Chapter Text
Maedhros is pretty sure he’s dying.
Elrond won’t admit it - he keeps preparing more herbs and singing songs of healing long into the night while Maedhros drifts in and out of feverish dreams - but Maedhros . . . Maedhros has been up to the edge before, and Elrond, for all he tries, doesn’t have the same resources they’d had at long ago Mithrim.
It’s not so bad, he thinks in his more lucid moments. He’ll have gone out facing the enemy, and at this point, he doesn’t think he can ask for much more than that. The battle was a victory, even; Elros assures him that the Edain they rode to the rescue of have mostly survived. From things he overhears, he thinks they might have lost most of their leadership, but Elros seems to be drifting into that role well enough as he works to integrate their fighters with what Feanorians are still left.
Before the battle, there were fifty odd elves still under Maedhros’s command that could fight, and a little under a handful that were too injured to do so. He doesn’t know what the number is now. No one wants to tell him anything that might upset him for fear it might disrupt Elrond’s tenacious grip on a life that keeps trying to slip away, so casualties remain simply “light,” whatever that means in this instance.
What worries him is that whenever he wakes up, Maglor is never there. Elrond, yes, nearly always, Elros, frequently, