from the ashes a fire shall be woken

Maedhros stares at the fire. It was cold and hot all at once. Then. Now. Time loops and knits together and there is no past, no future, only now, and now holds everything. It holds the perfect warmth of the fire, the blistering burn of the coals, the stark cold, the naked cold that lasts so long it becomes hot and burns.

‘We eat the soup,’ Fingon says, and Maglor laughs.

‘He’s not a child.’ Maglor’s voice is bitter, twisted like his mouth. ‘Why the fuck do you think he’s a child?’

Fingon blows on a spoonful of soup. He holds it out to Maedhros’s lips.

‘Here. For you.’

Maglor walks in short circles, hands over his face. He cries, and Maedhros wants to reach out and hold him still. He wants to tell him softly, gently, ‘Don’t be afraid, little brother. I’m here now, little brother.’ But he doesn’t know how to move or how to speak. All he knows is to stare, and he stares straight ahead, eyes heavy.

The spoon touches his lips, and the warm broth is tilted into his mouth.

‘There,’ Fingon says. ‘That’s how we eat the soup.’

‘He’s not a child, Fingon,’ Maglor says. ‘He’s not coming back.’

Maglor sinks onto the rug beside the fire. His hair is a mess. It falls over his shoulders, over his face. Maglor is never this messy, this thin. He isn’t this wild. He never screamed and gasped before, bent over, sobs shaking his body, wailing, ‘Why won’t he talk? Why won’t he look at us?’

Maedhros feels the soup run over his lips and fall down his chin. Fingon dabs at it. He offers another spoonful. ‘And now we close our mouth.’ He shuts Maedhros’s lips with his fingers. ‘And we swallow.’

‘He’s not there!’ Maglor says.

Maglor says this a lot. He says it and cries. He says it and throws his hands down. He says it and collapses to the floor and shakes like a dog.

At other times he asks Maedhros if he is there. He asks it, face pressed against his, holding his one hand between both of his. He begs him to be there. ‘Please, please, please, come back.’ He cries. He rubs his hand. ‘If you’re there, let us know. Please, say something. Nod. Blink.’

Maedhros stares.

Maglor breaks down into tears again.

That happens again and again. Maedhros doesn’t know why he can’t blink. Just blink. How hard is it to blink.

But he doesn’t. And Maglor cries.

‘There we are,’ Fingon says. He is offering another spoonful of soup. It’s warm and salty, and Maedhros wants to eat it, but he’s too used to being empty.

‘He’s dead,’ Maglor says.

Fingon doesn’t answer.

Maedhros wonders if he is dead. He thinks he might be dead, but he seems to be breathing still. It’s hot and cold and hurts each time. But maybe this is what being dead is. Maybe you keep breathing. Maybe it hurts constantly and your vision becomes blurred and the world becomes disconnected colours. Maybe there is nothing more than this. And you’re trapped forever until they burn you or bury you.

Maybe they should let him go.

‘Good,’ Fingon says again. He’s gotten another spoonful of soup into Maedhros’s mouth. Maedhros feels it run down his throat. He coughs.

Fingon smiles. ‘Good.’

Maglor kneels in front of Maedhros. ‘Are you there? Brother?’ He strokes his cheek. ‘Please… Please do something?’

Maedhros wants to stroke his cheek. He wants to say, ‘I’m here now.’ He wants to manage to cough again, or blink, but his eyes are fast open, and his lips are frozen.

‘It’s like watching a corpse.’

‘But he walks and he breathes!’

Maglor turns away. ‘You don’t know what it’s like to watch your brother...’ He leaves.

Fingon turns back to Maedhros. ‘And now we eat the soup.’ He smiles. ‘It’s good.’

Eight

The sun hasn’t risen in days. Maedhros waits by the window, watching dark clouds move over the stars.

He has forgotten what the sun is. He has forgotten the moon.

He sits in his chair, and he watches himself in the mirror. He lies on his bed, and he watches the clouds quiver and fold, quiver and fly.

Fingon washes him. Maedhros feels like he’s floating when he’s in the bath. He sits in the tub, and his arms rise up. His legs are weightless in the water. Fingon whispers, ‘Good, good.’ Fingon wets a wash cloth.

Maedhros can blink now. He blinks slowly, and his eyes feel weighted. He forgets how to open his lids again.

Once he almost said yes.

His stomach was hurting, and it felt like it was shrinking again. (Like every part of him had shrunk before.) Maglor asked if he wanted food, and he’d opened his mouth, and he’d almost said yes. Maglor gave him broth, and that was good.

‘Are we warm enough?’ Fingon asks and drapes a blanket around Maedhros’s shoulders.‘What are we thinking about?’

Maedhros is thinking about hanging. How the pain went and then came back again. And each time it was worse than he remembered.

Even now he waits for the pain to come back, To come and settle on each nerve. To flood his fingers, to burrow into his scalp – each hair on his body a new fire. He waits, and it doesn’t happen, and he wonders if he’s finally free.

Maglor tells him he’s free. He kneels in front of him and holds his hands and says, ‘You’re free now. Please, come back to us.’

Maedhros hasn’t gone anywhere. He is there with them at all times. Or maybe he never is.

How can he be free? How can he be there? How can he be anywhere else?

It didn’t even hurt when Fingon cut off his hand.

It was fast. The blade was sharp enough. He didn’t scream. He collapsed forward into Fingon’s arms and didn’t breathe.

He didn’t breathe.

Now he feels his hand where it isn’t, and he can’t be sure of anything. He flexes fingers that aren’t there. He reaches for the fire, and his arms are stiff at his sides.

Life is nothing more than a series of moments. Each comes and goes, and he can’t tell when or why. He drinks broth and wine and water. He sleeps a half sleep smothered by nightmares. He is bathed when he is brought to the bath. He urinates when he is told. And each day slides into the next, and he can’t escape the laughter.

‘What are you afraid of?’ Maglor asks, with quivering lips, eyes shot, eyes wide.

Maedhros is afraid of the laughter. He was supposed to be a king, and he was tortured, to laughter. And he was strung up, to laughter. And he was left, and they were laughing at him.

