High in the Clean Blue Air by StarSpray
Fanwork Notes
This fic is a sequel to Clear Pebbles of the Rain, which is itself a sequel to Unhappy into Woe.
Warnings: References to past torture/captivity (both canonical and the events of Unhappy into Woe), past character death, etc.
Fanwork Information
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Summary: They passed out of Lhûn and the wider coastline of Middle-earth opened up before his eyes. He had wandered those shores for centuries, and even now he felt the pull of that same wanderlust, and knew he would miss them. Their wildness, the untamed waves, the rocky shores and the cliffs and the sandy beaches. The gulls, and the dunes, and the tide pools with their ever-changing denizens. Someone began to sing a song of farewell, and other voices took it up. He did not join them. Maglor keeps a promise, and comes to Valinor, only to find the ghosts he thought he'd left behind are alive and waiting for him. Major Characters: Maglor, Maedhros, Elrond, Daeron, Celebrían, Elladan, Elrohir Major Relationships: Elrond & Maglor, Maedhros & Maglor, Daeron/Maglor Genre: Drama, Family, Het, Hurt/Comfort, Slash Challenges: Rating: Teens Warnings: Check Notes for Warnings This fanwork belongs to the series |
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| Chapters: 1 | Word Count: 879 |
| Posted on 21 March 2025 | Updated on 21 March 2025 |
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This fanwork is a work in progress. | |
Prologue
Read Prologue
Late First Age
Beleriand
When at last the twins and the remnant of their people disappeared into the distance, Maglor at last turned back from the road. Maedhros pretended not to notice him wiping tears from his face. “You could have gone with them,” he said. “You could still, if you—”
“No,” Maglor said, not looking at him, “I could not.” A cold wind was blowing from the north, carrying a faint sour smell, and dark clouds were moving in; lightning flickered in them, sickly and pale. He passed Maedhros to grab his things. “We need to find shelter.”
“Maglor,” Maedhros tried again, reaching out to catch his arm. “If you—”
“Don’t.” He yanked his arm from Maedhros’ grip, and lifted his pack. He had given his harp to Elros, and it was strange to see him without it slung over his shoulder.
“What if I ordered you to go?” Maedhros asked. The look Maglor gave him was withering, and he set his jaw. “I am still your liege—”
“Neither of us are lords of anything,” Maglor said, voice flat. He sounded exhausted, and looked it too, suddenly. His shoulders sagged, and his hair was coming loose of its braid. Strands of it blew across his face, momentarily hiding his eyes, which were red and still wet.
“I am still your older brother, then,” Maedhros said. “I am asking you—”
“I will follow you to whatever end, however bitter,” Maglor said. “But I will not leave you. How can you ask it of me, now, after everything?” His voice broke on the last word, and fresh tears fell, dampening his hair and making it stick to his cheeks.
“Do you think it is easy for me to ask?” Maedhros demanded, taking shelter in anger. He had no tears left to shed, and if he did not get angry he felt he would break apart, dissolve into dust or burn away into ash as their father had. Whatever happened, however the world ended, he would have Maglor safe. If there was any hope for the future it lay with Elwing’s sons and with Gil-galad, not with him. He knew with the kind of certainty that was rooted in his very bones that at the end of his road, whatever the outcome of the war in the north, lay his death. “If there is a chance for you to—”
“Stop.” Command rang through the word, never before directed at Maedhros. His voice died in his throat, and he took a step back, shocked out of his anger and left feeling empty and cold. When Maglor spoke again, it was quieter, and weighed down by grief. “There is nowhere for me to go that is safe. There is nowhere for either of us, after everything we have done. Do not ask me again, please, Maedhros. I will not leave you. I cannot leave you, and I could not bear it if you left me.”
Maedhros closed the distance between them and pulled Maglor in. Maglor dropped his head to Maedhros’ shoulder. His shoulders shook once, twice, and then stilled. “I am sorry, Cáno,” Maedhros whispered. “I will not ask again.”
The clouds were hurrying on ever closer, and the thunder rumbled, ominous, and heralding a great rush of wind that pulled Maglor’s hair entirely free of its braid to blow wildly around their heads. “We have to go,” he said, drawing away from Maedhros, but grasping his hand. “This way.”
They reached the shelter of a shallow cave in a crumbling outcropping of rock just in time. The skies opened and rain roared down just as Maedhros ducked in beside Maglor. He leaned against the stone wall, and Maglor leaned against him. Maedhros rested his hand on Maglor’s hair, wind-tangled and wild, as memories came unbidden to his mind, of all the times in their youth that Maglor had slipped away from company or just from the boisterous chaos of their household, and how it had always been Maedhros, and none of their other brothers, or their father, or even their mother, who had been able to find him when he hid himself away—in closets and under beds when he had been small, and later on rooftops or in the branches of trees, or hidden in the tall grass near the river behind their grandfather Mahtan’s house. Maedhros had asked him once why that was, and he had laughed—they had all laughed so easily then—and replied as though it was the most obvious thing in the world, “I will never not want your company, Nelyo.”
Somehow that was still true, though they never laughed now, and Nelyafinwë of Tirion was long dead, replaced by Maedhros of Himring who would have horrified his younger self, had he ever seen who he would become, and though Oath and Doom pressed on them so sometimes it was hard to even breathe under the weight of them. Maglor, too, was someone his younger self would recoil from, and the thought of what he had led his brothers to would have been enough to make Maedhros weep if he had any tears left. He watched the rain and was quietly, selfishly, achingly glad that Maglor had stayed.
