starspray | A Hundred Miles Through the Desert

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

It was some days before Maglor was called to a private meeting with Thingol, Olwë, and Ingwë. In the meantime he amused Daeron’s students by demonstrating just how out of practice he was with most musical instruments, and entertained the rest of the Sindar with better music, both by himself and with Daeron. They sang the song of Ekkaia again, and Mablung told them the next day that some were already making plans for their own journeys into the west, to see it for themselves.

“It’s well worth the journey,” said Daeron. “I’m very glad to have gone.”

“I want to see it!” Calissë said, scrambling up onto Maglor’s lap.

“Maybe when you’re a little older,” Maglor said, laughing a little. “Your parents would never let me take you so far now.”

“Then can Náriel come too?”

“If she wants to,” Maglor said.

“And Tyelpë!”

“Goodness,” laughed Daeron, “don’t go making plans just yet, Calissë. Maglor just said you’ll have to wait a few years.”

“But it isn’t fair to leave them out of all the fun adventures,” Calissë protested, as Mablung laughed.

“You can take it up with your mother and father when you get home to Tirion next spring,” said Maglor. He had no intention of heading back out to Ekkaia any time soon, himself. It was beautiful and he was as glad as Daeron to have gone, but it was not a journey to make often—and Curufin would certainly never consent to either of his girls making it, young as they were, especially remembering all of the mishaps and difficulties of their own journey.

For her part, Calissë was having fun making friends among Daeron’s younger students and their friends and siblings, as well as learning to play the harp herself. Maglor found himself giving lessons to several of Daeron’s young songbirds as well, all of them clustered in the parlor of Mablung’s family home on chilly afternoons. Some of Daeron’s older students sat in on the lessons as well, with questions of their own for him afterward, of more complicated music and of songwriting, and a little of instrument-making.

It was busy, but it was nice. Maglor still had his own song to write, and he carved out a few hours in the mornings to work on it, retreating to the large library in the palace where there were plenty of desks placed in nooks and alcoves where he could sit unnoticed and unbothered as he worked. It was quiet there but for the quiet murmur of conversation and the rustling of paper, and every time he left he felt like he had accomplished something, even if it was just rearranging a few lines over and over.

Daeron and Simpalírë often went walking together, or retreated to a quiet corner of the house, speaking quietly and seriously—though there were times when Maglor caught them smiling or laughing together. Every time he got Daeron to smile—a real smile, one that made his eyes crinkle, rather than one of the falsely sunny ones he put on for audiences or strangers—Simpalírë seemed to be equal parts delighted and surprised.

Finally, Maglor was called back to the palace to speak to the kings. He dressed with the same care he’d taken when he’d gone to the palace in Tirion, wearing one of the tunics Arwen had made him, and letting Calissë choose the ribbons to weave into his braids. Daeron walked with him to the palace; the days were quite cold now, a sharper and heavier cold than ever settled over Imloth Ningloron. They had woken that morning to frost patterns on the windows. “I don’t think the king intends for this to be a particularly formal meeting,” Daeron remarked as he led the way to the wing of the palace where more private rooms were located, rather than the public chambers and receiving rooms.

“I hope not,” said Maglor, though he could not quite imagine what an informal conversation with Elu Thingol would look like—let alone Ingwë or Olwë. Let alone all three of them at once. They were all three kings, and all three among the mightiest of the Eldar, born by Cuiviénen, leaders of the Great Journey. Finwë had been their equal, but it was easier to forget that when Maglor thought of him first as his grandfather, away from the demands of leadership when he could be freer with his laughter, kind and gentle and almost never stern.

“To reach the library from here, take that hallway,” Daeron said as they came to the room Thingol had specified for this meeting, pointing down a nearby corridor, “and turn left when you come to the tapestry of the Trees, and then after a little while you should be back among more familiar surroundings. If you get lost, someone will set you right—and probably tease you a little bit, since this palace is neither as large nor as labyrinthine as Menegroth once was. I’ll be waiting for you in the library, probably on the upper level.”

