Nightmares by grey_gazania

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Nightmares

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Flames surrounded him, licking at the walls and billowing through the door, carrying with them blazing heat and choking smoke. Coughing, Elrond struggled to open the window above him, but the latch was too high for him to reach. He could hear someone, a woman, screaming his name, but the flames were getting hotter and the smoke was getting thicker. He was going to die here, trapped and alone–

 

Elrond awoke with a start, his heart pounding and tears stinging at his eyes. Beside him, Elros made a vague noise of discontent and rolled over in his sleep. There was no fire, no smoke, no screaming. This was Amon Ereb, and Elrond was safe in his own bed in the room he shared with his brother.

 

But his heart was still racing, his breath coming in ragged gasps, and he didn’t want to wake his twin. He climbed out of bed and pulled on a pair of socks, thinking that he would walk up and down the hall a few times until he had calmed himself enough to go back to sleep.

 

He could wake Maglor, he supposed, but he was ten years old, not a baby anymore. He would be embarrassed, asking to stay with Maglor for the rest of the night. So he let himself out of his bedroom, but didn’t knock on Maglor’s door, instead simply pacing the corridor from one end to the other.

 

Elrond could have sworn he made no more noise than the falling of a feather, but on his third pass through the hall, Maedhros’ door opened, and Elrond found himself under the scrutiny of Fëanor’s eldest son.

 

“Elrond?” Maedhros said, his voice carrying to Elrond’s ears and no further. “Are you all right?”

 

Elrond stopped in his tracks, looking up, up, up at Maedhros’ bright eyes. “I’m okay,” he whispered. “I just had a bad dream, and I didn’t want to wake Elros.”

 

Maedhros simply looked at him for a moment, and Elrond saw now that the man was still in his clothes from the previous day, as though he hadn’t yet gone to sleep, despite the fact that it was close to three in the morning. But Maedhros stepped into the hall, closed the door behind him, and took Elrond by the hand.

 

“Come with me,” he said.

 

He led Elrond through the corridor, down the stairs, and into the kitchen, where the hearth fire was still burning as it always did; it was the one flame in the keep that never went out. With a gesture, he motioned for Elrond to sit. He must have noticed, too, that Elrond had begun to shiver, because he retrieved his cloak from the hall and draped it over Elrond’s shoulders.

 

“It’s like wearing a tent,” Elrond said, surprising himself with a giggle.

 

“You might grow into it, eventually,” Maedhros said, now pouring a measure of milk into a saucepan. “Turgon had four inches on me. And Thingol was over nine feet tall.”

 

“Nine feet?” Elrond said, his eyes widening with incredulity.

 

Maedhros nodded. “So they say,” he said as he put the saucepan on the range to heat. “I never met him.”

 

Elrond wondered about Dior, his grandfather. Had he been tall, too? Maedhros would know. He might not have met Thingol, but he had met Dior – met him in battle. Elrond had heard the story as a small child, had heard how the Sons of Fëanor had attacked the hidden kingdom of Doriath, and how one of Maedhros and Maglor’s brothers had been slain by Dior.

 

But Elrond didn’t ask. Bringing up the Kinslayings only ever made Maedhros and Maglor melancholy, and Elrond didn’t think that he could deal with that tonight.

 

Silence fell, until the milk was heated and Maedhros had poured it into a mug and stirred in a spoonful of honey. Elrond accepted the hot drink gratefully, but was surprised when Maedhros sat down beside him in front of the crackling flames.

 

“Do you want to talk about your bad dream?” Maedhros asked.

 

Elrond thought about saying no, but there was such naked concern in Maedhros’ face that he found that he couldn’t refuse.

 

“There was fire,” he said quietly. “And screaming. I was trapped.” He took a gulp of milk and then, a little defensively, added, “I know I shouldn’t be upset by bad dreams anymore. I’m ten. I’m not a baby. But sometimes they’re scary.”

 

Maedhros raised his eyebrows. “What makes you think you’re too old for bad dreams?” he asked, now wrapping his arm around Elrond’s small shoulders. “Everyone has nightmares, Elrond. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. And you and Elros have been through things that would give anyone bad dreams.”

 

“Do you have nightmares?”

 

Maedhros nodded. “Yes,” he said softly. “Quite often.”

