Go On Aching Still by StarSpray

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Two

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His first thought upon waking, his body brand new and ill-fitting, all of his senses sharper than they had ever been before so that even the softest touch of the grass was nearly unbearable—his first thought was: I do not want this. He took a breath, shuddering as his lungs inflated for the first time. He felt his heart beating a steady rhythm in his chest. Almost he felt he could feel the very blood flowing through his veins. The air smelled of flowers and sweet grass. The sun was warm on his face, and somewhere not far away he could hear the cheerful babbling of a brook as it flowed along. 

Nothing hurt. That was the strangest part. He had not known painlessness for so long. Even in death he had burned with the memory of it. 

Maedhros opened his eyes. The sun was bright enough to hurt; he squinted and lifted his arm to shield his eyes—and found no hand at the end of his wrist. There was no scar, either—just smooth skin, as though there had never meant to be a hand there in the first place. He sat up, hand and wrist-stump sinking into the thick grass. All around him white Evermind grew, like a sweet-scented snowdrift over the summer grass. Purple hyacinth peeped out in places, a more vivid shade than he had ever seen before. Or perhaps he had just never paid enough attention. For several minutes he sat still and stared at the flowers, just breathing. Every breath was a miracle that he did not want. The flowers were a beauty not meant for him. A jewel-bright butterfly fluttered lazily about his head before landing on his knee for a moment. Its tiny feet were a brief tickle over his skin, the brush of its wings softer than silk, before it was gone again, off to seek sweet nectar elsewhere. 

He lowered his face into his hand, and his hair tumbled forward to hide his face, a curtain between him and the rest of the world. “Send me back,” he whispered, not knowing to whom he spoke but knowing someone must be listening. His voice sounded strange. Younger. Clearer. A fair voice untainted by years of shouting across battlefields, of screaming in the dark of Angband, of breathing the fumes of that place and later of Beleriand as the Shadow’s reach grew and grew, overtaking everything with fire and poison. It was a voice that had belonged to Maitimo Nelyafinwë of Tirion, not Maedhros of Himring. 

Maitimo Nelyafinwë had died in Angband, and there was no bringing him back. Only Maedhros. And Maedhros did not belong in Valinor. 

The soft rustle of the grass alerted him to someone’s approach, and he reached for a weapon he did not have as he raised his head. As he did so, a robe was draped over his shoulders by gentle hands, the fabric undyed but very soft. “There is no going back,” said a woman’s voice, like the sigh of the breeze over water. Estë knelt beside him, her grey hair falling like mist over her shoulders, and her pale face so kind that Maedhros had to look away. “You would allow yourself neither rest nor healing in death, and so Nienna and I spoke to Námo, and so you have been released to find them in life.”

“And if I cannot?”

“Do not speak so.” Then Estë sighed, and lifted up his right arm. Her hands were cool and soft. “I am sorry for this,” she said. “But it would not form.” Maedhros said nothing. “You may linger here for a time, but not for ever. When you are ready, a path through the wood will lead you into Lórien. And from Lórien you may go where you will.”

“I will find no welcome in these lands,” Maedhros said quietly. 

“You are wrong. Do you think Nerdanel will turn you away?”

She should, Maedhros thought. She turned my father away, and I have done far worse things than he. But he heard himself ask, in a shaking whisper, “Where does she dwell now?”

“Near her father’s house outside of Tirion, just west of the plum orchard where you and your brothers once played.” Estë leaned forward and kissed his forehead. “Whatever road you choose will lead you there, if you wish it. None will hinder you on your journey.” And just like that, she was gone. Maedhros shivered. He had forgotten what it was to speak to the Ainur, how they came and went as they pleased, putting on bodies and taking them off again like cloaks. Would that he could do the same.

After a time he shrugged his arms into the sleeves of the robes Estë had given him, and allowed himself a moment of indulgence to run his fingers over the fabric, buttery soft against still-tender skin. Someone had stitched tiny oak leaves along the hems of the sleeves in thread of the same color, so it was only a bit of texture unless one looked closely. Then Maedhros looked at his hand—at the palm. It too had not escaped Mandos unchanged. The scars were faded but still noticeable, and though they did not hurt he could remember still that pain, that exquisite distillation of it that was not just heat but cold as well, not just the physical burning of his hand but the knife-blade of rejection and damnation and confirmation of every dark thought he had ever had of himself. 

He shook his head, and got slowly to his feet, feeling unsteady and strange and wrong, like his body was a set of clothes that did not quite fit. He felt off balance, too heavy and too light all at once. At least the robes were easy to fasten, designed for the fumbling fingers of those newly returned. Then he stood for a moment, flexing his fingers and staring again at the pattern of scars that resembled the facets of a jewel. 

