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Macalaurë has always been strange.

When he was still a child, his nursemaids whispered of it—though never in earshot of their lord, lady, and, least of all, the firstborn prince. They spoke of the stillness that would overcome him at times, sitting him motionless in his chair, eyes glass-bright and far away for many long stretches and turnings. 

Then suddenly the dam would break—at an ill-placed word or note or breath—and, with it, Macalaurë’s temper. His rooms were found in chaos often enough: curtains shredded, writing desk overturned, mirrors smashed so finely they glistened like thousands of little stars across the floor. And as the light caught upon them, when beauty at last revealed itself in destruction, his fury would cease. 

They would find him days later kneeling upon the floor, arranging and rearranging the pieces with his bare hands. Utter serenity in his smile.

Look how it shines, he’d murmur, holding a glittering piece up as though it were a trickling ruby. Even ruin sings, if you make it.

The rumors spread as they do in gilded Valinor with something so wrong and imperfect despite mother and father’s best efforts to abate such naysayings, to keep Macalaurë obscured. Fell Macalaurë. Fey little princeling. Yet never were his concert-halls left empty. He was feared, yes—for what is terror, if not twice as sharp when it wears beauty—but his voice was unearthly. 

When he sings, even his madness is sanctified.

Once after a rousing performance, their grandfather had gifted Macalaurë an ortolan in a golden cage. Its feathers had been bright and its voice pure. Macalaurë had wept with joy. He had cooed at it, adored it, held it against his cheek with all the affection of a child with a new treasure. For days he called it his darling, his own, and together they sang many duets that rang sweetly in the house.

But the adoration had not lasted as it ought. He had pricked the creature’s breast with a silver pin, bursting its little heart, and let its blood fill his inkpot. Maitimo, still young himself and often times frightened of his own brother, could only watch.

For no ink is so red, so true, he had explained with eyes wide in wonder as the bleeding dwindled to droplets. And no song will be beautiful unless written in such a color. He had dipped his quill in it and composed with ecstatic fervor one of his most accomplished pieces. 

After, he had roasted the poor little songbird over a candle flame and ate it whole—tiny, hollow bones cracking between his teeth, clotted blood slicking his tongue. Licking his plump, reddened lips, he said that he had loved it too dearly and could not bear to be parted, that he wanted it inside himself.

Maitimo has known Macalaurë since the hour of his birth, held his little hands, and brushed away his unwarranted tears. Maitimo had seen the strange fires kindle in him as a boy and watched the madness ripen alongside his beauty. He loves him nonetheless. Loves him more, perhaps, because of it. Maitimo could not turn away. It twisted inside him like a knife, binding him to his brother’s ruin.

For what is love, if not the embrace of the worst in someone?

In shadowed chambers where none might intrude, their love took its ugly shape. Macalaurë will come to him trembling, eyes bright with a kind of fever—the same instability that wrought destruction and once even left a servant nursing a deep cut to her fractured brow from a thrown paperweight. He would tear Maitimo’s robes open to press him against the wall, mouth frantic, desperate.

Macalaurë will have him upon the cold, marble floors. With a fervor almost violent, he spears Maitimo upon his cock. Maitimo lets him. He lets Macalaurë fuck him, scratch, kiss, leave welts. He bares his throat to voracious teeth until the skin breaks and Macalaurë laves the beads of blood with his tongue.  

And Macalaurë will open to him in turn, inviting Maitimo within him and coaxing him to near-equal hunger. Until Macalaurë’s neck mottles and wrists are ringed. Maitimo might try to strive for gentleness but Macalaurë will not abide such succor, shove Maitimo upon his back, and ride him with the same breathless enthusiasm as upon a horse’s back through the spring plains. 

All the while keening, Brother, Brother, Brother. Always brother, never by his name. 

He will not relent until Maitimo answers as he must: Little one.

Only then will Macalaurë shudder, only then can his passion crest and fall, lovely body arching, lips parted in a sound half-song, half-cry.

And afterward, oh, afterward comes a tenderness as uncanny as the violence before it. The worst of the storm passing, Macalaurë will fold against him like a child and kiss Maitimo’s lips. 

Macalaurë will coo, adore him, and hold Maitimo to his breast with such affection. All the while singing his songs. The words are never quite the same, never quite linear or comprehensible but the meaning is intuitive: I love you, I love you, I love you.

The words sink into his marrow and hold him together.

He lays still while Macalaurë runs pale fingers through his long hair, twisting it about his slender fingers, winding them until Maitimo’s scalp burns and the strands nearly tear free. Then the pain will ease as Macalaurë brings it to his lips, brushing the copper ends back and forth across them as he might a rouge-tipped brush. 

Maitimo will close his eyes and drink it all in like poison, knowing it may kill him and desiring it all the more. And always, in the depths of his mind, Maitimo wonders: When will it be my turn? How long before his love devours me too?

The thought does not frighten him as it ought. That is the true horror. It fascinates him. It stirs something deeper, darker and quickens his heart. At times, lying awake with Macalaurë sleeping fitfully beside him, Maitimo imagines it: his flesh, roasted upon the spit, taken between rose-petal lips and pearly teeth. His bones, ground to meal and made into loaves and sweet breads. His blood, spilt across parchment into a masterpiece. Every part of himself a morsel for Macalaurë to glut himself upon at his leisure. Consumed whole. 

He knows he would not resist. He would open himself willingly, press the pin through his own heart and offer his ruin as proof of devotion. Let himself be swallowed in love and song so long as it is Macalaurë's alone.

Who is truly mad, Maitimo must ask himself, the one who is mad, or the one who loves him?

Perhaps there is no difference at all.