Fruit of the Family Tree by Rocky41_7

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Chapter IV

How many frogs in this pot?

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The weight of Maedhros’ poison continued to drag on Thranduil’s health, which took a sharp downward turn. Maglor had caught him napping in the library and there were moments at mealtimes when he seemed not to be present at all. He often slept until after nine or ten in the morning, when he had before been accustomed to rising at six or seven even when there was no work to do. (Sometimes, Maglor would poke his head into the room and sit on the edge of the bed to pet Thranduil’s hair for a few minutes while he slept. It never roused him.)

In the early afternoon not more than a few days after their encounter in Thranduil’s room, Maedhros and Thranduil chanced to return in from the yard at the same time. Hearing their footsteps, Maglor came out of his study to greet them, in time to see Thranduil slip and fall on the stairs. He insisted it was nothing to worry about, but Maglor could see he was unsteady on his feet when he rose. Later, privately, Maedhros told Maglor it was time to get out the wheelchair, and he wasn’t wrong.

            Maglor told Thranduil some passable story about how the old rattan chair was left over from an old injury of Mother’s, but he could see the wariness in Thranduil’s eyes before he consented to sit in it. It might’ve been more believable if Vanimiel hadn’t scratched her fucking initials into the arm. But Thranduil didn’t ask about that. Maglor wasn’t even sure he noticed.

            There was blood in Thranduil’s handkerchiefs these days.

            He spent more and more time indoors, and it seemed to Maglor that he was wilting, like a sunflower in the shade (Maglor did not know much more about plants than this less-than-apt comparison. In truth, Thranduil was more like a plant which preferred shade and had been moved into a dank basement with poor drainage.) The sight of it seemed so dismal to Maglor that he could not bear it, and he offered to push Thranduil outside in the chair. He was almost surprised when Thranduil agreed.

            “When you can start on the garden, you’ll feel better,” Maglor posited as he maneuvered the chair out the back door. It had not been made with wheelchairs in mind (nor had any entrance to the house, unfortunately), so Thranduil had to vacate the chair for it to be moved down onto the ground before he could sit in it again. “The fresh air will be good for you! My aunt used to say that, before we left Tirion.”

            Thranduil sighed and leaned back in the chair.

            “I believe it,” he said. “And I hope very much it proves true. I find myself quite weary of this affair of sickness.” Yet there was an absence of optimism in his voice that Maglor found unsettling.

            He pushed the chair through the scraggly brown grass of the backside of the yard. There wasn’t much to look at, but in healthier days, Thranduil could still spend hours walking around the property.

            “What is it you look at out here?” he asked. “When you go walking?”

            “The sky,” said Thranduil. “The clouds. The birds.”

            “Birds?” Maglor said. “I can’t say I’ve ever seen many birds around here.”

            “I imagine that is because you have not looked, Maglor,” said Thranduil with amusement in his voice. “I have seen many since I came.”

            Maglor smiled, and found he did not mind looking a bit foolish if it might make Thranduil laugh.

            “No, I do believe I’ve never seen a single bird here,” he declared. Thranduil tilted his head back to look at Maglor, and when he saw that Maglor smiled, he returned the look.

            “Your age must warrant spectacles then,” said Thranduil. Maglor sputtered and made a noise of great offense.

            “It was you that wed this old man!” he said.

            “It was,” Thranduil agreed, facing forward again, though one of his hands groped backwards until it found Maglor’s. Maglor gripped his hand and squeezed it, something airy fluttering in his chest. Thranduil’s wedding ring was cool against his skin. So they stayed for a moment, and then Maglor took his hand back to continue pushing the chair.

            “Did you play here, as a child?” Thranduil asked.

            “Oh…no. We were more or less grown when we moved here. Celebrimbor—my nephew—he played here, though.” He had been too young to go to war when they left—but he had aged into it before they came back. Few who knew him were willing to speak of how he had died, so Maglor had never been clear on the details.

            “Maedhros said you had five other brothers,” said Thranduil, and Maglor could hear in his tone he knew he was edging towards something Maglor might not wish to discuss.

            “That’s true. Myself and Maedhros and Celegorm and Caranthir and Curufin—that was Celebrimbor’s father—and Amrod and Amras,” said Maglor, and saying their names felt like shattering some small spell he hadn’t realize had been pulled over the house. He could not remember the last time either he or Maedhros had spoken the names of their brothers. He could not remember the last time he’d thought of them, except in passing, in concept.

