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Chapter Text

Fingon stared at the wood burning in the fireplace and did not speak. The fire died slowly. Dull red embers were taunting him. He turned away and met his father’s gaze. He wondered if Fingolfin was thinking about the same thing he was. Red embers on the horizon like specks of blood, making a mockery of brotherhood and friendship.

“Do you trust him?” Fingolfin asked.

Fingon lips were stuck together as if dried by the cruel sea wind.

“Makalaurë says he did not burn the ships because he wanted to return for us,” he said finally.

“Makalaurë will say anything his brother tells him to.”

“Such a lie would be easy to uncover.”

“I suppose.”

“I cannot find any sinister motive in his decision to waive his claim to the crown,” Fingon said. “His brothers’ reaction surely proves his sincerity. I do not believe he is capable of plotting just yet.”

“A Fëanárion plot against our house is not what worries me.”

The embers had died down. The windows were shut, but Fingon could still feel the wind sawing through him. Standing on the shore as the blood specks on the horizon faded, leaving ashen silence behind, he had felt emptied of everything, a shell that had once housed a person.

“What then?” he asked quietly.

Fingolfin looked into his eyes.

“You were with me when the Sindar told us of the thralls that came back—”

“He did not come back. I brought him back. I freed him. He was not set free. He would stay there forever if the Enemy had his way.”

“We cannot know all the tricks of the Enemy.”

Fingon had rebuffed every attempt at conversation after the ships burned. Back then, he still could afford it. Or he had thought he could. Now he knew he could not turn away.

“Manwë’s eagle came for us,” he said. “Is that not a proof?”

“It might be.” Fingolfin sat by his son and squeezed the hand that was gripping the armrest tightly enough to crack it. “Do you trust him?” he asked.

“What would Moringotto gain by putting you on the throne? If Maitimo is in thrall to him as you suspect, it would make more sense for the Enemy to have Maitimo claim the crown and divide us further.”

“It would make more sense for him to Sing in harmony with the other Valar and take joy in Arda. But that is not what he did, is it?” Fingolfin waited until his son looked at him. “I am merely suggesting that we need to be prepared for every possibility.”

“Make sure to avoid suggesting it in front of his brothers lest we risk another bloodshed.”

“One would think they would be eager to jump at the opportunity to declare him unfit to make such decisions.”

Perhaps it was Fingon’s brisk tone that had angered his father enough to make such an unkind statement. 

“No matter what, they will not price the crown higher than their own brother,” Fingon said.

He did not mean it as a barb against his father, but Fingolfin’s eye still twitched. 

“They will let love blind them then,” he said in a deliberately even voice. “Will you?”

Fingon wrenched his hand away and strode to the door.

“Do you trust him?” Fingolfin asked.

Fingon stopped with his hand at the handle.

“I trust he will not want to live as the Enemy’s weapon,” he said without turning to look at his father. “So I will not allow it to happen. I am a kinslayer already. Is that what you wanted to hear?”

“No, Findekáno.” Pain colored Fingolfin’s voice and made his hand that gripped his son’s shoulder tremble. “I will not let the responsibility fall to you. You have already shouldered burdens greater than you should have to.”

“It has to be me. He would want me to.”

“I care not.”

“If what you fear comes true,” Fingon said, turning to look at Fingolfin, “and anyone else raises a blade against Maitimo, I will not ever forgive them. Not even you, Father.”

Fingolfin inclined his head. It was not acquiescence but simply a decision to delay the discussion. For now, it was enough for Fingon. 

When Fingolfin looked away, Fingon slipped the dagger he had placed on the table back into his sleeve. He said his goodbyes to his father and went to sit by Maedhros’s bedside. 

Chapter Text

“Are we in danger?”

Startled, Fingon wondered how long Maedhros had been awake, observing him with his too-bright gaze. If he were just a little stronger, he would have every chance to attack Fingon and overpower him, catching him unawares.

“What makes you think so?” Fingon asked.

“You keep reaching for the dagger you have hidden.” 

Fingon’s hand twitched around the hilt. He snatched it back.