“And if this meeting runs long?”

“Come to the library anyway—or someone else can be sent to fetch me, if Thingol wishes for us to dine with the court tonight. And if no one comes to find me I’ll just meet you in the dining hall anyway.” Daeron kissed him, and they parted. Maglor watched Daeron disappear down the hallway he had pointed out before, and then turned to knock on the door.

Upon being admitted he stepped inside to find a very cozy sitting room, with comfortable furniture arranged around the hearth where a fire blazed, very welcome after the chill outside. Thingol was there, dressed in warm robes of a deep red color, with silver embroidery on the sleeves, but he was alone, and his head was bare of even a simple circlet. Maglor bowed his greeting, and Thingol waved him forward to sit. “Will you tell me more of this song you are writing, while we await Ingwë and Olwë?”

“Indis and Míriel asked me to write it,” Maglor said, sitting carefully across from Thingol. He did not feel exactly nervous, but he couldn’t quite feel at ease either. “No one has written anything for him before—not like this, something meant to be performed before any kind of large audience, I mean. I know my aunt has written at least one private song for him.”

“Why did you not do it before?” Thingol asked.

“I tried,” Maglor said. “Many times. I just couldn’t make it work. It’s easier now I think because I am not relying only on my own words and my own memories.” He paused, and then added, “It’s still very difficult, and not only because there is much that I did not—still do not—know about my grandfather. About his family, and his life at Cuiviénen. He told stories, but rarely and…never ones of real substance.”

“Finwë always kept his own counsel,” Thingol agreed, “especially about his own past. I know that he spoke to Námo when we first came here, and whatever he learned troubled him deeply; he did not speak again of the family he’d lost, after that.”

“Does that mean they did not come to Mandos?”

“Only Finwë can answer that, but I fear so. I think Finwë harbored some hopes that were dashed, then—and then his mother and sisters refused to come, which I do not think he took well. There were many ugly partings then. But I might be wrong, and they may not have fought like I suspect they did. Míriel would know better.”

“She didn’t say whether they had fought,” Maglor said, “only that there were many such partings, full of bitter grief—and my grandfather was never able to speak of his the way maybe he should have.” There had been a culture of silence among the elder Noldor in Tirion, Maglor had come to realize. Perhaps they were all only following Finwë’s example, or perhaps there had been some agreement, unspoken or otherwise, to try to forget who and what they had left behind, to refuse to linger on painful memories. Maglor knew all about ignoring and pushing down the things that hurt, and in his experience it had only made things worse later—but it was also a very hard habit to break out of.

“It’s easier, often, not to speak of it,” said Thingol, “though in my experience it is almost always better to do so. I would rather hear my daughter’s name spoken with sadness than never hear it again. It is a comfort to be reminded that we are not alone in our grief—especially those of us who have known and cared for those of the Secondborn.”

“It’s different, with them,” Maglor said after a moment. “At least…it feels different to me. I don’t know if I can explain it right.”

“It is certainly different than grieving Finwë,” said Thingol. “Even Lúthien—she chose her fate, and she did so with her eyes wide open, and when she passed through the Halls and beyond them she shone bright as the sun, unburdened by either regret or sadness. It is a comfort to me also to know that Túrin and his family have passed out of the world into some place—I hope—neither pain nor sorrow can reach. But Finwë is one of the Eldar, and we were never meant to languish for ever in the Halls. Even Míriel desired to return to life eventually.”

Aredhel had said that Finwë was as healed as was possible in Mandos. Maglor realized that he did not quite know what that would look like in his grandfather. He had been slain by Morgoth himself, his body nearly unrecognizable, and Maglor had been trying very hard not to think about the damage likely done to his spirit. There were almost certainly some, he thought, who had suffered so greatly that they would never be able to return to life even if their spirits had made it to Mandos, not until the world was remade and the Music re-sung. It may be that Finwë’s kin were among them—the great-grandfather and uncles and great-great-grandfather that Maglor had never known and would never meet.

