And Love Grew by polutropos

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Burden

Elrond struggles to understand. New woes beset Maglor.

A beaded strand of hair fell to Orfion’s shoulder.

“Hold still,” said Nennel, when he turned aside to look at it. She sectioned off another strand, holding it tight in one hand while the other took a bead from the bowl Orfion held.

“We stopped beading our hair after Denethor fell,” Orfion mused. He held his head straight and still for Nennel to work, running his fingers over the beads instead; feeling the smoothness of the nut shells; weighing them, light but resilient. “Because of the noise,” Orfion explained. “We were so afraid of being seen, of being heard. Even the gentle rattle of beads might draw danger. We never again enjoyed the warmth of fire. We didn’t sing, Lindi though we were. The coming of the Sun roused us to song, but even so we sang in whispers, and only by day.”

Nennel pulled back another section of hair, her fingers dragging pleasantly over his scalp. Orfion closed his eyes.

She followed the course of his thoughts: “And that is why you left your own kind to follow the Flame-eyes?”

“They were fearless. Full of fury, but full of laughter, too. And curious. They were reputed to be haughty, seeking only to expand their realms and increase their followers. Lord Amrod was not haughty. He wished to understand us, to learn our customs and our language. And he spoke openly of his griefs, so I could excuse his bouts of wrath and violence. There was much he did not say, but I did not know it then. When I learned the whole truth of their deeds, their oath — it was too late. I was tied to their cause. I loved him. I became a kinslayer twice over for him.”

“You?” said Nennel, skeptical. “I do not think you have the blood of kin upon your hands. Maglor, the others of your company: they have blood upon their hands. But you, Orfion? Who have you slain?”

Orfion was silent a moment. “I was never at the forefront of the battle. None of my people were; our lords would not allow it.”

“So you are no kinslayer.”

“What separates the man who wields the knife from the one who stands guard beside him? From the one who glorifies his deeds in song?”

Nennel’s hands rested on Orfion’s shoulders, a gentle pressure. His shoulders sank and released.

“You need not follow him any longer,” she said.

Orfion shut his eyes against the sting of his secret longing spoken aloud. “What of the children?” he whispered.

“The world is full of lost young ones. You cannot save them all.” Nennel bent and kissed the top of his head. “Wherever the river runs for the little princes, it will not bend because Orfion of Ossiriand sacrificed all joy, all rest, all of himself to stay beside them. But my heart tells me there is hope for the two little princes.”

“I pray you are right,” Orfion said, and clasped her hand upon his shoulder.

Elrond touched his palm to the warm cavern wall. How quickly you could come to think of a strange place as home, he thought, and wondered if he should share the thought with Elros. But Elros was distracted, packing and unpacking the contents of his satchel. He’d insisted on carrying his own, though Maglor said he and his company could carry all they needed. But Elros insisted, and Nennel sewed each of them leather satchels that slung across their shoulders. They did not contain much: a thin rolled up blanket, one pair of clean socks, a packet of nuts and dried berries.

Elros’s blanket was in a tangle on the bench beside him. “I need help again,” he said to Elrond.” I cannot make it fit.” Patiently, Elrond retrieved the blanket and laid it flat across the bench.

Watching him, Elros sulked. “They should let us have a knife.”

“We are too young to wield knives,” said Elrond, rolling the blanket into a neat bundle. “You don’t know how.”

Elros scuffed his shoe against the floor. “But Elero, what if we get separated again?”

“You won’t.” That was Maglor, coming through one of the hall's many archways. Elrond tensed. He did not like when adults entered into his private conversations without asking. “There are more of us to protect you this time, and we have learned the ways of the forest. But if you would feel safer carrying a weapon, perhaps you could find a stone that fits your palm? I warn you it will make your pack much harder to carry.”

