A Hundred Miles Through the Desert - Chapter Thirty Six

[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

 

Something about the look on Maglor’s face when Caranthir asked him if he intended to move Manwë himself to tears with his music—which had been an attempt at a joke—stuck in the back of Caranthir’s mind afterward. It was like an itch he couldn’t scratch, a growing suspicion that made him nervous in the same way that thinking about talking to his father made him nervous, and he didn’t know how to ask about it. It would explain a lot about the way Maglor’s mood was shifting, at times as bright as when they’d found him in Lórien and at others as though he was carrying a weight as heavy as the Oath.

Caranthir was almost certain that Maglor wouldn’t have sworn anything related to this song, but almost was not entirely.

The next day Celegorm dragged him out of his workroom and out to the river. “Out with it,” he said as they sat on the grassy bank, bare feet in the water. Huan splashed across the river to go chasing after rabbits in the field beyond. Behind them the plum harvest had begun; Caranthir could hear the songs for it. Celegorm nudged him with his elbow. “What’s wrong?”

“How come you aren’t so worried about Maglor anymore?” Caranthir asked. “You were driving yourself mad with it in Tirion.”

“I didn’t understand what the problem was in Tirion,” said Celegorm. “Now I do. And—well, he’s also been a lot lighter since he got back from Formenos, which is the opposite of what I would’ve expected, honestly, but I’m not going to risk him falling back into gloom by asking.”

“What was the problem?” Caranthir asked. Celegorm didn’t answer, so Caranthir shoved at his shoulder. “You can’t just say that and then not explain!”

“Sorry, just—I’m not really supposed to know it either.”

Caranthir rolled his eyes and flopped back onto the grass. “You are the worst,” he said.

“Sorry,” Celegorm repeated.

In spite of their closeness in age and birth order, Caranthir and Celegorm had always clashed a little. Celegorm was wild and loud, preferring the wilderness to the gardens that Caranthir favored. They were both abrasive in different ways that didn’t always fit well. But since Celegorm had abandoned the life of a hunter and come back to spend most of his time at Nerdanel’s house they’d had to figure out how to make it work. And—well, maybe Mandos had smoothed away some of the sharp edges both of them had carried before. Celegorm wasn’t as loud, and Caranthir had learned how to think, most of the time, before he spoke.

Caranthir wasn’t stupid, though, even if he wasn’t quite as clever or as quick as some of his brothers. He could figure things out if given enough clues and enough time. “He’s going to use this song like Lúthien, isn’t he?” he asked after a while.

“How in the world did you figure that out?” Celegorm demanded, turning to frown at him.

“What else would turn it from something he was going to try to do, for our grandmother, into something he feels like he has to finish? What else would scare him so much that it made him start hiding and digging his nails into his scars again?” Why else would he have looked so startled, eyes going wide and the rest of him going very still for a few seconds, when Caranthir spoke of Manwë the day before? “Do you know why?”

“It’s the whole reason Míriel and Indis asked him to write it in the first place,” said Celegorm. “But don’t tell anyone else. I only know because Maedhros told me, and he only told me so I’d leave Maglor alone about it.”

“Huh.” Caranthir rose onto his elbows. “Why the secrecy?”

“The more people who know the worse Maglor feels about it, I guess,” Celegorm said.

“Do you think it’ll work?” Caranthir didn't want to let himself hope that it would—their family was not one the Valar had any reason to listen to, especially if they hadn’t heeded either Míriel or Indis—but he could feel the stirrings of it anyway. Just the idea of Finwë being permitted to come back—it felt almost as though, if that happened, everything else would somehow magically fix itself. He knew that was childish, but it was how he’d always seen his grandfather, as someone who fixed things—he also knew it wasn’t true, that no one could fix everything just by existing, but it felt true, the same way it had felt as though the whole world was ending when they’d come back to Formenos and then Maedhros and Maglor had come stumbling out again, ashen-faced and refusing to let any of the rest of them see what lay inside the doors.