“There have been sightings of orcs in the mountains,” he said.

It was not a lie. It felt like one, but it wasn’t.

“Do you have reason to believe they will attack the camp?” Maedhros asked.

“You can never be too careful.”

Fingon bore Maedhros’s gaze without blinking. Without even breathing.

“In that case, perhaps I should have a weapon too?” Maedhros said.

One second, two, three. A little more and Fingon’s silence would be suspicious.

“You are in no state to fight,” he said.

“No, but trust me, even left-handed, I can stab an orc in the eye.”

“There is no need for a weapon,” Fingon said. “I am just being overly cautious.”

“How very unlike you.” Maedhros reclined against the pillows and closed his eyes. “But then, what do I know?”

Fingon released his breath in quiet, short bursts. The dagger was scorching his skin even over layers of clothes.

“It is for me, isn’t it?” Maedhros asked without opening his eyes.

Fingon could not think of a lie fast enough. The moment was gone. Now his denial would not sound genuine.

“My father—” No, he would not lay the blame on his father alone in front of a son of Fëanor. “My father and I believe we should be prepared for any possibility.”

“Very reasonable,” Maedhros said. 

“You must understand. It is best to err on the side of caution.”

“Of course,” Maedhros said serenely. “I suppose considering other options, such as trying to break the Enemy’s hold on my mind or even simply restraining me, is not cautious enough.”

“Would you want it?” Fingon asked, unwilling to admit that the thought of other options hadn't even crossed his mind.

“Would you?”

“We have not discussed in depth what is to be done if the worst happens.”

“But you have determined that the task of killing me should fall to you. Or are there going to be others with hidden daggers guarding my door?”

“I thought you would want it to be me.”

It sounded pitiful enough even without Maedhros’s mirthless laughter.

“What a romantic notion. Do you regret missing your chance to end my life?”

Nowadays, Fingon could never tell if Maedhros’s words were a callous jape or if he truly spoke what was on his mind. Sometimes, it seemed to him that Maedhros delighted in tormenting him.

“Was I wrong in assuming so?” he asked, determined to ignore Maedhros’s bleak suggestion.

“Findekáno, if I am a mindless thrall, do you think I would care who kills me? Perhaps you and your father believe I would hesitate to fight back if it were you before me. You must know very little of Moringotto’s thralls.”

“Perhaps you would like to enlighten us?” 

The words burst out before Fingon could stop them, leaving deep, bleeding gashes in his throat. Maedhros bared his teeth in what he must believe was a grin.

“I would,” he said, “but until you are certain I am myself, you should not believe a word that comes out of my mouth.”

Fingon felt the sea salt on his tongue. Maedhros’s short hair was fire-bright against the pale pillows. Fingon closed his eyes.

“I am curious,” Maedhros said. “What prompted this? Was it my decision to cede the crown? Isn’t it what Finwenolofinwë has been coveting all this time?”

“Do not speak of my father that way,” Fingon said, glad that anger pushed all else aside.

“What way? Did he not name himself Finwenolofinwë and chase the crown while Finwë’s eldest son and heir still lived? I gave him what he wanted, and he is still suspicious, but no doubt, he believes himself so different from my father.”

Fingon didn’t want to think of the reasons for Maedhros’s bitterness. Didn’t want to wonder if Maedhros was angry because he was suspected or because he was discovered.

“You do not help your case by speaking so,” Fingon said, nearly pleading. 

“Should I smile and sweet talk you and your father to prove I am not in the Enemy’s grasp? Will it convince you? As I said, you know very little of Moringotto’s thralls.”

Fingon couldn’t find an answer. Whatever he thought to say seemed irrelevant and unimportant. He silently watched Maedhros struggle to sit up on the bed.

“Come closer,” Maedhros said once he had successfully crawled up.

“What?”

“Come closer. What are you afraid of? You are the one with a weapon.”

Fingon walked to him, clenching his fists to stop himself from reaching for the dagger. 

“My height is an advantage in a fight,” Maedhros said. “See these two ribs? Use them and my right knee to bring me down. Shattered and healed too many times, they will remain a weakness. My right shoulder will also hinder me, but I believe you are aware of it.”

