Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

"Do you still hear them singing?"

In the room where their mother often dwelt, under a ceiling of painted leaves that shone silver like stars when the moonlight hit this particular floor of this particular tower, Elrond crouched upon bare soles and listened hard. There was a great wail resounding not only in the tower of their lighthouse, but across Arvernien as the night drew on and the clanging of swords knew no end. The wailing had given way to moaning, which had given way to crooning, which had, somehow, become discordant singing.

Now, though, there was silence.

"No," Elrond said. He hooked his fingers along the edge of the window's frame, and though he knew the pale stained glass was tinted with the yellowish haze of fires unseen, he didn't quite believe it, even still. Dragging himself up as tall as he stood, and climbing higher by the inset windowsill, he took a deep breath and peeked through the jagged peephole in the glass that a stray arrow had made early in the evening, when sunlight still caught upon walls and floors and made the leaves on the ceiling flicker briefly, like they might be gold if they wished it.

"That's enough!" Elros hissed, grabbing Elrond by the back of his shirt and dragging him back to the floor.

And it had been enough. Elrond had seen the flames upon the bay— ships gone up in smoke from the docks to the mouth of the river. He had seen the streets, stripped of life, songs dying on cold lips.

What he had not seen was their mother.

"I asked," Elros huffed, falling back upon his hands and kicking Elrond off his leg, "if you could hear them. I didn't want you to go looking."

"You should say so," Elrond said, not quite as huffily, but not particularly peaceful either. "Believe it or not, I can't hear every thought that goes hither-thither between your ears."

"Hither-thither from my ears to yours," Elros said brightly, half-folding over his legs to lean over Elrond's face. "You'd hear my thoughts if you listened hard enough, but you're always off somewhere else."

"I don't think that's true." Elrond pushed his brother's face away as he sat upright. "I don't know of any elf who can read minds."

"Emig says our truths are not always the truth of elves," Elros said, as though he were much bigger and much older, and knew just what their mother had meant.

"Mama says a lot of things." And again, Elrond's eyes flitted to the window. Their mother had been gone for a while now. It was tempting to uncover what she had left under tapestry in the far end of the room, but Elrond feared his mother's wrath more than he wished to sate his curiosity. And there was a frightening chance the elf might wake if they moved the sheet.

"She's just gone for help," Elros said, a statement that made Elrond wonder silently if he could read thoughts. "Whatever's happening can't last forever. Father will come back and stop it."

"But what if he doesn't?"

"What?"

"What if he doesn't come back?"

After all, the bay was on fire. How could their father sail home through the smoke and flames? And if he did, by some miracle, arrive on the shore intact, what then? If their mother couldn't even make it back, how would their father?

"I think you make things more worrisome on purpose," Elros said shortly, his irritation passing upon his face in the shadow of the low candlelight and the fires below. He got up from the floor, his bare feet padding quite loudly across the stone, and he stood over the shrouded figure that had been left beside an overturned table and a slashed tapestry. Their great-grandmother's eyes seemed to twinkle in amusement over Elros's head while Beren, son of Barahir, laid beneath the unknown elf, soaked through his weathered face and stained red.

"Emig said not to go near him," Elrond reminded him from his place on the floor.

"Mama isn't here."

"But she is coming back. And she won't be happy if you— Elros!"

Elros had lifted the sheet back enough that now the elf's face was visible. His face was fair and handsome, and his hair was brown or maybe red as it fanned across the floor, catching upon a small pool of blood that was drying beneath the elf's head and back, staining his hair black and marring the pristine skin of his face. There was a startling opening between his jaw and the collar of his chainmail where a lot of blood had spilled out.

"Put it back," Elrond said, rising to his feet and marching up beside his brother.

"Because Emig said?" Elros asked with a scoff.

"Because it's not right!" Elrond snatched the sheet out of Elros's hand and gently covered the elf's face. "Leave him alone."

"He's dead, Elrond," Elros said dismissively. "And besides, what if he's one of the bad ones? I've never seen him before. Not before he came in here. And Emig– she–"

"Bad or good," Elrond said, a knot in his stomach, "it's not right to disrespect him. Mama left him like this for a reason."

Elros stood quietly, and it was clear by his expression that he disagreed, but either he'd tired of the conversation or something had distracted him.

"Do you hear that?" he asked, turning his attention to the door.

"Hear what—?"

Elros had knelt down and grasped the mighty hilt of the dead elf's sword, prying it off the ground with both hands. The door knob rattled suddenly, and Elrond leapt back in shock, hardly expecting such a din as the doorframe shook under the vicious rapping of some fist upon the wood. A man's voice, deep and sonorous, rattled the air as well as his fist rattled the door.

"Amrod!" Once more the doorknob shuddered. "Amrod, are you in there?"

Without knowing what else to do, with Elros struggling to hold some grown elf's broadsword upright, with the threat of some unknown thing dawning with the sun, Elrond took hold of the arrow that had burst through the window and buried itself in Lúthien's tapestry. It tore a hole in her wrist and part of her hand.

The door burst open and Elros scrambled back. The sword nearly slipped from his fingers, clattering hard against the stone floor as he grasped at it desperately. Two elves swept into their mother's room, trampling dirt and grime and blood and who knew what else over the pristine stone and woven rug. Elros's back bumped into Elrond's chest, and Elrond steadied his shoulder as he planted his feet upon the ground and whipped the arrow with all his might at the nearest elf. It whistled through the air, but lost momentum, and bounced uselessly off the man's breastplate.

"Oh," the elf said, stepping back in clear shock as he blinked down at the arrow and followed it back to Elrond. "Well. How peculiar."

"What is?" his companion asked with a snort. "The child, or the child nearly felling you with a tossed arrow?"

"Both," the dark-haired elf said thoughtfully, "I suppose."

"State your names," Elros demanded, heaving the sword right back up, like it was not the size of his whole body, "and your business here!"

The dark-haired elf watched Elros with interest while his companion, tall and deliberate with a head of fiery hair, rounded him with a bloody sword raised.

"Elros!" Elrond gasped, grabbing his brother around his middle and pulling him back just as steel struck steel. The stranger's blade was glistening with fresh blood, and his armor and face were caked with soot and splattered with dark flecks that had dried in the heat of the night.

"I am Maedhros, little lord," said the red-haired elf, pushing off Elros's blade and causing both boys to stumble back. "I seek our brother, and a small other thing of lesser importance."

"Your brother?" Elros let the mighty sword fall until its tip hit the stone.

"And a thing," the dark-haired elf said with some twinge of irritation in his voice, "of lesser importance."

"Ah, yes," Maedhros said, swapping his sword into his other hand, which was gloved and, seemingly, stiffened and clenched as though it was injured. Then he snapped his fingers. "That's right. A little gem, no bigger than your palm, Elros. I believe your mother was using it as a lamp for this lighthouse."

Elrond, unbidden, glanced up at Lúthien. His eyes darted back to Maedhros, only to find that the dark-haired elf behind him had followed his gaze and was now peering up at the tapestry. When his eyes returned to Elrond, they were filled with some kind of fire, like longing or fear.

"What is your name?" the dark-haired elf asked.

"What is yours?" Elrond retorted, pulling Elros behind him and placing a hand over his, steady upon the sword's hilt.

"Maglor," the elf said softly. "There is no need to fear us. We will not harm you."

Maedhros turned to look at Maglor in a way that Elrond knew his brother would miss, a twinge of irritation glimmering in his eyes. He glanced back at Elrond and Elros with a smile.

"Certainly," he said, his voice losing some of its cheer, "we will not cause you pain, little lords. We only ask for what is ours. Our brother, and the gem. That is all."

"We don't know your brother," Elros said, "and we don't have a gem. But if you are here to help us, then will you protect us from whoever is attacking our home? At least until our mother and father return?"

"Your mother is Elwing," Maglor murmured, shooting Maedhros a tired glance.

"Ah," Maedhros said flatly. He left a beat of silence as if to let some humor leak into the somber mood. When it didn't, he gave a short snort and offered a shrug. "Very good. Will you tell them, or shall I?"

Maglor stood silently, gazing upon the boys without blinking, and Elrond felt that he had known somehow, the instant he had looked out the window. The instant he had looked to the sea.

"It always is up to me," Maedhros sighed, "to do the unpleasant thing. Well, the truth is, your mother took our gem and leapt into the sea."

"What?" Elros blurted, dropping the hilt of the blade entirely. The sound of it crashing to the floor made Elrond flinch.

"I was hoping," Maedhros sighed, "that she did not have the gem in her possession when she jumped, but it is clear to me now that you both have no idea what I am speaking of. Pity that. For your sake, I do hope that the body beneath that sheet there is not my brother, for I have already lost one brother this night, and my patience is running thin."

"There is no need to lose patience, brother," Maglor said sharply. "Imagine how these children feel, having just lost their mother. Our losses are great, but this sorrow is no small thing, and I could not live if it overtook two young souls such as our new friends, Elros and…?"

The numbness of the revelation made it difficult to see logic from trickery or trickery from good faith, and all Elrond wanted was for sense to return to the world. He missed the question, and it came to him a minute later, when Elros elbowed him and hissed in his ear, "He's asking your name, stupid."

"Elrond," he said faintly.

Maedhros said nothing. He merely knelt beside the covered corpse, and Elrond averted his eyes as the man flipped the sheet back to reveal the face beneath.

The silence stretched out, thin and unyieldy, and the overflow of grief that could not be measured seemed to fill every crevice of the room and leak out into the hall and the streets. Elrond would not be surprised if their mother, in the sea, lost to the waves, might rise from the depths from the sheer volume of devastation rolling out of her personal chambers.

"I'm sorry," Elros said, surprising Elrond immensely. He leaned over Maedhros to gaze at the elf on the floor. "He was like this when we got here. Maybe– Emig went to avenge him, and that's why she left us here. To keep us and him safe from the bad elves until she could come back."

That, Elrond thought, was not what had happened. Right? He remembered it differently, though certainly Elros would not lie about it. Unless, of course, Elros thought it was important to lie.

Maedhros was supporting himself by leaning upon his sword, having taken it in his left hand again, but his hand shook. Without a word, Maglor swept forward and grabbed Elros by the arm, pulling him away from the body sharply.

"Hey!" Elros yanked back. "Let go!"

Maglor did so, but he looked upon Elros with a stony face.

"The bad elves have destroyed your home and forced your mother to cast herself into the sea," he said in an empty voice. "You two are alone in this world."

"We aren't," Elrond said softly.

Maglor's eyes slid to Elrond's face, and once more there was a flash of something. Some spark of curiosity, a fire long dead sparked by something within Elrond.

"We aren't," Elrond repeated. "We will never be alone. We came into this world together, and we will leave it together, by sea or— or by some sorrow I will not name."

"Brothers can die, little lord," Maedhros said lowly, the curled knuckles of his right hand pressed upon the dead elf's head. Elrond assumed this was Amrod, whose name had rattled the walls of this room minutes earlier.

"I can see with my eyes well enough, Maedhros," Elrond said curtly. "But Elros is not merely my brother. He is my twin. His fate is mine, whatever that may be."

Elros straightened up at that, looking more himself than he'd looked since the strange elves had walked in. And Maglor watched them both with interest.

"Can we truly argue with that logic," he said, "when Amrod and Amras died tonight? Perhaps twins are closer than even you and I."

"And what say you, brother?" Maedhros asked, rising to his feet and holding his sword out perpendicular to his body so it was eyelevel to both Elrond and Elros. "What shall be the fate of Elrond and Elros, the last kin of our fairest thief?"

Maglor's eyes widened. And Elrond felt the danger here, though he did not fully understand it then. When Maglor stepped forward, Maedhros stepped back, and so closer did the sword come to Elrond and Elros's faces.

"It is obvious," Maglor gasped, "is it not? It is simple poetry. We have been given a gift this night— gain for loss. Twins for twins."

"You cannot be serious," Maedhros said flatly.

"You cannot be so hardened by this world that you see what I am seeing now, and you believe the answer is steel!" Maglor sheathed his sword with such a fury that even Elros flinched. His fingers flew out and caught upon Elrond's sleeve. "We have been handed blow after blow, and it is no surprise that we suffer loss after loss when we must always adhere to the bounds of an oath we made when we did not yet know what death was! Look upon their faces and tell me your heart is not swayed."

"It is not."

"Look at them," Maglor said lowly, "and then pass judgement."

The braid that bound Maedhros's wild hair, loosened and disheveled by an unseen battle, swung like a pendulum, and Elrond knew the man was shaking his head. And then, hesitantly, Maedhros spared a glance over his shoulder, his coalish eyes lighting from within with unbound horror as though Elrond and Elros had become phantoms sprung upon him in the dark. And in the darkness of his eyes, Elrond could see those phantoms, not so clearly, like muddied shadows of their own reflections, indistinct and warping, both he and his brother and then, suddenly, not either of them at all.

When Maedhros spoke, it was not the sonorous, booming sound that had threatened to splinter their door and crumble their walls. It was the softness of the evening wind blowing off the bay, coming in to cool the fires lit by some unseen foe.

"Twins for twins for twins," Maedhros said gravely, his eyes finding Elrond's and averting in an instant. His head whipped around, his hair whipping with it, and Elrond ducked the braid and grimaced when his brother yelped, having been swiped by the end of it. "It is your burden, then, brother. You asked for them, and they are yours to clothe and feed and house, until the time they no longer need you."

"Shall I swear it in oath?" Maglor asked dryly.

"Would you?" Maedhros asked with a dismissive scoff, slinging his sword into his sheath and waving at his brother offhandedly. "If I asked, would you?"

Maglor said nothing, and Elrond watched him glare at his brother as he shouldered past him. He glanced at Elros helplessly, knowing that he may not have seen what Elrond had seen in Maedhros, but perhaps he had heard something in the man's voice that Elrond could not. When they were alone, they would discuss it.

For now, they really had little choice but to follow their saviors from their mother's room. His brother lingered a moment, and Elrond froze inside the hall, watching the two grown elves pass down the corridor.

"Wait!" he called. "Elros isn't out here yet."

"Feather your feet, Elrond!" Maedhros called back jauntily. "Lest you both are left behind!"

Elrond stood there, a fresh and unnamed fear coiling in the pit of his stomach. All the horror of the evening and the night and now, by the grayish cast upon the stone corridor, dawn as well, had bubbled up inside of him, and he knew that if they did not flee now, they might be left here to the silence. To fade away into nothing, like forgotten songs.

He took a step forward. And then another. He didn't even think about it, until he was closing the gap between himself and their saviors, and he only stopped when he heard the sound of furious footfalls slapping against the stone behind him. Half-turning, he was nearly knocked right over, down the spiral stairs that lead to the halls below, and Elros caught him before he was slung headfirst across the steps.

"Sorry," Elros whispered, steadying him. "You alright?"

It sunk in, Elrond's failure, and he snatched his brother's hand and pulled him forward, fast as he could, until they had made it behind the two grown elves. He did not ask why Elros was not angry with him for leaving him behind, but he felt no less guilty for it, though he knew that if Elros bore any resentment, he would have made it plain the instant he'd returned to Elrond's side.

"Keep up, little lords!" Maedhros clapped his hand against his forearm twice, a bounce in his step. "Glad to see you both have joined us."

Maglor had stopped at the landing of the stairwell and waited until Elrond and Elros were in sight before turning and continuing down the hall. Elrond froze, his fingers tightening around Elros's wrist, as the expanse of the room was revealed to him, and the carnage of the night bared itself upon the floor of their father's house.

Bodies littered the blue tiles, from the foot of the stairs to the open archways that led to the library and their father's room of maps, from the mighty wooden doors to the passage to the kitchen, and blood had gathered upon the surface of the floors, pooling up beneath the bodies, smeared along the walls. It was coagulating in the grout between the blue tiles.

The elf at the very foot of the stairs was a guard. Elrond knew her well, as she had been in their family's service for as long as he'd been alive. Her name had been Hithuichil, and she had come from Doriath, from their mother's house. She had known their grandfather, and even their great-grandmother. So many things her eyes had seen, and so many things, like those eyes, no longer existed at all.

Elrond expected Elros to go first. He always acted braver than he truly felt, and Elrond usually let him, because it made Elrond braver in the process. But Elros did not move, and Elrond saw the backs of Maglor and Maedhros make steady pace toward the large oaken doors, and that fear came upon him again like a great wave. It was a pit in his stomach that urged him forward, and he stepped over the battered face of Hithuichil, his bare feet colliding with the pool of blood beneath the remnants of her skull.

Turning to look at Elros, Elrond stretched out his arm and said, "Jump."

His brother only took a moment to decide before reeling back and throwing himself over the body. Elrond grabbed him by the arm and used his momentum to yank him over the pool of blood. He stumbled alongside him, leaving a trail of bloody footprints as they scrambled to catch up to Maglor and Maedhros. The soles of Elrond feet, slick and sticky, slipped against the tile, and he let go of Elros in a scramble to save him from crashing down with him. He'd rolled into another puddle of blood, and the stench of it hit him as he laid there. Nausea seemed to replace that pit in his stomach, or maybe the pit would simply absorb it and grow larger and larger. Then, drawing himself upright, he lifted his head and saw that their saviors had halted at the door and turned to watch them.

Elros helped Elrond to his feet, taking a step into the puddle of blood and steadying him as he stood. Heavy footfalls startled them both, and when they looked up, Maedhros was standing over them, casting a long shadow. Maglor was not far behind, only he did not stop, and Elrond yelped as he was scooped up out of the blood and situated upon the man's hip as he whirled around without a word and stalked across the bloodied hall. When Elrond peeked over his shoulder, he saw that Maedhros had grabbed Elros by the hand and was dragging him forward with the same lack of gentleness that Maglor had afforded Elrond.

When they stepped out of the doors, sunlight hit Elrond's eyes, and he turned his face into the sun eagerly. Maedhros and Elros trailed behind them, and the sunlight caught in Maedhros's long red braid, finding strands that might have been cast in gold and leaving him looking less frightening and more beautiful, even with the shadows of dawn carving out the depth of faded scars that crawled upon his face.

"We should have stopped to get them shoes," Maedhros muttered, pulling Elros past Maglor and Elrond and sweeping down the limestone steps, across the empty courtyard, and into the streets.

Maglor stood there, Elrond in hand, and his gaze swept across the courtyard. It, too, was stained red. The dawn was a haze, reddish and thick, and the ash from the fires seemed to blot out any warmth the sun gave. Elrond shivered against the cool metal of Maglor's armor. It was like nature itself could not bear what had transpired here overnight.

Silently, Maglor made his way over the bloodied stones and into the bloodier streets, following Maedhros's lead. He'd picked up Elros at some point, perhaps because it was easier than expecting him to clamber over the dead as dismissively as the two older brothers did. Elros had turned his face away, burying it in Maedhros's neck, but Elrond could not bring himself to so much as blink as they were carried out of the only home they'd ever known, caked in its blood and its dirt, and left to mourn in a daze.

It wasn't until they were astride separate horses, and the sun was high in the sky, that it occurred to Elrond that they had not cried about it. He sat with his back against Maglor's chest, watching the foliage grow thicker and thicker, and swaying branches of willow trees shivered around them. The ocean's steady song, which had been a constant melody in the background of their lives for as long as they'd drawn breath, was simply— gone. Like so many other things.

"Where are we?" Elrond whispered, receiving no ready answer from their saviors. He tried to meet Elros's eyes, but Maedhros's horse was farther ahead, and though he could see his brother's legs shift, he was not big enough to find a way around the massive arms that encircled him.

Everything, it seemed, was new to Elrond's eyes. He found that the pit in his stomach, that strange and unnamed fear, was cut away by some new feeling of excitement and anticipation, and when he leaned over Maglor's arm to drag his fingers upon the low hanging leaves, waxy and smooth, and as they passed a willow tree that was in full bloom, Maglor lifted his arms above Elrond's head. Quicker than a cat on a sloped roof, Elrond found himself beholden to a long, flexible branch that was plopped into his lap while Maglor sheathed a small dagger, and the pace of their horse continued as though nothing had happened.

By the time the two horses had stopped, Maglor had taken the branch and fashioned it into a crown upon Elrond's head. He shot Maglor a tentative smile when he disembarked, and was sorely disappointed when all he received in return was a blank expression. Plucked up by his underarms and deposited on the forest floor, Elrond wiggled his toes in the dirt, feeling the residual layer of blood that had dried and stiffened his soles crack from the movement.

"Oof!" Elrond was nearly knocked to the ground as his brother's weight fell upon him from the side, fingers grappling at his stained tunic and shaking him excitedly.

"We're so far from Sirion!" Elros gasped, eyes aglitter. "We've never been allowed this far out before!"

"The Sirion is very close," Maglor corrected Elros as he tied the reins of his horse and Maedhros's to a low hanging branch. "It is a short walk from here— perhaps an hour east on foot. Maedhros—"

Elrond squeaked when the crown on his head was ripped from his hair and held aloft in a massive fist. The expression on Maedhros's face was not, as Elrond expected, scornful. In fact, much to Elrond's relief, Maedhros was grinning.

"No need to crown the little lord yet, brother," Maedhros said with a laugh that was as warm as the sunlight that swarmed through the breezy willow trees around them. "Care now not to open your heart so readily when our past and future may demand of you to shutter it tight!"

