Keep You Like an Oath - Chapter 4 - the only place that i call home

[starspray]

Fandom: Tolkien
Rating: M
Characters: Daeron, Maglor, Elrond, Celebrian, Erestor, Glorfindel
Warnings: Violence, Torture, Aftermath of Torture, whump
Summary: Maglor finds Daeron after he escapes from the Witch-king's clutches, wounded by a morgul blade and fading; they must reach Rivendell, as Arthedain and Cardolan burn. 

First Chapter / Previous Chapter

Odyssey on odyssey, and land over land
Creeping and crawling like the sea over sand
Still, I follow heart lines on your hand
And this fantasy, this fallacy, this tumbling stone
Echoes of a city that’s long overgrown
Your heart is the only place that I call home
Can I be returned?
- “Heartlines" by Florence + the Machine

- - 

 

It happened so quickly that Maglor didn’t have time to react, or even realize what was happening until he was halfway down the hill with someone on top of him, the pair of them nothing more than a tangle of limbs and dark hair and new bruises on top of old ones. He was stiff and sore and tired, too tired for this, and all he could think was that it served him right for letting his guard down—for believing that because no one else had ever come to this hillside, no one ever would. 

Then they rolled to a stop, and Maglor finally saw who it was that had attacked him, the dark eyes that blazed with ancient starlight, the sunkissed cheeks and strands of shadowy hair fallen loose of their braids. “What,” Daeron demanded, luminous in his fury, “is wrong with you?”

“Daeron…?” Maglor whispered. He strained against the hands around his wrists but Daeron’s grip was strong, and he was a heavy weight on top of Maglor—so different from the last time he’d seen him, barely able to open his eyes, deathly pale and almost ghostly. Maglor had gotten him to safety—giving him to Glorfindel had been almost as good as handing him over to Elrond himself—but he’d hardly dared to hope that he would make such a recovery, that he would find such healing this side of the Sea. “What…what are you doing here?”

“What are you doing here?” Daeron snapped back. “You just—you—” Words seemed to fail him; his face flushed, blotchy and red, and it was the most beautiful thing Maglor had ever seen. “You disappeared!”

“I didn’t,” Maglor said. “You just weren’t—”

“What would you call it then, when you go years receiving regular bits of news of someone and then all of a sudden it stops?” 

“Bits of—I sent no messages—”

“No, you didn’t!” Daeron’s grip on Maglor’s wrists was hard enough to bruise. “You never intended to go Rivendell at all, did you? You were just going to—”

“Of course I wasn’t, if I could avoid it,” Maglor said. He would have thought it was obvious that he couldn’t. Revealing himself to Glorfindel on the road was one thing—for Daeron’s sake, because there was no more time and no other choice. Surrendering himself to the mercy of any Noldor remaining in Middle-earth? That was something else entirely. It would only be worse if he went to Rivendell. He could not do that to Elrond.

His answer just seemed to enrage Daeron further. “Why not?”

“Why—you know what I am!” Maglor strained against Daeron’s grip again, but he was too tired and Daeron too strong. “Let me up.”

“No. Do you really think that Elrond would—”

“Elrond is not the only one that lives in that valley. I can’t—”

“Where did you go then, when you disappeared? It’s been months since we had any word of you causing trouble or leaving that stupid star—”

“That was meant for Angmar,” Maglor said, “not for—”

“What happened?”

“Nothing! I just—”

“Do not lie to me!”

“I nearly ran up against the Witch-king again,” Maglor said. He stopped trying to get free and let his head fall back onto the moss, feeling the damp soak into his hair, cold against his scalp. “I held him back at the bridge, but only because he wasn’t prepared to find anyone there that dared offer resistance, and he does not make the same mistake twice. When I left Arnor I fled west to the coast, and then I came south.” He had spent a few seasons on Himling Isle, out of anyone’s reach, letting himself be haunted by more familiar ghosts—the ones only he could see, that broke only his own heart. “Daeron, why did you come here?”

“The nightingales led me here,” Daeron said. 

“But what—why did you leave Rivendell? It’s still—”

Daeron growled through clenched teeth. “Oh, I cannot believe I missed you.” He released Maglor suddenly, getting to his feet. “What do you think I left Rivendell for?”

“If I knew, I wouldn’t need to ask,” Maglor said. He sat up, rubbing his wrists, and started when Daeron’s hand appeared in front of him. He looked up; Daeron was still scowling, but the angry flush was fading, and he seemed almost as tired as Maglor felt. “I don’t understand you at all,” Maglor said. He did not accept the hand up, not trusting himself to be able to let go afterward. Daeron had missed him, and Maglor was afraid to ask anything more, lest this strange scene reveal itself to be a dream, leaving him cold and alone back on Himling in the shadow of his brother’s crumbling walls.

“You saved my life,” Daeron said, letting his hand drop back to his side once they were both standing, facing one another.

“You don’t owe me anything for it,” Maglor said. 

“Yes, I do. And I owe Elrond, too. Bringing you back to Rivendell will pay both debts at once.”

Going to Rivendell—the idea hurt, clogging up his heart with fear and longing in equal measure. It was not a place for him—kinslayer, thief, murderer, Fëanor’s last son. It was a place of peace and shelter that Elrond had built out of the ashes of war, and Maglor could not go there just to ruin it.

“If you want to repay Elrond somehow, find another way. I’m not going to Rivendell.” Maglor turned away to pick up his pack, only to have half its meager contents spill out of a new rip in the bottom. He sighed. 

“We can argue about that later,” Daeron said after a moment. He knelt to help gather Maglor’s things, neither of them looking at the other. “Are you injured?”

“Only bruised.”

“I don’t mean—you said you encountered—him—again.”

“Oh. No—I nearly did, but I slipped away before anything happened.”

“He does not need to catch you to hurt you,” Daeron said quietly. “They call it the Black Breath in Rivendell.”

Maglor shook his head. He picked up the last of his things and rose to his feet again. “I’m fine, Daeron.” 

“Liar.”

Back at the cave, Maglor found a tidy little camp, with embers still glowing in the small fire pit. Daeron coaxed them back to full life as Maglor set his things down by the wall opposite of Daeron’s own things. His harp was still there, and he ran a hand over the case, relieved to have it back. It was cleaner than he would have expected. “I tuned it,” Daeron said, “but haven’t played.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you did.” Maglor didn’t open the case. He sat down and leaned against the wall, arms resting on his knees, and watched a nightingale flutter around a bush near the cave’s entrance. It settled on a branch and began to sing, a combination of its own song and theirs. “You still don’t remember teaching them that song?”

“I didn’t,” Daeron said. “I haven’t sung that song in years uncounted.”

“I have,” Maglor said softly, “but never to nightingales. They don’t usually come to the coast.”

“I asked Elrond about it. He did not recognize it.”

“No, I never sang it for him, or taught it to him.”

“Why not?”

“It’s—” Private. Precious. A knife between his ribs only only he got to twist. “I just didn’t.”

