To Justify Your Existence by JazTheBard

Chapter

parts are inspired by starlightwalking's cool naming convention ideas

translations:
Cantëafinwë: fourth finwë
Elenyafinwë: star finwë
Firyafinwë: mortal finwë
Lairefinwë: summer finwë (inspired by that "kind as summer" line in The Hobbit)

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Maedhros leapt into the fiery chasm. He burned, and the world went dark.

When next he came to some sort of awareness, it was somewhere cool and dark, but not unpleasantly so. Rather, it was cool and dark in the way returning indoors after being in the summer sun is cool and dark: a welcome reprieve from heat and brightness. And it was quiet.

Maedhros realized that he no longer had a body, and instead was an ash-like, ragged fëa pulled roughly into elven shape. His right hand was still missing.

While he was preoccupied with his appearance (so much as anything could have an appearance, here), a towering figure appeared, and he knew it must be Námo.

"Welcome to the Halls of Mandos, Nelyafinwë," said the Doomsman, though he spoke no words. His meaning was simply planted in Maedhros's mind.

"What now?" asked Maedhros. He had no desire for pleasantries at the moment. "I was unsure I would even reach the Halls, tattered as my spirit is. Shall it be eternal imprisonment, then, or the darkness everlasting?" He could not deny that he hoped for the latter.

"Now, you shall see your family," said Námo. "Your family has missed you."

It dawned on Maedhros that his death had solved some problems, but it had created even more.

He was going to have to face his father.

A silent Maia led Maedhros to a door marked with his family's star and opened it. He went inside at the unspoken direction, and the door closed behind him.

Before Maedhros stood his father, whom he had not seen in six hundred years, and the five brothers he had failed to protect.

He felt like crying, though such a physical reaction was strange without a body. But what else could he do, faced with the people that he had led to their deaths, that he had disappointed? He would explain himself, they would tell him they did not want him anymore, he would be disowned, and then if he was lucky he would be imprisoned somewhere else or unmade.

Maedhros did not know what to say, as tears gathered in his eyes and he felt his family's displeased expressions bore into him. He gritted his teeth. It wasn't as if he did not deserve their scorn. He opened his mouth and looked at Fëanor to apologize for his failure.

What came out instead was "You have two more grandchildren."

That was not what he had meant to say.

Everyone stared at him in shock.

Fëanor broke the silence, incredulous. "Did you suddenly get married and have children between Ambarussa's deaths and your own? It has only been forty-nine years, neither Cantëafinwë nor their sibling could be adults yet!"

Ah, yes, Fëanor had long ago decreed that the eldest child's eldest child, and so on, would have to be named by the generation of Finwë they were, just as Maedhros had been Nelyafinwë. His eldest was required to be "fourth Finwë."

Maedhros would be stripped of his Finwë-name when he was disowned, but perhaps he could convince Fëanor to accept the children into the family. He had to; if they too were disowned for being the sons of a disappointment, they would have no one.

And of course everyone assumed they must be Maedhros's children, as Maglor's wife had died in the Bragollach.

"No, they are -- they are twins, and neither use the name Cantëafinwë. And they are adults; peredhil grow quicker than elves," he said, though none of this was exactly an explanation. Given the choice, he would have named them something else, even Elenyafinwë would have been better. Firyafinwë for Elros, perhaps, and Lairefinwë for Elrond.

"You married a mortal?" said Caranthir, scandalized. "I thought I was the family disappointment in that regard."

"What is it with peredhil and being twins?" muttered Amrod.

"No, they're not mine, not really," Maedhros hurried to clarify. "Maglor and I kidnapped Elwing's sons after she escaped, and later they decided we were their parents." Maglor was still alive and had not led every disastrous attempt at reclaiming the Silmarils, and was therefore not a failed and unsuitable son or brother. Elros and Elrond stood a better chance of approval with Maglor named as their father, though in truth they had shared the responsibility.

"Elwing escaped?" said Amras.

Maedhros looked away, unable to bear his gaze. He had brought his younger brothers into senseless slaughters and gotten them killed for nothing at all. "She jumped off a cliff wearing the Nauglamír, but Ulmo turned her into a bird and she flew away. We were expecting her or her husband to come back for the children, so we took them hostage. But instead they sailed to Aman with the Silmaril and begged the Valar for aid, and her husband now sails the skies wearing it as the Star of Hope."

His family stared at him in amazement. Celegorm gestured for him to continue.

Maedhros shrugged. "What were we supposed to do? Their parents were not returning for them, and we had grown attached. We adopted them. I suppose both of their names became Cantëafinwë after that, but their mother named them Elrond and Elros." Once he was disowned, Maglor would be the eldest, so the children could keep their Finwë-name, though they did not use it.

"And what did you do then?" said Curufin. "That cannot be all."

"The Host of the Valar came. They finally decided to do something about Morgoth. I gave my sons" -- no, he had meant to say Maglor's sons, this was far too important to misspeak a single word -- "to the care of Gil-Galad, so they might be safe. They were asked to choose if they wished to be elves or Men, and they chose differently."

His audience gasped, but Maedhros continued. "That damned Maia, Eönwë, recovered the other two Silmarils and refused to give them to us, saying instead that we must yield ourselves to the Valar's justice." His voice broke. "Maglor said we should turn ourselves in. I should have listened. We stole the Silmarils, and they burned us, just as they had burned Morgoth, for we had done so much evil."

