A Hundred Miles Through the Desert - Chapter Twenty Four

[starspray]

Fandom: Tolkien
Rating: T
Characters: Sons of Feanor, Elrond, Feanor, Daeron, various others
Warnings: n/a
Summary: After years in Lórien, Maglor and Maedhros are ready to return to their family and to make something new with their lives--but to move forward, all of Fëanor's sons must decide how, or if, they can ever reconcile with their father.
Note: This fic is a direct sequel to High in the Clean Blue Air. 

Prologue / Previous Chapter / Next Chapter

 

Having decided between the two of them that morning that Amrod would go to get some of the supplies they needed for their return to the mountains, Amras went to their old house alone. They’d fallen very quickly into the routine of helping Fëanor clear out the property. There was no particular hurry, and Fëanor seemed intent on taking his time, doing things properly—maybe delaying the time when he had to start really thinking about tearing down the walls. Curufin had spoken of this project months before as something Fëanor was doing just to be doing something, but Amras thought it was more than that, even if he still couldn’t guess what. Fëanor had offered no explanation, and Amras found himself reluctant to ask. 

He walked through the empty house, or at least the ground floor of it, since the stairs looked rather precarious. There was the dining room and the receiving rooms and parlors; there was the bright music room with two walls entirely made of windows—all open, now, the glass long-since broken—where Maglor had kept a small orchestra’s worth of instruments, as well as his writing desk and his collection of quill pens. Amras remembered being delighted with them as a child because they were of all different colors and sizes, had loved being lifted up onto Maglor’s lap so he could play with them while his brother worked, as long as he was very careful. Maglor had liked elaborate and beautiful and sometimes gaudy things, back then—so different from his almost austere habits now. 

Amras passed through the kitchen and the room he remembered as a schoolroom but which might have been a workroom just rearranged for his and Amrod’s use, and paused there to run his fingers over some clumsy drawings on the walls, preserved by virtue of being tucked away in a sheltered corner away from windows or doors, having escaped everyone’s notice somehow. There were little stick-figure people lined up, seven in descending order of height—Caranthir was taller than Celegorm in reality, but older had meant taller to Amras when he’d been very young and small—and two even taller figures for their parents. He crouched down to find his own clumsy child’s handwriting underneath the figures, scribbled tengwar that was meant to spell out all their names. He’d only gotten through Nelyo and Cáno and Telk— before getting interrupted. Most likely someone had come by and nearly caught them drawing on the walls. 

“Ambarussa?” Fëanor called from the hallway. “Are you here?”

“In here, Atya,” Amras said over his shoulder. Fëanor soon appeared in the doorway. 

“What are you looking at?” Fëanor stepped over some broken plaster to kneel beside Amras. He laughed a little, quietly. “Did you do this?”

“Yes,” Amras said, grinning at him. 

“Did you not have enough paper for drawing?”

“Oh, but that wasn’t as much fun as doing something we knew we shouldn’t.” Amras got to his feet. Fëanor ran his fingers over the drawings before also rising. “Did you see Cáno this morning?”

“Yes.” Fëanor’s smile faded away. 

“How did it go?”

“Better than the last time,” Fëanor said. Amras thought he meant to sound wry, but it didn’t really work. “We spoke of your grandfather. It was…it was always going to be difficult.”

“Do you feel better for it?” Amras asked. 

“I feel better for having seen your brother, and spoken to him without either of us upsetting the other. Speaking of brothers, where is Amrod?”

“Shopping,” said Amras. “We’re going to go back home soon. Do you want to come?”

“Come—where, home with you? To your mother’s…?”

“No, to our house, up in the mountains. It’s south of Imloth Ningloron. You don’t have to stay long if you decide it’s too quiet for you. There’s plenty of time yet before the first snows cut off all the roads.”

Fëanor looked away, back down at the drawings on the wall. “Let me think on it,” he said finally. “When will you leave?”

