A Hundred Miles Through the Desert - Chapter Sixty Five

[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

 

The excitement following the triplets’ birth took many weeks to die down. Gifts and congratulations came in a steady stream; visitors were fewer, trickling in one or two at a time once Rundamírë was ready to see anyone outside of immediate family. When Curufin saw the first pile of letters on the dining room table his eyes went round as saucers, and so Maglor recruited Caranthir to help him open and sort through them so thanks could be returned in a timely manner, and neither Curufin nor Rundamírë needed to worry about actually reading any of them before they wanted to.

Celebrían was a frequent visitor, which meant Elrond was too, though it was some days before he and Maglor had a chance to speak privately. “I already asked Maedhros and Daeron and Fëanor all about it,” Elrond said, “so I know that you were not fine, like your letter to me tried to suggest.”

“I’m fine now,” Maglor said, and strummed his harp a little pointedly.

Elrond rolled his eyes, but smiled. “I can see that. What took you to Eressëa?”

“Maedhros had an idea for a painting, and wanted to use the palantír in Avallónë. Don’t ask me what the idea was, because he still won’t say. Daeron and I went along so he could visit his family and meet his nieces and nephew—Vinyelírë just had a baby herself a few months ago—and so I could away from Tirion for a little bit.” Avallónë was busy but never quite as bustling as Tirion, and it had been nice to sit beside the Sea again for a little while—he missed it, and hadn't realized just how much until he’d gone back. They hadn't stayed long because of their promise to be in Tirion when the babies were born, but Maglor thought sometime he’d like to go stay on Eressëa for more than a handful of weeks or months.

“Did it help?” Elrond asked. “Getting away?”

“Yes. It was nice.”

Now, he held babies when asked, and entertained Calissë and Náriel, and continued to teach Calissë to play the harp, since Náriel had quickly lost interest in favor of following Celebrimbor and Maeglin around the workshop. It still felt a little strange not to have the song hanging over him, either to write or to prepare to perform. Elemmírë sent letters about what she had planned for the next summer, asking for Maglor’s opinion as well as Daeron’s. They wrote back, and Maglor tried to ignore how nervous he still felt about getting up on a stage before all of the Eldar in Aman. He’d felt so much better about it after spending a winter performing for Thingol’s court, but now it felt like he’d never done that at all.

Midwinter came, and Maedhros was hauled away by Fingon to the palace for the banquet there. Everyone else gathered at Curufin and Rundamírë’s house to hold their own cozier celebration. Maglor played music with Daeron, and Calissë also performed a few songs for them, and both she and Náriel performed dances that Celegorm and Ambarussa had taught them—ancient dances that Celegorm claimed were unchanged from Cuiviénen.

Maglor had Nityanandë in his arms then, and was seated beside Nerdanel who held Alassië. No one had yet settled on a single name for any of the babies for everyday use, but Maglor didn’t think Silmenis yet suited little Nityanandë. “I haven’t heard from Grandmother Míriel in some time,” Maglor remarked to Nerdanel after a while, as Calissë and Náriel spun in circles until they fell over into Celegorm and Curufin’s arms. She had written to thank him, soon after his performance before the Valar, but he’d heard nothing since. “I would have thought she’d come to Tirion at least for Midwinter—and to see the babies?”

“I would have thought so too,” said Nerdanel, “but her comings and goings have been unpredictable ever since she returned to life. She still weaves with Vairë, and I can only assume that keeps her busy. Still, it is surprising—she came to see both Calissë and Náriel very soon after they were each born. Fëanáro thinks it strange, too.”

Maglor shifted Nityanandë in his arms. She cooed and reached for a strand of his hair with her tiny fingers. As he carefully extracted it he said, “Do you and Atya speak more often, now?”

“A little. We’re getting there.” Nerdanel leaned over to kiss him. “Don’t you start worrying about me. Maitimo does that enough for all of you.”

“I’m not worried,” said Maglor. Nityanandë got her hand on another strand of hair, and this time she pulled surprisingly hard. “Ouch. Curvo, come rescue me!”

Curufin came to retrieve her. “It’s time to take them upstairs anyway,” he said as he kissed her forehead. “I keep telling you to tie your hair back, Cáno.”

“I did,” Maglor said. The braid had come unraveled sometime during the evening, and he didn’t know what had happened to the tie.

