Lost and Found by awwyeah107

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Chapter 2: ...and Found

In Chapter 2, "…and Found", Maglor discovers Elrond and Elros are missing; he and Maedhros search for the twins, but will history repeat itself?.

There's more details below, but feel free to skip and move on to the chapter.

This is my first time writing kidnap fam, and honestly, although I’ve enjoyed reading a lot of kidnap fam fic, I’ve felt a bit unsure of myself in writing them! It’s a massively complicated relationship on many levels, and when thinking about how I personally want to interpret it in my writing, I want to find a balance: yes, love grew between them, as Tolkien said, but I think it likely took time to grow and it was not an easy path. That seems to be the most realistic option to me.

So, at the time this chapter takes place, Elrond and Elros have been with Maglor and Maedhros for some time now. Trust has been established for the most part, and as you’ll see, there are indicators of that throughout. Also, the two Fëanorians quite clearly care about the twins; Maglor is generally more open about it than Maedhros.

Additionally, this chapter is partially inspired by this comic by cochart. I had seen the comic before, and then halfway through writing this fic, I remembered it existed and found it again.

Language Info/Translation + Character Nicknames

Quenya is written in italics. The word “fëa” is Quenya for "soul" (many people who have read The Silmarillion or other Tolkien works besides LOTR and The Hobbit know it, but some don’t, so I wanted to include that here.)

Character nicknames:

  • Maedhros = Nelyo (short for Nelyafinwë, his father-name)
  • Maglor = Káno (short for Kanafinwë, his father-name)

Songs Used as Inspiration

For this chapter:

All songs composed by Adrian Von Ziegler. Full playlist link here.

Maglor hurried along the corridor and entered Maedhros’ study with a brief knock to announce his arrival.

“Maedhros,” he said carefully, trying not to betray the panic he felt, “Elrond and Elros are missing. They aren’t in the fortress. We—I—must go out to look for them.”

“What?” Maedhros looked up sharply from the parchment he had been writing on.

“I said, the twins are—”

“I know.” Maedhros was already pushing back his chair and rising to his feet. “When did you last see them?”

“They were playing in the courtyard, under Gwaedal’s watch.”

“I should have known we couldn’t trust him,” Maedhros muttered under his breath as he walked out of the study and started down the hall. Maglor didn’t anticipate Maedhros’ quick pace, and he had to increase his strides to catch up to his taller brother.

“I don’t think he did anything…” Maglor tried to interject.

Maedhros pushed through the doors that led to the courtyard, and Maglor blinked against the wind that greeted them. A few elves moved through the courtyard as they carried out various tasks. Gwaedal was waiting nearby, twisting his hands together anxiously.

Maedhros strode up to the elf and roughly grabbed his collar. “What did you to do to them?” he demanded.

“My—my lord, I—” Gwaedal sputtered, trying vainly to free himself as others around them stared.

“Maedhros, that’s enough,” Maglor said firmly, pulling him off the startled elf. “We’ll take care of this later. Right now, we need to search for the twins.” He understood his brother’s behavior, however. After the negligence—no, it was more than that, it was intended cruelty—of Celegorm’s servants, any elf who was responsible in any way for children that went missing would be suspicious to Maedhros.

“I’m sorry,” Gwaedal said miserably, his face a picture of contrition. “I was watching them, I promise.”

“I believe you,” Maglor responded. Maedhros didn’t make a sound, but his dark expression conveyed his doubt. “Come on, Maedhros.”

The moment the gate closed behind them and the guards turned away, Maedhros grabbed Maglor’s sleeve, and his voice was filled with intense fear and desperation as he said, “We are not losing another set of twins.”

Maglor could feel his brother shaking, and he put an arm around Maedhros to steady him. “We’ll find them, Nelyo. They can’t have gone far.”

They strode off into the forest surrounding Amon Ereb. Despite his fear, Maglor was thankful that it was a warm and sunny day, quite unlike the last time a pair of young twins went missing.

The brothers called for Elrond and Elros, and both of their voices grew more frantic the more they called. Maglor thought he heard Maedhros call for Eluréd or Elurín once or twice, but he didn’t comment on it; he couldn’t do anything to help his brother, though he wished he could, and he knew Maedhros would be upset if he did mention it. So he simply kept on calling for Elrond and Elros.