Elros was unimpressed; but as soon as Maglor’s back was turned, he scanned the edges of the hall, where clay tiles gave way to the natural cave wall, and picked out a loose stone. He tossed it in his pack. “You should have one, too,” he whispered at Elrond, then he trotted up to follow Tornel, a scout in Maglor’s company whom he admitted he disliked somewhat less than the others.

Elrond felt through his shirt for the amulet Nelpen had given him. One for each of them. “It carries the spirits of your ancestors,” Nelpen had explained. “How could it?” Elros had asked. “Your ancestors are not the same as ours.” Nelpen had smiled. “Are all our ancestors not the same, in the beginning?”

Elrond was not sure. Did not all Noldor come from Tata and Tatië? Did not all Sindar come from Enel and Enelyë? Whoever the forefathers and foremothers of the Atani were, they were altogether unlike the fathers and mothers who awoke at Cuiviénen. Yet it was true, as far as Elrond understood, that his and Elros’ ancestors were all of these and others besides. Perhaps he was remotely akin to Nelpen’s ancestors. But then why was he sending them away?

“Come on!” Elros shouted.

“It’s time to go, Elrond,” Maglor said from nearby.

Elrond expected to see Maglor towering above him, but he had squatted down. Their eyes met.

“I do not want to go,” Elrond confessed. His shoulders rolled forwards and he clutched the strap of his pack.

“We must go.”

Earlier, Maglor had asked them where they wished to go: back to his fortress in the east, or back to Balar. He had wished Maglor would make the choice for them. Elros had burst into tears, and Maglor finally got out of him that it was because he could not imagine going back home if Mama was not there. He only wanted to see Gwereth again. Maglor soothed him and said that is what they would do. So Elros decided for them, and Elrond had not said what he wanted, which was to stay among the Penni, because Maglor had not given them that choice. Now that they were leaving, it all bubbled out of him.

“But why?” Elrond did not like how small his voice sounded. “We can stay with Nennel and Nelpen. And Orfion. Why can Orfion stay and we cannot?” Maglor’s face pinched, that way adults look when they do not know what to say to children. Did he think Elrond would not notice that Orfion was not with them?

“He did not say goodbye,” Elrond mumbled. He would not say that Orfion was his friend, but Elrond had thought he was kind, and he had liked his stories.

“Sometimes,” Maglor said, “when people care deeply about you, they find it difficult to say goodbye.”

Elrond nodded. He knew this, but he still thought it was not very kind to disappear.

“Orfion is akin to the Penni,” said Maglor.

It was not a satisfactory explanation, but Maglor sounded tired and Elrond doubted he would get a better one. A lump formed in his throat and quivering seized his lip. He sputtered: “They do not want us, do they?” But Nelpen and Nennel had been so kind!

“I know this is difficult to understand,” Maglor settled on his knees and put a hand on Elrond’s shoulder, “but you and your brother are very important people, and when the world is at war, as it is now, important people are in danger. Important people bring danger to those who harbour them.”

Elrond shook his head; a fat tear dripped to the floor. None of it made any sense. Maglor had brought them into danger, hadn’t he? Elrond’s memories were turbulent as the stormy seas around Cape Balar, where Father used to take him to watch the waves crashing. Where Mama had left them. No, she would never leave them. But she was gone, because there was an elf who chased her. Elrond could not remember why. Then they had fled to a closed space, and Elros had shouted and shouted and hurt himself. Try as he might, Elrond could not remember how they had come to be with Maglor. Maglor had told the Penni about it, the first night he came, but the story was confusing and Elrond could not fit it together with his memories.

“Come, Elrond,” said Maglor, resting his large hand on Elrond’s shoulder. “We have to go.” He paused. “Do you want me to carry you?”

To his own surprise, Elrond nodded. He expected to be draped over Maglor’s shoulder like Embor had carried them. But when Maglor lifted him, he hoisted him to his hip the way Mama had carried him and Elros when they were small, one on each side. They had grown too big for her to carry them both so easily, but it was no great effort for Maglor, who was bigger and stronger than her.

