A Hundred Miles Through the Desert - Chapter Forty Eight

[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

 

Amrod and Amras had agreed to take pity on Fëanor, as they hadn’t done on Celegorm when he’d come to stay with them. They obtained a pair of skates and took Fëanor down to the lake as soon as it froze over so he could practice without all their friends there to laugh at him. Fëanor strapped them on cheerfully, clearly not expecting to find any difficulty, and then immediately slipped and fell hard onto his backside once he actually stepped onto the ice.

“Careful!” Amrod called as he glided out over the ice.

“At least your feet didn’t go in opposite directions like Tyelko’s did,” Amras said as he helped Fëanor up. “He pulled a muscle and then was grouchy about it for the next week. Come on, it isn’t hard once you get the hang of it!”

“Nothing’s hard once you get the hang of it,” said Fëanor, watching Amrod and then carefully starting to move his feet in the same way. “Who came up with this?”

“No idea! We learned in Beleriand, but I suppose it’s possible some Vanyar have been skating in the lakes high in the Pelóri for years beyond count and would laugh at all of us for thinking it’s something new. One of these years we’re going to get someone to sing the ponds in Imloth Ningloron to ice thick enough for it so we can teach Calissë and Náriel. Curvo’s going to hate it.”

As in everything else, Fëanor was a quick learner, and by the end of the afternoon was racing both of them across the lake, all of them windblown and red-cheeked from the cold. Amras didn’t care much about winning races, not like Amrod did, but he loved to go as fast as he could and then to just let himself glide, with the wind in his hair and his arms flung out—it felt like flying, and it was even more marvelous when they came back on moonless nights, and all their friends among the Laiquendi were there, with flasks of warm drinks and bonfires on the shore.

It must have been like this at Cuiviénen, he thought as he sat beside Fëanor by one of the fires, listening to someone tell a story while they rested for a while from skating. Bonfires and starlight and no other sounds but their own voices. Fëanor’s arm around his shoulders was warm and solid, and Amras leaned against him, feeling the laughter rumbling through his chest as much as he heard it. Inviting Fëanor to come out into the mountains with them had been almost a whim, a decision made on the spur of the moment, but he was so glad they had asked, and that he had said yes.

The next day it snowed hard enough that even Amrod didn’t want to venture out of the house. They built up the fire and took turns telling stories, and then brought out the palantír to spy on Nerdanel and all their brothers. Curufin was busy with Celebrimbor and many others, with lots of paper spread out over a table full of notes and lists, all of them bright-eyed and excited about whatever they were doing. Amras found Maglor with surprising ease, building a snowman with Calissë and Daeron in a place Amras did not recognize but which must have been Taur-en-Gellam. Maedhros was on Tol Eressëa with his sketchbook and a peaceful expression. Celegorm and Caranthir were at home with Nerdanel, Celegorm covered in stone dust and Caranthir shooing Nallámo out of his bedroom while Nerdanel sketched out something wild and abstract.

“I’m very surprised Curvo let Cáno take Calissë with him,” said Amrod once they set the palantír aside.

“Maybe she hid in one of his saddlebags like Pídhres,” said Amras.

“She would,” Amrod laughed.

“She’s at the same age he was when he started demanding to go traveling with your brothers,” Fëanor said, “but he had a tendency to wander off at the smallest distraction, so we almost never let him. You two were even worse.”

“Because there are two of us,” Amrod said cheerfully. “I bet Calissë’s having a marvelous time, though. Daeron has lots of students her age, I think. And Curvo didn’t look very worried.”

“Of course not,” said Amras. “She’s with Maglor.”

“Have you been looking at the past, Atya?” Amrod asked.

“Some,” Fëanor said, slipping the palantír back into its bag for the moment. “I found myself watching Maglor with Elrond as a child—and his brother. Elros? I have no idea which one is which, in these memories in the stone; it’s odd.”

“Maglor doesn’t talk about Elros much,” Amras said after a few moments, “though he talks fairly often about Arwen and her children, and her husband Elessar—except he calls him Estel.”

“I’ve never really understood how they could do it, Elrond and his brother,” Amrod said softly. “To choose such different fates like that, to choose to be separated.”

“They are halfelven,” Fëanor said after a moment. “Whatever fate they choose, they are set apart, even from one another. I have not met Elwing or Eärendil—or Dior—but I must imagine they are the same.”

“Dior is certainly one of a kind,” said Amras. “He keeps trying to be friends with Tyelko, and Tyelko doesn’t know what to do about it.”

Fëanor frowned. “Friends—but didn’t they—”

“Yes, that’s why Tyelko’s so confused. Nimloth has more reasonable feelings about the whole thing, which sometimes makes visiting Imloth Ningloron a little awkward, but that’s never stopped Elrond from seating Dior and Tyelko beside one another at the dinner table. Or maybe it’s Celebrían.”