The unspoken question hung in the air: would history repeat itself, and another pair of twins would be lost forever?

As they trekked through the forest, Maglor tried to keep track of landmarks here and there that would indicate how far they were from the fortress: a twisted tree trunk here, a large rock there. The surrounding area of Amon Ereb was rather hilly, and the trees were tall and green-leaved in the full vigor of summer. Directly outside the fortress, there were faint paths that led past the gates northward and westward, but the brothers had agreed that it didn’t seem likely that Elrond and Elros would stay on either of those paths. Neither of them had mentioned it, but Maglor knew they were both thinking it: they would have had a better chance at tracking and finding the twins if Celegorm was there. Grief rose in his throat more than once along the way; he could practically picture his younger brother a few paces ahead of him, pointing down at some sign on the ground and smiling back at him in an infuriatingly patronizing yet somehow innocent manner: See, Káno? Look at where the leaves have been disturbed. There are scuffs of mud on that rock. Come on, it’s not that difficult.

They came across the brook that wound through the forest, and after they crossed over it, Maglor stopped. “We should look for prints. You go that way, I’ll go this way,” Maglor instructed, and he and Maedhros walked in opposite directions. A few minutes later, Maedhros called for Maglor, and the younger Fëanorion quickly made his way over.

Small footprints could be seen by the water, imprinted in the soft, wet sand of the bank. There were also signs that the twins had gone further into the forest: crushed clover near the bank and broken twigs on bushes. Maedhros and Maglor followed the signs and continued calling for the twins. Maglor could hear both of their voices growing hoarser, and he forced himself to not simply yell as loud as he could, since that would strain his voice; he wanted to find the twins, of course, but he also wanted to preserve his voice long-term. He had had enough of it being damaged after the Dagor Bragollach.

Every so often, out of the corner of his eye, Maglor would hear or see sudden movement, and he would turn in mingled hope and fear; but it was only the tree branches rustling against each other in the breeze or a squirrel or rabbit darting through the undergrowth.

Once they came across the spot where the brook doubled back on itself, Maglor felt the panic he had been fighting until this point settling into his bones. Though the marks on the bank where they first came across the brook had indicated they were moving in the right direction, the fact that they had reached the water again was worrying; it was quite a distance from their first crossing. More worrying was the fact that neither elf could find any footprints or signs of the twins on either side of the brook.

They continued on, yet every minute they kept walking, Maglor could not keep from wondering if perhaps they had missed something when they crossed the brook again, and maybe they were now heading in the wrong direction. He paused from calling out for the half-elflings to suggest to Maedhros that they change course, but then he suddenly heard a small voice calling faintly in response, tinged with fear. “Maglor?”

Maedhros’ head jerked up, and he took off at a run with Maglor at his heels. That has to be Elros. Please let it be them…please let it be the twins…

The brothers burst into a small clearing bordered by a copse of trees, and they heard another call from ahead. “We’re over here!”

At first Maglor couldn’t tell where the voice was coming from, but then movement in his peripheral vision caught his eye. He spotted the twins in a badger-hole at the far edge of the clearing that was mostly hidden by a fallen log and ferns that had grown up around it. The crushing relief that came over him left him breathless and nearly lightheaded.

Then, he heard a choked sob to his left and turned to see Maedhros stumbling forward to the twins, with tears streaming down his face. Elrond and Elros looked rather surprised and alarmed to see the elder Fëanorion in such an emotional state, but they let him hug them tightly as he murmured to them in Quenya. “It’s okay, you’re okay, we’re going to bring you home and you’ll be safe…we found you…we found you…”

“Maedhros, you’re scaring them,” Maglor gently rebuked his brother as he more calmly approached. Inside, he felt like doing the same, but he kept it together for the sake of the twins.

Maedhros pulled back and attempted to compose himself. “Sorry,” he said quietly.

The twins glanced at each other, and then Elrond reached up a small hand to Maedhros’ cheek. “It’s okay.”