Only then did it occur to him to wonder what had happened to Maglor. They had both taken up a Silmaril, but the pain had been so sudden and all-encompassing that Maedhros had ceased to think about anything else, or even to think at all. He looked up at the walls of Mandos, high and stark and imposing, and at the small and plain door at the base of them out of which he had presumably come, though he had no memory of it. Maedhros had not looked for him in Mandos—he had not looked for anyone, and had only a faint recollection of his father coming to him, and then swiftly retreating, though he did not remember what had passed between them. And now there was no one to ask. 

He left the flowery meadow and followed the path through the trees. Elm and hazel lined it, and hyacinth brought a splash of vivid color to the pale grass and the white chamomile and snowdrops that lined it, replacing the Evermind that grew just outside of Mandos. He had to stop often to rest as his spirit settled a little more firmly into this strange and new body with each step. He felt like a child learning to walk again at times, when he stumbled over nothing or almost wandered off of the path when he stopped looking where he was going. Soon the wood changed, undergrowth fading away and the trees shifting from oaks and elms to towering beeches rising like pillars. In meadows and clearings poppies grew among the ferns, and in other places berry bushes were clustered, heavy with ripened fruit. Maedhros stopped to taste one, plucking a raspberry from the brambles. It stained his fingertips pink and burst on his tongue with tart sweetness, warm from the sunshine that dappled the grass and danced with the waving of the branches overhead. 

Lórien was a place made for lingering, for drowsiness and rest and dreams—and in moments when the power of that place nearly overcame him, and he felt so tired, it was so tempting to imagine that lying down next to one of the quiet ponds would bring him true rest, that bathing in the waters might calm the flames still burning him up from the inside. But Maedhros shook himself awake again each time and kept walking until the path led him away from the beech woods and the streams and the ponds, and out into wide open lands where there was just grass, rippling in the winds over rolling hills, and where he could see for miles upon miles—see that he was alone, with no other elven traveler in sight.

As promised, no one appeared to hinder him or even to see him as he passed along the roads and pathways through the wild fields and woodlands of Yavanna and the somewhat more orderly pastures of the elves. Once he had ridden and walked every inch of these lands and known all who dwelt there. It had changed in all the years he had been gone. New fields had been planted, and others left to grow into new woods or turned into grasslands for animals to graze. But when he crested a hill in the evening and saw Tirion shining in the last rays of the setting sun atop Túna he nearly fell to his knees at the familiar sight of it—even under the strange light of the sun. Up close it would be strange and different, he knew, but at a distance it was exactly as it was in his memory—only seen now at sunset instead of under Treelight. In the east the Pelóri rose, tall and imposing. Through the Calacirya he glimpsed the Silmaril hanging in the sky. He waited for the familiar and awful pull of the Oath—but there was nothing. 

His mother’s house was near at hand. Twilight settled over the world as he approached it, passing through an apple orchard laden with not-yet-ripe fruit and coming at it from the back, through a garden filled with flowers and vegetables planted in no particular order or pattern, and scattered with sculptures and statues of strange and beautiful shapes. He saw lamplight in the windows, and smelled woodsmoke from the chimney. Through the kitchen window he saw his mother moving about, something fretful about her manner; she kept wiping at her face. He stood frozen for some time, unable to take a full breath, realizing all at once just how much he had missed her. He rested his hand on the statue beside him, the stone polished so that it glistened in the starlight. 

Finally, he steeled himself and strode forward. Whatever he had become in the end, no one could ever accuse him of cowardice. If she shut the door in his face—well. At least then he would know. He knocked, but perhaps not loud enough, for there was no answer. So he opened the door, and found Nerdanel muttering to herself as she scooped papers up from the table with one hand, using the other to mop up a small puddle of water from around a teapot. The air smelled like burning apple wood and something herbal. At the sound of the door she looked up. Her hair was coming loose of its bun, strands of it falling across her eyes, which widened in shock at the sight of him as the paper fell from her hand, drifting like leaves to the floor. 

Maedhros did not know what he looked like, did not know if it was only shock in her eyes or if it was something better or worse. “Ammë?” he managed after a moment, having to force the word past the tightness of his throat. 

“Maitimo,” she whispered, tears welling up to spill over her cheeks. He almost didn’t see her cross the room, she moved so quickly. She pulled him inside and wrapped her arms around him—but only for a moment, before she was pulling him to a chair by the hearth and fetching another cup from a cupboard, and then coming back to embrace him again, kissing his face all over like she had when he’d been small—small enough to be her only son. He supposed that was true all over again, now. 

