The Fey And The Fallen

Posted: April 27, 2007
Title: The Fey and the Fallen
Author: Enismirdal
Type: FCS
Characters: Maedhros/Maglor
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: The Elves belong to Tolkien, not me. I just play around in his beautiful world. No insult is intended to him or any of his works,
and naturally no money is being made from this!
Warning: Incest
Betas: Innocencest and Rei

Summary: Love can find all Elves - even the strange ones.

*****

The Fey One, they called him, and treated him as a slightly backward child at times. While his brothers’ childhoods were spent learning to ride and hunt, climbing trees and playfully wrestling with peers, Macalaurë had always preferred solitude, time to himself with pen and parchment, maybe a small flute or a lyre. He loved to create just as they did, but his skill was with the ephemeral elements of word and song rather than tangible metal.

Those his own age often chose to avoid him, finding his habit of speaking aloud what others were thinking but refraining from saying unnerving. They were wary of the way he would watch from a distance, absorbing all that went on without participating. Macalaurë missed the companionship at times, but his own mind was friend enough, providing him with playmates of his own - and, later, sweethearts. He soon learned that even the adults looked down on him for speaking to those playmates in front of others, insisting that it was not wholesome for him to hold conversations with those who were not real.

But they were real enough to him. He could picture them all: tall or short, dark-haired or golden, shy or outgoing. After being discouraged from addressing them openly, he took to conversing in his mind and, of course, they still answered.

Few of his peers ever accepted his oddities, but Maitimo was always tolerant. Teasing, as elder brothers invariably are, and sometimes downright infuriating, but Macalaurë knew in his heart that Maitimo loved his little brother no matter how fey or peculiar he may be. The quiet, undemanding company was there when he needed it, and he never lost sight of that kindness.

***

His childhood, therefore, was rather lonely, but he found his own contentment in this. Crowds, busy, chaotic and noisy, had never been to his liking anyway. With the time he spent in solitary study, he was able to excel in lessons. And it was often said of him that he saw more than most, a remark which took him many years to come to understand. Perhaps he simply saw in a different way, beginning with the details rather than ending with them. Large structures springing from small beginnings - that was his thought.

Such was the case when he composed; he often started from a single note or chord, building around it, linking a few notes here to another there, eventually creating a whole song, rich and deep. The music tutor - soon abandoned when it became clear that he could learn more from Macalaurë than Macalaurë could from him - insisted that the young Elf’s technique could not possibly work, that the result would be disjointed and discordant. Yet Macalaurë saw only order in the method, as he constructed melody around chords, harmonies emerging from a scattering of notes. In his mind it brought the focus to where the music would be most profound for both performer and audience.

Much of his time was spent alone with his paper, pens and instruments as he grew older. Father, realising the only part of his passion that Macalaurë shared was the love of song, word and language, sought to encourage these interests as much as possible, freely providing Macalaurë with any instrument he desired and setting aside rooms with excellent acoustics for the young Noldo’s practice.

He devoted increasing amounts of his time to the pursuit of music. His first instrument, a flute, was a gift for his fifth birthday. It was a simple instrument in plain wood with six holes bored into it, small enough to be covered by his tiny, slender fingers. Its sweet, shrill sound was a delight to him but he outgrew it quickly, finding the spacing too close for his fingers within a few short years. The second flute was more elaborate, engraved with leaves and flowers along its length, and the sound was richer and mellower.

That was how Macalaurë’s flute collection started. Seeking different tones and qualities to the sound, he lost faith in the instrument makers and began to make his own. Wood worked well, but so did tubes of silver ; and once he made a gold flute just to prove it could be done. He even tried ceramics, though he often found himself disappointed. His father allowed him to arrange them all on brackets in a small room in the house, neatly lined up on the walls in chronological order. Of course, he kept lists as well. Three lists, in fact: one was stored in the Flute Room, as it soon became . A nother resided, pinned to the wall, in Macalaurë’s own bedroom. T he third, he folded up and hid under the floorboards in his bedroom, in case the other two should perhaps go missing. He needed to have a record, just as a precaution, and because it seemed like the organised thing to do.

His talent for making flutes was nearly as great as his talent for playing them. He took pleasure in finding ordinary pieces of wood and hollowing them out to make beautiful instruments, decorating the surface and drilling precisely-placed holes for his fingers. People sometimes brought him miscellaneous items, challenging him to make flutes from them. The crooked branch proved difficult; it took several attempts before he found the right places for the finger-holes and by the end there were numerous patches of resin from sealing up the mistakes.

The dried gourd was an interesting challenge and the sound was rather odd, but it worked. The length of copper piping from the water supply made him laugh out loud when the Elf - whom he barely knew - handed it to him. It had a bend at one end and consequently , much to his amusement, made a different sound depending on which way up he played it. The snail shell, though, was his pride. It was a pretty shell, pink and yellow, with streaks of black, and he did not think Tyelkormo , who gave it to him, really believed he would be able to get a tune from such an item. He managed it, however. It took a few practice runs, experimenting on ordinary brown shells he found abandoned around the house’s extensive grounds, but in the end he knew exactly how and where to make the holes and just how to blow to gain sharp but perfectly pure sound from the tiny instrument. It was awarded pride of place among his collection of flutes, occupying a little shelf on the wall which Macalaurë dusted daily - even when he could not see any dust there. His instruments were his joy and as dear a friend to him as any Elf.

Long evenings he would spend with them and his pen and paper, oblivious to passing hours and lost in the distant, sheltered world spun from the shimmering threads of his compositions. After a while, he would see the woods and rivers, the blushing maidens and prim suitors, rolling hills and thunderous storms that the music described. He would hear the harsh voices of arguing Elves, or the whispered words of lovers, and start to forget that they were not just the shades of his own imagination.

He was not always alone, though. Maitimo, already half-grown when Macalaurë was still an infant, quickly came to recognise his younger brother’s potential and delight in his skill and creativity. Accepting Macalaurë’s many eccentricities, he often sat in the corner as the younger Elf worked on his songs, refraining from comment but wearing an expression of deep thought on his finely sculpted features. Like all brothers, they argued and disagreed at times - and like all brothers, they knew that ultimately neither would ever willingly let the other down.

Faithful Maitimo. Macalaurë made mistakes growing up, applying his own peculiar brand of logic with the very best of intentions , but often as not landing himself in situations which would have enraged Father, had Fëanáro ever got wind of them. But he so seldom did, and on most occasions that was due to the work of Maitimo, covering up the evidence of Macalaurë’s well-meaning blunders and several times, in fact, taking the blame upon himself.

***

Macalaurë grew used to his brother’s undemanding presence on the afternoon of every third day, as the sun filtered into his spacious rehearsal room through gauzy curtains, made from a fragile dark blue fabric of his own choosing. He started to feel a sense of satisfaction and rightness when Maitimo was there, feeling comfortable with the steady, predictable routine. Maitimo would arrive as he was tuning his instruments - even when they did not really need it, Macalaurë liked to tune them anyway . H e never truly understood why this was , although he always found one excuse or another .

Then the elder brother would take a stool from the stack by one wall and place it in the corner furthest from the door . H e would sit, watching and listening with a kind of attentive peacefulness, until Macalaurë’s renditions were finished and the music was returned to its proper drawers, shelves and files. At the end of the session, he always returned the stool to the stack before leaving, congratulating Macalaurë quietly and thanking him in mild, polite tones.

Therefore, on the day that Macalaurë set down his lyre after tuning, expecting to see his brother sitting in the corner as he rightly should today, his reaction consisted of confusion followed by another feeling to which he was unaccustomed. He had always found such strong feelings uncomfortable and un predictable, rising and falling beyond his control, so he generally tried to keep them away; when they crept upon him anyway, he preferred to manage them by talking to his secret friends about them. Together, they could usually establish what was wrong and rectify it.

He spoke to them now and they suggested that maybe it made the room look wrong, unbalanced perhaps. Macalaurë agreed , so out of a sense of necessity he took the top stool from the stack and placed it in the corner where Maitimo always sat. Still, it was not all quite right and to Macalaurë’s ears, the music sounded different without the quiet Elf in the corner.

They discussed it some more and wondered if perhaps he would be more at ease were he to find out where Maitimo was. This took longer than he hoped; Maitimo’s rooms were empty, as were the practice grounds. Macalaurë preferred to avoid the practice grounds ; the harsh clangs of metal and shouts and occasional growls of feigned anger hurt his ears and made him want to retreat to somewhere calm, deserted and still.

Macalaurë walked all the way round the outside of the house, twice, just to make certain, and then methodically searched the inside of the house too. He was beginning to wonder if perhaps Maitimo had turned invisible like his friends, or left the grounds altogether, when he looked out of the window in the high tower he was searching and finally spotted his elder brother.

Maitimo was walking in one of the formal gardens, hand in hand with a slim, dark-haired nís. They were smiling, but it did not look like they were doing anything particularly important. Macalaurë leaned on the windowsill to watch them, frowning. Whatever they were doing did not look urgent enough to warrant Maitimo skipping the practice without even sending notice. Perhaps he had found that the nís made better music and Maitimo was not interested in his younger brother’s compositions any more…

Macalaurë went to his room after that and began to compose again. He was determined to make this better, more beautiful, more intricate than anything she could create. He wanted Maitimo to like him again.

He worked on the composition for the next two days, tirelessly absorbed in it to the point where his mother had to come and fetch him to meals - and more than once he fell asleep on the freshly inked paper. He worked with a kind of frenzied single-mindedness, notes scattering themselves over sheet after sheet, and by the time he next expected Maitimo to come and listen, it was very nearly ready.

Maitimo came with the nís.

Macalaurë was quiet. Had she come to listen and laugh at him? Maitimo took his stool to the usual place and sat down. The nís looked at Macalaurë, smiling and greeting him as if he knew her already. Macalaurë did not reply. He was playing for himself and his brother, not for her.

“I am sorry about the last practice,” Maitimo was telling him. “I completely lost track of time.” Macalaurë nodded slowly. The friends discussed it between themselves and concluded that Macalaurë was feeling let down and more than a little betrayed. They all agreed that Maitimo needed reminding that he would enjoy his third afternoons here much better than with the nís.

Therefore he played with everything he had, well enough to leave both Maitimo and the nís in stunned silence. They applauded at the end, smiling, and he sketched a neat little bow to his brother. Maitimo came and hugged him, offering congratulations.

As they left, Maitimo touched his lips to those of the nís, in one of those strange, affectionate kisses he claimed to enjoy. It was then that Macalaurë’s secret friends simultaneously gasped and then sighed. For some reason, that small gesture made Macalaurë…jealous. That was his Maitimo, his brother. He wanted to be the one to make his brother smile.

Maitimo still came to listen to his music after that, sometimes with, sometimes without her. When she was not there, Macalaurë found he could concentrate far better, and he made sure to play little special pieces as a treat for his brother on those occasions, sweet solos with flute or lyre.