“Oh, a few days, a week, two weeks. It doesn’t much matter, though it drives Curvo a bit mad that he can never guess when we come or go. It’s not as though we have anything particularly urgent awaiting us. Did you want to do any work here today?” Amras thought Fëanor did not seem in the mood for doing much of anything. Talking of Finwë—talking to Maglor—seemed to have drained him, and he looked tired, worn out as though he’d already done a full day’s work of digging up crabapple saplings and runaway ivy vines.

“I had planned…” Fëanor began, but in the time it took him to reply Amras had already made up his mind. 

“No you don’t,” he said, and grabbed Fëanor’s arm. “Come on. We’ll find Amrod and maybe steal Curvo’s girls and go riding outside the city.”

“Steal Curvo’s—?!” Fëanor began, incredulous, even as he allowed himself to be dragged out of the house. 

“They’ll love it, and maybe Curvo will come too! Then it won’t be stealing.”

As they turned onto Curufin’s street, Amras glimpsed Maedhros stepping out of Curufin’s workshop with Celebrimbor and Elessúrë. Maedhros glanced their way and immediately stepped back inside. Amras hadn’t known that he would be there, but that seemed like a very foolish mistake, suddenly. Of course his brothers would be around, with all of them in Tirion. Celegorm would be at the palace with Maglor, but the rest were as likely to be at Curufin’s house as Lisgalen’s, just a few doors down. Still, it was too late to turn back now, so he just put on a smile and pretended he hadn’t seen Maedhros at all. 

“Hullo, Tyelpë!” he said as he and Fëanor reached Celebrimbor and Elessúrë. “Good morning, Elessúrë!”

“Good morning, Cousin,” said Elessúrë, who Amras was almost certain did not quite know how to tell himself and Amrod apart. “Good morning, Uncle.”

“Hello, Grandfather,” said Celebrimbor. “What brings you two here?”

“We’re going riding outside the city,” Amras said. “Is Amrod back yet? And do you think your sisters would like to join us?”

“Náriel’s getting to spend the morning with Atya in the forge,” said Celebrimbor, “and there’s nothing in the world that could drag her away from that, but Calissë would love to go, I’m sure.” He disappeared into the house to look for Calissë, while Elessúrë remained outside to chat with them about the holiday, and about his own work in the quarries just north of the Calacirya. Fëanor’s mood lifted as they spoke, which Amras was gratified to see even though he had no knowledge of and even less interest in quarrying stone. 

Celebrimbor returned with Calissë, who hurled herself out of the door into Fëanor’s arms with a gleeful squeal. He lifted her up onto his hip, and some of the weight he seemed to have been carrying since his conversation with Maglor fell away as he kissed her hello. “Do you want to come too?” Amras asked Celebrimbor and Elessúrë.

“I have a commission to finish,” Celebrimbor said.

“And I’ve made plans with Russandol and Carnistir,” said Elessúrë. Amras wasn’t quite sure if he knew the extent of the tension in their family; if he did know, he did a very good job of pretending not to. “And there is Ambarussa,” he added, nodding down the street.

Amras turned and waved. “Amrod!” he called. “We’re going out riding, hurry up!”

“When did we decide that?” Amrod demanded as he joined them, arms full of packages. “Hullo, Atya.”

“Ten minutes ago,” said Amras.

“All right, just give me two minutes.”

“You two really are terrible at planning,” Celebrimbor said. 

“We are excellent at planning,” Amras said. “It’s not our fault none of the rest of you can keep up.” That got Fëanor to laugh, and Amras felt absurdly pleased with himself for it. 

It was a beautiful day, perfect for racing across the fields outside of Tirion. They taught Calissë a few new tricks in the saddle, and picnicked out among the wildflowers, and did not talk again of Finwë or of their other brothers. By the time they returned to Curufin’s house it was getting late, and Calissë was tired enough that Fëanor had her on his saddle, an arm around her waist as she slumped back against him. They parted at the stables, Fëanor to return to the palace and Amrod and Amras to take Calissë home. As he transferred Calissë into Amras’ arms, Fëanor said quietly, “Do you really want me to go away to the mountains with you?”