“How are you here?” she asked, his face in her hands. He could feel the ridges of their callouses against his skin, feel the way they caught on the strands of his hair as she smoothed it back from his eyes. Her eyes searched his, and joy was rapidly replaced by concern as she saw what lay behind them. “Maitimo, you should not be here. It is too soon for you.”

“The Valar disagree.” Maedhros looked away, into the flames on the hearth.

“The Valar,” Nerdanel said, almost scathingly, “are not always right.” Then she sighed, and kissed him one last time before going to pour the tea. “But you are here now, and they cannot take it back.” She handed him a cup and sat in the other chair by the hearth with her own. Maedhros watched the steam curl gently up from the dark liquid. Then his mother asked, “What should I call you?” When he looked up she was regarding him somberly. “Many of the Returned do not prefer the names they once used here. Findekáno does not care, but Finrod answers to Felagund more often than anything else, and some names he refuses to hear at all. But what of you? Will you be called Maitimo, Nelyo, Russandol—Maedhros?” 

The sound of Maedhros in his mother’s voice felt wrong in the way that metal sliding over stone did. “You can call me whatever you want, Ammë,” he said. All their lives she had only ever used the names she had given them, even Ambarussa, who somehow always knew which one she wanted when she called for them. 

“Maitimo, then,” she said, smiling at him. “I cannot think of you by any other name, no matter how renowned.” 

Or abhorred. Maedhros bit the words back and sipped the tea. It was hot and floral, sweet without needing sugar or honey. He would have to go to Tirion, he thought as he stared down into the cup after tasting it. He would have to go to Valmar and to Alqualondë, and to Tol Eressëa, and wherever anyone dwelt who he had harmed. He would kneel before them all and do whatever they demanded of him. 

Maybe then the burning inside him would cease. 

He was so tired. Not in body, but Estë had been right. He had found no rest in death. In life, too, he was not sure it would come to him. “Ammë,” he said, and stopped. He didn’t know what he wanted to say. There was too much—and not enough. “Ammë—do you know what happened to Mag—to Macalaurë?” 

Her hand rose to her mouth, trembling. “He lives, still,” she said after a very long silence. “Across the Sea.” There was something more, something that made Maedhros think that it was no relief that he should feel at the news, but dread. But Nerdanel would not say more, and instead she rose and turned away, talking of spare rooms and bed linens, and going to her father’s house the next day to find clothes that could be altered to fit him. She moved briskly, but there was something brittle in it. She knew something more of Maglor that she did not want to tell him, and he could not bring himself to ask again. 

He slept that night in a small bedroom on linens that smelled of lavender. His dreams were filled with fire and smoke. 

After that it was days of his mother and himself circling each other, strangers and not-strangers, unsure how to speak to one another, unsure how to act. Nerdanel knew what was needed by others who had returned from Mandos, but none had come as Maedhros did, thrown out of the Halls for lack of healing rather than being released after finding it. Painful politeness had replaced easy affection, though his mother was not lacking in warmth, even if she did at times seem distracted, and he saw her wiping her eyes often when she thought that he was not paying attention. She still took every chance to kiss him or embrace him, and she kept looking at him like he was some sort of miracle. 

His grandparents learned of his return immediately, and came with gifts and clothes and more kisses—but they retreated again quickly. 

So had his brothers, after Thangorodrim, and all of his cousins and his uncle. All save Fingon. And Maglor.

Someone, he supposed, would tell Fingon sooner or later of his return. In fact he suspected his mother had already written to him. But what was he to say when they met again? He had failed and Fingon had died—so had rhymed all the verses, if his life were to be cast in song. He had failed, and others had died, until the end when success had at last killed him. His hand throbbed as he thought of it, a faint echo of pain, there and gone again in the space of a thought. 

There was no one to tell Maglor, though. No way to get a message back across the Sea, even if the world had not been bent and changed. Maedhros paced through the house, restless, as his mother worked outside; he could hear her humming to herself when he passed the open windows. He couldn’t seem to keep himself in the present; his thoughts kept taking him back in time and back across the Sea to sinking Beleriand, drowning and on fire at the same time. 

It was when he tripped over the corner of a rug that he saw the chest, shoved haphazardly into a corner, a bit of pale blue cloth sticking out from beneath the lid. He recognized it immediately, and went to kneel in front of it. Inside should have been…yes, palantíri, the first ones his father had made. Maedhros ran his fingers over them. They were cool to the touch, glossy and smooth under his fingers. In his memory he could recall his father’s fond exasperation at all of them when they forgot to take one on some journey or other. I want to be able to speak to my sons! 