Maedhros shook his head, but the peredhil didn’t seem to notice.

“Oh, little stars.” Maglor knelt down next to Maedhros and opened his arms to the twins, who scrambled out of the hole towards him. He held them close and breathed deeply, inhaling the scent of leaves and the soap he used for the twins’ hair. The feeling of their warm bodies and their breath against him was deeply comforting, and belatedly, he realized he was shaking. He forced himself to relax, and after another several seconds, he could start to feel his racing heart slow. It’s going to be okay. We found them. They’re not hurt, thank Eru.

Another minute or so passed before he relaxed his grip on the twins and looked down at them, his voice sharp. “What were you thinking, going into the forest without asking? Do you know how much you worried us?”

“We just wanted to play in the woods,” Elros complained.

“Yeah, we never get to come out here,” Elrond added. “We weren’t trying to run away, it’s just…it gets boring in the fortress sometimes.”

Maglor gave Maedhros a look over the twins’ heads. So this wasn’t an escape attempt.

In the early days of Elrond and Elros’ time at Amon Ereb, they had tried to escape several times. Maglor remembered the panic that had flooded his fëa whenever he found them missing, but they never got farther than the courtyard. He had never involved Maedhros in searching for them when they had escaped, since he hadn’t wanted to cause undue worry for his brother if the twins had not truly escaped the fortress. However, he suspected that Maedhros still knew, somehow.

“You shouldn’t have gone outside without us,” he scolded the small half-elflings. They both looked up at him with wide eyes, and he felt the overwhelming desire to protect them from anything that would try to harm them.

“It wasn’t our fault that Gwaedal wasn’t watching us properly,” Elros muttered with a scowl on his face as he picked at a loose thread on the front of Maglor’s tunic.

“He wasn’t?” Maedhros spoke up for the first time since he had apologized to the peredhil, his voice rough and hard.

The half-elflings glanced at each other quickly, and Maglor caught a flash of guilt in their eyes. “Was he truly not watching you? How did you get out of the fortress in the first place?” Maglor asked, realizing he hadn’t yet asked how they managed to slip out without being caught.

They both looked troubled, and then Elrond looked up at Maglor. “Well…um. We might have done our shimmer thing so we could get outside when someone opened the gate.”

Elros smacked Elrond’s shoulder. “Don’t tell him!”

“Elros, don’t hit your brother. What are you talking about?”

“The thing where we…shimmer. Like this.” Elrond narrowed his eyes in concentration, and suddenly he was…halfway gone. Maglor could still feel the weight of the elfling in his lap and the warmth in his arms, but it seemed like Elrond was flickering in and out of Maglor’s vision, and there was a faint glow around him.

“I can do it too.” Not to be outdone by his brother, Elros also demonstrated.

“Oh. I see.” Maglor was quite taken aback. Now that he thought about it, it did make sense that descendants of Melian would have some sort of Maiarin abilities. He glanced up at his brother, and saw a stunned expression on Maedhros’ face that mirrored his own. The twins became fully visible again in his arms.

“I think we owe Gwaedal an explanation.” Maglor sighed. Maedhros nodded, and Maglor didn’t miss the look of relief on his face.

Maglor gave the two half-elflings a stern look. “You two must apologize to Gwaedal. It was cruel to trick him to get out of the fortress, and it’s dangerous for you to be out here by yourselves. What if there were orcs around? What if you hadn’t been able to find your way back?” He didn’t want to scare them too much, but they needed to understand why they couldn’t go outside by themselves.

Both twins avoided meeting his eyes. “We’re sorry,” Elrond said as tears started to form in his eyes.

“I know,” Maglor responded, placing his hand over Elrond’s. “Still. You scared Maedhros and I very badly, and you could have gotten terribly hurt. So, no dessert tonight, and only one song at bedtime.”

Both twins looked quite disappointed, but they nodded solemnly in acceptance.

“You absolutely may not go outside the fortress without permission again or by yourselves. However, we can work time outside into the schedule during the week, if you would like.”

Once again, both twins nodded—vigorously this time—their hair flopping into their faces adorably. Maglor couldn’t help smiling down at them. “Alright. We can do that.”