Once the fire was crackling cheerfully, Daeron disappeared. Maglor did not follow, just sat and watched the flames, feeling tired and bruised and unsure if he was glad that Daeron had come looking for him or not. He had missed him, and he’d worried, but the world had not grown any less dangerous. He said so, when Daeron returned with a pouch full of mushrooms, freshly washed. 

“It is less dangerous the farther south one goes,” Daeron said without looking at him as he dumped the mushrooms into a pan. What a strange reversal this was of the last time they’d been thrown together. “When I left Rivendell, Angmar had been beaten back as far as the Ettenmoors. Is there game in the hills here?”

“Yes.”

“Are you any good with a bow? I’m not—never have been.”

“I used to be,” Maglor said, “but I haven’t touched one since…I can’t remember when.” That was the case for so many things. “Do you make music again?”

“Some. Not where anyone else can hear.” Daeron set the pan over the flames and leaned back against the cave wall, facing Maglor. Neither of them looked directly at the other. The anger and shock had drained away, and now Maglor wasn’t sure what lay between them—something unnameable, uncertain. “Did you give me that flute on purpose?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Maglor sighed. “You know why.”

“Have the years robbed you of the ability to give a straight answer?” Daeron asked, annoyance sparking in his voice. “Answer me plainly. Why did you do any of it?”

“I already told you. Do you not remember?”

“Tell me again.”

“Maybe if you tell me plainly why you came looking for me. Do not say it is because you owe me a debt, because we both know that’s not true.”

Daeron did not answer for a long time. He stirred the mushrooms, and added water and other things from his supplies to turn them into some kind of stew. Finally he said, “When I woke in Rivendell, I did not know where I was, or how I had gotten there. I was alone, and I was afraid, and the clearest memory I had in my mind was of your face—and even that was hazy and strange, hard to tell if it was real or just a dream. When they told me you were not there, it was—” He fell suddenly silent. The silence stretched between them, broken only by the gentle simmer of the stew and the crackling of the flames. Outside the sun sank westward, the shadows lengthening. “It felt like I had had something precious within my grasp, only to have it ripped suddenly away just as I realized how important it was.” He looked up then, and his lips quirked in a very small smile at whatever he saw in Maglor’s face. “I thought you wanted me to stop hating you. Why do you look so surprised?”

“I want a lot of things I know I can never have,” Maglor said. 

Daeron moved, and the next thing Maglor knew he had his lap full and his arms around Daeron’s waist as Daeron’s fingers slid into his hair and Daeron’s lips crashed into his, all heat and something that almost tasted like desperation, like Daeron did not want to kiss him so much as devour him. Maglor wanted to let him. “One thing has always been true,” Daeron murmured against his mouth when they parted just enough to catch their breath. “Whether I have liked you or despised you, I have never been able to stop wanting you.” He drew back to meet Maglor’s gaze, eyes very dark, spots of color on his cheeks. “Now tell me plainly. Why did you swear that foolish oath?”

“You did not trust me,” Maglor said, arms tightening around Daeron of their own accord. “How was I to get you across the whole of Eriador if you did not believe that I wanted to help you?”

“You could have done it without binding yourself to—”

“What did I have to lose, besides you?”

Daeron’s fingers tightened in his hair, pulling his head back a little. Maglor was unable to suppress a small noise that probably should have been more embarrassing than it was. “Your life,” Daeron said, “your self. If the Witch-king had—”

“But he didn’t.”

“That only makes you lucky. Not less of a fool.” 

“I don’t think I’m lucky,” Maglor said quietly. “I think it is my fate to survive, whatever happens. Whether I want to or not.”

“Perhaps we are both so fated,” Daeron said. He kissed Maglor again, brief and hard, before releasing him and getting up to return to the fire. Maglor felt pathetically bereft without Daeron’s solid weight in his lap, and he drew his knees up to his chest again. “What is the real reason you do not want to go to Rivendell?” Daeron asked as he removed the pan of stew from the flames. It smelled earthy and rich, and Maglor became aware very suddenly of just how hungry he was. 

“I have no desire to be anyone’s prisoner,” he said, watching Daeron ladle the stew into two bowls—proper bowls, with proper spoons to go with them, “no matter how pretty the cage.” He didn’t think anyone else wanted that, either—it was better for everyone if he stayed away, if he chose his own sentence of lonely exile, and no one had to look at him or make any decisions about what should be done with him.

“Is that what you think Elrond will do? The boy you raised?”

“The boy I stole out of the home I set ablaze,” Maglor said. 

“Who plays the harp just like you, and wields the power of his voice in the same manner that you do,” Daeron said, and Maglor wondered if he knew what his words were doing, how much they hurt. “Who knows exactly what I left Rivendell for—who asked me to bring you back, or at least to tell you that if it is doubt of a welcome that keeps you away, you’re wrong.” 

Maglor’s eyes burned and he dropped his head into his arms.

“Why did you stay in the north?” Daeron asked, moving to sit beside Maglor again, setting the second bowl by Maglor’s feet.

Maglor did not raise his head. “Elrond had a brother, you know,” he said to his knees. “Elros. The first King of Númenor. The kings of Arnor and Gondor are of his line. Araphor—the king now in Fornost—he is so young. I couldn’t—I’d been wondering if I should go north even before I found you. Once I was there I couldn’t just do nothing.” The last time war had come to Eriador he had stayed far away—and his nephew had been slain, and Eregion razed. Maybe that would have happened anyway, but maybe he could have made some sort of difference, if he had just acted, even if no one ever knew. He had thought now that no one would know, no one but the Witch-king. The stars of his house had been meant as a taunt and a threat, a reminder that one member of Fëanor’s house lived yet. No one needed to know the fire of that house was reduced to embers.

Daeron leaned against him, head on Maglor’s shoulder. “You loved them, Elrond and Elros,” he said softly.

“Of course I did,” Maglor whispered.

“Why is it so hard to believe now that Elrond loves you still?”

Maglor didn’t answer. He just closed his eyes and and tried to count his breaths. “He sent you?” he asked finally.

“No. He did ask that I bring you back with me, if I could, when I told him what I was doing.” Daeron put his hand on Maglor’s arm. “You should eat. Come on—turnabout’s fair play. It’s my turn to bully you into eating and into coming with me back east.”

“Except I am not dying.”.

“Maybe not. But you are lonely and unhappy.”

“So too is water wet, and the sky blue.” That earned him a punch to the arm. Maglor flinched and lifted his head, surprised at the force of it. Daeron glared at him. “What was—”

“I am also lonely and unhappy, but I don’t want to be anymore. And—Elbereth help me—I want to learn how to be happy again with you.”

“But you know what—”

“Of course I know what you did. I know what I did, too.”

“You cannot compare your deeds to mine,” Maglor said. “You never—”

“I betrayed someone I loved,” Daeron said. “Twice. It is not the same in scale, but she still died. Maybe she would have met that same fate whatever happened—I don’t know—but it did not have to happen the way it did. Maybe I can find it in myself to let it go, now. Maybe you can find it in you to let it all go, too.”