            “It must have been a loud house,” Thranduil remarked. “I was an only child.”

            “I cannot imagine that,” Maglor admitted. “I cannot imagine a childhood not elbowing other children out of the way at the dinner table!” He went quiet a moment, lapsing into recollections he hadn’t thought of in years. “It was a loud house, I suppose,” he said softly. “Here, and in Tirion. And I hated it. I would scream at my brothers for making too much noise when I was trying to focus, and I slammed the door in their faces if they tried to speak to me of their problems, and I tried ever so hard to convince Father to pay for me to have someplace of my own.” He swallowed, finding his throat constricting. It had been a house full of life, once—he and Maedhros had never managed to recapture that, had they? “Now I suppose I’m pleased he always refused. I have more memories of this place from when we were all here together.”

            He would not think now of what his brothers might think of him at that point.

            “You should tell me later, when we have tools to plan,” Thranduil suggested, “where you would like to start with fixing the house.”

            “Oh. Yes, of course. If I have a say,” said Maglor with a smile.

            “Of course you do,” said Thranduil. “You know far better than I what it once looked like.”

            “Well, I don’t believe it must be restored to exactly what it was,” Maglor said. “I may allow for some of your creative opinion.” His smile grew.

            “We might go into town to look at supplies,” Thranduil suggested. “It might be well for both of us to get out of the house. We could stay the night.”

            “Oh…I don’t know,” Maglor said haltingly, his expression dropping. “Maedhros gets anxious when I am away too long.”

            “One night is too long?”

            Maglor twisted his hands on the bars of the chair and cast his eye around for something to distract the conversation, but the landscape looked as empty as ever.

            “What types of birds have you seen here?” he asked in what was transparently a desperate bid to change the subject. Thranduil did not respond, until at length he said:

            “Maglor…do you ever act on your own wishes?”

            “I don’t know what you mean by that,” he said, but the snippiness of his tone was undergirded with anxiety. Thranduil grasped the wheels of the chair to bring it to a halt.

            “Only that you seem very keen to appease your brother,” he said. “And I wonder if sometimes it is…not the best choice for you.”

            “My brother and I are a team,” said Maglor. “What’s good for him is good for me.”

            “I…understand. Yet…” He was leading into some other thing that Maglor did not want to hear, so he jumped in front of it, babbling to stop Thranduil from saying anything else.

            “Maedhros has always been…well, he is my protector, you see? He has always been there for me. No one knows him as I do! Even when there were others, it was always I who knew him best!” Something Maglor would have said to Fingon’s face (and probably had, though he didn’t remember it then, and Fingon had probably not been polite enough to keep from rolling his eyes). “Now we are—well, he has no one left but me. He worries a great deal for me, you see? Because he cares. And so he likes to keep me close, where he can see. It worries him when I stray too far. But it is only because he wishes to keep me safe. Maedhros loves me,” he said, which having said it, seemed a rather foolish and obvious thing to say. He gave a jittery kind of laugh, tinged with something more pointed. “It’s just that with fire is the only way my family knows how to love. You haven’t had siblings, so you can’t understand. He may be hard to understand at times, but I don’t mind, because I love him also. We are brothers. Who could understand us as we do each other? I don’t mind doing things his way, if it makes him feel better.”

            Thranduil went silent in the face of this monologue.

            “I see,” was all he said, at last, and Maglor’s anxiety spiraled into the absence of talk.

            “You mustn’t think I never contradict him! It isn’t that way! Only that Maedhros is usually right, and I have no talent for making plans, so it’s for the best he takes care of it. I haven’t the head for it. And he’s much braver than I. Especially after everything he’s been through. I wasn’t able to—I didn’t help him when—and he hardly complains about it, you see. His hand, I mean. And he’s given me so much, you know? But he’s stayed here with me all this time, useless as I am.”

            “Just as you have remained here with him,” Thranduil pointed out.

            “Oh, well I…I’m sure I would have been here regardless.” Thranduil did not respond to this and Maglor fretted, biting his lip, until Thranduil pointed into the distance, to a black spot against the watery sky.

            “Do you see it there?” he asked. “It looks to be an upland buzzard.”

            “Oh! How can you tell?”

