Chapter Text
Moryo is occupied with the watch today. Guard-posts need to be remanned, all weaponry assessed and new trade agreements with the Dwarves are to be hatched.
Tyelko is occupied with the scouts. Orcs still linger in the wastelands, and chasing them is the closest thing to hunting he can think of; so he gathers the remnants of his pride and leaves, ready to kill.
Curvo has locked himself in the smithy. Smoke rises from the smelters and there is much to do: the Flames had left the defenders of the Himring weary and broken, their armour beaten and tattered, their weapons blunted, their armoury empty.
Pityo and Telvo have left for Doriath. There is little hope of Thingol even receiving them, and they shall likely return without reply, or worse; still, a message has to be sent about the stolen Silmaril; and if anyone could find a way through that forest of peril and guile, it is them.
Findekáno has probably risen with the sun, and ridden out with Tyelko; and now he must be getting ready for the journey ahead.
And Tyelcano is dead, or worse - which leaves Maedhros alone with his eldest brother.
"You are going to war, are you not?"
The question whizzes across the breakfast table, the arrowhead of accusation hitting target with ruthless precision.
He draws a breath to reply, but Kano has aimed for the throat.
"...the question remains," he continues, slender fingers playing with the jewels on his cup, "whether you wished to hide it from me, or you deemed it mere evidence."
As simple as the answers to these questions seem to be (yes, the Warden of the East is indeed going to war; and no, it has not even occurred to him to hide it), he still chokes on the words. Nothing is ever that straightforward with Kano: he sees meanings within meanings, interpretations within different realities, implications of astonishing insight that only time can prove justified.
Is he, in fact, going to war?
Is he, in fact, trying to hide it?
"I find myself torn, if you care to know," Maedhros says. "There is what my heart tells me to do, what good reason guides me to avoid, and what duty pushes me to achieve."
"Yet you find that those three things have met at some point," says Kano with valuable insight, "and so you have, in your heart, decided. To war you shall go: unwilling as you are to call it war, for your men are tired, your lands reclaimed not so long ago, and the peace you have fought for still fragile. Yet alas - your wrath, once kindled, is not so easily forgotten."
He looks almost proud of himself as he sits there, clutching the empty cup, eyes bright and wide, as if they were still living the noontide of Tirion over the Sea, before their brothers were born. Even then, Kano would read him like an open book, right from the very spring of his youth.
Maedhros used to laugh, and call him insufferable; but now he has forgotten how to laugh, and is unsure how to call him.
"You do, in fact, know me very well."
Kano averts his eyes.
"Still you would tell me nothing."
"As I said: I am torn."
"Do you not know yourself the way I know you, Nelyo? Of course you shall go, and avenge your counsellor - he is a close friend to you, even if you care not to admit it -, and lay the Orcs to ruin and make them fear your name once more. Why would you have any doubt about this?"
"This is not what makes me uncertain," Maedhros says softly. "I must also decide who shall be Regent in my stead. According to all reason, I should make you sit in my seat in the Himring and lead while I am gone; and send Carnistir to Belegost to continue his dealings with the Dwarves. And yet..."
"And yet you do not trust me enough, after all my failings and losses," Kano says bitterly.
"...and yet I wish not to be apart from you any more," says Maedhros.
They look at each other over the table, astonished; and it suddenly feels as though they were still sitting on the shores of Lake Helevorn, with the smoke of funeral pyres rising above the water, their garments black with dried blood.
It was easy to feel close to each other then, with no witnesses other than the summer sun and the silent lake. Now it is much harder to cross the careful distance between them, made comfortable by four centuries of peace; and then decades of utter turmoil.
Kano reaches for his hand above the table, and squeezes it.
"I shall come with you and Findekáno to the West, if upon your departure, you still so wish," he says, "and if peril shall come out of it, we must see it through."