By Dawn's Early Light by Grundy

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A Different View

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Buffy was sorry to see Bilbo go. She’d grown fond of the hobbit and used to having him around, but it could not be helped – he was off to the Shire, and she had to return to Imladris. A trip to Hobbitland would have to wait until her mother’s temper cooled a bit more.

The return journey to Imladris was different. Without the wizard and the hobbit, they travelled faster, and conversation was less constrained – which was not necessarily a good thing, since Buffy and her brothers were still at odds with each other over her new favorite weapon.

Glorfindel had been doing his best to keep the peace as they rode. He had altered his tales of Gondolin, and Buffy realized he had known perfectly well which parts she had been listening for before. His descriptions now were less of festivals and more of the things one who meant to defend the city would know.

He went over the layout of the city again, but this time focusing on its strengths and weaknesses, until she knew where she would have placed the defenders to buy time for the people to escape. (Her choices were not always the same as Turgon’s, from what Glorfindel was telling them.) The gates, all seven in order from wood to steel, he described in such detail that she could see them clearly in her mind’s eye, and wonder at the innermost ones. The Gate of Steel had been a marvel, possibly the greatest of Maeglin’s works. Not that any gates could have held against dragons and balrogs…

And this time, Glorfindel also spoke of the people he had known. His own Golden Flowers, who he praised for their discipline and bravery in the face of overwhelming odds, but also the other high lords of Gondolin, those sung of for their courage or noble sacrifice- nearly all of them - those held as indecisive or cowardly – Salgant – and of course he couldn’t quite avoid mentioning Maeglin.

That was when Glorfindel’s valiant attempt to keep the children of Elrond from fighting with each other failed.

Buffy listened, increasingly mulishly as her brothers built off the older elf’s description of the ill-fated prince of Gondolin – which he had tried to balance with the good Maeglin had done before his fall – their argument for why she ought not keep her beautiful new sword. Finally, she could keep silent no more.

“I did hear you the first twenty times,” she told them acidly. “You have thoroughly denounced Maeglin Lomion as a traitor and a shame to both his house and his kind. Feel free to move on at any time.”

“Anariel, he betrayed Gondolin,” Elladan retorted. “If not for him, the city would have-“

“Would have what?” she demanded. “Would have stood a little longer? With all Morgoth’s thought bent on finding it, on destroying it? For how long? Another year? Ten years? Fifty? Long enough for Earendil to grow to manhood and fall with the others defending the escape of those few who survived?”

She may not know much about her grandfather, but she was sure a man who would give up everything to try to find a way West to save the world would not be persuaded to run away when his city, his people were in danger. He would have fought, and he likely would have died for it.

Her brothers looked first astonished, and then displeased by her intransigence, but a glance at Glorfindel showed them that they were on their own for their first serious quarrel with their little sister.

“That still does not excuse him,” Elrohir said sternly. “He did not have to give away the location of the Hidden Valley.”

“No one made him do it,” Elladan nodded.

She stared at him in utter incomprehension.

“El,” she said slowly, as though speaking to a child instead of her older brothers who had been full grown long before her birth, before Arwen’s birth even “he was tortured. By Morgoth himself.”

“Then he should have remained resolute, as Maedhros Fëanorion did!” Elrohir growled.

Her brothers had begun telling her the tales of the First Age on journey over the Misty Mountains to Lothlorien. They covered this one sometime on the way to Mirkwood, so she did know who and what they were talking about. But she suddenly realized with sickening clarity that particular story did not go the way they seem to think. She had thought when they first told it to her that they knew.

“Morgoth kept him for years, not the mere months Maeglin Lomion was held,” Elladan backed up his twin, “and yet Maedhros was steadfast. He did not break!”

They may have seen more of battle than she has, but the very fact that they could speak so told her that they knew little if anything of torture. This was something they should hear from their elders, not from the little sister they have scarce stopped thinking of as ‘the baby’. And yet…

She did not know the full truth of what happened to Maeglin Lomion in Angband – and she suspected she did not truly want to, because she could guess. She has seen enough of torture to fill in the blanks. All he would have had to do is waver for a mere second, something even one with no weakness might have done. That would have been all Morgoth needed. And Maeglin had a weakness, a terrible one.