Fingon didn’t speak for a long time. He stood, powerless to look away from Maedhros and just as powerless to stop his mind from constructing scenarios where he would put Maedhros’s advice to use.

“You just said not to believe a single word from you,” he finally spoke, desperate.

Maedhros grinned at him.

“Use your best judgment.”

Fingon had almost drowned once in an ice well upon the Helcaraxë. He had flailed helplessly as the freezing water had filled his lungs and the ice had closed rapidly overhead. In the dark water, he had lost the sense of direction and swam to the bottom of the well until the strong hands of his father grabbed him and pulled him out. 

Now he felt just as directionless. 

Maedhros’s quivering shoulders shook him out of his thoughts.

“Are you cold?” Fingon asked.

Maedhros looked at him, uncomprehending.

“You are trembling.”

Fingon put a hand on Maedhros’s shoulder. Maedhros stopped breathing. Fingon quickly stepped back. 

“Are you cold?” he asked again.

“Yes,” Maedhros said after nearly a minute. “I am cold.”

Fingon scrambled to find a blanket and covered Maedhros, who had lain down, his back to Fingon. 
 
He didn’t speak again. Fingon sat by his side, his hand hovering over the dagger but never touching it.

Chapter Text

He stops calling for Ulmo after the Sea chews him up and spits him out. He stops calling for Manwë after the winds refuse to blow him away from a mountaintop. He stops calling for Mandos after he keeps living year after year, century after century, millennium after millennium.

He even stops calling for the One after going hoarse, shouting out the Oath again and again for all to hear. (No one does.)

He calls for his brothers instead. For his father. He calls for the ones who cannot have forgotten him. He calls for the highest power he recognizes.

Chapter Text

Manwë, Varda, Ulmo… Yavanna… Tilion and Arien. Mandos! How could he forget Mandos? There were more. Nienna. Yes. Who else?

Findekáno, Turukáno... Irissë? Yes, that sounds right. There was another one. He cannot remember the name.

Findaráto. His brothers. He had two. Or perhaps three. And a sister. No name. 

Some of them had children. He doesn’t remember them. Perhaps he has never known them.

He recites his lists over and over. Hoards the names of his cousins like precious gems. Tries to remember who he has forgotten. He never does. 

He is too afraid to name his own brothers.  

Chapter Text

Smooth pebbles creak under his feet as he walks the shore. He likes the sound. He likes gathering a handful and admiring the colors – white, brown, fawn. Birdseeds for Manwë, comes to mind. Then – laughter. Close as if it's right by his side.

He turns sharply. There is no one. 

He takes a pebble and frowns at it, trying to remember who called it birdseeds, whose laughter he heard. There is no face to put to the voice. The faces have faded, smoothened and dwindled to a pebble by the waves of time. Soon, he, too, will fade.

Chapter Text

The fisherman was hurt. Bleeding from the head, he would have drowned next to his capsized boat if Maglor hadn’t pulled him to safety. The man was unconscious. Maglor took off his soaked clothes and tended to his wounds. When he was stable enough, Maglor picked him up and took him to the nearest village. He didn’t forget to bring the fisherman’s catch.

He did not wait for him to wake up. He went back to the shore, looking for others who were hurt, trying to save a drop of blood to make up for the gallons he had spilled.

Chapter Text

A hand caressing his naked hips. A smile – familiar as his own. A whisper of auburn hair – the scent as sweet as autumn.

Maglor floats. His lips part. He breathes out a name. Fingers ghost over his sex. He bucks his hips. He is held firmly and unmade.

He opens his eyes. The waves are lapping at his bare skin. Out of the corner of an eye, he glimpses a broad back – smooth as silk one moment, then lined with thick scars.

The waves rock him gently like the hand that undid him once rocked his cradle. 

Chapter Text

The guard standing before Maedhros’s door was gone, which should not have happened without Fingon’s knowledge. Behind the door, something crashed. It took a fraction of a second for Fingon to draw his dagger and kick the door open.