“Probably both,” said Amrod. “Have you looked for Maglor at all in Rivendell, Atya?”

“Some,” Fëanor said. “I’ve looked for him more than any of the rest of you.” He glanced away as he said it, even though it was entirely reasonable.

“Well, there’s more of him to look for,” said Amras. “What about—other places?” They’d asked him not to, but that was like asking Pídhres not to climb the nearest tree.

“I’ve looked for that, too.” Now Fëanor’s face had an unhappy set to it, in the downward curve of his mouth and a tight look around his eyes. Amras regretted asking, except that the whole point of Fëanor looking for them all was so they could talk about it all without talking past one another, so they could speak and know they were all talking about the same things. “Though I have a feeling that that isn’t what he wanted me to see, when I was given the palantír.”

“He doesn’t want any of us knowing much about it, same as Maedhros has never wanted to speak of Angband,” said Amrod. Fëanor winced. “You looked for that, too? Atya—”

“If I’m going to learn something, I’m not going to do it halfway.”

“There’s learning and there’s just punishing yourself for no reason,” said Amrod. “And for what it’s worth, I don’t think Angband or even Thangorodrim haunt Maedhros the way Dol Guldur has haunted Maglor.”

“No, it was other things that drove Maedhros to—” Fëanor covered his mouth with a hand, closing his eyes for a moment. “I never thought—I don’t know what I thought, when I swore—but I never wanted—”

“We know, Atya.” Amras moved to sit beside him, leaning against his side. Fëanor wrapped his arm around Amras and kissed the top of his head. “It’s important to us that you understand what happened, but it’s also important that you know that we understand that it was never what you intended.”

“That doesn’t matter,” Fëanor said. “What I intended doesn’t matter in the face of what happened, and what I did, I know that—”

“It matters to us,” said Amrod quietly. “And it matters to Maedhros.”

Because that was what troubled Fëanor most now, Amras thought. He thought that Fëanor could handle Celegorm and Caranthir’s anger and even Maglor’s hesitancy, but Maedhros was still so hurt, and by now Amras was sure that Fëanor had looked into the palantír to refresh his hazy memories of Losgar.

“I’m not sure there’s any fixing things with Maedhros,” Fëanor said after a little while.

“That’s what he and Maglor once thought,” said Amras. “And then they decided that it was too important not to fix, so they found a way.”

“We all found a way,” said Amrod. “That’s why we left for Ekkaia. Honestly, it involved a lot less shouting than I expected it to, even from Celegorm.”

“Celegorm doesn’t yell very much these days,” said Amras. “I mean, not really. He and Caranthir yell at each other a lot but that doesn’t mean anything.”

“What do they yell about that doesn’t mean anything?” Fëanor asked, voice still rough with held-back emotion.

“Same stuff we all used to yell about, living in the same house,” said Amrod. “It’s just bickering, and I think sometimes they exaggerate it just to be annoying to everyone else.”

“It’s hard for Maedhros to brood when he’s rolling his eyes at them,” Amras agreed. “Or threatening to toss them into the fishpond or the river.”

Fëanor rested his cheek against the top of Amras’ head. “Tell me something ridiculous,” he said after a moment. “From here, from Beleriand—just—”

Amrod launched into a story about the time they all found out that Caranthir was actually courting Lisgalen, which they had not bothered to share with anyone any more than they had bothered to share the news that they were engaged. The story turned into a farce in Amrod’s telling, playing up how he and Celegorm had stumbled upon Lisgalen and Caranthir in the orchard beside Nerdanel’s house, and how Huan had charged forward to knock them both to the ground with doggy kisses of his own, and then their collective outrage when they all learned that Curufin and Celebrimbor had known about it the whole time and kept quiet, even though Caranthir hadn’t asked them to.

“Honestly, we’ll be lucky if they have a proper wedding,” Amras said when Amrod was done.

“Bet you anything they won’t,” said Amrod. “Ammë says she wants to follow the proper ceremonies, but I don’t think she really expects it, not from Carnistir.”

“He’s always liked to go his own way,” Fëanor murmured.

“Have you met Lisgalen?” Amras asked. “They’re friends with Tyelpë—that’s how they and Carnistir met.”

“Once,” said Fëanor, “just after you all came back from Lórien, and before they and Rundamírë left to meet you. One brief meeting isn’t much on which to form a judgment, but I liked them, and Tyelpë spoke highly of them afterward. They seemed clever—though perhaps a bit shy.”

“They’re not usually shy,” said Amras. “They keep up with all of us just fine; they’re just a bit quiet. They suit Carnistir very well—I haven’t seen him so happy since before the Dagor Bragollach.”