 

Impulsively, Elrond set his mug down on the table and half-clambered into Maedhros’ lap, resting his head against the man’s chest so that he could hear the steady thump of his heart. Maedhros held him close, stroking his hair with a comforting hand. After a few minutes of silence, he began to sing softly, a lilting Quenya tune about the stars. His voice was as rough singing as it was speaking, nothing at all like Maglor’s smooth, rich tones, but it was soothing nonetheless.

 

“Maedhros?” Here in the solitude of the secluded kitchen and the warmth of Maedhros’ arms, Elrond felt safe enough to ask something that he had long wondered.

 

“Yes, Elrond?” Maedhros said, still stroking Elrond’s hair.

 

“What happened to your hand?”

 

Maedhros fell still, and for a moment, Elrond thought he wouldn’t answer. But then, quietly, Maedhros said, “A very long time ago, when my family first arrived in Beleriand, Morgoth took me captive.”

 

“And he cut your hand off?” Elrond breathed, tilting his head up as a frisson of horror ran through him.

 

But Maedhros shook his head. “No,” he said. “He kept me as his prisoner, until he grew tired of– of dealing with me. Then he took me to the mountains outside Angband and chained me by the wrist to one of the cliffs. And he left me there for seven years.”

 

Elrond gaped up at Maedhros’ face. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but the man’s dark grey eyes seemed to be staring at something beyond the flames flickering in the hearth.

 

Still, he continued to speak. “Your grandmother Idril’s uncle,” he said, “my cousin Fingon, took it upon himself to rescue me.”

 

“King Fingon?” Elrond asked. “Gil-galad’s father?”

 

“Yes, though this was long before he became a father or a king.” Once more, Maedhros began to run his hand through Elrond’s hair. “He traveled north until he found me, but he couldn’t break open the shackle around my wrist. Morgoth had enchanted it. So Fingon cut me free. It was the only option open to him.”

 

He fell silent. Elrond sat frozen in his arms, unspeaking, and thought hard about Maedhros’ disturbing words. He knew that he and Elros were prisoners, at least in technical terms, but Maedhros and Maglor treated them more like family. It was a complicated situation, and sometimes confusing and upsetting, but Elrond knew, too, that despite their occasional harsh words, neither man would ever deliberately hurt the pair of them.

 

They would certainly never chain them to a cliff and leave them to suffer. And life at Amon Ereb was a far cry from the stories told of Morgoth’s ironbound hell.

 

“Fingon must have really loved you,” he finally said. He couldn’t imagine daring to travel to Angband alone for anyone but Elros.

 

“He did,” Maedhros said softly. “And I loved him. He was a good man – very kind and very brave. We suffered a great loss when he was killed.”

 

Somehow, Elrond thought that the loss Maedhros was referring to wasn’t the Noldor’s defeat in the Battle of Unnumbered Tears. Somehow he knew, too, that he shouldn’t say so.

 

“Why didn’t Maglor try to rescue you?” he asked instead. “Or one of your other brothers?”

 

Maedhros shook his head. “You’re not ready for that part yet,” he said, as though it was a story that he was telling Elrond rather than the events of his own past.

 

“Because I’m too young?” That was something Maglor often said when Elrond and Elros asked questions. But Elrond didn’t feel young. He’d seen his home in flames and his people killed, and he’d learned to live with -- and even love -- the men who had driven his mother to her death. Sometimes he felt very old indeed.

 

“Because you’re not ready,” Maedhros said.

 

Elrond frowned, but he didn’t press the question. Instead, cautiously, he reached out and placed his fingers against the scarred stump of Maedhros’ right arm. Maedhros stiffened, but he didn’t pull away.

 

“Does it hurt?” Elrond asked. He tried to imagine what it would be like to have Elros slice through his flesh and bones, and found that he couldn’t.

 

He tried to imagine what it would be like to have to maim his own brother, and found that he didn’t want to.

 

“Sometimes,” Maedhros said quietly, staring down at Elrond’s small fingers as they rested against his skin. Then he slowly pulled his arm away, wrapping it back around Elrond’s shoulders.

 

Once more Elrond nestled into the comfort of Maedhros’ embrace. It was almost funny, in a way, how safe he felt with the men who had taken him captive. But he knew in his bones that neither Maedhros nor Maglor would ever let any harm befall him or his twin. Here they were safe. Here they were loved.

 

Slowly, gently, sleep crept in on quiet feet and claimed him once more.