Once the babies had been taken to bed and Rundamírë bid them all goodnight, Calissë came to climb onto Maglor’s lap as Daeron sat down beside him, taking the space Nerdanel had just left. “Will you sing one of the songs you sang last year?” Calissë asked them. “One of the ones you sang together, I mean.”

“Certainly,” said Maglor, as Daeron reached for the harp. He started playing one of the gentler songs they’d sung last year at Midwinter, as it was getting late and soon Calissë and Náriel would be following their baby siblings to bed. Partway through the song Maedhros returned, still dressed in courtly finery. He was already pulling at the laces of his robes like he couldn’t wait to get out of them, but paused to listen until the song was done. As the last notes faded away Fëanor came in; Náriel slipped off of Celegorm’s lap to run to him, and Maedhros smiled a greeting at them all before vanishing upstairs to change.

As Calissë followed Náriel to Fëanor, Daeron moved over to take her place. “You’re as bad as Pídhres,” Maglor said. Pídhres jumped up onto the sofa to curl up against his leg.

“It’s not my fault your lap is the best seat in the house,” Daeron said. He looped an arm around Maglor’s neck and kissed him. “That was nice. We haven’t sung together like that in a while.”

“I have to start singing again sometime,” Maglor murmured. He’d started to miss it more than dread it, which was a nice feeling. He wrapped his arms around Daeron’s waist and rested his head on his shoulder as Curufin came down to fetch the girls, and Maedhros rejoined them, now dressed in very plain and comfortable clothes. He sat down beside Maglor, who asked, “How was it?”

“The banquet was nice, and the dancing was fun, and I’m very glad to have left early,” Maedhros said. “I’ll be even happier to leave Tirion again. I miss the quiet.”

“When are you planning to leave?” Daeron asked.

“I don’t know yet. Probably when Caranthir also gets sick enough of the city to want to go home.”

“So, at any moment,” Maglor said. Nearby Lisgalen stifled a laugh. “Want company?”

Maedhros grinned at him. “Yours? Always.”

They left Tirion a week later. Caranthir visibly relaxed as soon as the city fell away behind them. Maglor also felt a thread of tension leave his own body. It was very cold, and the clouds were heavy and grey, promising snow, but the journey was short and the chill easily banished once they reached the house and Lisgalen got a roaring fire going on the kitchen hearth. Pídhres trotted off to make her rounds through the house while they all unpacked, but was soon back to paw at Maglor’s leg until he lifted her up onto his shoulders. “Where’s Aechen?” Caranthir asked Maedhros when everyone gathered downstairs again. “Didn’t Tyelko bring him out here ages ago?”

“He’ll be hibernating by now, surely,” said Daeron.

“He is, in his nest in my room,” said Maedhros.

It was very quiet. Mahtan was still in Tirion, and Ennalótë and Vanilómë had joined him for the winter, so the house on the other side of the plum orchard was empty. The orchard itself was barren and dark, and though there was no snow the ground crunched under their feet, frozen and hard. Lisgalen liked the cold, going out in the mornings and returning pink-cheeked and bright-eyed from a walk down to the river, with snowflakes from sudden flurries and squalls caught in their hair and on their eyelashes before it melted away in the warmth of the kitchen. The snow started to fall in earnest two days after they arrived, and did not let up for a week. Maglor was content to watch it fall from inside, bundled up in blankets by the fire. Daeron ventured out into it, claiming to have something he needed to finish in Nerdanel’s workshop—a project he’d left behind in Imloth Ningloron before they went traveling, and had had sent there so he could finally put the last touches on it.

“Aren’t you curious?” Caranthir asked Maglor as Daeron disappeared after breakfast again. Maedhros had gone out too, to his own studio, though only to fetch paints and a canvas to bring into the house to work on.

“Yes, but not curious enough to venture out into the snow.”

Caranthir sat down beside him. Maglor had his harp and had been playing idle melodies, toying with the idea of writing a song but not willing to commit to it just yet. “I don’t think I ever asked why you hate the cold now. Or why you feel cold, sometimes, when you’re upset.”

Maglor ran his fingers over the strings and let the notes hang in the air for a moment as he thought of how best to explain. “Have you ever read the Red Book?” he asked.

“Most of it.”