He is afraid of being in that much pain.

He blinks at Maglor, and Maglor wraps him in his thin arms and praises him for being alive. It is hard, isn’t it? Being alive.

Sometimes he wants to close his eyes and let his soul slip away, but he cannot do that. He cannot leave his vow. And that is why he has never died. And that is why he cannot die, even now, when death would be so peaceful.

‘What are you thinking?’ Maglor asks.

He is thinking about death. He is thinking about the pain in his lungs when he draws a breath in, the pain when he lets it out. He is never going to be free.

Free of pain.

‘What do you want?’ Maglor asks.

He wants to be someone else. He wants to be wrapped in a blanket warm in a house that has never seen blood. He wants to cradle a child. He wants to breathe free. He wants to sculpt with both hands.

But he is no one but himself. And he is alive here, breathing in and out, in and out, in and out. Watching clouds that billow over the sky. Watching his hair grow in. It’s dark and tangled on his head now. He trashes at night, and it tangles, and what can be done?

He blinks when Maglor touches his arm, and Maglor gets him water. He drinks thirstily.

The clouds keep running. He cannot leave. He cannot stay. He is a spirit hovering in purgatory.

The clouds fold and unfold. The clouds fade away. The stars are stitched tightly in the night sky, more beautiful than any jewel. Maedhros stares. The stars are fluttering. He isn’t supposed to be here. He wets his lip with his tongue. Two tears, one on each cheek, slide down his face.

Seven

Maedhros awakes from another dream too far away to remember. Maglor is in the bed beside him. He lies beneath the quilts and furs, one arm over Maedhros. Maedhros often wakes to Maglor in the bed with him.

In other days, too long ago to recall, he would have wrapped his arms around him and put one hand in his hair and the other on his back. Now it is hard to move his one hand towards him, but he does, until the side of his hand rests against Maglor’s open hand. He can turn it slowly until their palms rest together. He can’t close his fingers on Maglor’s so that their hands are clasped, but for now, this seems to be enough.

It is autumn. The last time Maedhros remembers was winter. He’s passed through the spring and the summer with no memory of them. There may have been birds and soft, green leaves. Fingon might have taken him out to sit on the warm grass and breathe in the warm air. But he cannot remember. His mind feels heavy.

‘You’re awake.’ And Maglor is smiling at him. Maglor is happier now, he thinks, though he can’t be sure. Maglor laces their fingers together. He kisses Maedhros gently.

‘Yes,’ Maedhros says. The word is hard to force out, and it sounds unnatural.

Maglor smiles again and rewards him with another kiss. Maedhros wants to shut his eyes and sleep again. The dream was bad, and he is so tired. Maybe the next one will be better. Maybe he will have sleep without a dream. But Fingon has come in and Fingon has breakfast, and he won’t let Maedhros sleep.

Maedhros sits up with Fingon’s help and drinks the warm broth and the bits of bread that Fingon tears and soaks in the broth on the silver spoon. Fingon won’t let him sleep, and Fingon won’t let him die. This is his love.

Maedhros drinks the whole bowl, drinks down the bread with it, and the tea with honey. He gets up after and follows Fingon outside. Maglor comes with them.

They walk slowly, but it’s faster than Maedhros remembers. He has memories of this path, but he can’t say when they were. He doesn’t know how many years he’s been free.

There are many leaves on the path, and they are many colours, and frosted. Puddles on the path have become silver discs of ice. Fingon helps him over them. His eyes are so dark and kind that Maedhros can hardly believe that he’s smiling for him. He feels evil inside and out. He can’t scrub the evil away.

At the end of the path is the lake. That’s where they stop. Maedhros knows this although he cannot say how. And they do stop. And Maedhros leans against a white tree and watches the water as it ripples along the brown grass and cold shore.

Fingon stays beside him, holding onto him. He rests his head against Maedhros’s arm.

Maedhros wants to say something to him, but he doesn’t know what it is or how to say it if he did.

He says, ‘Fingon,’ very softly, and the sounds crumble in his throat.

Maglor screams. He jumps. He puts his hands to his mouth. He does all of this very quickly, but to Maedhros it looks long and drawn out, each act completely separate from the other. It takes another long while for the words they’re saying to register as sounds to him and by that time they’re done speaking.

‘Fingon’ is the first word Maedhros has said besides yes. He remembers who Fingon is. They have hope. Maedhros wants to smile for them, but he can’t remember how. There is so much he cannot remember. But he does remember them. He’s glad they know.

Maglor cradles Maedhros’s face between his hands and pulls his face down to kiss him. He’s smiling and crying. Fingon presses his face to Maedhros’s chest.

‘I love you,’ he says. ‘I love you.’

The night is a different night than that morning, but Maedhros doesn’t know where the missing time has gone. But Fingon and Maglor aren’t as happy any more, and he thinks maybe he hasn’t said or done anything for a long time. It is dark outside, and all the leaves have fallen.

Maedhros watches the fire. He watches the ceiling. He watches Maglor talk, but he can’t hear him. He watches Fingon pace the room. He watches Maglor cry on the floor.

This night must be a long time from this morning. It might even be a night before this morning. He cannot keep track of time or seasons. He doesn’t know. He can’t know. He wonders if this makes him broken. Maglor cries, and Maedhros sleeps again.

This is a good dream. Maedhros has both hands, and he is holding a basket of apples. He eats one, and it is the sweetest, cleanest taste. Fingon is lying on the grass, and his hair is scattered around him. He laughs, and his laugh is the only sound. It sweeps Maedhros away into the forest and holds him in the air. He is weightless, flying.

Now it is a bad dream. There is a knife in his back. His tormentors are laughing as he twists away from the pain. He is strung on the cliff. He reaches up to claw at his hand. He is trying to get free. He leaves marks on his wrist. He scrapes away skin. There is blood and flesh under his nails, but he can’t cut through the bond, and he can’t cut through the wrist. He lifts his hand to his mouth and eats the bits of blood and flesh. He scratches again. If he can break his hand maybe he can get it through the binding. Maybe he can scale down the cliff. Maybe he can drag himself wounded and starving through these evil lands. He cries and he drinks the tears.