Elros smiled back before asking, “Can we go home now?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, multiple things happened in quick succession: a sharp intake of breath from Maedhros, Elros’ smile immediately disappearing, and Elrond nudging his brother.

Before this, neither of the peredhil had ever called Amon Ereb home.

Maglor’s mouth nearly dropped open in shock, but he immediately responded, “Yes, we can go back now.” He gently stroked their heads and they relaxed, the momentary tension gone, before a small sniffle made all three of them look up. Maedhros was unsuccessfully attempting to hold back tears once again, and they coursed down his cheeks as tremors shook his body.

“Come here, Nelyo,” Maglor said quietly.

Both of the twins clearly recognized something was wrong, and when Maedhros moved closer, they turned to let him hug them. He reached out and touched them tentatively at first, and then without hesitation drew them tightly to his chest, closing his eyes and running his hand and the stump of his wrist along their shoulders and backs. Maglor watched as he let out a deep, shaky sigh, and then took several more deep breaths before his breathing fully evened out. If it had been comforting for Maglor to touch and hold the twins, he couldn’t imagine how much more so it would be for Maedhros.

Finally, Maedhros wiped his face and opened his eyes to look down at Elrond and Elros. “Please,” he said to them, voice shaking and low yet forceful, “Don’t ever, ever do that again.”

The half-elflings glanced at each other and then looked back up at him and chorused, “We won’t, we promise.”

Maedhros nodded slowly before lifting his head to meet Maglor’s eyes, clearly exhausted.

Maglor rose to his feet. “Let’s go home, little stars.”

That night, once Maglor had tucked the two sleepy half-elflings into their beds and given each of their heads a kiss goodnight, he wandered to Maedhros’ room and with a soft knock, let himself in. His brother was sitting on the floor at the foot of his bed, staring at the low flames in the fireplace. Maglor settled down next to him and handed him one of the mugs of tea he had made. His and Maedhros’ voices were still raspy, and warm tea with honey was one of the best ways to soothe sore vocal cords.

Maedhros accepted the tea and took several swallows of it, still watching the fire. “I do not think I could have borne it if we had not found them,” he said slowly.

“But we did,” Maglor reminded him. He hesitated before reaching out to his brother to put a hand in his hair and gently turn his head to look him in the eye. “The other twins may have been lost, but we found these ones today.”

Maedhros held his gaze for a moment before nodding. “We did.”

They turned back to face the hearth, and Maglor could sense that Maedhros was deep in thought. They both sipped their tea and watched the logs burning and crackling. After a while, Maedhros said, “I was considering Elrond and Elros’ ability to…’shimmer.’”

“Mhm?”

“Well…” Maedhros hesitated. “If they can do that, would it not be unreasonable to think that Eluréd and Elurín could do the same, if not better?”

Maglor did his best to keep his shock from showing on his face, for this was the first time since the kinslaying and loss of the twins in Doriath that Maedhros had mentioned them by name to him. “Yes,” he replied in as neutral a tone as he could muster.

Maedhros let out a sigh and bowed his head, setting his now-empty teacup on the floor. “Then perhaps that was why I could not find them. I…I heard no sounds, saw nothing in the woods when I searched.”

“Oh, Nelyo,” Maglor whispered, and reached up his hand to Maedhros’ face.

His brother looked up at him with tears in his eyes. “They must have been hiding. But…” he sniffed once, and a very faint smile started to form on his trembling lips. “Elrond and Elros didn’t hide from us.”

Hope stirred in Maglor’s chest. “No. No, they didn’t.”

Maedhros gave a short nod and turned to add more logs to the fire. That done, he sat back against the bed, and with the stronger light, Maglor could see Maedhros’ shoulders visibly relaxing and his posture softening. It seemed that finding the twins today was helping to ease the guilt and pain in his brother’s heart. Maglor knew that that could never fully take the memories of that winter in Doriath away, but he wished in earnest that Maedhros would find true, lasting peace.

