Red Crow by Lferion

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They came to him in panoply, in blithe expectation of success. Under the louring sky armor and banners stood out like illuminations in a manuscript. A trumpet rang out as the foremost knight, dressed in blue and grey and silver, white plumes to his helmet, dismounted and strode to his door. As if he were not a ghost, a figment of their imagination. They had obviously not consulted Fingon. Or Elwing. Or for that matter the words to be found in any reference to public law and conduct: Elwing Dioriel’s Judgement on the Fëanorians, as Laid Upon Maedhros Nelyafinwe Feanorion and Witnessed by Manwë Sulimo in Year 12 of the Fourth Age. (This was what, the Ninth?)

“Never set foot in Tirion again. Never make another speech. Never take on another follower. No warriors, no scholars, no smiths. Not even a servant. If any [young] fool make pilgrimage to your door, sic your hounds on them. For the lifetime of Arda.” From Wings of White and Silver-Grey by Idrils_Scribe

“Take up your sword!” they cried, lines straight out of some verse epic, “Lead us against the forces of darkness that gather!”

He frowned at them, glittering on the flagstone courtyard he and Fingon had laid several Ages ago one autumn. He did not have a sword. Had not, since stumbling off Vingilot, jetsam out of the Void. He had an axe, an adze, a hunting bow and knife. Tools, not weapons. (Though well he knew a tool could be a weapon. That was not what these painted knights meant.)

Fingon was not with him this season. Elrond he would not see for even longer. No sending these bright warriors away with explanations or anything else, as Fingon was skilled at doing. Moved by the sheer weight of authority behind the clear and simple words Elrond would employ. He kept no hounds, and would not so use them an he did. The world not yet ended, weary though it be.

He had only his red crow’s harsh caw, “No.”

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“He will not, Lady. The only word he spoke was ‘No,’ whereupon he shut the door and answered no entreaty. When we returned the following day, he was not there, and this was pinned to the door,” the white-plumed warrior placed the single sheet of paper before her. Distinctive, painfully precise Tengwar gave her own words of judgement back to her, followed by a single line:

Arda not yet ended.

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Somehow, they had gotten themselves lost. Sea-lost. Storm-lost. All around Voronwe's small ship the water was like glass, hardly a ripple to rock the hull. The sky the color of gull wings, too thick to see the sun. The squall had blown up around them, batting them back and forth, round and round, until they were all soaked and dizzy and bruised. Then nothing but flat grey-white sky, flat grey-green sea. Were Osse and Uinen and their kin making a game of them? Elwing could not imagine why, but that there was some intended purpose to this was even less comforting a thought. People were expecting them. People would worry did they not return within a reasonable period. Celebrian would worry, Elrond having come with Elwing on this trip. She disliked making Celebrian worry.

Her wings itched at her shoulder blades. She thought of the great painted screen Olwe had gifted Elrond, to stand before the main hearth in the Great Hall -- Hall of Fire, as both he and Celebrian called it, though apparently little like its namesake in Imladris -- when no fires burned. Alqualonde and the near seas as they had been in star- and Tree-light, when she and Earendil had brought the Silmaril, in sunlight, and now, after the changing of the world. A beautiful thing, painted in exquisite detail, careful as a map.

It was a map. Three maps, drawn no doubt by Eonwe for the first, and Earendil for the other two. She could clearly see the third panel in her mind's eye. All she had to do was see where they were. She pulled off her mantel and let her wings manifest. Up she lept, catching the air, feeling the tug of currents as she flew higher. Familiar currents.

She circled above the ship, aware of Voronwe and Elrond's distant faces, their attention, the ship like an ink drawing on the silk ocean of the screen. There. That pair of islands like clasping hands, and there, the three dancing sisters. She knew precisely where they were. She called out, a piercing cry, and circled the ship again. Already Voronwe was was directing the oar deployment. Soon enough they were ready to follow her. As she stretched and tilted her wings, she could hear the steady, jaunty beat of Fly, Seagulls Fly, as the crew began steadily to row, the ship to move.

Home before sunset.