“It isn’t that simple, Daeron,” Maglor said quietly.

“It is simple, even if it isn’t easy.” Daeron leaned against him again, turning his face into Maglor’s shoulder. Maglor leaned back without thinking, putting his arm around Daeron’s shoulders. “We have both of us been lonely wanderers for so long,” Daeron said. “I think perhaps we understand one another better than anyone else ever can.”

“Maybe,” Maglor said. It was true that he’d felt that kind of kinship from the moment they met, long ago at the Mereth Aderthad. It had been such a brief time, but he hadn’t needed any longer than that to feel seen and understood in a way he never had before. Having that ripped away had hurt just as badly as everything else that had happened afterward. But their paths had diverged long before he’d begun his own wanderings. Every step he took, especially after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, he had known was taking him farther and farther away from any hope of ever finding Daeron again, ever reconciling—just another stone atop the cairn of what might have been. 

“I know what you did long ago,” Daeron said, “but I also know what you have done since—what you have been doing.”

“I don’t think there’s anything I can do that will make up for all that I did, however many years might pass,” Maglor said. 

Daeron reached for his hand, the scarred one, and ran his fingers over them. “But this wound is healed, is it not? It is said the hands of the Enemy never did. And Elrond is counted among the Wise, and he would see you safe in his valley.”

“I don’t know—”

“We can keep arguing about it or you can eat.”

There was a joke to be made, probably, about Daeron trying to poison him, but Maglor couldn’t think of any words for it, and he didn’t even know if Daeron remembered how deep his distrust had run immediately after Maglor had pulled him out of the Baranduin. “Fine,” he sighed, and picked up the bowl. There was no hurry, he supposed. Rivendell wasn’t going anywhere, and it seemed that Daeron wasn’t either. Between the two of them they finished the stew, and Maglor took the pan and the bowls to wash them at the spring. He washed his face and drank a few deep draughts of the ice-cold water, too, before sitting back on his heels and looking up to watch the sky grow purple with the coming twilight in the shadow of the hill. 

Daeron sat just outside the cave when Maglor returned, flute in his hands. He began to play as Maglor put the dinner things away, the song quiet and lovely and haunting. Maglor couldn’t remember when he’d last been the audience rather than the one playing. He sat just inside the cave. The stars came out as Daeron played, twinkling gently as twilight faded into full night. Between the warmth of the fire and Daeron’s music and his own weariness, Maglor felt sleep pulling at him. At last, Daeron lowered the flute, and turned to look at him. The firelight danced over his face as he reached out to touch Maglor’s cheek. “Why are you crying?” he asked softly.

“Am I?” Maglor lifted a hand to his face, and found it wet with tears. “I don’t know. I’m just—so tired.”

“Then go to sleep.” Daeron moved over, and somehow Maglor found himself lying down with his head in Daeron’s lap, Daeron’s fingers moving over his scalp in a way that was soothing and just…nice. Gentle, in a way he was unaccustomed to. “You’ve fought hard, and traveled a very long way,” Daeron said. 

“I don’t want to wake up and find this was just a dream,” Maglor whispered.

“You won’t.”

“That’s what you’d say in a dream.” But Maglor let his eyes fall closed. After a little while Daeron’s fingers disappeared from his head, but he started to play the flute again, and when Maglor slept he dreamed of starlight upon a forest river, and of wandering through deep woods of ancient trees growing tall as towers, the summer air tinged green, where it was quiet and lonely in a very different sort of way than the wide and desolate strands that he knew so well. 

When he woke in the early morning he found himself curled around Daeron beneath several blankets. Daeron had his face tucked against Maglor’s chest, as though he had been trying to burrow into it in his sleep. He gripped Maglor’s shirt in his fists, like he too was afraid to wake up alone. Maglor moved only enough to wrap his arm more securely around Daeron, and closed his eyes again. Outside the birds began their dawn chorus, and the breeze drifted into the cave carrying the scent of gorse and heather. 

Eventually Daeron stirred, and sighed. “You’re still here,” he breathed.

“So are you,” Maglor replied. 

Daeron lifted his head, eyes still closed, and pressed kisses along Maglor’s jaw to his mouth, sleepy and slow and soft in a way they hadn’t been even on those starlit nights by the Pools of Ivrin. Maglor deepened the kiss, and Daeron wrapped an arm around his neck, pulling him in closer. “We could wake up like this every morning,” he murmured in between kisses, “if you come back to Rivendell with me. We could wake up like this in a bed.”

Maglor sighed, and drew back, running his fingers through Daeron’s hair to tease out a few tangles. Daeron opened his eyes, watching him solemnly. Maglor didn’t know what to say. He dropped his head to Daeron’s shoulder, hiding his face in his hair. Daeron sighed then, resting a hand on the back of Maglor’s head. He was warm and he was alive, and he had come back, but what he was asking…

“I told you before that I am selfish,” he said into the crook of Daeron’s neck. 

“I remember. It’s the most ridiculous thing you have ever said to me, considering where we were and what you were doing.”

“I am also a coward.”

“And now you’ve surpassed it. You are many things, Maglor Fëanorion, but I don’t think anyone would ever accuse you of cowardice.”

“I—”

“What do you call it then, to stand alone before the coming of the Witch-king and his armies without fleeing? Or to hunt and harry that same enemy for years afterward, alone, unsupported?”

“I don’t think it’s bravery when you’ve got nothing to lose,” Maglor said. 

Daeron made an exasperated noise and pushed Maglor away so he could sit up. “You have plenty of faults already—you do not need to go making up more! What are you so afraid of, then, that keeps you from Rivendell?”

“Everything.” Maglor rolled out of the blankets and got to his feet, needing suddenly to be away. Whatever soft peace they had woken with was gone, and he found he couldn’t bear the way that Daeron was glaring at him. He grabbed his harp case out of habit as he ducked out of the cave, and walked around the hill into the woods, where it was quiet and shadowy. A nightingale followed him, singing bits of that song until Maglor threw a pine cone at it. “Leave me be!”

He walked until he found a hollow between hills that felt deeper than it was, with towering pines and a carpet of needles that seemed to catch and swallow all sounds, so that even the birdsong in the wood was muted. Maglor dropped to the ground and fumbled with his harp case. When he strummed it he found that Daeron had, indeed, tuned it, the sound perfect and sweet and clear. His fingers were clumsy on the strings, since it had been so long since he’d played, but he kept them moving until muscle memory took over, and then he just played. There was no particular song; he just made up the melody as he went, wordless, meaningless. The only purpose was to prove to himself that he still could, that whatever else had happened, whatever he had done or would do, he remained a musician. When Daeron left, he would still have his music.

