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

Finally, a letter came to Imloth Ningloron from Maedhros—a short note, apologizing for how he had acted and for leaving without warning, and saying that he had come to Fingon’s house safely. It felt stilted and was a little reminiscent of the notes he and Maglor had exchanged in between their return from Ekkaia and their departure for Lórien, when neither of them had quite known what to say to the other. That Maedhros had returned to that was troubling, but at least he’d written something. Maglor wrote a much longer letter, including as many reassurances as he could about the state of things since Maedhros’ departure, as well as a silly bit of rhyme about Aechen near the end, after a paragraph about Pídhres and her soon-to-be-born litter of kittens.

Then he wrote to Fingon to ask how Maedhros really was.

“I’ll carry the letters for you,” said Celebrimbor when Maglor took them downstairs, bundled up with the sketchbook that Maedhros had left behind. “I’m going that way.”

“They aren’t in Tirion,” said Maglor.

“I know.” Celebrimbor offered him a slightly rueful smile. “I want to talk to Maedhros.”

Of course Celebrimbor would know all about complicated relationships with one’s father—and getting past centuries-old hurt, and the worst devices of the Enemy. “Are you all right, Tyelpë?” Maglor asked.

“Oh yes!” Celebrimbor embraced Maglor, holding on very tightly for a moment. “Don’t start worrying about me. I’m happier than I’ve ever been—in general, I mean, since right now I’m worried about Maedhros and a little worried about what kind of chaos I’ll find when I return to Tirion. I’ll write to you once I’m back home—when I can find the time. It will be a whirlwind until everything is made ready for next year’s feast. And don’t worry, I won’t let Finrod trick Maedhros into getting drunk in the woods.”

Maglor hadn’t even thought to worry about that. “Good luck,” he said, and Celebrimbor laughed. “I’ll see you in Tirion later this year, after I’ve finished this song. Hopefully before the winter.”

“I hope you’ll come stay with us this time.”

“I will. Oh!” Maglor said as Celebrimbor started to turn away. “Are you leaving now?”

“Yes?”

“Can you take Aechen with you?”

Celebrimbor laughed again. “Yes, of course!”

After Maglor found the basket he’d once used to carry Leicheg on horseback and tracked Aechen down near the vegetable garden before seeing Celebrimbor off, he found himself caught by both Calissë and Náriel and dragged back outside for a very chaotic game of hide and seek that ended with Elrohir nearly falling out of a tree and Rundamírë exclaiming in resigned exasperation over the state of Calissë’s mud-crusted skirts. Finding himself unwilling to return inside, Maglor then retreated to the woodworking shop. Annem and Aegthil followed him along the path, and outside of the workshop he knelt for a few minutes to tickle their bellies before they scurried away into the daffodils. Maglor watched the flowers sway with their passage, and sighed.

The wood shop was empty, and Maglor was happy to find it so. He wanted quiet—and to make a set of shelves for the horses that still sat in their chest, tucked into the corner of his bedroom by the desk. Above the desk currently hung an intricate piece of embroidery, all swirling blues and greys and silvers, made by Celebrían. It was beautiful, but there was plenty of room elsewhere on the walls for it, and Maglor intended to replace it with the shelves. He went straight to the stacks of already neatly-cut planks, hoping to find something in a light color that wouldn’t clash horribly with the other wood and furniture in his room. Mallorn would have been nice, but he did not immediately see any.

As he shifted some boards around to see what lay beneath them, a voice behind him said, “There is malinornë in the far corner, if that is what you’re looking for.” Maglor started and dropped the board in his hands; it landed on the floor with a clatter. He turned to find Fëanor in the doorway, looking apologetic. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t mean to be always startling you in workshops.”

“It’s all right,” said Maglor as he bent to pick up the wood he’d dropped. “How did you know that was what I was looking for?”

“Someone told me you are particularly fond of those trees—and I know you have worked with it before.” Fëanor paused, looking uncomfortable in a way Maglor wasn’t sure he had seen before. It took him a moment to realize that Fëanor must be thinking of the mallorn-wood pendant that Maglor had made for Daeron; he’d made plenty of other things out of mallorn wood, but nothing that Fëanor would have seen or that would have made such an impression on him if he did.