“Yes, Atya,” said Amrod. “We really do.”

“Then I’ll come.” He offered a small smile. “Only give me more than ten minutes’ warning. Half an hour, at least.”

“I think we can probably give you a full hour,” said Amras. “It won’t be for some days yet, though. Will we see you tomorrow?”

“If you like, though I don’t think I’ll go back to the house.”

Amrod and Amras dined with Curufin, and joined by Maedhros and Caranthir. Afterward Amras left for Finrod’s house. He found Daeron and Celegorm talking together in the library. “Where’s Cáno?” he asked.

“Upstairs, working his song,” Daeron said. “He won’t mind if you interrupt.”

“Thanks. Is he all right?”

“He says he is,” said Celegorm, “but you know how that goes.”

“I do, yes,” Amras said, raising an eyebrow at him, because Celegorm could be just as bad as Maglor in that regard and he knew it. Celegorm scowled, and Amras left Daeron to deal with it. 

He found Maglor in his bedroom, sitting cross-legged on the bed with papers spread around him, chewing on the end of a pencil. “Hullo, Ambarussa,” he said, glancing up. “Is everything all right?”

“You tell me.” Amras moved some of the papers so he could sit on the bed too. “You talked a lot about Finwë today.”

“I did.” Maglor sighed and gathered up the rest of the papers. “It’s…hard. Every time. It’s harder here in Tirion, which I suppose I should have expected. Foolish not to.”

“What about Atya?”

“That…went better than I feared.” Maglor set the papers on the nightstand and turned to put an arm around Amras. “I heard you dragged him out of the city afterward.”

“He needed cheering up, but he said he was glad to have spoken to you. And he agreed to go home with us.”

“Good.” Maglor rested his head on Amras’ shoulder. “I haven’t had enough time to think about it or decide how I really feel yet, besides exhausted, and Celegorm and Elrond spent all evening hovering…”

“Do you want me to leave?”

“No. Is Amrod here?”

“No, he’s at Curvo’s. Are you tired because of Atya or because of everything else?”

“Yes.” Maglor was silent for a while. Amras tugged him over so they were both lying down, and then just waited. He traced the patterns carved into the plaster of the ceiling—Dwarvish in design, unsurprisingly; he suspected Nargothrond had sported the same motifs—and listened to the quiet music of a fountain outside and below in the garden somewhere. Finally, Maglor sighed, breath ghosting over Amras’ arm. “My hand hurt when I first saw him, but he also took me by surprise, and it didn’t last very long—it wasn’t quite as bad as before, either.”

“That’s good,” Amras murmured. He took Maglor’s hand to look at the scars for himself. They were pale and smooth and, well, scars. They did not seem to bother him at any other time, except that once he’d said his hand got stiff in the cold. “So it was just memory that made it burn, not Atya himself.”

“Yes, I think so. Atya’s just the source of all the memories. It was the same with…some of my other scars. They would hurt when I was reminded of what happened.” Amras thought that Maglor meant the brand upon his chest, in the shape of a large, lidless eye, which they had all seen but never spoke of. He had many other scars, but none quite like that. Maglor went on, “I don’t feel angry anymore. I just…I feel rather like I did when I saw Maedhros by Ekkaia.”

“You got past that,” Amras said.

“It took a very long time,” Maglor said, very softly. 

“What’s this bit in the middle of your hand?” Amras asked, as he rubbed his thumb over it. The scar seemed different there. 

“Mm?” Maglor lifted his head a little to see. “Oh, it’s nothing—”

“Did you injure it after you got burned?”

“No. Don’t worry about it, Amras.” Maglor pulled his hand free, closing his fingers over the scars. He sighed. “I don’t think I have it in me to speak to Atya again any time soon,” he said after a moment. “I need time to finish this song. Once it’s written and I…” he trailed off. “Once it’s written,” he repeated. “Then I can think about Atya again.”