Perhaps he should have just stayed on Himling. No one else ever went there, and he had always been quietly, selfishly glad of it, even going so far as to encourage the tales among the nearest fishing villages that the island was haunted. It was the only thing that remained of his brother—and even those walls were crumbling, slowly succumbing to the sea winds and storms, to the passage of time. Birds nested in them, and trees and tough island plants had taken root in the cracks, slowly widening them. It would be a long time yet before they fell into complete ruin, but Maglor remembered them new-built and strong, able to withstand dragonfire and everything else the Enemy could throw at them, and it was always hard to see them worn down a little more each time he went back. It made him aware of how the years were wearing away at him, too. He didn’t know that he could claim to be fading just yet, but sometimes it felt as though, given enough time, he would be reduced to nothing but a voice on the wind, nothing but another ghost story for sailors to tell one another on stormy nights. If that was to be his fate, better that it found him on that isle. He didn’t know why he had come back to these hills, except that he’d left his harp there, and getting a new one meant venturing into a town or a city at least for strings.

There would be no shortage of harp strings in Rivendell, he thought, and his fingers slipped, the skin tender and wearing thin after so much playing following many years away from it. He stopped playing, and silence fell around him. When Maglor lifted his head he saw that it had been hours; the sun was high in the sky now, riding above the trees. He could see patches of clear summer blue in between the thick pine boughs. 

He had been alone for so long. He hadn’t even slipped into an inn or to the edges of a harbor to hear the sailors’ or travelers’ gossip or news in years and years. Going to Rivendell, a valley full of people who knew his name and knew his deeds—the idea made him almost sick with fear, but it also made something under his ribs ache with longing. Maglor rested his arms on top of his harp and buried his face in them. He couldn’t hold the tears at bay any longer, and at least out here there was no one to see or hear him weep like a lost child. 

When he returned to the cave it was almost noon. He’d cried himself dry and felt vaguely ill, and as exhausted as he’d been before going to sleep the night before. He did not expect to find Daeron there, and he didn’t—but he did find almost all of Daeron’s things, still laid out as though Daeron had made no move at all to prepare for departure. Maglor grabbed his blanket and retreated to the top of the hill where he could sprawl out in the warm sunshine and close his eyes and think about nothing except the smell of the grass around him and the breeze whispering through it, carrying the scent of heather.

After a while the breeze carried also the sound of a voice, singing softly and artlessly as though without any thought or expectation of an audience. Maglor didn’t move, just listened as Daeron returned to the cave below. The singing stopped, and after a few minutes the grass beside him rustled as Daeron sat down. “You did not run from arguments before,” he said. 

“Is that what that was?” Maglor sighed.

“Before, you often tried to make me angry. I’m sure I am not imagining that.”

Maglor opened his eyes. Daeron looked down at him, solemn and tired. “You were more yourself when you were angry,” Maglor said. “It seemed to help. I don’t know—I’m no healer. Maybe it just made it worse.”

“Your songs helped,” Daeron said softly. He ran his fingers through Maglor’s hair. “I have been so angry with you, but I’m tired of fighting.”

“I very much prefer it when you aren’t angry with me,” Maglor said, “but angry was so much better than empty.”

“I found athelas,” Daeron said, still with his fingers in Maglor’s hair. “I told you that he does not need to catch you to hurt you. It does not sit so heavily on you now as it did on me before, but it will only get worse if no one does something.”

“Daeron…”

“Yes?”

“About Rivendell…do not ask me again today. Please. I’m just—I’m tired.”

“I’ll ask you tomorrow, then. And the next day, and so on until you give me the answer I want.”

Maglor already knew that, in the end, his selfishness would win out over his cowardice. If Daeron kept pushing he would give in: he would go to Rivendell and submit to whatever judgments were passed, whatever it was the remaining Noldor or the Sindar or whoever was left decided to do with him, if it meant that Daeron would stay with him. “What happens if I don’t?” he asked anyway. 

Daeron surely also already knew that Maglor would surrender sooner or later. He just smiled and leaned down to kiss him. “I can be just as stubborn as you,” he murmured as he drew back, “and even more selfish.”

“But why?”

“We had a taste of something wonderful at Ivrin, long ago,” Daeron said. “Now we have a chance for something more. I have not really wanted anything for such a long time. Now that I find myself capable of it again, I intend to take what I want, and hold on with both hands.”

“What is it you want?”

“You. I feel as though I know you already—I want to know you in truth, all of you—laughter and anger and tears, music and silence, joy and sorrow. I want you to know me. Do you not also want that?”

“Of course I do,” Maglor said softly. He reached up to trace his fingers over Daeron’s face, over his eyebrows and down his temple. “I told you, I want a lot of things I can’t ever have.”

“Yet here I am. What else do you want that you think is beyond your reach?”

Maglor shook his head, unable to answer; his throat closed up and his tongue wouldn’t work. He wanted his brothers; he wanted his father, and his mother. He wanted new clothes and a hot meal and a bath with real soap. He wanted to see Elrond, to see Elros. He wanted to go home—only he didn’t know where that was anymore. 

“Come back down to the fire,” Daeron said. “I’m no more a healer than you are, but if you can make athelas work I think I can too.” He pulled Maglor up, and then did not let go of his hand as they descended the hill again. Daeron heated water and cast the athelas into it, and the steam smelled like the plains of Ard Galen at dawn, all fresh winds and dew on the grass, and it was like a veil was lifted from Maglor’s eyes that he hadn’t even realized had been laid over them. The colors around him all seemed more vivid, the sunshine brighter. “Better?” Daeron asked, and Maglor took a deep breath, and then another.

“Yes.” Maglor reached for him, and Daeron came, and for a long while there was no more talking, just a mess of hands and lips and teeth and skin. Daeron still wanted to devour, and Maglor was happy to be devoured. 

The next day they both went into the woods, looking for things to forage or to hunt. Maglor carried the bow, neither of them particularly confident in their ability to shoot anything. They found plenty to forage and Maglor lost three arrows trying to hit rabbits before giving up. Maglor felt far more like himself than he had in a long time—or maybe the influence of the Witch-king had just made it seem so. He did not feel so tired, and he could laugh more easily when Daeron made a joke or teased him.

And then Daeron said, as they returned to their camp, “Come to Rivendell with me.” At almost the same time a nightingale alighted in a bush nearby and started singing their song.

Maglor said, “I’ll want to run away as soon as we get there.”

“I won’t let you.”

“I don’t know what to say to Elrond.”

“I’m sure he has plenty to say—and you can begin with hello and I’m sorry.” Daeron slipped his arms around Maglor’s neck. “Come back with me,” he said softly. “It isn’t home, but it could be. For both of us.”

Maglor looked into his starlit eyes, and all his reasons for staying away died on his tongue. He swallowed hard. “All right,” he whispered. “All right, I’ll come.” Daeron smiled—a real smile, the first one Maglor had seen on his face since the Mereth Aderthad, that crinkled his eyes and dimpled his cheeks. “You really do want me to…?”

“Do you think I would have trekked across the whole of Eriador to find you again if I didn’t? Of course I want you.”