***

“What is wrong?” he asked Maitimo quietly, coming in and seeing his brother slouched in a chair, staring vacantly at the wall. Like a concerned mother, he checked his elder brother for fever and signs of discomfort.

“You would not understand, my little fey one,” Maitimo replied. “Which is why I came here rather than going elsewhere. I never feel like I have to justify myself to you. You just…accept.”

“Is it her?” Macalaurë did not know why he asked this, except that his brother was wearing his hair loose, and he had learned that the nís liked him to braid it normally. “Has she made you upset?” He ordered wine for his brother and then hugged him cautiously. He was careful about hugging Maitimo; the elder Elf seemed to think it was not a good thing to embrace in public and sometimes seemed uncomfortable about doing so in private as well.

“No, little one. I made myself upset. She and I…our friendship is over, one might say. She is not fond of our father, and I told her that I would be loyal to him even when he acted impulsively and occasionally unwisely.”

“We are all loyal to Father…” Macalaurë t r ailed off. “He is…not like me, or like you, but he teaches me, supports me. He has never refused me anything I need ed for my music. And he gives better lessons than my governess used to…”

Maitimo smiled. “Yes. And he loves you, even though you are not like him. He is always impressed by your skill.” He paused. “But you know that Father and I do not always agree?” Macalaurë nodded, having heard their arguments on occasion - his usual response was to flee to the far end of the house, covering his ears with his hands and singing to himself until he was quite sure they had stopped. “Still I stand by him. Family care for one another, even when mistakes are made.”

Macalaurë nodded again as his brother continued, “She could not see this, so I suggested that perhaps we ought not continue our friendship if she would not accept my loyalty to Father and might one day ask me to choose between her and him.” Macalaurë’s response was to hug his brother once more, this time without a trace of awkwardness. He was glad, now, that his brother was no longer being ‘borrowed’, yet oddly saddened by the expression on his brother’s face.

After a while, Macalaurë whispered, “I will always be loyal to my family.”

“I know, little one.”

***

Macalaurë stood before the long mirror in the communal bathing room which lay at one end of the house. When they were quiet and deserted, he enjoyed to soak in the large pools of hot, steamy water, watching the way candlelight danced over the ripples whenever he shifted. Now he was mostly dry, the towel lying at his feet, and he was looking at himself, occasionally reaching with curious fingers to explore the developing contours of his slender adolescent body. He was endlessly fascinated by the changes, the childish nondescriptness shifting into gangly gawkishness. His shoulders were broader than they used to be and his face had lost its cherubic quality, to be replaced by the intense earnestness more usually seen on an Elf far older. His limbs, he decided, were too long for him at the moment. He assumed he would grow into them soon enough; at the moment, his elbows simply looked bony and his arms rather skinny. He turned to one side, examining himself in profile. His hair hung, dark and straight down his back, falling over his shoulders and not quite reaching his slim hips.

“My little brother is growing up fast.” Maitimo’s voice from the doorway was affectionate, mild. He moved behind Macalaurë, wearing only a towel round his waist, to look at them both. “You are almost as tall as me these days.”

Macalaurë compared them in the mirror. He was barely up to Maitimo’s shoulders - but then, so were most Elves. Maitimo’s hand, resting on his upper arm, was large, strong and rough; his own were elegant and long-fingered, the supple hands of a musician.

“And you are certainly growing handsome,” Maitimo remarked. “The nessi will start to take interest in you before long.”

Macalaurë reflected on this and failed to work up any particular enthusiasm for the idea. He had better ways to spend his time: composing, writing poetry, working for his lessons, singing softly to himself and running fragments of tunes through his mind. “I do not particularly want to nessi to chase after me,” he concluded honestly. “I have never found them especially interesting.”

“No?” Maitimo asked. “Not to share laughter, stories and conversation?”

Macalaurë shook his head. “When I wish to do that, I come and find you.”

“Not for the kisses and then soft words and smiles, then?”

“Brother,” Macalaurë replied, with a slightly perplexed smile, “what is this love of yours for kisses? I cannot see the appeal of tasting someone’s wet mouth for the fun of it, and as for those revolting sucking noises…” He looked at Maitimo oddly as the elder Elf began to laugh, not in an unkind way, but with mirth sparkling in his eyes.

“You have never kissed anyone?” Maitimo seemed a little surprised - Macalaurë supposed that when Maitimo was his age, he would have done so more than once.

“I have been busy,” he protested lightly.

Maitimo gave him a gentle poke. “I will see to it that you have some teaching then, little fey one. I think you may enjoy the lessons.”

***

Maitimo proceeded to introduce his brother to a number of young nessi, and more than a few youths as well. Macalaurë enjoyed conversing with them, discussing their interests and his own, discovering new opinions and viewpoints - though, as always, he rapidly tired of niceties and small talk and they would always eventually lapse into silence. Maitimo encouraged him to pursue the more successful introductions, to attempt romance, even, but Macalaurë was not enthused.

One nís certainly intrigued him, her love of music and poetry matching his own, but he found himself intimidated by her easy charm and quick sense of humour, when juxtaposed beside his own shyness and quaint eccentricities. So although the friendship persisted for many years in an odd, halting kind of way, nothing more than that ever came from it.

Eventually, thankfully, Maitimo gave up on his attempts to help, realising that Macalaurë was content as he was. The two brothers grew close as Macalaurë moved from adolescence into adulthood, riding and later sparring, when Fëanáro insisted that his sons started to train seriously in the arts of arms.

***

Then Fëanáro’s family was banished, and Macalaurë found himself utterly at a loss. He had formed only a tiny handful of close friends hips and, of those, only the one with his elder brother could now continue. His next three brothers found his distant and reclusive nature too peculiar for their tastes and much preferred to spend their time hunting, drinking, practising their swordplay and so on. The youngest of Macalaurë’s siblings, the redheaded Ambarussa twins, found their fey elder brother a little easier to understand - they had their own quirks, and knew from experience how it felt to be considered strange and treated with a cool wariness by others.

Still, his only true friend now was Maitimo. The eldest of Fëanáro’s sons did not seem to mind Macalaurë’s company; even when the younger Elf spoke at length about dreams he had had as if they were indistinguishable from real events, or seemed to bring invisible people into their conversations, Maitimo never showed sign of being perturbed. He let his little brother braid his hair into creative and sometimes downright odd styles or rearrange the clothes in his extensive wardrobe according to some precise set of criteria that only Macalaurë would ever understand. When Macalaurë burst out laughing in a silent room, usually entertained by a joke or comment from one of his secret friends - who, even in adulthood, did not leave him - Maitimo often asked to share in the mirth.

What Macalaurë often found he appreciated most about his brother was that Maitimo never pretended to understand when he did not. If he failed to comprehend the joke, unlike others he never gave that fake, tinny laughter which Macalaurë considered to be patronising and occasionally insulting. Maitimo was never patronising, and Macalaurë found comfort in this. With his tall, red-haired brother he always knew where he stood - he personally treated everyone with frank honesty, and from Maitimo he received the same straightforward treatment. Macalaurë never did understand those polite lies others liked to exchange to spare one another’s feelings; most, he found, were transparent to almost everyone and the longer the pretending persisted the longer it took to rectify the problems and the more deeply the lies stung when discovered.

Over the years of exile Macalaurë grew more introverted and, people said, still more fey. His parents began to show concern but Macalaurë assured them it was a simple case of loneliness. Eventually, even Fëanáro admitted that his sons were under no obligation to share this exile; if Macalaurë wished to return to Tirion, no one would argue.

“Do you not miss your friends also?” Macalaurë asked his elder brother after what seemed like eternity in exile. It was the first thing he had said in nearly two days and so Maitimo started slightly before answering.

“Yes,” he said. “Very much.”

“But you have not gone back to Tirion.”

Maitimo nodded agreement. “No, I have not yet gone back.”

“Why not?”

Maitimo was quite for a while. Then he replied, his words reminding Macalaurë of a conversation between them decades before, “I have not lost that sense of loyalty to my family, I suppose. Just as Grandfather came with Father into exile, I do the same. Whether he was wrong or right, I feel I should, as his son, be there for him and stand by him.”

“So does that mean you are intending to remain here until the exile ends?”

“Yes, little one.”

Macalaurë settled himself a little deeper into his chair, feeling slightly like a tree putting its roots into dry, hard earth. “Then I will remain also.”

He continued to spend a lot of time with his brother in the time that followed. He tried to be unobtrusive, but would often be found sitting in his brother’s room with a glass of wine and a book of songs or old tales.

Maitimo began to grow as quiet and withdrawn as his brother as the years passed. One evening late summer he entered his rooms in a patently bad mood, glancing at Macalaurë and suggesting in a slightly strained tone that perhaps he would not be good company tonight.

“I am *never* good company, brother,” Macalaurë replied with a soft smile. It was hardly something with which Maitimo could argue, as he returned to his book again for several minutes before continuing, “Is it something to do with Father’s exile coming close to its end?”

Maitimo looked up, having though Macalaurë had become sufficiently engrossed in his book to have forgotten completely that he was not alone. “I had not realised you knew about that.”

“I am not fond of crowds,” Macalaurë said quietly, “but I do listen a lot. I think people tend to forget that one can hear and remember conversations without participating in them.”

“Yes, then,” said Maitimo as he rearranged the cushions on the couch for greater comfort, curling up tiredly in the nest he had built for his long frame. “But not directly, as such. Now we are likely to return to Tirion, Father says I need to start thinking perhaps about marriage. I…am not enthusiastic.”

“I thought you liked things like that: kissing, neri and nessi, companionship…”

“Oh, I do,” Maitimo conceded. “But…” He paused. “I do not want to choose so soon. You have seen the tensions between our parents, even if they are deeply in love - I do not want that kind of difficulty, if I can help it. I will not rush into a marriage, however much in love I think I am at the time, only to discover some ten, twenty, one hundred years later that the match was far less suitable than we had suspected.”

“I would think the same,” Macalaurë agreed. “A lifetime is a long time.”

Maitimo gave his brother a crooked smile. “Though the time our parents spend nagging me feels like longer still at present.”

Macalaurë offered his brother little cakes from a plate beside him, smiling sympathetically at Maitimo. The elder Elf took some, pulling them to pieces before eating them.

Some long minutes of thoughtful silence passed before Macalaurë spoke again. “Do you remember when you told me about kissing?”

“Yes, little one.”

Macalaurë paused. “I think I would like to try it now.”

Maitimo gave a deep sigh and stood, embracing his brother gently and staring into the large, slightly distant eyes. “I wish I could help you now, but who is there for you to kiss? We only have our family, and the servants.”

“What about you?” Macalaurë spoke not as an innocent, but with a soft note of challenge directed towards those who would condemn him for making such a request. This was no chance whim; he knew it crossed a boundary Maitimo had never sought to step over before, and it did not frighten him.