"It's only a branch," Elrond argued, frowning up at Maedhros while Elros plucked stray petals from his hair and stuck them in his own, clearly listening but not caring what Maedhros had to say.

"And it looked so nice on you," Elros said with a grin. "So pretty! Like a miniature of the tapestry—!"

"Don't start," Elrond hissed, elbowing Elros.

"But don't you want to be the pretty one?" Elros laughed. "It suits you!"

"We have the same face—"

"No, I'm the handsome one, it's not the same. Is it?"

"Quite spirited," Maedhros interjected with a dry laugh, "after such a troubling night. Are you feeling well, little lords?"

"Our names," Elros said sharply, "are Elros and Elrond. Which you know quite well, I think!"

Maedhros's brow shot up, and he looked to his brother in a certain way, a familiar sort of glance that made Elrond feel almost at ease with the tall man. After all, how many times had Elrond and Elros shared that look of incredulity? Perhaps, Elrond reasoned with himself, it was a very, very good thing that they'd been saved by these strangers. It could be like looking into the future, several hundred years.

"They are children," Maglor said quietly, snatching the crown from Maedhros's fist and frowning deeply. "There is no greater mystery than the mind of a child. Let them feel what they feel. Be it delight or sorrow."

Elros had quieted as Maglor pushed the crown into Elrond's hands. Then he steered both himself and Elros to a nearby rock, pulling a thin cloth parcel from his pocket and tugging the ribbon from it so that the fabric unbound in his hand, revealing a handful of pre-sliced cured meat and dried fruit. He handed the parcel to Elros, who cupped it in both hands, expressionless.

Setting the crown in his lap, Elrond scooted closer to Elros and urged him to eat. He took a bite of the meat, finding it to be very tough and hard on his teeth, and he chewed for a long time, swallowing with a wince.

"Just try something," Elrond said, nudging his brother. "I'm sure we'll get something better later—"

"Shh," Elros hissed, squeezed his eyes shut. And Elrond realized it was because Maedhros and Maglor had slipped away to talk somewhat removed from the two of them. He wouldn't have noticed on his own, but Elros did have a keener ear than him, and now that Elrond focused, he could hear the brothers' murmurings as well.

"—are not coming. It was too much this time, Maedhros."

"Too much?" Maedhros scoffed. "It was regrettable, I suppose, in the way that a flood is regrettable, but this is not the first time they have followed us out of hell."

"And into hell again? And again? A ceaseless cycle of setting ourselves afire and running into a wooden house? They are tired, Maedhros."

"They are tired?" Maedhros hissed. "Or rather, is it you who tires, brother? Is that what this is?"

Maglor was silent. Their heads were bent low, and they were half-obscured by dancing willow branches. When he started to turn, Elrond tugged at the end of Elros's hair and caused him to open his eyes with a hiss, smacking Elrond's hand away and nearly shoving him off the rock.

"Can you just eat?" Elrond grumbled, snatching a dried grape and pushing it against Elros's lips. "I know you're hungry, too— ow!"

Elros turned his face away to hide a smirk as Elrond wiped his fingers off on his trousers, examining his thumb for bite marks. When he looked up, Maglor and Maedhros were standing over them with vastly different expressions. As usual, Maglor's face betrayed nothing, though he seemed a bit sour. Maedhros glanced between the two of them, gave a small scoff, and then elbowed Maglor.

"You hunt and I start the fire, then?" he asked cheerfully. Maglor shot him a dull look. "What? You know I'm shit with a bow. And you want to be out of here fast, so be quick about it."

"Accounting for the time it will take me to kill something," Maglor murmured, "bring it back, skin and dress it, and then cook it—"

"Yes, you're quite right," Maedhros sighed, "best to make camp here for the night. This is why everyone says you're the smart one, Maglor, truly."

"Maedhros— no one says–"

"Can you boys find me some sticks?" Maedhros asked them with a smile. "Kindling too."

"Kindling?" Elros repeated, popping another dried grape into his mouth and chewing loudly. "What's that?"

"Oh, you know. Leaves and grass and such. Be sure it's dry."

"Maedhros," Maglor whispered, "I don't think—"

"Come on, let them be of use," Maedhros said dismissively. "They are clearly antsy. Now, are you going to continue to waste all of our time fretting over our little lords, or will you go do what I asked?"

Maglor let out a shuddering breath. Then, without warning, he took Elros by the hand and pulled him to his feet.

"One of you ought to learn something of hunting," he said brusquely, "if I am to honor this arrangement."

"What about me?" Elrond gasped, affronted.

"You," Maedhros said with that same odd cheer to his voice, "will gather sticks!"

"Oh." Elrond watched his brother's panicked expression as he was dragged away. "Okay…"

When he was alone with Maedhros, Elrond felt strange. He stole glances at the tall man, watching him carefully align some rocks in a circle, always using his left hand. It took him a long time to get them perfect, but when he seemed satisfied, he glanced at Elrond with those dark eyes, and there was a tiredness to them that made Elrond wonder if his accusations that he'd slung at his brother were really something he needed to look inward to seek clarity.

"You fear the woods," Maedhros observed.

"I am afraid of being alone," Elrond admitted, stepping hesitantly closer to the redhead. "Elros and I never— I don't know what to do when he is not here."

Maedhros stared at him. From his place on the ground, he was not so big and intimidating. Up close, Elrond could see that his eyes were not black, but a deep, earthy brown, and he had a faint spray of freckles beneath the faded, tight skin of old scars that nipped at his brow and cheek. Despite it all, it was a comely face that bore a smile easily, and when he offered one to Elrond, he could not help but take it and return it.

"You must learn something very important, little lord," Maedhros said, beckoning Elrond closer. He hesitantly moved to Maedhros's side, and blinked when his wrist was grabbed and he was pulled even closer. Maedhros's eyes swept over Elrond's face, and he offered a short scoff before shoving Elrond back. "You are Elrond, then? Well. Elrond, son of Elwing, take note of all the things that make you different from him. Your voices, your likes and dislikes, the way that your hair falls, even. You are young enough that you cannot imagine a world without your brother in it, but one day you two will go your separate ways."

"Why would you say that?" Elrond asked softly, his brow furrowing. "He wouldn't leave me! Not on purpose, anyway."

"Not like your mother," Maedhros offered, causing Elrond to flinch. "Ah, too soon? I apologize. I do wish she'd lived, for your sake. It'd save us the trouble."

"We didn't ask for you to save us," Elrond said curtly. "And— and if you do not want us, you should say so!"

"I do not want you," Maedhros said with a shrug, flicking a clasp on the glove of his right hand, "and I find your presence to be confusing and mildly grating. But I do not wish to see you dead, and I will not abandon you in these woods. So we are both going to have to endure it. Now go find some firewood."

Elrond was angry enough that he did not care so much now about being alone. He whirled around and marched off into the trees, beating back foliage and gathering up sticks as he went. After a while, he found some sprawling roots to nestle himself in, and he stared up through the wavering leaves before bursting into tears. In that moment, it felt like everything he'd experienced in the past day had burst out of him, exploding in such a fashion that he wished he could bring the trees down around him with a wail or a sob. He clapped his face, wet and ruddy, and he called out for his mother, hoping that their saviors were just liars, and that she was out there somewhere looking for them.

When everything in him was spent, Elrond continued to sit there, breathing heavily, his tears drying on his cheeks. Then, wiping at his face with his dirty sleeve and startled to find that it came back dirtier, he got to his feet and took his kindling back to the small clearing where Maedhros and the horses remained. He was somewhat relieved to see that Maedhros was still there, lounging by the firepit he'd built. He didn't look up when Elrond slipped forward, dumping everything in his arms into the pit, but he did sigh, unfolding his arms from behind his head. It was then that Elrond noticed that he had taken off his gloves, and that his right hand was conspicuously missing.

"Honestly," Maedhros muttered, sitting upright and rearranging the sticks and kindling hastily. It was impressive to watch him do it one-handed, though now that Elrond thought about it, he must have been doing many things one handed this whole time. "How old are you? Ten?"

"I'm six," Elrond said uncertainly. His voice croaked, thick from the snot and phlegm that still crowded his sinuses.

"Six? Really?" Maedhros's brows shot up, though he still did not look at him. "Quite big for your age. Though come to think of it, your mother was very young. Having you two at her age…"

"What do you mean?"

"It's just odd," Maedhros said, "that's all. I mean, most elves don't settle down before they've finished growing."

"Um…" Elrond could not wrap his head around what Maedhros was saying. "Okay… I think she was done growing, though. Do you… want help?"

Maedhros had flint in his hand and was attempting to strike it against a rock.

"If you're offering," Maedhros said, finally glancing at Elrond, "could you just bring a rock over here and hold it by the kindling?"

Hesitantly, Elrond lifted one of the rocks from around the pit and waited for Maedhros to strike the flint against it. The sparks hit the kindling, and a fire came to life very hesitantly. Elrond used a stick to push the kindling into the firewood.

"What happened to your hand?" Elrond asked.

"You are sitting on it, little lord."

Elrond leapt up. Sure enough, what he'd thought had been a misshapen rock turned out to be Maedhros's gloved hand. He scooped it up, finding the glove was peeled back, with buckles and buttons running up its length, and beneath it was a hollow, wooden prosthetic.

Maedhros laughed at him when Elrond scrambled to give it back, and though the sound was warm and pleasing to the ear, it made Elrond burst into tears again.

"Ah," Maedhros said flatly as Elrond sank to his knees and sobbed, "shit."

Usually when one of them cried, their father would drop everything to comfort them. If he was home, that was. If not, their mother would try her best, but she was a less comforting presence in general than Eärendil. Still, she'd hold them and soothe them as best she could. It was strange to be in an adult's presence and just be stared at while he cried. All he really wanted, in this moment, was for Maedhros to hug him.

Instead, Maedhros paced their campsite, shooting Elrond a glance every few seconds, like he was worried Elrond might disappear. And Elrond, who could do nothing else but sit there and wail, only grew more and more upset. He found himself looking around wildly, hyperventilating, his eyes bleary and his head pounding. After a while, Maedhros unclasped his battered cape and flung it over Elrond.

"Calm down!" Maedhros gasped. "It is not the end of the world! I certainly did not mean to make you hysterical. You would know if I did, honestly!"

Elrond wrapped the cape tight around himself, wiping his face in the soiled fabric, smelling dirt and blood and sweat in the rich fibers. It only made him feel worse.

All of a sudden, Elrond was nearly tackled to the ground, a pair of thin arms grappling at his shoulders as Elros more or less bodied him.

"What's wrong?" Elros gasped, throwing back Maedhros's cape, only to pull it around his own shoulder and lean in close so their cheeks were pressing against each other. "What happened?"

Elrond shook his head mutely, unable to speak. His breaths came out shaky and thin, and he could not seem to catch a single one that was not half-broken and stunted. From the treeline, Maglor approached like a thin shadow, parting the branches of the willow trees and standing there with a stark expression on his gaunt face.

"What did you do?" Maglor asked quietly. Maedhros whirled on his brother, throwing his arms into the air.

"Nothing! He just fell apart on me like a crumbling leaf!" Maedhros shot a frown over his shoulder at the twins. "I will not apologize. I've done nothing wrong."

"How long has he been like this?" Maglor demanded, slinging two dead hares into Maedhros's arms and striding over to Elrond and Elros.

"I don't know. Half an hour?"

"Maedhros!"

"I didn't do anything!"

"Yes," Maglor sighed, kneeling beside Elrond, "clearly. Did you not think to comfort him?"

"I—!" Maedhros scowled and shook his head. "I thought he would stop. You know I am hardly a comforting presence, and I assumed I would make it worse by touching him."

"He is a child, Maedhros," Maglor said curtly, pulling Elrond into his lap, a motion that shocked him deeply enough that he found himself quieting. "Not some wild thing that will bite your hand off if you come near them when they are distressed. Come now, you've dealt with children before."

"Not in an Age," Maedhros said with a scoff. "Not since you were small."

"What?" Maglor lifted his head, and Elrond felt the warmth of his chin and throat leave the top of his own. "That cannot be true. I am hardly the youngest—"

"You are now," Maedhros said darkly.

"—And besides, there were always children."

"Not always."

"Tyelpë—"

"Truly, is that your argument?" Maedhros huffed. "Celebrimbor, of all things? We hardly know the boy."

"I knew him. When he was willing to speak to us."

"How advantageous for you." Maedhros turned to face Maglor and the twins fully. His brow furrowed. "Is this what this is? Some frenzied attempt to assuage your jealousy? Perhaps if you had chosen a better wife, you might have a son."

Maglor leapt to his feet, and Elrond squeaked as he was hefted into the air, bundled in Maedhros's cape and tucked into Maglor's side.

"Cruelty has never become you," Maglor said in a frightening voice, "and I wish it cast out of you swiftly, for I would never know how to dry a child's tears if Russandol had not dried my own."

There was a silence that made Elrond feel uneasy. When he peeked out from Maedhros's cape, he saw that Maedhros stood frozen beyond the fire, staring at Maglor with something unreadable in his eyes.

"You should hold the boy," Maglor said, rounding the fire and depositing Elrond into Maedhros's arms, much to both their discomfort. "I will be quicker with preparing dinner, at any rate."

"It is said that you have the sweetest words," Maedhros muttered, "but they never cut anyone but me. Spare no mercy for your dearest kin?"

"Come, Elros," Maglor called. "Let me show you how this is done."

"Bastard," Maedhros muttered, strolling up to the fire and plopping on the ground. Elrond was jostled by the motion, as he was not held very steadily in one arm. Maedhros glanced down at him and arched a brow. "See how loathsome brothers can be?"

"I'm sorry," Elrond mumbled.

Maedhros had a peculiar look on his face, as if he'd bitten into something rotten, and he rolled his eyes.

"I do not understand you," he said curtly. "But I realize you have had a trying day, and I will attempt to be more sympathetic about that."

"Um… thank you…?" Elrond sat on Maedhros's lap and tried to puzzle out if that was an apology, or if Elrond should be the one to apologize again. "We didn't mean to make things harder for you."

"We did not need either of you to make things harder, little lord," Maedhros sighed. "We are quite adept at doing that ourselves. Are you quite alright now?"

"Yes," Elrond said, smiling faintly, "I think so."

"Lovely. Now get off me."

Elrond scrambled off Maedhros's lap, watching as he stretched out on the forest floor and fell asleep within the minute. It was startling, and Elrond briefly wondered if he was dead, so he nudged the man with his foot. When he did not budge, Elrond ran to Maglor, who was skinning one of the hares on a large boulder. Elros was standing nearby, looking a little queasy at the sight of the animal's bare muscles and sinew. Elrond stared at it blankly, and he did not quite realize Maglor was calling his name until his brother shoved him.

"Hey," Elrond exhaled, shoved Elros back. He turned his attention to Maglor. "Um, is Maedhros okay?"

Maglor paused the task at hand to look down at Elrond. He blinked twice, and then peered over his shoulder at his brother, sprawled in the leaves.

"Yes," Maglor said firmly. Then he went back to peeling the skin off the hare.

Elrond and Elros were left to pin the hare on a spit, taking turns as the flesh browned and bubbled. Maglor tended to the other hare while Maedhros slept.

"How was hunting?" Elrond murmured.

"Sort of boring." Elros offered a shrug. "You wouldn't have liked it much. How was… well, it was bad, wasn't it?"

"No…"

"You can't lie to me." Elros met his eyes dully. "I can tell, you know. I could hear it."

"Could you hear it in Maedhros?" Elrond whispered, his eyes flitting down to the elf in question nervously.

"What?" Elros glanced at him quizzically. "When?"

"In the lighthouse tower."

"He didn't lie in the tower," Elros said with a frown, "as far as I could tell. Why?"

Elrond did not say it, but he was sure that there had been something they'd missed in that interaction. Worse, it meant that it was true what they'd said about their mother.

"Let me do that," Elrond said, taking the stick from Elros and turning it slowly over the fire. His brother merely stared at him with a frown.

"Listen," Elros said, crossing his arms, "I know you're sad. I'm sad too. But Mama is gone, and Father—"

"Could be looking for us," Elrond pointed out.

"Could be," Elros conceded, "but there's no one there to light the tower, anyway– Mama made it dark, remember? So he might as well be lost."

"There are other lighthouses," Elrond mumbled.

"Not like ours."

They were quiet. Elrond turned the hare on the spit, and he thought it did smell a bit like how the air had smelled when they had left their haven. It was strange.

Maglor took the hare from the fire and replaced it with the new one. Elros eyed him as he turned his back on them, and then he scooted closer.

"Look," he said. And Elrond looked.

In Elros's palms was a small box. It was a silvery tin, dimpled and handmade, crowned with a delicate flower made from hand-blown blue glass. It was closed with a clasp, and Elrond found himself so shocked that he could only gape at it.

"It's not in here," Elros whispered quickly. "That gem? It used to be, but it's not anymore. Emig must have really taken it."

"I know which one now," Elrond murmured, dragging his fingers over the box. "I would never have thought to take this…"

"Yeah, well," Elros snorted, "you actually listen when Mama tells you not to touch something— hey!"

The box was snatched out of Elros's hand and held aloft in the firelight. The sun had dipped in the sky, and they were laid out in the loosening dusk, fireflies drifting on and off between the trees. Maedhros had popped open the box and dumped the contents of it onto the ground. Elros scrambled to pick up the seashells and rings and the silvery string of metal that could be fastened across one's forehead. There was a silver earcuff studded with sapphires that had belonged to their grandfather. There was a plain and weathered signet that had belonged to the House of Bëor. There was a lock of blonde hair bound in waxed linen string, and a tiny painted portrait of three children with identical features, if not for the fact that two had hair like moonlight and one had hair like night.

"Maedhros!" Maglor gasped, whisking Elros away from the mess, though he kicked and screamed all the way.

Maedhros knelt before the overturned jewelry box, a crease in his brow, and he plucked up a seashell with a curl to his lip.

"What is all this?" he demanded, his eyes flashing to Elrond's face.

"That is a shell," Elrond said, inclining his head.

Maedhros was silent a moment. Then he barked a laugh.

"No lack of wit on this one!" he cried, flicking the shell to Elrond, who caught it in dismay. "No need to fret, brother, there is no Silmaril among Elwing's treasures. Though I'm sure you already knew that. It is merely—"

Something had caught his eye and they all knew it at once. Maglor set Elros down, only to lurch forward, something sparking in his eyes that frightened Elrond. He backpedaled, nearly tripping over his own feet.

"Do not look so disappointed," Maedhros said, rising to his feet. "I already told you— there is no Silmaril. Just memories, I think."

"I can see that," Maglor said quietly. He held out his hand. "May I?"

Maedhros's hand closed around whatever object he had taken from their mother's box, pocketing it without a word.

"It is not yours," Maglor whispered fiercely, reaching for Maedhros's arm and getting shrugged off in return. "Maedhros—!"

"The hare is burning," Maedhros pointed out, plucking the spit from the fire and holding it aloft over all their heads. The meat sizzled and spat. "Do me a favor, clean their hands, will you? They're absolutely filthy."

"I wanted to go to the river immediately," Maglor muttered. "But no. You insisted that we must wait. And now you complain of their hygiene? I could cast you off a cliff."

"That'd be a funny sight, I'll grant you that," Maedhros said with a laugh. He glanced to Elrond and Elros and winked. "You might learn now, little lord, Elros, my brother's silver tongue does not lend him strength. I could pick up his bony body with the one hand I've got left and kill an Orc with my stump."

"That is a lie," Elros said with a frown.

Maglor and Maedhros were quiet. They glanced at each other, and Elrond knelt to pick up their mother's things, wondering if they'd realized that Elros had a way with hearing the truth in things.

"You two are odd ducks," Maedhros said, strolling away. "Ducklings? Hm, Maglor, write up a little rhyme on that. They are young enough that those things might still entertain them."

"Nobody is too old for songs," Maglor said, clearly affronted.

"I meant the silly ones, not the epics you are so very fond of. Do give me some credit, I may be accustomed to the dirt and the mud, but I am still very much an elf of culture—"

"He talks a lot," Elros said with a curious note to his voice, "doesn't he?"

When Elrond handed the box back to him, Elros took it without a word, as if Maedhros had not taken something from them. Elrond wondered, with Elros's inattentiveness, if he would even notice that it was the portrait of their mother and her brothers that Maedhros had taken.

Maglor poured water from a flask on both their hands before they ate. It didn't really get all the blood and dirt off, but their fingers were cleaner than before. The meat of the hare was hardly delicious, but Elrond was so hungry that he did not really taste it at all. He had not realized how absolutely starved he felt. Both he and Elros went in for seconds, and then thirds, which seemed to baffle their companions.

"Calm down," Maglor said curtly, swatting Elrond's hand went he went to suck the marrow out of the bone in his hand. "You will not starve, Elrond."

Elrond licked his lips, scrubbing the grease from them with the back of his hand. Elros was tearing at the gristly meat without a care, his hair falling into his face and making him look half-feral.

"Maybe that's how they eat in the Havens of Sirion," Maedhros chuckled, waving between Elrond and Elros with the bone in his hand. "Eat like you have not eaten in weeks and are on the brink of starvation. Scare away your enemies that way."