He wakes tired.

Six

Maedhros wakes. The air is warm, and his father is holding him. Maedhros smiles, for it’s always nice when his father holds him; he has such strong arms and such a gentle smile. His father runs his hand over Maedhros’s face and bends to kiss his forehead.

‘Father,’ Maedhros says, and he can say the word.

His father has dark brown hair. He has kind eyes. He speaks softly. He holds Maedhros like he weighs nothing more than a child.

‘Does he know who you are?’ Maglor asks. Maglor flits about the room, clutching his hands together up to his chest. Sunlight streams over his black hair. His eyes flash a wild blue. ‘Does he know? Does he know that Fëanor….’

Maedhros knows that Fëanor is dead. He saw it. He can never forget. Maedhros knows that the one who holds him isn’t Fëanor. But Maedhros knows him, although he does not know his name or how they are related. It doesn’t matter. His mind is heavy, and he loves him.

‘Uncle?’ Maglor asks.

So that is their relation. This is his uncle. His father’s brother. The one he hated. The one who lifted Maedhros off the floor and danced with him in the golden haze of Valinor. The one who taught Maedhros to dive. The one with the small child wrapped in blue with gold braided into dark hair. Fingon’s father. Not his.

His now.

‘I don’t know,’ his father says. ‘Maitimo...’

‘I know,’ Maedhros says. ‘He’s dead.’

Fëanor is dead, but Maedhros saw him afterwards when Morgoth used his form to torment him. He used his uncle’s too. His brothers’ faces. His mother’s smile.

Maedhros sucks in his lip. It’s not broken, and that startles him. He touches his uncle’s hands. He remembers them holding him, choking him, forcing him down as he thrust into him. He should be scared of him, but he isn’t. He isn’t scared of Fëanor either. (Fëanor, who is dead.)

He doesn’t think he’s scared of anything now.

They pushed him too far. He stopped caring. He could take anything that happened, and he could take it again. He closes his eyes. He wants to sleep. He always wants to sleep. He is that tired.

‘My sweet boy,’ his father says.

Maedhros smiles, and his lips don’t split. He smiles, and Maglor laughs and kisses his hands.

Maedhros isn’t afraid. He isn’t afraid of whips and fire and deep cuts, of long pains. He isn’t afraid of brands and knives and squirming things. He isn’t afraid of flesh peeling and slow poisons, the deepness of rape and the likeness of his brother cut to pieces in front of his eyes, though he once was.

When they started, he could not believe it. It was too horrible. Too cruel. They did things to him he had never dreamed possible. Things that had never crossed his mind, even when he thought hard of the worst things that could be done. He was so innocent then, even with blood on his hands and an oath terrible.

They cut him many times. They fed him warm, raw flesh. They found every spot on his body where he had been touched gently, and they ruined every memory. And they did it until he went numb. Until he lay still, watching his hand and nothing else when they raped him. Until he lay down on the rack without being told. Until he smiled gentle when he was cut because he was that used to it. Until he held his arms out to their image of Fingon and cut his throat willingly and watched him die in his arms because it had happened that many times. Until he gasped and said his father’s name because it had happened that many times. Until he welcomed pain because he was that used to it.

Then they bound him alone, for loneliness was the worst pain, one you could not get used to.

Maedhros ducks his head, for he cannot look at anyone. He is afraid they will read the fear in his eyes, for there are still some things that he fears.

He fears the darkness that holds to his mind. The feeling of Morgoth ever there, reaching through his body, wrapping long, burnt fingers around his lungs, sliding them down into his stomach. His words filling and grasping Maedhros’s mind. He is afraid of succumbing to the stillness and rage that lies in his mind. Of sliding over into a place that he cannot leave. Of being too broken to ever get up again. He is afraid of being someone else. He is afraid of shattering.

(He cannot tell them this.)

He is afraid of the parts of his mind he has locked away. He is afraid of mistaking Maglor for Mairon and killing him before he realises. He is afraid of looking down at the body of Curufin, dead in his arms, and realising it is not an image, not another nightmare. He is afraid of slitting Fingon’s throat and laughing. He is afraid of losing them.

He is afraid that Mairon was right.

Maedhros watches the leaves out the window. They are young and green. Three years, Fingon has told him. He’s been cut down for three years. Fingon says he’s there sometimes and not there sometimes. Sometimes he speaks. Sometimes he’s silent for a month. But he can walk and run and eat and bathe.

Three years.

He is three years old, for he is not Nelyafinwë, Maitimo son of Fëanáro (sweet Russandol).

Five

Caranthir sits besides Maedhros. His head is bent and his curls bound back with a black ribbon. Maedhros holds his hand. The window is open. The trees outside have red buds.

Curufin is on the other side of Maedhros, holding his right arm, head on his shoulder. Maedhros breathes slowly. It is raining. The rain is soft, almost a mist.

Maedhros shifts and Curufin shifts with him. This could be years ago.

The window is open. He can taste the rain in the air, feel its coolness. His hair brushes against his skin. It keeps growing. It keeps growing, so he knows he really is alive. He isn’t dead. (Unburied.)

He feels the warmth of Caranthir’s leg against his. Maglor sits by the window, knees drawn up, and he sings low. Celegorm lies on the floor near Huan.

Maedhros looks down at his left hand. His fingers are laced with Caranthir’s. He looks down at his right hand. It is gone.

The window is open. Birds sing. The rain is touched by sunlight.

He bends his head and kisses Curufin’s hair.

‘Little one.’

The air smells of dirt. The earth is is soft and alive, and he is not buried in it.

The twins are not there. Not the dead one, nor the one yet still alive. Fingon is not there either. Maedhros wishes he was. He always wants him.

He leans forward, wanting to feel the wetness of the rain on his skin. He stands, and Curufin lies down where he has been lying. Maedhros rests his hand on Maglor and leans out the window. He lets the rain fall on him.

The evening comes with the rain clouds breaking and a green sky. The evening belongs to the morning. The time is staring to be right, follow a line.