It occurred to him then to wonder whether Míriel and Indis had not been heeded not because the Valar refused to reverse their judgment, but because Finwë was too far gone to find full healing either in death or in life, even if he was able to in some way help those of his children and grandchildren who came into the Halls, to encourage them to leave even when he couldn’t.

Better not to dwell on such ideas—that would be far worse than mere refusal to listen on the part of the Valar.

“Will you tell me of that first journey here, that you and Ingwë made with my grandfather?” Maglor asked.

“Of course,” said Thingol, as the door opened. “There you are, Ingwë—just in time. Do you remember your first sight of these shores when we came with Oromë?”

Ingwë smiled. “I do,” he said. “With the Mingling Light streaming through the Calacirya to shine upon the waters of Eldamar—I will never forget it.”

Maglor learned a great deal that afternoon—about the Eldar, about their customs at Cuiviénen and what had been kept in Valinor and what had been left behind. He had known something of what kind of leader Finwë was—but he had known Finwë as an established king, with his royal seat in Tirion, and not Finwë the wild youth who claimed leadership of the Tatyar through sheer force of personality and a capacity for hope that seemed in Ingwë and Thingol’s telling to rival even Elrond’s.

“And he was a mighty singer,” Olwë said after a time, “descended from other mighty singers.”

“He was,” Ingwë agreed. “Orcs and fell creatures of all kinds fled before the sound of his voice—though even he was not as mighty as you, Macalaurë. But you get it from both sides of your family; Ennalótë’s family was also comprised of great singers.”

“Finwë sang against the Enemy at Formenos,” said Olwë quietly. “He held out for a long time; I could see the signs of it when we went there.”

“I know,” Maglor said. “I went there this summer; the stones remember.” His voice failed him then; he did not know how to thank Olwë and Ingwë for Finwë’s grave, or even if thanks were necessary—he did not know either how to apologize for not knowing what to do himself, then, or—

Ingwë was seated beside him, and now he reached out to rest his hand on Maglor’s arm. “I am very sorry, Macalaurë, that you had to find your grandfather thus,” he said. “It is not a thing any of you should have ever had to face—it was precisely what we came here to escape.”

They spoke for a long time; all three kings had many stories to tell of Finwë both before and after coming to Valinor. There seemed to be some release for them in the telling of those stories, in sharing the memories and laughing together at youthful misadventures and old jokes. Even more than speaking to Míriel or Indis, or his uncles or even his father, it felt like Maglor was being given a great gift in this picture drawn of his grandfather by those who had once known him best in the world, and who loved and missed him still. All three, Maglor knew, had already gone before the Valar to beg for Finwë’s release. He could not quite tell if they were resigned to that failure or if any of them harbored any bitterness. It was clear, though, that neither Míriel nor Indis had spoken even to Ingwë of the real purpose for this song. Maglor was grateful, but it also made the secret feel even heavier.

In the end Maglor did not go to the library to meet Daeron; instead he accompanied Thingol and Olwë and Ingwë to the dining hall, where Daeron was already waiting, his fingers ink stained, surrounded by his older songbirds and accompanied by Simpalírë. “Will you sing for us after the meal?” Thingol asked Maglor. “Perhaps some songs you once sang before your grandfather’s court?”

“Yes of course, my lord. I would be happy to.”

When Maglor joined him Daeron asked, “How did it go?”

“Very well. I learned a lot.”

“Enough to finish your song?”

“Yes, I think so.”

“Good.”

Daeron’s students had questions for Maglor about his songwriting as they sat down to dinner, but Daeron headed them off with laughter. “Oh, don’t ask him for advice! You should see his drafts—they’re almost unreadable! I don’t mean the ideas are bad, but he scribbles out or writes over everything, and his handwriting is atrocious. I have no idea how anything worthwhile comes out of such a mess.”

“It’s a good thing no one but me has to decipher them, then,” Maglor said. “You’re right, of course—I know they’re awful to look at, and I wouldn’t advise anyone to do it like me.”