He could not speak to Maglor. But at least he might be able to see him. Maedhros picked an orb at random and sat back on his heels, looking into it, and thinking of his brother, of how much he missed him—not having him nearby was like losing his hand all over again. He didn’t know what to do with himself, forever out of balance and forever trying to reach for something that was not there. Except losing his hand had been worth it. Of all his wounds it was the one given to him out of love and mercy. Losing Maglor was just…loss. 

At first the palantír only showed him darkness. Maedhros was about to set it aside, thinking perhaps he might try again later, when the image began to clarify, to show him what lay in the darkness. A pale figure on hard stone, laying on his side, chained by wrist and by ankle. Dark hair covered his face until he moved a little and it shifted—thick and matted, heavy and stiff—to reveal Maglor’s face. Maedhros stopped breathing as he stared at him. He was thin and covered in scars and bruises—there was a livid red eye on his chest, still brand new and raw—but that wasn’t the worst of it. There was something wrong with his face. Dried and drying blood clung to his lips and the skin surrounding, and it wasn’t until he looked closer that Maedhros realized where it had come from, and just what the wrongness was. Stitches. Cords pierced through his lips and pulled tight. And his eyes—they were open but dulled, unfocused, glazed over with pain. There was no hope in them; tear tracks stood out on his face, pale amidst the dirt and blood. For a moment it almost seemed that Maglor looked directly at him, but it passed in a blink and then he was closing his eyes, turning his face away so his hair fell back over it, hiding it from view. 

Maedhros dropped the palantír back into the chest and scrambled to his feet. He couldn’t breathe. The walls were suddenly too close, the ceiling too low. He fled, out of the kitchen door and through the garden, past the statues and the hawthorn tree, out into the field beyond that bordered the orchard. There lay a little river beyond that, and it was the shock of the water that made him stumble, falling onto the opposite bank beneath the pale curtain of a willow. He remained on his hands and knees, gasping for breath but choking on it. Outside of the willow birds were singing, and somewhere in the orchard he heard elvish voices laughing together. The sun was bright and warm in a cloudless sky. 

How could it still be shining, how could there still be laughter, when his brother was locked away in torment? How could the world still go on as it always had while Maglor, his dearest and most beloved friend and companion, his right hand, his baby brother—

Someone splashed across the river behind him, but Maedhros couldn’t even lift his head. He was too hot and too cold, burning up, trembling and unable to stop. A hand rested on his back as someone knelt beside him. “Maedhros.”

“Felagund,” Maedhros rasped. His elbows gave out, and then his knees, so he was curled up on the grass, head bowed. His eyes burned but no tears fell. He could not recall when he had last wept. After the Dagor Bragollach, and later for Finrod—but not after the Fifth Battle. Tears unnumbered had been shed after that, but none had been his.

He heard Finrod shift to sit on the grass beside him. His hand returned to Maedhros’ back, just resting there, a steady weight on his spine. “I looked into the palantír, too,” Finrod said after a moment, “after I saw you leave the house.” His voice was very soft. “I know what you saw.” Maedhros shuddered. “Aunt Nerdanel has seen it, too.”

“I failed him,” Maedhros said into the grass. A blade of it brushed over his cheek and as he lifted his head a little he saw a drop of moisture there. When he raised his head to look at Finrod, his cousin’s face was blurred. “He wouldn’t be there if I had not—”

“That’s nonsense,” said Finrod. “However he got there, it had nothing to do with you.”

“But I still—” He choked again, and it seemed that now that the tears had started to fall they would not stop, and he couldn’t speak through them. It was like he was drowning. But he still burned inside, and he did not understand how they did not just dissolve into steam on his cheeks. How the grass under his hands did not curl and blacken with the heat of him. How Finrod could lay a hand on his shoulder and not come away with blisters. 

“I know.” Finrod reached out with both hands this time and pulled Maedhros over so that he all but collapsed against his chest. Finrod held him like that, the way Maedhros had once held his brothers when they were small and suffering from such horrors as a scraped knee or an argument with another brother. And later, after they had suffered worse horrors. Then somehow they had stopped reaching out for this sort of comfort, and he’d forgotten how to give it. Except for Maglor. He had never stopped reaching. It was Maedhros who had stopped reaching back. And now an ocean and who knew what else separated them, and it was too late. 

Eventually, the tears slowed, though they did not stop. “Who…do you know who…whose sign is the eye?” Maedhros asked. He stared at the willow fronds waving gently in the breeze.

“Gorthaur,” Finrod whispered. Maedhros shut his eyes. “He was defeated, once. But he is gaining power again.” 

And he had Maglor, and there was nothing they could do.