Maedhros sits by the window. He drinks wine and watches the stars as they are threaded into the sky.

Fingon comes behind him and puts his arms around his shoulders. Maedhros puts his hand on Fingon’s hands where they are clasped together.

They don’t talk about anything they are thinking of.

The green sky turns darker, teal blue, and the clouds on it are black. Fingon leans forward and his cheek is cold against Maedhros’s, and that means he is Fingon, for they were always burning, and he smells like the real world and life and earth and everything Maedhros needs. And he smells cold, that sharp cold of spring when ice breaks on the rivers and bright shoots of leaves push up from the earth through dead grass. He holds Maedhros tightly and they don’t speak and they don’t speak and they don’t speak.

The sky darkens, and the clouds seem to melt into it, black on black. The moon rises round and hazy over the lake. Its light trembles in the dark water.

This is real. Maedhros touches his face. He is real too. He is real, and Fingon is real, and the moon and the stars and the new spring are all here, and they cannot be taken. (Not now. Not yet.)

The forest with its tall trees, the rain when it comes, flowers in bloom: all of it he can have again. He can live. He can be strong again.

Maedhros takes Fingon’s hand.

‘Thank you,’ he says. ‘Thank you.’

Four

‘I need you to tell me something,’ Maedhros says in the deep blue of some unnumbered spring evening while Fingon lies beside him, shirt ridden up, hand on his stomach, hair spread out on the pillow. ‘How many of me are there?’

Fingon tilts his head. He doesn’t understand the question. His lips part.

‘There’s only you.’

‘But,’ says Maedhros. ‘There are…’

There are too many gaps in his memory. He is too strong. He touches the muscles on his arms. He was dying a week ago, wasn’t he? When did he develop this strength? He stands, and he does not falter. He walks, and his legs are fast and strong. When? When did he become strong again?

He paces the floor. He is balanced. He is elegant. Fingon watches him.

When? Maedhros wants to scream. When did this happen? How long has it been now? It’s spring. What spring?

(When did he give Fingolfin the crown?)

He touches his arm. It’s strong. His legs are tight with muscle. His hair brushes against his arms. It swings when he turns his head.

‘I don’t know where you go,’ Fingon says. ‘Back there, I suppose.’

‘No,’ Maedhros says. ‘I never go back.’ (If he says it it might be true.) He scratches at his arm. How is he this strong? He says, ‘I don’t think I’m the one you usually talk to.’

Fingon watches him. He doesn’t understand. His eyes are soft, and his lips close again. Maedhros sits beside him and touches his face. He tries, for a moment, to cradle his face with both hands, but the one is still missing. Fingon stares at him. His hair is braided tightly.

‘I want to understand,’ Maedhros says. ‘Please, help me. Who am I? Where am I?’

He looks out at the sky. The clouds are faint over the dark sky. They are touched silver by the moon. The night looks like Fingolfin.

‘Where am I?’ Maedhros whispers again, even though he knows. He doesn’t, really, because to understand where he is he has to understand who he is, and he doesn’t. He can’t. He is bleeding out somewhere else. He is trapped on the floor. He is held down and slowly mutilated. ‘Where am I?’ His heart starts to race, because Fingon is a lie. He touches the walls. These are a lie too. The sky is an illusion.

There is no moon.

He sucks his breath in sharply, and the only real thing in the world is the sound of it.

Fingon places his hands on Maedhros. One on his face. One on his arm.

‘I’m here,’ he says.

Maedhros wants to be better than this. He hates himself for this weakness. Morgoth is there, in his mind. He is always there. Always.

He is here now in their solitude, watching from the fresh leaves. He is inside Maedhros, twisting his mind. He is in Fingon’s beautiful eyes, laughing. (Always laughing.)

Maedhros turns away.

He was there, laughing, when Maedhros fell to his knees in front of Fingolfin. When he pressed his head to Fingolfin’s feet and kissed them. When he gave Fingolfin all of his pride.

His brothers couldn’t watch.

(But Morgoth did.)

Maedhros shakes his head, and his hair jumps across his face. He needs to be better than this. He needs to be stronger. Healers tell him it will take years to recover (if he recovers), but he does not have time. He has to be strong now.

This is Fingon. The world is real. That is the moon. That is the silver moon. Maedhros lifts his right hand to his mouth. His hand is gone. He draws his breath in again. Fingon’s hand is still on his arm. He has to be better than this. He drags his fëa back to his body.

That’s what he wants, isn’t it? To fade? That’s what they thought when they brought him back and he lay and stared. He was dead. He was dead. He was dead. But he cannot leave. He is bound. He won’t rest. He won’t be weak. His body is already strong, though he cannot remember training it. (He will remember.) He doesn’t have time.

Fingon touches his hair.

Maedhros turns to him, and kisses him, and he holds him with his one hand and with the stump of his right arm, and he kisses him, and the moon is so silver it looks like a coin flipped into the sky.

He kisses him and breathes in the scent of his warm skin, and he draws him closer, and he closes his eyes, and he opens them again, and he says, ‘I can never make it up to you.’

Fingon shakes his head.

Maedhros kisses him so that he won’t speak, because he doesn’t want to hear it. He doesn’t want to hear Fingon say anything about him deserving life or that he couldn’t live with himself if he left him because he’s already heard them and Fingon’s wrong on both counts. He deserved to die. And Fingon should not have risked his life for him. He was a coward. He should have struck his father down and brought the ships back himself. He should have.

He should have.

He was a coward and a fool. Morgoth knew it, but it doesn’t matter that he did. Because he can be those things again, but he won’t be. And Morgoth knew Nelyafinwë. And Morgoth killed Nelyafinwë. He is someone else. He has long nails and strong, sharp teeth. Even if he has nothing else, he has those.

And he has other strengths too. He has his brothers. He has his sword. (He has an army.)

He kisses Fingon, and the air is hot, and he is not afraid of it. He can walk through fire. He can cut himself open easily. He can break himself a million times and piece himself together as many times (and more.)

He kisses Fingon, and the sky is blue, and the moon grows smaller as it rises higher, and he could pull it from the sky if that is what it would take to crush Morgoth.