“Something about them must work,” laughed Pirineth, golden curls bouncing when she turned her head, “since all the singers and songwriters of Valinor have been studying Maglor’s songs for years uncounted!”

“There are dozens of essays and treatises written about most of them,” added Lathrandir.

“Are there really?” Maglor asked, startled. “About my songs?”

“About some of Daeron’s too,” said Lathrandir’s sister Albethiel as she reached across her brother for the basket of rolls.

“Everyone is, of course, free to make their own interpretations,” said Daeron, “but some so-called scholars are quite bold in their speculations.” Albethiel and Pirineth laughed. “I’m still trying to determine where the idea that I am Thingol and Melian’s son originated.”

Maglor had to hurriedly set down his wine glass before he inhaled some of it. “Who thinks that?”

“No one anymore, thankfully.”

“Some of your older songs do seem to view Thingol as at least a father-figure, if not really your father,” said Pirineth.

“Well,” Daeron said after a moment of thought, “that is not wholly wrong, but it is not wholly right, either. The reality is always more complex than songs or poems would have us believe—such are the limitations of the medium, and why we do not only record our histories and tales in verse. The best phrase I can think of to describe what Thingol was to me in my youth is almost-uncle, but even that might require some explanation—which I am not going to provide today, so you need not go to the trouble of asking.”

Pirineth and her fellow students laughed, and turned the conversation back to Maglor’s music and how he was going about writing his song for Finwë. Maglor was happy to answer, but he noticed the thoughtful look on Simpalírë’s face, and the way that Daeron had not looked at him even once during the talk of Thingol and Daeron’s heretofore mysterious parentage.

That evening Maglor was called upon to perform, and as promised he sang many songs that he’d written or learned in his youth that Finwë had often asked him for. Some were songs that Finwë himself had taught him, whose origins Maglor had not thought, at the time, to wonder about. He still wasn’t quite sure if they had come all the way from Cuiviénen or if they had been first sung on the Great Journey, but he had enough knowledge and experience himself now to tell that they were very old indeed. By now he suffered almost no nerves at all in performing before an audience—though it was not quite so easy to do so alone, and it was always a relief to step aside and be swallowed up by the crowds again, to retreat to Daeron’s side where he could stand or sit and not be expected to do or say anything for a while.

The next few days took a sharp turn towards the bitter cold, and so Maglor spent them at home, not leaving the house in favor of curling up with his work by the fire while Calissë played with Pídhres or practiced on either Maglor’s harp or the smaller one that Pirineth had given her, and Daeron and his family provided cheerful and comfortable noise in the background.

Maglor was startled out of absent daydreams one afternoon by Daeron abruptly getting up from where he’d been sitting playing chess with Simpalírë across the room, pale and with his lips pressed together in a thin line. He caught Maglor’s eye and shook his head before leaving, and a moment later Maglor heard the front door open and then shut. He glanced at Simpalírë, who rubbed a hand over his face with a sigh before getting up and also leaving the room.

Calissë had been playing her harp on the floor, but now she got up to curl up beside Maglor on the sofa. As he tucked the blanket around them both again she asked in a half-whisper, “Who was Lúthien?”

“Oh,” Maglor said, and sighed. That explained it. He poked Calissë’s nose and summoned a smile. “You know who Lúthien Tinúviel was, sweetheart. You’ve heard the Leithian.”

“But why is Daeron so upset?”

“I don’t know if he’s upset, exactly,” Maglor said after a moment. Daeron was upset, but he wasn’t sure it was in the way that Calissë meant. There had been something hard behind his eyes that made Maglor uneasy. “But he knew Lúthien well—she was Thingol and Melian’s daughter, you know—and I’m sure he misses her still.”