“Maedhros said Maglor doesn’t think it will,” Celegorm said, “but—I don’t know. It feels dangerous to believe that it might.”

It did. It was just setting themselves up for heartbreak when it didn’t. But if it did work…

“No one thought the Valar would ever let Atar out either,” Caranthir said after a few minutes. He lay back down in the grass. Celegorm fell back beside him with a sigh. “Are you still angry?”

“If I think about it too long,” Celegorm said. “But—mostly, I just don’t want Maedhros to be the only one, if he ends up not being able to…” He raised a hand to gesture vaguely. “Whatever it is we’re supposed to be doing.”

“Me too,” Caranthir said. In this, he and Celegorm had been entirely united ever since they’d learned of Fëanor’s return. Their loyalty was to Maedhros, not their father. Maedhros hated it when they talked that way, so they mostly didn’t, but it was still true. It wasn’t the same kind of loyalty that Maedhros had commanded in Beleriand. He wasn’t their lord or their king or their general, he was just their big brother whose heart was hurting, and it felt like it was their turn to protect him—or, if that wasn’t possible, at least to stand beside him.

“I don’t really think he wants to talk to me anyway,” Celegorm said after a little while. Caranthir turned his head to look at him, but Celegorm kept his gaze on the sky. In profile he looked a lot like Nerdanel, and not just because he had a smudge of dust on his forehead in almost the same place she always did. He had also been spending a lot of time out in the sun with Aredhel, so his nose was pink with sunburn and starting to peel a little.

“What makes you think that?” Caranthir asked.

“He wrote that—” Celegorm stopped. Caranthir watched his jaw work for a moment as he wrestled with whatever it was Fëanor had written. Caranthir had burned his own letter after reading it, but he hadn’t forgotten what it said. He could think about it now without wanting to punch something, at least, and he could sometimes take out the gift his father had sent along with it, and not want to throw it against the wall. That didn’t change the fact that it felt like his letter had been written to the son his father had wanted him to be, instead of the person he really was.

Finally, Celegorm tried again. “He wrote that he’d been reading all the stories about us in Middle-earth, and he didn’t recognize who I turned into. I feel like I turned into someone an awful lot like him.”

“We all did,” Caranthir said.

“Not like I did. And I was never his—” Celegorm sat up abruptly. “Doesn’t matter. I’ll talk to him eventually, and it’ll just turn into another shouting match and then we’ll never speak to each other again, and it’ll be—it’ll be fine.”

Caranthir sat up more slowly, and leaned his head on Celegorm’s shoulder. He wasn’t good at this—comforting other people. Not with words. It was easier to care by bullying everyone else into taking care of themselves, or into letting themselves be taken care of—into getting Maedhros to let him braid his hair for him, or needling Celegorm into stealing more yarn by pretending that he didn't want him to. That wasn’t what Celegorm needed right now, though. Caranthir wasn’t sure what he needed, except maybe for their father to look him in the eye and say the right words, whatever those were, and mean them. A shouting match and permanent estrangement wouldn’t be fine, that much was obvious.

All Caranthir could think to offer was a truth of his own. “At least he’ll care enough to yell at you.”

“What does that mean?”

“If you’re too much like him, I’m not enough. It is what it is; I’ve known I was the disappointment for a long time.”

“How can you possibly be more of a disappointment than me? You weren’t at Nargothrond.”

“I didn’t do anything,” Caranthir said, “except pick the wrong allies. I’ve never been particularly ambitious, or cared about being the best at anything. It was a relief to find out that I didn’t have to take up any titles again when I came back if I didn’t want to. But I’ve always known I wasn’t what Atya wanted me to be, long before the troubles started in Tirion.”

“Ulfang and Uldor weren’t your fault,” Celegorm said quietly.

“I know that.”

“Do you?”

“I wouldn’t have been let out of Mandos if I didn’t.” He still had his doubts, but they didn’t keep him up at night anymore. “But that’s not the point.”