Maedhros and the guard, locked in a struggle, turned to him. The guard was the first to recover. He pulled Maedhros to him and put the knife against his throat.

“Close the door,” he told Fingon.

Fingon did. It creaked like brittle ice breaking underfoot.

“Let us not be hasty,” Fingon said, approaching, his gaze trained on the pearl of blood on Maedhros’s throat.

“You will not convince him,” Maedhros said.

“Quiet!” the guard yelled.

The bloody pearl rolled down the knife and another one took its place.

“Do not come closer,” the guard told Fingon.

Fingon stopped and raised his hands.

“I am not going to hurt you,” he said, keeping his voice soft. “Let us talk. Will you tell me your name?”

The guard hesitated for a moment, frowning as if he was trying to remember. “Alwedon,” he said then quietly. “It was Alwedon, but I have none now.”

“I am Findekáno. Fingon in the language of your people.”

“I know who you are.”

“Alwedon, please do not do anything careless. Whatever has happened, whatever is on your mind, I shall help you. I give you my word.”

Alwedon’s hand shook around the knife. Fingon imagined his feet frozen and stuck to the ground, so he would not try to lunge for the weapon and wrestle it away. A corner of his mind was trying to understand how Alwedon could have slipped past their defenses, joined their forces, and volunteered to stand guard at Maedhros’s door without anyone suspecting anything.

“What would I do with your word?” Alwedon said. “Give me your dagger instead.”

“Do not be foolish, Findekáno,” Maedhros said.

Alwedon’s knife pressed closer to his skin. Whatever color was on his face was swiftly draining away. His knees were close to buckling. What would happen if he fell? Would it confuse Alwedon or startle him into striking? Would Fingon be quick enough to stop him?

Slowly, he put his dagger on the bed, taking the opportunity to come a few steps closer to Alwedon and Maedhros.

“I have no other weapons,” he said. “Now it is your turn. Will you lower your knife? I am here. I shall help you.”

“You cannot reason with him,” Maedhros rasped. “He is what you suspect me to be.”

“Russandol, please!”

“He speaks the truth,” Alwedon said. “I am no longer myself. I cannot fight it.”

“You must,” Fingon urged. “You can. Do you have a family, Alwedon?”

“Family? I think… I had a brother. Yes, a brother.”

“Think of him. Think of meeting him again. I have a brother too. I would never be the same if I lost him. Think of returning to your brother. Returning to yourself.”

“It is not possible.”

“There must be a way. We only have to find it. Trust me, please, I shall do my best to find it. Do you believe me, Alwedon?”

Fingon could plainly see the struggle in Alwedon’s eyes. Despite what his instincts were screaming, he did not move. He had learned patience.

A thin red ribbon was adorning Maedhros’s throat when Alwedon lowered the knife. Tiny rubies slid down his neck. He shook and did not fall. He lived.

Fingon let out a breath, running a hand over his face. But his relief was brief. A low moan shook him, and he jerked his head up in time to see Maedhros pull the dagger he had left on the bed out of Alwedon’s eye. The body must have made noise falling, but Fingon didn’t hear it as though it fell on soft snow.

For a moment, he and Maedhros stared at each other, his bloodied dagger clutched in Maedhros’s hand.

“Why did you do it?” Fingon whispered.

“There was no saving him. He was a thrall.”

“He lowered the knife.”

“He was still eying it. He could have attacked you next. What use would there be to kill me? You must have been his true target.”

“You cannot know that!”

“I do,” Maedhros said, gesturing with the dagger. “Why are you dismayed? Is this not what you will do to me if I turn out to be enthralled?”

Fingon breathed through the ice water.

“Give me the dagger,” he said.

Maedhros looked at it as if he had forgotten he was holding it. He did not move.

“Russandol, please,” Fingon said, “give it to me.”

Slowly, Maedhros extended his hand.

“Here,” he said.

Fingon had to step over Alwedon’s body to reach it. He forced himself to look at him, to commit his face to memory. He remembered none from Alqualondë.

The moment he moved to take the weapon, Maedhros grabbed his hand and pulled him to his chest with surprising strength, pressing the dagger to his throat.