"We were really hungry," Elrond mumbled.

"How are you not starving?" Elros gasped, tossing his bone into the fire and wiping his fingers off on his tunic as the flames skipped and spat. "It's not like you two have eaten anything all day either."

"Going a day without food isn't all that," Maedhros said, "trust me. Perhaps when you are older, and you have been sheltered less, you will grow accustomed to it."

"Maybe," Elrond said, because he didn't know what else to say, and he didn't feel like arguing. He was too exhausted, especially now that his belly was full.

"We will leave at first light," Maglor said as Elrond leaned his cheek against his brother's shoulder, watching the flames dance before him.

"Leave?" Maedhros demanded.

"Yes. There is nothing for us here—"

"This was our agreed rendezvous."

"Which is scarcely a whole day's ride from the Haven of Sirion," Maglor said coolly. "Nobody is coming, brother."

"And here I thought you were the optimist."

Maglor was silent. When Elrond lifted his gaze, he saw that Elros's eyes were closed, so Elrond let his eyelids slide shut. Between sleeping and waking, he could still hear Maglor and Maedhros, albeit distantly.

"Nobody is coming. It was too much this time."

"Too much?"

"Yes."

"What makes this time different from the last? Or the time before it? Our people have followed us through hell—"

"And perhaps they have realized that we never should have led them there in the first place!"

"Oh, hush. Quite honestly, hush. The little lords sleep."

"Elrond is still awake."

"Of course he is."

Elrond and Elros were pried apart. Elrond's eyes fluttered open, and he squinted up at Maedhros tiredly as he was laid out on the ground beside his brother. A cape was tossed over him, and he could no longer resist the temptation of sleep.

That night he dreamt of the sea. He dreamt that he could not touch it, that the tide would not meet him, but it called to him ceaselessly. It was his mother's voice, and then his father's, and it called and called as he paced the shore, staring out into the endless stretch of blue and calling out for Elros, receiving no reply.

The dream wasn't given a chance to continue. Elrond was roused from his sleep too early, and he batted away the hand that shook him, curling into his blanket and shivering as the cold morning bit deep into his bones. His limbs were heavy as he was yanked upright and deposited on his feet, and though he was half asleep, he managed to stand. His bare feet curled against the forest floor.

"What…?" he yawned, rubbing his eyes. "Where are we…?"

"Still in Arvernien," a man whispered. That, Elrond realized, was not their father. The voice was too high, and the accent was wrong. He did not have time to think too much on it, though, before he and Elros were both deposited atop horses.

"Maglor…?" Elros leaned over Maedhros's horse, looking a bit more alert than Elrond felt. "Is something happening—?"

"Shh!" Maglor climbed up behind Elrond, leading Maedhros's horse right to him. He was standing at the edge of the clearing, his sword in hand. Elrond had not seen him in the dark, but now the moonlight and the edge of dawn intermingled and cast his hair alight. "Let's go."

"I do not see why you fear a handful of Orcs," Maedhros said dully.

"Then you are blind in so many ways that the moles beneath the earth might be a better guide for you than the sun or stars," Maglor said sharply, tugging the reins of Maedhros's horse, who whinnied and shuddered, causing Elros to grab it by its mane. "I will not say it again."

"Or?" Maedhros whirled on them, opening his arms with a strange smile that seemed to shine in the dark. "Would you leave me?"

"Yes." Maglor's arms tightened around Elrond. Then he sighed. "Do not look so dour, Maedhros. It is as you said, it is merely a handful of orcs. I do not doubt your skill with a blade, merely your inattentiveness and irresponsibility."

"No need to cut me like that," Maedhros sighed, "I hear you. Alright, Elros, scoot over. You're too small for you to take up that much of my saddle."

They parted from the campsite with haste. Elrond knew of orcs, though he had no real image of them in his head, only that they were fearsome things that came out at night to ravage the lands in the name of some great evil. Dwelling so close to the sea, in the Havens, it protected them some. Their mother had never explained it, but now that they were so far from the waves, shrouded by trees, the danger felt tangible.

Unfortunately for them, they did not escape without alerting the orcs to their presence. Shadows shifted among the trees, and Maglor drew back the reins of his horse to swerve aside, an arrow embedding itself in a nearby trunk. In an instant, Maglor's bow was nocked and the bowstring was snapping so quickly it nearly caught Elrond's hair. Another arrow was nocked so fast that Elrond could not draw breath between movements, and a distant, rumbling cry broke across the early morning, the stars in the sky shivering under an overcast that made the sun slow to rise.

"Maglor!"

Reeling the horse around, Maglor drew them away from the not-so distant threat, their horse weaving between trees as he attempted to shoot while simultaneously guiding the horse. Elrond, emboldened by adrenaline, snatched the reins out of his hand and urged the horse forward. Maglor did not hesitate to continue to shoot as Elrond pushed them along the bumpy terrain, droplets of rain beginning swell around them. The urgency of an unseen foe made Elrond focus. He could see the trees ahead, and the trickles of dawn had begun to spread through them. As the sun rose, the arrows dwindled, and finally it seemed they were no longer being pursued. By now, though, it was pouring.

"Maglor!" Maedhros cried again as they broke through the tree-line. They were waiting in the tall grass, the swift swells of rain rushing over them. Maedhros wore his cape, hooded and draped around Elros, whose eyes were clear in the mist.

"We're alright," Maglor gasped, laying his hand over Elrond's and guiding the horse to a stop. "This one's quick— we outpaced them before the sun got to them."

"Feathered your feet after all, then?" Maedhros asked as they trotted along closer to them. "Glad to hear it. Now, how bad would it be to go back into the forest?"

"A little rain will not do what hell and the worst it's conjured has not, Maedhros," Maglor said, sounding more pleased than Elrond had heard him sound since they had met. "Let us head for the Sirion."

"You enjoy my discomfort," Maedhros sighed. "I knew it. There is a sadist in the depths of you, but no one else sees it. All they see are sad eyes and some talent, I suppose, with words and melody. Nobody knows how truly horrid you are."

"Such drama…" Maglor turned his face toward the sky and seemed to bask in the duality of the dawn and the storm.

The storm did not let up as they made their move over fields. Maglor attempted to shield Elrond's face from the wind and the rain, but it all overwhelmed him, and he could not see ahead. He could not even see Maedhros and Elros beside them. But still, they moved. Their horses trotted along the muddied ground, sinking deep, unable to keep pace. The wind picked up even still, and Maedhros's voice cut through the roar of the storm.

"Have you had enough?"

When Maglor did not answer a hand shot out and yanked at their reins, causing them to jerk to a stop.

"You need not harp at me about drama," Maedhros hissed, "when you are putting us through this for your own wretched conscience. To have some poetic turn of phrase to bottle this little expedition into later! Life is not a song, Maglor!"

"I wish only to get us to the river," Maglor said, "so we might gain our bearings—"

"We can do that tomorrow! For now I think any place dry might suffice."

Elrond lifted his head, blinking through the onslaught of rain, and he saw the turmoil in Maglor's face. Perhaps it was because he believed that Elrond and Elros were not looking that he looked like that. But he allowed for Maedhros to lead ahead of them, tailing close behind until they reached a small cave burrowed into the side of a cliff.

Once they were out of the rain, Maglor pulled Elrond off the horse and set him on the ground. Elrond stood there, teetering on his feet, the sound of the storm outside roaring in his ears as he reached for his brother in the dark, grappling with his damp tunic and sinking against him as they both slid to the cold stone. If nothing else, it was dry, though they were soaked to the bone and shivering.

"No way to get a fire going," Maglor murmured, "with all the wood being damp."

"We can go the night without food or light," Maedhros said dismissively, and Elrond's heart sank at the words, because they had ridden all this way and now they would have to wait in the dark and the cold, starving and exhausted. "It cannot go on forever, and I'm sure by morning we will be setting out for the river once more, just as you intended. Do we have a plan beyond that, or are you going about this blindly?"

"I assumed that the Sirion would provide us with food and drinking water first and foremost," Maglor said, sitting down beside the twins as thunder cracked outside. The sound made both boys flinch, and Maglor glanced at them curiously. "Otherwise, it'd be a good place to bathe and then— are you two alright?"

Elros was the one to lift his head, as Elrond had buried his face in Elros's shoulder, huddled into his side for warmth, and he could not bring himself to move. Both of them sat, teeth chattering, and there was an odd silence that fell over the cave, leaving nothing but the sound of the rain clattering upon the earth outside.

"C-cold," Elros managed to utter, and in the ensuing silence, Elrond forced himself to lift his eyes so he might see why Maglor and Maedhros were not speaking. Both their faces looked mildly bewildered. Maedhros's brow furrowed while Maglor knelt before them, examining their faces a bit too closely.

"Is that why you two are upset?" he whispered, his eyes flitting wildly between the two of them.

"What?" Elrond croaked. His voice was thick with phlegm.

"Your nose is running," Maglor said, pushing back Elrond's head and then jerking back in shock. "Oh!"

"What?" Maedhros sighed.

"Come here," Maglor gasped, ushering his brother to the ground beside him. This caused Maedhros to scowl as he knelt, squinting at the twins with obvious displeasure. "Feel their faces."

"Why?"

"Humor me."

"Sometimes you say things," Maedhros said, using his teeth to unbutton his gloved left hand and subsequently pulling it off, "and I think to myself that I've got a heavy burden to bear, holding all our family's sanity in my— what the hell?"

Maedhros's fingers were even more callused than Maglor's, in different ways, and they scraped along Elrond's temple, retracting and then grappling at his jaw in order to pull his face closer.

"You feel it then!" Maglor leaned forward eagerly. "Isn't it odd? Elros feels the same. Do you imagine it is from crying?"

"That would be a sound theory if they were crying at all," Maedhros said, staring into Elrond's eyes. Elrond felt snot gathering between his nostrils and upper lip, and he sniffled violently, causing Maedhros to wrinkle his nose and release him. "Gross. Are they… ill?"

Elrond's brain was a bit too foggy to understand the implication of Maedhros's tone, and he merely assumed that Maedhros was disgusted by the amount of snot accumulating between the two children. He turned his face away when Maglor's knuckles drifted against his forehead again, and Elros batted him away when he tried it on him.

"Is that possible?" Maedhros demanded sharply. "It cannot be, can it? We cannot become ill— that is a burden for Men and animals and trees to bear. Not us."

Maglor was quiet long enough that Elrond got nervous and looked at him again. But he was not looking at either of them. Instead his eyes had drawn toward the mouth of the cave, where the rain was unceasing, and the daylight grew dimmer.

"The blood of Men runs through their veins," Maglor said softly. "Perhaps the way of things is warped for the kin of Lúthien."

"Of course," Maedhros spat, "she would make things more difficult for everyone, including her own descendants. I wish she lived so I could—"

"Stay your tongue," Maglor hissed, swatting Maedhros over the head and receiving a smack with a wooden hand in return.

"They are scarcely lucid enough to care," Maedhros snapped. "And I am particularly annoyed, because I find the very idea of an elf getting some bizarre illness to be incredibly unnerving! Are you not unnerved?"

"I believe I would describe my current state as concerned."

"Is there a difference?"

"I— yes? Are you mocking me right now?"

"A bit," Maedhros admitted with a snort. He squatted there, balancing on the balls of his feet with his elbows upon his knees, studying Elrond and Elros as they huddled close together. When Elrond sneezed suddenly, both Maglor and Maedhros leapt to their feet.

"This is a Man illness," Maedhros said firmly, "I'm sure of it. And I believe that horrible sound means it is getting worse."

"It was a sneeze, Maedhros," Maglor said, though he, too, looked shaken. "It is common enough among Men. It is the abnormal body temperature that concerns me."

"It isn't plague, is it?" Maedhros wrinkled his nose. "To live through all this and die from something so stupid—"

"Maedhros, please, they're still awake."

"Are we going to die?" Elrond uttered faintly while Elros shuddered and shook his head.

"It's a cold," he mumbled, "remember? Mama said—"

"Emig is not here," Elrond responded a bit too sharply, using too much energy in the process and he heaved a deep breath. Looking up at Maglor and seeing the fear in his eyes, it frightened him. "I don't understand. Why— why do you not feel like this?"

"We are elves, Elrond," Maglor said as though it were simple.

"So are we," Elrond argued breathlessly, feeling lightheaded, "but we— is this not what elves are—?"

"Look," Maedhros said, clicking his tongue against the roof of his mouth, "you've gone and confused them. Well done."

Maglor closed his eyes, sighed, and then shook his head.

"Elves do not get sick, Elrond," he said curtly. "You are something— else. An anomaly."

"Half-elves," Maedhros said dismissively, rising to his feet. "The blood of Men is a wildcard, I suppose."

Maglor was quiet, and for a while the silence remained. It was enough that Elrond began to drift in and out of sleep, catching chunks of conversations as he curled into his brother's side.

"—medicine in a town of Men, if we follow the Sirion—"

"I have yet to wrap my brain around diseased elves, but I am glad you are at least starting to think about our next moves. Does our lost Silmaril factor in anywhere, or are your new sons-of-sorts going to fill that void for the next hundred years?"

"Do not do this."

"Do what?"

"Speak to me as though your feelings are my own."

"Ha! I do not need to. I know you better than I know my left hand. You have been, for all it is worth, the hand that I lost, and I feel you like a phantom pain always digging into me at the most crucial moments— look at me, Káno."

Asleep, again, but not long enough to dream, and Elrond could hear them again, chattering among themselves.

"—take the snippy one and you take the clever one. Feels even, no?"

"We are not splitting them up, Maedhros."

"It'd make things easier on both of us. You can focus on whatever it is that is holding you back— guilt, newfound sentimentality, a stroke of inspiration. And I can train this little lord here—"

"I wish you wouldn't talk of leaving me, even when it is hyperbolic and clearly cruel for cruelty's sake. Are you stressed because the concept of disease confounds you, or are you merely sleepy?"

"The latter, I suppose."

"Then give us both a rest. With haste."

And again, sleep came, this time more deeply, with a strange haze of mist and smoke and a strange flare of heat like the air itself was afire— and Elrond could see through it, briefly, and found himself among red stained rock that rumbled and roared in contempt of a river of pure orange light that shivered in its wake.

The river coughed black smoke, and it sighed as a voice streamed over the mountain and cooled its wrath. A beautiful melody, sung high and clear, and in that clarity the words seemed to fold over on themselves and echo in a harmonizing flow.

"As the mountain pays tribute

To the sky in grace and daunting

Doom do we face in our mornings'

Mourning, done disgraced, fall in

With the valley, falling mountains

Erased, and the mountain pays

No tribute, displaced on the dais.

So take care in the morning

To ferry us through the mountain's

Pale warning of gray valleys, do

Not haste in our grace-given light,

To find our fate gleaming in wastes

And waters unnatural and bind

Ourselves to follies awake and bright."

Elrond awoke somewhere along the middle of the song, peering over Elros's shoulder into the grayish light of dawn that encircled Maglor. He sat at the mouth of the cave, plucking single notes out of his bowstring and, bizarrely, there was music there. Beside him was a huddled mound of chainmail and stained velvet that could only be a slumbering Maedhros. Maglor's eyes, the eyes he shared with his brother, flitted to Elrond's face as he stole a melody from a weapon in the sickly early morning.

"You live," Maglor said in a way that was not very encouraging at all. Elrond sniffled. His clothes were dry but he was bone cold and drenched in sweat. "I am sorry, Elrond."

"It's okay," Elrond said, not sure what Maglor was sorry for. "Elros was right. It really is a cold. We get them. Sometimes."

"A… cold." Maglor sighed deeply and shook his head, peering out into the morning light. "Peculiar. I wish I understood, but I fear I do not often take up the company of Men."

Elrond did not know what to say to that, for he had not known that colds were a concept that might baffle elves. Instead he sat up, his breaths shuddering due to his nasal passages being all but sealed shut, and he looked out into the bare trickles of sunlight, hoping to see whatever Maglor saw. When he didn't, he sighed.

"Your song is off," Elrond murmured. This caused Maglor to look at him sharply, and it was hard to read his expression. Elrond backtracked quickly, shrinking into himself. "Not bad! Just— I don't know. The beats are— ugh, Elros would know better. He hears things I don't."

"You were counting the beats," Maglor said flatly.

"They weren't even," Elrond said sheepishly. "I don't think so, anyway. There was— seven? And then— maybe that was nine at the end?"

In the silence that followed, Elrond was scared to look at Maglor. He was a more intimidating presence than Maedhros at times, despite his smaller stature, and it might have been because he was not so fair in the face, and had a gaunt and haunting look about him. So when Elrond raised his eyes and saw that the dawn had cast a glow upon Maglor's smiling face, it startled him.

"Oh," Elrond said, ducking his head. "You meant it to sound like that."

"Yes," Maglor said softly. He turned his face from the sun and leaned over his brother to search Elrond's face eagerly. There was a question there, though Maglor seemed reluctant to speak. When Elrond simply sat there, bewildered, Maglor pushed him tentatively. "Do you know why?"

"No." Elrond sniffled hard. His head hurt quite badly, and he was too cold to think clearly. "Why?"

"I will teach you," Maglor said, rising to his feet. "Would you… like that?"

Not knowing what else to do, not knowing if it was even true, Elrond nodded and uttered faintly, "Yes."

"Come," Maglor said, reaching for Elrond and waiting patiently for him to stand shakily, stepping into the light. His hand fell gingerly upon Elrond's back before retracting quickly. "See how I move my fingers? It is different with shooting, but I shall teach you that as well. Here, replicate this sound."

They spent some time going back and forth, Elrond finding the technique to be tricky and getting discordant sounds when he attempted to follow Maglor's teaching. Still, by the time Maedhros awoke, he'd nearly gotten it.

"What a racket," Maedhros groaned. He scraped the loose wisps of red curls from his face and then squinted at the two of them as they knelt in the sun. "I feel like I should not be surprised, and yet I am. Now what of moving at first light?"

"We are free to move," Maglor said, rising to his feet and tucking his bow into the saddle of his horse. "Rouse Elros, would you?"

Elrond scrambled to his feet, unsteady and a bit dizzy, and he shook his brother's shoulder as hard as he could.

"We're going now," he said quietly. After a moment, he shook Elros again. When his brother merely slumped over, Elrond knelt there in shock and then twisted to look up at the two adults with shining eyes. "Help!"

In a second Elrond was being pushed back, Maedhros's bare hand tilting back Elros's head and touching his neck. Then, with little effort, Maedhros slung Elros over his shoulder and stood.

"He lives," he said, moving to the horses quickly, "but his pulse is faint. I fear we must find a healer to attend to him, one who knows how these illnesses work—"

"I will take him." Maglor pushed between Maedhros and Maedhros's horse, which now held Elros's limp body, and Elrond could do nothing but stand and stare, open-mouthed and horror-stricken. "I am the faster rider."

"Maglor—"

"Follow the Sirion north," Maglor said firmly, drawing himself upon the horse swiftly. He pulled Elros upright, encircling his arm around him. "I will see you both soon."

"Maglor—" Elrond breathed, stumbling forward and reaching out for them. "Let me come, please—!"

"I will ride more swiftly alone, my feather-footed friend," Maglor said, wrenching the reins and bursting out of the cave, leaving Elrond alone in the dark with Maedhros.

For a bit too long, they lingered in the silence. Tears sprung into Elrond's eyes but he had no words to accompany them, only the very real, coiling fear that had sprung into him in the lighthouse of their family home. He wondered if this fear would ever leave, or if it had become a part of his soul, forever, until he dwindled into nothing or had nothing left to fear, for fear of loneliness meant nothing if one was truly alone.

"Right…" Maedhros buckled his prosthetic hand to his mail shirt and then grabbed Elrond by the back of his shirt. "Off we go, then."

The warmth of the morning did not offset the lingering chill that had seeped deep into Elrond's bones. They rode through tall grass and brush, across rocky hills and sparse forests, and met the Sirion by midday. The sun did eventually touch deep enough that Elrond was not shivering against Maedhros's chest, at least until they disembarked at the riverbank, the clear waters twinkling and bloated from the prior day's rainfall.

"What are you doing?" Elrond demanded when Maedhros began to pick off his armor and chainmail, revealing the stained and scored livery beneath. There was a brilliant star embroidered in silver thread upon his jerkin. That too was cast aside, as well as his wooden hand, until he stood nearly naked but for underclothes for his modesty. Elrond backed away and then yelped when Maedhros snatched him by the underarms, tearing the shirt off his back and nudging him toward the water.

"We both smell of blood and sweat and dirt and ash," Maedhros said, folding up Elrond's shirt and setting it upon Maglor's saddle. "Maglor had the idea to come here earlier. Perhaps I should have listened. You are filthy."

Elrond was offended enough that he planted his feet in the dirt and had to be dragged to the water. It was clear that Maedhros had little patience, and when Elrond's feet sunk into the damp clay at the edge of the bank, water lapping at his toes, he shrieked from the cold.

"I am giving you to the count of three to take your trousers off yourself," Maedhros said, already calf-deep in the river. "One—"

"You are so mean!" Elrond cried, half doubled over with his forearm enclosed in Maedhros's fist. He considered biting him.

"Two—!"