“I…” Maitimo took a step back, stuttering. His fingers flexed nervously at his sides. “It is wrong, my little fey one. We should not.”

“Why is it wrong? Whom does it hurt?” Macalaurë closed his eyes and turned away, his secret friends whispering to him all at once in a chaotic clamour of strained voices. What did Maitimo fear? And why not Maitimo, in the end? Of all the people he cared for, Maitimo was the one who had earned his trust without reserve or question. It seemed perfectly natural that he should place himself in his brother’s hands for such an important moment.

Macalaurë opened his eyes slowly and looked down as Maitimo’s fingers traced along the line of his lips. “I…I do not want to make you uncomfortable…”

The normally smooth voice which had charmed many a nís was shaking a little as Maitimo answered, “It does indeed hurt no-one…” He seemed to take this as a conclusion to his thoughts and soft lips suddenly and tentatively brushed Macalaurë’s.

It was nothing like the dreaded wet, perfume-heavy kisses exchanged by relatives and family friends at festivals, nor the deliberately messy kisses bestowed by one young child on another in an attempt to tease and torment. It was as light as a summer breeze and as welcome, tingly and delicate. Macalaurë wiped his lips automatically afterwards but then sighed with satisfaction. “Oh,” he said quietly.

Maitimo placed his palm against Macalaurë’s cheek, staring at him earnestly. “Oh?” The fingers ran over the dark locks of Macalaurë’s hair. “Did I frighten you, little one?”

“No,” Macalaurë replied dreamily, his eyes falling closed again. “Not frightened.” He tilted his head and leaned up to kiss his brother once more, this time allowing their lips to linger against each other for a few more sweet seconds. And this time, he did not wipe his lips at the end. “It is…nice. Nicer than I ever expected.”

“Nice the same way a glass of wine is nice?” Maitimo teased. No one else teased Macalaurë; no one else seemed to know where the line lay between his understanding the teasing and mistakenly thinking that the other was sincere.

“No.” Macalaurë shook his head with conviction. “Nice like the sun dawning on a spring meadow, on dew-soaked grass glistening in the light and on delicate yellow flowers, with the scent of new blossom riding on the breeze is nice.”

Maitimo’s smile was gentle and affectionate. “I see someone has been borrowing my book of love stories… I wondered where that had got to.” He played with Macalaurë’s hair for another moment. “You can be fey, little brother, but let it never be said that you are not the sweetest, most charming of Elves.” He persuaded Macalaurë to sing for him then, though his still spoke little; by the time Macalaurë took his leave, both their moods had grown lighter.

***

Macalaurë wondered in the days, weeks and months that followed why Macalaurë had not spoken again of the kiss they had shared, let alone suggested a repeat of the experience - an idea which, oddly, had preoccupied Macalaurë’s thoughts greatly.

Eventually he grew tired of wondering and approached his brother directly. “I am sorry if you did not like the kiss. I did not offend you, did I?”

Maitimo dropped his eyes awkwardly, becoming suddenly very interested in adjusting the already tight girth of his horse, which he had been about to take out for a ride. It took a long moment of loosening and then tightening the highly polished buckles before he replied. “Do not worry, little one. There is nothing wrong with your kisses; the fault is mine, not yours.”

“Your fault?” Macalaurë was sceptical. He honestly could not think of anything Maitimo had done that was hurtful, impolite or inconsiderate. Yes, he knew perfectly well of the general laws about relationships between kin, but he had long since reached the conclusion that it could do no harm if any such acts took place behind closed doors, as in this case. He and Maitimo had even discussed the matter, long ago and with hypothetical cases.

“Yes, little one. I am so sorry.” With that, Maitimo swiftly changed the subject in a pointed manner that indicated he did not want to discuss the subject further. Finishing with his horse, he led the animal out and mounted quickly, riding away at a trot.

***

The exile ended. The deplorable massacre of Finwë came, leaving Macalaurë horrified and disgusted. He visited the memorial to his grandfather daily for a long time after, bringing fresh flowers and singing into the wind. He even gifted one of his beloved flutes to his grandfather, a small, delicate instrument made long ago and decorated with simple carvings. Finwë had loved his grandson’s music and the flutes most of all, probably more so even than Fëanáro. In the past he had frequently requested the young Elf’s presence at dinner parties and feasts to play for the guests, much to their enjoyment - even as a small child, stepping up on to a dais and finding all eyes turned upon him, Macalaurë had never disappointed. When he performed, he suspected it may have been the only time they understood him properly.

He developed a habit of spending hours some afternoons by his grandfather’s graveside, oblivious to the passing of time and the comings and goings of other Elves, or the change in weather. Maitimo noticed his brother’s behaviour and took to accompanying him on the little pilgrimages in order to remind him when it was time to go him and cover him with a cloak when it rained. “I miss him too,” the elder brother quietly admitted on many occasions as he took Macalaurë’s arm to coax him up.

But Macalaurë returned from the exile to find that those few dear friends he had left behind in Tirion now shunned him. There were not many Elves left now who wanted to admit to friendship with the Fëanorians; they brought shame upon the Noldor, it was said. His greetings were met politely but with a cold disinterest that stung deeper than the harsh taunts of childhood. He saw in Maitimo’s eyes that he, too, had experienced this shunning - even their cousins were now wary around them. Kind, as always, but more guarded somehow and less welcoming than Macalaurë remembered.

Soon, however, the attitudes of their former friends ceased to be their greatest concern. That hideous, fateful day came when Fëanáro drew his sword and swore the Oath that doomed his family and people. To Macalaurë, there was no question. Just as Maitimo had said once, it was loyalty to his family; Maitimo stepped beside his father, eyes bright with the intensity of the atmosphere, slave to his father’s fiery charisma, and Macalaurë stepped after. Maitimo spoke the words of the Oath immediately. His voice was low and clear and, to Macalaurë’s ears, strange, as if even then some part of Maitimo was sickened and filled with dread by what he was swearing to.

To Macalaurë, the point was not the words but the principle - his family were the only ones to whom he was sure he could still turn when he needed them. If he abandoned Maitimo now, who did he have? So he swore an oath he hated, and never regretted doing so - only the words of that oath.

The time that followed was insanity. The sense of horror never left him - his own horror, and that of the other Elves around him. There was confusion, too, and the tension in his brothers’ movements was evident even at a glance. Maitimo was sick several times the day after the Oath, unable to rest or eat.

After that came the Kinslaying. Macalaurë wished in a way that he could actually remember any of it, so that he could at least give the innocent, peace-loving Teleri the remembrance they deserved, and be able to reflect properly on the enormity of his heinous actions. But at the drawing of the first swords he stopped thinking, surrendering to the wash of crimson that descended over his eyes. His only memories of that time were of anger, desperation, noise and blood. In the days that followed, as the Noldor swarmed over the bloodstained decks of the white ships, he found a small cabin below decks where he curled up on the tiny bunk and cried, then slept in spite of terrifying nightmares, then woke and cried some more.

There was a light knock on the door and Maitimo entered, hair and clothes stained like Macalaurë’s own, and quietly folded himself into the small space on the bunk beside his brother. “I am sorry you were drawn into this, little fey one. It is not your fight; you should not have to bear the consequences.”

“I did what I was supposed to do,” Macalaurë replied after a pause. “I had as much right to take the Oath as you and father; I simply chose to stand by you, as it is my duty to do.”

“You did.” Maitimo stroked Macalaurë’s hair back from his face, a habit he had developed in Macalaurë’s childhood and never gave up. “Your loyalty has always been absolute and beyond question.”

Macalaurë sighed, standing and peering out of the small porthole over the blue-grey waves. “I left them all behind, you know. Except one.” He reached into the folds of his tunic and brought out the snail shell flute. It had survived intact, in spite of its apparent fragility, and he laid it on a little shelf by the bunk. “Perhaps I will have to start the collection anew.”

Both brothers fell silent for many minutes after that. Macalaurë saw no reason to speak, and Maitimo could think of no suitable reply to his brother. In the end, Macalaurë broke the silence with a question. “What happens now?” They had travelled far enough over the sea, clinging to the shore, that Tirion was out of sight now. The north looked grey and hostile to Macalaurë’s eyes and he could not see any good coming from those barren, unwelcoming lands.

“We go north,” Maitimo said quietly. “The sea is said to be narrower there, even though the weather may prove treacherous for us.” His expression was troubled still, shadowed with shame at their recent deeds.

Macalaurë looked at him suspiciously. “Then what?” His voice took on an uncharacteristically hard edge. “Even assuming that we find the land everyone claims lies on the other side, the land from which our grandfather’s generation travelled, who knows what we will find? Beasts, hostile Elves - how can we even be sure there is food there? This is insane, brother. We should go back now.”

“It is too late for that now,” Maitimo replied, his voice weary.

Macalaurë thumped the glass of the porthole in frustration. “Why not? We have made mistakes before - you have, I have. But we were never banished for them. Even Father’s exile came to an end eventually.” He started to panic and pace, disturbed by all these unpredictable changes, the seemingly infinite list of unknowns. “Brother, we have to go back! If we go to the other side, we will all end up dead! I can feel it already…”

Maitimo rose slowly and came to enfold his brother in strong, supportive arms. His voice was low and sad as he spoke. “After what we have done, I do not think we deserve anything better. I am sorry…but this is our fate now. What if you and I take care of each other in this new land, hmm?”

Macalaurë flinched at the first touch but eventually felt himself calm again and allowed his head to be guided to rest on Maitimo’s strong shoulder. The fabric smelled of blood and sweat and fear and he realised he probably smelled the same. “Yes,” he decided. “Maybe we have earned it after all.” He closed his eyes. “We can do that. I suppose the others will wish to find themselves lands to lord over…but I do not see the appeal, myself. I just want to have my music back and seek some peace. I can stay with you, I hope?”

“Of course,” Maitimo assured him soothingly. “I like to have you around.” His fingers began to comb through Macalaurë’s matted hair. “I have heard people say that you are strange, maybe even a little mad, but I have always considered you to be far saner than any of the others.”

“I am not mad,” Macalaurë responded, having faced the accusation himself enough times. “I just look at things more.”

Maitimo smiled softly then and placed a finger under his brother’s chin, tilting Macalaurë’s face upwards. Macalaurë realised a moment before their lips met that Maitimo was going to kiss him once again and turned a little in his brother’s embrace so he could return it more easily. His lips parted slightly and Maitimo’s tongue crept shyly into his mouth, turning the kiss from a small, chaste gesture of reassurance to an expression of…? Macalaurë decided it was best not to try and name what it was he felt right now. Instead, he let his tongue hesitantly entwine with Maitimo’s, touching it to his brother’s lips and then daring to explore his mouth. The kiss was a little clumsy, especially at first, but there was a sweetness and gentleness to it that Macalaurë found utterly breathtaking.

