Ransom of the Fairy Twins by Rocky41_7

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Part 4

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XVI.

           With Elros returned, the final reluctance in Elrond to advance their relationship dissolved, and within six months, he and Gil-galad were affianced, and later that year, wed. If Gil-galad had ever noticed Elrond dragging his feet about any of it, it didn’t show, and it was Elrond who broached the subject of their marriage, declining to explicitly point out that he couldn’t wait forever. Elves did not make great ceremony about marriages the way Men did—which Elros found all the more puzzling given that Elves frequently married but once in their long lives—and so he felt it was necessary to inject a bit more festivity into the event. 

           He hosted a party in their shared quarters, even inviting some of his friends from the Edain towns and villages in which he had lingered. Madelyn was too old to travel so far, but she wrote with her best wishes for the new couple, as did the others who judged travel too dangerous or time-consuming. Most of them had never been into an Elven city before, and were much at a loss at how to handle it, but Elros had a hand for putting them at ease.

           Oropher and Thranduil sent much congratulations from the Greenwood, but could not be spared from the hard-pressed new settlement. Along with Oropher’s overflowing well wishes came a new dagger, and a new carving, built and sent by Thranduil: still a chipmunk, after all these years. Elrond smiled so when he saw it that his cheeks hurt.

           Elros gave a small speech to honor his twin’s marriage, and bade them exchange a kiss at the end, at which all of the Men hollered in support, none as loud as Elros.

           “Congratulations to both of you,” he concluded. “And my lord, please remember just one thing…I’m the one with short hair.” And the guests cackled with laughter.

           Elrond moved out of their quarters, officially into the king’s chambers, and when it was all said and done, Elros sat alone on the end of the bed, and found himself, he thought, uncharitably unhappy. Elrond had fretted so much about their parting, but what could be more parting than this? Elrond was one half of a happily wedded couple now—what need had he of other attachments? 

           But Elros steeled himself. He would simply have to bear it; there was no other option. He had had dalliances among Men during his travels, but nothing that, thus far, had inclined him to lifelong partnership. The day might come though—and surely he would want Elrond to be happy on his behalf. And even if it did not…the terror of the thought that he could grow to resent his twin over anything pushed him to set aside any negative feelings he might have.

           Yet where he had expected to be closed out of the new pair, he found it was not so, not as he had imagined. Gil-galad more often than not invited Elros along to anything he was doing with Elrond, and his brother was nearly always happy to have him along. They hunted and played games—indeed, Elros was far more enthusiastic about the sort of sports that Gil-galad enjoyed than Elrond, who frequently preferred to be a spectator in such things—and Gil-galad even spoke to him of the tasks of the kingship. Elrond had an official position with the court now, which he had not relinquished with his marriage, though that title reigned over “herald of the king.” He said privately that it was good they helped Gil-galad to get out of his head—he seemed to have less and less time for anything approaching fun these days.

The time was surely coming, the king confided to Elros with some quiet resignation, when Morgoth would stretch out his hand and crush these final pockets of independence. 

           “What are you waiting for, then?” Elros asked him one day with some distaste. “To die?” Gil-galad went silent for a long time.

           “For a miracle,” he said at last. On this, he did not elaborate, and Elros did not care to ask.

           On one day, when Gil-galad had been especially troubled by the latest reports from his scouts, Elrond and Elros pulled him into the garden to play a strategy game the Iathrim had taught them. The board was makeshift, as no one they knew in Balar made them, but they remembered the rules well enough to explain it to Gil-galad.

           “I hope you both know how proud I am of you,” he said suddenly, as they were all scrutinizing the board for next moves. Both brothers looked up in some surprise. Gil-galad raised his eyes from the board. “When first you came here, you were both so angry,” he said. “Not that you had not good reason! But it worried me. I didn’t know how we would care for you to heal such a thing. And now, when I look at you…I would never know that it had been that way. You have both grown so far beyond your childhood. I think it shows great strength of character.” 

           Elrond and Elros looked at each other, then blinked awkwardly at Gil-galad, and then Elros said: “Truly heinous cheating, my lord. He’s distracting us, Elrond.” 

           And they laughed, and finished the game, and afterwards, Gil-galad wrote to Círdan, asking if there had been any sign from the west of Eärendil or Elwing, and any help they might bring.

XVII.