They left the cave and the hillside the next morning. It was a bright and sunny day, very like the day Maglor had found Daeron caught in the reeds in the river. There was no hurry, and they did not need to discuss it to agree not to retrace their steps from before. They would follow the river down to the sea and then follow the coast until they came to the mouths of the Gwathló. From there it would be easy enough to strike north, and so come to Rivendell by the same paths by which Daeron had left it. 

As they came to the banks of the Baranduin, though, they both paused. “I’ve heard that voice before,” Daeron said after a moment. It was a beautiful voice, a woman’s voice, young and old at once, with the cadence of water flowing over stones, and a deep joy running through it that was nearly enough to take Maglor’s breath away. 

“I think I have too, but not here,” he said. 

Then the woman began to sing their song of summertime by the Narog. Daeron gasped, and his grip on Maglor’s hand tightened. Maglor let out a breath, and almost wanted to laugh. “I think we’ve found who taught the nightingales that song,” he said.

“I don’t know whether I want to thank her or…” Daeron pulled Maglor along upstream. “Neither of us have ever sung that song before any audience. Or at least I haven’t.”

“I have, if you count seagulls,” said Maglor. 

“I don’t.”

They found the woman seated on the grass, combing out her long golden hair as she sang. She wore a dress of deep green shot with silver, like dew shining in the morning on summer grass. When she saw them coming she ended her singing and laughed before rising to her feet. “Well met, singers!” she said, holding out her hands in greeting. “I hoped my message would reach you, Maglor, and I am so glad that it did!”

“You sent the nightingale?” Maglor asked her. 

“I did.” The woman looked at Daeron; her eyes were blue as forget-me-nots and very kind. “Had you stumbled into the forest a little farther north, I could have done more for you, but my power wanes away from my own little river valley—and my Tom was busy elsewhere, and could not come with his own songs in time. So I sped you down the river on the raft and sent the nightingale to find the one who might best help you.”

Daeron bowed deeply. “Thank you,” he said, all other words seeming to fail him.

“Who are you, lady?” Maglor asked.

“I am the River Daughter,” she said, “sometimes I am called Goldberry. Perhaps you did not realize anyone was listening, in the beginning days of your wanderings, when you each sang and played that song and mourned and missed one another—but we heard, Tom and I, and we remembered.”

Maglor bowed alongside Daeron, but he couldn’t even make himself thank her properly, past the tight feeling in his throat. This was a kindness far beyond anything he had ever expected to find in the world, from strangers and strange beings, this River Daughter and her Tom, whoever he might be. 

Goldberry stepped forward and took both of their hands. Hers were smooth and soft. “The Shadow is growing again,” she said, her smile gone. It was strange to hear such a somber thing in her voice, which was as sweet to hear as spring rain upon the leaves. “I do not speak of Angmar. He is only a servant. It will soon be dangerous to wander, however far you might seek to take yourselves from danger. Already the Greenwood in the east is darkened, and orcs gather in the mountains even farther south than Carn Dûm. I have felt the rumblings in the earth, and heard fear on the wind and in the voices of the birds and beasts that come into my valley.”

“Our days of wandering are over,” Daeron said, his grip on Maglor’s hand tightening. “We go now back to Rivendell, and there we will stay.”

“Good!” Goldberry said, and her smile was like a flower opening in the sun. “Good, I am glad! And if you do find yourselves again on the road through the west, if you need aid or even just merry song—come seek the Withywindle! Pay the trees no mind, for they are old and dark-hearted, but will not trouble such mighty singers as you. Tom and I will welcome you under the hill and by the river, and we will sing together under the sun and under the stars.

“Thank you,” Daeron said again. Maglor bowed his head. “We will remember, Goldberry River-daughter.”

Goldberry kissed them each on the cheek before releasing their hands and turning away. “Farewell for now, singers!” she called over her shoulder as she walked away up the river. Her hair gleamed like gold under the sun, and as she walked away she began to sing—not their song, but one of her own, of all the things to be found on the banks of the river—sunshine and starlight, moonlight and clouds, reeds and in the shade and water lilies sweetly blooming in the spring.

“The Withywindle,” Daeron murmured after she disappeared from their sight. “Elrond spoke of that valley…he thought the nightingales had learned our song there.”

“It seems he was right.”

“Yes, but he did not speak of Goldberry, but of Iarwain Ben-adar.”

“I don’t know that name,” Maglor said.

“Iarwain, Eldest, was what I knew him as—when I had to.” Daeron turned away, and they began to follow the river in their own turn. “Perhaps he calls himself Tom, these days. He was always strange.”

For a while they walked in silence, the only sound the wind in the reeds and the water flowing beside them. Maglor kept thinking of what Goldberry had said and what Daeron had said in reply. “Daeron,” he said eventually. When Daeron glanced at him he said, “I don’t—I don’t think I can promise to stop wandering. Not forever.”

“If you’re trying to tell me you’ve changed your mind,” Daeron began.

“No—not that. I just—do you know why I was given the Gap, in Beleriand?”

“No, I confess I never gave it much thought at all.”

“I built no strongholds. My people did not settle in one place—well, some of them did, but for the most part we were always on the move, patrolling, or following the herds of our horses. My brother knew that I would have gone mad stuck behind walls like Himring or Barad Eithel. And—and there is a reason I have kept mostly to the seaside, when I could have ventured inland as you did, to the forests and the mountains. I do not dislike such places, but my heart has always turned toward wide open spaces. I’ve promised to go to Rivendell with you, and I will—and I won’t leave, not while the war with Angmar still rages and the Shadow grows, but…” He wasn’t even sure what he was trying to say. He didn’t know anything about Rivendell, really, except that it was Elrond’s stronghold and that it was said to be welcoming and homely, a place of rest and comfort. He did not know what to expect from Elrond himself, in spite of all Daeron’s reassurances, and knew even less what he could expect from anyone else who lived there. Glorfindel had trusted hid to hold the Last Bridge, but that did not mean he would welcome him into the valley with open arms.

There was also still Galadriel to consider. She was Maglor’s cousin, the two of them the last of Finwë’s grandchildren left in the world, but it had never been a secret that she held little love for Fëanor or his family. Daeron had not said she was in Rivendell, but that might change at any time. Maglor knew nothing of where she was or what she was doing.

Daeron was regarding him with dark, thoughtful eyes. The sunlight caught them just right, revealing the deep blue hidden in their depths. “If you promise not to leave just when it gets dangerous,” he said, “and to tell me, first—that’s all I ask. I don’t know how to describe what it felt like to wake up there alone, and to be told that you had not even made it across the bridge. Please do not disappear again. Not just for my sake—for Elrond’s, too.”

“And if I am sent away?” Maglor asked.

“You won’t be.”

“I don’t know if you can—”

“Did you think I lied when I told you that Elrond asked me to bring you back?”

“No, I just—”

“Then why do you not believe it?”

“Elrond has no reason to welcome me,” Maglor said. “After everything that I did—”

“I would ask if you had ever met Elrond,” Daeron said, rolling his eyes, “but for the fact that I know you raised him.”