“In Thargelion, you mean?”

“Yes, he loved it there.”

“It was beautiful,” Fëanor said. “All of it was beautiful, just as all of what you are building and making here, now, is beautiful.”

The winter dragged on. Fëanor took up the palantír a few more times, and spoke to Curufin once or twice, since he’d taken Amras’ suggestion even before Amras had made it and taken one of the other stones home with him so he could check on Calissë every once in a while. There was little enough to do in the winter in the mountains, besides the occasional hunt, and wandering through the woods and the snow. Amras kept expecting to wake up to find his father ready to climb the walls in frustration at the forced idleness, but he never did. Fëanor filled his sketchbook with drawings of the trees and the snowdrifts and ideas for things he would do or make when he returned to Tirion, but if he felt impatient for spring he didn’t ever show it.

He reminded Amras of Maedhros, who also liked things quiet and slow these days—and who was also almost always with his sketchbook, drawing idly during conversations or sketching more seriously when alone. They had several drawings that Maedhros had given them—portraits, mostly, of themselves and all their brothers, of Nerdanel, of Calissë and Náriel and Celebrimbor—as well as flowers and trees, and the hedgehogs curled up in between Huan’s paws as they all slept. Amras went to pull them out of the chest where he and Amrod kept them, and sat down next to Fëanor, where he sat near the window. Spring was slowly encroaching on the mountains, and the world outside was full of the sound of running water everywhere as snow and ice melted and trickled away in tiny rivulets to find the proper streams and rivers, swelling the lakes and ponds and tumbling down the mountainside in great rushes to water the plains and perhaps someday find its way to the Sea. “Have you seen Maedhros’ work?” Amras asked when Fëanor blinked himself out of whatever daydream he’d been lost in as he watched the icicles outside drip steadily into the mud below.

“I had heard he wished to take up painting, but that was before he went to Lórien.”

“He has taken it up, though I don’t have any paintings. I meant his drawings.” Amras handed the stack of them over. Fëanor set his pencil aside and paged through them in silence. “He’s very good, especially at people.”

“Yes, he is,” Fëanor said. “And flowers. When did he take up drawing?”

“I think almost as soon as he came from Mandos,” said Amras, “but only because Ammë made him, so that he had something to be doing, to keep him busy. None of us ever saw his drawings until we went out to Ekkaia. I think he burned them all.”

“Why?”

“Until our trip I don’t think he was drawing what was in front of him. I think it was all nightmares—but that’s just a guess, since I never saw any of them. I don’t think he even showed Findekáno.” Amras fell silent, watching Fëanor look at the pictures. Outside a bluebird flitted past, a bright flash of color against the still-barren wood, all dark browns and dingy whites. “Atya,” he ventured after a little while, knowing Amrod didn’t think it would do any good but not really able to make himself leave it alone.

“Yes?”

“What was it that happened at Losgar—that was troubling you last fall, I mean?”

Fëanor didn’t lift his gaze from the sketch he had just drawn out to set on top of the pile. It was of Aechen under some flowers—delicate Queen’s Lace and thickly-growing bluebells. Amras wasn’t sure if Maedhros had drawn it in Imloth Ningloron or in Caranthir’s garden at home. After a long silence in which Amras started to think about how to apologize, Fëanor said, very quietly, “Maedhros and I met briefly in Tirion, by chance. He asked if I remembered Losgar.”

“Did you?”

“Not well. I remember many things a little clearer now that I have gone back to look for them—truly, I think I should have picked up a palantír years ago—but before then much of it was…hazy. Mostly I just remember the heat, building and building until at the end I just—” He shook his head, and passed a hand over his eyes. “He was right—Maedhros was right about the ships, and about Nolofinwë and Findekáno. I didn’t listen, and then—he did not deserve the things that I said to him afterward. I don’t know what it is in particular that still troubles him so, but maybe it doesn’t matter. I should not have said any of it. I wish I could take it all back.”

“Do you know what you’ll say to him when next you meet?”

Fëanor sighed. “Probably what I just said to you. I just don’t know if that’s what he wants to hear. Or needs to hear. I don’t know any of you anymore, not as I should, and Maedhros—” His voice came dangerously close to breaking, and he shook his head again, sharply; strands of hair fell loose of his braid to brush over his temples.

“You’ve just spent all winter getting to know us,” said Amras, “and you know Curvo just fine.”

“Not the rest of your brothers. You’re all so changed, and—and I’m not sure I ever knew Tyelkormo or Carnistir as well as I thought I did. Looking back…I don’t know what I should have done differently, but there must have been something.”

