And Love Grew by polutropos

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Elros and Elrond are found and Maglor is at last given space to reflect.

Dornil’s fists clenched and unclenched at her sides. She looked wearier than Maglor remembered seeing her: lips creased with a frown, skin faded and chapped from thirst. He knew he looked worse.

The sun had not yet risen. In the twilight, trapped within his tent’s heavy canvas walls, all was grey and dim. The sickness had passed, but its residue clung to everything.

Dornil stopped pacing and turned on him. Maglor, who sat silently, waiting, took it as a sign that she was coming around to the heart of the matter at last, and the tension in his shoulders softened.

“My lord,” began Dornil’s admission. “I do not wish to speak ill of you, but if you refuse to see for yourself, if you compel me to speak my reasons— you are unwell, and the forest is dangerous. I doubt—” she fixed her eyes on him and broke off.

“You doubt my soundness of mind,” Maglor finished. “You doubt my ability to lead.” He huffed cheerlessly.

“Have you not done enough?” she asked. “You rid the waters of contagion. You overcame the malice of the Moringotho! You put yourself at risk for these people. Take the time to heal, my lord.”

“I cannot heal,” said Maglor. Then he too rose from his chair and crossed the tent floor to stand before her. He took her hand in both of his. “Surely you know this, sister. I can heal no more than you can. All we can do is attempt to right the many wrongs we have committed; tend the many wounds we have inflicted.”

With a noise of disgust, Dornil jerked out of his hold. “Tell me: do you think to set yourself above the rest of us with such attempts? Do you think yourself worthier than your kin who have died before you? Well, brother,” she said with mockery, “I tell you: you are as vain and wilful as they.”

“Commander,” Maglor warned.

But she carried on. “Nay, but you are. It shows itself strangely in you, indeed. How intricately you weave it — what a story you tell! I admired you once for how cleverly your stories sowed compassion for our doom. I was grateful to you, for without your art to embolden us, to win us allies, we would all have despaired and perished long ago. I see now it was never for us, but for yourself. You believe your stories, do you not?”

Maglor stared at his mud-caked boots and the soiled carpet beneath them. “You are cruel,” he said, then spoke no more, for his voice trembled.

“So are we all,” she said. “So are you, son of Fëanor. Do not forget it.”

“What do you want of me?” The tips of Maglor’s fingers tingled with unspent emotion, and his hands darted before him, seeking some direction, something to hold. “Do you wish to let them perish in the wilds? Is that the vengeance you seek? They are children! They are guiltless!”

Dornil tipped her head to the ceiling and scoffed. “No; no. That would be foolish.”

“Then what is it?” Maglor pleaded.

“What will you do if you find them?”

“What?” Maglor found the back of a chair to hold him steady. “Return them to us, of course.”

“And if that is against their will, as it surely will be?”

Maglor reeled with confusion. What a picture he must make, his whole comportment proof of Dornil’s concerns. “Why should they be—”

“They hate you, Macalaurë.” Her chest rose, breath suspended as a flicker of uncertainty passed over her face, then she exhaled. “They hate all of us.”

Maglor was silent. Her words coiled like hot metal around his heart. It was not true. The children were afraid of him, yes. That was nothing unusual. Maglor had grown accustomed to inspiring fear, even before his father made warriors of them; even before they had spilled first blood at Alqualondë. Even in the Noontide of Valinor, to be a son of Fëanor was to be feared. But hate him? He did not believe there was capacity for hatred in Elwing’s sons. Whatever bitterness she had let consume herself, Elwing had kept it locked like a canker in her heart where it could not infect her children. Elrond and Elros were seeds of hope in a desolate landscape. They believed in a future: Maglor had seen it in Elrond’s wide, trusting eyes; felt it in the fierce pulse of Elros’ heart.

Maglor would protect that hope at whatever cost. If that meant returning them home, so be it. It is where they should have remained. His throat closed around a sudden surge of grief. How completely he longed to protect these children who scarcely acknowledged him!