"Okay, okay, just let me go!" Elrond stumbled back as he was released, and he carefully and miserably peeled away his stained night clothes. The light breeze that rolled off the river made him shiver, and he hesitantly stepped into the water, watching his blackened feet sink into the clay.

While Elrond stood at the edge of the river, Maedhros had already sunk down to his chest in the water. There were, Elrond noticed, faint marks lining his body in strange places that did not really make sense. Faded lines that were almost too faint to make out. It was strange. But the current of the river wasn't too strong where they had stopped, and it puttered over Maedhros's chin as he worked at the end of his braid, clearly attempting to undo the plait. Elrond, whose bitterness had begun to fade as he felt the grime begin to flake off his feet, drifted deeper into the water, sniffling and rubbing away gooseflesh as he did so.

"Do you want help?" Elrond asked quietly.

Maedhros shot him a mild look, somewhat annoyed, and he shook his head.

"I do this all the time," he said flippantly. "My hand has been gone longer than the past three generations of your family have drawn breath."

"Oh." Elrond sank into the river, swiping at his runny nose as he went. "Okay."

But as some time passed, and as Elrond let the river scrub him clean, Maedhros still fumbled with his braid. Unable to help himself, Elrond swam up to Maedhros's side and placed a hand on his shoulder. With a sharp, uncertain glance, Maedhros sighed and slung the braid into Elrond's small hands. The issue, Elrond realized, was that the knot had been tied too tightly to slip out of with a tug, and so he had to use his fingernails to pry it undone. It was not something someone could have done one-handed, and so Elrond suspected that Maglor had braided Maedhros's hair to start with.

He only thought of it, though, because he knew that Elros would probably do it for him. If they'd been in that sort of position. It seemed natural.

"There you go," Elrond said, watching the braid begin to unravel and tilting his head curiously. "You have a lot of hair."

Maedhros snorted in response before ducking his head into the water. When he reemerged, his hair had deflated some, but it still retained some of its shape.

"Alright, little lord," Maedhros said, plopping his hand on Elrond's head. "Deep breath!"

Elrond squeaked as he was dunked beneath the water. His own hair, he saw when he opened his eyes, was not so pretty as Maedhros's and it drifted around his head in dark tendrils. When his head bobbed above the surface, all of his hair sat slick against his cheeks and neck. It was not long enough to touch his back.

"Aw," Maedhros said, flicking Elrond's hair back from his cheek, "there is a face underneath all that grime! A real boy has appeared from the muck, how delightful."

Elrond managed a laugh, and it surprised him, because he had been so full of fear and anger and, admittedly, distrust because of Maedhros, but right now it seemed like he was the only thing keeping Elrond from losing himself to the despair of not knowing if Elros was alright.

When they were done bathing, Maedhros wanted to lay in the sun to dry. Elrond had nothing else to do but follow his lead, so he laid out on a rock beside him and watched the clouds.

"Are you still ill?" Maedhros asked after a while.

"Yes," Elrond said with a frown. "I'm all stuffy. But I don't have a fever anymore, I don't think. Mine broke while I slept."

"I haven't a clue what that means," Maedhros said.

"Umm…" With some consideration, Elrond sat up and began to gesticulate. "A fever happens when you've got a cold, sometimes. When it breaks, you feel hot. If it doesn't break, it's not good at all. I think maybe Elros still had a fever this morning, which is why…"

"Ah." Maedhros sat up as well, shaking out his hair. "I see. Well, alright. I suppose we should get dressed and go after our brothers, hm?"

"Yeah?" Elrond gasped, looking up at Maedhros with a hopeful smile. "Now?"

"Well, we should probably get dressed first— oh, look, there you go." Maedhros slipped off the rock as Elrond threw his shirt and trousers back on. "You realize it will take me a bit longer than that, do you not?"

"You don't need all this," Elrond gasped, holding up Maedhros's chainmail shirt. "This is for battle. We are going to find a healer, aren't we?"

"Battles are not always planned affairs, little duck," Maedhros said with a scoff.

"Duck?" Elrond squeaked as Maedhros tore the chainmail from his fingers. "That is very different from a lord, you know."

"Oh, I know." Maedhros shot him a wicked grin. "You have been acting incredibly un-lordlike today, and more of an odd duck by far."

"And what should I call you?" Elrond asked, crossing his arms as Maedhros donned the rest of his clothes.

"Maedhros will suffice."

"Then why do you not call me Elrond?" he asked. "It is my name, as Maedhros is yours."

"If you find a suitable name for me, I will take it," Maedhros said with a keen smile. "I have many names. It comes with age. Did no one ever give you another name?"

"No…"

"Oh!" Maedhros grinned wickedly. "How fun. Shall I be the first to look upon your little face and divine something new out of you?"

"Uh…"

"Come," Maedhros said, scooping Elrond up by his underarms and dropping him upon Maglor's saddle. They were eyelevel, which was strange, and Maedhros looked upon Elrond's face. Then he grinned. "I will call you Quessëtal."

"What?" Elrond uttered. "What is that?"

"Quenya," Maedhros said brightly. "Lovely, isn't it? I think it suits you."

"It's a mouthful," he said with a sigh. "Can you not just call me Elrond?"

"I can call you Elrond Quessëtal."

"Ugh. Maedhros…"

"Chin up, child," Maedhros said, hopping onto the horse behind him. "Take the gift I have just given you."

"You are a very strange person," Elrond sighed, resting his back against Maedhros's chest as he turned their horse around. He listened to the horse trot and the river run for a while. Because something had been eating at him, and now that he found himself at ease with Maedhros, it occurred to him that he had to ask. "Maedhros?"

"Yes, Quessëtal?"

It was funny, the way he said it, like it was a bit of a joke. Elrond did not quite understand it, and he definitely did not understand Maedhros.

"Why did you take that portrait of my mother?"

The reins of the horse tightened in Maedhros's fist, and their steady trot slowed to a stop. Elrond sat there uncertainly before he twisted to gaze up at the man, finding that his face had grown stony.

"Did you…?" Elrond searched the lines of Maedhros's face for an answer ungiven. Where Maglor's face was quite gaunt, Maedhros had the roundness of youth unbroken by time, smooth cheeks and nose, the faint trickle of scars traceable like veins of the tide beneath ice. Only his eyes betrayed the age and weariness that made him so formidable. And Maglor's eyes were the same. "Did you know her? Is that why you came for us?"

Maedhros inhaled sharply. His nostrils flared, his shoulders stiffened, and he released the reins of the horse with a shake of his head.

"Your mother and father were not there to protect you," he said in a hard voice. "I am sorry for that. I was grown by far when I drifted from my mother, and older still when my father died. And in both cases neither of my parents chose to part with me. So I will feel some sorrow for your position, boy, as it is one of insurmountable tragedy that left you here with me."

The words struck Elrond hard, and it made him think about how his mother had left them in her room, no explanation, only to be dead a few hours later. Their father, who could have been there, was at sea, and perhaps he would never know what happened. And for the first time, Elrond resented that. He could not believe that their father could simply not be there. If he had, would any of it had happened? Would their mother be dead? Would their home be gone?

"Do not weep," Maedhros said, lifting his hand to Elrond's cheek and dashing away his tears, "for those who would so readily abandon you. It is not worth your energy."

"But why?" Elrond gasped, his lip trembling. "Why would they leave us? They loved us!"

"Love is not enough to quell the temptations that lead to our undoings," Maedhros said matter-of-factly. "Sad to say it, but I have seen so many nations built from love only to crumble in the face of it. Again and again."

Burying his face in his hands, Elrond wished he could forget everything. He wished he did not remember his mother's face, or his father's voice. He wished the Havens of Sirion to be washed from his memory.

"As for your mother," Maedhros said, drawing Elrond's hands from his face with a startling tenderness, "I knew her not— merely in passing, when she was a child. No older than you are now. She sang a song for Maglor that brought him to tears. If you ask him about it, I am sure he would weep again, as I am close to weeping now. Here, Elrond."

He retrieved the small portrait from his pocket and placed it in his palm. In the daylight, the siblings looked more like triplets than before. Only Elwing's hair set them apart.

"You look like her," Maedhros said, his finger brushing over one of the children's faces. "Well, it is a strong family resemblance overall."

"These are my uncles," Elrond said softly, tears dripping from the end of his nose onto his hands. "Eluréd and Elurín. They were lost a long time ago."

Maedhros was quiet. He retracted his fingers from the portrait, only to close Elrond's fist around it.

"I am sorry," he said, and for a moment it seemed like it was all he would say. Then he spoke again, and it was like he was changed completely, like he remembered himself all of a sudden, and he smiled. "It was wrong of me to take such a precious token, and I know this well. To steal something so tender to one's heart, so tied to one's family, it is a crime beyond measure, and I would give you my other hand before I stole from you in such a way, Elrond Quessëtal, boy of my brother— let this be a lesson!" Maedhros's fingers plucked Elrond's head up by the chin, and his smile was warm and inviting enough that Elrond managed to smile back through his tears. "We are so fallible to mistakes, as we were not made perfect beings. So many of us take and take without ever considering what it is we are withholding. But to give back what has been stolen, that requires strength of will unmatched in all these lands and those beyond the sea. Remember that."

The words stole into Elrond's heart and settled there, creating a home with the understanding that nothing would banish them from the very core of Elrond, not this year or the next, not this century or the next, not this millennium or the next, and this age, as well, would die and still Elrond would have Maedhros whispering in his ear to give back.

They rode again, following the river north and weaving around rocks and trees, the terrain morphing as the Sirion twisted. They were so far from the sea now that Elrond could only imagine the sound of waves and gulls. But they reminded him of his father, which made him want to banish all remnants of them from his mind.

"This must be boring for you," Maedhros said after a few hours.

"Huh?"

"You are a child," Maedhros said, "and I assume you get bored quite easily. If I were my brother, I'd sing you a song, but I am abysmal with a tune."

"It's alright," Elrond said, resting his head back to peer up at Maedhros. "I was enjoying looking at the river and the trees."

"You are strange," Maedhros said with a snort. And then he smiled. "But you certainly sound like an elf, so that is a good sign for you. Makes me worry less that you are about to catch your death, or whatever it is that happens to you mortal folk."

They stopped not long after to eat, and Elrond sat at the bank, tending to a new fire, while Maedhros deftly skewered a fish on his sword. This meal was more comfortable than their last, though Elrond was even hungrier and less concerned with what he looked like that he punctured his gums with the bristly spine of the trout, and Maedhros had to pry the thing from his jaw and reach into his mouth to pluck the bones from between his teeth.

"You are making me feel very good about my choice to never have children," Maedhros muttered, flicking the fishbones into the river while Elrond spat blood into the rocky bank. "Maglor can have you, truly, for you are the most uncivilized elf I have ever met. If you are an elf at all."

"I am," Elrond argued. Then he coughed, spitting a glob of phlegm and blood into the Sirion.

"Unbelievable," Maedhros said flatly. "Alright, Quessëtal, make good on your name and get moving."

Now that Elrond was not starving, he had more energy, which also meant that he did get bored. It seemed that his exhaustion and hunger had made him lethargic and prone to daydreaming for the majority of their journey, but now he was antsy and his bottom was sore from riding.

"This seems far," Elrond said, "from where we were. What if Maglor and Elros didn't…?"

"Maglor is a faster rider than I by far," Maedhros said with a scoff, "stop fretting. His journey was half as long, and he certainly didn't stop for a bath or lunch. And look!" Maedhros's chin jerked at a stick stuck in the mud of the riverbank, the water lapping at the notches in its base. "Signs of life. Use your little brain, ducky, tell me why that is there."

"It is to measure the water," Elrond huffed, irritated that he was being tested about something so obvious, "to warn against flooding. We do that with the tide, too."

"Very good! Oh, look." Maedhros leaned over Elrond and pointed to a small gaggle of birds puttering in the grass beside the water. "It is you!"

Elrond's face heated as they passed the ducks, and he nearly bit his tongue trying to be polite, but his annoyance won over.

"Yes," he said, "and the fat one is you."

Maedhros was silent a moment before his laughter boomed, rattling against Elrond's back and causing the ducks in question to squawk and disperse. Elrond winced when Maedhros's prosthetic hand bumped his forehead.

"If you were not family," Maedhros said boldly, "I would take offense! But as you are now my kin, I will forgive the blatant disrespect. I warn you, though, if you ever have the misfortune to meet an elf as old as I, you really must respect our age and wisdom."

"What wisdom?" Elrond muttered.

"Ha!"

They trotted into a small town that was nothing like the Havens of Sirion. The architecture did not build upwards, nor was it made of polished sandstone. Instead the stones were flat and dull that made the squat and long buildings that nestled themselves among the hillside above the Sirion. The road was beaten into the earth rather than paved with tiles and glass, as the alleys at home were. Leading up to the village were stalls that lined the path, with vendors manning their hutches and watching Maedhros pass with clear wariness in their gazes. They stopped at a stall, which surprised Elrond, and Maedhros slipped from the saddle and tossed the reins into Elrond's hands.

"I'll be a moment," he said flippantly.

Elrond sat upon the saddle, his fingers absently drawing through Maglor's horse's mane, and he watched Maedhros stroll up to a vendor and toss a small bag of coin onto the weather-beaten table. The woman was starkly ugly, her face folded and weathered and her gray hair thin and scraggly. She looked like she had been left on a cliff to let the seawater eat away at her. Her voice was stretched and thin, but she had a certain humor to her that made Elrond smile, though he ducked his head when she looked at him.

"Quessëtal," Maedhros called, "come here!"

Elrond hesitantly slid off the saddle, leading the horse to the stand and halting beside Maedhros. He was startled when the woman rounded the stand and grabbed him by the arms, lifting them from his side.

"So tiny," she tsked, swatting his thigh with a walking stick. She spoke in the language of Men, and Elrond knew it, but he was surprised to hear it anyway. "You ought to feed him more. Get some fat on him for winter."

"I will make an attempt," Maedhros said dryly, "though I doubt any weight will remain, as elven children are built a bit differently than your own. Will this fit him?"

"Certainly. And you wanted two—?"

"Two of everything," Maedhros said, "and these two caps, thank you. Quessëtal, say thank you."

"Annon allen," Elrond mumbled, causing Maedhros to flick his ear.

"Common, Quessë!"

"Uh…" Elrond found the accent difficult to wrap his tongue around. "Th-thank you…?"

"So sorry," Maedhros said, laying his hand on Elrond's head and flashing the woman a smile, "he is still learning. Is there any way I can get those knitted socks as well?"

In the end, they had to go to another vendor for boots, but the woman was so charmed by Elrond's attempt at Taliska that they got a discount on the socks. By the time they made it to the village proper, Elrond was warmer than he'd been since he'd left the Havens of Sirion, though his feet hurt terribly already from the hard-soled leather boots. Eventually, Maedhros either sensed Elrond's discomfort or he got annoyed with how slow he was walking, because Elrond was plucked up by the underarms and deposited back on the saddle while Maedhros walked the horse through town.

"Your healer," Maedhros said, stopping before a man who sat upon stone steps and whittled at a block of wood. "What house may we find them?"

The man raised his head, and his eyes flashed wide as he gazed up at Maedhros. Perhaps it was his stature that startled the man, or the shock of red hair, unkempt and unbound, crowding around his head and loose about his back. Maybe it was the armor and livery, the studded stars upon his chainmail, the blood rusting in the metal grooves. It never occurred to Elrond it might be because Maedhros was an elf.

"Er…" The man blinked rapidly, a line of confusion warping his brow. "You need one…?"

"Not me," Maedhros said with a low laugh. "No. I am merely looking for my brother. Have you seen another elf passing through here? Or a child like this one?"

"No?" The man offered a shrug and then gestured down the road with his knife. "Llinos lives in the small brown house. Got a bird on her door."

"Some of your work?" Maedhros laughed when the man ducked his head. "No need to be shy, good man! I appreciate the artistic flare— and I see you are carving an animal now. A bear, is it?"

"For my daughter," the man said hesitantly. "She… likes animals, is all. Your daughter can have one too, if she likes."

It took Elrond a minute to realize that the man was talking about him.

"That is very kind," Maedhros said, pulling the horse along, "but I cannot pay you. Farewell, stranger!"

Elrond leaned over as they walked away, tugging at Maedhros's curls.

"Hey," he said. "I'm not a girl."

"Here is a helpful note," Maedhros said, his dark eyes flashing to Elrond sharply, "for your future, little lord. When others overlook you, let them."

"What do you mean?" Elrond straightened up and frowned. "He noticed me, he just thought I was your daughter. Which is silly, we don't look anything alike. And I didn't misunderstand him, I can understand Taliska. It is just difficult to speak."

"You should speak it with me," Maedhros said in Taliska, "so we can avoid trouble in the future."

"But—"

"Common, Quessëtal."

"But why?"

"Because I am telling you to," Maedhros said sharply, startling Elrond. "When your mother told you to do something, did you question her? I find it doubtful, with your disposition. Though you have surprised me before. Ah, here we are."

Elrond allowed himself to be pulled down from the horse, though he knew he could do it himself. He was handed the parcels from the clothing merchant while Maedhros went around the building and let out a triumphant shout.

"There you are, Cemno!" Maedhros tied the reins of Maglor's horse beside his own and gave his horse's side a quick, affectionate thump. "Did Káno push you too hard? Well, you got him here, and I'm grateful for that. Now then, shall we go?"

He said the last sentence in Taliska, and Elrond merely stared at him, trying to understand when he was being serious and when he was talking like a fool. Without waiting for a reply, Maedhros ushered Elrond up two stone steps and knocked hard upon the door with the bird.

It occurred to Elrond that he had forgotten to be worried for quite a while now, which would have been nice if all his concerns didn't roll back into him and weigh down upon him as the door swung open. He found himself grappling at Maedhros's leg to steady himself as a woman appeared in the doorway, small and round with a ruddy face and keen eyes.

"In," the woman said gruffly. Maedhros wasted no time in ducking the threshold of the woman's home and stepping inside. Elrond, however, could only stare there, feeling apprehensive and fearful. The woman glanced at him and tilted her head.

"Go on," she said, grabbing him by the shoulder and pushing him past her. "I haven't got all day. I have others to tend to."

"Llinos, I imagine," Maedhros said, glancing over his shoulder at Elrond. "My brother told you we were coming, then."

Before Llinos could answer, a curtain at the end of the room fluttered, and Maglor emerged with a brightness to his eyes that made Elrond relax. He held the curtain above his head and reached for Maedhros when he crossed the room, laying a hand on his shoulder and searching his face.

"No trouble on the road," Maedhros said flippantly. "Quessëtal and I managed fine this time. Minimal tears were shed! Are you not proud of me?"

"Quessëtal?" Maglor arched a brow and glanced at Elrond, who hugged the parcels of clothing to his chest and frowned. "Funny."

"You don't like it?" Maedhros nudged him. "Or are you simply bitter you did not come up with it first?"

"Neither," Maglor said. "I merely think it amusing that you and I are alike in mind for once. Níkáno is sleeping, but Llinos said he is on the mend."

"Níkáno?" Elrond echoed, peeking beyond Maglor's side and then, upon glimpsing the bed behind him, slipping between the man's thigh and the wall so he could get at his brother. He did not hear Maglor and Maedhros murmuring to one another in a language that sounded familiar, like he might have heard it spoken in passing, but did not understand.

Elros was lying in a bed that was too big for him by far, a window open above him while linen curtains fluttered in the afternoon breeze. The room was crowded with plants and roots and herbs and flowers, and Elros's hair, which was matted and greasy, had been pulled back from his face, which seemed fuller and less pallid than it had that morning.

Sitting down upon the bed, Elrond leaned over his brother in a helpless desire to wake him without physically rousing him. He was a little envious that Elros looked so comfortable, but the reminder of the fever that had ailed them both shook that envy from him, and Elrond curled up at his brother's feet and listened to distant birds and crickets sing in the grass and trees nearby.

After a while, Maglor entered the room. His face was cleaner than it had been that morning, and his eyes brighter. He sat down upon a chair that had been situated near Elros's head, having pulled it to his feet so he could peer at Elrond. Hesitantly, Elrond lifted his head.

When Maglor spoke, the words passed through Elrond's mind without quite sticking.

"I don't know what you're saying," Elrond sighed.

Maglor offered a faint smile. Then, taking a deep breath, he looked away from Elrond's face and stared at his interlocked hands.

"Maedhros wants me to speak to you in Quenya," he said.

"I don't know Quenya," Elrond said confusedly, sitting upright.

Maglor spoke again in the unknown language that Elrond realized could only be Quenya, the language of his fathers' ancestors, the language that drifted between the houses on the shores of the bay, whispers of Gondolin nipping at Eärendil's heels each time he went from home to the sea and back.

"I know that," Maglor said after a pause, "and it is understandable. But Quenya is ours, and I believe he wishes to share it with you, in his own absurd way."

"Why does he make you do it, then?" Elrond frowned. "He wants to speak to me only in Taliska, but I already know Taliska."

"I do not pretend to know how his mind works," Maglor said after speaking in Quenya. And Elrond realized every time he spoke he was going to say what he meant twice over— once in Quenya, and again in Sindarin. "He believes it will benefit you both to be intimately familiar with these languages, and I cannot disagree."