He kisses Fingon, and Fingon is soft in his arms in a way that Maedhros will never be again. He is strong. He will always be strong, and no one, no one can kill him.

He is strong, and he is not afraid of death, for it cannot keep him. And he is not afraid of cold, for it cannot hold him. And he is not afraid of fire, for his spirit burns inside of him, white hot and indestructible.

He will never cower.

Three

Maedhros brushes his hair in the evening. The sunlight is gold. It folds into his hair, making the red brighter. His hair tickles across the back of his neck, and Maedhros touches it with his hand (his only hand).

Amras lies on the very edge of his bed, hands resting on his ribs, face turned to watch Maedhros.

Maedhros can see him if he looks back. Maedhros can see him in the mirror.

He is dressed in green. His red hair tumbles over the side of the bed when he shifts. Maedhros sits beside him and draws his legs over his lap. Amras’s tunic slides up when Maedhros lifts his legs. His legs and feet are bare. He looks small there. Small and quiet with those bright hazel eyes like a sunlit forest.

Maedhros hesitates before he moves him. He lifts him gently from the mattress and shifts him over towards the centre of the bed. He brushes his fingers over the freckles on his shin.

Amras lifts his hand and strokes Maedhros’s cheek with his knuckles. He has a soft look in his eyes, like he trusts Maedhros with the world. Like he’s always trusted him, more than he trusted Father.

Maedhros takes his hand and kisses it. He kisses the back of it and the palm of it, and he kisses each finger.

‘Little brother,’ he whispers.

The air is soft. He feels warm. The sunlight plays at alchemy against his skin.

Amras traces the freckles on Maedhros’s arm.

He says, ‘In another life, we would be happy.’

‘Maybe in this one too,’ says Maedhros.

Amras closes his eyes, and Maedhros lies beside him and rests his head on his chest. Amras’s heartbeat is slow. Maedhros holds Amras’s hand over his ribs as he breathes.

It would be easy to kill him. He always thinks of such things now. How and when to kill and how fast it would be done and how much it would hurt. He doesn’t want to, but he does. He does and he keeps records of them in his memory.

‘I love you,’ Amras whispers.

Maedhros kisses his lips and dark red lashes. He stops himself from kissing each freckle, suffocating Amras with his love. This possession is a weakness. He knows this. He draws his breath in, stills himself. Not even Amras can know how he aches to own. He gave that up. Never a king again.

He watches the way Amras breathes, so he’ll never forget it.

‘You know I love you,’ Maedhros says, and Amras hesitates. He studies Maedhros, and he touches his face, and the rays of the sun slip, and they fall.

In the morning, Maedhros meets Caranthir by the lake, and they stand together, watching the sun rise, watching it turn from red to yellow.

Maedhros shields his face with his prosthetic hand. It’s copper. He lowers his arm, and it rests against his dark red cloak.

‘It’s a mess,’ Caranthir said. ‘I thought it would be… nobler, than all this.’

Maedhros shrugs.

‘Me too.’

Caranthir rests his hand on Maedhros’s shoulder. Maedhros could throw him down, and Caranthir would hit his head on the rocks they stand on. It would be easy to win after that.

‘Don’t,’ Caranthir says.

Maedhros looks at him. But Caranthir just smiles and turns away.

‘I don’t know what I mean,’ Caranthir says finally. ‘I don’t think that exists anywhere. That… that vision we had in our heads. All easy and clean and…’

‘We didn’t know anything,’ Maedhros says.

Caranthir scoffs, which means he agrees.

‘But you’re back,’ he says. ‘And you’re really alive.’

Maedhros smiles. The sun rises higher.

‘And that vision we had,’ says Caranthir. ‘It’s gone now. Been replaced with a new dream.’

‘Is it a good dream?’ asks Maedhros.

‘No.’ Caranthir shakes his head. ‘It’s not good, but it doesn’t have to be bad either.’

Beneath the sun, the lake turns gold and blue.

Two

‘You shouldn’t have done it,’ Celegorm says.

Celegorm sits on the tall granite rock beside Maedhros, shirt off and spread out underneath him. Huan searches the woods nearby for sticks or hares.

The wind is soft, and the sunlight pale.

Celegorm shifts impatiently, pushing at his silver hair, silver hair that Father loved, treasured, braided, and cut. Father took the braid and locked it away. Father always kept pieces of them, in case he lost them.

‘Not this again, Turko,’ Maedhros says.

‘This again,’ Celegorm says.

‘It’s done,’ Maedhros says. Celegorm’s hair flashes silver over his face. ‘It’s done, and I cannot undo it.’

Celegorm grabs a red rock and hurls it down the drop before them.

‘Your actions have consequences,’ he says, voice changed to mock Finwë. Finwë who always said that when they did something stupid, Finwë who should have listened to himself, but never did.

‘Don’t,’ Maedhros says sharply.

Celegorm slouches back. He picks at a scab on his arm until it bleeds again.

‘Damn,’ he says.

Huan comes back and lies beside them. Maedhros turns to run his hand through Huan’s thick fur. The lake far below them glitters in the low sun.

‘Do you hate heights now?’ Celegorm asks.

‘No.’

Celegorm frowns. He has a sharp, diagonal scar running onto his lip that leaves a line across the lip devoid of colour. It’s the most noticeable scar on his face, and he got it playing. He fell off a wall, split his lip, had it stitched. He has scars from hunting, from fighting, a burn on his temple, but none stand out the way this one does. And he got it on such a peaceful day, just being careless for a moment.

‘You don’t,’ Maedhros says.

Celegorm shrugs. ‘I wasn’t tortured.’

Maedhros shrugs in turn. He casts a rock down in front of him, and watches it ricochet off the jagged granite.

‘I did not lose my mind,’ he says.

Celegorm’s lip curls.

‘No,’ Maedhros says. ‘You don’t get to disagree.’

Celegorm closes his eyes. His hair whips over his bare back.

‘Fuck, Nelyo,’ he says. ‘It’s forever.’