“You’ll have to hold on when we go through the tunnel,” said Maglor. Elrond hung under his belly, clinging with arms and legs. It seemed a long way, the walls closing in around them, until they finally emerged into the light.

It was morning and time to begin walking again. Elros threw his pack down and whined. “I am tired of travelling!”

What did his brother want him to say? Elrond was tired, too, but they had to keep going. “One of the adults would carry you if you let them.”

“No, you know I don’t mean that. I can walk, I am not too tired to walk. I want to stop moving! Shouldn’t we be there by now?”

“It’s only been three days,” said Elrond. “Maglor says it will take at least fourteen. But Gwereth will be there. You wanted to see Gwereth, remember?”

Elros stomped his foot and shouldered his pack. He mumbled at the ground. “I don’t know what I want. What if Papa comes back for us and we are gone? How will he know where we are?”

“I don’t know. Maybe Maglor will send a message.” Elrond did not think their father was coming back, but Elros had only just stopped insisting that Mama was still alive and he did not have the strength to explain this, too.

Maglor called to them: “Time to go. Are you sure you do not want to be carried?”

“No,” Elros answered for both of them. “We can keep up, you know.”

But they couldn’t. The space between them and those who walked at the forefront of the company lengthened as they journeyed. Now and then they lost sight of them altogether, and then Maglor, who always walked behind them, would whistle softly, and shortly they would come upon the others up ahead. Elrond and Elros slowed them down. Their legs were too short to keep up with the long gait of the elves. Worst was that they would slow them down whether they walked or allowed themselves to be carried. Elrond hated being a burden.

They came to a steep climb, and Elrond clambered and leapt up the stony hillside. His legs burned and his heart felt pinched between his ribs — it was just a little farther, though. He would make it, and then he could catch his breath at the top. He stumbled, scraping his palms on the coarse, dry dirt.

A hand came down on his shoulder. “Easy, little one.” It was Maglor. Elros hung from his side, arms slung around his neck. Elrond must have betrayed some incredulity, because Elros stuck out his tongue defiantly.

Maglor said, “It will not do to rush only to collapse before we’ve finished the journey.”

Elrond’s breath was coming in gasps, and now that he’d stopped his chest hurt even more. He was all flush with heat. His feet hurt.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Maglor smiled. “You are doing very well for someone so small.”

“I’m not small!” Elrond protested absurdly. Of course he was small. He barely stood higher than Maglor’s knees. Then he felt badly because Maglor looked distressed, brows crinkled with doubt.

“Let me carry you a while?” he offered.

“You are already carrying Elros.” He knew Maglor could manage to carry them both, but it did not change how Elrond felt such a burden. He sagged down and his bottom hit the ground. He gasped, sucking back the tears. How could his little body hold so many tears!

“What’s wrong, Elero?” asked Elros.

It was too much to answer. Elrond pulled his knees up, folding his body into a ball, and shook. His tears were hot and uncomfortable and his stomach clenched with every sob. Why couldn’t he be brave! Mama was brave, Papa was brave. Beren and Lúthien had been the bravest of all, and they were his forebears. Even Gwereth was brave, wasn’t she? At that thought, a memory lit up of Gwereth holding a rod of metal, fending off an enemy. Who was it? Where had they been? He sifted through his tattered memories, looking for the face of the enemy, some clue about where they were, but it was just Gwereth, bravely defending them.

While he still had his head buried between his knees, an arm wrapped around him. Maglor scooped him up; instinctively, Elrond clung to his shoulder. Almost at once his head nodded, he drifted to sleep with a blur of questions floating around in his mind: Why had Maglor taken them into his care? Why was he so kind to them? What business did an elf-warrior have with him and Elros? Mama was gone, and Papa was away at sea. They needed someone, but Maglor was a stranger. He need not have burdened himself with them.

They would bring danger to those who harboured them, Maglor had said. Maybe no one wanted them. Why would Maglor want them?

What would he do when danger came?

