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Chapter Text

Makalaurë isn’t there for his brothers suicide death. He hears about the death of his brother from a stranger at a Edain camp.
“The red-headed kinslayer is dead,” one of them say.
“Oh? I thought no one would ever fell him, for all that he’s survived.”
“Well, no one killed him, unless you want to count himself.”
His ears ring. He hurriedly excuses himself and stumbles away.
He presses his back against a tree, covers his mouth and slides to the ground.
He didnt—he just—what?
Why would his brother do that?
His hands ache as he begins to weep, pressing them against his eyes, folding in on himself as he tries to make himself the little brother again.
He didn’t know—well he knew Maedhros wasn’t doing great but he didn’t think he was that bad; Eru what an excuse, what kind of brother is heVardaabove--
Makalaurë thinks back to the last time he and his brother spoke; his brother had seemed so hopeful with the oath fulfilled, so determined and so much better than he had been lately and
far better than he had been after Nirnaeth Arnoediad.

He had laughed!

Did he say ‘I love you?’ Did Maedhros even know how much? Eru, did he even know how much?

Maedhros had laughed.

He has no tears left, and he tries to stop sobbing as his stomach scrapes his spine while his sobs retch their way out of him; but he can’t, he can’t, just like he couldn’t help his brother– brothers–he can’t stop because there will never be enough tears, no amount of broken cries and gasping sobs will ever convey what Arda’s lost...he–he can’t stop weeping, not when...not when every breath in feels like too little and every breath out feels like too much.
What could he have done? What could he have done, what could he have done, oh what a bell that rings in his mind, what could I have done? They had agreed that splitting up for the moment was the best option but what if it wasn’t? What is he talking about, of course it wasn’t, Maedhros is dead. What could he have said? Makalaurë did something wrong, he knows he did, he just needs to figure out what so—
So what?
What does it matter?
It doesn’t matter. Maedhros is dead.

Makalaurë has to—he has to get back to camp, the war may be over, but evil still lurks, and, well.

Well.

His sobs have scraped his insides hollow and he’s sure his eyes are red but the edain are graceful enough to not mention it; after all, everyones lost someone in the war. Just, maybe not by—
By.
…
His heart aches.

——

How could I have changed the out come? Is a frequent thought of Makalaurë’s. How indeed? Obviously, he could’ve gone with his brother, but what if that just made Maedhros’ death all the worse? What if it didn’t? What if all Maedhros needed was for someone to be by his side in the end? What if Makalaurë could’ve saved him, could’ve jumped in after him, or held him tight, letting him know how loved he is–was.

Is.

Why didn’t Maedhros come to Makalaurë? They had been through so much together, Makalaurë had given up his chance of forgiveness, a chance to return home, to his wife, to his mother–

How dare Maedhros spit in his face like this? By Eru above, he could kill Maedhros

He weeps.

How can he kill someone who’s killed themself?

——

Of course, he has to keep moving as his home sinks beneath the waves. He can’t stop to mourn his lost hope, his family left behind beneath the waves, or his brother lost in a chasm—
He can’t stop, don’t think about it, can’t think about it, stopstopstopstop

…

Oh how cruel the world is, that it doesn’t stop to mourn.

——

Makalaurë knows grief very intimately. He’s been through a war and has lost his land, his people, his cousins, his brothers, of course he knows grief and he grieves for them still, but suicide? Suicide is a different type of grief. The Black Foe took his kin away from him. Makalaurë himself, through his own actions, drove his kin away.
But.
But Maedhros left of his own volition. And Eru, how do you even begin to process that?

——

Makalaurë is alone with his thoughts now. And he wonders, again, how he could’ve changed things. He thinks he could accept the horrors of Beleriand and the Kinslayings, if his brother didn’t—

It doesn’t matter, of course. Thinking how he could’ve changed the past is futile and only serves to rub salt into his wounds and make him whimper.

——

Why couldn't he have fucking waited?

——

Makalaurë is no stranger to…to suicide. It’s just that, it’s not something you think will happen to you.

At Amon Ereb, no Elves would ally with them, but they had human allies. He remembers, once, sitting with a human who held a knife to their wrists. Old raised scars decorated them already, but tonight was different.

