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Adrift  by Aldwen

Maedhros

I am weary, as weary as I have not been for a very long time. My brother fears for me; I see it in his concerned gaze. Regardless of his own grief, Maglor still finds time and strength to worry about me. Like he has always done, since Mithrim.

I have not slept since the arrival of the messenger, maybe in a partially acknowledged hope that weariness might somewhat dull my despair. That is five days now, and that hope has proved false. My weariness is of heart, not of body.

Elrond and Elros had been away hunting until this evening when they returned at last, drenched by the rain and exhausted, yet glad. I had been thankful for their absence, hoping that it would help us to prepare ourselves for what we must do. That, too, proved false, and if they did not notice Maglor’s sorrow and my weariness, it is merely because they were themselves so tired.

They sleep now, after a hot bath and a good supper – the last night of peace they will spend under this roof. They sleep, but I stand upon the wall gazing westward at the sloping hills and darkening sky. The rain has abated, the wind has swept away the clouds, Gil-Estel slowly nears the horizon, and I wonder again, as so many times before, whether that is in truth a ship that now carries the Silmaril, and whether Elros and Elrond’s father is indeed steering it. And if so, what would he do if he knew the destiny of his sons…? I shall likely never learn that.

My thoughts are interrupted by footsteps on the stone; I turn and see my brother approaching.

“Maedhros, you must rest.” Worry is plain in Maglor’s eyes.

I shake my head.

“But…”

“You have not slept much either, have you?” I interrupt him.

For several nights in a row, I have seen my brother in the library, frantically scribbling something in a leather-bound notebook.

“I…”

He falls silent, and I do not press him with questions. We stand side by side, drawing some comfort from each other’s presence. The sky is dark and the stars bright when Maglor finally speaks.

“I cannot believe they have grown so swiftly,” he quietly says. “It seems to me only yesterday when they saw Himring for the first time.”

I smile, recalling our arrival. “Elrond at once wanted to see all books we have. Elros demanded that we go fishing.”

“You handled that well enough, I think.” My brother laughs softly.

I had taken the boys to the library and given them a book with pictures of fish that live in Endor, along with a promise that someone will make fishing rods tomorrow. In a short while they had both been soundly asleep on the window seat.

That was nearly fourteen years ago now. What is fourteen years? A grain of sand, a droplet of water. So little. And so much. In fourteen years the tiny boys have grown into young men – tall, fair of face, strong of body, swift of mind. I feel a sudden surge of pride. We raised them so. We cared for them. We gave them everything we could.

Everything you could? whispers a cold, mocking voice in the corner of my mind. Indeed? What of their true family? What of the truth? Could you not give them at least the truth? And I have no reply to that voice. My pride is at once burned away, turned to ashes, like the grass that once grew on the choking wasteland of Anfauglith. We shall give them the truth now, but we cannot change the past. What is done, is done.

Either I have said it aloud, or Maglor is simply aware of my thoughts.

“Yes,” he says with a sigh. “What is done, is done, and maybe you were right in cautioning me then. But I still refuse to believe that our decision was wholly evil. I want to hope that they would take some good memories along as they leave.”

I smile faintly at my brother’s hope. I have not the heart to say what I think – that suffering and anger may overshadow even the fairest recollections. Not merely overshadow but change. Sometimes I wonder how others remember things, what their memories are like. For me, remembering has been like walking barefoot over shattered glass, ever since we stood in the torch-lit square of Tirion.

With time, I have learned to disregard the memories, to silence the voices of regret and anguish, to hide them behind a mask of calm determination. Yet they would still surface from time to time, these shards. Some have blunted over the years, but others still cut as sharply and deeply as before, and those that cut the deepest are not the evil ones. It is not the torchlight reflected on our mother’s terrified face after we had spoken the Oath. It is not the disbelief in the eyes of the young Telerin archer, the first one who fell by my hand in Alqualondë. It is not the acrid smoke rising towards the starless sky at Losgar. It is neither the pain and humiliation, nor the mocking faces of Orcs and the cold laughter or Morgoth. No, the fair memories are the ones that keep me awake at night, that make me clench my teeth and press my face into the pillow to keep quiet anguished sobs. Mother’s song. Smiles on the faces of my brothers and Fingon - my brother in all but blood. Dances and laughter, gold and silver Light shimmering upon yellow flowers entwined in golden braids. Blossoming apple and cherry trees on the shores of Mithrim. Everything good and fair I once had known and shall never know again. These are the shards which do not blunt, and new ones are to join them tomorrow – joyful memories of the last fourteen years, as love in the eyes of the children we have raised will turn into hatred.

We should have sent them away long ago. But we failed to find the strength. I failed to find the strength. I was selfish. Their presence made me believe that there was still some remnant of love and kindness in my heart, something that merited the return of affection. And their presence healed my brother’s sorrow, a little. Or was that selfish, too, and seeing smile on Maglor’s face merely served to soften the edge of my own despair?

I turn towards my brother and see him looking at me, wide-eyed. Most of all this I had hidden from him before, but tonight I am too weary to guard my thoughts.

“Forgive me,” I say quietly.

That is all I can say, and that is so little. So little. For all this time Maglor has been beside me, his harp and his voice keeping Darkness at bay. The least I could do, until now, was to conceal from him the nothingness I bore within me. The torches in Tirion and Alqualondë burned away a part of what I was. Fires at Losgar claimed more. Angband took the rest, and the bright light of my spirit that some say to have seen was nothing more than the flame of despair, despair at the emptiness of my heart. All else has been deception.

“No,” Maglor whispers, “I do not believe you.” Even now he flees from the truth, seeking light where there is none, looking for spring flowers amid the fields of ice, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that our father’s accursed Oath is the only thing that saves me from falling apart, that keeps me alive. He shakes his head fiercely and clasps my hand. “That is not true, brother. I do not believe you.” His eyes gleam bright with tears.

I say no more, but link my fingers with his, and we stand on the wall in silence, together, until a faint light grows in the eastern sky.





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