“No, I know. I just wanted to make sure.” Celegorm wrapped his arm around Caranthir’s shoulders. “Also that’s not all you did—you also shredded our diplomatic relationships with Angrod and Aegnor, and insulted Thingol in the same breath. That’s almost as impressive as anything our father ever said in anger.”

Caranthir grimaced. “Right, I couldn’t keep my mouth shut either.” He’d since learned—centuries in Mandos had helped—but of course that didn’t undo the damage, and it hadn't made his apologies to Angrod any easier. Angrod, who had never liked Caranthir any more than Caranthir had liked him, had accepted the apology and sent him away, and Caranthir was quite happy to continue avoiding him where possible, and to continue biting his tongue bloody on those rare occasions when they were thrown together and Angrod made sly remarks that Caranthir knew he deserved and still wished he could retaliate against, however unhelpful it would be.

“There’s also the time you helped Haleth,” Celegorm said after a moment. “Not everything you did was terrible or forgettable, Moryo.”

“No, just the most important things.”

“Fine, be that way. None of it holds a candle to what Curvo and I did in Nargothrond. So why are you still angry?”

“Because Maedhros is so unhappy about it—and you. Maglor too. I’m not sure I believe it really went as well as he says it did.”

“I think that might just be everything else piled on top of it,” Celegorm said. “You don’t have to worry about me, though.”

“Someone’s got to,” said Caranthir. “Didn’t it help at all, going to Nienna?”

“Yes, of course. I can think through it all now without getting so upset that I can’t think at all, and I am learning to let it go. It’s just—hard. Like that time—you remember when Huan had a run-in with a porcupine when he was a puppy?”

“Ugh, yes. That was awful.”

“It’s like picking those quills out, one at a time. And—it is as awful as it sounds. Nienna never promised it would be easy.”

“Nothing’s ever easy in our family.”

“Some things are.” Celegorm kissed the top of Caranthir's head and got to his feet.

Caranthir accepted his hand up, and then found himself yanked forward, spun around, and shoved into the river. “Tyel—!” He hit the water with an enormous splash, and by the time he flailed his way out of it Huan had returned to jump around him, splashing even more, and Celegorm was halfway back to the house. “I hate him,” Caranthir told Huan when he caught his breath. Huan woofed and licked up his face. “Ugh, I hate you too!”

By the time he got back to the house, still trying to wring out his hair, Celegorm was nowhere to be seen. Lisgalen was coming out of Nerdanel’s workshop, and stopped short on seeing him. “What in the world happened to you?” they asked.

“My brother happened.”

“Which one?”

“The one whose hair I’m going to dye green, given half a chance.”

“Oh, so we’re only annoyed, not angry. That’s good.” Lisgalen came over and kissed him, and then bent over to hoist him over their shoulder. Caranthir yelped, and then heard Maglor and Daeron laughing from over by the hawthorn tree.

“Shut up, Cáno,” he tried to growl, but the thing about being carried like a sack of potatoes, his hair falling in dripping tangles around his face, was that it was the least dignified position one could possibly be in, and no one was going to believe any threats he tried to make.

“Or what, you’ll dye my hair too? It’s too dark for that.”

“Maybe I’ll just dunk Pídhres in a dye vat—”

“I’d like to see you try!”

Lisgalen carried Caranthir up to their room, where they dropped him unceremoniously onto the bed. “Look on the bright side,” they said as they started peeling off his soaked pants.

“What’s that?”

“It’s the perfect excuse to take all your clothes off in the middle of the day.”

“Oh, well, when you put it like that.” Caranthir sat up and managed to get his shirt over his head before Lisgalen grabbed it and tossed it to the floor in a wet heap that Caranthir knew he would probably regret later, though he couldn’t really bring himself to care in the moment. “Did you lock the door?”

“Of course I did.”

Later, as they were drowsing together, still tangled up in the blankets, someone knocked on the door. “Go away,” Caranthir called.

“We’re going to Grandmother and Grandfather’s for dinner in an hour, if you care to join us,” said Maedhros, and left without waiting for an answer. Lisgalen grumbled something, more than half-asleep, and Caranthir pulled the blankets up over them both. Dinner could wait.

