Archive of Our Own ^beta

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Table of Contents

2. À la recherche du temps perdu (Fingon/Maedhros)

3. Snowdrops (Celeborn/Galadriel)

4. Surfacing (Finrod, Finarfin, Earwen)

5. Opposing Faces (Amras/OFC, Galadriel/Celeborn)

6. Drought (Maglor)

7. All Gone A-Maying (Maglor, Goldberry, Tom Bombadil)

8. Resurrection (Finrod)

9. Afterparty (Maedros/Fingon)

10. Howl (Finrod)

11. Awaiting Dagorath (Fingon)

12. A Treatise on Strategy (Celebrimbor and Celebrían)

13. A New Alliance (Fingolfin and Hador)

14. Crowned in Memory (Turgon, Idril, and Finrod)

15. Stage Fright (Tuor and Glorfindel)

16. In Those Dark Thickets (Eöl and Nan Elmoth)

17. Womp, Womp (Maglor)

18. Blend, Bond, Blaze (Fingon and Angrod and Aegnor)

19. Embellishments (Fingon and the Sons of Fëanor)

20. Turning Point (Maglor, Elros, Elrond)

21. Chase (Celegorm and Oromë)

22. Experimentation (Elwing/Eärendil)

23. Badger, Before (Finrod/Turgon)

24. Makeover (Gimli/Legolas)

25. Spice; Heat (Aegnor/Andreth)

26. Guessing Games (Éomer and Aragorn and Arwen)

27. Alloys (Finarfin/Eärwen)

28. A Stitch Out of Time (Caranthir and Gil-galad)

29. Metamorphosis (Lalwen)

30. Rencontre (Celegorm and Oromë)

31. Identity Politics (Elros and Maglor)

32. A Round Dance (Thranduil)

33. Cloudburst (Aredhel)

34. Accident of Fate (Fingon/Maedhros)

35. Of Hope and Feathers (Gimli and Legolas)

36. Foe-Hammer (Glorfindel and Gandalf)

37. A Reconciliation (Fingon/Maedhros)

38. Impending (Aegnor)

39. Groove (Gimli/Legolas)

40. Anchoring (Fingon/Maedhros)

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Fingon has not tasted chocolate in years. It is one of the luxuries of Aman that he has learned to live without, like oranges, and cinnamon, and dates: all the fine, strong flavors of the warmer lands that lie now well beyond their reach. How Maedhros has obtained it he dares not ask. Himring keeps its trade routes secret, wound and bound within Caranthir’s broader network of Fëanorian to-ings and fro-ings that it is better not to question.

But he has missed chocolate, most particularly.

It was chocolate cream from a flaky pastry that Maedhros first kissed from his lips in Tirion, so long ago. So sweet and rich and all the more decadent for the taste of his cousin’s surrender in that mouth that could not wait.

Now, curled before the hearth in Himring’s fastness, the dark breath of steam from the cup in his hands calls back to their early promises; it wakes the innocent tenderness of their youth. Fingon reaches for Maedhros’ hand in the pile of furs between them. He kisses the back, the palm, nibbles at each finger between sips of the drink that tastes of memory, hinting at the waiting sweetness of his lips.

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The late snow feathers its way to their shoulders and frosts their hoods, catching the afternoon light like paper jewels slowly falling from the ceiling at the end of some great ball. The wood breathes tenderly around them: small creatures are warm in their burrows, sap is slumbering in the trees. Snowdrops have broken through the surface in little clumps and clusters, and Galadriel bends to caress them, humming. Celeborn grins, eyebrow arched. “We call them lovers-in-the-winter-woods, and say they blossom where a pair has shared their passion in the snow. What say you, princess? Shall we test the tale?”

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Flung back into the world still raw around the edges, Finrod struggles with touch. The old court civilities wear him down; the handclasps and kisses and fond embraces of those who would welcome him are bruising. Duty’s tactility drains him – all the expected contact wears on skin yet tender, sparks an ache in his still-renewing bones. He smiles his golden smile and bears it, as the King’s heir must, but the weight of pretended joy is almost too much.

It is only in his parents’ company that he can abandon himself to sensation. Finarfin cradles Finrod’s head in his own lap, draws a comb slowly through his son’s bright hair. Eärwen clasps Finrod’s ankle in her cool hand and sings, the wash of the waves in her voice a reassurance of the long, repeating arc that every soul follows, of forgiveness, of the harmony between saltwater and tears.