The secret friends had gone elsewhere - none of them looked on as he pulled Maitimo closer to him, trying to prolong the kiss for eternity if he could. Rivulets of fire seemed to be trickling beneath his skin now - a curious sensation , but an exciting one.

He broke away in the end and the glorious moment of crystal and light shattered. He spoke softly to Maitimo, his voice lower and rougher than usual, “I love you.”

Maitimo was still holding him, his expression rather surprised and confused. But the words seemed to get through to him and he smiled slowly. “Never for a moment have I doubted it, my little fey one. And I can promise you that you have my love also. There are few enough people who will even speak to out family now, but I know with you that I will always find companionship.” He kissed Macalaurë again, lightly, and sat back down on the bunk, pulling Macalaurë with him.

The embrace was safe and Macalaurë relaxed into it, his head moving to rest once more against Maitimo’s shoulder amid the mahogany hair. Of course they were still all going to die, but he was not frightened by the prospect any more.

***

Maitimo was severely seasick as the journey progressed, starting after the Noldor received the Doom of Mandos and cowered in horror at a prediction Macalaurë had known for days before that. He was honestly amazed how they had so easily assumed that all would be well once they reached the far shore; how could it possibly have been, if they gave it a moment’s thought? Macalaurë put himself in charge of fussing over his suffering brother, encouraging him to drink more water, rest and be pampered.

By the time the ship finally reached land, Macalaurë had taken to sleeping in his brother’s cabin in order to better watch over him. They would often squeeze on to the small bunk together, sleeping with limbs entangled and wrapped around each other’s bodies.

Few of the other Elves on the ship made much attempt to help Macalaurë care for his brother except when asked directly to assist. Although nominally loyal to Fëanáro, their discontent was clear and Macalaurë was quite aware of the pervading sense of discomfort at what was currently happening. Still, he made sure that Maitimo received the best care possible under the circumstances. In his spare time, he even managed to persuade the mate to teach him about steering the ship. He was more comfortable with the vessel once he understood how to control it.

Maitimo spent most evenings, when the nausea eased, wondering and worrying about his cousins. Macalaurë shared his brother’s fondness for Nolofinwë’s sons, young as they still were and, although he knew Arafinwë’s children rather less well, he enjoyed their easy generosity and friendliness. Though he never did quite manage to fathom Arafinwë’s daughter.

They had both assumed, of course, that Fëanáro’s first act upon landing would be to send the ships back to fetch their favourite cousins. Maitimo’s spirits lifted sufficiently as the boat neared land that he ventured from his cabin to sit on deck for a while, looking forward to a few more days’ time when he would be able to delight in the company of his dear friends once again.

***

Instead there were flames. He was not even sure how they started, only knowing that orders were being shouted and his brothers were running towards the ships. Unable to think, coughing violently from the smoke and overwhelmed by the insane whirl of light and noise and frantic voices, he just did as he was told, without further thought.

He collapsed halfway through, hands pressed to his ears and eyes shut against the chaos around him. His mind was full of the faces of Elves, but not the Elves here. He saw Telerin faces, terrified, wide eyes and tangled, bloodstained silver hair. There was another face too, when he turned back and opened his eyes, this one no figment of confused memory: Maitimo. The eldest son of Fëanáro’s brow was creased with pain and his lips were pursed, pressed into a thin, pale line. That was when Macalaurë once more found grounding in the present and cried out in fear and confusion, dropping his torch and fleeing from the smoke and tongues of fire.

Hours later when he woke from sleep filled with turmoil and nightmares so horrific that he screamed in his sleep, he found himself in one of their tents. He washed in a basin of icy water standing by the bed and dressed in a clean robe that someone had left for him, coming out to find his father or preferably Maitimo. Father stood on the edge of camp, eyes narrowed and shoulders tense, his strained posture indicating that for now, others were to respect his space and keep their distance. Macalaurë watched his father for some minutes, taking in the stiff back and bowed head, thick ebony curls for once unbrushed and unbraided, and realised that for some reason, Fëanáro was labouring under a burden of profound despair and anger.

“Our youngest brother was on one of those ships,” a quiet voice said. Macalaurë turned, looking up at Maitimo. The eldest son of Fëanáro wore no expression and his voice was flat, devoid of inflection. “His body now rests among charred wreckage beneath the sea.”

Macalaurë’s hand came up to cover his mouth and then he turned away, dashing off to be sick with horror at the consequences of his unthinking actions. “We did that…” he murmured when he returned, fingers clenching and unclenching with unconscious restlessness.

“No,” Maitimo replied, his voice no less even before but a frown creasing his forehead. “I did not. I stood aside; I wanted no part in it.”

A heavy sigh came from Macalaurë as he looked up at his brother, his insides aching with shame and guilt. “I wish I had stopped to think. I wish I showed your strength.” Returning to the tent, he started to go through the sacks and chests placed inside, pulling out a few changes of clothes, some small personal items and a few basic necessities. “I suppose this is the strongest thing I can do now…” He stopped, meeting Maitimo’s eyes sadly. “I know you must hate me now; I hate myself enough, at least. But I need to ask you one last favour. Tell my brothers - and our father - that I love them, in spite of this.”

“Where are you going?” Maitimo challenged. His tone told nothing of whether he approved or not.

“I…I do not know,” Macalaurë replied after a long pause, the question having interrupted his train of thought and thrown him somewhat. “Just away from here. I have already hurt you enough.” He thought of his youngest brother, auburn hair framing a warm smile and quick, intelligent eyes, his selfless dedication to his twin and the way they could each coax laughter from the other, no matter how gloomy their moods. Now the elder Ambarussa would be alone - without his brother he would be like half a person. “I will not have a part in destroying our house any further,” Macalaurë concluded. He realised this was probably the most decisive he could ever remember being, but it was the only decision his conscience would permit.

“No,” Maitimo replied quietly, expression unchanged - except that the corners of his eyes had softened slightly, making him appear less accusatory.

“Brother, I want no more deaths on my conscience.”

Maitimo closed his eyes, his eyelashes dark with moisture, and the cool expression finally faded to one of pain and anguish. He held Macalaurë tightly, shuddering slightly. “I fear it is too late for that now, little Fey One. The choice is no longer ours to make; we forfeited it from the moment we took the Oath.”

“This has already gone too far,” Macalaurë argued. “We are better off submitting to Eru’s judgement now, no matter how harsh it may prove, rather than doing more damage.”

“You are right,” Maitimo finally agree with a soft sigh. He spoke so quietly, voice heavy with resignation, that Macalaurë had to strain to hear. “And yet…we have come this far already. We may as well take it to the end - perhaps we may earn ourselves some trace of redemption if we manage to break Morgoth’s power in the process of retrieving the Silmarilli. And perhaps once we have regained them, Father might agree to give them to the Valar, as they should be.” The note of uncertainty and scepticism in his voice confirmed what Macalaurë suspected - Maitimo desperately wanted to believe this, but the reasonable part of him knew it was no more than wishful thinking.

“No, I am leaving…” Macalaurë repeated.

The strength returned to Maitimo’s tone. “No, little fey one. You cannot… The Oath is too strong - if you try to break away, it will call you back, over and over.” He took his brother’s hands, squeezing them. “At least with your family you will still find comfort and love.”

“So you do still love me?” Macalaurë was genuinely surprised - after his brother’s earlier coldness and evident pain, he had been ready to believe that any affection Maitimo once held for him was now thoroughly lost.

“Of course I do.” Maitimo smiled, sadly but warmly, and kissed his brother lightly on the lips. Then his smile disappeared as his expression grew serious once again. “What you - all of you - did last night…it will take me a long time to forgive, if I ever manage at all. But I suspect it will take you longer still. And still, it does not change the fact that you are my dearest and closest brother, and your kisses are the sweetest I have ever known.” He shared one such kiss with Macalaurë now, longer than the peck of a few moments before and oddly intense. Then he continued, “Stay here. Stay with us. When the Oath eats at our hearts and minds and wills, at least then we will both have somewhere to turn…”

Macalaurë stood for a long time, enveloped in his brother’s tight embrace, before quietly pulling away and turning his travelling sack out over the low, uncomfortable cot on which he had woken. “If our fate truly holds nothing but despair, death and misery, I would sooner not face it alone.”

Maitimo’s hand, heavy and warm, came to rest on his shoulder. “Neither would I.”

***

Weary from the journey already, the Noldor turned up the river, starting to head inland. Fëanáro spoke to them every morning at dawn, as they stumbled from tents that had been hastily erected the previous evening, rousing their spirits with hopeful, moving words that appealed to the deep-seated pride of their people. Then, before the evening meal, he often addressed them again , and so they always found the energy for another day’s travel.

Lake Mithrim, as the natives of the land called it, seemed like a sanctuary for them at last. The pristine waters sat calmly under the stars and Macalaurë found himself wondering if the scene he beheld on their arrival was so very dissimilar to that which met their ancestors at Cuiviénen. He wrote a song about it as the others buzzed around him setting up a more permanent camp for the evening; in his imagination, the busy Elves all faded away, leaving only the silence of a dark lake as the Unbegotten first looked around them and beheld their new existence. He could not help but smile with pride as he imagined all the challenges they must have faced to create their nations of descendants. To start with nothing, and create the works of beauty and majesty that marked out the Eldar… Precious few of the Unbegotten still lived among the Eldar of Aman - many had retired to their own secluded places long ago, finding the chaos of modern existence all to overwhelming. Macalaurë had never thought to ask any of them what they thought of the achievements of their children. He wondered if any of them understood what the Silmarilli meant to his father, or whether they had come to regard them with scorn as had so many others.

So intense was Macalaurë’s preoccupied with his composition and the idle wanderings of his mind that they were already in the midst of the first attack before he even noticed the change in the activity around him from mere purposefulness to frenzied panic.

There were many battles after that. Looking back, they seemed to last barely an eyeblink in Macalaurë’s memory, but at the time they seemed never-ending. Morgoth’s forces ambushed them in hordes, armies of soot and ash-coloured figures screaming curses of death as they ran out of the twilight towards them. They spilled into the camp, slashing through the canvas of tents and rousing sleeping Elves to a scene of terror, havoc and confusion.

Macalaurë’s main recollections from that time were of his father, gleaming in new, highly polished armour that covered his tall, powerful form from head to foot. An Elf of metal and light, he seemed to be the only one among them to know no fear. That frightened Macalaurë even more, however. It was then that he finally found himself forced to accept that his father’s mind now dwelled upon only one thought: the Silmarilli. Already, he seemed to have half-forgotten about his youngest son; whilst Macalaurë and Maitimo spent many a painful evening trying to bring comfort to the surviving twin - though Ambarussa was mostly too lost in grief to even acknowledge their presence - Fëanáro more often sat in his tent making battle plans or compiling annals and records of all that he saw here in the Hither Lands, from culture and languages to botany and geology.