Fourteen days came and went and they were still surrounded by trees that only seemed to grow thicker and taller and darker. Elrond wondered if they had passed by any Enyd, standing so still and silent that to all eyes they seemed trees themselves. Orfion had said they were friendly to elves, though he’d also warned that they did not like to be disturbed or called upon for aid. They would reveal themselves if it suited them.

“The canopy will soon blot out the sun,” said Tornel to Maglor.

Maglor threw a glance over his shoulder at Elrond and Elros. Elros was curled up asleep on the ground, but Elrond was not. He stared back at him, daring him to let Elrond hear the truth. Elrond was clever enough to know that without the sun they would not know what direction they were travelling. Maglor was not cowed. He led Tornel further off, ducking behind an immense trunk where their voices could not carry.

It was not the first time Maglor had shushed a comment or question about their plans from one of his company until he thought himself out of earshot. But Elrond had sharp ears — everyone said so. They were lost.

Elrond’s eyelids grew heavy. His shoulders slumped and he tipped sideways. He was cushioned by Elros, and tensed a moment, thinking he may have woken his brother, but Elros did not stir. So he let himself sink, resting his eyes, even if his mind could not follow.

A cry of dismay shot through him. He bolted upright and scrambled to his knees and then to standing.

Elros sat up, bleary-eyed, holding his rock. “What was that?” he asked in a thin and fearful voice.

Elrond stared in the direction he thought the sound had come from: it was the great tree behind which Maglor and Tornel had retreated.

A moment later, they came into view. Maglor had someone else slung over his shoulder. She was familiar, but it took Elrond some effort to recall why. Yes: it was the commander who had been with them before. Elrond recoiled. He did not like her. But she was so pitiful, drooping over Maglor’s shoulder and struggling to free herself.

“Let me down,” she said. “I made it this far on my own feet.”

Then her eyes fell on Elrond and Elros and her manner changed altogether. “You have them,” she breathed. “You have them. Ai Ilúvatar, you have them!”

“Yes,” said Maglor in a hush, and helped her down to sit upon the ground. She winced as he stretched out her leg. A band of cloth was wrapped around her thigh, stained brown and stiff with blood.

Maglor’s face turned ashen. He looked at Elrond and his brother, then back to her. “Bornval,” he called to one of the company. “Take the children further off.”

Elros leapt to his feet. “Why is she here? Where is Gwereth? What did you do to her?”

The elf-woman’s voice crackled, something between laughter and grief. “Clever,” she said to Maglor. “Too clever. Go.” This was meant for Elrond and Elros. “You will thank me one day, for sparing you the full account at such a tender age.” She swayed, slurring as if to herself, “Ah, you have seen too much, too much,” and then she was limp in Maglor’s arms.

“Is she dead?”

“Elros!” Elrond hissed. His brother always said exactly what came to mind without a moment’s consideration!

“No,” Maglor replied, barely audible. “But she is close to it. Please, Elros, Elrond. Go with Bornval. Dornil is right, you have seen too much.”

Trails of grey-green groped like weeds up Dornil’s leg, down her torso, gathering in a black mass around the wound in her thigh. It stank of decay; Maglor’s gut heaved.

“You never did have the stomach for gore, did you?”

Maglor skewered his law-sister with the points of his eyes. He was furiously, incandescently angry with her.

“Why did you not treat it?” The words scarcely made it past his clenched teeth.

She grabbed hold of his cloak, dragging herself up from the ground. “I lost them, Macalaurë. I lost them all.”

“That is quite obvious,” said Maglor. Compassion was not prevailing in the storm of feelings raging within him.

“But I found you. You are alive! Oh, brother, dear brother, you are alive.” She lost her grip on his cloak and would have banged her skull against the ground had Maglor not caught her fall. When she next cracked open her eyes, they roved about aimlessly, hazy and flat. “Where is my husband? Tell me he is with you. Tell me he is alive.”