“You are weeping,” Dornil said, not even trying to conceal her disgust. “You must let me lead the search,” she said. “I will bring them back. I will not falter in the mission your brother gave you.”

“You have overstepped, commander,” said Maglor, and thought passingly how, if she were another, she might have persuaded him, coerced him with cruelty. If she were Maedhros, she would have. “You will stay with the host, and you will lead them on to Amon Ereb. You will keep these people safe. Let no more die upon the road. When we have found Elros and Elrond, we will follow after you.”

She held her breath a moment; then, fingers unfurling, she yielded. But she said: “And if you do not find them?”

It was not a question Maglor wished to entertain. He said: “Go inform our following that you will be setting out with them at first light tomorrow.”

In time, the forest’s ghostly voices grew familiar. Maglor wore a mask of calm and said nothing of them to his company. Yet the Green-elf Orfion trailed ever close behind and watched him warily.

“Did you know the Easterling who went with him,” Maglor asked him, to break the silence. “Embor?”

“Only that he was a friend of their nurse,” said Orfion. “He never gave me cause to suspect. His forebears were loyal to your house, were they not?”

“They were, before.” Before what? Before our defeat, before our slaughters. Maglor did not finish the thought. “I spoke with him, you know, the day he fled with the children.”

“Oh, my lord?”

“Yes.” Maglor swallowed the urge to share his worry that he had pushed Embor to attempt this deed. “A brave man, I will grant him that.”

“Brave and foolish,” said Orfion.

They were interrupted by his scout Tornel up ahead giving the signal to fall silent; with a gesture, she bid them crouch low in the underbrush. Maglor dropped to his stomach and put his ear to the ground, straining to hear past the ever-present voices whispering in his mind for the vibrations of the earth. He heard only the usual hum of the forest: the thousands of creatures who crawled beneath the soil; the creak of roots reaching ever further and deeper.

Beside him Orfion whispered: “The trees speak of danger.” His hand rested between two intertwined roots. “It lurks nearby. We must not cross the ravine.”

Maglor frowned. “And if Embor and the children went that way?”

“Quiet.” Orfion closed his eyes, stroking the tree’s bark as if it were the back of a troubled friend. “They say they have marked no speaking people but the…” he trailed off, his face pinched in concentration.

“What? Who have they seen?”

“I do not understand it. But we mustn’t go that way.”

When they resumed their journey, following the eastern bank of the creek, Orfion kept far ahead of the company, now and again disappearing behind a hillock or thick stand of trees. Each time he was lost to sight, anxiety built in Maglor’s heart that he may not return.

Tornel swung down from a low branch. Her landing was noiseless; too noiseless. The Eldar may be able to elude the ears of mortals, but another Elda ought to be able to hear one of his kind easily. Not so in this forest that swallowed sound.

“My lord,” she said, “the creek leads us far off course. We must cross and turn west, if you wish to come to the Bay of Balar. Or else…”

“Or else?” Maglor prompted.

“Or we must turn back, lord.”

“We are not turning back,” said Maglor. “We are not turning back until we find the children — living or dead.” Seeing how the eyes of his company darted from him, he sighed and gentled his manner. “We have journeyed long, and you have shown yourselves committed to our cause. I understand your weariness. I understand how hopeless our quest seems, in this vast dark wood. If you have any counsel, tell me now. Speak freely. But I will not entertain turning back.”

They stared, no one speaking a word. At length Orfion drew closer, tightening their dispersed circle.

“It is possible,” he said, “that they were found by others.”

“Others? What do you mean? We have journeyed a fortnight and seen no others. None dwell here.”

“Some do,” Orfion said. “There are Moredhel. I have been aware of them since the trees warned us to stay clear of the western bank. They have tracked us.”

“Why did you say nothing of this before?”

Orfion flinched. “They do not welcome us here.”