           Elrond and Elros continued to age. Few in the court were willing to comment on it, and they had reached a point in life when a few years here or there made little difference in their appearance, but Elros could not shake the awareness of his mortality that he had gained among the Edain, and Elrond found that being wed to a man who would, in theory, live forever made him suddenly and sharply aware that he would not. Gil-galad did not like to talk about this, and often found ways to silence Elrond when he tried to mention it, often with something seemingly lighthearted whose levity was belied by the desperation under it. 

           Elros was the only one whom Elrond could speak to of death, but his brother seemed so much more accepting of this final fate than Elrond could find it in him to be. 

           “Are you not afraid at all?” Elrond asked in exasperation during one of these rare conversations. Elros shrugged.

           “Sure, of course. Anything which you do not understand is frightening. But what can we do about it? It will come, whether we want it to or not. I shall not let death rob me of my chance to live.” Then he grinned, as if he had said something profound. It took him a moment to consider another element that existed to this for Elrond.

“Gil-galad knew what he was doing,” said Elros quietly.

           “Sometimes, I am not convinced he did,” Elrond muttered. “Did you know that Elves can die of grief? I read that in the library recently.”

           “He did, though,” said Elros. “He knew. And still he chose this. You should honor that.” Elrond looked at him a long time.

           “Why do I feel sometimes like you’re older than me?” he asked at last.

           “I have an old soul,” Elros boasted, tapping his chest dramatically. 

           “And a thick skull,” Elrond replied. 

           It was raining on the mid-fall day when Gil-galad and Elros went hunting on the mainland. They caught little, and despite the weather, took their time on the way back. They were already wet; the spitting rain that continued wasn’t likely to make much of a difference.

           “You shall look after him when I go,” said Elros into the quiet, apropos of nothing. Gil-galad nearly came to a halt. They were too far off from the beach to see it, but in the distance, they could still hear the sound of the waves.

           “You do mean to leave again, then,” he said with some chagrin. Elros flashed a brief, bittersweet smile.

           “I do. I thought maybe I could stay this time, but…I find myself so terribly restless. This…is not my place. But it is Elrond’s.” Gil-galad nodded slowly. 

           “I admit, I had hoped you would remain with us.” 

           “You speak out of love of Elrond, and that reassures me.”

           “I speak out of love of you as well,” said Gil-galad. “Are you not my brother?” Elros’ face turned serious, and for a moment he only stared, and then he swallowed hard and glanced away, shrugging one shoulder.

           “I never considered to have more than one,” he said with a faint laugh. “But yes, I suppose I have room for another.” 

           “Good,” said Gil-galad. “I have never had a brother at all, so I am quite pleased to have one now.” 

           “I think if Elrond had not wed, I could not in good conscience leave,” Elros said, nudging his horse to continue walking. “But he has you now, and so I know he will not be too lonely.”

           “Yet it is not the same,” Gil-galad said. “I have never replaced you in his heart, you know that, do you not?”

           “Of course,” said Elros. “How could you? Meaning no offence, Ereinion. But we are twins.” He glanced up at the fussy sky, smiling lightly. “We used to do everything together. Everything. We didn’t take a shit alone. It was the only way the world felt safe. Now…” 

           “Now you trust that when you part, you will come back together,” Gil-galad suggested. Elros tilted his head.

           “I…suppose I hadn’t thought of it that way,” he said. A smile started on his face. “Yes, I like that.” He sobered again. “I do feel though…” He shifted his hands on the reins. “We separated once before,” he said very quietly. “Still now, I dislike the thought of it. But before, it was simply unthinkable. What if one day it becomes easy as walking out the front door? I can’t imagine that. Not being connected to Elrond anymore. We’re two sides of the same coin. The world doesn’t make sense any other way.” 

           “I think even distance cannot break that bond,” said Gil-galad. “May I confess something to you, Elros? In that way, I find myself a little envious of you. Finduilas and I were never so close. I was an adult when she was born, and we spent much of her childhood apart. And then, of course…” A shadow passed over his face, as it always did when the death of his sister was mentioned. Even now, it pained him, and Elros thought of how long these wounds lingered with Elves. Men knew grief, of course, but with Elves, those wounds frequently seemed to fail to heal at all. “I wish I had been able to spend time with her as an adult. I…should have liked to get to know her that way.” 

           They spent a few minutes in silence, Elros turning these thoughts over.