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Dear Atya,

Per your last -- My mother chooses not to know I write, both to you and Fingon. I choose not to make it obvious to her, but not a secret. Celebrian does know, but neither reads nor speaks of them. In any wise, you need not worry that our correspondence will be hindered, or be held against any of us.

On a happier note, I have located -- or rather Súriquessë did most of the actual searching -- all the volumes of Cemendur Oroman's "Cultivation and Husbandry at Higher Altitudes" including the separate appendix on dyestuffs, inks, paints and paper. I will send the appendix with this letter, since it is already copied and properly listed in the catalogue now. The rest will come later. Do not protest you should not have scholarly books of this sort. It is scholars, not their scholarship at issue. The bound single signature I think you will recognize, and appreciate. I certainly enjoyed putting it together for you.

Voronwe reports, and I can confirm, that the Ennor Seafarer's Guild has opened unrestricted membership to all who lived in Ennor, regardless of other status, do they meet guild requirements and agree to guild rules.

Love,
Elrond

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You are cruel, Lady
In your tower of white ice
Gulls, eagles witness

See where the cold sea crashes
Foam flies up from unyielding rock

Yet red lichen clings fast
Salt wet, sun burnt, moon and star
Shine on stubborn life

Are we waves, leaping, rolling
Washing ever-endless shores unceasing?

Lightning glass from sand
Blossoms after storms of Ulmo's wrath
Meet Manwë's whirling winds

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Fingon capped his brush-pen, and gently sanded the dense, angular calligraphy. Maedhros liked solving textual puzzles. Fingon enjoyed making them. Letters were one of the few things they could do. Read, of course, by many eyes, searched for any sign of -- what? Rebellion? Discontent? Suspicious happiness? Fingon had no idea what they thought they were looking for in the formal, archaic shapes, the verses shaped by rules suggested long before the sun. There were no secret messages: Fingon's heart had always been transparent. Beginning a new poem, continuing an old --it was the exchange that mattered, the connection, however attenuated.

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They delivered the letters punctiliously. To do less would be beneath them. If Kinslayers chose to write to one another, their letters would be treated the same as those of lawful, decent folk. For the letter's sake, and the proper duty of one entrusted with the post. Maedhros had been given that statement once, in answer to a quirk of his eyebrows, so far as he could tell, since he had not actually said anything to the youth handing him the lettercase. It was very nearly funny in a way. Fingon felt the strictures and restraints more keenly, being required to interact with people being oh so perfectly, impenetrably polite three quarters of the year.

One season, every other year, they had together. Between times, they had letters. Letters of commonplaces, elaborate handwriting, and a long-running series of back and forth poetry. It was an improvement on Beleriand, a more regular exchange than anyone had managed between Himring and Barad Eithel or Dor Lomin. It was much, much better than the Void.

No letters in the Void. He took the newest letter to the desk, the writing set Fingon had made him in pride of place, to peruse it properly.

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Summer breezes cool the flush of need
To seek the sun in upward thrust

In shade repose neath leaves
Edged in gold, filled with living green
A bower, unremarkable

Bower birds might nest among stout trees
Raise chicks to fly away, mayhap return

Roots and rocks reach out
The river path awaits beloved feet
In shifting, dappled moonlight

Stars observe the daisies, set in green
Roots entwined together, soft petals touch

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At present, there was only one bed in Maedhros's small house. He - they - had plans for more: for Elrond and Celebrian, should they choose to travel to him at some point; in hope of brothers, perhaps someday; for Nerdanel; in the unlikely but not impossible event of formal visitation too long to be conducted on the porch, the courtyard he had mentioned once to Fingon, that was now a detailed plan and a large pile of suitable stone awaiting their hands. Their major building project for the autumn. They would start in the morning.

Eventually, there would be a room -- several rooms, a suite -- entirely for Fingon's use and comfort. It might even have a bed also, a decorative, practical element amid the long lines and subtle geometries of shape and space and color that Fingon liked. That room would not exist until Maedhros knew he would be able to build it properly, to a standard he considered sufficient. It was slow, and time-consuming, building - making - doing everything himself when Fingon was not here, but he had nothing but time, now.