“I care not!” Maglor barely refrained from shouting, funnelling his anger into a hiss at the last moment. “They may have seen them. They may be able to lead us to them! What else do you know? Do they have them?” He halted for a heaving breath, and noted Orfion’s eyes dart beyond him. The rest of his company had lifted their bows, arrows nocked and pointed in his direction. “What are you doing?” He gestured for them to lower their bows. A nervous, incongruous laugh escaped him. “I would not hurt him.”

“It is not me they protect,” said Orfion. “It is you.”

Maglor turned his head no more than an inch before he saw the javelin at his neck. At its other end stood a small elf, black-skinned and clad in a long skirt of stripped bark and a cloak of ferns. His thick and matted hair was plaited with beads fashioned from tree nuts.

Orfion said something to the elf in a speech unknown to Maglor, but recognisable in snatched syllables here and there. He understood young ones in Orfion’s question and an affirmative answer in the dark-elf’s reply. He lowered his javelin.

“What is he saying?” Maglor asked. “Do they have them?”

Before answering, Orfion asked a second question, then to Maglor he said: “Yes. Yes, they have them.”

“Ai, Ilúvatar!” Maglor cried, and his knees gave way. He walked on them to where the small elf stood. “Elbereth smiles upon our meeting!” The elf looked at him, puzzled. Then he laughed.

“Why does he laugh?” Maglor asked Orfion. They exchanged quick words, then Orfion said, “He has never seen elves of your kind. He means no offence, but you are… strange to him, my lord.”

Maglor looked at the elf, rather strange to him as well, then released a shout of joy at which the others startled. “No matter,” he said, “no matter. You have them. Alive? Say they are alive.” The elf nodded, seemingly understanding this word at least, then spoke swiftly to Orfion.

“They are alive,” Orfion translated. “But their companion, the Man, is dead. Killed by… cats, lord.” He asked the elf another question. “He says we were wise not to cross the river, for that way lies the beasts’ territory. It is well we listened to the forest’s warnings.”

Questions flew through Maglor’s mind, but what did any of it matter? Elros and Elrond were alive. “Take me to them,” he demanded, rising from his knees. “Please.”

The dark-elf led them on a winding path between the trees. If Maglor looked back, the forest seemed unfamiliar, as if the scenery moved and changed behind them – but with his eyes on it, its immense trees and curtains of lichen were still as stone in the close air.

At last they came to a cavern delved in the side of the ravine. Like a burrow, its entrance was little wider than Maglor’s shoulders. But some yards down the tunnel, they came to a vaulted dome of bare earth and rock, and it glowed with the pale green light of thousands of flower-like growths. They sprouted around the perimeter, the walls, and hung from the ceiling. When Maglor tapped his finger to one, it was spongy and wet.

“What you call death-feeders,” their guide explained. “They are our light.”

A woman, smaller than the elf who had found them, with a wide face and patterns inked over her face and arms, emerged from a further room. At her sides, one hand in each of hers, stood Elros and Elrond. A dam of anxiety broke within Maglor and he sprang forward, grasping for them.

Elrond cried out in fear and hid his face behind the woman’s thigh.

“Know you he?” the woman asked the twins in archaic and broken Sindarin. Elros shook his head. “He comes asking for you.”

“He is an orc,” Elros mumbled.

The woman eyed Maglor. “No, not an orc. Flame-eyes. Usurper, yes. Not orc.” Then, addressing Maglor directly, she asked: “Why come you here, Flame-eyes? We have no dealings with the outer wars. What have you with the young ones?”

Rising unsteadily, Maglor attempted to regain the composure he had let fall in his relief. “Lady—” The woman scoffed at the address. “What should I call you?”

“Nennel.”

“Nennel, then. These are Elrond and Elros—”

“Their names they have told us.”

“Yes, of course. They are Princes of Doriath.”

She exchanged quick words with the one who had guided them there, too low and swift for Maglor to make any of it out. To Maglor she said: “That realm is no more. The young ones have told us.”