           “In any case, I think Elrond would wish you to do what makes you most happy,” Gil-galad said, somewhat awkwardly.

           “You’re most likely right,” said Elros. “Still, a part of me will always wish he was coming with me.”

           “If you would only settle down somewhere, certainly he would visit!” They smiled, and lapsed into an easier silence, and then Gil-galad asked: “When will you go?”

           “Oh, I’m not sure, yet. Not soon. I want to spend as much time here as I can. But if I’m honest, I know the day will come when I must be off.” After a moment’s more thought, he quickly added: “I haven’t told Elrond this, though, so I would beg you say nothing of it.” 

           “I think he knows already,” Gil-galad pointed out. “He knows you, Elros.” That made Elros smile again. 

           “Yes, he does.”

XVIII.

           In spring, Gil-galad called the twins together into his office, and skulked about the circular table like a child preparing for a scolding. This went on for so much time that both of them vowed to say nothing, waiting to see how comically long Gil-galad would delay whatever it was he had to say.

           “There is something I must tell you both,” he said at last, after Elrond and Elros had exchanged several questioning, and then entertained, glances. 

           “Yes?” they prompted him together.

           “I…did not tell you before because I did not wish to upset you, but I feel now that it must be told, as it is your right to choose a response.” Another, more concerned glance between the Peredhil. 

           “What is it, Ereinion?” Elrond asked. 

           “You received a letter,” said Gil-galad. “Well. I received a letter, but the subject was yourselves.”

           “From whom?” Elros asked.

           “Maglor and Maedhros Fëanorion.” 

           The reaction was immediate. Both twins’ expressions cycled in a matter of second through astonishment, rage, disgust, curiosity, and confusion.

           “Well what the fuck do they want?” Elros snarled, his nose wrinkled like some dog had just fouled his bed. 

           “They want to make a trade,” said Gil-galad reluctantly. “Or rather, reverse one. They have offered to return the Silmaril to me, if I deliver you both back into their care.” 

           “Deliver us?” Elrond echoed. “Do they imagine we have been your prisoners all this time?”

           “And they are only just now—”

           “—considering that might be a bad thing?”

           “Why are they only writing you now?” they demanded together. 

           “I must say…no, I was as repulsed by this communication as you are, but I must say, for the part of the Elves, particularly ones as old as Maedhros and Maglor…ten years’ time is little. To them, it may feel as though they have immediately repudiated this choice. I know time is different for the both of you. But in their minds, they have taken no time at all to make this decision.” 

           “Maglor always did excel at being reasonable in his own mind,” Elros sneered. “I should not be surprised at all—”

           “—that they would think they still had the ability to take it back,” Elrond muttered. “Anything else would necessitate—”

           “—considering our perspective,” they finished together. 

           “Tell him to choke on a chicken bone,” said Elros. “Or better yet, say nothing at all.” Gil-galad shifted uneasily.

           “I had originally decided to say nothing,” he said. “But…given the…general temperament of these men…I consider it may be better not to ignore them entirely.”

           “Oh, you think they shall respond better to being told ‘no’?” Elros asked. Gil-galad shrugged.

           “I would feel more comfortable with the matter closed, personally.” 

           “Fine, then. You can tell them both, from Elros Eärendilion, to go pound sand.” Gil-galad frowned.

           “What does that mean?”

           “It means fuck off,” said Elros. 

           “Ah. Very well. I will decline. Better to keep the response as short as possible, I think.”

           “I agree,” said Elros. “The more you say, the more room they shall believe they have to bargain.”

           “I want to see them,” Elrond interrupted. Elros and Gil-galad both turned to look at him.

           “The subject is still Maedhros and Maglor, in case you have forgotten,” said Elros. 

           “I know,” said Elrond peevishly, his eyes flashing as he looked at Elros. “I want to see them. Do you not?” 

           “I absolutely do not,” said Elros. “I’ve seen dog excrement before.” 

           “I want to see them,” Elrond insisted. “I would have them look me in the eye while they tell me they wish to take possession of us again. I would see their faces. I would hear them have to explain it. If you let them write out their answer with pen, they shall pick and pour over their words until they have sent the most eloquent and evasive and reasonable letter there’s ever been. I would see them deprived of the opportunity for such reasoned diplomacy.”

           Elros blinked.

           “That…is rather sadistic, isn’t it?” he said, not disapproving.

           “I think they owe us this.” 