Amras raised himself up on his elbow to frown down at Maglor, whose gaze was distant. He wasn’t lost in musical notes or lyrics, though—Amras knew what that looked like. This was something else, something too much like the way he’d sometimes stared off at nothing before he went to Lórien. “What’s the matter?” Amras asked, poking in him in between his eyes. Maglor blinked as he flinched back. “What about this song has you so worried?”

“It’s just…” Maglor faltered. “It’s so important.”

“If you cannot finish it, you cannot finish it. You said so yourself. No one will be upset with you if you can’t.”

“I’ve promised to perform it at Ingwë’s—”

“If it isn’t done, just sing something else. I’m sure Elemmírë won’t mind. Why give yourself such a deadline when no one else has?”

Maglor didn’t answer. He just sat up and reached for his notes. “It’s important,” he said again after a minute. “I have to finish it, and I have to—I have to sing it.”

“You know Finwë won’t care,” Amras said. They’d had a similar conversation before, about burials. Maglor and Maedhros had both felt horribly guilty about not being able to properly bury any of their people after Sirion, including Ambarussa, but the dead didn’t care—they were gone already. Funerals were for the living. There was grief in not being able to dig a grave or build a cairn, or even to make a song or find proper words, but Amras did not think there should be guilt. “Cáno…”

“I care,” Maglor said, as he rearranged the papers in his hands. His hair fell lose around his shoulders, and when he bent his head forward it fell like a curtain between him and Amras, him and the rest of the world. That was also a habit he had seemed to leave behind in Lórien. Amras did not like seeing it return.

“Cáno,” Amras said again, reaching out to draw his hair back. “What’s wrong? You’re not acting like yourself. Or rather, you are acting like yourself, but not yourself since you came back from Lórien.”

Maglor didn’t look up, but his hands stilled in shuffling the papers. “We spoke of the Darkening,” he said. “Atya and me. And then I spoke to Turgon, and…my thoughts are dark tonight, Amras, but it will pass.”

“Are you sure?”

“If not tonight, then when I finish this song.” Maglor set the papers aside and turned to embrace Amras, holding on tightly. “If I ask you not to worry, will you listen?”

“No.”

“I didn’t think so. When you see Atya next, will you give him a message from me?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Tell him my continuing avoidance isn’t because of him—because of anything he said today, I mean. He didn’t do anything wrong. There is just too much yet between us that I do not have the heart to think about or speak of. Not yet.”

“All right. I’ll tell him.”

Amras left Maglor to his songwriting, and went back downstairs. By that time Elrond had joined Daeron and Celegorm. “What’s so important about this song?” he asked them. “Maglor’s acting like the world will end if he doesn’t finish it.”

“It’s the first major song he’s written in a very long time,” Elrond said after a moment in which he exchanged a glance with Daeron. “And there is the fact that both Indis and Míriel have asked it of him.”

“Yes, but he wasn’t acting like this in the beginning. Did something happen after we left?”

“No,” said Daeron, but Amras didn’t believe him.

“He’s starting to fall back into old habits,” Amras said. “Little ones, but not good ones.” 

Elrond frowned, and Daeron rose from his seat. “If he is troubled, it is only temporary,” he said firmly. “I won’t tell you not to worry, but only because more useless words have never been uttered among this family.” He gripped Amras’ shoulder for a moment before disappearing up the stairs. 

Amras crossed his arms and turned to Celegorm, but Celegorm shook his head. He had Pídhres on his lap; Huan had not come to Tirion with them, having apparently gone off on some errand or adventure of his own. “Don’t look at me, Ambarussa. Are you sure it’s not just his meeting with Atar?”

“I am.”

“Maglor has always had a tendency,” said Elrond, “of burying things down deep—things that hurt, dark memories or old griefs. That was part of the trouble he had upon coming to these shores: they were all unburied at once, and he could not push them away again.”

