Who Told Me Time Would Ease Me by sabcatt

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Turning

A reversal of fortunes, or something like that.

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After the Siege is broken, Maedhros with his short hair is no longer an oddity. Everyone, it seems, has someone to mourn. Maybe short hair will remain in fashion after this, he thinks almost hysterically; but Noldo memories are long, even when their hair is not. In ten years, twenty, he will be strange again; one is meant to let the grief fade as the hair grows. He is the only elf to have refused that healing in the centuries the Noldor have been in Beleriand, and he will continue to do so until—something. The Enemy’s defeat, his own death, or perhaps the breaking of the world. (Continued grief alone is not his reason—but let them think it so. He cannot be rid of this weakness, but neither will he admit it. To anyone.)

He has held Himring, and he takes no small amount of grim pride in that, but it is not enough. Not enough to ease his fears for Caranthir and Amras, away south in a fortress that was never meant to stand on the front line against the Enemy’s armies; not enough to console Maglor, whose command took more damage than any other, whose voice still hasn’t fully recovered from the smoke, even a year after the fall of the Gap.

Not enough to hold Fingolfin back from a (stupid, suicidal) charge to the Enemy’s gates. Not enough to save his cousin from this worst of griefs.

He rides alone for Barad Eithel the moment he hears of the challenge—there is no need to wait for word of the King’s death. It will come. He leaves Maglor in command with instructions to inform any messenger who brings summons for him that he’s already gone, to hold the fort in his absence, and to heal.

(This last, he knows, is probably the most futile of any order he’s ever given. But for all that words are cheap in war, they are also the only comfort he can give.)

And of words, cheap and otherwise, he will soon speak many. He will swear to serve Fingon with his whole heart, which will be true, and swear that his brothers will do the same, which will be a lie. He will linger in Barad Eithel only long enough to receive new orders for himself, his brothers, and all those they command. He will ride back to Himring with the knowledge that Findekáno, his little cousin, is well-equipped to rule a people that he never should have had to lead, and then he will continue the work of safeguarding the northern marches and piecing his first little brother back together. This is the best outcome he can imagine, so it is the only one he allows himself to consider.

The mood when he arrives at Eithel Sirion is somber. He finds himself rushed through the gates and guided swiftly to rooms set aside for him, is told to make himself comfortable, but his Highness would like to see him at his earliest convenience. He sheds his travelling equipment into a pile on the floor without ceremony and turns expectantly to his escort.

“Take me to my cousin.”
 

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Fingon looks miserable. Not overtly, but Maedhros has spent enough time hiding his own heartache behind an air of command that he can recognize the same look on his cousin’s face.

“Maedhros. Come in.”

Maedhros moves from the threshold to the center of the chamber. Fingon is standing before a desk at the side of the room. The desk is covered in papers, parchments and other debris, the minutiae of ruling mixed with the dross of everyday life; and somewhere in there lie the forms and documents required to finalize the former King’s death, like venomous snakes among dead leaves.

“There is so much to do,” Fingon murmurs, glancing between Maedhros and the desk.

“Yes,” Maedhros agrees. “And there will be time in which to do it. I have not yet prepared my reports for you, for I rode out as soon as I heard. We may speak of business tomorrow. Today, allow me to comfort my cousin.”

Fingon turns to face him fully. “Yes. Very well. Join me?” He gestures to a day-couch in an adjoining room.

Maedhros sits at the very edge of the couch; Fingon seats himself right next to him, leaning into Maedhros’ shoulder. Together in silence, they breathe.

“I must cut my hair,” Fingon finally says.

Maedhros hums in vague agreement. Eternal shine the lamps that illuminate the stage of political theater, and Fingon probably mourns his father in truth as well. It will be a shame; Fingon’s hair is as much a part of him as Maglor’s voice is to his brother. But then, Maglor could not speak for two weeks after the taking of the Gap, and at least cutting his hair won’t hurt Fingon.

“Will you do it? For me?”

No. No. Maedhros wants to run, suddenly, wants to stand up and leave, wants to ride back to Himring and maybe further, east over the mountains until he does not have to think. This is not—is not—there is no reason to panic, yet he feels like Fingon has just asked him to cut his throat, not his hair. Everything about this is wrong.

He keeps breathing, even as his heart stutters. “Surely—I cannot be the best choice. You do not want a Fëanorion to help you mourn the father our father abandoned.”

“I want my cousin!”

The sudden volume does not make him flinch. The anger in Fingon’s eyes comes close.

“Both our fathers are dead, Maedhros. We are not them. You have never hated me on your father’s behalf and I have never hated thee, at least not for any actions but thine own.

“If you do not wish to help me cut my hair, if you, my oldest cousin and the eldest of our house still living in Beleriand, will not aid me as I request, then say so. Because I will not hear your excuses couched in concern for what other people might think—you have never cared for the opinions of others so much as you pretend to, and I would rather you deny me outright than lie to me like I’m still a child!”

Maedhros closes his eyes briefly and tilts his head downwards to bump against Fingon. He takes Fingon’s hand in his own. (He never feels the loss of his right hand so acutely as when he tries to comfort his family, and falls short.)

“I am sorry. It is not that I do not want to help you. I know well the pain you feel right now, and it is my dearest wish that I could ease even the smallest part of it. I only… wonder that you should want my help.”

“And why shouldn’t I? I know you of old, you who have bandaged my scrapes as a child and my wounds as an adult; I have no objection to you tending to injuries of my fëa as well. And besides I have no father to guide me, and I fear to do something wrong if I proceed on my own. I have never cut my hair before.”