Calissë frowned, and Maglor let her sort out her thoughts. He saw Mablung pass by, and then heard him leave the house too, and hoped that he was going after Daeron. Lúthien was nearly as fraught a subject as the Great Journey, and Maglor wished he knew what it was Simpalírë had said. He wished, too, that he and Daeron had spoken of her before. Daeron only sometimes mentioned her name, like the story he’d told once of her falling out of a tree to land on top of him and break his nose, but they’d never talked about her quest, or his part in it, or what had happened afterward. Maglor had never asked because he did not want to pry into anything Daeron did not wish to speak of, and especially lately it felt as though Daeron had enough to worry about without dredging up even more old pain.

Finally, Calissë said, “What’s it mean that she—what is it the songs say? That happened to her?”

“She died,” Maglor said softly, tucking a strand of hair behind Calissë’s ear. She was still so young, too young to know what death really meant even for the Elves. She just knew that sometimes someone was badly hurt enough that they went to Mandos, someday to return in a brand new body. She was too young to understand the grief of it, the pain and the sorrow of long parting—and Maglor was glad of it, and hoped she never would fully understand. “She died and passed beyond the Circles of the World, following Beren.”

“So that means she can’t come back, like everyone else?”

“That’s right. She is the only one of the Eldar ever to be permitted such a thing. And it’s…it’s very hard, to lose someone and know you will never see them again.”

“But why?” Calissë asked. “Why can’t Men ever come back?”

Maglor sighed. “Because that is their fate. They are not bound to the world like we are. I don’t know why—no one does. It’s just the way of things. Exceptions have been made—Lúthien was one, Tuor is another, and for all I know Gimli might be too—but I can’t tell you why that is either. As for Lúthien and Beren—long ago they passed away, in the forest singing sorrowless. Those who knew them and loved them will always miss them, but it is a comfort to know at least when someone you love has left the world in peace, unafraid to face whatever comes next for them.”

“Did you know her?” Calissë asked.

“No. I never met Lúthien, or Beren, though I traveled to Ladros at times and met some of Beren’s kin. But Elrond is their great-grandson, and I have known and loved his brother Elros, and his daughter Arwen and her husband Aragorn, and their children and grandchildren, all of them either born to or chose the Fate of Men. I will love and miss them forever.”

“That’s awful, though,” Calissë protested.

“It feels awful, sometimes,” Maglor agreed, “but it’s…just a part of having lived in the world. It’s just the price that I have to pay for having had the chance to know and to be a part of their lives and for them to have been a part of mine—and I would not give that up, not for anything. It’s different for those who loved Lúthien, though, because she chose that fate when no one thought such a thing was possible. She was not born to it, and that makes the grief harder to carry, even now, even with the comfort of knowing she chose it and went to it fearless and sorrowless. I would not be surprised if Daeron is unhappy the rest of the day.”

“Simpalírë shouldn’t have reminded him,” Calissë said after a few moments.

Maglor wrapped his arm around her and kissed the top of her head. “Simpalírë does not know the whole story. He didn’t know his questions would upset Daeron—they’re still trying to get to know one another. I don’t think either of them have done anything wrong today.”

“Do you know how to make Daeron feel better?”

“I’ll talk to him later,” said Maglor, “when he’s ready.”

Daeron did not reappear for dinner, however, or by the time Maglor tucked Calissë into bed. Neither had Mablung, and when Maglor ventured to ask, Lacheryn assured him that Mablung would not let Daeron wander too far in the cold. “They’ll be in the library most likely—that is where Daeron most often retreats when he needs to be distracted.”

“Should I go looking for them?” Maglor asked.

“No.” Lacheryn squeezed his hand. “No, it’s enough that you’ll be waiting when Daeron returns. And don’t worry about Simpalírë, either. He is with Belthond, and I will speak to him too in a little while.”

Daeron, though, did not return that night. Maglor stayed up with a book that he couldn’t focus on, until he fell asleep in spite of himself, and woke again to an empty bed. It did not trouble him the same way it troubled Daeron—except that waking alone did trouble Daeron, and there was no good reason he would have avoided coming home to bed. He rose and dressed, and did not find Daeron downstairs either at the breakfast table or anywhere else. “I left him in the library yesterday,” Mablung said when Maglor asked him where Daeron was. “Did he not come home last night?”