“That’s a very kind way of putting it.”

“That is exactly how Elrond put it.”

Maglor looked away, out over the wide plains. A bird circling high overhead caught his eye and he watched it until it wheeled away out of sight. “I destroyed his home,” he said finally, “and later, I—”

“I know. He knows. The afternoon that he told me you had raised him, he said that he had almost given up hope that you lived. He said that he did not know whether it reassured him that you knew where he could be found, or if it only hurt that you knew and still didn’t come.”

“I told you,” Maglor said quietly, “I’m a coward.”

“That remains absurdly untrue.”

“It’s—”

“You think I’m not familiar with cowardice? I fled Beleriand entirely rather than face the consequences of my own actions. If I had stayed in Doriath—”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” Maglor said, that truth escaping of its own volition—he didn’t want to think or speak of Doriath. “I’m glad you left, that you weren’t—if you had been there—” His voice failed. 

“We would have slain one another,” Daeron said after a little while. He let go of Maglor’s hand and folded his arms over his chest. His gaze was on the ground before them, his dark hair falling like a curtain around his face, hiding his expression. “Menegroth would have collapsed under the force of our voices.”

“Maybe,” Maglor said. He gripped the straps of his pack to stop himself rubbing at the scars on his palm. “More likely you would have been the victor.”

“No,” Daeron said softly. “There would have been no victory. It is said that I am the mightier and maybe that was true once, but I do not think the difference so great that we can say for certain that I would have taken or kept the upper hand. It doesn’t matter anyway, because that isn’t what happened. I used to regret it, bitterly, but I am glad now that we never had to face one another as enemies.”

“Do you no longer sing?” Maglor asked after another silence stretched between them, thinking of the quiet and almost half-hearted singing he’d overheard a few days before. 

“Only when there is no one else to hear,” Daeron said, still not raising his head. “Nothing like I ever did before. I am not powerless—but I am diminished. I had begun to fade long before I realized what was happening, long before I ever crossed paths with the—the enemy.”

“You aren’t now.”

“No, but I am not what I once was. I don’t even know if I want to be.”

“You still play beautifully,” Maglor offered after a moment.

“You’ll hear better in Rivendell.”

“If you won’t let me call myself a coward,” Maglor said quietly, “then I won’t let you speak ill of your music.”

“I’m not,” Daeron said. “I’m far better now than when I first picked it up again—but I cannot count the years between when I stopped and when I began in Rivendell. I don’t even remember where I lost my old flute, or when I stopped singing.” He paused, and then said, “I think you saved my life twice over, actually. All of Elrond’s skills could not have stopped me from fading away if you hadn’t put that flute in the pocket of your cloak. I do not know what I want or who I want to be, except that my spirit is half music and without it—” He shook his head, sharply. “I cannot be without it.”

“I’m glad that you took it up again,” Maglor said. He reached out his hand, and Daeron gripped it with white knuckles. “I would like for us to make music together again. It doesn’t matter to me who is the mightier singer, or how much or how little of your old skill you’ve regained so far.” Music had been his only solace since the world had fallen apart and taken the last shreds of his life, all that he had once cared about, with it. He didn’t know what he would do without it—if he would last even half as long as it seemed Daeron had. 

After a little while Daeron stopped walking. Maglor took another few steps before their arms stretched between them and he halted, turning to look back. “You have not yet promised not to disappear,” Daeron said. 

Maglor closed the distance between them and took Daeron’s face in his hands. “I won’t disappear,” he said, and kissed Daeron, as softly as he would allow. “I promise.”

Daeron pulled Maglor in closer, deepening the kiss. There was nothing gentle in it at all, just heat and want and something that still tasted a little like desperation. Maglor pulled back, softening it again, slowing down, trying to promise in another way that they had time. When they parted, he said, “I will get restless someday—I always have—but it won’t be for a long time.”

“Good,” Daeron said in a low voice. “I want to keep you as long as I can.”

“You won’t lose me,” Maglor whispered. “You’ve given me a reason to come back.”

They made their way slowly down the Baranduin to the Sea, and stepping back onto the sands felt a little like coming home. Maglor breathed deeply the fresh salt smell of the wind off the water. The Music of the world echoed in the waves that washed up over the shore, and where the river flowed into them and the fresh- and saltwater met and mingled. Birds flocked there; in the far distance a pod of dolphins could be seen jumping out of the water. 

They picked their way through the marshy river mouth, and wandered eastward. Daeron brought out his flute as they walked, and Maglor sang as he played, making up songs on the spot, or singing older ones they both knew. After a while Maglor took out his harp, and Daeron put his flute away to listen as Maglor sang songs he’d written in his long years of wandering, of the Sea and of the shores, of the birds and the sands, the stones and the waves. Daeron did not sing, and Maglor did not ask him to. Until Daeron felt able to lift his voice again in song, Maglor could sing enough for both of them.

They left the coast to skirt north of the Eryn Vorn rather than looping around the cape. The wood was dark, all pine and shadows, a remnant of the woods that had once covered all of Eriador, and the dwindling numbers of Men who lived there had grown distrustful of outsiders. Maglor had traded with them once or twice in recent years, but for the most part he left them alone. They came to the coast again and followed it south until the land curved around north again to the bay into which the Gwathló flowed. 

As far as such journeys went it was—pleasant. Almost fun? Maglor hadn’t had fun in years uncounted, but he enjoyed showing Daeron the secrets of the beaches and the shore, sharing with him the ways of the sea birds and the tide pools. Some days they did not do any traveling at all, and just sat by the water and listened. Daeron played his flute more and more, and soon they played most days together, improvising and at times laughing when they had ideas that clashed rather than harmonized.

Ships could be seen in the bay, heading north toward the river and up toward Tharbad, and away south and east to Gondor. “Have you been there, Gondor?” Daeron asked. He and Maglor sat atop a grassy dune near the river mouth, watching a ship drift out out into more open waters, sails billowing. They could hear the faint voices of the sailors singing as they worked. 

“Yes,” said Maglor. “I’ve visited Osgiliath and Minas Anor, and Pelargir, but there are Elf havens there too, on the Bay of Belfalas.”

“I think Galadriel and Celeborn lived there for a time,” Daeron murmured. 

“All the more reason for me to avoid them.”

“Mm.” Daeron frowned. “You know that Celebrían is their daughter.”

“Who?”

“Elrond’s wife. Did you not know he is married?”

“I did know that,” Maglor said. He’d happened to be lurking on the borders of Lindon when the wedding had taken place, and when he’d slipped into a small inn for a hot meal he’d found everyone inside drinking toasts to the Lord and Lady of Imladris. He could not recall if he had heard the name Celebrían then. He certainly had not known that she was Galadriel’s daughter. “Is she anything like her mother?”

“Yes and no. I was under her care for the most part after I first came to Rivendell.” Daeron didn’t look at Maglor, his gaze still trained on the ship. “It was very hard at first to look at Elrond. Or their daughter Arwen.”