“Did you read the part about Frodo’s journey to Rivendell? From Weathertop on, I mean?”

“Yes?” Caranthir’s eyes narrowed. “You would have told us if you were ever stabbed—”

“No—no, of course I wasn’t. I wouldn’t be here if I had been. Frodo was astoundingly lucky. But the Nazgûl were there at Dol Guldur, too, and…their greatest weapon was fear, and it brought a particular kind of chill with it. It lingers. And—well, underground, in the dark, it was always cold. It’s a different sort of cold than winter, but not so different that I can go about dressed in hardly anything—not like some people I know,” Maglor said, raising his voice a little as Maedhros came in, wearing far too few layers for Maglor’s own comfort. “I feel half frozen just looking at you, Nelyo.”

“I wasn’t even out there for ten minutes,” Maedhros said. He had snow crusted in his hair and up his cloak; the wind had picked up, blowing the drifts and the still-falling snow all around. “I’m fine.” He had several jars and a canvas in his arms. One of the jars shimmered silver, like someone had caught starlight inside of it. “It’s no colder than Himring ever got.”

“Himring was also miserable in the winter,” said Maglor as Caranthir got up to help Maedhros juggle his paints and brushes and things. “When are you going to tell us what this painting will be?”

“When it’s done,” Maedhros said. “Thanks, Moryo.”

Caranthir came back to join Maglor soon after, with an odd look on his face. “That was the ithildin Atya gave him,” he said. “Back when he sent everyone a gift and a letter. Remember?”

“I do. He made me tools for working wood and clay, and I started using them last year.”

“I didn’t think Nelyo would ever use it.”

“What did he give you?” Maglor asked.

“A globe of blown glass with a flower inside. A peony.”

“You used to love peonies.”

“I still like them.” Caranthir sat down again, and scratched Pídhres behind the ears. “And I kept the globe. Just. In a chest where I don’t have to look at it.” He paused for a moment, and then said, “I got it out yesterday, though, when I was looking for something else, and it just so happened that the snow had stopped and the sun came out for a little while. When it caught on the flower in the globe it started to glow—and it opened. I had thought he’d just not done a very good job in rendering a flower in glass, since he made it the same summer he came back from Mandos and was out of practice with everything. But it was just half-closed until the light hit it just right.”

“That sounds beautiful.”

“It is.” Caranthir sounded as though he didn’t know whether to be annoyed about it or not.

“Did you ever speak to Atya, like you planned? Or did I ruin that too?”

“You didn’t ruin anything,” Caranthir said, “but yes I did. We were talking while you were getting yourself lost in the hedge maze. Curvo found us after you didn’t come home all afternoon. At the old house.”

Maglor played a few notes on the harp just to fill the silence around them. “Did it go how you thought?”

“Not really.”

“Good or bad?”

“I don’t know.” Caranthir sighed and slouched in his seat, turning his gaze to the fire crackling merrily on the hearth. “I told him I was getting married and he wasn’t invited. And that I don’t need or want his blessing.”

“What did he say?”

“He gave it to me anyway.” Caranthir kept his gaze on the fire. “He’s still angry, too. Did you know?”

“No. He hasn’t seemed angry at all, to me. Just…sad. And Curvo and the twins have been saying all along that he isn’t angry.”

“He’s angry at himself, he said. I don’t…really know what to do with that. I really thought I still hated him, but—” Caranthir broke off as Maedhros came back into the room. “Are you all right, Nelyo?”

Maedhros looked at him in surprise. “Yes, of course. Why?”

“You brought in the ithildin.”

“Yes, I know.”

“Why?”

“Náriel said something about it when she was last here, and it gave me an idea.” Maedhros flashed them a grin. “Nice try. I’m still not going to tell you what I’m doing.”

“He’s fine,” Maglor said as Maedhros disappeared back outside. “Whatever he’s planning, he’s excited about it, which is more than I’ve yet seen from him.” Maedhros found drawing calming and he genuinely enjoyed painting—but it didn’t excite him very often, not the way Maglor got about learning or writing a new song, or how their mother got about every new and particularly complex sculpture. “So when are you getting married?”

“Eventually.”

“You’re going to just run off and elope, aren’t you?” Maglor leaned over to bump their shoulders together. “I approve.”