           Gil-galad looked uncomfortably between the two, scraping one nail lightly against the tabletop.

           “Then…” 

           At last, Elros shrugged. “If that is what you prefer.”

           “I…” Gil-galad clearly had not expected the discussion to take this turn. “I cannot simply invite the sons of Fëanor into Balar,” he hissed urgently. “The city would not stand for it! And for good reason!”

           “Make them come in disguise,” said Elrond. “And unarmed.”

           “To that they will never agree, you know it. Even if they appeared unarmed, it would not be the truth.” 

           “Amon Ereb lacks any strength to attack Balar,” said Elrond bluntly. “If they attempted to match you in arms, you would run them down like reeds. They were hemorrhaging followers after the attack on Sirion; even if that has abated, the damage has been done to their numbers. Not to mention none of them can sail. I am not certain they can even swim.”

           “An inability to completely invade my capitol does not mean an inability to do significant harm!” Gil-galad objected heatedly. 

           “If they are writing you and making requests and not demands, then even they see they have a weak position,” said Elrond. “They will attempt to be conciliatory first. They will do as you ask.”

           “And when you and Elros tell them to go pound sand?” Gil-galad demanded.

           “I think Maglor would not hurt us, not seriously,” said Elrond. “He will be restrained.”

           “And Maedhros? And what makes you so sure they have changed not since you saw them last? You do not know my cousins!”

           “You said yourself a decade is the blink of an eye to them,” said Elrond. “What time have they had to change? Insist Maglor come alone, if you like.” 

           Gil-galad was grinding his teeth. “I think this is a poor idea, Elrond.”

           “As do I,” said Elros. “But I am curious to see the result.” Gil-galad glared at him. 

           “We can surely ensure the safety of the city and the castle from two lone Elves!” said Elrond. “Elros and I have had martial training as well. We will go armed, if it will reassure you.”

           “Yes, the notion of your being cut down in a battle with Maglor Fëanorion is awfully reassuring! Perhaps you do not remember—” But Gil-galad cut himself short, deciding partway through that throwing Sirion at Elrond was not a sportsmanlike argument. But he had seen the damage left in the wake of Maedhros and Maglor, and the terrible twins Amrod and Amras, and he would not forget that carnage if he lived another ten thousand years. 

           “I want to see them,” said Elrond again. Gil-galad closed his eyes. He exhaled carefully. 

           “As you wish. I will write the response, and the both of you may look it over before I send it. Will that suffice?” The twins nodded. 

           So it was done, and Gil-galad sent the letter, signed by Ereinion Gil-galad, High King of the Noldor in Middle-earth, and Elros Eärendilion, and Prince Consort Elrond Eärendilion.

And Maglor came.

XIX.

           Maglor rode cloaked into the city from the pier. He gave the false name at the gate he was due to give, and was led up to the castle. His sword, without which he did not travel, he left with his horse in the stables. The valet waiting for him inside the front hall took him quickly not to the throne room, but to a dining hall, where there was a long table, and at the end, a man. His dark hair was drawn back into a bun, its length impossible to guess at, and was capped in a delicately-wrought silver circlet. His jaw was strong, though his ears were oddly-shaped, and his eyes—his eyes. 

           “Elrond?” Maglor gasped. 

           The heir of Elwing and Eärendil blinked indifferently at him with Dior’s eyes, which were Lúthien’s eyes, which were Elu Thingol’s eyes.

           “Maglor,” he said. When he observed Maglor’s shock, he said: “Did you think we were still children?” 

           “I…” 

           “Ten years may be nothing to you, but it is a long while to a Man,” said Elrond. “Not that I would expect you to have thought of that.” 

           “I made a mistake,” Maglor blurted out feverishly. He fumbled in his worn cloak and produced a lumpy bundle, thrusting it towards Elrond, quickly approaching his seat. “I made a mistake, it was wrong, I shouldn’t have—here, please—”

           “Get that away from me!” Elrond snarled, leaping back from his seat. The door was flung open, and two guards burst into the room, lances drawn. Elrond threw up a hand to hold them off. “Put that away,” he said to Maglor, as if Maglor had drawn an awful blade. Maglor hesitated, then did as he was told, and Elrond ordered the guards away. “Sit down,” he commanded, and Maglor sat. “What makes you so sure you made the wrong choice?” 