"What happened to you, though?" asked Fëanor softly, reaching out as if to hold Maedhros's hand. Maedhros pulled away; he deserved no comfort, not when the entire situation was of his own making.

"What do you think I did?" he snapped. "If fire was to be my fate, then I would burn willingly. I threw myself into a great chasm of fire, Silmaril in hand."

There was silence.

"If you wish to express your disappointment in me, you may as well do it now," said Maedhros, sounding braver than he felt. "I have already failed all of you, and Maglor, and my children, and all I can say in my defense is that I cannot ever do so again. When you are done I shall ask Lord Námo to cast me to the Void, as I have not fulfilled the Oath and will not again hide from consequences. You shall not have to endure my presence long."

Silence again.

Maedhros nervously tried not to fidget. "Elrond chose elvenhood; he is the Head of House now. He will make you proud as I could not, please do not censure him for being my son, he will do better than I did, I promise. Elros is to be a king of Men, a better king than I ever would have been. When he -- when he dies, and passes through the Halls, tell him I am proud of him." Seeing the strange looks on the faces of his family, he backtracked. "You are right, do not tell him, he will not want the approval of someone like me."

Still no one spoke, and Maedhros could not interpret his father's and brothers' expressions.

"I understand," he said. "You have nothing to say to me, as I have failed you utterly. I shall go to Námo and ask to be wholly destroyed, and you will not be troubled by me again. But I beg you, do not take your hatred out on my sons. They are Maglor's, too, and he may still succeed in fulfilling the Oath, he has not yet failed, and the twins themselves will not be such a bitter disappointment as I was."

Fëanor looked as if he was about to speak. Maedhros closed his eyes so as not to face his rejection.

In fact, why not disown himself? He knew what was coming, and this would save time. "Henceforth it is six sons you have, not seven. But accept the children, for their sake, if not mine, they have no one else. They are your grandsons, do not disavow them, though I am no child of yours." He swallowed and turned back towards the door. "Goodbye. I am sorry."

He reached for the door handle, but a hand on his shoulder made him freeze. They cannot mean to injure me, he thought. None of us have a physical form. But if anyone could devise a way, it is my -- not my family, not anymore. I will accept this. I must accept this, whatever "this" turns out to be; it is not the part of the transgressor to choose the punishment.

Fëanor pulled Maedhros to his chest in a hug.

I shall not have to go to Námo after all. Father will set me alight and I will burn again to ashes, and he will be rid of his pathetic no-longer-son.

"Oh, Nelyafinwë," Fëanor murmured. "You do not disappoint me. I failed as a father to you, many times over, and if you believe I could ever hate you then I have failed again, for I did not tell you enough that I love you unconditionally."

As his brothers joined the embrace, surrounding him, Maedhros's mind whirled. "But I gave up the crown. And I could not defeat Morgoth, or regain the Silmarils, and I led you all into more kinslayings, and I got you killed, and I do not know what happened to Maglor--"

"And we do not blame you," said Fëanor. There were nods of agreement. "It was I who valued the Silmarils over all when I should not have, and led you to vow, in the very text of the Oath, to commit any number of kinslayings. I burned the ships and rejected the aid of my half-brother that might have helped us against Morgoth, you alone stood up to me."

"You were the one who noticed I was missing at Losgar, and ran into the fire to save me," said Amrod.

Fëanor continued, "And then I died, and left you parentless! You prevented a war by giving up the crown, how could I be disappointed?"

"But I--"

"Hush. Where was I? It was I that brought the Doom upon us which cursed your brave endeavors against the Enemy. The geas I laid drove you twice more to kinslaying, though you fought it."

"He's right," said Celegorm. "You forget that all of us were driven by the Oath, not just you, and that you held us back for as long as you possibly could."

Curufin picked up the thread. "Sometimes people die in battle. Sometimes it is people you care about. That is not the fault of anyone but fate."

"Not every tragedy of Arda Marred is on your hands, nor even on mine," said Fëanor. He pulled back to look at Maedhros, and raised his hand to cup his cheek. "My wonderful eldest son. You did the best you could, better than anyone could have expected, with the circumstances you were in."

Amras said gently, "You were the one who went after Eluréd and Elurín, remember? And you took care of these new twins, too, even though they are the children of your once-enemy."

"None of us even got close to regaining one Silmaril, but you and Maglor managed two," added Caranthir. "I do not think anyone would call that a failure."

"If only I had been better," said Fëanor. For the first time since the death of Finwë, Maedhros heard his father's voice break. "I might have saved you all much pain if I had been a better father, a better king. I wrought your deaths. If only I could turn back time and try again, but such things cannot be. But I love you, always, and you need not doubt that."

Maedhros broke down in tears.

He cried for what felt like hours (though time was a fickle thing in the Halls), mourning himself and his brothers and all of his regrets, as his family surrounded him with their fëar in comfort.

Eventually his sobs subsided.

Fëanor patted him on the back soothingly. “There now, my Nelyafinwë,” he said in the gentlest tone Maedhros could ever remember him using. “Will you tell me about your children? I have never met these grandsons of mine, and I would like to know of them.”

Maedhros took a deep breath and wiped his eyes, pulling away from the seven-person embrace to better see his brothers. He smiled. “Of course. Where to begin? As I said before, their names are Elrond and Elros...”

Perhaps he did not want to go to the Void after all. This could be good.