"He gave you the harder job," Elrond muttered, flopping back onto the bed.

"Istan. I know."

"And you just are taking it? Did you not argue at all?"

"I agreed with him on this."

"Why?"

Maglor was quiet, and Elrond sat upright again to frown at him.

"Why?" he repeated sharply. "I don't get it. He's making you do something he could do himself."

"You clearly want the truth," Maglor said reluctantly, "so I will give it. Maedhros lacks the patience to teach you Quenya. He is right to want it for you, but if he tried to teach you, it would be disastrous. So I will do it."

"Why?" Elrond asked, and Maglor stared at him. Then, smiling, he laughed a little.

"You are a funny boy," he said. "Why do you think?"

When Elrond did not answer, Maglor drifted from his chair and sunk onto the bed beside him.

"Maedhros gave you a new name," he said. "Quessëtal."

"That's Quenya," Elrond mumbled, "I suppose?"

"Feather-foot."

Elrond blinked. Then he snorted, drawing his hands over his head and scraping the cap from his skull so he could drag his fingers through his hair.

"Oh," he said, feeling foolish. "And… Níkáno?"

"Tithenhir. Little lord."

"Of course…" Elrond studied his own hands, wondering what he should feel, and what emotion was spinning itself up inside him, because he did not feel good or nice. "So you've given us names in Quenya. Wh—"

"Why not?" Maglor demanded sharply. "Why shouldn't we? Do you truly not see?"

He did not speak in Quenya this time, and Elrond realized it was because he wanted Elrond to understand more than he wanted him to learn. And then, with the knuckles of his fingers, Maglor lifted Elrond's chin so that their eyes could meet.

"You are ours," he said softly, "from now until the light leaves this land, and there are no songs left to sing. A name is not so binding as an oath, but I will take these as one, if you allow it."

Elrond's mind was reeling as he turned those words over in his head, Maglor's voice leaving him feeling entranced. He could turn those words over a hundred thousand times, and maybe, truly, he would, but never find answers in the near poetry of them. It stung him, and it lingered in him, and one day it would become him or diminish within him like a soul ready to waste.

"I allow it."

It was not Elrond who spoke, and it startled him. He tore his face from Maglor's fingers, falling over himself to crawl upon his brother and throw his arms around his stomach.

"You're alive!" he gasped, cheek tucked into Elros's ribs. "I hate you! Why would you do that to me?"

"I didn't really get a choice in it," Elros mumbled, shoving Elrond off him. "You know, if I wanted to hurt you on purpose I could just do this—"

"Ow!" Elrond gasped as Elros caught him in a headlock and yanked on his ears. "Ow, ow—!"

Maglor was on them in a second, tearing Elros's hands off Elrond's ears and swiftly scolding him in both Quenya and Sindarin.

"It wasn't serious," Elros objected.

"I do not care," Maglor said firmly. "I will not watch you hurt one another. Apologize, Elros Níkáno."

"Ugh…" Elros flopped back against his pillow. "Sorry, Elrond."

"It's okay," Elrond said, feeling smug but not betraying it.

Suddenly, Llinos flung the curtain aside and stepped in. She ignored Maglor and instead strolled right up to Elros, pulling him upright and feeling his neck and his chest beneath his shirt.

"Breathe for me," she said, laying her hand on his back and leaning him forward. He breathed in and out deeply. "Alright, then. Seems the worst of it is over. Nasty cold. You had it too, boy?"

Elrond looked up at her, bewildered.

"I told her," Maglor said in both languages. "In case you had not gotten better."

"I'm fine," Elrond said. He forgot how to say it in Common, so Maglor translated for him. Hesitantly, he said to the woman, "Thank you."

"Aw," Llinos said, turning away, "he's polite. Now, since you are both here and breathin', can I ask what the hell type of elves you are catching a cold?"

"Peredhel," Elrond said before Maglor could stop him. Which, he tried. His hand closed around Elrond mouth as he pulled him off the bed.

"I don't know what that means," Llinos said with a shrug, "and I'm guessin' it's not my business to know, by your father's face. Anyhow, the other elf went in search of beds. The sick one can stay here for the night, but he's out tomorrow. Understood?"

"Yes, of course. Thank you dearly." Maglor pulled Elrond to the curtain and cupped the back of his head. "Find Maedhros. I will not leave your brother alone right now, and I need you to be big for me. Ma hanyat?"

He did not offer a translation for the question, but Elrond could tell by his voice what he meant.

"Yes," he said quietly.

"Lá. Go."

Elrond ducked beneath the curtain, feeling like he was fleeing, but there was nothing to flee. There was no danger here. But Elrond still felt it, a horror unleashed, and everything seemed too big and too frightening for him to stand it alone. He ran out the front door and into the dirt road, standing there with the stricken sense of loss and confusion that wrapped itself around him fiercely.

When he began getting approached by locals who seemed to assume he was one of the village children, Elrond backed away and hid among the horses. Cemno nudged his arm with his nose, and Elrond had to reach to scratch his ear, even when he was bending.

"They don't realize I'm an elf," he whispered, frowning deeply. He did not understand it. He'd pulled the cap over his head again, so it did cover his ears and face some, but still. Nobody had any issues identifying Maglor and Maedhros as elves. Was being a half-elf really so strange?

"Hey."

Elrond whirled around, holding onto Cemno's mane as he craned his neck to look up at Maedhros. He gave the horse a pat before tugging on the collar of Elrond's shirt and dragging him away from the side of the stone house.

"I must assume you were kicked out," Maedhros said, "like I was. Tough break. However, lucky for you, I have procured us a place to stay the night! No need to thank me."

"How did you do that?" Elrond asked curiously.

"Eh…" Maedhros's smile soured. "I got a job."

"Oh?"

"It is not so glamorous as a mariner," Maedhros said, throwing a bag over Elrond's shoulder and steering down the road, "and really quite boring. But this is how we must do things, as we cannot return to our lands, what with the north being in the state it is."

"What do you mean?" Elrond wrinkled his nose. "What state?"

"It is not a necessity to worry of it," Maedhros said. "Anyway, here we are."

Maedhros led them to a building that was taller than the others, and inside it was a long hall with many doors, and a man at a counter who eyed them as they passed. Maedhros walked Elrond up a creaky flight of steps and inserted a key into one of the doors.

"Here we are," Maedhros repeated brightly, pushing Elrond toward one of the three beds in the small, cramped room. "Pick one for you and your brother, will you? I'll be back."

"What?" Elrond whirled to look up at him, gaping. "Where are you—?"

The door slammed and locked behind Maedhros. And Elrond found himself completely alone. For the first time, maybe ever, there was no one immediately available to hear him, to watch out for him, to wonder if he was okay. It was a maddening thing, and it could not be contained within his small frame, because inevitably it howled inside him and left him bereft when he howled too and banged on the door with his tiny fists, trying the doorknob again and again. Then he ran to the window, casting it open, only to find it too narrow to squeeze through. Bare light trickled in through that space, and it felt more like a prison than a room as he curled up in the corner and began to cry.

It was loneliness, of course, but also fear. There wasn't a reasonable explanation for why Maedhros had gone, and in this moment Elrond realized how much he truly needed him. How much he and Elros desperately depended on their saviors, the brothers who had scooped them out of the dying hand of the Havens of Sirion and kept them fed and safe. But to be left behind without warning, it broke Elrond open, and he was empty long before the door creaked open in the dark of the evening, a long shadow appearing in the doorway.

"Elrond?"

It was Maglor's voice that brought him back to himself, and he lifted his head and peered out of the dark, not having realized that the sun had set and the room had darkened, for he'd buried his face in his knees and closed his eyes when he had no energy left to cry.

A match was struck and a candle was set upon the small desk beneath the window. Maglor had to weave between beds to find Elrond sitting in the shadowy nook of a corner, and he lingered there, staring, before hesitantly sinking to his knees before him.

"Maedhros left you here," he murmured. When Elrond nodded mutely, he sighed, sitting down upon the ground and resting his back against the bed behind him. After a long silence, Maglor's eyes flashed to Elrond's face tiredly. "Are you alright?"

Elrond did not answer. Instead he scooted over the wooden floor and situated himself beside Maglor, staring up at the candlelight and finding himself relieved to have anyone beside him. And he was glad it was Maglor, truly.

It was a comfortable enough silence. Elrond had to wonder if Maglor was so at ease in it because his brother never let the silence lie still for too long, and that, too, had to be comfortable. After a while, Elrond thumbed the portrait in his pocket, his mother's face blinking into his eyes and escaping him fast. She was often silent too.

"Maedhros said my mother once sang a song that made you weep," he said, watching the wax accumulate at the base of the candle above his head. "Is that true?"

He could see Maglor's shock in his hands. Nothing else betrayed it but the spasming flex of Maglor's long fingers, like he meant to grab something and rattle it. The silence, this time, was short.

"Yes," Maglor said quietly.

Perhaps if Elrond were older it would occur to him to ask where or how, what the occasion had been, but really, he did not think of these things at all. Instead he leaned his head against Maglor's shoulder and closed his eyes.

"Do you remember how it went?"

And Maglor obliged. It was not so much a song with words, but a trilling melody that passed over them both like a wave cresting a cloud. And when there were words, they were simple rhymes, a repetition and a call, familiar in the way that any child might know them. There was nothing special about them, but in Maglor's voice they sounded like ornate poetry.

"Why did that make you cry?" Elrond asked when the song was done and the silence had stretched so long that it covered him like a blanket and he was ready to fall asleep in it.

Maglor took a while to respond, as usual. When he spoke again, he sounded so far away that if Elrond were not leaning against him, he'd assume he'd left the room.

"Sometimes it is not the words," Maglor said, "but the feelings that make a song, Elrond."

"What was she feeling? What did you hear?"

"Insurmountable sorrow," Maglor said, his thumb dragging over Elrond's brow, "that I fear she knew would haunt her for her entire life."

"Oh."

Maglor's hand rested gingerly upon Elrond's head. They sat there a while as Elrond wrapped his brain around the thought that his mother had ever been sad to start with.

"I am sorry that she's gone." Maglor looked down at him, and Elrond did not need his brother to know this was true. "If I could return her to you, I would. But just as you cannot return to us our dead brothers, we have to make do with what we have been given, and I would not trade you now that I have you."

"Really?" Elrond asked, eager to be wanted after tasting the bitter end of an empty cup and calling it loneliness.

"Really. Now, I think you should sleep, Elrond Quessëtal. Mailórë."

"Mailórë," Elrond mumbled into Maglor's arm. Sweet dreams, maybe, would come if he was not alone.

And Elrond did dream, though the dreams were scarcely sweet, and when he woke he sank into his lumpy mattress, feeling as though he was lying upon a featherbed while the streaks of bloodstained blue tile swept from his mind. He was, he realized, sitting up and feeling the warmth of the sun stream through the small window, alone again. Kicking back his blankets in a panic, he stumbled to the door and was relieved when it flung open. He had not been locked in.

Pulling on his boots, Elrond slipped down the hallway and stairwell, garnering no attention as he passed a few adults, and he made it about halfway down the road before someone spotted him.

"Oi!" a man called. "Whose child are you?"

Elrond, who did not speak Common well, merely stared up at the man blankly.

Unfortunately he was taken to a nearby building, not the healer's house, and sat upon a stool while the local men argued about what to do with him.

"My children run around these parts often enough," one said dismissively. "Ought not make a fuss over it."

"We know your children."

"You think she's deaf?"

"I think she's lost."

"She's an elf," a man said sharply, cutting through the throng of men and shooting a glance at Elrond. It was the carpenter from the day prior, he realized. "Where's your father, girl?"

Elrond stared at him, knowing he could try to argue with him about his gender but not really knowing how to phrase it, nor how to be polite about it. Shaking his head, the carpenter sighed.

"Get her water," he told the barkeep, "and some bread. The elf will turn up sooner or later."

Elrond was seated near a window and given a great big glass of water and a basket of bread that was a little stale, but he really hardly noticed, given how hungry he was. The building smelled like smoke from the fire and some strong, distinct smell that Elrond had never smelled before, but it seemed to perforate the very wood of the table he sat at. He eventually came to the conclusion it was some type of drink that the men around him were drinking by process of elimination.

The carpenter had been right, it turned out, as the door of the tavern burst open. Sooner or later the elf did show up, and it was Maedhros who loomed in the doorway, ducking beneath a too-short frame and casting a glance about the room. It did not occur to Elrond in the moment that he looked angry, as he was too excited to see him, and he leapt from his stool the instant it registered that Maedhros was here.

"Maedhros!" Elrond bounded up to his side, throwing his arms around his thigh, which was all he could really reach. "Where did you go? Why did you leave me like that? Maglor was looking for you—"

"Hush." Maedhros's gloved hand closed over Elrond's mouth, and the scent of blood hit his nose and turned his stomach and made the world shrink all of a sudden, like he might blink and find himself in the walls of his home, trailing blood along his father's tile floor, the light of their city burning glinting from the windows.

Maedhros withdrew his hand, studying Elrond's face momentarily. His thumb scraped the crumbs from Elrond's chin, and something in his face softened. Then he drew Elrond against his side, and there were fresh stains on his chainmail, not yet completely dried in the grooves. When he spoke, it was in Taliska.

"Thank you for finding my nephew. How much do I owe you for his meal?"

The entire room was abnormally quiet, despite the chattering that had filled it moments earlier. All eyes were on them, gleaming uncertainly in the light of the fire and the afternoon sun that streamed in through the window.

"Nothin'," called a man who worked the counter. And the silence grew louder. Deafening, really. Elrond bit his tongue, a thousand questions still pressing him, and he took Maedhros's wooden hand, craning his neck to search his face.

It was clear to Elrond that Maedhros was unhappy about something, but he couldn't really tell what, so he stood there, rocking back on his heels, his fingers tightening around the stiff palm of the prosthetic hand and tugging at him to get his attention. That failed, of course.

Before Maedhros could respond, however, the door burst open again, and Elrond twisted to see, to his relief, that Maglor had stepped into the tavern. Quick at his heels and with a new vigor, like the fever had given him a new lease on life, was Elros.

"Hey!" Elros was on Elrond in a second, shoulder to shoulder, toe to toe, and he leaned into his side with a great big grin. "There you are! Maglor said you were missing."

"He was missing," Elrond argued, shooting an irritated glance at Maglor over Elros's head. He was met with a stony stare. "I just came looking for him and got rounded up by these folk. Oh. Am I in trouble, Maedhros?"

In response, Maedhros snorted. He shook Elrond's hand from his prosthetic and turned to face Maglor, speaking rapidly in Quenya. Elrond was surprised when he picked up a few choice words here and there from Maglor's insistent instruction. But it was not enough to piece together what they were saying.

"Locking him in was a mistake," Maglor said in Sindarin. It did not occur to Elrond that it might be for his benefit that he'd responded this way. "You frightened him half to death. He could have stayed with me, if you were simply going to leave him like that."

"Well it looks like you took a page out of my book," Maedhros responded flippantly, "so what is all this drama for? Anyway, back to business." Maedhros switched so quickly to Common that it took Elrond a moment to adjust, and he missed what Maedhros said entirely.

"Are you alright?" Elrond whispered to Elros, clinging to him like driftwood in a riptide. His brother's eyes, a mirror of his own, flicked over his face confusedly.

"I'm fine," Elros gasped, "it's you I'm worried about. Weren't you scared?"

"No," Elrond lied.

"Oh," Elros said gravely, staring upon Elrond with ever-softening eyes, "you really were, weren't you? I'm sorry."

"Shut up," Elrond mumbled, embarrassed and pitied, but still grasping Elros tight. "You were dying."

"Just a little bit, I think," Elros said with a sniff. His nose was still runny, clearly, and he turned his attention to Maedhros and the men who occupied the tavern. "What's going on now?"

"Ah," Maedhros said, "were you not listening?"

"I don't know what they're saying," Elros said, jerking his chin at the tavern-folk.

Elrond smiled smugly when Maedhros glanced at him, knowing well that his aptitude for languages outstripped his brother's, and now Maedhros would know that. He looked grumpy about it.

"Níkáno," Maglor said carefully, using that odd name that Elrond did not understand, "Maedhros is explaining our presence here to the Men of this village. We do not wish to overstay our welcome."

"But they've been nice," Elrond said confusedly.

"Youth leaves so much naked to harm," Maedhros said dully. "Harden your heart, Quessëtal. Not all with open hands are friends."

It bothered Elrond, though he did not know why, and he was frustrated when Maglor took both Elrond and Elros by the hand and thanked the tavern-folk before leaving hastily. Elros kept twisting to look back, his feet stumbling as he lost step with Maglor's long strides, but Elrond could only keep up. It was not in his nature to linger where he did not belong.

"You are confused," Maglor said in Sindarin and then in Quenya. Elrond mouthed the words to himself. "My brother is a troubled sort, and trust does not come readily."

"I can see that," Elrond muttered. Elros glanced at him and then shrugged.

"These people were kind to Elrond," he said firmly. "I don't care what Maedhros thinks, they fed Elrond and they healed me, so maybe Maedhros is wrong."

Maglor did not have an expression that was readily readable, so Elrond simply sighed and tugged at his brother's hand. They'd made it to the inn again, only for Maglor to stop at the door, blocking their entry.

"Maedhros left last night to kill a man," he said, "on the coin of one of these good folk. Do not be so quick to dismiss my brother's warnings, as he is, unfortunately, seldom wrong."

With that, Maglor opened the door and ushered them inside the inn. Elros was shocked, Elrond saw, but in his own heart he could only bring himself to feel a sense of clarity. It only made sense that this was where Maedhros went off to. And somehow, the distant death of some stranger seemed so mundane that it did not really bother Elrond at all.

"Was there a reason?" Elrond asked after they spent a while in their room, Elros sulking and Maglor sitting by the small window.

"Mana?"

"Was there a reason," Elrond repeated, "for the man Maedhros killed? Did he do something terrible?"

"I do not know," Maglor said, turning his face from the sun to look upon Elrond with widening eyes. "I did not think to ask."

"Oh."

Maglor studied him. He sat upon the same bed that Elros was lying upon, curled up and frustrated, and Elrond knew that if they had been at home, Elros would want to be alone in a way that always made Elrond feel bad. This was a mood in which, if disturbed, Elros might really show Maglor and Maedhros the meaning of hell.

When Maedhros returned, Elros bolted upright, and Elrond grimaced as Maedhros was cornered in the doorway.

"You kill for money?" he asked sharply.

"Sometimes," Maedhros said, blinking down at Elros with a frown. "Is that a problem, Elros?"

"Did you kill for money in the Havens of Sirion?"

Elrond leapt to his feet. Real shock froze his blood in his veins, and he looked up at Maedhros in horror, his hand slipping into his pocket and grasping at the small portrait of his mother. He felt something brush the space between his hair and his spine, and when he glanced at Maglor, he saw the man's retreating hand, as though he had meant to steady Elrond but thought better of it.

When Elrond looked back at Maedhros, he had darkened the doorway and somehow the whole room fell into shadow with it. He loomed over Elros, who stood undaunted, head tipped back, the accusation looming taller than Maedhros's height.

And Maedhros, startlingly, shrunk. It was peculiar to see the shadow of him sucked right back into its source, and there was something in Maedhros's eyes as he knelt there, eyelevel with Elros, and said in a clear, firm voice:

"No."

Elros let out a shaky breath, the depth of which rattled his small body. He looked away from Maedhros, only for his face to be grabbed by Maedhros's gloved hand. When Elrond moved forward, he was held back by Maglor, and it startled him so badly that he froze and watched as Maedhros tilted his head.

"A peculiar gift," Maedhros said in a voice so feather-soft that it eased Elrond's anxiety, "to know the truth when you hear it. Valuable."

Elros's lip trembled, but he stood his ground, his chin lifting higher and his shoulders squaring.

"I fear you," he admitted, laying a hand upon Maedhros's wrist and prying his hand from his face, "because I do not know you. Why did you save us?"

"It is a fair question," Maedhros said with a shrug. "But I will respond thusly. Why not? What sort of devil would see two children alone among the flames and blood of the only home they've ever known and leave them to drown in it?"

"I don't know," Elros whispered, eyes shining, the words hitting him hard, just as they hit Elrond. The night in question was still inside them, hollowing out the space inside their minds where home was and replacing it with hellfire and corpses.

"I am sorry," Maedhros said. He tilted his head so it was below Elros's, and a stray, wiry red curl slid over his eyes. "You can tell that much, can you not? I will say it again. Goheno nin. Nányë nyérinqua. I'm sorry, Elros."

And Elros, who was so oblivious to so many things, must have seen something Elrond did not, because he raised his hands to Maedhros's face and lifted his head so they were eyelevel once more.

"I can hear your sorrow," Elros said softly. "It is not all for me and Elrond, is it? You weep for more than our misfortune."

"I weep for nothing," Maedhros said, pulling Elros's hands from his face and rising to loom once more, "but if you hear sorrow, then who am I to argue? Now, can we call trust between the four of us, or will there be more theatrics before supper?"

"Who wanted someone dead enough to pay for it?" Elrond piped up. He heard a soft noise behind him, and he wondered if Maglor had snorted at the remark.