‘Then cry,’ Maedhros answers. ‘It’s done. I would not change it if I could.’

Celegorm turns away and slides his shirt on. It ripples about him.

‘Fine,’ he says and stands. Huan follows him down the slope of granite into the pine forest.

The wind presses to Maedhros. The sun is almost silver.

Maedhros stands and lifts his sword with his left hand. He tests his balance on the ridge of the rock.

One

Maedhros stares into the mirror. He has not done this for a long time. His body is different than the body he remembers, the one he carries in his mind, in his dreams. He does not want to count out the differences. He is naked, and he hates that, so he dresses, and that doesn’t feel much better, but it’s something.

He goes out into the night and runs up and down the hill until his feet bled. He’s every definition of sane now, isn’t he? They can’t say he isn’t now.

There is starlight on the snow. It’s winter.

It’s winter. It’s going to be cold for a long time.

Fingon hates the winter. He hates ice and snow. He creeps around the yard, and the cold is everywhere. It bites and mocks.

Fingolfin should hate it, but he doesn’t. His sword is like ice, and his eyes are like ice, and his hands are like ice, too, when he takes Maedhros’s hands and says, ‘what now?’

Maedhros doesn’t know what now. He hits the stone wall until his hand aches because he doesn’t want to grow soft and unused to pain. He cannot ever be unprepared again. This is smart. This is rational. This is the sane thing to do.

He shakes his hand out after, and his skin is broken. He cries because the broken skin is weak, and he cannot make it stronger, even if he makes every muscle stronger. This is a flaw in him he cannot fix. He can wear armour, but underneath it, he is still soft flesh and soft skin, where he is not scarred.

The moon rises, and its light is blue on the clean stretch of new snow, coaxing out diamonds.

Maedhros kneels and presses his hand into the snow. The blood seeps into the snow. It is a deep red in the moonlight.

Fingolfin is like ice, and Fëanor was like fire, and Maedhros is a fire too, maybe, for his spirit burns inside of him, but it doesn’t feel like Fëanor’s. Fëanor was wild and breaking open with life, rushing, roaring, like a furnace opened and the fire coming out to destroy.

Maedhros bends his head. His hair falls around him. It brushes his arms. He wants to destroy too, but not in the way Fëanor did. Fëanor broke trust and bonds and drew up grievances because he hurt and the whole world had to hurt too.

Maedhros screams. He stifles himself with his bleeding hand. He spits the blood back out.

What now.

They have to fight Morgoth. Maybe somehow they can defeat him. He has to think of a way. He’s seen inside Angband. No one else will find a way.

He cannot shrink. He cannot run. He cannot hide. He must face the cold of the winter for as long as it takes. He must learn to be ice. He must learn to control fire. He must find a way. He is the only one who can. The only one.

He touches his neck where a line runs from the time they said they would bleed him. They didn’t. They just marked the skin.

‘You should have killed me,’ he whispers. ‘Morgoth.’

Maedhros raises his head and looks to the North. Morgoth made a mistake. Got too greedy. Wanted to hurt them too much. Played a hand too cruel.

He forgot how stupid you can be for love.

‘You should have killed me, Morgoth,’ Maedhros says. ‘You should have killed me. It’s too late now.’

Zero

Maedhros is brave, and he’s sane, and he’s the only one who can stop Morgoth, but he’s on the floor again. And maybe this time he can’t get up. He claws at his palms with his nails that he hasn’t cut in too long because if he has them, he has another weapon.

He screams into the heel of his palm so that no one will come because he doesn’t want anyone to see him on the floor again. He pulls at his hair so that there is a new pain. He bites at his hand. He bites each finger along the soft part between knuckle and joint, just above his palm. He bites just beneath his thumb. He leaves teeth marks on his skin, grey and indented.

He feels the pain of Morgoth not leaving him. It never leaves him. He’s going to be sick.

He is sick, and by the time he has washed, Fingolfin has come. He brings wine and food, and he sits beside Maedhros on his bed, and watches out the window with him.

The stars fall tonight, and everyone watches.

‘Will I be sick forever?’ Maedhros asks Fingolfin as he drinks water mixed with wine and watches the stars fall. ‘I can’t get it out of me… this. It won’t leave, and I can’t cut it out of me.’

Fingolfin rests his hand on Maedhros’s back and watches the stars. They shoot across the sky and disappear, one after the other, or at the same time. They come out of nothing and disappear into nothing. Fingolfin stroked Maedhros’s hair.

‘I try to be strong,’ Maedhros says. ‘But the pain is etched inside of me.’

‘That doesn’t make you weak,’ Fingolfin says. His hand is warm over Maedhros’s hand, but his blue eyes are still ice. They are gentle, but there is a pain inside of them that will not leave. Maybe he too cannot be rid of it.

Maedhros leans forward and kisses his cheek.

‘I love you, Uncle.’

Fingolfin puts his arm around Maedhros’s shoulders. Maedhros rests his head against Fingolfin’s head.

‘I wish I wasn’t cold,’ Fingolfin says. He takes Maedhros’s cup and drinks from it. He eats off Maedhros’s plate. It’s the only way Maedhros will eat or drink. Someone has to share his plate and his cup so that he knows it isn’t a trap.

Fingolfin rubs Maedhros’s hand with his fingertips, pressing softly down on his skin, massaging his knuckles and the bend of his wrist. It’s a circle that slides again and again over Maedhros’s hand. It’s how you might comfort a child in the midst of a storm.

‘I love it when the stars break,’ Maedhros says. ‘They’re so fast and so beautiful. If I could touch them, I would.’

Fingolfin rubs his hand. Maedhros cries. He cries, and Fingolfin rubs out the bite marks on his hand, until all that is left of the indentions is faint pink marks. Fingolfin lifts his hand to his lips and kisses it.

‘I don’t want to,’ Maedhros says.

He doesn’t want to live like this. He doesn’t want to face each day fighting pain that builds and claws through his whole body. It’s like having an ocean trapped inside of him, and the waves are fraught always, and they cannot escape.

He doesn’t want to cry every night and fall to the floor because he cannot find the strength to stand. He is strong, but he is weeping, and still the stars fall.