The brothers managed to stay with their father and his retainers for the first few attacks as they pressed forward, winning victories over Morgoth’s armies that would have been glorious had the Elves at the end of each day still found the energy to celebrate. Each time a new attack forced them to move once again, they would re-pitch what was left of the tents a little further into the wild lands of Beleriand, take a head count and an inventory, and then sit down to discuss whether their ever diminishing stock of supplies would support another confrontation on the morrow. In spite of the high morale of the host and their excellent run of luck, Maitimo grew more restless by the day; he knew they had no experience with war or strategy and maintained that in the long-term they had little chance of emerging from this with anything resembling an overall victory. He became sullen and withdrawn, as if he viewed this knowledge as some kind of personal failing on his part, despite Macalaurë’s insistence that they were making progress, doing all they could, and no-one could ask for more from any of them.

On the ninth evening since the fighting began, when it was growing colder and the trees’ leaves lay crisp and brown over the ground all around, Macalaurë picked up his little snail shell flute in the bag of soft black velvet he had made to protect it, and left the tent he shared with his brother. Maitimo was sleeping, mahogany hair tumbling off the pillow and nearly trailing on the ground beneath his cot, unbraided locks swaying in the cold draught that always seemed to blow at floor level, resulting in permanently cold feet for any whose boots had been damaged in one skirmish or another.

Fëanáro, on the other hand, was still very much awake, even though midnight had long since passed - Finwë’s eldest had never been one to sleep excessively and these days Macalaurë could not recall his father ever retiring to bed. He was still wearing half his armour, but his plumed helm sat beside him on the makeshift desk where he was frantically writing out passages in the strange tongue spoken by those few Elves they had met here. Smiling, Macalaurë crossed to peer over his father’s shoulder, as he had occasionally done since early childhood. Almost without thinking, he began to mentally sound out the syllables as they were written in Fëanáro’s flowing Tengwar. “This speech lends itself to music,” he murmured, notes already materialising in his head as the pace of his reading fell into a natural musical rhythm.

Fëanáro started and looked over his shoulder, eyes flashing with irritation before they softened again. He was not known for his patience, but when it came to his sons he could always find some, and most especially with Macalaurë. They both still remembered a time when ten year old Macalaurë had walked in on Fëanáro reprimanding an apprentice rather harshly - the boy had run out, hands pressed to his ears, and had been openly afraid of his father for days afterwards. From then on, Fëanáro had been purposely quieter with his second son, rebuking gently if at all and preferring to leave Macalaurë to consider the consequences of his actions himself. It seemed to work, as Macalaurë had never been a rebellious child and his usual misdemeanours had stemmed from lack of thought rather than intentional malice.

“Yes,” Fëanáro said now, smiling strangely. “You will have to compose something in this tongue sometime. Both our people and theirs would be entranced.”

Macalaurë hummed a tune as he continued to read his father’s writing, guessing at the meaning of the phrases from those words whose forms resembled those he knew and finding that the melody simply fitted itself to the mood without effort. Fëanáro listened, eyes almost seeming to glow in the dingy light thrown by a smoky oil lamp and a few candles - he was no more immune to the effects of his son’s songs than any other. As Macalaurë trailed off he nodded, seemingly satisfied. “With you as my son, I know we will never be forgotten,” he declared, his voice soft but determined. “All this-” his gesture took in the whole camp, all the Elves who had sailed across the Great Sea “-it should be remembered. The promises and loyalty, the determination and strength…”

Macalaurë bit his tongue, not daring to remind his father in this strange, quiet mood that the burning of the ships was about the most disloyal act he had ever seen. “For a people who ‘do not die’, we are so fragile - but in the songs we live forever, all of us…” He stood now. Though most thought of Fëanáro as towering, almost a giant in stature, in truth he matched his second son in height perfectly, and Maitimo stood several inches above them both. “You should make a song about the Silmarilli too, a glorious one…”

Macalaurë felt himself wince at those words. He had tried already, wanting more than anything to please his father and make him proud, as he sat for those long hours beside his brother on the ship. But the words that came to him were words of hatred and foreboding, even before the ships had burned, and the only tunes were those of mourning and misery. The sheet of parchment lay abandoned now between the leaves of one of his father’s books, only a tiny sketch of Maitimo at rest bearing any testament to its having been used by anyone.

But he never needed to argue the point with his father; Fëanáro appeared to lose interest in the conversation after that and instead returned to his manuscripts once again, only muttering that if any of them wanted better armour, Macalaurë should look in the chest at the far end of the tent.

Macalaurë did so, and what he found amazed him. The suit was perfectly made, in closely-fitting sections so that it could be worn by any of them - save perhaps slender Ambarussa - without leaving any vulnerable points at joints. Patterns reminiscent of life in Valinor were inlaid into it in gold, and jewels, nowhere near rivalling the splendour of the Silmarilli but far surpassing anything merely hewn from the ground, were set around the edges of the breastplate and helm. The weight felt reassuring in his hands - musician’s hands, now hardened and callused from too long wielding swords - but would not be restrictive in battle.

“My final piece,” Fëanáro muttered, still writing and not even pausing to look up. “Not yet finished - I never set jewels into the gauntlets. Such a pity. I had hoped to give it to Atar…” He spoke quickly and softly and it reminded Macalaurë startling of himself when he held conversations with his secret friends. “He will not need it now, and nor will I. Kanafinwë, will you take it? One of you will use it, surely?” Fëanáro’s hand shook slightly and it dawned on Macalaurë that he was speaking as if he expected never to create another item such as this. Had he foreseen something? “When you take back the Silmarilli,” Fëanáro was continuing, “they can be set into the helm. People would behold them and finally understand why they must not be given away. Even the Valar would see it…”

Had Fëanáro spoken the words in another tone, they would have been the words of a madman, frightening in their intensity, but his voice was still calm and steady, even if his hands were not. He spoke as one who was so certain his path was the right one that those around him began to believe too - unless, like Macalaurë, they had seen him like this before, and were accustomed to the impact of Fëanáro’s powerful charisma.

Macalaurë sighed, reminded as he met the eyes that were bright with obsession, that despite the sanity of his tone, what Macalaurë thought of as his father was now mostly lost in the smothering lust for the greatest works of his life. But something in Fëanáro’s voice also spoke of something more now. He talked as if he expected it to be his sons, and not him, to take back the cursed jewels. “Atar…have you foreseen something? Are you expecting to die soon?” He totally neglected to remember tact; he had never been much of a diplomat when calm and right now, trying to untangle brightly coloured threads of knotted up emotions, it did not even occur to him to try until after the words had already left his mouth.

He expected some kind of fearful response from his father, if he had indeed had some kind of premonition of his own death; or maybe, perhaps, that strange calm that comes upon some when they behold their own doom and know that nothing in all of Arda will change it. Instead Fëanáro’s eyes narrowed, looking to Macalaurë like twin thunderstorms at midnight, dark and yet lit with fire like sheet lightning - and Macalaurë recognised barely restrained fury. “Yes,” he replied, his voice quiet and simmering, heavy with a note of betrayal. “After all the insults they have yet dealt me, after presuming to take from me all that I value - even my own son - they have to spit in my face once more. The cursed Valar…” Impatiently, he brushed back a few loose locks of hair from his face; it was working its unruly way out of the braids. “I dreamed last night; I rarely dream, and when I do, I seldom if ever remember them, but this one…it was different. Námo was calling to me - a single long note, pure and tuneful as your own songs, Macalaurë, and yet it went on - so long and loud, vibrating through my mind and the very fabric of Arda. I thought my skull would crack and shatter with the sound, and wherever I ran, I could not escape it.” His voice, perhaps surprisingly, had still not grown loud. Though the words tumbled from his lips and his eyes grew unfocused, his voice maintained the same low volume as before, no more erratic than if he had been telling their mother of a wayward apprentice.

“Atar…” was the only word Macalaurë managed to produce. Impulsively, he wrapped his arms around his father, not caring whether the embrace was returned or not. He simply needed the contact, reassurance that Fëanáro, at least for now, was here and real. He could not imagine the world without his father - the powerful presence seemed to be such an integral part of Arda itself.

The desperation in his second son’s actions seemed to strike a chord within Fëanáro and he shivered suddenly. “Macalaurë?” He spoke in barely more than a whisper. Macalaurë nodded. “Go to each of your brothers tonight. Tell them that… Tell them that I love them, and they make me proud. Tell them that they deserved better than this. Tell them that the Silmarilli are theirs now: I gift them to my seve…six sons.”

Macalaurë had no desire at all to inherit the Silmarilli - in fact, of all the treasures that could have been left to him, those were the ones he desired the least. But for the sake of family he gave his father a slow nod. “Yes, Atar,” he replied. “I love you too.”

“I have something else for you…” Fëanáro said after a long pause, as if only just remembering it now. “You, of all of them, are different. I think you will appreciate this better than any of the others…” He led Macalaurë to a rosewood chest and opened it, indicating several rows of identically sized and immaculately bound books. “Lore,” he murmured. “Tales… songs…essays - all the knowledge of all the tongues of Arda I have heard is assembled here. Those spoken across the sea by our kin, and those I have heard here, spoken by our dark cousins. There is so much recorded here; and still so much left to add!” Fëanáro’s voice had changed again now, warm with the passion he held for all of his greatest creations and, to Macalaurë’s sensitive, trained ear, far more like the Fëanáro he knew as his father. This was the Fëanáro who was enthralled by knowledge, not enslaved by lust.

Macalaurë took one of the books and fanned reverently through the pages, skimming notes on grammar and idioms, syntax and vocabulary. He marvelled. Of all the things that were later said about Fëanáro, none could deny that he was brilliant. Macalaurë ran his fingers along the spines of the books, imagining the lore that waited just beneath his fingertips.

“I would love to see these completed,” he whispered.

“Then I leave the task to you, Kanafinwë. If you can, see that they get back to Tirion. The scholars there will guard them and use them.”

Macalaurë bowed his head solemnly. “You can rely on me, Father.” The reality was creeping over him with ever-increasing intensity now: he may be very close to losing his own father. Maitimo would become head of the family and he… He supposed the only outcome would be that he would be party to more killing, watching more blood stain his hands and more deaths fall upon his conscience. He cupped his father’s face in his hands, almost as he would do to one of the Ambarussa when they were tiny and he was trying, in his own hesitant manner, to reassure them. “Please, Atar - end this madness now! Let us turn back and let the Valar treat us as they will. I trust them to be more merciful, even now, than the fate awaiting us here.”