Makalaurë was ill prepared, because how can you ever be prepared for such a situation? But he would not leave them in such straits, and so he sat with them, and spoke of the birds in valinor, of songs he’s heard over the years, and slowly, slowly, took the knife from this nameless humans hands. He spoke of the legends from the stars, of the gossip from the streams, and left silently when their partner came to hold them.

It’s cruel, he knows, but sometimes he wishes that human would’ve died instead of his brother. Why couldn’t he have been there for Maedhros?

——

Makalaurë overhears a human say that survivors of war, of grief, and of tragedy are strong. But—he’s not strong, he’s not, he’s just…what else could he do but struggle onward?

——

He wants to create pages upon pages of ballads, songs that would take centuries to preform, but every lyric he writes, each note he sings, it’s not right, its not right, and it’s never enough; again and again he starts over, but how can you encompass your love and your grief, a whole concept of a person, how can you convey your halcyon days and missing what could’ve been? How can you fit a multidimensional being into a single medium?

How do you summarize a whole person, bright and alive and beloved with a handful of moments?

——

Makalaurë doesn’t actually know what finally pushed Maedhros over the edge. Literally. He doesn’t know if it was the Silmaril burning, or if it was a million small things. Did he lose his ring? Was his shoe untied? Did the weight of his sins drag him into the depths? Was the chasam there—Was it spontaneous or did he activaly seek out—.
He cuts himself off and crumples into himself.
...
His shoulders shake.
____

He thinks of that unknown human, sometimes. And he knows he failed to be there for his brother.

He wonders if he even tried.

____

Makalaurë knows he doesn’t actually hate his father and that he really shouldn’t feel this way, but he does! He is furious with his father, though he knows that Fëanor would perhaps be even more grieved than he.
It’s so much easier for this serpents rage to be focused at his father, then with Maedhros for making him feel this pain.

Damn these Silmarils.
Damn the Oath.
Damn his father for even making them.

…But most of all, Damn himself.

____

He doesn’t know what to do now. It doesn’t matter. Or does it? He just knows that, he can’t–he can’t stop.

____

Makalaurë thought he would see his brother again.

He thought that they would reunite, with the Oath fulfilled as much as it could be, and that they could…they could do something, anything, with the hope that he had when they parted. Maybe they could reunite with Elrond and Elros, if they would have them, or maybe they would head to the far east, to see the lands of their forefathers. There was so much to look forward to together, with his brother beside him.

____

He can’t even write the date without thinking about how many days it’s been.

____

Makalaurë paces his camp, alone now, leaving the Edain he traveled with behind.
Damn Maedhros! Damn him! He gestures angrily with his arms as he argues with himself.
How dare he make him feel this way? He’s missing another fucking piece of himself! Another one! After everything he’s lost, everything Maedhros knows he’s lost, and he still goes and—!
He stares at his hand.
Maybe that’s not a question he should be asking. Because how could he not?

____

The world is a little worse, a little less bright.

Makalaurë thinks that the sun and the stars shine dimmer than they had after the Kinslayings.

____

He hasn’t really spoken to any of the free peoples since the Drowning of Beleriand, but he makes camp with some humans now.

He makes conversation, he laughs and asks questions, but he still doesn’t know how the conversation turned to death and grief.

One said, “Death is a part of life.”

Eru, he could’ve slapped him.

He did actually slap an elf who told him that death and grief would be a part of life for as long as he was in Middle Earth.

____

He still cries, sometimes.

(But he laughs now, too.)

____

When Makalaurë was a child, he hadn’t wanted to be like his father, or his mother, or grandfather, or other grandfather and grandmother, or his teachers, or the bard Rumíl. He wanted to be like his big brother. His brother with fox red hair, tall and proud, and so so cool. He would hop along behind his brother, leaping from footprint to footprint, his brother's strides too long for him to walk behind. His brother that taught dances their teacher wouldn’t teach and wore work boots everywhere. Eru, the work boots. A popular noble class fashion choice, styled after the work boots riders would wear. Maitimo had worn them to dances, to court, riding, and even to dinner, much to his mothers chagrin. He had wanted a pair as well, but his mother said that he could only wear them if he bought a pair himself.

____

Makalaurë is reluctant to call what’s happening healing, because how do you heal from something like this? He refuses to call it moving on either for the same reasons; he’s not going to leave his brother in the past.