In contrast, his fëa gradually grew more and more distressed. Perhaps it was reality settling in in a way that it never had before, since Maglor had not searched the woods of Doriath for Eluréd and Elurín, but he felt keenly how easily Elrond and Elros could have been lost today. He vividly recalled the utter fear that coursed through his body as they were searching and how it had threatened to paralyze him, and he could feel his heart pounding now at the memory. He knew in truth that he and Maedhros had found the twins before anything could happen to them, and that they were now safe and sound, but that logic couldn’t dispel the emotion building in his chest. Rather suddenly Maglor felt tears prickling behind his eyes. He sniffed and tilted his head back, trying to blink back the tears that threatened to fall.

He felt Maedhros stiffen beside him, and Maglor quickly wiped his eyes. He didn’t want to cause Maedhros to feel any discomfort on his behalf, so he rose to leave. “I’m sorry, I’ll just—”

Without a word, Maedhros pulled him back down and into his arms.

And with that, the last shred of Maglor’s composure was gone, and his tears flowed freely.

“Th-they could have died. They could have…been lost forever,” he sobbed.

Maedhros’ grip on him tightened, and he rested his head on top of Maglor’s.

“I-I love them, Maedhros. I don’t want them to disappear or get hurt, or…” Maglor took a deep, shuddering breath, before his next words tumbled out in a rush. “I don’t deserve to love them, and they shouldn’t be here, but they are, and I can’t help it.”

“I know,” Maedhros replied quietly. “And I care for them too. We cannot give them the life they deserve—that we stole from them—but nothing will harm them on my watch. Not if there is anything in my power to prevent it.”

Maglor nodded against his older brother’s chest.

After a few minutes, he whispered, “I love you, Nelyo.”

It had been so long since he heard Maedhros respond to any words of affection, but he knew he wasn’t imagining the deep rumble of his brother’s voice resonating in his chest as he replied, “I love you too, Káno.”

Chapter End Notes

 1) I’m not sure who made up the Fëanorions’ nickname for E&E (”little stars”)—that may have been JaztheBard?—but I’ve seen multiple authors using it. I absolutely love it and it’s a part of my adopted headcanons!

2) I have to say, when I was writing the twins’ “shimmer trick,” I couldn’t help but think of low-opacity Elrond in The Fellowship of the Ring movie XD

3) When writing the author’s notes for this chapter, I found a follow-up comic from the same artist who made the one I linked at the top. It’s from the point of view of the elf who was in charge of Elrond and Elros in the first comic. One could say that this is basically Gwaedal’s reaction after the whole escapade, except he's a Noldo and the elf in that comic is a Laiquendi elf XD

4) Speaking of Gwaedal: his name is an actual Sindarin name, and I intentionally picked it out! I used realelvish.net’s list of names. I started with a Quenya name, because I figured this character would be a Fëanorian, so he’d likely be a Noldo. His Quenya name is Súretal, which translates into Sindarin as Gwaedal, and it means Wind Foot. I chose it simply because I liked the name and I didn’t want it to have any deep emotional meaning, since he’s a pretty minor character.

Song-to-Scene Inspiration (for this chapter)

  • Wild Spirit: Used during the search for the twins, generally starting once Maglor and Maedhros left Amon Ereb. The driving nature of this song was spot-on for Maglor and Maedhros tracking the twins. It's filled with determination, along with a touch of anxiety and desperation, and that's what I wanted to convey. It’s also one of Adrian Von Ziegler’s songs with a “woodland” or “forest” vibe, so that matches the environment Maglor and Maedhros are in while they search.
  • Enathar: Used during the scene where Maglor and Maedhros found the twins and talked with them. This song didn't fit quite as well as the others, but when I was writing, the calm mood helped to ground me while working on it, especially after listening to Wild Spirit. There's a softness to the song that connected me to Maglor and Maedhros' emotions, and I liked that.
  • Hope: Used during the scene where Maglor and Maedhros talk after finding the twins. The slow, thoughtful piano reflected Maglor and Maedhros' emotions and actions well, I think: specifically the way they interacted with each other, how their emotions shifted, and how they paid attention to each others' needs to be heard. The music also swells slowly, which felt right for how Maglor's emotions grew more intense through the scene.

Second/alternate version of “…and Found” coming tomorrow, along with an explanation of why I wrote a second version! :)

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