She was delirious. Uncontrollable, hideous, a scream burst from Maglor’s lungs. The forest swallowed it entire, impotent, answering with a silence so abrupt and complete that Maglor lurched forward as if struck. Somewhere above the canopy, clouds gathered: another ceiling, vaster and heavier, bearing down, oppressive.

“You will not die,” Maglor told Dornil. She was too far gone to hear him. He cut the cloth away from her wounds. His vision swam, his thoughts rattled around noisily; he could barely see the extent of her infection. He blinked, forcing his eyes to clear, forcing his feeling aside. He wished he had taken a healer with his company, but the need among those he left behind had been too great. He ordered herbs and water, he soaked Dornil’s torn and festering flesh. Absurd — the rot had taken hold deep in the neglected wound, far too deep to respond to such superficial remedies. His raw and weary Song would have to serve. He had defeated the contagion in the river. He could heal her, the sister of his heart.

All through the grey afternoon, Maglor did not cease singing. It was dark by the time Dornil’s skin flushed its accustomed hue and her fever subsided. As her eyelids fluttered on the brink of wakefulness, Maglor cupped her face.

She whispered: “Carnistir?”

Maglor waited, watching the haze clear from her eyes.

“No,” she said. “No, you are not him. Water.” She swallowed. “I need water.”

It was some time before she was well enough to rise. Maglor was glad to learn they had met his brother’s people and that Maedhros was at Amon Ereb. The rest of the tale was nothing but devastation. Dornil’s guilt was raw: as raw as Maglor’s had been when Maedhros was borne back to Mithrim on the back of an Eagle; as raw as it had been when a horse — not his own, whom Glaurung had blasted to ash as he compelled Maglor to watch — bore his body, crumpled with exhaustion, through the gates of Himring. Guilt was a permanent mark on Maglor’s soul that he had borne for centuries. Part of him had admired the pride Dornil bore like a shield against shame. But now it lay shattered at her feet. She was broken, and small, lost in a vast woodland. At least she was not alone.

Elrond and Elros, whom Maglor had all but forgotten in his efforts to save Dornil, had at last fallen asleep. One of his company must have laid a blanket on the ground and shuffled them onto it. Elros still fell asleep each night with a stone clasped in his hand, but it had fallen out of his grip and rolled down the sloping ground until it came to rest against the root of a tree. Maglor picked it up and set it beside him, lest he wake and assume someone had disarmed him in the night.

Dornil rested against a fallen trunk, watching him. “You love them.”

Maglor straightened and stilled. “It is my duty to protect them.”

She huffed. “When have you ever distinguished between duty and love?”

“When have any of us?” asked Maglor, and watched her face fall. He came to sit beside her. “Perhaps our error is in our failure to separate the two.”

“Our failure,” Dornil repeated. Her voice shook. “I have failed, Macalaurë. I failed the family of my birth, when I abandoned them to follow yours. I failed your father, who welcomed me as a daughter when my own father refused to recognise me as his own. I failed my husband, when I stood by as the immensity of his shame destroyed all that was good in him. I failed you. I failed you disastrously. I lost all of them. I should have slain myself—”

Maglor snatched both her hands in his. “Speak not so. Never. Swear to me, you will never do any such thing.”

Dornil cast her eyes down. “Gwereth is gone. Their nurse. Senselessly. She threw herself at one of the beasts. She must have known it would kill her.”

Maglor thought of Fingolfin, and Finrod. He thought of Fingon, who they say stood against the Lord of Balrogs to the last. He must have known he was no match for the monster who had slain Fëanor, but he fought still, even thinking himself abandoned by them. Maglor thought of what they said of Turgon, defiant as his tower fell to ruin; of Aredhel who gave her life to save her child’s. Angrod and Aegnor, burned in the same fires that Maglor fled in disgrace. He thought of Elwing, who leapt to her death with the name of Lúthien on her lips.

Had any of them believed they would survive those feats of daring, those leaps of faith? What separated a heroic last stand from death at one’s own hand?