“Neither of us want a big fuss made, that’s all.” Caranthir leaned his head on Maglor’s shoulder. “Can you play that one song—the one you used to play all the time when I was little?”

“This one?” Maglor played a few notes.

“Mhm.”

“I wrote it for you, you know. When you were born.”

“I know.” Caranthir sighed and closed his eyes. “That’s why it’s my favorite.” Maglor played the song, though he just hummed along and didn’t start to sing.

Eventually Maedhros returned, this time with Daeron and Lisgalen, but they went directly upstairs and wouldn’t answer when Maglor or Caranthir called to them. “Oh, I think I know what Daeron’s been doing,” Caranthir said as they heard his step on the stairs some time later.

“What is it?” Maglor asked.

“You’ll find out in a minute.”

“Maglor?” Daeron poked his head into the doorway. “Come upstairs please?”

“Why?”

“I could tell you, but that would ruin the surprise!”

Maglor was already setting aside his harp to rise. “All right, I’m coming.” He glanced at Caranthir, who waved him away and reached for his book.

Upstairs Daeron pulled Maglor to their bedroom, and when he opened the door Maglor found several instruments laid out on the bed—a violin, a cello, a lute, a flute, and a set of pipes, all beautifully made of mallorn wood and mithril and polished to gleam in the pale light that filtered through the clouds and snow outside, with swirling designs of waves and flowering vines on the sides in bright enamel and silver. “Daeron, what…?”

“You’ve said you’re terribly out of practice with most instruments except your harp,” said Daeron, “and I thought it would be easier to get back into practice if you actually had other instruments. It’s taken rather longer than I would have liked, what with all the travel we’ve been doing, but they’re all finished at last.”

“They’re beautiful.” Maglor almost didn’t want to touch them. He turned to Daeron instead, to kiss him breathless. “Have I told you lately I love you?” he asked when they parted.

“Two hours ago,” Daeron said, “but I don’t mind hearing it again.” He pressed one more kiss to Maglor’s lips. “Come on—I made the instruments to be played, not to be looked at.”

Maglor was still as out of practice with all the instruments Daeron had made as he’d been when he tried to play them in Taur-en-Gellam, and the rest of the morning was full of scratchy discordant notes and a great deal of laughter. He knew how to play them, in theory, but it would take some time for his fingers to catch back up to his mind. Pídhres soon fled the bedroom—the first time she’d run away from Maglor since he’d returned from the Máhanaxar—and did not reappear until they went downstairs for lunch, when she climbed up onto Maedhros’ shoulders instead. “Were you making all that awful noise on purpose or are you really that bad?” Caranthir asked.

“You try picking something up that you haven’t practiced in six thousand years,” Maglor said, “and see how good you are at it.”

“I’ve heard worse,” Daeron added.

“That seems hard to believe,” said Caranthir. Maglor kicked him under the stable as Lisgalen laughed. “Are you going to play them at the feast next year?”

“Absolutely not,” said Maglor. “All the Eldar are going to be there—or at least most of them—and I’m not going to go out of my way to embarrass myself.”

“I did mean to finish those instruments with plenty of time to practice before the feast, but then everything got away from me,” said Daeron. “No matter—no one will be expecting anything but your harp anyway.”

The rest of the winter passed quietly. Maglor practiced with his new instruments most days, finding the lute far easier to pick back up than any of the bowed instruments; Maedhros locked his door to keep everyone from trying to snoop on what he was painting, though it seemed to be giving him a bit of trouble, if the muttered curses Maglor occasionally heard from behind his door were any indication; Caranthir and Lisgalen seemed to spend most of their time with their heads together, often laughing at some private joke. Maglor caught them more than once with a map laid out over the kitchen table, but when he asked they refused to share what they were planning.

Once the snow let up Celegorm and the twins came and went from Tirion, sometimes bringing Náriel and Calissë with them for a day or two. When the weather finally started to grow warmer Nerdanel returned home to stay, and soon afterward Mahtan and Ennalótë also came home. Fëanor did not come to visit, but he wrote to both Maglor and Maedhros, and even sometimes to Daeron—now that they were on speaking terms he apparently had a great number of questions about various things Daeron had written over the years.

“I should have apologized to your father years ago,” Daeron said to Maglor after receiving one such letter. “He’s both extremely clever and insatiably curious.”