Finrod drifts. He sinks into the soft tug on his hair, the gentle anchor of his mother’s hand, the creche of his father’s thighs. Where grief still grips him, it is soothed by their spare and tender touches. Finrod sets down new roots. He lifts his face to the light again, sighing.

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“Love, don’t you remember me?”

Amras had seen those pale eyes last in Mithrim: laughing, flirting, hooded with delight as he caressed her in the long grass beside the lake.

He had thought her lost to the mists, unwilling to leave her home as Maedhros drove them East; had believed her lost, again, to Turgon’s disappearance; and then known her lost, entirely, to the fire and fury of Gondolin’s fall. 

But here she is, pleading, not lost at all.

The smoke between them might be the soft air of the North, the sweet fog into which they had so often fallen in their loving – the moisture in the air curls her fair hair as it ever had, baring the smooth line of her throat and the sigil of the thieving princess that she wears.

Amras keeps his eyes open as he cuts her down: it is the only intimacy he dares.

*****

“My love, don’t you remember me?” Celeborn’s grin is as irresistible as the rest of him as he bends to nibble up the inside of her thigh -- her heart is still pounding from the last time (the first time in centuries!) but Galadriel can only laugh through the tangle of her sweaty hair. “I am tireless.” Kiss. “Inexhaustible.” Kiss. “And eagerly, eternally yours.”

*****

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The starlight glimmered on the dark water. Gemlight glimmered from beneath.

What had he thought, in his misery: that hurling the stone into the waves would somehow ease its burning? While the raw edges of the brand on his palm smoldered and blistered, it was his soul that had truly been seared.

Maglor’s breath hitched and trembled -- he was so thirsty, but there was nothing for him here but salt. Salt of the waves, salt of the sweat of his horror and fear; salt of exertion, now and unending; salt of his tears.

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She danced over the dewy grass to welcome the arrival of spring. Small, white blossoms sprang up in the dimples of her footprints, scented with the sweetness of memory and the bright fragrance of the year turned round – of all the world fresh and washed-clean by her passing and the breezes of the day.

Tom processed behind her, as solemn as could be, carrying a great vat of water-lilies as an offering and chanting from somewhere deep in his chest, like thunder under spring rain.

In borrowed yellow boots, Maglor brought up the rear, juggling the picnic basket and the blanket and such sundries as they had assured him were necessary for the feast. The river ran swift and laughing along the bank, hiding no secrets. He caught its music, and sang along for joy.

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The day dawned bloody.

Finrod’s hands ran red with it, splashed to the elbows and spangled with scales -- he caught the sun on his eyelids and laughed.

How long had it been since he last worked this harvest, chasing the shoaling pilchards through the night, with Angrod at the tiller and Aegnor aloft? They had a hold full, and more, as the sun leapt above the horizon: time, then, to turn toward home.

But first, a breakfast of the sweet, grilled flesh, of salt cheese and olives and flatbread scented with thyme. Flavors and company long-missed and well-loved, new again under a clear, fresh sky.

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Maedhros ran his remaining fingers through Fingon's unbound hair. The last of the spangled confetti from the evening’s festivity pooled in his palm, shaking out of Fingon’s unruly curls and glimmering gold and blue and red in the candlelight.

“You are shedding gems, Finno,” Maedhros chuckled, “High King of the Noldor, indeed.”

Fingon rolled to face him from his sprawl before the fire, pillowing his head on Maedhros’ thigh and dipping a speculative finger into the soft mound of glitter in his hand.

“Only because you made me be,” he grumbled, but the old argument had gone soft and dreamy around the edges from the sweetness of Maedhros’ fingers in his hair. Fingon stirred the spangles and slanted a grin up at Maedhros: "Take off your shirt, Russo, and hand me that oil; I want to see how you’ll shine when I stick these to your skin.”

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The sound had been pleasant, in another life.

Time was, he would escape his father’s tense visits with Fëanor to romp in the kennels with Celegorm, chasing the puppies and howling along with the elegant hounds. He had teased and teased for a dog of his own, longing for a taste of the muddied, paw-printed joy in which his cousin was so bathed, but to no end: neither Finarfin nor Eärwen could bear the beasts.

And now, it seems, neither can he. Tirion’s terriers and chasers and intelligent guard dogs bark and yowl and whine. Finrod’s skin prickles, his chest tightens, and his own hackles rise.