“Never?”

“We couldn’t—on the Ice. We lost many, but it wasn’t—wise.”

Fingon’s eyes are shining. Maedhros did not see if he ever looked this vulnerable, after the Ice, after Elenwë and Arakáno and the hundreds of other deaths that they’d faced. By the time Maedhros was aware enough to apprehend anything, Fingon had clearly decided to put on the familiar affect of valour, and never let Maedhros, in his fragile state, see any demonstration of the doubts or fears that must have assailed him.

“And after—Arakáno, it still was not… it did not occur to us. Not after so long.”

“I am sorry.”

Fingon giggles hysterically. “Sorry! Well! Sorry you were not there to remind me of the noble customs of the Noldor? I accept your apology; and you may make it up to me now. Only please take more care with my hair than you do with your own. I understand why you do as you do, even if I do not agree—oh, do not look like that! It is no secret you think yourself ugly, and it is no secret to anyone but you that most of our people still find you fair beyond all justice. But never mind—now is not the time to dredge up old arguments. So?”

There is still something pressing outwards in Maedhros’ chest, still something saying that cutting Fingon’s hair will hurt him as it hurts Maedhros, will hurt them both, but his cousin is looking at him with an unguarded and sincere hope he hasn’t seen in centuries, and it’s not so difficult to say yes.
 

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After Fingon’s hair is unbraided, and carefully cut, and re-braided to his satisfaction, they return to the day-couch. Fingon is freer with himself now, as though cutting his hair helped him shed some greater weight, and he stretches his legs out along the couch, leaning his torso into Maedhros’ lap, running his hands along Maedhros’ arms and occasionally rearranging the both of them altogether.

“We match now,” Fingon says. “Short hair. No fathers. Dead younger brother. Perhaps we should start a society.”

Maedhros cannot help but snort at that. Fingon’s words are impolitic, yes, but still funny. If they cannot laugh at tragedy, they will laugh at nothing. And laughter is so very necessary, in the midst of all they face.

Fingon’s tone turns from light to pensive. “Why did he leave like that? Against Morgoth, he had to have known—Did he not love us enough to stay?” And Maedhros can hear the unspoken question underneath: with Turko and Írissë gone, was I not enough to stay for? Why wasn’t I enough?

And—here—again—

If Maedhros were a better liar, a better cousin, a better friend—if he had not lost his own father so soon after his father had killed (however accidentally) his own brother—he would say something reassuring, something Fingon would be heartened to hear, something like yes, of course he loved you, it was for the love he bore you and all his people that he chose to ride against the Enemy.

But Maedhros is not a better anything, is not even good, and moreover he is tired, so instead he says, with the unhealed sorrow of centuries behind it: “I do not know why they leave us. Only that they do.”

Fingon sobs, twists, and presses his face into Maedhros’ chest, arms wrapping around and pulling tight so that Maedhros can feel the press of Fingon’s brow against his breastbone. This lapful of sobbing cousin is almost reminiscent of Valinor, yet… so much has changed.

His hand flutters uselessly behind Fingon’s head. He holds there, unable to decide whether he should offer his cousin a touch of comfort when Fingon leans back again, bumping his head against Maedhros’ indecisive hand.

Maedhros moves to withdraw, but Fingon catches his hand without looking, pulls it in front of his face and presses his lips to it.

There are still tears running down his cheeks. Maedhros imagines pressing his own lips to the wet tracks, kissing away his cousin’s sorrow, and hates himself for thinking that in this moment, Fingon is a beautiful, shining thing that he could hold and keep forever.

“I only wish…” Fingon trails off, looks down, then looks up again. “I only wish we might know when our cup of sorrow was drained in full. I do not regret cutting my hair for my father; indeed I feel much relieved, yet I fear—I fear that having done so will invite only more sorrows. Please do not think me cruel for saying it, but thine hair has been short for centuries—dost not thou ever fear that thou hast brought this never-ending tragedy upon thyself with thy show of mourning, as though the sign of one misfortune may call forth others?”

Maedhros sighs. “Oh, Finno.” His sweet cousin deserves better—but so did Amrod, and Arakáno, and Elenwë and Itarillë, and the list goes on and on of people he will never be able to make this confession to. Fingon deserves a better life, a better world—but those are idle daydreams, not to be, and in this world, he deserves to know the truth about Maedhros. So long as Maedhros inflicts his company and his counsel upon Fingon, at least he will be honest about the likely fruits of it.

“I need not fear that I myself wrought the evils I have suffered—why should I fear when I have sure knowledge? It was my choice to swear my father’s oath, my choice to stand aside and not place myself in the way at Losgar. My choice as King to treat with the Enemy, and my failure to impress the need for vigilance upon thy father the King that allowed the Enemy to break our siege. I fear not ill fortune, nor fate, bitter as our doom may be, for the past has taught me that we are, if not the sole, then the chief architects of our futures; I fear only that I will orchestrate yet greater losses, and again have none to blame but myself. I dread only—”

Maedhros could continue, but Fingon grasps his shoulders, saying “No, no! No, cousin, I will not allow thee to blame thyself for acts so far beyond thy control. Is that why thou hast kept thy hair cut for nigh five hundred years? That thou art mourning all those slain by the Enemy’s works as if ‘twere achieved by thine own hand?”

Yes, whisper a thousand echoes of Maedhros, lying endlessly to his brothers, his soldiers, to the Fingon of the past, whose eyes were haunted but never hollow, whose hair was always long and lovely.

“No,” he admits. “It is not that.”