“I did not know he had children,” Maglor said softly.

“Three. Twin sons, Elladan and Elrohir, and Arwen. Elladan and Elrohir have been very busy, riding out with Glorfindel and others. They will all be glad to welcome you, you know.”

Maglor dropped his gaze to the ground, digging his fingers into the sand, nails catching on grass roots just under the surface. “Is it not…you were alone for nearly as long as I have been—”

“Longer,” Daeron murmured. 

“—was it not…to go from that to being surrounded by so many…”

“I was able to get used to it a little at a time. For a long while I was confined to bed, and then I only rarely left my room. No one minded. I’m still not really used to it—it was something of a relief to get away and be by myself again, except that now I remember what it’s like to not be lonely, and…I would rather brave the discomfort than return to that. If you need to hide away for a while, they’ll understand. Just—don’t run away.”

“I just…don’t know how to talk to anyone anymore.”

“You talk to me.”

“You’re different. You understand.”

Daeron leaned against him, taking his hand to tangle their fingers together. “It won’t be as bad as you fear.”

They followed the Gwathló north, keeping out of sight of the ships moving up and down it, and those who lived and worked along the banks. They passed through tilled fields and pastures, and sooner than Maglor had expected they reached Tharbad. Daeron kept a firm grip on Maglor’s hand as they crossed the bridge, as though worried that Maglor might bolt at the sight of so many people. He wasn’t wholly wrong either, Maglor thought a little sourly as he kept his head down and tried not to flinch every time they were jostled as they passed through the crowded streets. Tharbad was overflowing with people, far more than when Maglor had last ventured into it. Many were from the north, having fled the ravages of Cardolan and Rhudaur. Daeron stopped a few times to ask for news; what they heard was not very good. Angmar was rallying, pushing back against Araphor and the armies out of Lindon. 

“The way to Rivendell will be kept clear, at least coming from the south as we are,” Daeron said as they left Tharbad, striking north on a less well-traveled road than the one that led northwest back toward the Baranduin and Sarn Ford. 

They passed through the marshes of the Swanfleet, and passed into the lands of what had once been Eregion. Maglor paused as they crossed over the Glanduin, looking eastward. “What is it?” Daeron asked. 

“Did you ever go there—Ost-in-Edhil?”

“No.”

“There’s nothing left of it now. It was…it was my nephew’s city. Eregion was his realm. I never came there when it stood. I didn’t…” Words failed him. They always did even when he did no more than try to think of Celebrimbor. Finally he choked out, “He died. Horribly. And I wasn’t there.”

“I’ve heard the tale,” Daeron said. “I’m not sure there is anything you could have done that would have made a difference.”

“I could have been there,” Maglor said.

“Come.” Daeron took his hand and pulled him northward. “There is nothing left here. Those who escaped Eregion dwell now in Rivendell, and there the memory and legacy of Celebrimbor lives on.” He said nothing, and did not let go of his hand as Maglor wept quietly, not for the first or last time, for his nephew and all the beautiful things he had made that had then been laid to waste and destroyed—for no reason except hatred.

It was a long journey on foot, following the Gwathló. Eventually they came to the convergence of the Mitheithel and the Bruinen, and Daeron led Maglor east along the latter. It was autumn now, and the wind from the north carried a bite. They wrapped themselves in their cloaks, and watched the leaves changing color as they drew farther north, passing through faded grasses and wildflowers all gone to seed. Birds flew south past them, following the river and their own instincts. At times in the evening they sat and watched enormous flocks of starlings fly in strange and ever-shifting formations, dark against the sunset, the only sound the flowing water before them and the murmuration of many thousands of wings all beating together. 

Finally, they came to the ford and turned east into a strange country of heather-clad hills, but also with sudden valleys and small canyons that might open before them without any warning at all. What path there was, was marked with small white stones that Daeron needed to move slowly and look hard to find—but both of them were nervous now, so close to the front lines of the war that still raged. Maglor kept glancing north and west, though there wasn’t any good reason for it. 

A company from Rivendell found them before they could find it, appearing suddenly as though out of the ground itself some distance ahead. Glorfindel rode at the head of it, gleaming in the sunlight. Daeron grabbed Maglor’s hand as the riders cantered toward them, but Maglor found himself unable to move at all until Daeron pulled him, let alone turn and run. He kept his hood up as he glanced at those following Glorfindel, though he did not recognize any of their faces. His heart beat painfully hard in his chest, and he kept the hand Daeron was not holding clasped firmly around the strap of his pack, visible and away from the sword on his belt. 

“Well met, Daeron!” Glorfindel called. He was smiling, and did not seem surprised to see that Daeron had not returned alone. “Your search has borne fruit, I see!”

“It has,” Daeron replied. “Where are you going?”

“North, past the Trollshaws to the Mitheithel. You would do well to hurry on to Rivendell before nightfall.” Glorfindel looked at Maglor then, and added, “Elrond is waiting for you.”

“Thank you, Glorfindel,” Daeron said, and Glorfindel nodded and urged his horse on past, bells jingling and glinting in the sunshine. Once all the riders had passed and disappeared away toward the ford, Daeron looked at Maglor. “Are you ready?”

“No,” Maglor said. “But let’s go.”

When they came to the place where Glorfindel had appeared so suddenly, Maglor gasped. A valley opened up below them, large but narrow. A river flowed through it, crossed by a slender bridge of grey stone. It was a place of small forests interspersed with glades and meadows. The sunshine gleamed on the river and glowed on the still-green grass. The house was enormous, rambling and many-chimneyed, but welcoming and lovely in spite of clearly having been built piecemeal over many years. Figures moved around it and through the gardens, up and down the paths, along the river. At their feet the path into the valley descended sharply, switch-backing down an almost sheer incline. “Here it is, the Last Homely House,” Daeron said. He tugged gently on Maglor’s hand, and they descended the path. As soon as they stepped onto it, it was like they had crossed some sort of border. The air felt different. As they descended Maglor could smell pine, and lower still he could hear merry voices below and ahead of them, singing in the trees. There was a power laid over the valley that he could sense was more than it seemed, yet it did not feel like a threat. It took him a long time to realize what it was that he felt. 

It was Elrond—the way he breathed his power into it the way that Melian had once laid hers over Doriath. The way the Valar had sunk theirs into Valinor, long ago across the Sea, the way Maglor had poured forth his own power into the preservation and protection of the Gap long ago, and Maedhros had chiseled his into the hard stone of Himring, all of them in their own way pouring all the love in their hearts into the lands given into their care.

With that power, of course, came an awareness, and Maglor thought that that awareness might even reach all the way to the Bruinen. However far it went, Elrond knew someone had entered the valley after Glorfindel left it, and he seemed to know who they were. A figure emerged from the house and all but flew over the bridge. Maglor stumbled to a halt and nearly tripped when Daeron pulled him forward. “Come on! I told you I wouldn’t let you run away.”