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These days, only a few of them had sword-callused hands. Peace, such as it was, was the order of the day: to question was to risk suspicion; to challenge was dangerous. To prepare? Not done at all.

Fortunately, gloves were in fashion. Fingon hid his roughened palms in satin and doeskin and silk, and if the tender fabrics snagged, it made no matter – he would be ready for trouble, when it came.

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Would this chance ever come again?

Celebrimbor was unguarded. Out of armor; clad in his robes of state. Distracted and unmindful…musing on some problem of craft, perhaps, or mulling some particularly knotty point from a recent guild debate. His head was turned away – the vulnerable spot above his ear exposed.

Celebrían loosed her trebuchet and shrieked in glee as the snowball left her cousin…discomposed.

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Seeing the open plains in all their vastness from the battlements of Barad Eithel took his breath away. Space was as overwhelming as time was, among the Elves: more than he could ever have imagined, going on and on and on.

Hador grimaced and gripped the crenellation he was braced against, feeling overexposed and very, very small.

“It is a great land to protect, my lord; I shall do what I can to keep it well under guard.”

Fingolfin only beamed his incongruous smile at him – that mischievous grin that made him seem not a day out of childhood, so strange and bright and enchanting under his ancient eyes. The Elf-king closed his long fingers around Hador’s, warm and soft against the stone: “We stand together, friend; you shall not be alone.”

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“Yellow is not a flattering color on you, dear cousin!” Finrod laughs, but Turgon frantically gestures him to silence.

Idril has draped her father in some sulfuric eyesore of a shawl – or perhaps a tablecloth; it is difficult to tell – and painstakingly dusted his cheeks and eyelids and lips with the brilliant pollen of the buttercups she is still clutching in her hand. His head is bedecked with a lopsided wreath of those same, brave blossoms, poked into fistfuls of greens. He looks ridiculous, but Finrod has a sudden, painful recollection of him similarly crowned, robed in exquisite lamé and satin, careening tipsily around a ballroom in Tirion with an enormous grin on his face and Elenwë laughing in his arms.

Idril frowns up at him, dignified and condescending. “You are wrong, Cousin Finrod,” she states, with the absolute authority of a child constructing truth from memory. “Ammë always said she loved him best in gold.”

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"Remind me why I agreed to this?"

Glorfindel only chuckles and settles the shoulders of Tuor's tunic with a balancing tug. "Here is another way in which our peoples are alike: my sister was the same, at her own feast, until she saw her bride."

Then his long hands turn Tuor toward the pale lily of Idril, golden and fair at the foot of the dais, waiting. The look she gives him both sears and soothes, and he leans to her as to a lodestone, needing her, knowing her: beacon and harbor and following wind, all at once.

Glorfindel's soft voice in his ear echoes the chorus in Tuor's heart: "Courage, friend: you are doing this for love."

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They had learned the hard way that fighting was counter-productive. 

Nan Elmoth kept its lord's moods, and his wards, as well. Those who tried to make their way through the tangles without his license met a bitter end among the hungry briars. Drawn steel in the wood called the strangling vines, unless the blade were of Eöl's make and wielded with his sanction. 

Those called to the forest walked softly, breathed slowly. Far better to settle into dim, uneasy servitude than to rebel and be given to the thorns. 

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After too much good wine and on too warm a night, the tuba drifted, nodding and nodding as the adagio wove on, slowly canting to her right until she was too far gone to be saved. Her collapse began the chain: low brass folding over, trombones scrambling to lift their slides and catching the backs of the clarinets’ heads, clarinets leaning forward to evade those blows and breathing with startled rage down the necks of the astonished flutes.

On the podium, Maglor could only nod and wave – ah, yes, it was planned! -- and smile to accept the startled applause.

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It is the great frustration of their childhoods that they do not match: FingonandAngrodandAegnor, close as brothers; three flashing, crackling sparks of the same bright fire.

They share eyes that mingle blue and green, nimble fingers, quick and sometimes thoughtless mouths. No one of them is faster or stronger or wilder than the others. What accident of form is it that makes Fingon’s locks so dark, when they should quite obviously be fair?

Noldor, all, they experiment with change. Angrod crowns Fingon with a mop; Aegnor braids his curls with hay. Fingon holds his cousins in a fearsome grip and coats their long, bright hair with mud: all three are black of mane, then, until it dries and cracks.

