why did you attack our home?" Asked the twins in one voice.

Maglor winced at that question. It was bound to arrive and he knew it but...

"Because your mother had a jewel we swore to retrieve.

-Why would you swear to steal a jewel from mother? You could have gotten another.

-He means the stone, Elrond. Elros noted with a glare.

-We didn't like the stone. Elrond noted.

-Mom liked it too much.

-She was always angry when we bothered her...

-When she had the stone.

-Why would you want it?

-It's dull.

-It's just a stone.

-It's bright but there's other lights.

-And they don't make people angry.

-You can't even play with that stone.

-Or use it to read.

-It's just silly."

Maglor blinked. He had lost track of which twins said what. He heard Erestor mutter something along the line of getting a headache, and he could only empathize there.

"The stones... The stones were made by my father. The... Long story short is that Morgoth killed our grand-father, and stole the stones. Then we swore to take revenge and as a symbol of that revenge, we swore to take the stones back. And then later, your great-grand-mother came and stole one of the stones from Morgoth. Our oath needs to be completed, and...

-It's silly. Mother says that revenge is a bad thing and that if I take revenge on Elros when he steals my books then he can take revenge on me for the revenge and then I'll take revenge for his revenge of my revenge and it'll never end and it's better to forgive and find other toys to play with or books to read."

Maglor winced at that.

Basic parental lesson from every parent who had more than one child, indeed.

"Your mother was very wise, and we should have listened to her then. But now it's too late. We said the oath, we have to complete it.

-Why?

-Because oaths are sacred, and one should *never* say an oath and not complete it. Maglor answered.

-Actually, if I may, one should never swear an oath, at all! Erestor intervened firmly.

-That too."

Maglor was looking vaguely sheepish at the look the younger elf was throwing at him.

"Will mother come back?

-I... hope.

-You think she'd take us back if it means she has to give up the stone? She really, really likes it. One of the children asked anxiously.

-She loves you, right?"

The children looked at each other and nodded shakily.

"Then she'll give up the stone if it means getting you back.

-I don't think that'll happen.

-It will, I'm sure it will."

The twins exchanged a look at that and one of them looked resolutely down.

Yes, Maglor really needed a way to distinguish them the way he used to distinguish his own brothers or there'd be troubles later on.

Once the children had enough of the water and looked like actual children instead of grim and mud monsters, Maglor and Erestor took them out of the bath and into a pair of fluffy towels and then overlarge tunics for the moment.

Better clothing would come soon.

A servant led them to the room that had been arranged, and the twins started to look around the room.

"It's very red.

-And high. Do you think we can fly?

-I'd rather you don't try. Maglor told them firmly.

-Mom did.

-Your mother had something you don't have. Did you ever change into birds?

-... No?

-Then please, don't try by jumping out the window. Try changing forms here in the room if you must.

-What if we can only change when we're already flying, like mother did?

-That's not flying, that's falling." Maglor corrected with vivid images of the children trying anyway coming to his mind, and promising himself to fix the windows as soon as possible.

Would he be the first elf ever to die from a stress induced heart failure? He wondered a moment.

Soon, someone came with food for the children and Maglor wondered if it wouldn't be better to get them to the dining room just so someone could come and condemn the windows. Just for his peace of mind.

"Actually, thank you for coming, but they'll eat with us in the dining room for today.

-In those clothes, my lord?

-..."

Maglor weighed the situation, his soaked travel clothing, the children tunics for all cloth, considered carefully his brother's probable reaction, and nodded firmly.

"Yes, in those clothes, it won't kill us, and they need to see something else than the room. Come on, children, Erestor, please, take the plates to the dining room."

Maglor used Osanwë, even though he knew most of the people here hated when he did that, to ask the suddenly extremely unhappy servant to fetch someone to condemn the room's windows before the children came back from the meal.

Maedhros glared at him when they arrived, though he rejected Maglor's tentative to use osanwë with him to explain the situation.

Well then, Maglor elected to ignore his brother's obvious bad mood and to keep the children busy for as long as possible eating a soup and a piece of bread, and that despite the heavy presence of his brother that the twins feared still.

It's terrible the speed at which a single soup and piece of bread could be eaten. He had never noticed that before, but really that was certainly not healthy to eat that quickly right?