            “They are endemic to the region,” said Thranduil. “And if you observe how it moves, and the shape of the tailfeathers…”

            “How do you know this?” Maglor laughed.

            “There is a book on them in your library. Birds of the region.”

            “What do you think it’s doing?” Maglor asked, leaning forward against the back of the chair.  “Looking for food, I imagine.”

            “It may be,” said Thranduil. “Most likely. But perhaps it is simply enjoying a lovely day for flying.”

            “You think so?”

            “Why not?”

            Maglor smiled and watched the bird swoop and wheel through the air. “Why not indeed,” he said. “If I could fly, I would go out just to take the air as well.”

            By the time they came back in, Maglor was shocked to realize nearly three hours had gone by. He had been sure they hadn’t been gone but perhaps forty minutes!

            “This was lovely,” he said, squeezing Thranduil’s shoulder. “We should do it again.” Thranduil said nothing, but beckoned him down, and when Maglor leaned over, Thranduil kissed his cheek warmly, and Maglor blushed.

            “We should,” he agreed.

            “Are you busy?” Maglor blurted out. Thranduil blinked at him.

            “Busy with what?” Maglor’s cheeks darkened.

            “Oh, I thought perhaps, ah, you might come with me to the music room. I could show you what I’ve written this week. I have made some significant changes to one of the arias in the second act of the opera. But of course, only if you haven’t another obligation.”

            The corners of Thranduil’s mouth were twitching and Maglor’s face burned.

            “I have no obligations,” he said.

            “Marvelous!” So they retired to the music room and Thranduil shifted from the chair to the old green divan which had once held Maglor’s guests, where he lounged against the arm, quite contently, it seemed to Maglor, listening.

            After, Maglor tried to take Thranduil out every day, and he began to think Aunt Lalwen had been right about the fresh air.

***

Maglor took the steps two at a time up to the bedroom and made a beeline for the top shelf of his armoire, certain he had stowed the jade elephant there. When he heard the sound of footsteps, his first thought was that Thranduil had followed him.

“Just give me a moment! I’m sure it’s here,” he said from inside the armoire.

“I thought it was Elwing’s cat in here. What are you looking for?” Maedhros asked.

“Oh.” Maglor drew back and peered curiously out. “Do you remember that jade elephant carving Grandfather gave me? I was sure I put it up here.” Maedhros closed the door behind him as he entered and came up next to Maglor to dig through the shelf with him.

“Hm. I don’t see it.”

“No, I’m sure it’s here…I must have just buried it under something…” Maglor started yanking scarves out of a box.

“What do you need it for?” Maedhros asked.

“I wanted to show it to Thranduil!”

When Maglor drew back again and saw Maedhros’ face, the temperature of the room dropped ten degrees.

“Do you mean to impress him with trinkets?” Maedhros scoffed. “You are already wed, Maglor. Your work is finished.” Maedhros’, on the other hand, was still ongoing.

“I…I just feel it must be rather dull for him, being so confined…” Because they were poisoning him. “I thought this might…” Maedhros was looking so derisive that Maglor forgot what had been in his head about it and he stepped uneasily down from the armoire’s lower shelf where he had been standing. “I had just mentioned it, now, so…” Maedhros crossed his arms.

“It feels that you are losing sight of what the goal is here.”

“I’m not!”

“This man is not your friend, Maglor.”

“No, we’re only married,” Maglor could not help but snipe, even though he knew it would only gall Maedhros further.

Maedhros sneered, but there was a flash of real anger in the way his jaw tightened. “Perhaps you’d like him to bury your bodies and pay your bills?”

“They aren’t my—”

“Need I remind you of what this man would think of you if he knew whom you really loved? The true contents of your heart? What you really seek from him?”

            Maglor looked down at the floor.

            “I know how little he would think of me,” he mumbled.

            “Then why do you waste everyone’s time with these stupid games? Would you be keener to hurry things along if I made it a bit harder for you to play house? If I told him of the others? Of how you treated—”

            “Stop it!” Maglor cried, wringing his hands.

“Yet another job you started and couldn’t finish; another mess you left for me to clean up. Do you think you did the kinder thing, leaving her there when you couldn’t manage to end it? Running away, as you always do?”

The scene of that day had grown dimmer and foggier, overlaid with the violent emotions which had never faded. Maglor had thought that after weeks of drinking poison, confined most often to the wheelchair, Elwing would not be difficult to kill; he had not known how hard a body would fight to live. He had also been ignorant of how long it took a person to suffocate.