“No, it is not,” Maglor admitted. “But even so, they are the heirs of Elu Thingol.”

“What of the Queen at the river mouth? It is told she is Elu’s heir.”

“Yes,” said Maglor. “She was.”

“He killed her!” Elros shouted.

Instinctively, Maglor shushed him, then winced. Nennel’s thick brows furrowed, deepening the shadows around her eyes. “Is it true?”

Maglor hesitated; the faces of both children were upon him now, expectant. “It is true that one of my people threatened her. Her fate was self-chosen.”

There was a moment of silence. Other elves appeared out of the shadows and looked between each other. “This is grievous,” Nennel said at length, as if speaking for all of them. “Elu was known to us. Ill-hap has befallen his line. But you are not of Elu’s people. Your company is of many kinds. Perhaps there are those who travel with you who are.” Maglor followed her eyes. It took him a moment to distinguish Orfion from among the crowd of dark-elves.

He stepped forward. “I am Orfion of Ossiriand, of the people of Denweg. We have no rulers, much as you.” Nennel smiled at this. “Though I have for many years, by my own choice, followed these Ódhil whose leader you now speak to.”

“Kinship and kings are not the only ties that may hold persons together,” she mused. Her penetrating eyes watched Maglor. “This we understand. Yet these are strange happenings. A leader of the Flame-eyes comes to Taur-i-Melegyrn seeking two lost princes who fear him. We do not like it. But who can say where the river will flow or the tree will fall? It is for us to make way for such movements, that is all. Come, lord. Eat with us and we will learn of your business with these young ones.”

The dark-elves led Maglor and his company deeper into their network of burrows. A low passage let out into a room as grand as any hall built upon the ground. Down its centre ran a rug of woven twigs; along its edges, rows of cushions of what appeared to be fine, woven strips of bark stuffed with dried moss. What little light there was came from basket-like globes set upon the rug: fireflies flitted in and out of the permeable lamps.

Maglor and his company had surrendered their weapons at the hall’s entrance, and they were outnumbered and vulnerable. What reason do they have to turn against you? Maglor thought. But his senses were too finely honed by hundreds of years of war. The presence of the children, found but not returned, pressed upon his fear.

Plates of boiled roots, nuts, berries, and herbed snails were set out upon the rug, and a bowl of broth set before each person. As Maglor looked over the food in silence, too distracted by uncertainties to eat, he caught sight of Elrond and Elros doing the same at some remove. He summoned a smile in their direction. They stared at him with identical unknowable expressions.

Another elf lowered himself onto the cushion next to him. “Will you not eat, Maglor?”

This one had the same broad face and patterns as those inked on Nennel’s skin, but Maglor could not recall seeing him before. “Forgive me, I do not believe I know you,” he said, as kindly as possible.

“No.” The elf’s eyes smiled. “But I know of you. I am Nelpen, brother of Nennel.”

“The stars shine upon our meeting,” said Maglor.

“May the river guide us,” Nelpen answered.

“I am grateful to you and Nennel for taking Elrond and Elros into your care.”

Nelpen hummed. “Strange that you let them leave yours. Were you a friend of the one who accompanied the young ones?”

“Embor,” Maglor said. He had all but forgotten the Man in his relief. “Was he with them when you came upon them? The one who found us told me he was dead.”

“You have many questions and offer few answers,” said Nelpen, with a peculiar glimmer in his black eyes. He raised his hands, baring his palms. “All is well, Maglor. The Penni do not demand answers from wanderers who seek us in need. It matters not to the forest who you have been, only who you are. I will tell you what I know. They were hunted; for they strayed into the domain of the great cats who rule the river’s eastern side. The young ones were fortunate, for their lives were saved by a music that came down the river. The grace of the spirits that guard these lands, perhaps. My father tracks the movements of the cats: he saw them flee from the water. He it was found the young ones scrambling down a tree, seeking their guardian. Fortunate was it that it was my father found them, for there are few among us who understand your tongue. The young ones were hurt and afraid. My father could not stay to search for your friend. We did seek for him once they were safely returned. We found no body. It is likely the cats dragged it back to their den.”