"I would love to tell you," Maedhros said, "but these things should remain confidential. For the sake of our relationship. Because this will happen again, and you have made it clear that it is an issue."

"Well," Elros said quickly, "maybe not!"

Elrond shot his brother a disbelieving glance. How quickly his tune changes when the fires of his heart burn out!

"Still," Maedhros said amusedly, "I will not disclose such things. And anyway, we might be sticking around here longer than I'd hoped. The winds are changing, and getting caught in the wrong terrain in the middle of winter would be fatal for you two little… er…"

"What?" Elros and Elrond said at once. Maedhros was looking at Maglor glumly.

"Lovely children," he said with a roll of his eyes. "Who are predisposed to being so very fragile! Great fun for us, truly."

"So…" Elrond looked between Maedhros and Maglor eagerly. "What? This is our home now?"

Maedhros let out a burst of laughter, and it was such a warm sound that it was infectious, and Elros laughed too. Elrond was slower to catch the fit of giggles, but he did, eventually. Only Maglor resisted.

"Hell no!" Maedhros's laughter was cut short, and so, too, was the twins'. "We will spend a short while here and wait out the weather. Perhaps a year, nothing more."

"A year?" Elrond echoed in horror. "That is forever!"

"To your young eyes, Elrond Quessëtal, tomorrow might as well be forever! But fear not, one day you will meet eternity, and it will not be so generous as the turn of a year."

Tomorrow came and went. And, to Elrond's surprise, the time did not creep so much as it blew away from them, as their lives in this small village became something consistent. A routine developed. Maedhros did odd jobs for money, sometimes leaving for days or weeks at a time, and the men of the village, human and harmless, made room for them in their day to day lives. Elrond never heard of anyone dying viciously, though he could have easily missed it, so he was never sure if Maedhros was out murdering for coin or not. Maglor, on the other hand, tended to Elrond and Elros in a way that surprised them both. It was the way their mother had always been around them while their father was at sea. Maglor was the one who washed them, fed them, and taught them. Maglor was the one who told them which villagers to trust, and always seemed to be near when the twins would wander and play. And Maglor was the one that everyone assumed was their father, for their coloring was similar enough, though Elrond and Elros were of darker complexion.

When the leaves began to change, Elrond and Elros joined the local children in games of burying each other in the dead leaves that the locals had brushed out of the road. Maglor, who was always nearby when they played, took to lining all the children up and throwing them, one at a time, into a large leaf pile. It made him wildly popular, more-so than he already was, and Elrond and Elros were quite smug to have him as their father.

It was not perfect. As the weather got colder and colder, outside activities were limited, and Elrond and Elros grew bored being cooped up inside. Maglor tried to keep them busy with learning Quenya, which Elrond picked up quickly, and Common, which came along fine given how often they had to talk to the villagers. They played games in the inn when it was too cold to go outside, hiding in nooks and crannies, spooking random guests and getting reprimanded by the innkeep more often than not. Maedhros would return, pay their fees, treat Elrond and Elros to some new article of clothing or new toys from the carpenter, whose name was Dewyn, and he would stay for some time until he was off again.

Perhaps understanding their vast boredom, Maglor had Elrond and Elros walk to the local meeting house every week to sit with the young girls of the village and practice embroidery with an aging tailor. All the girls there knew them well enough by now, and for the first night they seemed confused and a bit defensive, but they warmed up to them quickly, and Elrond was happy to have a new skill to focus on.

Until, of course, after about a month, when the first snow blanketed the village, and Elrond and Elros were able to see all their friends again.

"Your father has you learning women's tasks," Medi said matter-of-factly as Elros and Elrond knelt in the snow. "Is it all backwards for elves? Men do the washing and the embroidery and make music and raise the children and the mother goes off to war?"

Medi was a tall boy, nearly twelve, and as one of the oldest of the children in the village he tended to think of himself as their de facto leader. Elrond let him, as it was easier than fighting, but Elros took offense to it.

"I don't know," Elros said, clearly irritated. "Does it matter?"

"Are you elves or not?" Medi scoffed. "This is simple stuff, Ní, all you gotta do is know. So does your father do women's work on purpose, or does he just like it, or is he a woman, or…?"

"You're being rude, Medi," the carpenter's daughter, Wynn, said huffily, her breath bursting out of her in a puff of gray. "Elves are just different. It's not your business, anyway!"

"Are we sure you two aren't girls?" a boy named Cal asked with a laugh, causing Elrond to pause his lumping together of watery snow, ill-suited for sticking, while Elros stood slowly. "You got a willie under all those stars, Ní? Do elves even got those?"

"Elros, daro!" Elrond gasped, leaping over their meager snow pile to tackle his brother to the ground. It had been obvious that he'd been about to launch himself at Cal, and Elrond knew from experience that it would not be pretty. "Stop it! Leave it!"

"You wanna see how much of a man I am?" Elros spat, his accent loosening up his words and making them sound garbled as he clawed at the snow. His fingers tore through the white and overturned the dark earth beneath, his gloves left damp beside the sad mound of snow they'd created. Cal and Medi leapt back in shock, but Medi was laughing before long, and Cal nervously laughed with him. Only Wynn and their final companion, a girl named Afi, remained close and silent.

"Níkáno! Hautasa!"

Elros took advantage of Maglor's distraction of Elrond and elbowed him in the gut, causing him to fall back into the snow with a gasp. He was pulled up quickly, scooped out of the snow and set upon Maglor's hip while Elros set himself upon Cal with the viciousness of an animal unleashed, clawing at his face with a scream. He was whisked off the boy, who was wailing immensely, swiftly and efficiently. Maedhros had him under his one arm, completely unfazed by Elros's screaming and writhing and kicking.

"I forgot children had tantrums," Maedhros said wistfully, wiggling Elros and laying his hand upon his head. "This one… now isn't this behavior familiar? Is he most like Turko, Curvo, or Irissë?"

"All three," Maglor said with a great, defeated sigh.

Maedhros beamed at Elros, rattling him a bit as his adrenaline seemed to bleed out of him, leaving him limp under his arm.

"There, there," Maedhros said, "it's not the end of the world. What did the boy say to twist you so?"

"He called him a girl," Elrond confessed, glancing worriedly at the boy in the snow, who was now being nursed by Medi. The girls, who could very well have helped, were now huddled close to Maglor's side.

"Is that a crime?" Maglor demanded, sounding deeply unhappy.

"They made it sound bad!" Elros gasped, going limp in Maedhros's arm. "You don't know how they spoke to us! It was insulting, and they should be taught better!"

"Wow," Maedhros said. "Justice. Funny thing, that. Do you think he deserved to bleed?"

"What?" Elros lifted his head, and stared in horror at the bloody face that sat before him, tear-stained and twisted from pain. "Oh."

"Yes," Maedhros said, setting Elros down. "Oh indeed! You are such a self-righteous little thing, I do not think you see the hypocrisy in yourself. Hm. What now, Káno?"

Maglor was quiet as Elrond rested his cheek against his shoulder. Maedhros gave a little scoff.

"Took this one personally, did we?"

"The matter can only be resolved one way," Maglor said gravely. "Níkáno. Apologize."

Maedhros set Elros down, and Elros toed the snow, face flushed, brow creased.

"Say sorry, Elros," Elrond hissed, "so we can leave!"

"Sorry," Elros said in Common, his eyes darting away from Cal's bloody face. "Be less rude."

"I'm willing to take that," Maedhros said with a shrug.

"Of course you are," Maglor sighed, reaching out and grabbing Elros's arm. "Let's go. Now."

They went, Elrond on Maglor's hip, Elros trailing behind sullenly, and Maedhros, unfazed, fell into step behind them. Wynn waved at them as they left.

"Bye, Níkáno! Bye, Quessëtal!"

Elrond peeked out from over Maglor's shoulder and waved.

"Don't get too angry at him," Maedhros warned when they'd returned to the inn, "given we've done worse for less."

He said it in Quenya, assuming that they would not understand. It was possible that Elros didn't, to be fair. But Elrond did.

"He needs to learn discipline," Maglor said, swinging Elros around and pushing him at Maedhros, "if he is to survive in this world. Do you disagree, Russandol?"

"Ooh, Russandol? We're being very serious today." Maedhros gave a short snort and he grinned as he clapped his hand against the crown of Elros's head. "On the contrary, I've been waiting for this. Do we start with swords or a bow?"

Elros's face lit up, and Maglor sighed deeply as he set Elrond down.

"The body must be as keen as the mind before any battle can be fought." Maglor studied Elros with a long, dull glance. "Have the innkeep give him a shovel and make him dig a path from the door to the road."

"What?" Elros gasped, affronted and angry. "Are you joking? Maglor—!"

"Choose who you want to keep an eye on," Maglor cut in.

"Ooh, such a hard decision," Maedhros said with a snort. "Come on, Quessë, let's go track down that innkeep."

Elrond shuffled past his brother, sending him a pitying look. He took Maedhros's hand, albeit the wooden one, and left with him to find the innkeeper, who was more than happy to lend a shovel for free labor.

Upstairs, while Elros toiled, Elrond kicked off his boots and threw his scarf at Maedhros, who caught it amusedly.

"You did not seem shocked by Elros's actions," Maedhros said in Common, carefully setting Elrond's things aside before sitting on the edge of his bed. "Is this normal for him?"

"Sort of," Elrond confessed, rubbing the feeling back into his fingers as he jumped onto the bed beside Maedhros and curled into his side. "I guess it's just when he's really angry, but it's frightful, isn't it? He never means for it to go so far, but it does, sometimes, and it's scary."

"Did he ever hurt you like that?"

"Well, yes," Elrond said hesitantly, "and no. He's never gotten me in the face before, but it's happened. He never really means it, I swear. Sometimes I get angry too, but I don't know how to let it go, so it gets deep inside of me and makes me shake."

"Fascinating."

"He's not bad," Elrond said defensively, seeing the way Maedhros's brow quirked. "He's not. What Cal said wasn't right, and I was angry too, but Elros always acts first and thinks later, and that's just how it is, Maedhros. I won't blame him for that."

"You are so very serious for a baby," Maedhros sighed, pushing him off of his shoulder and onto the bed. "Calm down. Learn how to be six. Or are you seven now?"

"I…" Elrond blinked up at the ceiling. "I'm not sure, really."

"Great," Maedhros said. "Well, we'll count the years as we've known you. You'll be seven when it's been a year since you were found."

"Okay," Elrond said, smiling. He lifted himself onto his elbows. "Maedhros, won't you stay longer this time? I don't mind sharing a bed with Elros, and you're always so fun when you stay a long time."

The corners of Maedhros's eyes crinkled, and Elrond thought this might have genuinely pleased him.

"Maybe two or three weeks," Maedhros said, "depending on the weather. And I'm sure there are jobs around the village that I could get. I just find the whole currency thing to be so…"

"What is 'currency?'"

"Coin, Quessë."

"Ah."

"Yes, it is a real pain."

"Why can't Maglor sing for coin?" Elrond asked eagerly. Maedhros glanced at him and barked a laugh.

"I admire the thought," Maedhros said, "but no. He'd find it degrading, and this isn't exactly the type of crowd for it. Consider how those boys treated you. I fear the townsfolk view Maglor with a similar disdain."

"Why?"

"Well…" Maedhros sighed. "Men have different ideas about masculinity than you or I. Elves do not grow beards, usually. We do not truly divide garments based on gender, and it is difficult for them, you see, to distinguish if we are male or female sometimes. Maglor gets it worse than me, and I believe it is his disposition more-so than his appearance."

"That isn't very nice," Elrond murmured.

"No," Maedhros agreed, "not at all. And it causes a lot of discomfort trying to sort it all out. Trust me."

"Sort what out?" Elrond asked, tilting his head.

"Do you ever tire of asking questions?" Maedhros asked with a huff. "Truly, Elrond, can we not just relax? I have not seen you in a week and a half. Tell me what your life is like before Elros and Maglor come back and make everything so dreary."

They chatted until Maglor and Elros came back and, once again proving Maedhros right, made things very uncomfortable. Elrond knew better than to try to comfort Elros, but the room was tiny, and there was nowhere to go. Elros tried to leave, but Maglor would not let him, so he sulked in the corner and doodled until supper.

The next day, when they went to their embroidery class, Wynn and Afi cornered them.

"That was amazing," Wynn gasped, grabbing Elros's hands and bouncing up and down excitedly. "Cal deserved it, you know, it was terrible what he said to you."

"It was," Afi agreed. "He says rude stuff like that to us too, but I never thought to hit him. I just might next time!"

"His father is cross, though," Wynn said gravely, giving Elros a pat on the arm. "Best to let your father handle it. He's here, isn't he?"

"He's never too far away," Elrond said, glancing over his shoulder at the door. "Usually he waits outside."

"In the cold?" Afi asked, surprised.

"Elves don't feel cold like we do," Elrond said, and it was the wrong thing to say, because the girls and even Elros stared at him blankly.

"But you're an elf," Wynn said.

Elrond floundered a moment, finding that he did not quite believe what he'd implied in that moment. Because it had felt so true to say that he wasn't one. That he was more like Wynn or Afi than Maedhros and Maglor. And when Elrond looked to Elros, desperate for him to answer for him, his brother merely mirrored his shock.

"I am," Elrond finally managed to say, pushing past the girls and finding his seat. "Yes. I am an elf. You're right, Wynn."

Wynn and Afi merely stared as Elros plopped down beside him, picking up their embroidery from the communal basket and handing Elrond his hoop. The rest of the lesson went on without much excitement, though the gossip had spread by the end of the hour, and before each of them went home, all the girls gathered around Elrond and Elros and badgered them relentlessly.

"You have the ears," a girl named Fara said, "but you don't act so elf-like otherwise."

"And what do you know of it?" Wynn snorted. "From their father and their uncle? Be serious, Fara, we don't know nothin' about elves!"

"Well I know they're beautiful," Afi said boldly, "and Níkáno and Quessëtal are certainly that!"

Elrond's eyes widened as the girls chorused, "Ooooh!" He ducked his head, embarrassed, and Elros took his shoulder to steady him.

"Thank you," Elros said, "that's nice of you to say, Afi. I guess we just have been around you lot so long, we forget sometimes that we're elves."

"Oh," Wynn said, shooting a smug smile at Fara, "see? Simple as that. Now let their father through already! He's been waiting."

"Ooh," Fara said with a giggle as they parted for Maglor, who had been standing in the doorway, watching, "better go quick, boys, before Afi proposes!"

"Fara!" Afi cried, burying her face in her hands. Elrond stared at her desperately, seeing her distress and feeling immensely guilty for it.

"It's alright," he said softly, watching her peek through her fingers. "You're beautiful too, Afi."

There was a great cooing that erupted around them as the girls, as one, loudly proclaimed, "OOOH!"

"Alright," Maglor said sharply, dragging both twins by the backs of their coats, "that's enough wooing for tonight. Goodnight, girls."

"Goodnight!" the girls chorused before bursting into a fit of giggles again.

As they walked home, Maedhros swung around from behind a building, a lantern in hand, and he bounced up beside Maedhros.

"Aw," Maedhros said, "someone is upset that their sons are going to grow up to break women's hearts! Just like their father!"

Maglor ushered Elrond and Elros forward, clearly trying to outpace Maedhros, but his legs were too long. He was on Maglor within the second.

"I think we should teach them some love songs. Really prepare them for adulthood. Surely they know the one about their thrice-damned grandmother?"

"Great-grandmother," Maglor corrected, "and I am not singing that to them."

Maedhros merely laughed. When they returned to the inn, Maglor did sing them a song, but it did not seem like a love song at all, and it made Elrond very sad.

The next time they saw Medi and Cal, it was snowing again. Maedhros had gone off to do a job, and Maglor had, for the first time, allowed them to go off alone with their friends while he spoke to Cal's parents about the incident.

"Your face looks better," Elrond said as they each gathered armfuls of snow to pack into a large mound for a fort.

"Does it?" Wynn scoffed, shooting Cal a wicked grin and earning a snowball to the face. "Hey!"

Cal was met with a snowball to the face just as well, and Elrond glanced at Elros tiredly.

"Naitië?" Elrond hissed at his brother. Elros merely grinned, dodging a snowball that was returned to him by Medi. Afi and Wynn laughed, and Elrond was quick to dodge their joint efforts to attack him, the ease of his movements clearly frustrating them after a minute, so they focused their ammunition on Medi and Cal instead.

"You're quick, Quessë!" Medi gasped, after having finally landed a blow on Elros and now, with all their friends, he was solely focused on Elrond.

"They don't call him Feather-foot for nothing!" Elros laughed brightly.

"Is that what your name means?" Wynn shrieked in delight. "Ooh, how sweet! What is yours, Níkáno?"

As she spoke, Elrond very narrowly dodged a snowball thrown from her fist.

"Little lord," Elrond piped up before Elros could say it proudly, earning himself a venomous glance. "Because he's so… hm, how did Maedhros say it, Elros? High-maintenance?"

"Big ol' word," Medi scoffed, throwing and missing by a wide margin.

"And what does Elros mean?" Afi asked softly. Her wiry hair was coated in frost, the same way that Maedhros's often was when he came in from a storm. "Brother?"

Elrond froze, and in freezing he was struck in the shoulder by Wynn, who punched the air triumphantly.

"Alright!" she gasped, throwing her arms around Afi. "Thanks, Afi!"

"It's the name my mother gave me," Elros said, sounding strange, and when Elrond looked at him he could see that this had shaken him as it had shaken Elrond, because they had not considered their names in a long while, it seemed. They had gotten so used to being called Níkáno and Quessëtal, their mother-names had been relegated to a strange secret breathed between them, unintentionally binding them together even more tightly than ever before, if possible.

"Oh," Wynn breathed, her round face looking momentarily stricken. "I'm sorry, Níkáno."

"It's alright," Elros said, clearly shrugging it off. "Let's get back to—"

"Whoa!" Cal gasped, turning his scarred face toward the tree-line and pointing through the thick snowfall. "Look!"

To their surprise, a stag had burst out of the forest, veering left and right, a dark blot in the gray afternoon. Wynn stumbled forward, and then broke into a run. Elros burst after her, and Elrond nearly followed until he saw Afi's face.

"What is it?" he asked. Afi pointed toward the trees, and Elrond glanced past Elros and Wynn, past Medi and Cal, and he looked at the tree-line and saw shifting figures clear as day.

"More deer?" Afi asked, rubbing the snow from her eyelashes and taking a step forward. Elrond yanked her back and whirled her around.

"Go to the village!" he gasped. "Run! Now!"

"What?" Afi gasped, her brow furrowing. "Quessëtal—"

"Get my father," Elrond insisted, pushing her hard. "Go!"

She darted into the curtain of snow, disappearing quickly into the gray daylight, and Elrond whirled around and bolted the opposite way, toward the imminent danger, until his hands found his brother.

"There, there," Wynn gasped, soothing the jittery stag as it snorted and backtracked, desperate to get away. "Did you send Afi to get someone to help him, Quessëtal? He's bleeding an awful lot."

Elrond laid a hand upon the stag's snout, looking into his black eyes and seeing the fear there.

"Menlintië," he murmured, stroking its head between its antlers. He was about to step away when he heard a horrible sound, a whistling and then a thwang of some high-velocity object suddenly being halted. The screams erupted, one pained, the others frightened, and Elrond steadied the stag and backpedaled rapidly, glancing aside and seeing Wynn on the ground with an arrow in her side.

"What's happening?" Cal gasped. "What happened?"

"Elrond!" Elros was kneeling beside Wynn, his eyes shining as the wind began to pry at the hair held in a bun upon his head, whipping black strands across his brow and cheeks. Elrond wasted no time, helping Elros lift Wynn up as she screamed from the arrow being jostled in her lower abdomen. They hefted her, with great effort, onto the stag, and it bucked a bit under the weight.

"Shh, shh!" Elrond tore his gloves from his hands so he could lay his palms upon the stag's face, staring into its eyes. "Be still! You will carry this weight, do you understand?" When the stag calmed, Elrond's eyes slid to his remaining friends. "Cal, you are the faster runner. Take them to Llinos."

"What?" Cal croaked as another arrow whistled through the air and struck the snow between them. The boys screamed while Elros wrenched the arrow from the ground, broke off the end, and hacked at the air, testing how well it would work as a weapon. Elrond shook his head. There was no time, he knew, seeing the shadows approach and become clear through the storm.

"Menlintië!" Elrond gasped, releasing the stag and sidestepping as it burst forward as though it were a horse rather than a stout deer, and Cal yelped as he rushed after it.

When they were gone, it was just the three of them left standing while the orcs approached. There were maybe a dozen of them, looming tall, and Elrond saw through the storm, saw their faces, saw horror there that he could not unsee, though he did not understand it, and he wished to run away. He reached for his brother, but Elros was already standing in front of them, undaunted, broken arrow in hand and ready to fight.

"Steady," Elros breathed, gripping the arrow tight. He reached for Medi, not Elrond, which shocked him. "They see us. They will not shoot."

"How do you know?" Medi whispered faintly.

"Because," Elros said, "I think we'd be dead by now otherwise."

Elrond's heart thudded in his chest. The skittering snow was already covering the freezing puddle of blood, but his hands had been stained beneath his gloves, and he felt it in the crevices of them as he shivered in the storm, fear old and new creeping upon him and settling deep. He could hear the orcs speaking, but he did not understand them.