For a while, they wear identical scarves to hide their dissimilar hair – if they cannot match in outward seeming, let none look at them and know them somehow strange. But scarves slip. They cannot be worn in water. They catch in tree branches and are torn free in the wind of a gallop. They are impermanent, when FingonandAngrodandAegnor will always, always be the same.

Finarfin finds them in the laboratory, deep in argument over the merits of stripping dark from light or weaving shadows into gold. What chemical marvels might they blend, to align their three fine heads and make them all alike? A chemistry lesson bleeds into genetics, and then into metallurgy: if they may not dye (as their fathers categorically forbid), how might they otherwise embellish and adorn?

All their energy pours into anodizing, plating, hammering thin and fine. Managing weight and durability to shape jewels that represent the closeness of their ties. Fingon’s dark braids gleam with ribbons of gold; Angrod and Aegnor weave theirs with blackened steel.

They are tiger-striped; lightning-struck.

Three wild spirits, finely alloyed.

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Fingon knew he should not have survived it.

He had ignored his father’s caution and gone to meet his cousins vainly in the colors of his House – the bright blue silk and peacock feathers gleamed against the shadow of his skin, and he knew the silver and sapphires at his ears and throat would deepen the brilliance of his eyes.

But the horde of them in their scarlet and gold only grinned with sharpened teeth. It was Curufin (maybe –  all the unfriendly faces looked alike) who said what they were thinking, cool as ice: “Blue and silver, indeed. You could not have chosen better to demonstrate how far we are from kin, Indision.”

Fingon would not cry; he blinked and smiled and swallowed as Maedhros frowned. Then his eldest cousin’s long, pale fingers were tugging a ribbon free from his own sleeve, gesturing to ask permission, winding the gilded tape around Fingon’s braid. 

“Hush, Curvo; don’t be unkind.”  Maedhros’ eyes were sparkling, and Fingon’s heart swelled at the rescue; he basked in the warmth of Maedhros’ soft and private smile.

“There you are, cousin; all you needed was a little touch of gold.”   

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Maglor was sick of the smell of horse.

He would never have believed it of himself – would have said instead that five hundred years’ entanglement (and a loving lifetime before, never to be touched in memory lest his heart break finally and entire) had left his nostrils hungry for their scent, as a babe craves its mother’s, or a yearning man his lover’s.

But here they were, plodding through swamp and mire (bruised and bloodied, Amras dead on the docks behind them and the Silmaril fallen and risen and flown, impossibly, away) and the salty, grassy, heated fumes that rose from the horses’ necks and bellies offered no comfort.

It was not that these were beasts of burden rather than his own sweet-mouthed, bright-eyed, fleet-footed dancers from the Gap (oh, wind-drinkers, star-chasers, lost!). Nor that the bitter paths they trod stank of Morgoth’s corruption and overpowered even the most wholesome of scents.

It was the tang of hopeless children that mingled with the equine sweat and turned his stomach: Elros or Elrond or both (who knew, even, which of them was which?) had wet himself, themselves, the horse and Maglor and his gear, in fear and grief and desperate release when the long column could not stop its forward motion. Those two small heads bobbed in weary delirium against him, now, half-asleep with weeping and with shame.   

Maglor swallowed his gorge and drew the children closer. His new aversion should be no true surprise. After their dark work in Sirion, nothing they had ever loved could be the same.

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“I almost lost you!” Celegorm rolled to his back, grinning and panting, teeth flashing white in his muddy, mischievous face.

Oromë sighed and loosened his grip on Celegorm’s ankle. There was no predicting where the wily Elda would go, if freed. He knew the tangled brambles as well as any forest beast, could slip away quicker than a fleeing snake, no matter that he kept only his own shape and never lost his need to breathe.

It was what made Celegorm charming, the Vala supposed: that wilful, headlong plunge into the world around him; that endless, ridiculous, infuriating, flattering tease.  

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“Are you sure she’s not…lying? I mean...I don’t know…confused?” Eärendil ran uncertain fingers through Elwing’s hair, frowning. “No one seems to know what to expect of us, really, do they? It's as though we're a fascinating but rather awkward experiment. A source of perpetual surprise.”

Elwing laughed and caught his hand, kissing the callused palm and pressing it against her waist, where her gown showed nothing, yet, of the life that stirred within.