He only relaxed when the servant came to tell him the arrangement had been completed and the room was ready.

Then, and only then, he took the children back to their room...

"Children, I have something to do this afternoon, I'm going to lock the door, do not try to leave the room please, there will be guards and I'd rather avoid problems if we can. Can you do that?"

One of the children, that Maglor thought might have been Elrond nodded silently.

He relaxed and left the room, locked it and left a couple of guards in front of it, before joining his brother in their office.

"Why were they there?

-Because there was talk of them trying to fly like their mother and I needed to keep them out of the room so someone could come and condemn the windows."

Maedhros was going to answer to that but the same grimace that Maglor had when he contemplated the idea, suddenly adorned his traits.

Neither of them lacked imagination when it came to finding broken lifeless bodies somewhere.

"Right... Fair enough. This time.

-They can feel your emotions. Our emotions that is. Maglor noted.

-Keep those things. Away. From me.

-Maedhros...

-Do you know who else could feel my emotions without any type of familial bound with me? His name was Gorthaur. Rings any bell?

-Fingon and Galadriel could also do it. Maglor protested.

-Only because we were cousins. Last I checked, I had no ties of kinship with those two.

-Eärendil...

-Maglor.

-Just saying.

-You're never just saying anything and you know what I meant, so stop acting stupid, it doesn't suit you."

They stood there, glaring at one another for a moment, before Maglor took a deep breath and forced himself to relax.

"They asked why we attacked the haven of Sirion.

-Because their mother was stupidly stubborn, a thief, child of thieves, and our brothers were tortured by the oath until they gave in, that's why.

-Sure, keep telling yourself that, brother mine, one day you might even manage to convince yourself." Maglor sighed.

Maedhros threw his glass of wine at the wall near Maglor who didn't even bother reacting to it.

"Speak clearly, brother. I'm getting tired of your riddles.

-You know as well as I do that they wanted to act on the oath not for themselves but for us. That it's our fault if they died in that pointless attack. Be honest with yourself if not with me. You and I, we were losing our minds. They weren't. It’s for us that they came up with that scheme." Maglor said with a tired sigh.

The bottle of wine followed the glass to the nearest wall.

"Shut up!" Maedhros snapped.

Silence fell between the brothers for a moment until:

"You were right. Taking the children was a bad idea. Maglor said sadly.

-Too late to do anything about it without losing people pointlessly.

-I thought I could do it. Not be a monster I mean.

-Oh please, they're not the agent of your... What, redemption?

-I merely hoped we could spare a life for once. Just. Once. 

-Congratulation, they're spared.

-And they're stuck with us.

-I could arrange...

-Oh shut up with your senseless threats, we both know you wouldn't kill them in cold blood without a very good reason.

-The fortress being surrounded by Morgoth's creatures sounds like a pretty good reason to me."

Maglor tilted his head toward the map on Maedhros' desk.

"What did Belliar say?"

Maedhros summarized the situation, the approach of several types of creatures on the territory of Amon Ereb and the number of their warriors that meant that they couldn't keep the place quite as secure as they could have hoped.

"Ok... Let's keep mercy killing our people and the kids as a very last resort. Maglor said with a wince.

-I'm not about to order a suicide spree if that's what you mean. Maedhros answered wryly.

-I think... If we can drive the orcs and wargs toward the spider territory it'll settle half our problem for us. Maglor offered finally.

-Easier said than done.

-I hate to say it... But not if we start a forest fire here, here and there."

Maedhros looked at the map thoughtfully.

"Well... That's a solution. Let's not start a fire right now lest it destroys the fortress too, with our luck. Still I'll keep that plan at hand just in case."

Maglor snorted a tired laugh.

“To evil end shall all things turn that they begin well. He quoted, his voice taking a strange vibration.

-Maglor.

-Hm?

-Don't fall into one of your fey moods now of all time. There's children here remember.

-Ah! That's rich that you'd use the kids now.

-They're here, they're using precious resources, and they're going to be a useless strain on us. If they can be useful for something at least..." Maedhros answered with a careless shrug.

Silence fell between them again, Maglor was frowning, though he wasn't entirely unhappy at the turn of their conversation. 

Maglor went to take care to pick up the shattered glass thrown by Maedhros, while his brother was still working over the map, just in case... 

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Chapter End Notes

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