An Age of abasement, apology, reparation, restitution. At the mercy of a great many people who firmly believed he deserved no mercy. As, indeed, he believed himself, though Elrond emphatically did not. Nor did Fingon. Their mercy, like their love, their forgiveness, was a gift they freely gave him, irrelevant to desert, or expectation, or anything else. As his love for them was given. None of that applied to those he had wronged who had not chosen mercy, but justice as they saw it. Just deserts. The third time he had been deposited back on Elrond's doorstep injured (but not bleeding), consciousness fled (but in no danger of dying) Elrond had laid down the law as to what was and was not reparation or restitution. Lady Elwing had backed him up, if only to save Elrond the trouble of putting him back together repeatedly. Or renew the possibility of anyone seeing him as a martyr.

It was several yeni since he had apologized to the last person on the list, who, contrary to expectation, had been both forgiving and kind, They had not minded when Maedhros had wept unstoppably for an hour, but had handed him a large linen napkin, put a blanket over his shoulders, and let him be, until the storm passed and Maedhros could appreciate the soft rug under his knees, the pleasant proportions of the room, the rain-and-gardenia scented breeze coming in through the wide thrown windows. He had left that house with a fresh gourd of water and a leaf-wrapped packed of new bread, not yet believing the task was done.

It had been no hardship to follow Elwing's instructions completely, fleeing to the mountains as far as possible from the shore, Tirion, Valmar, even Formenos, stopping near the edge of reasonable habitability, within a day's walk to a small hamlet and the thread of a path that had led him here. There were a few people he wanted to be able to find him, the mail service not the least.

It was quiet here. Beautiful in some of the ways Himring had been beautiful, if with rather more trees, and considerably less ice. A woodcutter's son in a fable, hair like the fallen leaves of autumn. It had grown back to a good length -- Fingon liked braiding it, and Maedhros had always enjoyed Fingon's hands in his hair.

Here it was the beginning of Autumn, and his loved-and-beloved was in the one bed in the house with him. One season out of eight. Fingon's situation was much more complicated than his, and the Lady Elwing was not his Queen, though the Council of Queens acknowledged her right and judgement in the matter of the Feanorians. Fingon was not a Feanorian, only married to one, and he had been long dead by the time Elwing was born. Other people had prior claim on him. Claims that required he speak and teach, reside in Tirion, attend upon the court as recorder and clerk, being seen to be princely and royal and properly respectful of his place and responsibilities and the grace of the Council who allowed him those perquisites. He had pleasant rooms, nice clothes, appropriate jewelry, a harp to play, a horse to ride, a body-servant who adored their job, a workroom for crafting, respect in the sparring ring, the archery butts, a place in the Hunt. One season in eight in Alqualonde, under the direction of Olwe's Queen, condition of being allowed to Return. With the Return of his spouse, entirely unlooked for, it had been eventually hammered out that spousal right required they be allowed time together, Maedhros, by Elwing's Judgement, could not come to or be in or even near Tirion, where Fingon's responsibilities (his choke-chain, as some called it) lay. Therefore, Fingon must be allowed to go to Maedhros. One season out of eight was agreed as technically fulfilling spousal right. And they could write to each other as much and as often as they liked. Unsealed letters, naturally.

Fingon had tucked himself tightly to Maedhros' side, head resting in the hollow of his shoulder, one hand curled around a hipbone like a rope in a blizzard. He would relax in a day or two, but Maedhros had never minded being Fingon's pillow and safe place. As Fingon was his.

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You lie beside me love, in this our bed
However many nights I lie alone
And over me I see your black hair spread
A comfort and a promise nightly shone
Our love is not for others to condone
But Eru's only -- our commitment made
Beside that long-drowned lake, hearts unafraid
I chose my friend - I did not wed a prince
My love you are, my firm foundation laid
My solace and my shelter known long since

Change black to red, and every word here writ
Is true for me as well, most definite.

-- Couplet added in Fingon's distinctive hand

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