There had to be some distinction. Maglor could not name it.

The next day Maglor bid his company go ahead to Amon Ereb for help. Dornil, though healed of the worst of her wounds, was too weak to make much progress, and Elrond and Elros, for all their determination, could not help the shortness of their legs.

“It is no use,” Dornil said. “The forest will only lead you deeper into its web. There is no way out.”

Bornval scowled. “Will you surrender to trees, then, after all the battles we have fought?”

“No,” Maglor answered for her. “Though you would do well to watch what you say. You wasted your time in the caverns of the Penni if you have so little regard for the power of these woods. We will not surrender, for we will not make Taur-i-Melegyrn our enemy. You will go onwards, and you will find the edge of the forest, and you will send rangers for us. We will stay here.”

“You should not,” said Dornil. “It is dangerous to stay too long in one place.”

“We will stay,” said Maglor, “because we have no other choice.”

“Then I will stay behind,” said Bornval. “You, lord, ought to go ahead.”

“He is right,” said Dornil. “If only one of us makes it to Amon Ereb, it ought to be you.” Her thought brushed against his, and conjured an image of Maedhros, distorted: bloodied, orcish, enslaved to the will of the Oath.

“No.” Maglor shoved the vision aside. “I will not leave you, sister, and I will die before I leave these children behind.”

“I see,” said Bornval. “You do not trust us with them? We are not Carniyúla and Meneltir—”

“Do not utter those names!” Maglor snapped. “Have you forgotten my brother condemned their memory when he rid them of their heads?”

Saying thus, Maglor was aware that Elrond and Elros had awoken and were alert and watching them. They huddled on their blanket: Elrond hugged his knees to his chest and Elros had looped a protective arm around his brother’s leg. His other hand rested in his lap, clutching his rock.

A wet gasp hissed on its way past Maglor’s teeth. “Have they been fed?” he asked. “Elros, Elrond, have you eaten? Ah, I am sorry, little ones.”

Elros puckered his lips. “Are we going soon? You said we were almost there.”

“Ai,” Maglor sighed. He knelt before them. “We are. But Dornil is hurt. And you have journeyed so far. We are going to stay here a while and rest. Not long, only a few days, while the others go on ahead and get us help and fresh supplies from my brother’s fortress. They will bring mules that can bear you over the rough ground, and your feet can rest. Very soon you will be in warm beds, with warm food, and you will eat whatever you like, and sleep or play or do whatever it is you like. You like stories, yes? There is a library at Amon Ereb. Do you read? Do you enjoy music? There are instruments there, made for children. Perhaps you do not like music — well, there are other diversions. Tools for woodcarving: my littlest brother was a carver. Beads! Moryo kept such a collection of beads, you could string them into bracelets or sew them into designs, as he did—”

“Maglor,” someone’s voice interrupted. Dornil. “Stop.”

He clamped his jaw shut, teeth clicking into place. “I am sorry. This weariness has gotten to my head, also, as you can see. Is it all right?” he asked Elrond and Elros. “If we stay here, only a little while?”

Bornval groaned and tossed his pack at the ground. “Very well, if you insist, I too will stay. You need not send all of us away.” He picked through his pack and pulled out a packet of Dornil’s lembas, still sealed in its leaf wrapping. He broke off two pieces and offered one to each of the twins. “Here. Eat. I will see the others off and find some water for us.”

A long silence followed, then Elrond’s voice dropped into it like a leaf into a still pool.

“I like music.” The child rolled a crumb of lembas between finger and thumb, and seemed to be contemplating it deeply.

What thoughts were in his little mind? When Maglor was their age, he’d had all the leisure in the world. He might quite earnestly have contemplated a crumb for hours: tasting it, drawing it, dissecting it, attempting to capture its uniqueness in words. But Elrond was not thinking of the crumb. How could he be, after all he had endured?

“Do you, child?” Dornil asked, and Maglor felt chastened for having let Elrond’s words hang there, unanswered.