           Maglor did not know what he looked like to Elrond. He knew what he looked like to himself, when he had the misfortune of glancing in a looking-glass, but he also knew what he had looked like Before, before Sirion and Doriath and the Nirnaeth and Middle-earth, which Elrond did not. He hated the stranger in that glass, with his hollow cheeks and hateful, hopeless stare and unkempt, unbejeweled hair. 

           “I…” Maglor gnawed on his lower lip. “Elrond,” he whispered. “I should never have…” 

           “Never should have what, Maglor?” 

           “So many mistakes have I made,” the onetime prince whispered. “So many. This was one I…thought I could take back.” 

           “Interesting. Between the choice of kidnapping us and taking us away from other, more responsible, more capable guardians, and the one of trading us off to a relative stranger, you think the mistake was the latter?” 

           Maglor chewed at his lip again. “That was…Elrond, you know, we swore—”

           “Yes, yes, your bloody oath,” Elrond snapped. “Can you imagine I do not recall?” He drummed his fingers on the table, looking between Maglor and one of the side doors. 

           “Where is Gil-galad?” Maglor asked at last.

           “Pacing one of the halls, biting his nails to the quick, I imagine.” When Maglor sat in confused silence, Elrond said: “I invited you here. Gil-galad and Elros both wanted to refuse you outright. Well, Elros wished not to respond at all. I was the one who summoned you.” 

           “You called me?” Maglor asked, hope swelling in his breast until Elrond’s chilling look quelled it. He looked back down at his knees, sitting somewhat diagonal to the table in his chair, and picked at the fabric. “Is it true you are prince consort of the Noldor now?” he asked.

           “It is.” 

           “Congratulations,” said Maglor with a tentative smile. “I cannot be surprised Gil-galad found you so charming. I am particularly glad now to find you grown!” 

           Elrond stared at him.

           “But…if you are not children in need of care…why did you ask me here?” he asked softly. 

           “I summoned you because I wanted to see you again. It is not often we have the chance to look our childhood monsters in the face as adults.” 

           Maglor stiffened in his seat, feeling as if he had been slapped, but unwilling to flinch. Elrond deserved to hit him, if that was what he wanted. Instead, Elrond simply let the silence draw out until he whipped more words into it, seeming to crack the air.

           “Do you remember when you nailed our bedroom window shut?”

           Maglor was digging his nails so hard into his palm now that it would sting later, but presently he felt the pain only distantly.

           “You kept running out onto the roof!” he said. “You could have fallen!” 

           “Or tried to run away again,” Elrond pointed out in a flat tone that made Maglor’s throat convulse. 

           “I gave you poetry lessons,” he said. “Do you remember?”

           Elrond took a small breath.

           “A king and queen thus lived they long,
            and Doriath was filled with song,
            and all the Elves that missed their way
            and never found the western bay,
            the gleaming walls of their long home
            by the grey seas and the white foam,
            who never trod the golden land
            where the towers of the Valar stand,
            all these were gathered in their realm
            beneath the beech and oak and elm.” 

           Something trembling and sickly, almost like a smile, came to Maglor’s face, as if he were relishing digging a dagger tip into his palm. Elrond seemed to struggle with something for a moment, but gave up, leaning back against his chair. Maglor sought for something to say, for some other, rosier memory of the past to call up, but each thing which he had held golden in his mind then seemed full of the holes Elrond might poke in it if he raised it then.

           “Does Maedhros know you are here?” Elrond asked suddenly, and Maglor went rigid.

           “I could hardly leave Amon Ereb without his notice,” he lied. For one who drank but rarely, Maedhros paid remarkably little attention to what went on around the estate anymore. Or, perhaps, Maglor reflected more bitterly, he simply did not care what Maglor was doing. Impossible for him to be any kind of threat, surely.

           “Does he know you brought that?” Elrond asked, indicating Maglor’s cloak. Maglor fiddled anxiously with the hem. 

           “I…” 

           “He doesn’t, does he? You wrote his name on that letter without him, didn’t you?” 

           Maglor had gone pale, and for a moment, something flashed dangerously in his eyes, but he quickly squashed it down. There was no need for such reflexes here, he told himself. 

           “Maedhros does not believe you made a mistake,” Elrond concluded.

           “I would explain it to him—”

           “This was your plan?” Elrond interrupted, agog. “To trade, without Maedhros’ knowledge, your blood-oath-bound family heirloom back to Gil-galad, and then bring two children into the house with that man, who had every reason to want to kill you at that point? What do you think he would have done to us when he was done with you?” 