To his other side, Tornel whispered: “You saved them with your Song, lord.”

“Saved?” said Nelpen. Wonder lit his face. “You are the singer?”

“Yes.” Maglor hid his mouth with the back of his hand, for his lips quivered on the verge of laughter or tears. “Yes,” he said again, when the rush of emotion had passed. “It seems my Song chanced to save the children. But unknowingly. I sang to cure an illness that plagued my people. They journey now along the northern edge of this forest.”

“The black contagion,” said Nelpen. His features broadened with wonder, and something else Maglor could not place. “You drew it from the water? You have great power.”

On the edges of his vision, Maglor caught sight of many faces turning towards him. Not in judgement, he did not think. For the first time since he had entered their home he felt welcomed by the Penni.

One among them spoke in a small and earnest voice. “You saved us?” Maglor’s eyes were drawn down, and there was Elros staring at him with such hopefulness that Maglor almost believed himself their saviour in truth, and not by mere chance. But then Elros’ tone turned accusing: “Why did you not save Embor?”

“I was too late,” said Maglor. “I am sorry.”

Elros pouted and bunched his brows but he continued to stare directly into Maglor’s eyes. Elrond, too, was watching him. “Did you save Gwereth?” Elros asked. “I would like to see Gwereth.”

“Yes,” said Maglor. The tightness of Elros’ face unravelled. “Gwereth lives. We will go back to her, if that is what you wish.”

Then Elros burst into tears. “I do not know what I wish,” he said, and barely got out the next words: “Mama is gone.”

Maglor so wanted to reach out and hold him, but he allowed that duty to fall to Nennel, who had come to take her seat nearby.

“We will eat now,” she said. “Perhaps,” she spoke to Maglor but looked pointedly at Nelpen, “you will offer us some answers.”

Over the course of the meal, Maglor divulged the truth. Or at least, all that was necessary to explain his being there. He had not the courage to reveal himself as commander of the army that had attacked the Havens, and to keep the tale brief he spoke only of the Nauglamír in which the Silmaril was set and did not recount the history of the jewel itself, nor did he say a word of their Oath. He spoke of the greed that possessed one of his soldiers — he did not call him brother — at the sight of that heirloom, and how he went mad and drove Elwing to her death.

Speaking of Amrod, ghostly voices swelled around him, smothering those of the elves present. He had not until then noticed they had stopped, and their sudden return brought his tale to a halt.

“You are troubled,” Nelpen observed.

Maglor drew a long breath, and nodded.

“You have shared much. Perhaps enough, for now. Be at ease.” A murmur ran through the other elves who had been listening as they gradually moved their attention away from Maglor and back to each other.

From a clay pitcher, Nelpen poured a stream of clear tea, gold in the light of the fireflies, into a small cup. He passed it to Maglor.

“What is it?” Maglor asked.

“It will soothe the mind. Drink.”

Comforted by the elf’s honest face and gentle tone, and further compelled by the promise of relief, Maglor took a sip. Its warmth slid like a coverlet over his heart. As soon as it pooled in his stomach, the voices in his mind hushed to a whisper. He let his eyelids fall shut a moment, and when he opened them all seemed more vibrant than it had been before. He stole a glance at Elrond and Elros. As they no longer watched him, occupied with eating and chattering to one another, he allowed his eyes to linger.

He saw them as if for the first time. The dark specks scattered like stars on Elrond’s cheeks, down his bare forearms. The tight curls of hair coiled just below Elros’ ears. The way he used his hands to speak, while Elrond sat still, feet tucked neatly beneath him. Maglor wished he could hear their conversation — but he resisted straining his ears in that direction, knowing it was not for him to hear. He was filled with longing to know them, and remorse that it was not until this moment that it had occurred to him that he did not.