But…but he learns to limp along with it, just a little.

____

There is something missing. It sounds cliche, even as a bard, but it’s true. It’s a weird empty feeling, like a puzzle piece that fell out of the completed picture that you’ve seen everyday of your life. It’s still a complete picture, but it’s not, at the same time. Makalaurë first realizes the pieces he’s made of when the boats burn, and he loses the pieces of his wife and mother. The next piece he loses is his fathers. And then Maedhros’.

There has never been such a euphoric feeling as when that missing something is sloted back into place–more worn, and changed, but still that missing piece.

But then he loses pieces rapidly, at Dagor Bragollach, at Nírnaeth Arnoediad, at the Second and Third Kinslayings, until theres less and less of somethings and more and more of nothings, missing pieces making holes and the picture is no longer complete. It’s a weird feeling, losing something that has been there since forever for you. It really brings meaning to the saying, “you never know what you’re missing until it’s gone.”

And now he’s lost another one.
____

Makalaurë wonders if Maedhros regrets it. He’s not sure if he wants him to or not.
____

But he’s not acutely aware of it though, not anymore. It aches sometimes, but he lives on. He does not move on, so much as live on, because how could he move on?

(Or, maybe he does, just a little bit, piece by piece.)

But it doesn’t rule his every other thought, or his actions and his guilt is not guilt, so much as regret, but he lives on.

Makalaurë regrets the hundreds of things he didn’t say to Maedhros or the thousand of things he didn’t do with him and the millions of moments they won’t be together. It’s unfair. He wishes that Maedhros would’ve waited a little longer, until they could reunite.

He regrets not being there for Maedhros, and for making him feel like he had to do this alone. He regrets not simply sucking it up and putting up with Maedhros’ ire; if there was one thing Maedhros hated more than the Enemy, it was pity. Makalaurë’s not sure how Maedhros would have taken his concern, but he wishes he had reached out anyway.

____

This is a wound that goes deep and time does not heal it, but he learns to live with the ache in his fea.

____

Maybe death doesn’t matter to the dead, only the living. But still, Makalaurë wonders–he hopes, he prays–that Maedhros found what he was looking for.

____

As he sings his sorrowed bygones along the coast, he comes across another elf singing. He knows this other elf in passing, he’s heard their songs about badgers and organs made from stalactites, of noldor cities that have now become sea caves. Makalaurë can recognize a fellow survivor of Beleriand in his notes, and can identify him as Gildor Inglorion. In his melody, he can recognize Maedhros and promises himself,

“No, not again. I refuse.”

Gildor is welcoming to him and though Makalaurë isn’t very good at it, not at first, he learns. He’s a little bit awkward, not knowing how far to push, or how to not sound pitying while trying to be compassionate. Gildor seems to heal and they part ways, though they always come back together.
It hurts sometimes, to think that they never would’ve become companions if his brother hadn’t died the way he did.

____

Makalaurë got his first pennywhistle at Maedhros’ fencing competition. He remembers being so excited to play it! He had just begun to play it, but one look from his father quelled his eagerness and had him pulling it out of his mouth.

At the competition at least. It did not stop him from loudly playing it on the way back home.

____

Someone finds him, in the end. Of course they do. He had expected it to be His cousin, or one of the children he raised. He’d expect his Ranil, the Nandorin Queen before he’d expect his nephew. He expresses that to him.
“I don’t…” Tyelpe Celebrimbor looks away and grips his biceps from his crossed arms positions before making eye contact. “I do not approve of your actions. I do not approve of my fathers or his brothers acts in Nargothrond. I do not--” he loses steam and darts his eyes away. “I..I love my family and. My uncle didn’t deserve to die that way. For all his flaws, his crimes, he was still my uncle and I love him.” He sniffs and wetly whispers, “He deserved better.”

____

He gets better, but he’s not sure it will ever be healed.

It’s weird. How there’s pieces of himself missing still, but the picture they make is no longer incomplete.