Elrond nodded. “At home we were learning to play the seashell whistles that Halfon gave us.”

“He doesn’t know Halfon,” said Elros.

“He is Falathar’s son,” Elrond said to Maglor, who of course had no more idea who Falathar was, but he did not ask. “He is older than us, but he is an elf, so he does not seem much older. Or, he didn’t. He lives on Balar now that he is studying with Círdan. I think— I hope he was with Círdan when…” Elrond trailed off.

“Ask him.” Elros nudged his brother’s knee. “Ask him, if you don’t believe me.”

Elrond vigorously shook his head.

“Don’t believe what?” Maglor asked.

“Elrond doesn’t believe me that you were part of the army that attacked us. But you are, aren’t you? You have the same spiky star on your shirt. So does she.” He pointed at Dornil.

“You ask complicated questions,” said Dornil.

“No.” Maglor silenced her. “Yes, it is complicated— but it also is not. I was part of that army. I was a leader of that army. I hated leading that army, but I did. One day, I promise, I will tell you all the history behind that assault. But now I scarcely comprehend it myself. Sometimes, people do terrible things because they are so afraid of losing something, someone they love. And then it was all lost anyway, and it was for nothing.”

Speaking openly to them, for the first time, of the circumstances that had led to them coming into his care was like swimming up a swift but shallow river, driven back by the current and beaten against the stony riverbed. He saw the task he had set for himself looming like a great iron gate between him and the two children not three feet away from him: to raise them with love, whose lives he had destroyed. How would he ever find the words to adequately tie together those two themes of destruction and salvation?

“She is crying,” said Elrond, and Maglor heard the rasping of breath and felt the sting of Elrond’s judgement.

Maglor turned to Dornil, expecting her face to be hidden. Not even when Caranthir died had she openly wept, for then she had been comforting Maglor. But she looked at him, eyes wet. A tear clung to the line of her jaw and she brushed it away with the back of her hand.

“Sister…” Maglor whispered. He walked on his knees towards her, pausing before he came too near. “May I hold you?”

Dornil drew another rasping breath and nodded. He sat beside her. She did not unfold herself, did not extend her arms to meet his embrace, but neither did she flinch or withdraw. He cupped her face, gathering her head to his chest, and he sang to her — a song of unknown provenance, in Old Quenya. In Tirion, it was sung by the King at the Festival of Arriving, so their sundered kin were never forgotten in the celebration of their coming to Aman. In Beleriand, it was sung only in private, longing for what was lost.

It was lengthy, most of its verses seldom sung, but Maglor sang it through to its conclusion. Dornil fell asleep in his arms, and he lay her down to rest in the shelter of the log. Their only remaining blanket was given over to the children, so he unclasped his cloak and laid it over her.

As he stood watching her sleep, Elrond spoke: “How do you know that song?”

Elros, too, had fallen back to sleep while Maglor sang. His head was pillowed in his brother’s lap.

“It is an ancient song that was sung in the Blessed Realm where we were born.”

Elrond made a noise of childish disagreement. “No. It was sung by Papa.”

“Your father knew it?” Maglor said, and only then pieced together why Elrond had asked: because he, too, knew the song. It was rumoured that Turgon’s Gondolin was Tirion Remade. Why would they not have celebrated the same festivals? Why would Eärendil not have learned the songs of his mother’s people?

It had been five hundred years since Maglor had seen Turgon. They had never been close, and yet there had been a quiet understanding between them; the shared of experience of a second son. The likeness had stopped there. Turgon was ambitious, bold; Maglor was not. Had Turgon ever forgiven them? What would he think to know his heirs were in Maglor’s keeping, lost in the woods, all of them now Dispossessed?

“Did you know your grandmother?” Maglor asked at length.

Elrond shook his head. “Lady Idril sailed before we were born.”

“I see. She was a remarkable lady. As I am sure you were told. She was my kin and came also from the Blessed Realm. It is likely she sang that very song to her son — who sang it to you.”