Nelpen refilled his cup. He asked: “Do you wish to tell me what it was disturbed your thoughts?”

Maglor thought a moment, weighing his desire for answers against the risk of exposing himself to Nelpen’s probing mind. In the end he confided: “I am haunted since coming to these woods. I hear a hum of voices, continuously. They ceased only when I entered your halls. But just now as I was speaking they returned. Sometimes, I have thought I recognised people I know in them.”

A knowing smile crept up Nelpen’s cheeks. To Maglor’s alarm, he laughed.

“You have heard the spirits,” Nelpen explained, still smiling. “Yes, they have wandered these woods for as long as the Penni have dwelt in them.”

“They are real?” Maglor asked. If it was so, then he was not mad!

“If by this you mean, ‘Are they present in this world,’ yes. But they have no substance. They are Houseless.”

“The souls of your people?”

Nelpen nodded slowly. “Seldom do we heed the summons across the sea.”

Maglor sipped the tea, listening to the ebb and flow of conversation around them, the clink of cups, the fall of liquid, the scrape of wooden utensils. All of it real. To Nelpen he said: “Do you hear them, too?”

“No.” Nelpen piled boiled greens onto his plate. “Not unless I invite them to speak to me. But they do not trouble the flesh-bound.”

“Unless,” Nennel interjected from across the spread of food, “he is unhappy in his flesh.” She spoke without suspicion, factually. But his company quieted when she spoke up, turning their eyes on him.

Maglor ought to have closed the conversation then, but Nelpen asked, for all their ears to hear: “Do you feel a longing to escape, Maglor?”

“To escape what?” Maglor asked, deferring an answer.

“To flee the confines of this body,” said Nennel.

Maglor threaded his fingers together, hesitating. “I do not know,” he answered. This was not the explanation he had expected. To pursue the guilty, to seek revenge — these were the intentions of which he had suspected the spirits. Not a summons to join them.

“Well,” said Nennel. “Perhaps you ought to seek the guidance of the Houseless on this matter. But come, how does your tale end? How did the young ones come to you?”

“Oh,” said Maglor. “I took them out of pity,” he said. “Since their mother was lost. I mean to guard and foster them.” The words came to him with surprising ease, like the comfort of a loved one long-resisted and finally accepted. A thick blanket cast about his shoulders and a warm drink set in his hands. Yet was it not he who ought to be holding the blanket and providing the warmth? He added: “Until a more suitable guardian can be found.”

“You do not tell us all,” Nennel said. “Yet you tell us enough. Why do you call yourself an unsuitable guardian? You are a warrior, and powerful. Will you not protect them?”

Encouraging as her words were, there was an edge of doubt to her questioning; she would not give him her goodwill as easily as her brother had.

Maglor glanced at Elros, seated in Nennel’s lap, and Elrond nestled against her thigh. “Yet I did not,” he said. “They were lost and nearly killed. Even for my Song, they might have been lost forever, had they not been found by you.”

She hummed approvingly, as if his answer pleased her. How, he could not say. She lathered oil upon two rounds of bread and set them on the children’s plates before speaking again.

“Yet they were found by us,” she said, “and you searched for them, even into the dangers of Taur-i-Melegyrn. You found them. They are well. I do not think you will let them escape your protection again.”

“What if we stay with you?” Elrond asked, breaking a long silence. He was looking at Nelpen.

“With us?” Nelpen replied. “Among the Penni, forgetting all your history and your royal titles?”

Elrond nodded. “I like it here. I like you.”

“We shall see,” said Nelpen, then gestured with his spoon at Elrond’s bowl. “Now finish your soup, young one.”