Fingolfin stands. He unlatches the window and pushes it open. The air is cold, but now they can see the stars better.

Maedhros stands too, holding his blanket around him. It’s from home. It’s orange and copper woven together and stitched with gold and silver, blue stars. He plays with the fringe, where the fabrics jump together, glinting in the candlelight. It’s been darned in two places, but he cannot find them.

He wants to draw a metaphor between him and the falling stars. He wants to be mended like a blanket worn through and darned together again. He wants to be poetic and beautiful, but all he can do is cry.

And the stars flash, and they’re beautiful, and then gone. And the blanket is warm, and that is its purpose, and it would still be warm even if it wasn’t beautiful. And he wants to make some point. He wants to call himself brilliant and gone too fast, but his life doesn’t line up with the falling stars, for he didn’t die when he begged Fingon to kill him, and he didn’t die when he begged Morgoth to kill him, and he didn’t die, and he didn’t die, and he didn’t die.

Fëanor was a falling star. Fëanor was fire and love and life and starlight, coming out of nowhere and then gone again, burnt up.

Maedhros shakes. Fingolfin wraps his arms around him.

‘I miss him,’ Maedhros whispers, voice trembling. ‘I miss him so much it could stop my very heart.’

Fingolfin holds him tighter.

Negative One

This is winter. This is winter always. It is cold in Himring. It’s cold when you’ve moved across the world and you’re alone and you’re a kinslayer.

It’s cold when it’s winter, and it’s cold when it’s summer, and it’s cold when the sun shines on you, but you could never be warm.

You could never be warm. You could never be cold. You could never be anything but a soldier. Who told you this? (Does it even matter when it’s true?)

Maedhros stands with his back straight. The river lies dark before him. Ice crusts along the edge of the bank, glinting white in the starlight.

He likes the way the water ripples in the night. It becomes black and then white as it freezes. He could watch the whole river freeze. He could walk across it and break through the ice and go crashing down, swallowed whole by cold and water.

The water would plunge into his mouth, tear it open. The water would press against his eyes, punch them in. The water would flood into his lungs, and he would breathe cold in as it froze him.

His body would freeze. His blood turn to crystals. Water would scrape the flesh from his bones and leave his skeleton white, white beneath the surface of the river, white carried to the sea, white beneath the stars. His bones, like bleached driftwood, would dash against rocks, and no one would ever find him whole.

The water laps against the riverbank. The ice cracks and forms again. He could not die in water. (Where could he die?)

He looks up again at the stars, and they give him no answer, for he is cursed. The curse lies heavy on him, pressing him down. He drinks in the cold air. The stars are all blistering.

Maedhros lies awake on a hard bed that cuts his back. His wounds scab over in the night as he hangs, from his bed, by his hand.

The clouds laugh in the sky. Smoke chokes them. They die laughing. Just like Father? If only he could remember.

The cliff is a lullaby. The cliff is a bed. The bed is alone in a fortress, and it is winter.

He used to count the rocks below him. There were seven thousand. Seven hundred. Seventy. Seven.

Would he die if he fell on them? Was he ever allowed to fall?

In a locked room, Father clasped the Silmarils around his neck.

‘You are beautiful,’ he said.

Those Silmarils, Morgoth forced on him. He stood and watched their light on his head.

‘You are beautiful,’ he said.

And he took Maedhros by the hand and hung him like an ornament. Was he still beautiful?

It is strange what one can remember. What one can’t forget.

Strange how you can wake in the dark, still screaming, with your bed soaked with sweat. Undress and your shirt is wet. Hang your sheets to dry.

Sometimes Maglor comes to visit, and Maedhros stays in his room very late until Maglor asks him to sleep there. He lies beside him. Maglor’s hair is braided in one braid down his back, and Maedhros fingers the end of it, and Maglor tells him he’s sorry, but he already knows.

Maglor turns over to face Maedhros. Maglor lies still and studies him, and Maedhros doesn’t know what he expects to see in his eyes. But Maglor is soft like he used to be, if he looks hard enough. He’s a soldier too, but he’s never been stripped down to nothing and forced to remake himself from that.

Maglor has blue eyes like a night sky and black hair like the shadows. He holds Maedhros’s hand, and light spills from him, and the brightness of it is like Father.

Maedhros has grey eyes like morning and hair like a sunrise, and light erupts from him and breaks through every crack in his body. He could be daylight if he tried.

Maglor rests a hand over a scar on his chest, and that isn’t enough to heal him, but still he presses Maglor’s hand to him, and it might be warm.

Outside, the wind howls. It screams against the walls. It is strong enough to lift you.

Maglor gets up and lays another blanket on the bed. A lock of his dark hair has worked itself free of his braid and falls across his face. He shakes his head to move it. It slips over his face again. Maglor gets into bed. Maedhros tucks his hair behind his ear.

‘What if it all spills out?’ he says. His heart. His soul. He tried to let it before, but it wouldn’t go.

Maglor lowers his eyes.

‘We are cursed,’ Maglor says, and his voice sounds like the night too. Maedhros strokes his hair and shoulder. He feels his fëa brush Maglor’s. It wasn’t like this before. Maglor knows this too, but he doesn’t pull away. He smiles sweetly at him. Maedhros wonders if he will be able to keep his sweetness forever.

‘Your hair smells of smoke,’ Maedhros says.

The wind lifts Fingon. It lifts him and sets him on his feet again, and Fingon laughs because he doesn’t know how to lose joy or hope. Maedhros does not know yet if that is a curse or blessing.

Fingon holds onto his arm. His mittens are blue and white, patterned with diamonds.

‘You did well,’ he says over the wind. His hair is wrapped beneath a scarf and hat and hood, but there is still a glint of gold against his skin, peeking out from beneath his blue scarf.

‘Thank you,’ Maedhros answers. He looks out over the land. The lupine are in bloom, and their purple is strong against the brown land, but still it is winter.

‘We hope for the best, yes?’ Fingon says. His arms are tight around Maedhros’s arm.