Fingon opened his mouth to say something, but he was falling into an ice well. The cold froze his lungs and his tongue, swallowed all his words. Instead, Maedhros spoke.

“Despite all your fears and doubts, still you are not cautious enough,” he said. “Taking the dagger from my hand was a mistake. You should have told me to drop it and move away.”

The dagger stuck to Fingon's skin, cold with blood, but Maedhros’s chest behind him was warm, and so was Maedhros's arm around his waist. Fingon swam to the warmth and resurfaced.

“Will you drop it now if I ask?”

A heartbeat, two, three. Maedhros’s fingers slowly loosened around the hilt, and the dagger fell by Fingon’s feet.

Maedhros’s right arm was still wrapped around his waist. Fingon breathed out, didn’t move.

“You should not have taken the risk,” Maedhros said. “You should not have waited for me to drop it. You should have remembered what I told you about my weaknesses.”

“I remember.” Fingon turned in his hold to face him. “Your shoulder.”

His hand hovered over Maedhros’s right shoulder but didn’t touch it. Maedhros still flinched as if the non-touch pained him.

“Your ribs.”

The back of Fingon’s hand brushed over the place Maedhros had shown him.

“Your right knee.”

Fingon bent down and caressed the knee with a thumb. He picked up the weapons and rose. Maedhros was swaying. What need Fingon had for his weaknesses when he could bring him down with a gentle touch?

He caught Maedhros before he could fall and guided him back to bed. For a moment, he, too, was overcome with knee-buckling weariness, the kind you feel when you trek over uneven ice for days in search of your camp while the cutting wind is blowing against your face, the kind when you cannot take a moment to lie down because you will never rise again. Fingon closed his eyes and rode out the wave. The exhaustion relented, and sudden, dizzying clarity took its place.

Fingon called in people to deal with the body and with the cut on Maedhros’s neck. He sent someone to his father with the news. The sooner he knew about it, the better. Maedhros was watching the commotion with an absent, empty gaze as if he had not just killed someone and deemed himself justified.

Fingon had to recount the events to Fingolfin when his father arrived in haste. He left out what happened after Alwedon’s death. There was no need to lessen Fingolfin’s almost non-existent trust in Maedhros.

“How can we be certain,” Fingolfin said, “that he did not kill that poor Sinda to silence him? Perhaps he could have told us something about him. Perhaps we could have learned how far the Enemy’s hold reaches. Was it truly necessary to kill him or was it his unrestrained bloodlust that drove him to slay the wretched soul?”

“He was in thrall to the Enemy,” Fingon said. “There was no saving him. He was going to attack me next.”

It seemed to placate Fingolfin, and he agreed to allow Fingon to return to Maedhros’s chambers again without a fuss. Maedhros’s unseeing gaze brushed over Fingon when he closed the door behind him.

“You lied to your father,” he said mildly.

“Not unless you lied to me.”

“I have told you,” Maedhros said, “you should not believe a word I say.”

“So you have.”

Fingon sat on the edge of the bed. It made Maedhros blink and finally focus on him.

“Where is your dagger?” he asked.

“I left it outside.”

Maedhros stared, more shaken than he had looked with a knife at his throat.

“Did you not see what happened here?” he asked. “What I did?”

“I saw it all very clearly.”

“I slaughtered someone.”

“I was there.”

“I threatened you.”

“I remember.”

“Then why?” Maedhros whispered.

Fingon shrugged.

“By treason of kin unto kin, and the fear of treason, shall this come to pass,” he said. The same stubborn determination he had felt when he had heard the Doom roused his heart again. He smiled at Maedhros. “If I am to be betrayed, so be it. I shall not live in fear.”

Like your father. The words never left his lips. Once, he would have flung them at Maedhros without remorse and felt righteous. Now he was silent.

Maedhros looked at him for a long time. Fingon held his gaze and wondered once again what he was looking for. A sign of deceit? Reassurance?

“I envy you,” Maedhros said finally and added nothing else.

But when Fingon moved closer to him and offered his hand, Maedhros grasped it like a man drowning.