“You can’t change anything in the past,” Amras said, “but you can do things differently in the present. You are doing things differently.”

“I’m not sure it’s enough.”

“Maybe it isn’t, but you can’t know until you actually speak to them. And…I’m sorry that Amrod and I waited so long. We were never really as angry as the others. I’m not sure I can explain why we kept putting it off.”

“You don’t owe me any explanations. Or apologies.”

“That’s not how this works,” Amras said. “I am sorry that we delayed, even after we decided that we did want to try to make things right. I’m sorry that it’s turned into something that looks like we’ve been punishing you, because that’s not what any of us intended—but you said yourself intentions don’t matter as much as what actually happens. It’s not fair—not to any of us, really—and I’m sorry for it.”

“The world isn’t fair,” Fëanor said. “It never has been.”

“Celegorm said that too once, sitting almost where we are now,” said Amras. “And I told him that that’s why we have to be fair, to ourselves and to one another, if the world won’t be. Maybe if everyone tried harder the world wouldn’t be as unfair as it is. We haven’t been trying as hard as we should have, and I’m sorry for it.”

Fëanor reached out to gently tug on one of his braids, his expression soft and fond in a way Amras didn’t remember ever seeing before. “When did you get to be so wise, Telvo?” he asked softly.

“I don’t know if that’s wisdom,” Amras said. “That’s just the least we can all do, to try to make the world better after all the ways we made it worse.”

“It sounds like something Elrond might say,” said Fëanor, “which I think means it is very wise. I still don’t think you should apologize to me. I knew when I came back from Mandos it was likely none of you would ever wish to see or speak to me again. I was and am willing to endure it.”

“Why come back at all, then?”

“I hoped that I was wrong. And…” Fëanor looked away, back down at the drawings. The next one he drew out was of Míriel, sitting beside Maglor as he played his harp and sang. “I know what it is to be parted forever from a parent,” Fëanor said, tracing his fingers lightly over the folds of Míriel’s skirts. “First my mother, now my father. I cannot ever speak to him again, however much I want to. At least now all of you have a choice in the matter. You can avoid me or you can seek me out as you wish—I am here. I don’t know how to make any of the rest of it right, but I can at least give you back that choice.”

Amras suddenly felt terrible for the way they had all been thinking of Fëanor when he’d first returned—for the apprehension and the fear, all of it needless. That was probably something he really shouldn’t apologize for, because without knowing anything of what their father had really been thinking he wasn’t sure what else they were supposed to feel, but it was still awful, to know that all their father had wanted was to see them.

“Honestly,” Fëanor said after a moment, “I didn’t expect to be released. I asked, and was as surprised as everyone else when the answer was yes.”

“And…you don’t regret it?”

“No. No, not even for a moment. The worst part is missing my own father, but I knew it would be, and he did not want me to linger just for his sake.”

“Did it make that worse, talking to Maglor?”

“No, though I’m not sure it was very helpful to him.”

“He says everything helps,” Amras said. “That’s the whole reason he’s in Taur-en-Gellam now—to talk to Thingol.”

“He’s working very quickly,” Fëanor said, frowning a little as though it had just occurred to him. “I spoke of it to Indis briefly, before we left Tirion—she said there is no particular occasion for which she and my mother want the song. No reason for him to work so hard so fast.”

“I think he wants to sing it at Ingwë’s feast, whenever that will be,” said Amras. “In the next year or two maybe.”

“It isn't as though it is necessary, though. No one will object if he does not have it done by then. In the past he used to work for years on songs much smaller in scope than this one.”

Amras shrugged. “I don’t know. He seems to feel that it’s very important, this song—I mean, obviously it’s important, but he won’t give any particular reason. Daeron or Elrond probably know more, but they aren’t sharing either. Maybe it’s just one of those things where he can’t put it down because if he does it will be too hard to pick up again.”

“Maybe.”

“Neither Daeron nor Elrond will let him push himself too hard, you know.” Amras didn’t want to tell Fëanor about the small but troubling habits Maglor had been falling back into in Tirion. He’d mostly stopped after visiting Formenos, but it was true that this songwriting weighed on him more than it should. Fëanor, though, was already worried enough. “Maybe it’s just that this is the first song someone has asked him to write in a very long time. And it was Grandmother Míriel who asked, as well as Indis.”

“Maybe,” Fëanor said again, still frowning. He looked as though he were trying to work out a puzzle with some pieces that wouldn’t quite fit together and others that were missing. The only way to solve it, though, would be to ask Maglor, and that wouldn’t be possible until they all made their way back to either Tirion or Imloth Ningloron.

Amras rose; there would be time later to worry about Maglor, and about Maedhros, later when they were all more or less in the same place. “We’re running low on firewood. Want to come with me to gather more?”