Probably better to just speak plainly, and get it over with. “I know all about how you and Daeron met.” Maglor straightened the stack of wood and went to look at the planks of mallorn. One was perfect for his needs: long enough for two shelves, and just the right thickness.

“I misunderstood…many things,” Fëanor said. He had moved to a workbench near the one Maglor had chosen, where a partly-finished wooden box stood. The lid had an intricate design of interlocking diamonds sketched across it.

“Daeron is not in the habit of making himself easy to understand these days.” Maglor picked up a pencil to start drawing lines on his own piece of wood. “He told me also that he spoke to you in Tirion last summer.”

“He did.”

“I think you would like him, if you both gave it a chance,” Maglor said after several minutes, once he had the wood marked as he wanted.

“I do like him,” Fëanor said without looking up as he carefully carved out one of the diamond outlines. “He is clever and talented, if infuriatingly difficult to read—and more than that, he loves you, and he makes you happy.”

Others came into the workshop then—old friends from Rivendell who greeted Maglor cheerfully. Though he’d come out in search of quiet, it was a relief now to have the workshop filled with noise and chatter, saving him from feeling like he had to fill the silence himself. As Maglor set to work making his shelves he was aware of his father’s eyes occasionally on him, but if it wasn’t comfortable it wasn’t terrible either. After a few hours Calissë wandered in; she spotted Fëanor first, and ran over to him with a delighted cry. Fëanor set his box down to lift her up, setting her on the workbench. Maglor watched out of the corner of his eye as he finished sanding his shelves. Seeing Fëanor with Calissë was like catching a glimpse of Fëanor from long ago, when he’d immediately set aside whatever he was doing when either Maglor or one of his brothers came running to him. It was good to see that he’d returned to that instead of continuing to allow himself to get so utterly absorbed that he didn’t even notice a small hand tugging at his tunic or his pant leg.

The others who had come to work in the shop finished what they were doing and departed, leaving it empty again but for Maglor, Fëanor, and Calissë. As Maglor set his shelves down and went to find a finishing oil, Calissë finally noticed him. “Hello, Uncle Cáno! What are you making?”

“Shelves,” he said, glancing over his shoulder to smile at her.

“What for?”

He found the oil that he wanted. “For those wooden horses Grandfather Finwë made. I’m going to put them above my writing desk.” As he returned to his workbench he added, “Thank you for sending them to me, Atya.”

“You’re welcome,” Fëanor said with a brief smile.

“Did Grandfather Finwë teach you woodcarving too?” Calissë asked Fëanor, swinging her feet from her perch on the workbench.

“Yes, he did,” Fëanor said after a moment, pausing in his own carving as though needing that time to steady his hands. “The first thing I ever made was of wood, with his hands guiding mine. It was a box—much plainer than this one. I don’t know what happened to it afterward.”

“That was the first thing he taught me to make, too,” Maglor offered after a moment. “I gave it to Maedhros; he kept his rings in it.” He glanced up then, with a smile for Calissë. “Why don’t you tell your grandfather about the first thing you made of wood, sweetheart?” Calissë immediately started talking about the wooden duck that Maglor had helped her carve, and then insisted that Fëanor lift her down so she could run back to the house to fetch it to show him.

“Why a duck?” Fëanor asked once she had gone.

“I asked her what she wanted to make, and that was what she decided. I’d been telling her about the animals and toys Grandfather used to make, and she had seen the horse I’d made when we were last all here in Imloth Ningloron.”

For several minutes he and Fëanor worked in silence. Maglor finished the first shelf and set it aside to dry. Outside a nightingale sang in the lilac bushes; a little farther away Maglor could hear Legolas and Gimli laughing, soon joined by Elladan and Elrohir. Fëanor finished another outline of a diamond and set his tools down, flexing his fingers. Then he said, cautiously, “Cáno, can I ask—” He broke off.

“You can,” Maglor said without lifting his gaze, “but depending on what it is, I don’t promise an answer. Is it something you’ve seen in the palantír?”