“She knew the truth,” Maglor wailed. “She was going to tell the press, she said—she was going to tell someone! And she said—she said I was—” Once he had disdainfully observed the coarse personal violence of Celegorm, sneered behind his back—and to his face—along with Caranthir, but he had heard Celegorm’s wild laughter over the scene of Maglor grappling on the parlor floor with Elwing.

“She could barely walk, Maglor. And you so lost your mind the moment she said something you didn’t like that you tried to wring her neck like a Sunday roast. How long until this one says something that upsets you?”

“Stop it, stop it!” Maglor shrieked. His cheeks darkened in anger. “You wanted me to do it! You wanted me to! You told me she would ruin us! And you have been holding it over my head—Stop doing this! You’re hurting me!”

            “I’m not hurting you,” Maedhros snapped, that fey look in his eyes that Maglor so despised. “Do not speak to me of being hurt. I am only making you see the truth which you continually strive to ignore.” He waved his prosthetic at Maglor. “When I was a prisoner of the enemy, that was being hurt. And where were you? Tucked safely away in camp.”

            Maglor’s throat bobbed; he had no words, and Maedhros knew it.

            “I’m sorry,” he whimpered. “I didn’t…of course I’m not…”

            “It’s alright,” said Maedhros after a pause, drawing back to an eminently reasonable, even gentle, tone. “I understand your limits. I am happy to suffer in your stead. But do not speak to me as if your petty grievances are hurts.”

            Maglor just cringed.

            “And remember what our work here is for.”

            “Yes, Maedhros,” Maglor whispered. He left the room without the elephant.

***

            Baths in Formenos were tepid at best, and yet there was something still relaxing about them. Given how tiresome the rest of Thranduil’s life felt of late, he felt justified in taking them as often as he had the energy to do it. He could spent over an hour laying there, occasionally even draining the chilled water to add more warm water to it and draw it out a while longer (He would have rather gone swimming, but there was nowhere nearby that he knew, and in any case he was probably as likely to drown these days). Bargwend often joined him in the bathroom, as the door never seemed to close properly—likely related to the water that often seeped down the bathroom walls from pipes that had probably rusted through—and would sit by the bathtub, or even up on the rim, silently keeping him company.

            They were there when the red ghost returned.

            One moment, Thranduil was lounging in the claw-footed tub, his elbows hooked loosely over the rim, contemplating the play of light through the stained-glass window on the vibrant green of the tile floor; the next it was there.

             He was certain it was the same ghost who had assailed him in the hallway that night he’d gotten up for water. It oozed through the opening in the door, and the water of the bath sloshed as Thranduil flung himself back, heart pounding instantly, wanting to wail that he could not have one moment of peace or one place sacred from these wretched apparitions.

            The ghost advanced, and Thranduil looked frantically about for something to use as a weapon, besides the bar of soap. He had never yet seen that weapons could be effective against ghosts, but if they could touch him, it stood to reason he might be able to touch them, didn’t it?

            But the ghost was stopped on the approach by Bargwend, who leaped out from under the sink, hissing and snarling with sounds Thranduil had never heard a housecat make. Her ears flat against her head, whiskers trembling, she took a step nearer to the ghost hovering in the middle of the bathroom, and then took an ambitious swipe at it.

            “Bargwend!” Thranduil started to rise from the bath, suddenly terrified the ghost might do some harm to the cat. If she were killed, he did not think he could bear it.

            The ghost looked at him standing in the bath, dripping pathetically, and then at the cat, still spitting, and then it plunged through the mirror over the sink and was gone. Thranduil let out a slow exhale, and quickly pulled the plug on the tub and removed himself. He hurried over to the cat, who sprang up with her forepaws on his knee as he crouched down, and rubbed her face against his hand and cheek, as if to verify that he was unharmed. Thranduil murmured various praises and pleasantries to her and kissed the top of her head.

As he grabbed his towel and wrapped it tightly around himself, he noticed the mirror had fogged up again, although the bath had been cold for at least twenty minutes before the ghost’s arrival. There was something else, too: Into the fog on the mirror was scrawled two letters:

            E.D.

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Chapter End Notes

"You'll feel better!" says Maglor to a man he is actively poisoning to death

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