Elrond’s face bunched in thought. He was silent a while, then asked: “Are you my kin?”

Maglor released a melancholy puff of air. “I suppose I am, at some remove.”

“Is that why we are with you? Because there is no one else left?”

“You ask difficult questions.” Elrond’s face puckered again, showing his dissatisfaction with Maglor’s response. Maglor felt desperation creep through him, a compulsion to give him something, a certainty he could hold on to. Something to protect him from the darkness.

So Maglor spoke, eliding the unknown and the unspeakable into the simplest, most insufficient of words: “Yes.”

Elrond sighed. “I see.” He unknit his features, then sank lower, making a crescent around his brother’s sleeping body.

Late in the night, Maglor was roused by Bornval’s firm hand on his shoulder, jostling him from a deeper sleep than he had had since their journey began.

“Lord,” he said. “Lord, please wake.” At once Maglor marked the strain in his voice, the edge of panic. He shot upright and took hold of his wrist.

“The children. Tell me they are well.”

“They are well,” he said. The bright points of his eyes darted over him a moment, assessing. Then a grey cloud swallowed their brightness. “Dornil is gone, my lord.”

“Gone?” Maglor gasped. “Where? We must find her at once! She is not well.” Maglor scrambled, meaning to rise, but Bornval held him back.

“No,” Bornval shook his head, and swallowed. “She has passed beyond our finding. Her wound was too deep. It stopped her heart.”

A cold wave swooped through Maglor’s body, carrying with it all feeling, all sense of himself. He was as hollow and insubstantial as a reed. Was he yet upright? Did he stand? Had he fallen? Had the earth opened beneath him, swallowed him, spat him out beneath?

Bornval’s voice, his hand around Maglor’s wrist, tethered him to his physical form. “She is dead, lord.”

Then just as swiftly as his soul had emptied, Maglor was filled to overflowing, heavy, a tree trunk bloated with pestilence. He needed to see her, he needed to hold her body close to his. He needed to know, he needed to feel the emptiness of her corpse himself, to know for certain that she was gone, that he could not call her back. He would call her back! Surely, he could. It was not too late!

But he could not move. He could not speak. He folded forwards between his knees, felt a rush of nausea surging upwards as he fell, retched upon the ground, and knew nothing more.

Chapter End Notes

“We stopped beading our hair after Denethor fell … Because of the noise.” Orfion is of course talking about the First Battle, in which their leader and many others were surrounded and slaughtered, and its traumatic effects on the Green-elves: “After the battle some returned to Ossiriand, and their tidings filled the remnant of their people with great fear, so that thereafter they came never forth in open war, but kept themselves by wariness and secrecy.” (‘Of the Sindar’). It is also said (in ‘Of the Coming of Men into the West’) that “the Green-elves of that land lit no fires, nor did they sing by night.”

Lindi - what the Nandor called themselves, ‘the Singers’.

Enyd - plural of Onod, Ent.

Falathar - canonical, one of Eärendil’s crewmen.

Tornel, Bornval, Halfon (S.) - All from Chestnutpod’s Elvish name list.

Carniyúla and Meneltir a.k.a. “the cruel servants of Celegorm”, also from Chestnut_pod’s life-saving list, are, unlike most OC names in this fic regardless of character origin, in Quenya. Innnteresting.

Injuries - I have an under-informed medical explanation for Dornil’s cause of death in my mind but honestly all the things that can go wrong with bodies are terribly confusing and challenging to translate to individual experience, and we’re now well outside personal or secondhand experience that I can draw on, so please forebear from medical scrutiny.

I must (meant to a few chapters ago!) shout-out leucisticpuffin’s beautiful fic, we will call this place our home, which has helped me immensely in conceptualising Elros and Elrond as fully-realised (if tiny) people and been very influential to how I have ended up writing their characters. I will never be able to see their child-selves any other way.

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