Fëanáro’s eyes flashed with anger at the perceived weakness and disloyalty of his son’s plea, but then he calmed - whether through pity, shame, or simple force of habit, Macalaurë never did work out. “No, Kanafinwë,” he said simply. “I cannot. The Silmarilli sing to me, a shrill song that haunts every moment of my existence, waking or sleeping; it only eases when I pour all I have into pursuing them. Were I to abandon them now - even if I wished to, and I do not, for they are my beloved creations, just as you and your brothers are - their continuing call would tear my mind apart.” He kissed his son’s hair, the apparent gentleness of the act belying a tautness that ran through his entire frame. “Will you leave me now, little fey one? It angers me now to be reminded of all that the Valar will be taking from me so soon - as if all that they made is not enough for them, they must now lay claim to what little I made also…” He turned back to his writing, hand shaking; Macalaurë was alarmed to note that he could barely control the pen, the normally graceful letters now a mere scrawl. He could sense the fury and desperation mingling in his father, along with a cold, proud insanity that frightened him more than he ever wished to admit.

“I love you, Atar. I hope one day I will see you happy again,” were his softly-spoken words as he left.

Fëanáro cursed to himself and tore up the sheet of vellum on which he was working and then, with a sigh, abandoned his work altogether to step into the sharp chill of the perpetual night. He wept for a long time beneath the stars, telling himself that it was frustration at the knowledge that the jewels would never be truly reclaimed, that he would die with their call still filling his head. Yet Macalaurë saw his father and wondered instead if Fëanáro was finally beginning to see the dreadful consequences of his rebellion.

***

After that the world ended, or so, at least, it appeared to Macalaurë. He had never led a company himself before, but in the frantic hurry to get Elves into their armour and out to fight, those who were high-ranking and already prepared for battled were all pressed into command positions. He and Maitimo were wearing their full armour as the horns signifying that they were under attack rang out; it had been an uncomfortable night, sleeping in as much metal as they could tolerate and hurriedly donning the rest upon hearing the first sounds of a new day - or whatever the unending cycle here of fighting, then sleeping, waking and fighting some more, all in perpetual twilight, might be termed.

Maitimo wore the magnificent suit that Fëanáro had left to them the previous evening; servants had brought it over as Macalaurë and Maitimo curled up in their tent to sleep and Macalaurë had insisted that it would look far better on his older brother. Indeed, Maitimo’s dark red hair lay in thick curls over the damasked shoulders and he seemed as pillar of flame, imposing and perhaps invincible.

Elves were running to and fro as they emerged from the tent to try to restore order, everyone desperately trying to locate the rest of their respective companies as the Orcs closed in around the camp. The attack had come hours earlier than the scouts had anticipated and the Noldor’s lack of fighting experience was truly beginning to show.

Fëanáro’s powerful voice bellowed over the commotion of highly-strung, frightened Elves, calling his sons to him and handing out tasks to each. And so Macalaurë found himself suddenly in command of a whole unit of soldiers, surrounded by ferocious-looking Orcs and fighting for his own life and those of his Elves.

Flashes of amber-red across the darkened field, the weak illumination of dying campfires, indicated that Maitimo was in much the same situation with his own company, but Macalaurë had no chance to glimpse more than that. Fëanáro’s war cries, rousing and rallying the troops, seemed to be growing quieter as the battled raged on, drowned by screams of rabid Orcs. But the chaos of battle sent Macalaurë’s consciousness into such a swirl of confusion that he could not be sure of anything. The secret friends screamed in his head, horrified and thrown into chaos, before retreating and leaving his mind eerily silent, with the company only of his own turbulent thoughts and reactions. It should have made it easier to focus but, if anything, the emptiness was more distracting as it seemed to make the sounds, sights and scents of death resonate all the more.

The fight continued, the Orc host appearing impossibly large; Macalaurë stumbled over the bleeding bodies of former comrades as well as dying Orcs. Each swing of his sword sent a new throbbing pain through his aching shoulders and his palms were raw from gripping the sword hilt. Still the Orcs came, pushing and squabbling amongst themselves to reach the front of the line. They almost seemed to slaver with the thought of tasting blood and death.

As Macalaurë’s mind succumbed to the numbness of exhaustion, new realisations came to him through the red-tinged fog that surrounded his awareness. He hesitated suddenly as the next Orc fell upon him; he recognised some of the features in the hideous face with shocking and stomach-churning familiarity. The proud, straight back; the slightly pointed ears; the thick, dark hair hanging to the creature’s waist. Twisted beyond all immediate resemblance to the Quendi, these beings were kin nonetheless. He and his opponent both could trace their lineage to those naïve, ancient Unbegotten Firstborn who once woke under the stars at Cuiviénen. “I am sorry, cousin…” he rasped as he slew his attacker, genuine remorse making his sword-arm fall heavily at his side.

“Fall back!” he cried then, unable to bear any more of today. “Fall back!” Calling his company into retreat, it emerged, was probably the only reason any of them survived, and even then barely a fifth of his company regrouped and fled the battleground. His decision had come too late; perhaps the truest evidence of Fëanáro’s insanity, that he would try to make a military commander of his second son, the Fey One. Fëanáro’s cries could not even be heard now; his reckless charge, the berserker assault of one who saw his death and no longer feared it, had carried him far from his sons and his people with but a small band of followers.

***

Macalaurë gathered the exhausted and mostly injured troops around him and demanded to know who was still fit to fight, sending all others back to the makeshift sanctuary that had been formed from the remnants of several devastated companies and the wounded. The others, he stared at helplessly. “I just want my father safe,” he admitted, unable to meet their eyes. “Is anyone still with me?” He expected them to turn their backs on him, betrayed too many times - he was neither a leader nor a warrior. But the Elves’ eyes, still bright with the light of the dead Trees, held loyalty and trust. He was unsure if it was for him or Fëanáro, but as they drew their swords and pledged their support - a truly noble act, not the sickening mockery Macalaurë and his brothers had played out before their father in Tirion so long ago - he knew they would follow him and join their father’s forces, even if their only repayment would be death.

Fëanáro had covered an enormous amount of ground with his fearless company; their trail took no tracker to pick it up, as it was marked on both sides by an avenue of Orc corpses. The secret friends slowly returned as Macalaurë and his men marched, joining in Macalaurë’s latest reflections those distant cousins of his whom he had just slaughtered in their hundreds. Reaching out with a grimy hand, he picked the stalk of an elder bush that overhung their frightful path. He dropped one of the tiny, delicate white flowers on to each broken body as he passed them. The act itself was ludicrous, his younger brothers would have told him with fond mocking in their voices, but he wanted to show that someone recognised what they had once been.

Arms snaked around him from behind and a tender kiss was pressed to his temple. “Yours is the only conscience among us,” Maitimo’s voice said over his shoulder. “They are monsters, but still you care.”

“They were just like us, once…” Macalaurë replied quietly, resuming his fast march with the troops as soon as his brother’s arms released him.

“Once. But they forfeited their rights to mercy when they turned from the Valar,” Maitimo said bitterly. “Just as we did.”

“We had a choice,” Macalaurë said, his voice calm and sad. “They were forced.” He could not prove this, but in his heart he knew it.

The sounds of battle came to them a couple of miles later in their heavy advance. Fëanáro could be picked out instantly - right at the centre of the mêlée, voice carrying through the racket. He was almost surrounded, blood soaking into his long hair, face a dreadful mask from the grime and gore smeared across it. Had anyone seen him for the first time now, although he remained undoubtedly a leader, at the head of each charge and always bellowing commands to his ragged, struggling troops, an onlooker might start to wonder from where all the legends stemmed. Tattered, bloodied and occasionally trembling with manic laughter, he appeared less a High King of the Noldor and more a madman, his bright, burning eyes the only part of him not coated in layers of dark filth.

The brothers called to their troops, readying them for a charge, and plunged into the valley to cut a path towards Fëanáro, but their arrival came too late: the most hideous creatures of Morgoth that they had ever seen were advancing upon the eldest son of Finwë. Great hulking monsters wreathed in flame and darkness, their eyes burned as only those of the Ainur can; they were Morgoth’s own corrupted Maia, his lieutenants, the Balrogs.

Fëanáro had until then seemed almost oblivious to his peril; it had appeared, even when he was fighting alongside just a handful of troops, that he had believed victory could still be won. But now, as he turned to meet the true might of Angband, the expression in his eyes changed. Macalaurë recognised that change instantly; he knew. Fëanáro knew too; he had realised as he looked upon the greatest of the Balrogs, larger than any of its companions, that he was staring at the one who would bring his death. Yet no fear shone in his eyes.

“May the Valar have mercy on him, for all his crimes,” Macalaurë heard one of the soldiers murmur as the Balrog raised its arm, brandishing a flaming whip that seemed to be tens of feet long.

Maitimo let out a low, grim curse. “The Valar forsook us long ago - they will not aid us now.” They were only a few seconds’ advance away from clashing with the enemy, but Maitimo let his eyes fall closed. It made little difference now; the appearance of the Balrogs had caused an almost complete lull in the battle, Elves and Orcs alike turning towards the centre of the battleground with expectant expressions. Only a few scuffles remained; all others were intent on the final duel of Fëanáro and the Balrog whose name, Macalaurë was to find out in later months, was Gothmog. Two beings with spirits of fire, locked in a fight to the death.

“No,” countered the soldier. “May they have mercy on him in Mandos.”

The whip fell, leaving the very air, it seemed, scorched with the heat. Macalaurë flinched, his vision monetarily blacking out. When it cleared, his eyes anxiously searched the scene for his father’s body.

Fëanáro had somehow leapt clear in time, and was now attacking the Balrog with a fury that seemed unquenchable. Despite the futility of the duel, he did not intend to make the victory an easy one.

Maitimo let out a battle cry, more a roar than a true shout, and threw himself through the dumbstruck audience of Elves and Orcs towards the two combatants. Macalaurë, too, felt flickers of the same fire that drove his father kindling deep within his own heart. Drawing his sword, he echoed the shout and called to his brothers and the remaining Elven warriors to charge with him, one last time.

***

The field was dark, a mess of churned mud, sticky blood and dead or dying Elves and Orcs. The survivors of both armies had abandoned the field hours ago to lick their wounds - and mourn their losses.

Macalaurë crouched in a tent lit by the feeble light of a dying oil lamp, several hours’ march away, and held his father’s hand tightly. It was feverishly hot, despite the enormous blood loss Fëanáro had sustained. Quietly, he sang a lullaby to his father, a sweet, simple song he had learned almost before he could talk. His normally resonant, strong voice was edged with a rough hoarseness from exhaustion and grief; his father still breathed, but the healers had been helpless to control the bleeding from his wounds. What kept him alive now was only stubbornness and, if the wild brightness lighting his eyes was any indication, insanity.

As the last note died in Macalaurë’s throat, he turned his head and pressed a kiss to the back of his father’s hand. Fëanáro’s hands were larger, stronger and rougher than his, but the same supple, tapered fingers that made Macalaurë a great musician were those that had made Fëanáro a great artisan. At the kiss, they tightened on his, warm and stronger than his condition should ever have permitted.