____

Speaking of Maedhros becomes easier with time, and he speaks of him fondly.
“There was a time, when we were younger,” Makalaurë says, “Our brothers were small and neither of us grown, and we ate supper together everyday. There were no books nor notes nor instruments allowed at the table during our meal.
“I remember a specific meal we had, made with spices from Yavannas Garden, and to this day, I have never eaten a spicier meal. I don’t remember who dared who but Maedhros and I came to an agreement that if one of us swallowed a handful of chillie seeds from each dish, the other would too. Father discouraged us, in the most liberal sense of the word; he was as excited as mother to watch us make our mistakes.” Makalaurë laughed.
“Mother counted down and we both tossed the seeds back. It burned my lips, tongue and made my eyes water, but I don’t think I had as bad a reaction as Maedhros!
Maedhros, eyes watering, jumped up and ran to a latrine. I, in my youthfulness and in my want to be like my brother, I followed--to a seperate one of course!! I washed out my mouth and drank the water and when I returned, mother had gone to comfort Maedhros, and my Father--can you believe it?-- with a knowing glint in his eye, asked if I had thrown up too.
I had not of course, but it was too late to back out, I thought to myself. I said yes and he laughed and told me to help put dinner away.”

____

He wonders what Maedhros would have to say now. What jokes he would tell, what advice he would give, what he would rant, what he would speak…

____

In the end, what Makalaurë sings is not the perfect ideal he imagined but instead one that grew with him in his grief, edited and non linear, rough and raw. It may never be complete, which he’s come to accept, and falls short of the beautiful, golden ballad he dreamt, but he’s put his his heart and soul, growth and love into it, and he is…not prideful of his work, but content. He thinks Maedhros would be alright with that.

There is no closure to loss; you just get more experienced at carrying it with you. Similarly, Makalaurë lives on; It’s all he can do

Chapter Text

• He dies think that will be the end of his feas wounds, that theyd stop hurting him, that he wouldn’t have to deal with this worlds agonies, his peoples suffering, the never ending cycle of hatred, his own pain, he thought it would end.
• It doesn’t of course. 
• He screams at the maia, his rage from life following him into death, because he still hurts. He wants it to stop. He feels as if he is shouldering the weight of his followers sins, his own sins, his collarbones breaking and he feels as if it’s him against the all consuming weary grief of the world
• He doesn’t know if it is because he is a son of Feanor, or if he commited suicide, or because he’s a kinslayer or what---
• But he gets the attention of Namo. 
• Thats not what he wants at all, though as Namo talks at him, he comes to realize that maybe Namo is right, that while he did want the pain to stop, what he really wanted was peace. 
•  He begs Namo for peace, for the finality of the Void.
• ‘Oh child,’ Namo sighs, ‘that isn’t how you reach peace.’
• Namo, decides that he needs renforments and calls his sister Nienna. 
• or maybe he doesn’t and nienna finds maedhros anyway
• Nienna, who knows the worlds agonies, his peoples suffering, his pain. 
• She doesn’t say anything while he rages, or at his self hatred or at anything he does. She becomes a constant, a listening ear as he works himself in circles before he finally breaks down crying. Nienna kneels beside him, doesn’t touch him as if sensing that he wouldn’t react well and begins to speak of her own pain, of her failures and of the worlds agonies. 
• ‘You’re not the first one to have killed themself. First to jump into a flaming pit, yes. But first to kill themself?’
• ‘Maedhros,’ she says. ‘You are not alone.’
• And she stays with him, as those words unmake him and he cries into her chest, her chest vibrating with her singing, soothing hurts with empathy, self hatred with kindness, anger with passion
• He heals slowly. There are bad days and worse days, days when it feels like he’s shattering into jagged pieces again, but through it all, Nienna stays with him, through the good days, the bad days and the ugly days.
• He asks her once if she had other people to help. 
• ‘I am already helping them’ she says
• ‘But youre here with me’
• ‘Oh I am, yes. But I am with them also. I have a thousand arms to coddle them close, a thousand heads to sing to a thousand more. I am the heat of the hearth, the comfort of a hug, the solidarity of a listening ear. I am the warmth that hugs you close, of eating warm bread, the cotton of your beloved toy and the little lullabies you sing to yourself. I am a million little gestures and a million grand. Dear, I’ve been with you from the moment you reached for comfort in your mothers womb to now and I will be with you until the end of days.’
• He’s reborn, still healing, these types of hurts never go away, too deep the wound, but he decides he’s ready for life and he asks Nienna what should he do if he despairs again?
• Live, she says. I will be with you. 
• He lives on; It’s all he can do