“Us, you mean,” said Celegorm.

“Yes, and all of the old things associated with how he lost you. He is stronger now, and has learned better habits, but it seems that Finwë’s death is not a thing he has yet addressed. Now this song is forcing it upon him—upon all of Finwë’s house, really, but Maglor is the one most immersed in it. He isn’t alone, however. I am not worried—not yet, at least. He isn’t alone, and he isn't trying to run away from it.”

“Would you tell us if you were worried?” Amras asked.

“Yes, of course,” said Elrond. That, at least, Amras believed. 

The next day he went to find Fëanor in his own workshop at the palace, engaged in the very delicate and time-consuming work of stringing together many tiny golden links into a necklace chain. It was part of an elaborate and intricate looking piece, a drawing of which was on the nearby drafting table. “That’s going to be very pretty when it’s done,” said Amras, peering at it. “Who is it for?”

“No one in particular,” said Fëanor, which Amras took to really mean Nerdanel, except that Fëanor would not actually give it to her; Curufin had told Amras once that Fëanor had a small chest of such pieces in his rooms, slowly filling with jewels and rings and other such ornaments. Neither he nor Nerdanel ever spoke of the other, and Amras didn’t know if they spoke to each other with any frequency either. Nerdanel had once said she would not have Fëanor in her house again while her children were so troubled—which had, of course, really meant while Maedhros was so troubled. As far as Amras knew, that had extended into the years when Maedhros had been gone, even when Caranthir started to spend more time in Tirion or Imloth Ningloron. Fëanor did not look up or stop what he was doing, but he hadn’t sounded annoyed at the interruption, so Amras dragged over a stool to sit across the workbench from him. There were a few bowls of glittering gemstones there, and he picked through them idly. “Is this my hour’s notice?” Fëanor asked.

Amras laughed. “No—I promise, we’ll give you more than an hour. Maglor asked me to pass on a message.”

At that Fëanor did stop his work, and looked up with a guarded expression. “Yes?”

“It’s not bad,” Amras said. “He said to tell you that he’s going to go back to avoiding you, more or less, but that it’s not because of you. You didn’t say or do anything wrong yesterday—he wanted me to make sure you knew that. He just can’t think about anything else while he’s got this song all in his head. He doesn’t feel as though he can have another heavy sort of conversation yet.”

“…Oh,” Fëanor said, so softly Amras almost didn’t hear. 

“He’s talking about it like it’s terribly important, this song,” Amras said, “and acting like it troubles him horribly.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve been told not to worry by both Daeron and Elrond, and aside from Nelyo they know Cáno best,” Amras said, aware that speaking Daeron’s name might be treading on unsteady ground, but Fëanor didn’t so much as blink at it. “But he was very unhappy last night. But again,” he added quickly, “he told me to tell you that it’s not because of you. When this song is all done with and he’s performed it either here in Tirion or at Ingwë’s party, or wherever it’s wanted, he’ll be able to turn his mind to other things.”

Fëanor’s smile was rueful. “I understand that, Telvo,” he said. “You don’t need to make excuses to me for a craftsman’s focus upon his work. It is important, this song, and he should be giving it all of his attention.”

“Oh. I suppose that is it, isn’t it?” Amras didn’t usually equate Maglor’s songwriting to craft, since he did it almost entirely in his head and very rarely got so consumed by it. Amras was no real craftsman himself—he liked making things, but it never absorbed all of his attention in such a way. “Usually such things aren’t so…” He tried to think of a good word—but he didn’t have the talent for those either, the way his father and some of his brothers did. “Unhappy,” he settled on. 

“The subject is not a happy one. I hope this will be the last song your brother writes of its kind,” Fëanor said. 

“He has said it will be. Would you like me to carry any message back to him for you?”

Fëanor smiled again and shook his head as he picked up his pliers. “You don’t need to be playing messenger between us. I will see Cáno again when he is ready. Just knowing that he wants to speak again is enough.”