“No, though I have questions about that too. Why did you give yourself the deadline of Ingwë’s feast to finish the song?”

“I don’t know,” Maglor said after a pause in which he swallowed his sudden panic; he wasn’t prepared to talk about what came after he finished the song—not with Fëanor. “It just…feels important to have it done in time. It is not a song I will perform often—I don’t think I will perform it at all after the feast, and I can think of no better time or place for it.”

“Do my mother and Indis know of this plan?”

“To sing at the feast? I haven’t told them, no, but it isn’t a secret. It was something I decided—oh, I don’t know when the thought came to me. I suppose it was after Elemmírë outlined her plans for a great cycle of songs of all our history, from Cuiviénen to today, and I realized how well this song would fit into it.”

“Why only once?” Fëanor asked after another few minutes of silent work.

“Once or twice is all I have in me, I think,” Maglor said. He carefully wiped away some excess oil, and put the lid back on the jar. “Others can take it up who wish, but after the feast I will not sing it again—at least not in full.”

Once Maglor’s shelves were finished and put aside he left his father to his carving, and to Calissë when she came running back with her wooden duck in hand, and wandered away into the gardens. He picked a stream at random and followed it until he came upon Amrod, sitting under a flowering dogwood tree fletching arrows. “Care for company?” Maglor asked..

Amrod looked up and smiled. “Of course.”

Maglor sat down beside him. The sun was warm, and the sky overhead was bright and clear and very blue. “How was your winter, really?”

“It was nice, like we said,” said Amrod. “Quiet. Did you know Atya’s afraid of heights?”

“I did,” said Maglor. “I remember we had to go up to the top of the Mindon Eldaliéva once, sometime I think before Moryo was born? He wouldn’t go anywhere near the windows—except when Tyelko leaned out of one to look straight down, and then Atya moved very quickly to snatch him back. Is he afraid still?”

“He got very nervous whenever he spotted me in the tall trees,” Amrod said. “I think it didn’t help that I nearly fell on him at least twice. But—it really was nice. He didn’t seem to mind being snowed in at all, which surprised both Amras and me.” Amrod set his finished arrow down and picked up the next. “How are you, Cáno?”

“Oh, I’m all right. I got a note from Nelyo today.”

“Is he all right?”

“I don’t think so.”

“He wasn’t upset with Atya when he left here,” Amrod said after a moment. “Atya said they spoke—before and after Elrond found them.”

“Elrond told me. I’m glad.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“Yes, just now—we were both in the wood shop the last few hours.”

“Are you going to show him the draft of the song?”

Maglor blinked. “I’ve already scribbled over it. I hadn’t thought of showing it to him at all before it was finished.” When he’d been young and fairly new to songwriting he’d sometimes gone to Fëanor for help with a bit of tricky or ambitious wordplay. That had been fun, a game they could spend a morning or an afternoon at. But Maglor had eventually stopped even that, when Fëanor’s moods had grown unpredictable and he was quicker to sharp criticism than to praise, and little inclined toward anything like their old games. There was nothing sharp about Fëanor now, though—and he had said that he wanted to know Fëanor’s thoughts on Finwë more than anyone else. “Maybe I’ll show him the next draft. I’ll definitely show you, if you want, since neither you nor Amras have read any of it yet.”

“Neither Amras nor I would be very helpful I think; I’m quite happy to wait to hear it when you’re done. Atya’s also been wondering a little at how quickly you’re working.”

“Yes, I know. He asked about it.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That the feast is the best time and place to perform this song. But also…it just feels as though I need to.” Maglor leaned back against the slender trunk of the dogwood and looked up at the thickly-growing white flowers overhead. A sparrow hopped between the branches, heedless of the elves sitting beneath her. “Míriel wants me to sing it before the Valar,” he added softly—Amrod and Amras still didn’t know that part. There hadn’t been a chance before now to tell them.

Amrod glanced at him. “Before the Valar? Won’t they also make an appearance at the feast?”

“I suppose they might. But I mean—to go before them at the Máhanaxar, or maybe on Taniquetil. They’re the real intended audience.”