Days passed in the tunnels of the Penni. Maglor told himself he stayed to gather information, to learn the safest routes through the forest to Amon Ereb. It was good for Elrond and Elros to enjoy some respite after so much turmoil. For the first time since he had seen them placed in a carriage at Sirion, they seemed like ordinary children. They asked for stories and songs and told their own; they explored the tunnels and came back with many questions; they played; they laughed.

Sometimes, they even asked Maglor for answers. Perhaps they only mistook him in their enthusiasm as one more adult among many whose attention was as good as any other’s. Nonetheless, Maglor quietly rejoiced when he could offer an answer that satisfied their curiosity. Once, they even asked him to join their game: he could still hear their squeals of delight when he stumbled, granting them the victory in a race to the fountain that bubbled at the end of a long tunnel. When he caught up to them, they splashed the cool water in his face. There was no malice in their play.

The truth, then, was that Maglor tarried because he too was able to forget his cares wandering the womb-like warmth of the Penni’s halls. Oh, to be a creature of simple needs! Would it not have been kinder to have been born a rabbit, or a fox? What is there to lose, or long for, if one knows nothing but his tiny realm of dirt?

Maglor had said as much aloud, once, as he helped Nennel prepare flatbread, taking rounds of kneaded root flour and water from him and sticking them to the walls of a great kiln.

She had shaken her head and asked: “Is this what you think of us?”

Justly chastised, Maglor had apologised. Following that exchange, he made an effort to learn more of the Penni and their ways: how they came to dwell in these parts, passing south of the great mountains of the east, fleeing the dark; how, in their legends, it was one of their clan who found Men at their Awakening — long, long years before the coming of the Sun, as the legends of the West tell it. How their races had mingled, elf and mortal, an age before Beren came upon Lúthien in the woods of Neldoreth.

“Your wards will grow swiftly,” they told him of Elrond and Elros. “And they will succumb to sickness and injury more easily than one of unmingled blood. But they will live long. Until the End, as it is said of the Firstborn? We do not believe so. In time, all living things long for rest. We hold that the Peredhil are blessed in this, for they may leave the world at last. And knowing they are but guests, they will look on all things with wonder and gratitude. They will resist despair until the last.”

Such predictions ought to have brought Maglor hope for their future, but they only increased his longing to protect them; to treasure them.

Maglor learned of the Penni’s woodcraft, too: how there were those among them who could understand the speech of trees and beasts; he learned which plants were good to eat, which beasts could be hunted and where, and which roots and branches harvested without harming the forest’s delicate balance.

One day, gathering goods from the surrounding woodland, he told Nelpen it was time he left.

“You are prepared now for your journey, then?” Nelpen asked. “Where will you go?”

“I must return to my people. They will have arrived at Amon Ereb by now.”

Nelpen nodded. “You must,” he repeated Maglor’s words back to him. “Is it what you wish?”

“Yes,” said Maglor, and only then paused to consider. “My brother is there.”

To this, Nelpen said nothing. The foliage rustled as they passed. Maglor noted how Nelpen’s steps seemed to clear the path before them. He paid closer attention. For, if he looked out into the forest beyond, he saw only dense understory and no path at all. How would he fare, if he found himself alone, so deep in the forest?

“Did you speak to the spirits?” Nelpen asked after some time. “Have they given you counsel?”

Maglor had, the same night Nennel had advised it. Perhaps it had been too soon. Their accusations had turned to questions; terrible questions that Maglor could not answer. Did he love his brothers? Had he loved his father? If there were another path, would he take it? If there were a devotion greater than that he bore his brother, would he follow it? If he could forswear his Oath, would he do so?

He had not sought their counsel a second time.

“I did,” he said in answer to Nelpen. “They counselled much as you do: with questions.”

“That is their way.” Nelpen tapped his walking stick against a root and stooped to examine it. Seeming not to have found what he sought, he stood and carried on. In all the time he had spent with him, Maglor still found Nelpen inscrutable. Maglor suspected he quite liked being inscrutable.

“Well, you had best answer them,” Nelpen said.