Neither he nor Lisgalen discovered any desire to get out of bed until later in the evening, before anyone else had returned from Mahtan and Ennalótë’s house, but well after they’d gone. As they ventured into the kitchen to find their own meal, Lisgalen asked, “So what made Celegorm toss you into the river, anyway?”

“Who knows,” Caranthir said as he opened a cupboard. “How hungry are you?”

“Not very. Let’s just toast some cheese on bread. You didn’t fight?”

“No. The opposite, actually.” Caranthir got out the bread and handed it to Lisgalen to slice before going in search of cheese to melt on it. “Brothers are just the worst.”

“Are you really going to try to dye his hair green?”

“Depends on if Maglor warns him about it.”

Lisgalen hummed thoughtfully as they sliced the bread. Then they asked, “Need any help with it?”

Caranthir snorted. He found the cheese and set it on the table before leaning over to kiss Lisgalen. “I’ll let you know when to distract him.”

They toasted the bread and cheese and took it back to Caranthir’s room, sitting on the floor in a patch of silver moonlight. Lisgalen told stories of pranks played between members of the Gwaith-i-Mírdain in Eregion until they were both laughing hard enough that they almost didn’t notice the commotion of everyone else returning to the house.

After they went back to bed, though, Caranthir found himself lying awake, staring at the ceiling. Lisgalen sprawled out beside him, always able to fall asleep quickly. He’d been distracted by falling into the river and then the rest of the afternoon with Lisgalen, but now his thoughts turned back to Maglor, and his song, and its real purpose. He understood why Maglor wanted to keep it a secret, even if he was a little hurt that he hadn’t been told. Of course Maedhros knew, and Maglor wouldn’t keep any secrets from Daeron either. Maybe it was just because they hadn’t yet spoken of it, just the two of them. They’d both been busy, and Caranthir still didn’t know what to tell Maglor that he wanted to hear in the song. All he could think of was the cherry trees, and of course Maglor was going to include those.

The next morning he found Maglor under the hawthorn tree again, alone this time. “Where’s Daeron?” he asked.

“Off with Celegorm,” Maglor said. “He promised to tell him about how it went with his family.”

“How did it go?” Caranthir asked as he sat down beside Maglor.

“Not as well as hoped, and I’m fairly certain it’s half my fault. But as I keep telling Daeron, there’s time.”

Caranthir picked a few blades of grass to braid together. “I haven’t answered your question yet, about your song.”

Maglor had been leaning back against the trunk, watching the branches overhead as he twirled his pencil in his fingers. Now he turned to look at Caranthir. “It’s all right if you don’t have an answer,” he said.

“I don’t think I do. I just miss him, and you don’t need me to tell you that.”

“I miss him too.” Maglor tugged Caranthir over to tuck him against his side, arm around his shoulders. “What’s wrong, Moryo?”

“I know you’re all right now, but you weren’t before.”

Maglor sighed, and rested his head on top of Caranthir’s. “It’s hard to be thinking of what happened so constantly,” he said after a little while. “I went to his old workshop when I was in Tirion, and it had been cleared out. I don’t know why it hit me so hard then—it would have been worse, probably, if it had been left untouched. And then there’s…”

“There’s what?”

“Grandmother Míriel wants me to sing before the Valar.”

Caranthir raised his head to look at Maglor’s face. “You’re going to do it?”

“I said I would. Keep it to yourself, though, please.”

“Why is it such a secret?”

“I just—Míriel doesn’t want it widely known, and neither do I. I don’t think any of you will tell anyone, at least outside our family, but the more people who know the more nervous I feel.” Maglor couldn’t quite meet his gaze. “The more people who will be disappointed when it doesn’t work.”

“I’ll be disappointed if it doesn’t,” Caranthir said, “but not with you. If the Valar aren’t moved, then…that’s them. It’s got nothing to do with you or your songwriting or your singing. Even Míriel has to know the chances aren’t good.”