“A delightful surprise, indeed, my love!” She tugged him closer and kissed him soundly, with the mischievous light in her face that he found impossible to resist. “Gwaereth’s eyes were bigger than saucers at the very thought of twins.”

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“I thought you were dead! Just a moment to take a peek, you said!”

Finrod had a great smear of clay on his cheek, and more mud on his robes, but he was laughing, and Turgon could hardly keep himself from shrieking. He had been waiting by the dark, wet hole in the riverbank for the better part of an afternoon, alternately shouting into it and pacing in circles, tearing at his hair, imagining Finrod pinned under a rockfall or drowned in a subterranean river, and here was his cousin – glowing, in excellent spirits, just delayed!

Finrod caught him by the chin with a filthy hand and kissed him long enough to settle him, then sighed. “Oh, Turno, you should see it: blossoms of stone – great pillars like trees – the most delicate, laciest fans of rock, like window shades, or louvered doors! I know Grandfather will not allow us to disturb them, but just imagine: what a wonder it would be if we could truly build a city underground!”

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“Have you lost your damn mind?!”  

But Gimli was hard-pressed to keep his face severe as Legolas bowed in best Dwarven fashion, elegant wrists twirling and graceful toe pointing and bright eyes sparkling up at him over a very lush, very intricately braided beard.

“The horses had no use for it,” he laughed, as Gimli sputtered. “Aragorn’s guards were thinning their manes and tails – to look sharper on parade, they said – and I thought it a pity to let all that perfectly lovely hair go to waste. Come and kiss me, Gim, and see if tickles as much as yours.”

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“Just once,” Andreth promised, breathless with laughter at the depth of the frowning furrows between Aegnor’s eyes. “And then you may cry off, pleading the sensitivity of a Valinorean tongue. But you cannot claim any serious kinship with us without trying it.”

She slipped the spoonful of sauce between his lips, then watched his eyes tear and the heat rise in his cheeks as he swallowed.

He managed to stay silent, and to turn up his nose at her consolatory offer of bread and milk.

It was the sweetness of her own mouth, afterwards, that, as ever, made him groan.

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Éomer passed the mug over and raised his brows expectantly. They had worked their way through all the wines in Aragorn’s cellar, with no errors yet, but he hazarded that the tapping of the ale barrels might yet lead to his win. Elves were reported not to truly like the stuff – it was not strong enough, or fruity enough, or bloody enough, depending on who you asked.

“Hmmm.” There was enough hesitation in that considering sound to make Éomer grin, anticipating victory. “Malty-sweet, this one. Likely a winter brewing, and that from seven years ago. Grain from the sweet heart of the Folde, I should say, ‘round Aldberg?”

Arwen tugged off the blindfold and licked the foam from her upper lip with a grin as Aragorn roared in the face of Éomer’s bewilderment. “You’ll never catch her out!” the laughing King cried, and Éomer could only bow and admit that in this, too, truly, the Evenstar was Queen.

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“I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

Ordinarily all elegant angles and edges, Eärwen is endearingly bulky in the heavy gloves, the leather apron, the shielding goggles. A swan-dancer awkwardly out of costume in this Noldorin forge.

But she sets to with a will, wielding hammer and tongs as he instructs her, pale hair limned by the forge-fires, sweating in the heat.

She glows with pride at the finished work, and Arafinwë can’t stop kissing her, chasing the salty taste of the ash on her lips. What a gift she is: silvery-smooth and shining, unafraid of his hidden flames.

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Gil-galad has his great-grandmother’s prophetic hands. As Míriel wove the world before she saw it, so does he.

He learned the work at his father’s knee, snug in Thargelion’s winters, stitching and knotting as the fire blazed in the hearth and the assembled courtiers danced and sang. But where Caranthir’s fine fingers brought forth striking images of things they knew, Ereinion’s always found their way into dreaming: unfamiliar blossoms and strange, wild beasts; great, dark towers; the imagined slow waves of the sea.

On Círdan’s salty balcony, he keeps the habit, pricking out fine, small works to send to his distant father. Deep caves unfold beneath his touch; tangled forests; small figures in armor, wandering. They should be stitched in earthen tones – soft browns and greys and greens – but his hands keep dipping into the basket of silks and coming out clasping reds.

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The rain at Lake Mithrim is a cool, cleansing, gentle thing. Lalwen dances through it when she is able -- and she becomes more able, the more she dances.