“No.” Maglor hesitated, then asked, “Should I go look for him, or would that just make it worse?”

Mablung shook his head. “You couldn’t make anything worse, Maglor.”

“But if he’s upset about—”

“I don’t know what he’s upset about; he wouldn’t tell me. But I can’t imagine it has anything to do with you. If he isn’t in the library, try the mallorn grove. He used to go there often when he was unhappy in the early days after his coming west. Don’t worry about Calissë. Beleg returned last night and we’ve already promised to take her exploring in the woods today.”

“Thank you.”

It was another very cold day; Maglor wrapped his cloak around himself tightly as he walked down the road toward the mallorn grove after not finding Daeron in the library, watching his breath fog in the air before his face. It was a little easier to bear these days, because the cold of winter was so different from the cold that had sunk into him beneath Dol Guldur and refused to leave for so long. This cold was sharper, cleaner. He liked many things about winter—the fresh smell in the air, the crunch of snow or ice under his feet—but there was still a part of him that feared that even when he retreated to the warmth of the fireside or his bed, the chill would cling. So far it hadn’t happened, but Maglor had long ago accepted that some fears, like some scars, just wouldn’t ever fade completely.

When he reached the mallorn trees he paused to look up at them, silver trunks crowned with gold. The yellow leaves were a beautiful and bright splash of warm color in the otherwise bare and stark winter wood. Daeron, though, was not there. Maglor walked several times through and around the trees, but the grove was empty. He gave up, and decided to go ask Lacheryn if she had any other ideas—but then on his way back he spotted Daeron walking slowly, head bowed and arms crossed, along the partly-frozen Helethir, under a stand of aspens, slender and pale, branches empty and swaying slightly in the breeze that had picked up. Maglor left the path to approach him. “Daeron?”

Daeron didn’t lift his head. “What are you doing out here? It’s freezing.”

“Looking for you. I missed you last night.” Maglor stopped an arms length away, unsure of what to do. Daeron held himself rigidly, and when he had spoken he hadn’t sounded like himself, but Maglor didn’t know what it was he did sound like. “What do you need?”

Daeron’s jaw worked for a moment before he lifted his head. His eyes were red rimmed but dry, his gaze faraway. Beside them the Helethir flowed along, its music muted by the ice along the edges of the banks. Daeron seemed to be listening to it, but Maglor thought he was instead remembering the music of the Esgalduin. Finally, he said, voice hard, “It would be nice if—if someone would just—”

“Just what?”

“Just—speak plainly for once what I know they’re all thinking, what we all know is the truth, instead of asking careful questions or talking around it as though—we all know it’s because of me that Lúthien—that she never would have—”

“Daeron—”

“—without trying to soften it or make it someone else’s fault when we all know that if I hadn’t—”

“I’m not going to do that,” Maglor said. There was something else he should say, but he didn’t know what it was. He wished now that he had tried to ask Simpalírë what he had said, so that he might understand why the mere mention of Lúthien’s name had not just upset Daeron but angered him. Maglor had never known Daeron in this kind of mood, and he knew even before he opened his mouth that he was bound to say the wrong thing. “I wasn’t there, and—”

“No, you weren’t,” Daeron said, voice like broken ice, because Mablung had been wrong and it seemed Maglor could make everything worse, “because you drew your sword in Alqualondë and ruined everything before it even began and even now it’s—”

This was bound to happen sooner or later, Maglor thought. Daeron had been on edge for weeks now, ancient grief brought to the surface by new frustrations, and of course it had dredged up other things, opening old scars. This was just the blood welling up out of them, pain with no other direction to go, Daeron looking for a fight not because he wanted to hurt Maglor but because he wanted to be hurt himself. His words weren’t even untrue. Maglor had ruined any chance of happiness for the two of them in Beleriand long before they had ever even heard of one another, first by drawing his sword and then by keeping secret what had happened; it was the Doom of the Noldor that had ensnared Doriath in the end, though Thingol’s choices had been entirely his own, and if it was not directly Maglor’s fault he could not be held blameless in it either. Neither he nor Daeron wanted that to overshadow what they were building together in the present, but the knowledge of it was always there.