Fëanáro’s eyes blinked slowly and came to focus on a point far beyond the confines of the crude, dingy tent. “Atar?” Macalaurë tried, unsure if his father was conscious, or lucid enough to respond even if he was. Nearly an hour ago, it had been Fëanáro’s command that had caused their company to halt and acknowledge that their leader’s loss was truly drawing imminent. He had still been defiant then, proud and unafraid.

His father frowned darkly, as if in response to something, but for a long moment, he gave no other response. He coughed, blood flecking his lips, and then took a deep, shaking breath. His voice began as a rasp as he spoke, but gathered strength with each word until it seemed to have every bit as much power as Macalaurë had always been accustomed to. “Take me outside, my little fey one,” he instructed. “And bring your brothers here. I want to speak with them.”

Numbly, Macalaurë made the necessary arrangements, speaking soft words to nearby soldiers. Fëanáro paled slightly with pain as his stretcher was jostled on the way out of the tent, but never did he complain about the agony of his wounds, which must have been unbearable. Macalaurë himself was in a significant amount of discomfort from his own wounds, and none of them had been regarded by the healers as serious.

The six of them clustered around Fëanáro as his bright eyes fastened on Thangorodrim. They burned with hatred and defiance - even though Námo was calling to his fëa right then, he would not let this be a victory to Morgoth. Once more, he coughed up frothy blood, but his voice did not shake or waver at all as he shouted his last words to Morgoth.

Three times, Fëanáro’s final curse upon the name of Morgoth echoed across that valley. His six remaining sons looked on with grave, resolute faces. They all knew then that their quest was futile. But the Oath could not be broken; they were bound to seek the Silmarilli for as long as they were still alive to do so, even though they strove without hope of ever winning them.

Fëanáro gaze moved from one son to the next, eyes alighting on each. He spoke each name proudly and hopefully, expression softening from its previous rage as he dwelt for a moment on the achievements of each of the handsome young Elves around him. But his last command struck dread into Macalaurë’s heart, even though he had known that it would come. “It is now your duty, your destiny, to carry the Oath to fulfilment,” he beseeched them, his rich voice unwavering. “Now I can no longer march with you, you must find it within yourselves to finish this task. Take back the jewels; and avenge me!”

The final syllables seemed to carry all the way over the camps of Fëanáro’s armies, but they were followed by a silence that Macalaurë thought must have been as complete as that which prevailed before the first songs of the Ainur. Fëanáro was too proud for any humble death-rattle or even a sigh as his fëa abandoned his broken body. He passed silently, with clenched fists, but as the last traces of colour left his beautiful, twisted face and the last breath of air left his lips, he did not merely fall back on the stretcher.

Macalaurë and his brothers would never have a body to bury, a physical token of their dear, lost father to grieve and weep over. For with death, the fire in Fëanáro’s spirit was no longer restrained in any way, even by the shackles of the hröa, and it flickered into its full glory. Macalaurë agreed with his secret friends, that he would have liked to say his final memory of his father, before the fire ate him from within, was of the most beautiful face on Arda, lying finally content and at peace; but Fëanáro died just as he had lived, defiant, proud and wild. His skin seemed to glow with inner light, a rich golden-red like winter firelight, before turning uniformly smooth and black, then whitish-grey.

A bitter breeze had been blowing along this valley since they had first entered it, and without effort it picked up the soft dust that had once been the greatest of the Noldor, swirling the ashes through the air in spirals that even now seemed to glisten with the faintest remnants of firelight, lifting them higher, spreading them out, until eventually none of the six sons could still pick out any traces of them.

Macalaurë looked down at the stretcher, running his hand over it incredulously.

“He is gone, Macalaurë,” Maitimo whispered tenderly.

“I know,” was all Macalaurë had to say. He kissed the palm of his hand, laying it over where Fëanáro had lain. He laughed coldly, ironically, earning himself furious glares from his brothers. He and the friends considered how to put his feelings into words, finally finding ones that fitted the sentiment. “How high we have risen,” he spat in disgust, by way of explanation. “How low we have fallen.”

***

“Brother, it is a trap! And besides, Atar left us only an hour ago and they know it! Will Morgoth spare us no time for grief?!” Macalaurë’s voice was raw and strained, rising in pitch and volume as he spoke. After everything that had already come to pass that day, leaving his head aching and his thoughts in a tumbled turmoil that even the friends refused to touch, the arrival of Morgoth’s emissary, begging for parley, had left him trembling, agitated and clinging to Maitimo. “Brother, please do not go!”

Maitimo’s hands ran over his hair, strong and soothing. “Shhh, Macalaurë. Please, do not fret. I will come back, I promise you. But the emissary must be answered.”

Macalaurë did not loosen his grip on his brother’s clothes, his face still insistently buried in Maitimo’s dirty, matted hair. “They are claiming we defeated them!” he mumbled anxiously. “You know as well as I do that we did not have any kind of victory on that field. It was slaughter, on both sides!”

Gentle hands disengaged his desperate, clutching fingers from the rough fabric, the collar of Maitimo’s shirt where it protruded above the brilliant armour. Maitimo tilted his brother’s face to look at him properly. “Macalaurë, I would never lie to you, you know that?” At the trusting nod he received in reply, he went on, “I know it is a trap. Morgoth’s ambassador will not come alone. Which is why I will not either. I am going to pick the best of the warriors we have left and we will take the ambassador and his escort by surprise. It will not be Morgoth’s downfall, but it should give him something to think about.”

Maitimo spoke with a quiet confidence that inspired the beginnings of the same in Macalaurë. He considered volunteering to come too - he was not badly injured, and he felt a responsibility for his brother, especially with their father dead. His secret friends, however, declared that this was a foolish idea, reminding him of how panicked recent weeks had made him, how much the battles had worn at his heart and soul. He would be little help in a clash, he was forced to admit, and Maitimo would only worry about him. Instead, he simply placed the flat of his palm against his elder brother’s cheek, sighing sadly as he saw the heaviness and hurt in Maitimo’s face. “You are in charge of all of us now,” he remarked softly. It was a strange thought, but in Macalaurë’s mind, Maitimo was the best leader of all of them.

Maitimo nodded. “I am in charge of leading the five remaining people I treasure the most in this world, on a quest I despise - a quest which will claim all our lives, eventually.” He spoke with painful certainty, but neutrally, laying down the facts. “I suppose that I must simply do the best I can for all of you, try to keep you from harm…” He kissed his brother chastely and lovingly on the lips.

In response, Macalaurë’s fingers tangled themselves in the red-brown hair once again. “We will look after each other,” he promised. “Light will come to these lands again, and spring too, and we will walk among the flowers once more, and I will sing to you.” It was a small hope and seemed to Macalaurë to be an impossibly distant one, but it allowed him to find a little, shaky smile. “You must promise me three times to come back…”

Maitimo was smiling too now. It was a smile that was touched with grief and fear, but it reached his beautiful eyes and softened a few of the lines on his face. “As long as you walk on Arda, my dear little fey one, the light of the Trees will not be entirely lost or forgotten.” He kissed his brother’s eyes, each in turn, accompanied each time by a murmured, “I promise.” Then he returned to Macalaurë’s mouth, tilting his head and parting his lips with the tenderest affection as he bestowed the kiss. “I promise, Macalaurë. I will return.”

***

Maitimo did not return that day; or the day after. It was a full week before Macalaurë finally discovered what had occurred, a week in which he spent long hours bellowing in frustration and dread at the silent stars, and demanding of the Valar what they did this time.

He and Maitimo had been quite correct: it had been a trap. And though neither Maitimo nor Morgoth’s emissary had paid any heed to the original words of the agreement and actually come alone, it was Morgoth who sent the greater force. After some valiant but futile fighting, Maitimo’s troops had been defeated, butchered like livestock, and Maitimo had been captured. He had, it was said, been taken to Angband, and hung from the face of Thangorodrim.

Macalaurë’s scream of horror, betrayal and grief had been a terrible thing to hear. It was more than his strange, precarious mind could bear, and so it took flight into memory, ushering with it the secret friends as its only companions. It vainly tried to retreat among stolen kisses in stables long ago and playful afternoons with his brother under Laurelin’s beloved light. It attempted to seek solace in the music room of his childhood, among swirling melodies as a much younger Maitimo looked on with a warm smile.

Time lost meaning - Macalaurë never cared to ask how long the madness lasted. The cycles of respite in illusion and hallucination followed by awareness only of pain, shouting voices in his head and vision after vision of Maitimo crying, bleeding and suffering were impossible to count. He sometimes had the most peripheral awareness of food being coaxed between his lips, and at those times the secret friends yelled at him, scolding him for allowing it. But all he could do was protest with a soft mewling; his tongue would not let him speak.

Days , nights - they became continuous and unreckonable ; he was confined by his brothers to a makeshift cottage for his own safety, after initial frenzied attempts to break away and run - always north. They had given him bedding, initially, and a few simple comforts, but he ignored them. Eventually, the room’s only feature was a circular track in the centre, worn by Macalaurë’s continual pacing. If anyone tried to stop his movements, he was told later that he clawed at them, in terror rather than true aggression, and would only settle when his feet hit the familiar rut of the circle once again.

He recalled none of this for himself. All he knew of that time was that the secret friends gradually became his enemies, a ceaseless clamour of voices casting blame on him and tormenting him with commentary on distant tortures. His mind was at other times filled with memories, wrapped in shredded fragments of half-finished songs, tunes he had been inspired to begin by something Maitimo had once said or done. Although apparently he blinked when fingers were waved before his eyes, he never saw them, only Maitimo’s face, drawn and grey, skeletal with staring, desperate eyes. Some nights, even when the weather was warm, he would shake violently with chill and stumble, falling to the ground, only to scrabble in the dust until he found his feet once again and resumed the endless circle.

***

A long time later, when Arien trekked across the sky by day and Tilion by night, the circle was broken. Macalaurë felt something release inside him, some shackle of insanity and hopelessness fall, leaving a small tendril of his mind free to look out, tentatively, and rediscover the world that lay beyond its chaotic prison. Deep in some recess of his thoughts he had heard a clang of metal against metal and now, with a scream, blinding pain shot through his arm and he fell to the dust. This time he did not try to get up; and so it was curled up in the circular furrow his frantic pacing had created that his brothers found him later, shaking and mumbling incoherently, holding conversations with himself. “Hush,” Ambarussa tried to tell him, picking out a few words from his brother’s nonsense. “Yes, Findekáno, how did you know? He came here, across the Grinding Ice. They say he has gone to rescue Maitimo. Try to hope, dear brother…”

“Maitimo is dead!” Macalaurë screamed the words, voice rough and brittle from disuse. He did not even believe the words - that was the worst thing. He knew his brother was alive, but to imagine all the tortures inflicted upon Maitimo - leering, hideous faces of Orcs, along with their implements to cause suffering, had haunted his thoughts since the day Maitimo was captured - was more than his fragile mind could bear. To fool himself into believe his brother was dead, safe and calm under the care of Mandos who, for all his bitterness, would not harm the fëa of an Elf entrusted to him… It was simpler. “He is dead!”