           “I can reason with him!” Maglor insisted. “He is not some beast without sense; I would not have let him hurt you, I—” At the look on Elrond’s face, his words petered out.

           “Why would you do that to us?” Elrond asked very softly. “How could you? How could you have taken us from—from our home? Did you know that Oropher and the others lived? That they wanted us? Did you even try to find them?”

           “We had to leave quickly,” said Maglor, again speaking rapidly, as if to get his explanation out before Elrond cut him off or made a wrong assumption. “Decisions needed to be made; Gil-glad was coming—”

           “To stop you,” said Elrond faintly. “Gil-galad was coming to stop you, to protect the Havens. He was so near on your tail?”

           “He was! And I thought it better to take you than leave you alone!”

           “Alone…for Gil-galad to find.” Maglor squirmed in his seat. “Yet you knew,” Elrond went on after this pause. “You knew, at some point, that Oropher and the others were alive. You knew that Gil-galad ruled still in Balar. Yet you waited until he offered you something.”

           “It was Maedhros who—” Maglor drew in a deep breath and shuddered. “I would…have taken more time to consider,” he said. It was too ingrained a habit not to publicly criticize his family, and he was too accustomed to suppressing the full measure of his anger with his brother to show it there.

           Elrond’s face was utterly impassive.

           “You cannot know,” Maglor pleaded with him. “You cannot know what it was like in Amon Ereb with them, with him…We were so wretched, Elrond. The thought of the oath tormented us. We had no hope. We could not back down. But then there was you, and Elros. And you were so small, and so delicate, and you should never have been mine, but I—how could I let you go? 

           “Without you, I was—without you the world was dark, and I bereft of any good deeds or even the option of them on the horizon.”

           Elrond was rising to his feet, turning his face away from Maglor.

           “So we were the sacrifice for your salvation,” he said, one hand curling up on the table until his nails scraped against the wood. Without waiting for a response, he made for the door behind the head of the table. “Be still,” he demanded roughly before wrenching the door open.

           And he left the room. When he returned a few minutes after, the circlet was gone. Tensed and wary, he eased back down into his chair, watching Maglor as if he had some wild thing in his house.

           “Maglor,” he said. When Maglor said nothing, he said: “Did you truly think Gil-galad would accept this offer?”

           “I thought it was worth the effort,” Maglor said quietly. “Perhaps he had not grown attached to you, or perhaps he did not like children, or…” Elrond went on staring. “I thought it was worth the effort,” Maglor repeated, squirming in his seat. 

           “Do you know why we went on the roof?” Elrond asked, and Maglor had the sense he was trying to speak angrily, or at least sternly, and failing. Maglor only shook his head. “We wanted—” Elrond swallowed hard, hands fisting in his lap. “—we wanted to look at the stars.” 

           Maglor thought of Gil-estel, and the many hymns of the Elves to the beauty and artistry of Varda, the queen of the night sky, and he lowered his head, unable to present a worthy response.

           “Why did you come?” Elrond asked faintly, more collected than he had been a moment ago. “What use could you possibly have for us?” 

           “Use?” he rasped. “What use is a child? I…Is it so impossible I might have realized I made the wrong choice?” He asked for faith from Elrond he could not give himself.

           “Yes,” said Elrond bluntly. “I imagine only that you realized you had let the better prize go and now wish to take it back.” 

           At this, Maglor’s eyes welled with tears, which he determinedly swallowed down, in a rare instance of choosing not to make a show of his weeping.

           “I know how we must seem to you, but we were people once—”

           “You do not know,” Elrond interrupted. “You insult me to pretend you do. You never bothered to try to understand a single thing the way we saw it. The only right perspective, the only one that mattered, was yours.”

           “You make it sound as if I do not care for you at all,” Maglor whispered desperately.

           “Tell me then,” Elrond demanded. “Tell me how you care for us.”

           Maglor trembled and licked his lips, searching Elrond’s face for any sign of softness, of pliability. Finding none, he nevertheless plowed on: 

           “I love you,” he said. Elrond again rose to his feet, shoving back from the table, his nose wrinkling, lip curling. “No, this is true,” Maglor pleaded, jumping out of his seat. “That does not mean I have not done you wrong, but I do, I do love you, both of you, you were the only good thing that ever happened to me here, please, that you must believe!” 