"Halt!" Elros called in Sindarin. "Come no further!"

To Elrond's surprise, the small host of orcs did pause. Only, unfortunately, to burst out laughing.

"Oh?" one called back in Taliska. "A child thinks he is lord, ordering us about! Do you mean to stop us?"

"Yes," Elros said, his voice only ever quivering slightly. "We will try, if nothing else!"

Medi jerked back from Elros, and from his height of nearly twelve years old, perhaps he saw something that Elrond did not.

"You are insane!" Medi cried, whirling away. "I am not dying with you!"

Elrond saw the arrow before he heard it, and he reached for Medi, nearly grabbing his sleeve, only to watch the arrow pierce through the back of his skull and come out through his eye. And Medi slumped forward, mouth open, landing face down in the snow as Elrond's fingers wilted upon the air, even more bloody than before.

Hesitantly, Elrond met Elros's eyes. His brother looked upon Medi's dead body with shock and fear, and he was frozen, as Elrond was frozen, perhaps envisioning the snow melting away and revealing blood-stained blue tile beneath.

"Why did you do that?" Elros managed to utter.

"Eh?" An orc had approached so close that their blade brushed Elros's cheek. "He said he wouldn't die with you. Fair enough! He's died alone. Funny, though, elflings among Men."

Elrond's hand drifted toward Elros, but his brother merely raised the arrow in his hand, blind to Elrond's wishes.

"Oho!" another orc gasped, their voice high over the howling wind. "The little elf thinks himself big! What should we do with them?"

"Gift them," the orc leader said firmly. "Two little elves squatting among Men, they've got something to say, and our Lord might find it amusing to hear them squeak like mice!"

Elrond drew his hands over his ears, tears in his eyes, seeing double-vision upon this hill, and then triple vision, the snow seeping into tile seeping into hard packed dirt— the broken bodies of his household intermingling with the dead body of Medi and, oddly, between the throng of orcs, a woman knelt with her back turned and bare and bloody, golden curls stained red upon her spine—

The reverie was broken as a horse broke through the trees, red hair stark among the sweep of white, faster than Elrond had ever seen, and before he could process the new arrival, there was clashing steel and screaming. Elros took advantage of the distraction, per usual, and jabbed the arrow deep into the orc's stomach, reeling back and falling onto his backside in the snow as the orc let out a horrible, bone-chilling sound.

"It is you who squeaks like mice!" Elros snapped as Elrond pulled him to his feet, both of them backpedaling and falling into the snow as they were grabbed by many hands and torn apart.

"No!" Elrond reached and reached, and he found himself floundering, the stress of the situation obscuring all his senses but for his sight, which was suddenly less reliable than ever before. He did not see the orcs, only shadows of them, and with ever drift of snow that blew over his eyes there was some new horror to behold. Smoke and hailstone, blood and water, and the snow became ash. It became murky water. It became sand, and on a bare strip of a beach stood children that could have been Elrond and Elros, could have been their mother beside them, or one of their uncles, each of them staring across the sea and with every gust of wind they dwindled, like they were made out of sand themselves, and they all scattered each way— across the sea, over the land, and beyond Elrond's sight completely.

"Elrond! Elrond!"

It did not occur to him that he was on his back until the sand turned again to snow, and he found himself staring at the unceasing flurry of snowfall from the gray sky. Elros's face came into view, his tears falling upon Elrond's cheek and forehead, hot on his tight and frozen skin. He tried to speak, only to find himself in startling pain, gurgling on some liquid metal that had filled his mouth rapidly, and he could hear only ringing as he drifted between glimpsing shadow and light.

For a long time, perhaps an eternity, he stood in the dark. It occurred to him, at some point that this could be death, but where was his mother? Would she not be here waiting for him? He thought about moving, and when he crouched he saw that the floor was a pool, rippling outwards from his bare feet, and when he touched his reflection it warped and changed, and he heard someone singing a song that glided over the waters and drifted through him like he was a single blade of grass in a glade.

"Immen dúath caeda

Sui tollech, tami gwannathach omen

Lû ah alagos gwinnatha bain

Boe naer gwannathach, annant uich ben-estel

An uich gwennen na ringyrn e-mbar han

Uich gwennen na'wanath a na dhín

Boe naid bain gwannathar,

Boe cuil ban firitha."

And in his reflection, he saw his mouth moving, though he did not believe he was singing. And his face changed, older, darker, more beautiful, like a tapestry he had seen in another life, far away and yet so close he could touch her and call her name—

But the instant his fingers brushed the water, it rippled and changed again, and the woman's face grew longer and gaunter, less beautiful and more miserable, though their hair was framed about them in the same way, and their voices, in this dark pool between waking and sleeping, almost sounded the same.

"Awaken," said Elrond's reflection, "Awaken," said Lúthien, "Awaken," said Maglor, all together, a harmony of past and present and future delivering him through the rippling pool until his eyes peeled open.

He was laying in bed, sunlight streaming in through the window, and he could still hear singing, but it was not Lúthien, though he was not so sure of that, really, in the state he found himself in. Lifting his chin and turning his face into the warmth of the sun, he strained his vocal chords, painfully, and said,

"Nányë coiva."

The singing stopped. Elrond felt it like the sun slipping behind a cloud, a chill passing over him, and he sighed deeply, his chapped lips mouthing the words of the song that had crept into him in that place between sleeping and waking. Suddenly a skin of water was pressed to his lips, and his mouth parted hungrily, water dribbling down his chin and soaking into a bandage around his throat.

It took a little while for Elrond to sit up. He fell asleep again, and when he woke Maglor was redressing the bandages around his neck.

"What happened?" Elrond managed to say, his fingers itching toward the wound, only for his hand to be swatted away.

"Orcs." Maglor seemed as focused as a knife on a whetstone as he bound fresh gauze upon Elrond's neck.

"I… remember…" Elrond frowned. "But… after…?"

Maglor sighed. He cut the gauze with a knife and turned about, washing his hands in a basin on the desk. A glance around the room told Elrond they were alone, and that filled him with anxiety.

"I arrived in time to watch the Orc holding you slit your throat," Maglor said, his dark eyes flitting to Elrond's face gravely. "I suspect Maedhros's attack sent them scrambling, and they thought to leave one of you and take the other as a hostage."

"Elros?" Elrond gasped, scrambling to kick back his blankets, only to be pushed back into his pillows by Maglor.

"Safe," Maglor said, his face hovering over Elrond's, a sort of earnestness cracking him open and draining him out. "I shot the Orc holding him and he was able to put pressure on your wound while we finished them off. I… cannot begin to express how sorry I am, Elrond, for not getting there sooner."

"You got there, though," Elrond said hoarsely. "You saved me—"

"Elros saved you," Maglor said, turning his face away sharply, "though he scarcely realizes it. I think he healed you more than I, though I do not understand it, and I kept him here, singing with me, until it seemed like you might wake. But it has been a week, Elrond."

"A week?" Elrond blinked rapidly. "How could I sleep for that long?"

"You were near death." Maglor shook his head. "I believe if you were not half-elven you would be dead. Your one tether to this world was your brother and his healing, and that is magic that I wish I could master."

"I think you did," Elrond said, rubbing his eyes, "at least a little."

"What?" Maglor glanced at him dully. "I did not."

"You did."

"It was your brother," Maglor sighed.

"But you guided him, right?" Elrond offered a smile. "It was your song."

"Well you clearly are not dying any longer," Maglor said, falling into the desk chair with a huff, "if you are back to your debates."

Elrond giggled and then winced. "Ow…" he mumbled, rubbing his neck. "This is awful. Oh! Wynn! Is she—?"

"Alive." Maglor shot him a wan smile. "Your quick thinking saved three of your young friends."

"But…" It was coming back to him now, slowly and surely, "Medi…?"

Maglor was silent, which only made Elrond sigh and sink into his pillows.

"Where did the Orcs come from?" he asked. "What did they want?"

"There is no easy way to explain that."

"Really?"

"It is a very long story," Maglor said, "some of which I do not even know. And I do not think you are ready to hear such things. What is important to know is that they serve their lord, who we call Morgoth, and the evil of his deeds will bleed into the depths of this land and turn all things to ash if he is not stopped."

"Oh." Elrond did not like that explanation at all. "So could we not go stop him?"

Maglor's eyes flashed wide, and a disbelieving laugh burst from him. He hid his smile behind his hand.

"Shall we go now?" Maglor gasped, his teeth gleaming as he let his laughter loose. "Let us go ask nicely."

"Well has anyone tried?"

"Yes, actually, though no elf or mortal will do the trick. Now, let's put that behind us. We will be rid of this place and the Orcs and Morgoth's stretching hand soon enough."

"What do you mean?" Elrond asked uncertainly.

"We are leaving."

"What?" Elrond's mind reeled. "But—"

"We hardly meant to stay." Maglor looked at him sharply, and his stony demeanor returned. "The snow has started to melt, and it appears that spring is making for us. If we head south, we will surely meet it."

"But you said a year!"

"That was before," Maglor said simply.

"Before the Orcs?" Elrond shook his head and winced. "Maglor—"

"There is more at work here than simply Orcs, Quessëtal," Maglor said sharply.

"Morgoth, then?" Elrond threw his hands into the air. "I wish I could understand what all the fuss is about—"

"I pray you never will," Maglor cut in viciously, "but you have tasted a drop of the horror that Morgoth can unleash. It nearly killed you. We ride south as soon as we are able."

And that, was the unspoken vow, is final.

Elros returned and burst into tears at the sight of Elrond. He had a cut on his cheek that was clearly nearly healed, but otherwise seemed no worse than when Elrond had left him. He was squished to his brother's chest while Maedhros lingered in the doorway, a sense that all his emotions were conflicting with one another as each passed over his face like a new shadow ready to devour him.

It was eerie when Maedhros had nothing to say. The way he stood there, a looming presence, without fully entering the room nor saying how he felt, it made Elrond feel sad for him. Because something was toiling within Maedhros beyond them all, and it ran deep.

"I'll estimate about two weeks before the thaw evens out," Maglor said, studying a map at the desk, and as he did so Elrond leaned against Elros's shoulder, feeling his brother peer at Maglor with the same tired longing. A long time ago they'd often watched an elf's back as he poured over maps. "We should leave in three—"

"We cannot wait that long."

Maglor turned to look at his brother while Elrond and Elros glanced at each other. That was an incredibly strong voice for Maedhros, and the finality of it weighed upon them.

"Is it so bad?" Maglor uttered softly.

Maedhros merely bowed his head. His eyes flickered over Elrond and Elros swiftly before settling on Maglor.

"I will not risk it," he said. "We will be ready to leave as soon as Elrond can travel."

He left the room swiftly, leaving Elros to sink into Elrond's pillowed and swipe at his face with his sleeve.

"He's been so dreary the past couple days," he said, curling into Elrond's side and watching him intently. "And the whole town's gone crazy. Half of them think it's our fault that the Orcs came."

"What?" Elrond croaked, sitting upright. "But— but we were the ones fighting them—!"

"Suspicion is bred from fear and loss, Quessë," Maglor said, reaching over the back of his chair to take Elrond's hand. "They lost a child and fear losing more."

"They could have lost more if not for us!" Elros scowled. "It is not fair! They don't realize how strong you two are. They should be begging you to stick around to protect the village!"

"Let us be grateful they never will," Maglor said flatly. "Moving on is for the best. It will grant us all a fresh start, and now that we know your limitations, the journey will not be so hard. Granted, it will help immensely that you two now own shoes."

"Well we certainly owned shoes before," Elrond muttered, "but we were in a bit of a hurry."

Maglor chuckled. He kissed Elrond's fingers before turning back to his map.

They ate dinner in their room, a watery broth that Maedhros brought back from the tavern, along with, to Elrond's surprise, Dewyn the carpenter. The man was tall and haggard, not very pretty to look at, and he had the same limp brown curls as his rosy-cheeked daughter. He scraped his woolen cap from his head and laid it over his heart as Elrond gnawed at his spoon uncertainly.

"You boys saved Wynn's life," he said quietly. "I cannot begin to thank you enough."

"The deer did all the work," Elrond muttered while Elros elbowed him and hissed in Sindarin, "We should take the praise!"

"My soup!" Elrond squeaked, nearly losing the bowl and spilling some of the broth on his hand. "Ugh, get off my bed!"

"It's my bed too," Elros scoffed, "sometimes. So Wynn's alright, then? Is she moving around now? Can we see her?"

"She'd be happy to see you both," Dewyn said with a smile. "Moving around is a chore, though, it seems. The arrow got her good, but Llinos believes she'll be right in a few months."

"That's good." Elrond looked down at his bowl. "What about Afi and Cal?"

"Safe with their families. Neither are particularly happy, but they are grateful to you, and more inclined to place blame with the Orcs than the elves."

They were quiet at that. Elrond chewed the inside of his cheek, spooning up broth and letting it fall back into his bowl like a trickling stream, because he could not understand how anyone could blame them for this. They hadn't done anything wrong.

"Thank you for coming," Maglor said when the silence stretched a bit too long. Maedhros had taken to leaning against the wall beside the door, his arms crossed and his dark eyes gazing stormily at their small window. "Perhaps when Quessëtal is able, we will come visit with Wynn. I'm sure the children would be happy to see one another."

"Yes," Dewi said, "I think they would. Well, I will take my leave then. Tomorrow, Russandol?"

The way the men of the village said Maedhros and Maglor's names, or whatever names they'd given them, were often wrong, but Elrond could tell Dewyn was putting in the effort to round out the syllables correctly.

"Yes," Maedhros said, inclining his head, "tomorrow."

Dewyn left them like that, and Elrond knew something had shifted, but he was not sure what. Maedhros seemed very unlike himself, and the silence was only filled by Elrond and Elros chattering amongst themselves. That night, when they were all in bed, Elrond stared at the ceiling in the dark and thought about the dream he'd had when he had been comatose. Of Lúthien Tinúviel, of the song she'd sung, and the strangeness of her morphing into Elrond, into Maglor, and there was no reason to believe it had been real, but it had felt real.

He heard blankets rustling nearby, and the floor creaked under sudden weight, and Elrond gently extricated Elros's hands from his chest as he sat up to stare at Maedhros's back.

"Where are you going?"

Maedhros froze. He'd just stuffed his feet in his boots, Elrond could see, which is why he'd spoken at all. Hesitantly, without turning, Maedhros offered out his left hand. Elrond carefully slipped out of bed, wobbling on his feet, and moved fast to Maedhros's side, grabbing his hand and feeling those familiar calluses that ran from nailbed to palm. Maedhros waited for Elrond to slip on his boots, and then he threw his cloak over Elrond's shoulders and led him out the door.

They walked a while in the dark, their boots cracking open hard-packed ice, their breaths drifting toward the yellow moon. The cloak was wet at its hem quickly from being dragged through the mud and snow.

"I don't want to leave here," Elrond said, gripping Maedhros's hand and peering up at him. In the light of the moon, with his hair unbound in a large mass of curls, he was a sight to behold. Somehow, though, his scars seemed more pronounced. Like the light was drawing out the old blood beneath.

"Mm…" Maedhros did not respond immediately, and Elrond was truly worried. Something had gotten into Maedhros, or worse, something had gotten out, and it was frightening.

"Can we not stay just a little longer?" Elrond gasped. "It might be a good thing! What if the Orcs come back?"

"That," Maedhros said lowly, "is precisely why we must go."

"You fear them?" Elrond demanded, digging his heels into the ice and yanking Maedhros to a stop. It only worked, he supposed, because Elrond was wobbling and Maedhros felt it, so he had to halt to keep Elrond steady. "When we met you did not."

"When we met," Maedhros said, his fingers squeezing Elrond's so hard that it hurt, "I had very little consideration for what the Orcs might do to you, Quessëtal. My mind was elsewhere. No more."

"We are not the only people here!" Elrond argued, earning a sharp shush from Maedhros, who pulled him out of the street and into a stable. The horses, Cemno and Istarnië, were awake and watching them keenly when they approached.

"Sometimes, Elrond Quessëtal," Maedhros said, drawing Cemno from his stall and handing Elrond a brush, "you need to save yourself before you can save the world."

"That is not…" Elrond stared up at Maedhros, who merely went to attend Istarnië. "Maedhros, you could slay a hundred Orcs, but you choose to run? That does not sound like you at all."

"Afraid you don't quite know me yet, ducky," Maedhros said, shooting Elrond a thin smile. "You are right on one thing, though. I find running away to be distasteful."

"So why are we doing it?"

Maedhros ran a brush over Istarnië's deep, russet coat. Elrond had always thought it strange that Maedhros had the black horse and Maglor had the red horse, but he supposed the brothers were strange, in that way.

"You are the eldest," Maedhros said, "are you not?"

Elrond stood quietly, his hand laid upon Cemno's haunch, and he eyed Maedhros uncertainly. With a snort, Maedhros pulled a carrot from some hidden pocket and offered it up to Istarnië's mouth, patting her head as she nibbled at it.

"Eldest to eldest," Maedhros said, "when it is between the family and ruin, the family should be priority."

Elrond opened his mouth, getting out a small, "But—!" before thinking better of it.

But where is your family, he nearly said, besides Maglor?

It was obvious to Elrond's eyes where they were. Maedhros did not need it thrown in his face. After all, two of Maedhros's brothers had died in the Havens of Sirion.

"This place is already gone, Quessëtal," Maedhros said, tossing him the half-eaten carrot. "I would expect you of all people to see that."

"It must not be so," Elrond retorted, "if I cannot. Tell me plainly why you have given up!"

"I have hardly given up," Maedhros sighed. "It is more complicated than that, and I imagine too grown up for you to understand, so I will make it plain. The Orcs who came upon you and your friends were scouts. I tracked them back to the village, but their absence will be noted by our enemy, and we must make haste before a stronger force descends upon us."

"And fighting is not an option?" Elrond demanded.

"No." Maedhros's face was eerily blank as he spoke. There was no flippancy, no twisted amusement, no bitterness, even. There was nothing at all. And Elrond looked away sharply in fear that if he looked too hard at Maedhros's ageless face, he might see the cracks beneath it, those veins of scars, and realize that there was nothing beyond that vanity. Just… façade after façade until struck empty.

"Why?" Elrond whispered, offering Cemno the half-eaten carrot.

"Because half these people despise us, Elrond!" Maedhros's arm flew out, and Elrond could see his stump uncovered, a clean cut as though he had been born without it. Though Elrond knew better, even if he'd never asked. "Men are so susceptible to lies and trickery. They bend and break far too easy, and when given the chance, these people will not need so much as to be leaned upon by some agent of evil to lay us out upon the coals. Let them burn first."

Tears burned his eyes as he felt the weight of Maedhros's words, not fully understanding the scope of them but recognizing that he had to know what he was talking about, and had the authority to dismiss the Men of this village. Turning toward Cemno, Elrond wobbled and gasped, falling against the horse and beginning to weep.

Maedhros, haltingly, reached for Elrond. He scooped him up in one arm and gingerly balanced him on his hip while Elrond turned his face into Maedhros's soft curls and sobbed.

"I fear that every time you have a chance to be a child," Maedhros said quietly, "I rip it away. I am sorry, Elrond."

Elrond was too worked up to think too hard about what he'd said, and he forgot it soon, anyway. He fell asleep nestled in the crook of Maedhros's arm and woke up in his bed, no odd dreams to scratch at his brain. Maedhros and Elros were nowhere to be found and Maglor was moving things about the room, sorting things into piles.

"What are you doing?" Elrond asked.

"Deciding what to keep. Do you like this?"

Maglor held up an earring that one of the local women had given him as a gift. It was not gold or silver, but it was pretty, and it would not irritate his ear if worn as a cuff. When Elrond nodded, Maglor leaned over him and fastened it to the outer cartilage of his ear, shooting him a smile.

"How dashing," he said, turning away. "Certainly little Afi Stonemason will ask you to marry her next you meet."

"I hope not," Elrond said meekly. "I wouldn't know what to say."

"Not yes," Maglor said, almost dismissively, but there was a warning there that Elrond nearly missed.

"Er…"

"I was only joking about the proposal," Maglor said, shooting him a worried look. "You are only six, Elrond. Wait a century or two."

"Okay…" Though it seemed like a long time, Elrond thought, trying to remember how old his mother had been. He couldn't recall. "Did you?"

"Hm?"

"Did you wait a century to get married?" He watched Maglor's shoulders tense up, and he blinked. "Sorry. I just— Maedhros said you had a wife once, didn't he?"

"I…" Maglor whirled around, a smile tight on his lips. "Yes. Yes, he did. I did. She is… gone. Now."

"I'm sorry," Elrond gasped, feeling truly awful.

"No, no," Maglor said, forcing a laugh, and Elrond thought that this must be truly painful for him, "there is no reason to linger on flowers of past springs. Dwelling on it will not erase it, nor will it bring her back to me, so moving forward is all we can do."

"Oh."