A beautiful cousin he loved, wed to a mortal man. Whether his dislike of Tuor was born of petty jealousy, or distrust of the edain after the treachery at the Nirnaeth cost his uncle’s life mattered not at all.

Maeglin had been doomed from the moment the orcs found him. It had been only a question of how long it would take.
She sighed, unsure how to explain this to them.

It was not even about winning the argument anymore. She needed them to understand, because the same thing could happen to any one of them. Sauron had not been destroyed, and Morgoth too would return someday. Torture was actually her greatest fear – with Slayer healing, she would survive far longer than even other elves, and it would be no blessing.

“Brothers, Maedhros had nothing the Enemy wanted,” she said gently. “He could have broken a thousand times and it would have helped him not at all. Morgoth desired nothing from him except his screams.”

The twins both looked utterly gobsmacked at the idea that Maedhros might not have been a paragon, just a very unlucky elf.

“But-“ Elrohir began, before stopping abruptly, looking sick.

“Morgoth already had the Silmarils, did he not?” she asked them quietly. “Fëanor was dead. There was nothing more his sons could give him but the pleasure of their fall.”

He must have nearly died laughing, gleefully watching the havoc as the Oath undermined them again and again.

“Then Fingon’s heroic rescue-“

Elladan stopped, as if he could not bear to ask the question.

She did not want to rob them of that. She knew full well that story was loved by the Eldar, for Fingon’s courage and loyalty resonated with many in the Mortal Lands. If Maedhros was the example of how to bear through captivity, to hold out hope when all seemed lost, Fingon was the lesson that faith and courage will be rewarded.

She might have believed that once, before she had seen that faith and courage could lead to death as easily as reward. The list of those who died in Sunnydale was not short, and few of them could have been said to deserve their fate. What had Jesse ever done, or Jenny? Kendra? How long would Faith survive, courage or not?

She bit her lip, unwilling to shatter any more of their illusions, but suspecting that Maedhros’ escape had amused Morgoth greatly, knowing how fleeting his ‘freedom’ would be and at what great cost it was purchased.

She waited, quietly, as her brothers reconsidered their position on things beginning with M related to torture.

She did not share with them her suspicion that Maeglin’s torture might not have ended with his release from Angband – she also knew enough of evil to realize that he may well have been little more than a puppet from the time of his ‘release’ until the time of his death, a horrified observer in his own body, aware of what was to come yet unable to stop it, dying with Morgoth’s laughter ringing in his ears only after seeing all that he loved destroyed.

The stories say he was given a token to protect him during the sack. Funny how the stories never mention that Maeglin would have known that Morgoth’s word was not to be trusted. That part of Maedhros’ story was true enough. For Maeglin to have gone quietly back, to have believed that he would be spared and permitted to save Idril even without her peredhel son was beyond folly. Even those who condemned Maeglin as traitor did not name him a fool.

A quick glance at Glorfindel showed her surprised respect in his eyes, and she wondered if he has tried to make them see this before, or if he too had never thought of Maeglin in this light. He must have thought from time to time on what really happened. She knew he has called some of the songs about his death silly, so he was well aware that story and fact often parted ways.

“The sword-” Elladan finally said, slowly, uncertainly.

She could see they would reprove her for it no more, even if they have not decided yet whether they believe her that Maeglin may be more victim than monster.

“I mean to use it,” she replied steadily. “It’s mine now. It was meant for me, even if its maker didn’t know it. Maybe I’ll get to thank him for it someday. But that sword came to me for a reason.”

That much she’s sure of. She may be new to the elven foresight thing, but she knows this for a fact: there will come a day Morgoth is going to see that sword in her hands and know fear.

She doesn’t say that part out loud. Her brothers have had enough to take in for one day.