Súlimëo Quentar: March Stories by Elleth

Just in Time

Maedhros wakes in a field, disoriented and full of blood.

(Predictably, mentions of blood, violence, and possibly disturbing themes.)

Many thanks to GG, who was very patient betaing this, and Zeen for (unknowingly) inspiring the fic.

Maedhros woke with the tang of iron on his tongue. He was barefoot, cowering in the long grass outside camp, out of breath as though he had run a long distance, and the front of his nightshirt stuck to his chest. It was drenched in red, luminous on the light fabric. His hand, too, was slippery and red, growing cold in the chill wind, five deep weals across the back of it throbbing and swelling. Night was rapidly falling.

Behind him, carried on the wind, he heard voices yelling his name, one voice specifically that sounded a great deal more fraught than the others and, strangely, made him want to hide even more than the simple fear of discovery merited. Fingon. Maedhros cowered deeper into the grass, and on hand, stump and knees began to crawl toward a copse of trees not far ahead. If he found a space to hide and wait out the uproar, he hoped it was possible to slowly make his way to the other side of the lake by stealth. His brothers – surely – would not betray him.

For the blood on his shirt, hand, lips, this he was easily certain of, was not his own.

The voices behind him grew closer, and Maedhros crawled faster, remembering from years ago when his family had first made their camp nearby, that hidden among the trees stood a cairn the Sindar had erected as landmark. Reaching it, he forced himself into the hiding space, and lying on the dry earth underneath the rocks drew his knees up to his chest. He had been hounded like an animal in Angband more than once, but here, never before, and the shouts outside came closer yet. He bent his head. In the gaps between the rocks, he could see booted feet walking past. They did not discover him, never even thought to look underneath the large slab of stone that topped the stone structure like a crooked table plate. His heart was hammering so loud they surely must hear it, find him any moment. Maedhros closed his eyes, but dared no breath of relief until the shouts vanished, eventually, into the distance. He crawled out with shaking knees, shredding his skin on the stones.

"I thought you were here," said a voice. "You left a trail in the leaves."

Maedhros started, climbing to his feet. Sitting on the stone slab, looking at him with a frown, was Fingon. "What happened?"

Although instinct told him to run, Maedhros felt as though his feet were rooted to the spot; he didn't move. Not that his constitution would allow for a great deal of running before it would fail him entirely.

"What do you think happened?" he asked. Even to his own ears, his voice rang hollow. Fingon had always been exceptional at reading him, and it was doubtful the feeble evasion would work.

"An Enemy servant killed the guard, attacked you, and attempted to abduct you, to – take you North. Of course," Fingon said. "I found you just in time." His eyes, large and luminous in the dark, never left Maedhros' face, intently searching for a reaction.

"I found you just in time," Fingon repeated. "Now tell me what happened."

"I – I do not know," Maedhros replied, faltering at the supposed understanding between them. "I killed the man. I must have. I do not know why – a nightmare. I have nightmares. Perhaps I - no, not perhaps - I sleepwalk. I must have thought he was -- I - I must have killed him as I killed orcs in Angband. Tooth and nail. Is it possible to kill while sleepwalking?" He felt his composure, and the panicked disbelief, rapidly leaving him, reaching his hand out to Fingon. The blood on it was smudged with dirt from crawling. Fingon did not take it, folding his arms back against his chest.

"Kill me. Tell them I attacked you, I was mad, a servant of – please. I am mad. And an unrepentant murderer."

"Hardly unrepentant, if your begging me to kill you is any indication. But no. Killing you now – that would ruin all relations with your brothers. There would be another kinslaying, right here. How dare you ask me to kill you, again, after we all went through the trouble of saving you? After I risked my life for you - twice?"

"Please. I would deserve it. I killed one of your men. How can you be certain I am not -- under M- the Enemy's sway?" Fingon, Maedhros could see, was working himself into a cold, frenzied anger that he had last seen in Alqualondë, and that must have been the same that sustained him over Helcaraxë. A similar mood, some grim determination had always seen him through the long-distance races that he had been so fond of during his athletic youth in Aman. But it seemed that that anger was vanishing as soon as it arose, being replaced by something else that was entirely new to Maedhros in Fingon. It reminded him of Fingolfin.

"You are not. I found you just in time," Fingon repeated again, looking incredulously at his cousin. "Now come back, you will catch your death out here in your condition."

Maedhros shook his head. He was not hanging helplessly from a cliff, reduced to begging, this time. The world would be a far kinder place without him. He summoned what strength he still had, braced himself for the attack, and, although his muscles were beginning to shake, launched himself at Fingon.

A fist connected with his temple. Maedhros' knees buckled, and he felt Fingon's warm hands catching him even as he fell, and his vision dimmed. "It is fine. I found you just in time," Fingon said almost gently.

* * *

Maedhros woke in his bed back in the camp. His mouth tasted of mint, and a clean nightshirt covered him. His hand was the first thing that swam into focus, pale as always; the scratches had been bandaged, and it was bound to the side of the bed with a strip of gauze. Just lightly, and he could have easily broken free, but instead Maedhros relaxed and closed his eyes again. Somewhere in the room he could hear Fingon speaking.

"... pursued a trail from the copse where you left me, and I was lucky to have found him – how an enemy made it into camp I will never know. Some dark magic, or have the guards been asleep?"

Fingolfin's answer was muffled by the door as father and son left the room together. Perhaps, Maedhros thought, Fingon was right. Perhaps, in time, he could even come to believe it.

Chapter End Notes

Written for the following prompts:

B6: Genre1: Murder Mystery

O62: Genre1: Mystery