Once all laughter and light, she has been torn between fire and ice: the burning loss of father and brother, foolish and fond and furious and frightening all at once, and the chill of the long march, the deep, grieving silence of the Helcaraxë’s frozen nights.

The rain strikes a balance, filling her dry wells, melting away her brittle edges. She chases the pattering drops, feels the mists settle onto and into her, nudging at the furled and fearful bud of her heart.

Perhaps, after the rain, in this soft, grey country, she will bloom.

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“I know I shouldn’t be here, but I heard her crying.”

The boy’s gaze was fearless – almost critical, even, as he held out the wounded bird in his own defense. He had done what he could to remove the briars that had wound around her wing, and she lay quiescent and untrembling in his hands.

Oromë scented him, softly: steel, straw, the bright tang of the northern hills and the river valleys running through them. And underneath, a ribbon of flame – that fierce potential for delight and disaster that was so clearly bound to one line, and one line only, of these Children.

“Fëanáro’s child.” The Vala huffed once, a gentling breath, and masked his teeth in a reasonable semblance of a smile. “Since you have found your way here, I must invite you: come within.”

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“It could be worse, I suppose.” Maglor attempted a soothing smile, reaching out to touch the tattered edges of what remained of Elros’ hair.

Elros twitched away, still furious, his eyes bright with mingled rage and tears. The dagger in his hand was covered in uneven trimmings, but it was still sharp, and he held it with the readiness of desperation. Maglor let his hand fall and backed away.

Maedhros would laugh in bitter appreciation of Elros’ gesture, then shave the boy bald to even things out, but Maglor knew it was his own fault, really: he should never have let himself babble so at bedtime, praising Elros’ long, dark, soft, Noldorin hair.

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It was strange, how much ocean waves sounded like wind rustling through the leaves.

Thranduil had not seen the shore since a long-ago visit to Lindon in his father’s train. Gil-galad had been young, then, and uncertain on his throne, and Oropher had interpreted his cautious demeanor as disdain. Not even Elrond’s gentle humor and Glorfindel’s cheer could salvage their negotiations, and Thranduil had fled the shouting to pace the coves outside Mithlond, gathering shells and stones, nibbling on seaweed and watching the waves.

Preparing to Sail at last, millennia later, he closed his eyes and rubbed the nuts and flakes of bark with which he had filled his pockets: his final gifts from the trees of the Greenwood as he ventured to the Sea. The almost forest-sounds of the waves were comforting – Straight Road or no, all things were circular in their dance: the earth, the water, the sky, his love for the bright world, the stars, the leaves. 

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Lightning played over the peaks of the distant mountains. Thunder followed distantly, like a grumbling afterthought. The sharp scent of petrichor spilled down the wind and set the grasses fluttering as the rain rolled in.

Aredhel scrambled up a rocky outcrop, heart pounding in her throat as the electric air sparked around her. It had been so long since the last rains fell! Her skin ached for the touch of the wild waters; she felt as shriveled and parched as the sheaves that rustled and creaked in the building wind.

Back turned to Gondolin’s walls, she stripped to her skin, eager for the rain, glowing like a pale wand in the growing darkness. Under her feet, the crisped lichens and warm stones waited, as thirsty as she.

Oh, for a downpour, for the sharp sting of it, the cold bite and roll!

The pale city loomed behind her, graceful on its concentric hills, but that elegant strength was not what she needed. The raw world sang to her, with all its sharp edges, its thorns and tangled vines.

Aredhel raised her chin to the clouds, all yearning, all joy. She held her arms open, welcoming the lightning, calling the rain.

(Image from anerea)

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In Fingon's humble opinion, this really wasn't his fault. He made some dimpled half-effort at reproach, stretching and yawning, all soft skin and tangled hair and velvet eyes. Maedhros only laughed and held him closer, thinking, No, it was only that you rose out of the lake like a golden lily, like a sword, and what else was I to do with my empty hand but claim you? I am greedy, and you are everything beautiful.

The wind rattled the tent, presaging storms, but inside they were warm, so wound together. Invulnerable to rain. Accidentally, but with tender certainty, wed.

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Gimli now recognized the cry of a gull, a tern, the cool moan of a shearwater and a petrel’s hulking croak: accents not so different from the voices of the ravens with whom the Sons of Durin sometimes spoke. Each bird had its own particular music, calling to match the rhythms that Gimli drummed, or the light, sweet shiver of Legolas’ midnight singing.