           “You do not love us,” said Elrond in disgust, but there was a quaver in his voice. “You love the way we made you feel. Like you were more than a complete failure. You know not how to love anything but yourself.” 

           Maglor’s face warped into a bitter expression, then he stilled, looking over Elrond as if to drink in the sight of him.

           “Can it not be both?” he asked softly. “Teaching you…it was the only time I felt I was contributing something good to the world. Seeing you learn…I had not known I could be so proud of someone else. I never liked children, you know, in Aman, not even my younger brothers. But with you…I understood.” 

           “You chose to contribute misery and sorrow to the world,” Elrond said severely. “No one made you do that.” 

           “And you made me want it to be otherwise!” Maglor cried. “Is there no value in that?” 

           “It should not have taken our suffering to teach you to be better!” Elrond bellowed, throwing his hands down on the table. “We should not have had to bleed for you to learn to put down your blade!” 

           His words rang in the hall, and Maglor did not respond until silence had enveloped the room once more.

           “It should not have,” he agreed, his voice nearly a whisper. “Nothing you say is untrue. Yet this is how it has been. Would you prefer I were wicked until the very end, entirely a creature of Morgoth’s ilk?”

           “Yes,” said Elrond immediately. When Maglor looked at him with breathtakingly wounded astonishment, Elrond said: “Then I could hate you entirely. Would that not be easier for me? You could have done me that favor, at least.” 

           “Then…you do not hate me entirely?” 

           “How could I?” Elrond asked, again with that repulsed expression. “A child will cling to anything before it that represents stability. Even a hand that strikes with regularity is preferrable to chaos. We had nothing but you. Even Maedhros didn’t want us.” Maglor did not attempt to deny this. “Tell me,” said Elrond, his tone less rigid, “did you really believe we might feel otherwise? That we might forget what you had done, what you were doing, and love you?” 

           “I…hoped,” Maglor whispered. “I believed I could make up for what had been done. You must believe that I wish for it, more than I have ever wished for nearly anything. But even if you hate me entirely, still I love you, even if it repulses you. Of course I do not deserve your love. But I desire it. Always I have been greedy, you see.” 

           Elrond rubbed his eyes with one hand, and dragged it down his face, and stared at Maglor.

           “You cannot erase the past,” he said. “It is all built upon itself, don’t you see? We are here because of what you did to our mother, who was in Sirion because of what you did to our grandfather…you Elves may live a very long time, but if you do not learn, it is only a very long time to make mistakes.” 

           “Elrond,” Maglor pleaded.

           Elrond made a choked sound and looked away a long moment before he again went to his feet.

           “I’m Elros,” he said. “And nothing more have I to say to you.” 

           And he left, and Maglor was shown out of the city, and as Elrond had predicted, he made no trouble.

XX.

           In the morning, Gil-galad’s messenger came with a letter from Círdan, which he opened over the breakfast table between a much-subdued Elrond and Elros, who had said next to nothing since the night before. 

           They had watched Maglor leave Balar, both feeling some responsibility to ensure that he did in fact leave. Then they had passed the night in Elros’ rooms—Elrond had found that after meeting with Maglor, he preferred his brother’s company for the night—but they had not spoken of what had been said. Elrond had meant to ask questions—why Elros had not introduced himself when they traded places—indeed, why Elros had gone in at all, for he had been insistent he did not wish to speak with or even see Maglor—but the questions wouldn’t come, and instead they had sat in silence on the sofas for most of the night, occasionally refreshing their drinks and meditating on the conversation. Perhaps those words would come another time, or perhaps their thoughts were destined to remain private—or perhaps they did not need to be spoken between twins such as these, so accustomed to already knowing one another’s thoughts.

At the table, Gil-galad’s eyes scanned the parchment quicker and quicker as he went down, until it fluttered from his hand into his porridge, his mouth agape, rising automatically up to his feet. Gil-galad stared at the parchment as though it were performing some spectacular feat of magic.

           “What is it?” Elros asked, perking up.

           “They did it,” he said softly. 

           “Who did what?” Elrond asked fearfully, suddenly awash in fear that he had stirred the sons of Fëanor.

           “Your mother and father,” said Gil-galad. “They have brought the host of Aman. Our miracle has come.” 

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Chapter End Notes

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