“A fool’s hope,” Maglor murmured.

“I don’t think it’s foolish.”

“It feels foolish.”

“So did lots of things that ended up saving the world.”

“Have you been talking to Elrond?” Maglor smiled a little, and pulled Caranthir’s head back down to his shoulder. “I don’t like keeping secrets; I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before.”

“It’s not like we’ve had a lot of time to talk about it.”

“I still need to talk to Curvo about the song.” Maglor sighed. “And then just—three more kings. Olwë, Ingwë, Thingol. At least Olwë and Thingol will be in the same place, and I won’t have to go back to Alqualondë.”

“And then you have to finish writing it.”

“Yes.”

“Where are you going to go for that?”

“I don’t know how long we’ll stay in Taur-en-Gellam—Daeron has responsibilities there, even if he likes to pretend otherwise. But eventually I’ll end up back home at Imloth Ningloron. Do you want to see what I’ve written so far? You can tell me if there’s something I’ve gotten terribly wrong or forgotten.”

“All right, but I don’t know anything about songwriting.”

Maglor laughed softly as he handed the papers over to Caranthir. They were scribbled all over, with arrows drawn between lines and things crossed out or written over. Caranthir had read Maglor’s drafts before, though, and knew how to decipher it all. The words were still very rough, in some places just paraphrasing what Maglor wanted to say, so he could find better words for it later. The section he’d handed Caranthir was about Finwë the grandfather, rather than Finwë the king or the leader or the singer. Even without the real poetry and the music that would accompany it, Caranthir finished reading it with tears building behind his eyes. “I miss him,” he whispered as he lowered the pages to his lap.

“Me too,” Maglor said softly. He kissed the top of Caranthir’s head.

“I think it would be easier to talk about—or talk to—Atya if Finwë were here,” Caranthir said after a little while.

“I’ve been wondering about that,” said Maglor. “Both Atya and Finarfin spoke of how Finwë had not been able to find a way to mend things between his own children. I’m not sure there’s anything he could do to fix what’s between us and Atya.”

“That’s different. Atya never liked his brothers, and then Morgoth was working against us all. But I just meant—he was easy to talk to, and I think it would be easier to talk to him about what happened in Middle-earth, and maybe he’d…I don’t now. He would understand. At least he would listen, and he wouldn’t lose his temper. Just because he loved us all doesn’t mean he was blind. He didn’t go to Formenos because he agreed with Atya.”

“That’s true. He isn’t here, though, and…unless the Valar are more soft-hearted than I believe them to be, he won’t be returning any time soon. We just have to find our way forward on our own. You still don’t want to speak to Atya?”

“I want Maedhros to stop looking haunted whenever his name comes up,” Caranthir said. “He tries to pretend it’s fine but he’s not very good at it, even if he’s got himself fooled.”

“I’ve spoken to him, but you’re right—he talks around it. I think it’s the one thing he would not speak of to Nienna or Estë when we were in Lórien. But when I’m finished writing this song, he’s agreed to speak to Atya, as long as I’m there with him.”

“Good.”

“You should probably be nearby too, in case it doesn’t go as well as it’s gone for me and Ambarussa and Curvo.”

Caranthir sat up. Maglor’s expression was somber and sad. “You think it will go badly?” Caranthir asked.

“I hope it won’t, but of course I can’t know for sure. I think it’s more likely to go badly for Maedhros than for anyone else except maybe Celegorm. I do think our father loves us, and I think he wants to make things right, except that there isn’t really anything he can do, not in the way he’s used to solving problems. I think he’s deeply unhappy about it, but it—it means something that he’s not trying to charge forward anyway, that he’s letting us take the time that we need. Doesn’t it?”

“I guess so.” Caranthir thought about the blown glass flower in the trunk in his room under a pile of old clothes. It was lovely and imperfect, an early attempt at a craft Fëanor had not worked with much in his previous life as he had been starting to relearn all of his old skills. The letter had proven that he still didn’t understand Caranthir, not really; but if he was honest with himself, Caranthir could admit that he’d never tried to make himself understood, either. It had felt less important than avoiding his father’s disapproval or displeasure. “I don’t know what I want from him, Cáno.”