And moving forward was what they did. Maglor and Maedhros allowed them one last meeting with their friends at Llinos's home. Where, to Elrond's eyes, the village began and ended. Cal saw Elrond first, and he enveloped him in a hug so tight that Elrond squeaked, forcing him to let go and rub his neck sheepishly. Afi stood up near Wynn's bed, smiling at them shyly, but it was Wynn who was sitting up and trying to get out of bed that made them all gasp.

"What are you doing?" Cal gasped. "Llinos said—"

"Shush," Wynn huffed, hobbling forward with a grin. "If I can walk, I might as well! Oh, Quessëtal, your neck—"

"It is fine," Elrond said, supporting her by her underarm and helping Elros lead her back to bed. "It was not so bad. Probably, it won't even scar."

"Shame," Cal said with a grin. "It's so easy to tell you apart now!"

"Well, you're lucky, anyway," Wynn sighed, sitting upon the bed. "Mine is ugly. You wanna see?"

"Yeah!" Elros said as Wynn pulled up her tunic to reveal her bare stomach and ribs, which were partially covered in gauze. Maglor was over them in an instant, laying a gentle hand on Wynn's and pushing the tunic back down.

"Thank you, Wynn," he said. "You are very brave."

Maedhros snorted behind them. The room was very cramped, and hardly had room for Dewyn, who'd run back to his shop for something while the children chatted happily. Elrond, in this moment, could not imagine that this time tomorrow this village would be a distant memory, and these friends would disappear too into the strange tide of time. Where the Havens were. Tucked away inside of Elrond. A darkened lighthouse. A mother whose face grew more and more hazy as the fog rolled in. A father whose hair was as the sun reflecting off the sea, but who was only a back turning, and a voice laughing as the waves drew everything else away with the sand and tide.

"I wanted," Dewyn said before they departed, "to thank you both properly. Your father suggested these gifts might suffice."

The man set a woven basket down between Elrond and Elros. Inside it, plain wooden sword sat, no ornamentation at all to set it apart. Beside it was a tiny lyre, just as plain, but its strings glinted in the lamplight, and though the gifts were so very common, Elrond knew the time and effort that had gone into them, and he saw the world in this basket.

"I expect you will share these," Maglor said warningly.

"Of course we will," Elros said as though it was the most obvious thing. And to the two of them, it was. Maglor merely smiled.

They left that night without saying goodbye. Nobody knew they were leaving but the innkeeper and the stable-hand, and as Elrond sat upon Istarnië, watching the stars wink past dark clouds, he felt the enormity of the world more keenly than before. Leaving the village, he was not sure he would have recognized the boy who'd entered it. He must have grown taller, for the ends of his trousers didn't stay tucked in his boots any longer, and his hair fell past his shoulders now, pulled back from his face with braids rather than the bun his brother sported. It had been the only way any of the villagers had been able to tell Níkáno from Quessëtal, most days. Now Elrond wondered if he should do something different with it. Match Elros again.

They rested in the morning, making camp at first light. Elrond and Elros napped under two woolen blankets while Maedhros and Maglor scouted the area and gathered supplies. They woke for breakfast past noon and ate fried duck eggs that had been scavenged while they'd slept. They'd had the mind to bring iron pans and a small cauldron, as well as utensils, which made the journey easier. And the journey continued like this, traveling by night, resting by day, until Maglor and Maedhros felt they'd steered clear of the danger of Orcs.

They had been traveling a month when something strange happened. Elrond had been fetching water, his trousers rolled up to his knees as he waded at the edge of the Sirion. They'd weaved around the Narog, crossed it, and followed it west in their time wandering. Elrond sometimes sat with Maglor, studying his map, and his eyes always strayed to the south. He was sure that Maglor pretended not to notice.

On this day, as Elrond whistled one of Maglor's traveling tunes, when he glimpsed someone out of the corner of his eye. He paused to watch a man on the other side of the river, astride a white horse, keen-eyed and fair. His hair was fair as well, braided back from his face, and as he glided off his horse and led it to the water, Elrond stared with open awe.

"Hello," the man said in Sindarin, jolting Elrond out of his reverie.

"You're an elf," Elrond blurted, stepping deeper into the Sirion and feeling the current push at his knees.

"Well," the elf said, letting his horse drink from the river and studying Elrond with a frown, "yes. And so are you, I suspect. I see that star on your tunic."

"Huh?" Elrond's fingers brushed the embroidery displayed upon his chest. He had done most of it himself, with Maglor filling in some minute detail, but it was the same star that adorned Maglor and Maedhros's clothing. "Is this an elven star?"

The river's puttering filled the air as a silence stretched between Elrond and the stranger. Briefly, Elrond wondered where Maglor was, as he was never far behind. Perhaps he was more interested in watching Elros pick mushrooms than Elrond scoop water.

"Of a sort," the man said finally, a frown deepening on his face. "What is your name, Fëanorion?"

Elrond shot the elf a quizzical look. He did not know the term he'd just been called, and it confused him.

"Quessëtal," he said reluctantly. To give his mother-name, he knew, would be a mistake. Nobody was supposed to know that, really. Just Elros and Maglor and Maedhros. "And yours?"

"Rethron," the elf said, inclining his head, "of Gondolin."

"Gondolin!" Elrond cried, slinging his bucket onto his shoulder and plodding deeper into the river, heedless of the current. "My father was from Gondolin!"

Rethron lifted his head, shock clear in his eyes as he searched Elrond's face uncertainly.

"Your father…?" he uttered, his eyes flashing beyond Elrond's head and landing somewhere behind him.

When Elrond turned around, he smiled brightly when he saw Elros scrambling down the riverbank with Maglor standing above them all like a dark smear upon the sky.

"Elros!" Elrond gasped, wading back to shore. "This man— this elf, he says he's from Gondolin! Like Adar!"

"Wait, really?" Elros met him at the base of the bank, his bucket full of mushrooms wobbling in hand as he stumbled to a stop. When Elrond looked back at Rethron, he appeared to have been struck by a pallor, his eyes flitting wildly between the two of them with something like… recognition?

"Quessëtal," Maglor said in a voice so unusual that it made both boys freeze. "Níkáno. Go find your uncle."

"What?" Elrond gasped, resting his bucket on his hip and squinting up at Maglor. "But— but I had questions—!"

"Menë! Now!"

Elros tugged at Elrond's sleeve, dragging him up the bank as Maglor's voice rang in their ears. They had never heard him sound like that, like the cracking of the earth beneath them, songbirds screaming all together and then a splitting silence.

Elros did not look back as they ran past Maglor, but Elrond did. He stared at his back as they huddled together, water sloshing and mushrooms falling, until he Maglor disappeared down the riverbank himself.

They found Maedhros at camp up river. They'd whispered among themselves before arriving, and they'd decided not to mention Rethron, out of fear that it would anger Maedhros as it had angered Maglor. They merely helped prepare their supper in silence, which clearly agitated Maedhros, because he lifted himself onto his elbows and squinted across the fire at them.

"Why are you two so quiet?" he asked.

"Aren't you trying to sleep?" Elros scoffed, adding a sprig of parsley in their pot.

"I sleep better knowing my kids are actually here." Maedhros sat up fully, his loose hair sprawling across his shoulders in a great red cloud. "Where is Maglor?"

"I don't know," Elrond said, dropping the cubes of rabbit meat they'd diced into the mixture while Elros stirred. "Talking to some elf."

Maedhros stared at them blankly. Elros shot Elrond an irritated look, as if to say, "Are you stupid? Really? Why would you say that?"

"What elf?" Maedhros asked lowly.

"We don't know him," Elros said quickly, glaring at Elrond. He'd been the one to insist that they not bring up Rethron, but Elrond disagreed the longer they'd stayed in silence. It seemed like a secret they could not keep. "Maybe Maglor did, but we didn't. We hardly spoke to him."

"Hm. But Maglor wanted to talk to him?"

"I suppose so…?" Elros wrinkled his nose and shrugged. "I really don't know. Do we still have salt?"

"Yeah…" Elrond handed over the pouch, avoiding Maedhros's sharp gaze.

"Now, Quessë," Maedhros said, "do you know this elf?"

"No," Elrond said defensively. "I only talked to him for a minute. But…"

Maedhros arched a brow in such stark encouragement it was probably at least somewhat mocking. Elrond sighed.

"What does Fëanorion mean?" he asked.

"What?" Maedhros's eyes narrowed. "Fëanorion— is that not obvious?"

"No," the twins said in unison. Maedhros rolled his eyes.

"Right," he said, "well I'll let you both guess. There's a suffix there. Give it a good think."

That made it click into place for Elrond.

"Son of Fëanor?" he asked. And in saying the name, a memory surfaced from deep within him. He heard his mother's voice, something he'd nearly forgotten, and the name Fëanor was wrapped in the depth of her low tone. The honey of her voice, usually so present and clear, was clouded by something unnamed. "Who's Fëanor?"

"Wow," Maedhros said, blinking at them, "I thought you knew. Well, this makes things easier. Fëanor is— was— our father."

"Oh."

"Have you really never heard of Fëanor before?" Maedhros asked cautiously, glancing between them. Elros glanced at Elrond, and it was like he did not actually know.

"No," Elrond lied. Elros ducked his head to hide whatever reaction he had to hearing it. "Can you tell us about him?"

Maedhros seemed more than happy to oblige. He told them stories of Valinor, of a childhood bathed in the light of trees, not the sun or moon, and how he remembered his father being a giant when he was small. Fëanor, Maedhros said, had so many gifts to give the world. He had made, it seemed, so many beautiful things.

"My mother often said," Maedhros said, "that there was no shining stone or gleaming sword that could compare to his brightest creation. Me, of course."

"Oh, brother," Elros muttered.

"Yes, you're right," Maedhros said, "and my brothers too, but mostly me."

Elrond laughed, and Elros laughed too, and they all but forgot the elf from Gondolin until it was nightfall and Maglor had still not returned. Maedhros did not seem concerned, however, and he announced that they would remain camped for the night. It was the first night they would spend resting rather than riding since before they'd departed their village, and Elrond's body did not know what to do with that. So while Maedhros and Elros slept, Elrond found himself gazing at the stars, irritated that sleep would not come to him. The nearby river was a constant song in his ears, and when that song was disrupted, he sat up.

He might not have heard the disturbance, if it were not so quiet, and the current so steady. But he did hear it. And so, with a glance between his brother and Maedhros, he quietly pulled on his boots and trekked up a hill and down an incline, stooping over the riverbank and staring down at the shadowy form that knelt beside the water.

Maglor, Elrond saw, was washing his hands in the river.

He was as Elrond had never seen him. His hair was pulled back from his face and bound in a messy bun at the base of his neck, falling out of the binding and matted in places. It stuck to his cheeks and neck somewhat, slick with sweat and dirt and something dark and greasy that appeared as if it were oil or coal until it was hit with water. Maglor splashed his face, scrubbing at his neck with muddy fingers, and Elrond watched blood swirl in the river before being washed downstream.

"You're hurt," Elrond said softly in Quenya. And Maglor went stiff, petrified in the light of the stars, no moon to enlighten him. Just the river water reflecting the barest twinkling, and the light within Elrond's eyes worked double-time to absorb every bit of dirt and blood that clung to his pores as he half turned toward him.

There was indeed a scratch on Maglor's cheek, deep enough that it still trickled blood despite being washed. Elrond did not think about the severity of it, or how small it might seem in relation to the quantity of blood on Maglor. All he cared about was that it was a wound, and that Maglor was clearly hurting.

"Nelyo named you well," Maglor whispered. His voice was hoarse, and Elrond fell to his knees beside him, startled by the glistening of those wide, dark eyes.

"Nelyo?"

"Maedhros."

"Oh." Elrond didn't know why that surprised him, but it did. "You two have a lot of names."

"We are old," Maglor said, turning his eyes back to the river, "I suppose. Elrond, don't—"

Elrond had shrugged off his cloak and torn at the end of it with his teeth, ripping a large swath of it and dipping it in the river. He crawled into Maglor's lap, studying his grimy face, seeing the age he spoke of, and also how fair he truly was. All of the gauntness of him was a symptom of a sadness that dripped from his eyes, and it came now in the form of tears that cut through the dirt and sweat and blood. Elrond pressed the cloth to the cut on Maglor's cheek, and he frowned.

"You only call me Elrond when you are worried."

Maglor's eyes fluttered shut. The makeshift rag absorbed the blood on his cheek, but it did nothing to quell the tears, and it was strange to see. Like looking into a future that existed only for elves who collected years like river stones and seashells.

"I call you Elrond," he murmured, "because it is still your name. I cannot take that from you."

Elrond had never thought of it like that, because Elros never called him Quessëtal, and so the name Elrond was still etched forever upon him. But to the rest of the world, the name that Maedhros had bestowed seemed to be the only name that mattered. And it had never bothered him before now.

"I don't understand what you mean," Elrond said frankly, lifting the rag to examine the wound. It still bled freely. "Where did Renroth go?"

And Maglor's eyes snapped open. He stared at Elrond with a gaze that shone with tears unshed, and he blinked twice.

"Is your brother awake?" he murmured.

"What?" Elrond asked, not understanding the question or its purpose. "No? Maglor, answer me."

"He is gone," Maglor said, opening his eyes once more and swiping at his cheek with the heel of his hand. "Far away. I doubt he will ever return."

"Did he do this to you?" Elrond demanded, his hand hovering over Maglor's cheek.

When Maglor hesitantly nodded, Elrond gave a short, shaky sigh.

"I'm glad he's gone, then," he said, wrapping an arm around Maglor's neck to hang off of as he reached into the lapping river and gathered a handful of water. "If he ever comes back, I'll be very angry. He should not have hurt you."

Maglor's sigh cut through the air, like he had inhaled to shout, but could not bring himself to.

"Elrond—"

"Hold still," Elrond said, pressing the handful of water to Maglor's cheek. "I only think I know how to do this."

He took a deep breath, and when he closed his eyes he imagined his mother, but it was too hazy of an image, so he conjured the visage of Lúthien, which was as fresh as a blooming rose in his mind. They were alike enough, anyway, that Lúthien's face could be his mother's, and would displace her forever after. And with the guidance of Lúthien and the memory of his mother, he began to sing.

"Immen dúath caeda

Sui tollech, tami gwannathach omen

Lû ah alagos gwinnatha bain

Boe naer gwannathach, annant uich ben-estel

An uich gwennen na ringyrn e-mbar han

Uich gwennen na'wanath a na dhín

Boe naid bain gwannathar,

Boe cuil ban firitha."

When Elrond opened his eyes and withdrew his hand, there was no water upon Maglor's face, and the cut, though still prominent, had closed somewhat and seemed to have aged a day or two.

"I'll have to practice," he muttered, glancing at his palm irritably. "I think I could heal it completely if I tried very hard."

"You…" Maglor's fingers brushed his cheek, and he blinked rapidly. He gave a breathy laugh and yanked Elrond closer so that he was nestled against his chest, and Elrond sat there in his lap contentedly, the energy of using magic that he did not understand seeping out of him and leaving him dazed. Maglor turned his lips upon Elrond's hair, kissing his widow's peak, his temple, his cheek.

"I do not deserve you," Maglor murmured against Elrond's ear.

"You're silly," Elrond yawned. He gazed up at the moonless sky, searching the stars for answers to questions he had years yet to ask. "Can you tell me about Valinor?"

"Valinor?" Maglor echoed distantly. "Why?"

"Maedhros was telling us about it today. When you were gone."

"Ah. Yes, Maedhros loves to reminisce." Balancing Elrond's neck in the crook of his arm and holding him as if he were an infant, Maglor leaned over him, strands of dark hair curling against his nose and blotting out the stars. "You wish to know of my feelings on our home?"

"Yes," Elrond whispered.

Maglor's smile seemed to change his whole face. And Elrond thought, in his dream-like state, that Maglor had the light of youth restored to him, and he might have been even more beautiful than Maedhros.

"When I was young," Maglor said, "I would wake every morning to the light of the trees pooling in through my window and filling every corner of the room with a warmth that I cannot express in words, no matter how many years I live on this Middle-earth. When I was a bit bigger than you, I would take a silver pitcher to the stream outside of Tirion, and while my brothers and cousins chased each other, while the trees bade them the luxury of youth unmarred by strife and war and death, I would make songs from the sound of their feet and their laughter and my silver pitcher upon stone. And little Nerwen and Irissë would break away to dance with me, and they would ask me to sing, I could never deny them, so I crafted songs for each of them. For each cousin, for each brother, for the stream and Tirion and the trees, too. And suddenly I was grown, and my brothers were grown too, and my cousins were too busy to dance, except, of course, Nerwen and Irissë, who never did as they were bid to do."

Elrond, who had been drained by his attempt to use some far-reaching power beyond his comprehension, could only sit in Maglor's lap and absorb every word. If Maglor had put this into a song, it would be no less enchanting. His words, his voice, everything painted a picture, and Elrond could see it clearly. He could see Valinor in Maglor's eyes, as though they were the pool that rippled in his death-dream, just as dark and just as reflective.

There were two women dancing there, in a wide hall that overlooked a hilltop, and they seemed to be the keepers of the light of the sun and the moon, one golden-haired and radiant, the other dark-haired and brilliant, and their faces were etched with long-exhaled laughter. Their eyes, which were the same in many ways, turned to Elrond fondly.

"Now," Maglor said, "I do not know where Nerwen is. Irissë, I heard, died cruelly, by the hand of her husband, and I could never sing her song again even if I wished it. Even so, if they both lived, I fear they would not recognize me, or if they did, they would play-act they did not, for the child they knew in Tirion has been stripped away with every sunrise, with every brother gone, with blood and fire, and it has been so long since I have felt the light of the trees, Elrond, that I feared I knew not what warmth felt like any longer. I cannot sing the songs that I used to. Nerwen's song is lost to me, erased from my mind. Irissë's is a ghost, haunting me, but I cannot bear its tune. Pityo, Telvo, they would ask me to sing them the songs of their childhood until the very end, but the longer I remain in this place, the harder it is to remember the songs I sung when there was warmth and light in all things. I could not sing. I could not write. This world, it seemed, had taken all the beauty I had always seen in it, and squandered it, and wasted it, and I will never know if Irissë was happy, or if the horror of her end was worth anything at all, because all the songs that are sung of Gondolin devote lesser and lesser time to little Aredhel."

Aredhel. Elrond knew that name! He could not place the face, but now he saw her, a somber elf whose joyous youth had been pried from her, and looking into this hazy past, Elrond could see something of his father's face in this stranger, and suddenly he could remember what Eärendil's eyes had looked like.

"I'd thought," Maglor said, "that this was simply what life would be. Forever. Songs lost to time, to a grief I had not known could be felt, and every morning waking to some pale imitation of my childhood, never granting me the warmth I long for. They say the light of the trees remains in Nerwen's hair. Perhaps if I saw her again, I might weep for it, for I took it for granted in all the years I knew her. And of course, they say, the light of the trees remains in the Silmarils that my father wrought and bled for, and that the beauty in them made Morgoth weep, and for so long I thought perhaps that is it, then. That will return myself to me. It is only fair. So I spent myself, in so many ways, and laid waste to so many things, and now I sit here, Elrond Quessëtal, and I wonder if Lúthien Tinúviel did not steal more than just a gemstone. I wonder if she stole that last remaining light from it, and if she did, perhaps she left it behind when she departed from this world. In your mother's voice. In your eyes. Because for the first time in so long, I feel it all again, and I cannot imagine how I lived so long without it. How did I live my life before you arrived in it? You and your brother feel that I have saved you in some way, but I feel it is backwards. You have saved me, and I cannot go back to what I was before I had you. I will not."

Elrond sat up, letting the visions of the past fall past him, into the river and drift away. He did not care that he was half-ensnared by sleep, or that there was an implication to the things he said that should have set off something in Elrond's brain. All he cared about was that this man was as much a father to him now as Eärendil had been for the first six years of his life, and he was hurting so badly that his pain had begun to seep into Elrond.

Wrapping his arms around Maglor, Elrond rested his chin upon his head and let him bury his face in his shoulder. His fingers grappled at the back of his tunic as he trembled, and Elrond knew he was crying, even if he did not sob or weep.

"You won't," Elrond murmured, pushing Maglor's face back and holding it with both hands. Then he smiled. "I promise, you won't. You'll never lose me, Maglor."

"Do not promise such things," Maglor breathed.

"I can do what I want," Elrond responded firmly. "And I swear to you that you will never lose me. I will be your son for as long as you remain in this world, and I will carry it with me no matter where we go or what we do. You do not need to feel so sad, Adar."

"Do not—" Maglor's expression shuddered. "Elrond—"

"Do you think I will regret it?" Elrond asked with a tilt of his head. "Calling you my father, when I have one still, somewhere on the sea? He is not here. I imagine he misses me, and I miss him, but he was not there at the end of it all. You were. And if by some blessing he is alive, and I find my way back to him somehow, that will not change the oath I have just sworn to you. I will be blessed indeed, I think, to have two fathers."

"You are unbelievable," Maglor said faintly. "I do not have the words. Do you know how unspeakably insane your existence must be to make my tongue falter? The blood of Lúthien is silver with light."

"You did just find words though," Elrond yawned. He kissed Maglor's cheek, his lips grazing the small wound, and he settled into his lap to dream of Aredhel and Maglor and the golden-haired Nerwen, dancing barefoot in a river just like the Sirion.