“But I can’t—” He had not seen Elrond since before the end of the War of Wrath and he’d had weeks to think of what to say when they met again and now that he was here his mind had gone entirely blank. Words failed him. “I don’t—” 

Daeron was somehow suddenly behind him and pushed him forward. Maglor tripped, and was caught up in shockingly strong arms as Elrond crashed into him, nearly sending them both tumbling back the other way into the grass, and suddenly all that love he’d felt laid over the valley was focused entirely on him, and he knew it should not have been so surprising, after all that Daeron had told him, but it still was. It was also overwhelming, like he was drowning in starlight.

“Maglor,” Elrond choked out, as though he were overwhelmed too. “You’re here.”

“I’m sorry,” Maglor said, as Elrond released him just long enough to pulled back so they could look one another face to face, for the first time on so long. Elrond had grown—he was no taller, but he was broader and more filled in, rather than the too-thin youth that hadn't yet grown into his height, fair of face and dark-haired. His voice had deepened. His eyes, though, were the same eyes Maglor remembered. Maglor had no idea what he looked like, except dirty and unkempt and tired. “Elrond, I—”

“It doesn’t matter,” Elrond said. He had tears on his face. “It doesn’t matter—you’re here now.”

It did matter. They would have to talk about it, and Maglor would apologize, over and over, for all the wrongs and all the years—but later, if Elrond wouldn’t let him do it now. Maybe that was for the best; Maglor was so tired, and so relieved that Elrond really was glad to see him that he felt dizzy with it. 

Elrond turned to embrace Daeron, who looked startled by the gesture, and then took them both by the hand to lead the way back to the house. They crossed the bridge over the river, its music bright and joyful, and into the house. It was full of people, though not as crowded as Tharbad had been, but everyone here turned to look at him, to greet him or to stare at him, and if Elrond had not had such a firm grip on his hand Maglor might have forgotten all his promises and fled. 

At last they came to a room into which Daeron disappeared; Elrond opened the door next to it, and led Maglor into a small but cozy bedroom. Braided rugs covered the wooden floor, and a fire crackled cheerfully on the hearth. Out of the window he could see the river and the gardens, still clinging to summer greens with late-blooming flowers. A wardrobe stood in the corner, and—and there was a harp, a full-sized harp by the window. Maglor went to it before he could even think about it, running a hand over the frame and then across the strings, the notes all clear and soft in the quiet of the room. 

“What happens now?” he asked Elrond, who lingered by the door. He couldn’t quite make himself turn to look at him.

“You take a bath, and change into clean clothes, and eat something,” Elrond said. 

“No, I mean—”

“Did you think I would lock you up somewhere?” Elrond asked. “I asked Daeron to bring you back here because I missed you, Maglor. I want you to stay because I love you—but I will not make you do anything.”

“And everyone else here will just…say nothing of the kinslayer in their midst?”

“If you stay long enough,” Elrond said softly, “you’ll find other kinslayers. Where did you think they all went, those followers of your brothers that survived?”

Maglor hadn’t really thought any of them had survived. “What of Círdan, or Galadriel, or—”

“I do not think either of them will react as badly as you expect—but even if they do, neither have any authority in this valley. I do, I and Celebrían, and we want you here.” Elrond crossed the room to take Maglor’s hand—his right hand, the one burned and scarred by the Silmaril. He searched Maglor’s face, worry creasing his brow. “You should not have gone after Angmar alone, Maglor,” he said softly. “It has hurt you worse than you realize.”

“Daeron called it the Black Breath.”

“It is the worst of the weapons of the Nazgûl—but it can be cured, if you’ll let me.”

“Of course I will.” Maglor dropped his gaze from Elrond’s face to their joined hands. “I missed you, Elrond. I'm—I’m sorry that I did not come find you sooner. I just…” He had reasons, good ones, but they would not sound so if he spoke them aloud now. He had gotten everything wrong, and he didn’t know how not to make the same mistakes again. “I’m sorry.”

“I forgave you a long time ago,” Elrond said. “Please stay. You’ve been punished enough, haven’t you?”

“I don’t know anymore.”

“I do.”

“I already promised Daeron I would stay,” Maglor said. “I’ll give you the same promise—I won’t disappear again.”

“Thank you.”

Maglor did as Elrond had said—he bathed, lingering until his skin wrinkled and the water went cold—and changed into clothes that were clean and softer than he remembered fabric could be. A meal waited for him on a tray by the hearth, but between the bath and everything else he felt almost too tired for it. Elrond had been called away, or had been kind enough to leave him alone for a while to convince himself that he’d made the right choice. Daeron did not appear again either—probably because he was busy with the same things Maglor had been doing, and more. Maglor ate the food slowly, because he couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten anything like it—a meal cooked in a real kitchen with real seasonings by someone who knew what they were doing, who made it to be enjoyed and not just eaten as a means to stay alive. 

Then he fell onto the bed, which was piled with pillows and blankets, all so soft that he felt like he was floating. He was more than half afraid he’d wake up somewhere far away to find that this had all been some strange dream, but it was as though all of the long years he’d spent wandering alone were making themselves known at once, and he couldn’t keep his eyes open, let alone sit or stand, under the weight of them. 

He didn’t know how long he dozed until the door opened, and a moment later the mattress dipped under Daeron’s weight. He rearranged the pillows and blankets around them both and then tucked himself under Maglor’s arm, against his chest. Maglor tried to say something, but wasn’t sure whatever noise he made had any real words in it. “Shh,” Daeron whispered. His lips brushed against Maglor’s in the softest of kisses. “Go back to sleep.” He was warm, and smelled of the same soap Maglor had used—fresh and clean and scented with apple blossoms. 

The next thing Maglor knew it was morning. The breeze was cool but the sun was bright and golden, falling across the bed and shining on Daeron’s hair where it fanned out over the pillows. He was awake already, and smiled a little when Maglor opened his eyes. “I told you it would be better to wake like this in a bed,” he said. 

“Mmm.” Maglor never wanted to leave that bed. It was warm and everything was soft, and he felt safer than he had in so many years. “Thank you,” he whispered.

“Have all your fears proved unfounded?”

“Yes, but I’ve found new ones to take their place.”

“That still doesn’t make you a coward. It just makes you exasperating.” Daeron didn’t sound particularly irritated, though. “Just remember your promise.”

“Do you want me to swear an oath instead?”

Daeron reached up to pull on his hair, a sharp tug to punctuate his emphatic, “No. Don’t be foolish. I want you here because you want to be, not because you are bound to it.”

“I do want to be here. With you.”

“Good.”

It was very quiet in the bedroom. Daeron’s eyes were bright, and his face no longer hollow and colorless. The scar remained across his chest, a pale reminder of terrible suffering, but that was all it was now. And Maglor himself felt safer and less afraid than he had in many years—in spite of the still-looming threat of Angmar, in spite of Goldberry’s warnings of another darker Shadow growing in the east. With the sun shining so bright and Daeron looking at him with such soft warmth, Maglor caught himself feeling almost hopeful. Outside the window a nightingale burst into song.