“You don’t have to.” Maglor leaned forward to embrace him properly, a hand on the back of Caranthir’s head. He’d always understood Caranthir best—had never pushed him when he didn’t want to talk about something, had always made space or time. It was his voice, singing an old lullaby from Caranthir’s earliest childhood, that had kept Caranthir tethered to the living world as he’d recovered after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. “I know exactly how hard it is to believe what other people say about him. None of this means you have to speak to him, or ever see him again, if that isn’t what you really want. Just—you need to decide what to do for you, Caranthir. Not for anyone else, even Maedhros.”

“I care about Maedhros far more than I care about Atya.”

“I don’t think that’s true,” Maglor said softly. “I think you care about everyone. I just want you to care about you just as much.”

Caranthir left Maglor to his songwriting and retreated to his garden. There was always weeding to be done and digging his fingers into the dirt offered a kind of certainty that most other things in his life seemed to be lacking. Well, no, that wasn’t fair. He was on firm ground these days—with his brothers, with Lisgalen, and his mother, even with most of his cousins. He liked his dye experiments and he even liked splitting his time between Nerdanel’s house and Tirion. It was just that Fëanor loomed so much bigger than anything else. He always had, and always would in one way or another.

When Lisgalen came out to sit on the grass nearby with some small project to fiddle with Caranthir asked them, “Do you think I should talk to my father? Don’t just say I should do what I want to do.”

Lisgalen lowered their tools to their lap, frowning at him. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing. I just don’t know what to do.”

“I don’t think it will help much to just do what someone else tells you. Especially me. I’m too far removed.”

“That’s why I’m asking you.” And, really, they weren’t that far removed. Aside from Maedhros and Maglor, it was Lisgalen that knew Caranthir best, had heard all his secrets and fears and old heartbreaks, and shared their own in return. They were the only one who knew about the nightmares he occasionally still had about his time in Middle-earth, and the way he woke up sometimes weeping after much calmer dreams of Thargelion before the fires.

“All right,” they said after a few minutes of thought. Caranthir yanked on a weed that wouldn’t come loose as they said, “In that case yes, I think you should. That way you’ll know, one way or the other, and it will stop being something looming over your future, and maybe you’ll stop having nightmares about it. But obviously you can’t do it now, unless you want to go track down wherever it is Amrod and Amras live.”

“I don’t have nightmares about it.” The weed broke loose suddenly, sending Caranthir falling backward.

“Not ones you remember,” Lisgalen said quietly. “You talk in your sleep sometimes, though.”

Caranthir sat up, weed in one hand, and wiped at the dirt on his face. No wonder he woke up occasionally feeling as tired as when he’d gone to sleep. He’d been worrying about Fëanor but he hadn’t thought it was that bad. “Do I wake you up?”

“Sometimes. Don’t apologize, it’s not like you can help it.” Lisgalen leaned over to kiss him. “Once you put this behind you, however it goes, we can go back to debating wedding dates.”

“I was thinking about that,” said Caranthir. “What if we just eloped, like you keep saying, but did it right before the big feast—so there’s a party when we come back anyway, and we don’t have to be the focus of it?” Nerdanel would be annoyed, but they’d already passed the traditional one-year engagement time, so what was another handful of traditions broken?

Lisgalen laughed. “I like that,” they said. “All right—that’s what we’ll do. Let’s not tell anyone, either, and see how long it takes your brothers to notice that our rings aren’t silver anymore.”

“We should tell my mother, but otherwise that sounds perfect.”

 

Comments

[hhimring]

Amazing writing streak you're having, wow!
I've more or less caught up and really enjoyed the recent updates.

[starspray]

Thank you! <3

I've got a nice number of buffer chapters between what I'm actually writing and what's getting posted, which is why I can do regular updates. It's very nice! :D