Always the wind was full of them, guides and hosts and eager encouragers. As Eressëa’s pale coast gleamed at last, the cries of those plumed companions met their echoes, and all the world was wings, wings, wings.

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“Where did you find that?!”

Glorfindel’s eyes gleamed in the shadows under the trees, full of starlight mixed with unshed tears. One long hand reached toward the hilt of the great sword at Gandalf’s belt; his strong, pale fingers trembled.

What unforeseen upheaval had resurrected that ancient steel?

Glorfindel had seen Glamdring last in Turgon’s hands, flashing despairingly through the thickening smoke as the tower cracked and fell. He had thought the blade lost: broken, buried, drowned.

Yet here it was, fierce-edged and hungry and proud. What gears were moving, what wheels turning, in the unknowable depths of the world?

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Neither of them has taken blows like these in centuries. Fingon has sparred with friends, sweaty and teasing, followed by wine and singing in the baths. He has not been serious. And Maedhros has been dead.

But after one too many council sessions in which they’d sat bristling and snarling at each other across the chamber, Finarfin had lost his temper. Take it to the ring, he’d said. And don’t return until you’re done.

Well, then. As the King commands.

There is no jesting in the eyes that track each other’s movements, assessing and predicting based on ancient patterns and the quirks of reborn bones. There is no mercy in their hands.

They are both bruised, both bleeding, hearts flung open, striking hard with arms and minds.

A blow for betrayal, a blow for abandonment, a blow for destruction, a blow for despair. For Fëanor, Fingolfin, Míriel, Indis, Finrod, Húrin...

Doriath. Sirion.

For insisting on living. For dying alone. 

All the grief of their lost kingdoms, of their lost friendship, spills out as they grapple and batter and claw.

There is no grace, at the end. Only a flailing, exhausted affection.

Fingon weeps first, but it is Maedhros who falls.

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His brother would disagree, but Aegnor found the piney hills of Dorthonion more beautiful than the edges of the Sea. He had come to love the crispness of the wind that never quite ended; the smell of the renewing earth; the flickering of the stars in the velvet sky. All his years spent in Alqualondë’s salt tang dimmed in the sweetly resinous air of the highlands.

And now there were the Aftercomers -- strange, yet appealing to his heart. At night, he wandered the woods around their settlements, drinking in the smoke of the hearth-fires and watching the bright sparks fly.

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Legolas notices the music in Gimli’s hands before they even leave Rivendell. The Dwarf’s strong fingers tap always on surfaces, keeping the time.

On the road, they must keep their melodies small and quiet – this is no time for the pounding of drums. Gimli sings, occasionally, in perfect rhythm, and that gentle beat of his hands is always present, following along.

But at the royal wedding, Gimli finally sets the great hall thundering. Drums under his hands compel and persuade and celebrate: powerful, joyful, alive. Legolas dances, laughing. That beat fills his blood, now. Lifting him up. Keeping him warm.

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They do not wed.

Masters of politics, they know its chilly wires must weave between them, shaping a space for alliances and heirs and all the trappings of a stable realm. Maedhros will take no wife, from inclination and concession both: no child of his will live to haunt the throne. And if Fingon names no maiden of the Sindar Queen – well, four hundred years is a blink of the eye. There is still time, he hears from his father’s hopeful councillors. And ignores them, and then his own.

Nor do they bed.

Maedhros has never known desire, and Fingon’s will never shape itself to any other soul. But he would no sooner make unwelcome demands of his cousin than break a falcon’s wing. Better the gallop, the flash of steel, the battle’s dance. Better the dragon. Better the songs.

Still, they are bound.

Fingon stands behind Maedhros at his desk and wraps his arms around his shoulders. He rests his cheek on Maedhros’ head, closes his eyes, breathes in the scent of smoke and ink that always clings to him. I love you, he whispers, over and over. Maedhros’ scarred face stretches into a rare and tender smile. Oh, Fingon, he says, with gentle thankfulness, I know.

And whenever they meet before the world’s sharp eyes, Maedhros bows deeper than any other, all his great height folding itself into humility over the warmth of Fingon’s hand. He brushes his lips against the skin of Fingon’s forefinger where a marriage band would rest. My Lord, he says, and it is as rich on his tongue as any other words of loving. My true lord. Into thy hands my self I do bestow.