It still hurt, to hear it said aloud, to hear that awful bitter anger even if he knew it wasn’t really meant for him—and coming from someone who knew all of his weaknesses and all of the best places to strike if he wanted to do real damage. Maglor found himself bracing for it, like he’d once curled up with his arms raised to protect his head from the worst blows of the orcs in Dol Guldur. He couldn’t have this fight out here in the cold; he wished they weren’t having it in Taur-en-Gellam, where there was nowhere for him to go afterward. He was among strangers, and as kind as they were, Daeron’s family were Daeron’s family, and he could not just pick up and go back home to Nerdanel’s house or Imloth Ningloron either, because Calissë was there with them and such a journey in the middle of winter would be miserable for her and he would just end up with Curufin and Rundamírë angry with him too.

He didn’t want to run away, but knowing he couldn’t made Maglor feel trapped, like walls were closing in around him, and that made the cold feel somehow worse, like it had developed teeth. It felt like chains wound around his limbs.

In a voice that he was relieved did not shake, he said, “I’m not going to fight with you.”

“No,” Daeron said bitterly, “you’re just going to run away and hide like—”

“No,” Maglor said, taking a few steps back. He did not want to hear what would come out of Daeron’s mouth next. “We’re not going to do this. I’m not going to hide—not from you—but I’m not going to stay and listen to this either.”

He left Daeron by the river and returned to the city, and after debating with himself he went back to the palace and the library, where it was warm and quiet and he could at least pretend to be working. Some of Daeron’s students were there and they greeted him cheerfully; somehow he managed to put on a smile, though he declined their invitation to join them. He wanted to be left alone. He retreated to a secluded corner, far away from the parts of the library he knew Daeron favored, and sat down with several sheets of blank paper and without a single real thought in his head except a vague idea that Daeron was going to realize that everything would be easier—better—without Maglor, and then Maglor would have to retreat and figure out how to put himself back together on his own. Again. The more reasonable part of him knew better than to listen to that thought, knew that by the evening or the next day Daeron would apologize, remembered all the promises they had both made that meant so much more than careless words spoken in anger, but it came from the same place as all his other darkest thoughts that most of the time he could bury down deep and ignore, but which even decades in Lórien hadn’t been enough to fully uproot. Some of them had been planted by Sauron, but most were just truths borne out of the worst years of Beleriand, and once wakened they were all very hard to drown out again, even with all the things he had learned from Estë and Nienna about doing exactly that.

He stared at the paper and tried to think of his grandfather, but all he kept coming back to was his grandmother’s desire that he go before the Valar, and…

He’d ruined everything before it even began—and then he’d made it worse and worse with every decision he made from Alqualondë onward. Maybe everyone else could forgive and forget, but for Thingol it was because of Finwë’s memory, and for Ingwë and Olwë and others it was just for the sake of keeping the peace of Valinor. The Valar had no reason to do either and certainly no reason to listen to him, however good this song turned out to be. Maglor pressed his hands to his face and leaned his elbows on the desk, and wondered if Finwë even really wanted to come back. Aredhel had said he urged all the rest of them back toward life, but that did not mean he ever wanted to return—not to a family with so much blood on its hands and so much pain and grief still clinging to it. Everything he had worked for and sacrificed had been to prevent exactly what they’d all gone and done anyway. In that moment Maglor could only bring to his mind the image of Finwë turning away—from him, from his father, from all of them—and it felt like he’d been punched in the chest, all the air driven out of his lungs.

Still. He’d made promises; so many people were depending on this song being finished, most of whom didn’t know anything at all about the plan to bring it before the Valar. It didn’t matter that nothing he wrote would be enough, that the Valar would never listen to it. Others would, because they needed something to remember Finwë by that was more than a lonely grave beside crumbling walls. Maglor swallowed past the lump in his throat, and picked up his pen.