“Surely you knew that already,” Maglor said. They were lounging in bed, he with a letter from Elemmírë and Daeron with one from Fëanor, and Pídhres sprawled across their feet.

“I suppose I did. I just thought his pride got in the way of it.”

“He was always prideful, but—I don’t know. The end of his life has overshadowed the rest of it, I think. Even in our minds. It didn’t always bother him to be wrong or to not know something, since it just meant he could go and learn about it.” Maglor frowned at his own letter. Elemmírë had finally heard that he’d gone before the Valar, and had several questions about how it had gone that he wasn’t sure he wanted to answer. She performed for them often—though perhaps not in the Máhanaxar itself—and he didn’t really know how to explain why it had been so much harder for him, when once upon a time he would have leaped at the chance for such an illustrious audience. He set the letter down and leaned his head on Daeron’s shoulder. “What’s my father writing to you about?”

“He wants to know all about the ways our languages diverged from those in the east, and also about the Mannish languages spoken both in the east and the west, and also about a few different customs he’s read about in passing that caught his interest, and a shocking number of questions about eastern metalwork, which he must know that I can’t answer.”

“Elrond will probably be very grateful to hear that my father is now directing all his questions at you instead of him,” Maglor said. “Just be prepared that my father’s discussions sometimes sound quite a lot like arguments.”

“I think I can hold my own,” Daeron said, amused. “Your father was rather taken aback when I said upon our first meeting that I didn’t care much for mastery—about being the best, I mean—but I am very good at what I do, and I do know it. I think he mistakes one for the other.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he just forgets that there are some things where full mastery is impossible.”

“You might argue that there is no such thing as full mastery of anything,” Daeron said.

“I might, but not with my father. I’ll leave that sort of thing to you.”

Daeron leaned his head against Maglor’s. “You speak of him much more easily now than you used to. I’m glad.”

“Me too.” Maglor sighed. “But—well, I didn't want to tell him the purpose of the song because I didn’t want him to start hoping only to have those hopes dashed. And now that’s happening anyway.”

“It’s never wrong to hope, love,” Daeron said softly.

“I know. But when nothing changes—”

“Just because nothing has changed yet does not mean it won’t. You know very well the effect you had on the Valar. It rained even in Tirion when you sang, and I could hear your voice on the breeze. If your power waned during your years in Middle-earth, it is waxing now. The earth and the sky themselves could feel it.”

Maglor sighed again. “I almost wish it would continue to wane,” he said, “and that I might just—I don’t know, be allowed to make what music I want without anyone expecting anything more than an evening’s amusement. That was one thing I liked about all that time wandering alone. No one cared what I did or didn’t do.”

“We’ll always be called upon for one reason or another, by our kings or by our kin,” Daeron said as he folded up Fëanor’s letter. “It’s the price we pay for being who and what we are—born or risen to it. I do know what you mean, though. I wandered alone for many years too, and I also miss it sometimes.”

Across the room the stained glass window glowed. As clouds passed periodically in front of the sun the light brightened and dimmed by turns so that the waves seemed to be moving over the sands. Maglor watched it and tried not to miss those particular shores. “Do you ever wish you could return to that time?”

“Yes and no. But the parts I miss are things I can find again here. There’s nothing to stop us from leaving whenever we want, to go wandering for weeks or months or even years at a time—because when we return we’ll find everyone we missed so terribly still here, waiting for us. We can have all the joy of it without the grief, now. And just because there are expectations laid on us doesn’t mean we have to always meet them. We are neither of us who we were in Doriath at the height of its glory, or in Tirion during the Noontide of Valinor, and sometime or other everyone will realize it and adjust their views accordingly. It’s already happened for me, for the most part. You haven’t been back among your people long enough just yet, but it’s only a matter of time.”

“I suppose that’s true. I forget sometimes that it doesn’t feel to others as though I’ve been back as long as I really have, because I’ve spent almost all my time in Lórien.”

“And when I say we can go wandering, I do mean both of us at the same time,” Daeron said. “I have no desire at all to return to solitary wanderings.”

“Of course.” Maglor turned his head to smile into Daeron’s shoulder. “And next time we go off into the wild alone, we won’t have to deal with either Huan or meddling wizards.”

Daeron laughed. The sound was warm and bright, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud to chase away winter’s lingering chill. “Even better! I can’t wait.”