Maedhros rests his chin on the top of his head. The wind rips a tree down by the river.

‘Are you afraid of what the future holds?’ Maedhros asks.

‘We don’t know what the future holds,’ Fingon answers. His voice is small beneath the wind. ‘But I hope for good, and that we will have peace.’ So he hopes, but he does not know.

Isn’t there a fear in not knowing? Isn’t that fear itself?

Maedhros feels Morgoth standing behind them. He sees Morgoth out of the corner of his eye. He disappears when Maedhros looks at him.

The wind carries the torn tree across the ground. It lifts and throws it, and it spins through the air like a pin-wheel and crashes down again. Soon the river takes it.

‘It’s cold,’ Fingon says.

It is cold, and Morgoth is watching. The wind takes another tree down. The ground is too soft by the river. Nothing lasts.

They go inside and eat supper alone together, off the same plate, from the same cup. (Fingon doesn’t comment).

‘It goes down into the very base of the hill,’ Maedhros says. ‘And below. It is cut deep.’ Maedhros must have told him already.

Fingon nods. He holds the wooden cup and studies the carvings. His hair is braided many times, and each braid is twined with gold. He blows on a spoonful of soup and drinks it.

‘It’s good,’ he says.

Fingon undresses in Maedhros’s room after dinner without Maedhros asking him to stay. Maedhros smiles. Fingon stands in his under things in front of the fire. The white of his shirt and pants glows golden in the flames.

Fingon could melt, Maedhros thinks. He is the only person in the world who would melt like a candle if he was set on fire. He does not know how he knows this, but it is true. He would melt, and all that would be left of him would be a puddle. Not any bones.

Fingon smiles at Maedhros. He holds his hand towards the flames.

‘Do you think I made a mistake?’ Maedhros asks.

Fingon looks over his shoulder again. His lips part.

‘You,’ Maedhros said. ‘Uncle. I.’ This is incoherent, but Morgoth is watching. ‘You wouldn’t want it, would you?’

Fingon turns back to the flames.

‘We are immortal.’

They do not die, but they can die. Fingon’s seen enough of death for his answer to not be a true answer. Maedhros does not press him. There is not much Fingon could say. He should not have asked. Fingon touches a taiga jay carved into the mantle.

Morgoth shifts in his seat by the window. Maedhros moves away from him. He stands behind Fingon and rests his hands (flesh and copper) on his arms.

‘Is it enough that I loved you?’ he asks and this is another thing he shouldn’t say. ‘That I didn’t burn the ships? Was that enough for you?’

‘I didn’t know you didn’t burn them,’ Fingon answers. ‘It was enough that I loved you.’

‘I don’t know why.’

Fingon watches the flames.

‘Do you ever think of if our places were changed?’ Fingon says. ‘And how you would have saved me then?’

Fingon is so certain. Maedhros smells his hair. It smells like spring and gold.

‘Aren’t you cold?’ Maedhros says.

‘No. It’s not cold by the fire.’

Fingon helps Maedhros undress. He folds his clothes for him. He places them with his clothes. He sits on the hearth and pokes at the fire with a stick. Sparks rise. Maedhros sits beside him, wrapped in his blanket of orange and copper.

‘See?’ Fingon says.

Maedhros does not know if he sees. Fingon takes his hand, and it is cold.

‘Don’t cry,’ Fingon says. ‘I’m sorry. What did I say?’

Maedhros does not cry. He brushes his tears away and rests his head against the leg of the fireplace. He watches a log fall as it burns. It is consumed.

They lie together for a long time in his bed without touching. They are not alone. There is the wind, and there is Morgoth, and there is the red of the fire on the stone ceiling.

‘You could paint stars on the ceiling,’ Fingon says. His voice sounds distant.

‘I’ve seen enough of stars,’ Maedhros says, and that is why he is no longer an elf, and that is why Fingon cries in the bed beside him.

Maedhros holds him in his arms and kisses him.

‘I am sorry, dear,’ he whispers.

He is glad that Fingon is crying, and he is sick with himself for that, but comforting Fingon now means he doesn’t have to focus on anything but him, and the cold is forgotten. The searching wind is forgotten. And Morgoth isn’t forgotten, but he can pretend, really, if he tries.

Fingon presses his face to Maedhros’s chest. He is a kinslayer too, even though his hands are soft, and he trembles.

Maedhros kisses him.

‘Hush,’ he murmurs. ‘Hush, sweet one.’

He kisses Fingon’s tears and his eyes. He kisses his hair and hands. He holds him, and it is cold, but he could be warm if he tried.

Maedhros sits alone. The wind is his only lover. He is not allowed more. This is like hanging. This is just like hanging. Maedhros touches his right arm.

See how he cut you? Morgoth says. Morgoth waits by the door so that Maedhros will have to pass him to go inside.

Maedhros does not go inside. He sits under the stars and watches the river thaw. The ice creaks. The floes gnash against each other. The wind cries over the hills, and all of it together is music.

Maedhros watches the stars wheel across the sky. He has seen enough of stars. But still it is that he loves them. It is love that lets him draw each new breath. Love that keeps him from breaking apart at every seam and spilling out into the wind.

Love or a curse.

But they could be the same. For love and a vow were. He tilts his head back, and the wind cuts his face.

See? This is strength.

See? This is breaking.

But breaking and being able to piece together again everything broken: That is strength. That is what he knows.

Green light slips across the stars. Maedhros watches it. The air is sweet with lupine and heavy with mud. The ice breaks. Maedhros stands and walks beside the river. He steps over the branches of a bent tree. It bent, but it keeps growing that way. Maybe it will last. He does not count on it.

He follows the river, and the Northern Lights grow above him. He keeps his head high. The wind stings with ice, but he does not hide from it. He walks, and the wind sings, and he watches the North. He is never alone, but he is always alone, and the fate of the world rests in his hands, but he only has one, so isn’t it funny?

And he doesn’t fly. He doesn’t run. He does not hide from the cold, from the winter, from Morgoth, who is watching. He will not be moved.

He runs, and he screams. His body is hale, and his eyes are bright, and he is standing.

He will never leave.