That evening, Elrond and Elros were seated on a rug of moss, laid out before the hearth. The Penni burned as little as possible, but nights were becoming colder, Nelpen had informed him. And he did not think the forest would mind giving something of itself to warm the two small ones. Nennel joined them, with two other children. They were not hers: she had lost her spouse and child to the wild cats, Maglor had learned. Elrond was telling the other children a story, seemingly unaware of their puzzlement; for of course they could understand little of his Sindarin. Nonetheless, his soft, musical voice held their attention.

A thought hummed and flitted uncomfortably in Maglor’s mind. He did not want to allow it in, and yet there is was, asking to be caught.

He spoke it aloud to Nelpen, who waxed his bow beside him. “I think I understand at last what divides my mind. I must — I want to — return to my brother and our people. But Elros and Elrond do not belong there.”

Nelpen passed the waxed cloth down his bowstring a few more times, then looked at Maglor. His broad face was open, receptive, waiting for Maglor to explain himself.

“Take them,” Maglor said, barely able to speak the words for the tightness in his throat. “They will be happy living as one of you.” Nelpen’s expression gathered into one of pity. Maglor struggled to hold to his intent. “It is a kinder fate than any they could have hoped for. Please.”

As he so often did in answer to Maglor’s thoughts, Nelpen laughed. Not unkindly, though it set a chill skittering beneath Maglor’s skin all the same. “Have you learned nothing of us? We do not enter into your wars. This is no place for stolen princes. Even were it not fated that you should find them, we would not take this threat upon ourselves. They are yours to nurture now.”

Hearing Nelpen speak, Maglor felt all the peace and solace of the days he had spent there torn away, leaving him exposed; exposed to a tide of emotion, grief and joy and confusion all muddled together. He tipped forward, catching his face in his hands, and wept.

No one spoke, leaving him to carry his sorrow in silence. He thought he might drown in it, great black waves crashing over him. There was no sense, there were no words he could put to any of it. In the end, it was not long at all before it was over. Nelpen quietly passed him a cup of water. Maglor wet his thumbs and brushed the raw skin beneath his eyes with it before drinking.

The dark pool of grief he had opened was not emptied; it might never be emptied. But, for now, he could breathe again.

“It is time to go, Maglor,” said Nelpen. “But have a care. No lore or woodcraft can keep you from becoming lost in your own mind.”

Chapter End Notes

I am indebted (as always) to Melesta's talents as a beta and uncanny ability to tease out what my own brain cannot for getting this chapter ready for posting.

 “What you call death-feeders,” their guide explained. “They are our light.” Bioluminescent fungi. I made up “death-feeders”, it is not a translation of any canonical Elvish word for fungi. 

Ódhil (the name Orfion uses for the Noldor when talking to the Penni): “While the Noldor were still distinct [i.e., before their amalgamation as one Sindarin-speaking people in the west of Middle-earth], and whenever it was desired to recall their difference of origin, they were usually called Ódhil (sg. Ódhel). This as has been seen was originally a name for all the Elves that left Beleriand for Aman.” From the essay “Quendi and Eldar” in War of the Jewels. Of all the many names given in that essay, I settled on this one as the most neutral (while still recognisable to the Penni) for Orfion to use in this setting (with Lechind and even Golodh having derogatory undertones). Funnily enough, it comes from the same root, “away”, as Q. Avari. Perspectives, eh? 

Taur-i-Melegyrn. Forest of the Great Trees, a name for Taur-im-Duinath found on the Silmarillion map in War of the Jewels …

 how, in their legends, it was one of their clan who found Men at their Awakening — long, long years before the coming of the Sun, as the legends of the West tell it. A combination of two versions of the Awakening of Men, one very early and one very late in the development of the legendarium. See Tolkien Gateway for a quick overview of both. 

And knowing they are but guests, they will look on all things with wonder and gratitude. A sentiment inspired by the Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth.

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