“The real…” Amrod trailed off. “Oh,” he said after a moment. “That’s…oh.”

“Don’t tell Atya, please.”

“Why not?”

“Because it’s not going to work. I’m still going to try, because our grandmother asked it of me, but I don’t—he doesn’t need to get his hopes up only to have his heart broken again.”

Amrod frowned at him. “Why are you so sure it won’t?” he asked.

Maglor managed not to roll his eyes. “Isn’t it obvious?”

“No. If it was, she wouldn’t have asked this of you. But I won’t tell Atya, I promise. Just Amras.”

“Of course.”

“Who else knows?”

“Our immediate family—Ammë was there when Míriel told me—and Daeron, and Elrond. Indis told Lalwen, and Finarfin figured it out on his own when I spoke to him.”

“That sounds like more people than you’d like.”

“It is. I wasn’t going to tell anyone beyond Daeron and Maedhros and Elrond—but Maedhros told Celegorm in Tirion to get him to stop hovering, and it felt unfair to leave the rest of you out after that, except you two had already gone off to the mountains by the time I found out about it.”

“It is hard to keep secrets between the seven of us,” Amrod said. “Is there any way we can help?”

Maglor shrugged. “Talk me down if I start panicking about it?”

“Do you think you will? Panic, I mean?”

“I don’t know. The closer I get to finishing the song the more real it feels, and—I did a lot of performing over the winter, and it’s easier each time, but I still don’t like having so many eyes on me, even if they are familiar. And the Valar…that’s going to be much worse. I don’t know how I’m going to do it without falling to pieces. Which is another reason it won’t work,” he added after a moment. “I might not even be able to get through the whole thing.”

“You will,” Amrod said, all easy confidence and unshakable faith. Maglor envied him that sometimes. “You’ve done so many other things no one else could’ve. Why not this one?”

Maglor frowned. “What are you talking about? I haven’t done—”

Amrod rolled his eyes. “Come on, Cáno. Do you think any of the rest of us could’ve survived—and stayed sane—through all those years alone?”

“I wasn’t always alone,” said Maglor, deciding he probably shouldn’t try to argue that he wasn’t sure he’d stayed entirely sane the whole time either. “There were other travelers, and traders, and sailors, and—”

“You know what I mean.”

“But I’m not—” Maglor broke off at the sight of someone coming down the path. It was Gandalf, and Maglor got to his feet to greet him. “Hullo, Gandalf! What brings you here?”

“Hopefully not sticking your nose into all our business again,” Amrod said as he gathered up his arrows and fletching supplies.

“I can’t just pop in to visit old friends? I happened upon your brother some days ago on the road, and thought I’d see how the rest of you are faring.”

Maglor glanced at Amrod, who narrowed his eyes at Gandalf. “That does not give me confidence that you’re not sticking your nose in our business,” he said.

“It worked out quite well last time, didn’t it?” Gandalf replied, dark eyes sparking beneath his bushy eyebrows. “But for your information, Ambarussa, I did not and do not intend to stick my nose anywhere. We chatted for a bit, and then he went on his way to Fingon’s house, and I went on mine.”

Maglor rather doubted that Maedhros did much chatting. He had also not mentioned seeing Gandalf in the note he’d written, but that might have been merely because it was a very short note. “Where else have you been since we last saw you?” he asked.

“Oh, here and there. I hear Daeron is away—that’s rather surprising. Where has he gone?”

“He’ll be back before the end of the year,” said Maglor, hoping he sounded unconcerned. “He’s gone away west on an errand for Elemmírë, accompanied by Mablung and Beleg.”

“Ah, for that great gathering next year. Preparations are coming along quite fast now! Tirion is busy as a beehive. It looks as though that too will be held somewhere in the west—west of Alastoron, somewhere on the plains.”

“Oh good,” said Amrod. “I was wondering how Ingwë intended to fit everyone into one of the usual places. Will you be there, Mithrandir?”

Gandalf laughed, bright and merry. “The biggest party Valinor has yet seen? I wouldn’t miss it!”