“He lives…” Ambarussa tried to argue. “Findekáno insists that he lives, even when our hope had been lost.” But the protests were in vain and soon he gave up, holding Macalaurë until the trembling ceased and then taking his brother’s hand. The two of them walked into the castle-keep, hand in hand, Ambarussa slowing his stride to match Macalaurë’s weary shuffle.

Macalaurë’s eyes grew wide at the sights outside, so long forgotten, and he blinked in the sun’s harsh light. This was the first time he had seen the flowers of Endor under sunlight; their clean colours and sharp shadows felt uncomfortably alien to him, utterly unlike the velvety delicacy of petals in Aman under the Trees’ light. The brightness around him - refreshing and yet, in his mind, hostile - was waking dormant corners of his mind. Songs spilled from his lips, tangled together, but they were not the joyous celebrations of life that such a vista might have triggered in any other. All Macalaurë was able to produce were haunting laments, pain-wracked and tormented. Even the flight of two butterflies inspired nothing in him than frail notes, ruing the shortness of their lives and their ignorance of his homeland. He closed his eyes, frustrated and anguished.

He allowed his brothers to assign him a proper room now, with a bed and all the expected comforts, but he was indifferent to most of them. “My flute. Where is my flute?” he demanded, caring about little else until it was brought to him. Ambarussa explained patiently that he had watched over that, and some of Maitimo’s most treasured possessions, ever since their father’s death.

“Maitimo is dead!” Macalaurë insisted once more at the mere mention of his dearest brother’s name. It was to become a familiar cry - the other sons of Fëanáro learned within the first few hours to avoid speaking of Maitimo, as the reaction each time was the same.

Macalaurë had grown pale and haggard since his brother’s capture, his eyes staring and his hair dull and untamed. He did not care. He ate when forced to, but he would not sleep even now. Instead, he spent his days sitting on the window seat in his room, bare feet resting against one side of the little bay, back against the other, composing song after song in lamentation. Never before had he been so productive. The room was soon littered with scribblings - his brothers supplied parchment and ink whenever he ran out, after the first time Macalaurë reached the bottom of his pile of sheets and resorted instead to writing his songs on the undecorated walls of the room. The songs had to come out. They had spent years stagnating, slowly growing out of sight and awareness, whilst Macalaurë paced that continual circle in his hut. Now they spilled out on to any available surface and, as they did so, were slowly pulling Macalaurë’s thoughts back into order and lucidity; not that his brothers would have agreed, seeing no outward change in his demeanour.

A few days later, Ambarussa knocked. He always knocked, as a courtesy. Macalaurë never answered the knock - mostly, he did not even notice - so after a moment, as ever, Ambarussa opened the door anyway. His auburn head poked into the room. “There is someone who wishes very much to see you,” he stated gently, voice soft and kind and sad, as always.

“My brother is dead!” Macalaurë replied angrily.

Ambarussa flinched as if hi t ; Macalaurë froze. “I never said it was your brother, Fey One…” He spoke the name fondly, but there was a slight quaver in it too in reaction to Macalaurë’s foreknowledge of the visitor.

Another voice spoke, this one deeper, but crackly, like dry leaves underfoot, and parched like a riverbed under the searing heat of that sun… In the years to come, Macalaurë never did completely rid himself of that sense of lingering resentment towards the sun. “No, dear little fey one, I am not dead. Though I hear it was not just you who thought I was…”

Maitimo leaned heavily on the broad shoulders of his cousin Findekáno, ever a dear friend to him. The clothes he wore were the plain, poorly-fitting garments given out by healers to invalids in their care, making him shapeless and colourless, except for his hair. He moved with a laboured shuffling gait, and one arm was almost invisible, entombed in bandages and supported in a sling. None of that, however, mattered to Macalaurë. The parchment in his hands fell to his lap, and an ink drop from his quill hit his thigh, the stain spreading outwards in a dark circle through the pale blue fabric. “My brother is dead…” he whispered, almost a plea.

Findekáno helped his tall cousin to cross the room - it took a while, and Maitimo stood on several parchments, not in any condition to hop and jump over the sheets. His face was pale and his was somewhat out of breath as he squeezed on to the edge of the window seat with his brother. Slowly, he stretched out his free hand to finger Macalaurë’s tousled, unbrushed hair. “You say it as if you wish it were true.”

Macalaurë swallowed as he looked into those beautiful, calm eyes. Maitimo had always taken the time to understand him, no matter how obtuse his thoughts. For the first time in so very long, he attempted to explain himself. “I…you…every time I felt what was happening to you…the pain and fear…all teeth and chains…” None of it was very coherent; his memories made no sense even to him, and he struggled to separate reality from illusion. A few times he slipped up, attempting to describe scenes that he only recognised as implausible several seconds later. “…but you hurt so much!” he concluded helplessly. “So much pain and hopelessness. I could not bear for you to hurt so much! Better that you were dead. I wished you to be free of the pain, and there is no pain for dead.” He closed his eyes tightly as Maitimo’s arm pulled him close, and he breathed in old, familiar scents of his brother’s skin and hair.

“Dear, dear Macalaurë,” Maitimo murmured. His voice was thick with sadness. “If what you felt was truly what I knew… If our places were reversed… Valar, I think I would be wishing for death for you, too. I begged for it for myself, once or twice, while I was his prisoner - I am not too proud to admit that.”

Macalaurë opened his eyes again, to see Findekáno nod agreement. His expression was grave and sympathetic; his face had a harder set to it than Macalaurë remembered from the days before the Kinslaying.

One of the hated voices whispered to him, a reminder, and Macalaurë felt his expression shift to anger as he stared at his brother. “You broke your promise!” he accused, recoiling from his brother as his thoughts ordered themselves better and the realisation sank in. “You promised three times!”

“What did I promise?” Maitimo asked in reply. He looked tired, but no impatience crept into his tone.

“To come back! I waited and waited for you to come back, but you did not…” He tilted his head, the obviousness dawning on him. “I suppose, in the end, you have come back, really…”

“I came as soon as I could.” Maitimo held his brother as tightly as his injuries would permit. “Each day the Orcs paraded out to inspect me, hanging there, taunting me and taking bets on whether I had finally given up overnight and found a way to die up there. But I refused to give them that entertainment. I clung to life, because I would not break my promise to you any more than I can break the cursed Oath of the Silmarilli. I have come back, though it took longer than I meant it to.”

Macalaurë nodded, making a tiny choking sound. “For me…” Then, heedless of the others present, he kissed his brother with all the devotion he possessed.

Maitimo kissed back with barely a hesitation. His lips were dry and thin from his torment, but the kiss was no less sweet or soft. Had Arda ended right then, Macalaurë would have wanted for nothing. It was perfect.

The voices, as always, retreated when he kissed Maitimo. But this time, Macalaurë did not permit them to return immediately after. Imaginary faces of invisible companions who had once been his only friends seemed to fade and crumble, their chatter dying away. He was ready to let them go now, think without their dubious help. He felt empty, for a few moments, but he kissed Maitimo once more, deeply and not at all platonically, and the emptiness filled with warmth, love and life.

Findekáno was staring, expression shocked from then suddenness of the gesture, but at the same time not overly surprised. Ambarussa did not even show shock; having seen how the loss of his brother sent Macalaurë into helpless turmoil, he must have guessed at their closeness. He averted his eyes, so none of the others saw the painful memories of his own and a faint nostalgic air that came over him. Thus, for the first time, the secret was released - but neither Ambarussa nor Findekáno condemned or disowned them for it.

Wordlessly, Fëanáro’s two eldest sons looked at each other. It was Maitimo who finally broke the silence. “I have something else for you,” he whispered. He let go of Macalaurë and reached into a fold of his loose tunic, taking out a plain flute made from some kind of terracotta. Its make was comparatively crude, but there was a sense of love in the craftsmanship. Maitimo glanced over his shoulder at his cousin, offering Findekáno a smile, before he turned back to Macalaurë to watch his brother inspect the instrument. “Findekáno tells me he was given it by some Men he befriended in the North. When he showed it to me, I said he should give it to you. Your collection needs to start again, after all.”

“That would be…wonderful,” Macalaurë agreed. He placed the instrument to his lips and played a few experimental notes. The sound was not sweet and pure like that of his other flute, but hollow, haunting and earthy. It suited his mood and their new life well, he thought. “Thank you, brother. It is a perfect start. I will have to play it properly for you-” he looked his brother over, only now taking in Maitimo’s appearance properly, the gauntness, the bandages “-while you recover from your injuries. I will stay by you and keep you company for as long as you will stand me.” His fingers started to trace his brother’s face, the strong angles of cheekbones and jaw. “I can read to you while you rest, and sing to you in the afternoons, or just talk if you prefer - or sit quietly and just be near you.” He smiled lovingly. “I could even sit on the end of your bed at mealtimes, and eat with you.” Happiness flowed through him; the future was shadowed, but with Maitimo here now, things felt right again.

“I would welcome all of that,” Maitimo replied with a smile that reflected his sincerity completely. But he was showing signs of tiring now; his skin seemed, if anything, greyer than when he had first arrived. Findekáno smiled and urged him to consider returning to bed now. “I suppose so,” Maitimo agreed, a little grudgingly and with a wry grin at Macalaurë. His fingers were still interlaced with his brother’s, even as Findekáno helped him to his feet. Maitimo swayed slightly as he stood, Macalaurë noticed, and narrowed his eyes in concern, but Maitimo shrugged it off and steadied himself. “Macalaurë, will you join me in a few minutes, after the healers have changed my bandages? I missed you - it seems a shame to pass up any time with you now. I will probably be asleep, but I would like you there even so.”

Macalaurë nodded straight away in reply. “I can think of nothing in all the lands under this new sun that I would like better.” He had his mind, he had his brother. The Oath and its Doom hung like a dark curtain on the edge of his mind but it was, for now, distant. “I love you more than anything.”

“I love you too, my beloved little fey one,” Maitimo replied fondly, as Findekáno and Ambarussa escorted him out.

The door closed. Macalaurë picked up his new flute, laying it on an otherwise empty shelf next to his other instrument, and then looked around the simple, comfortable room that apparently was his home now, for the first time absorbing all, the details with his usual meticulous eye, counting the cracks in the plaster walls and memorising the pattern of knots on the wooden floorboards beneath his feet. In spite of this fastidious observation, his true focus was elsewhere completely - inward, on a single thought.

“My brother is not dead. He is here.”

*****

THE END

If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to: Enismirdal

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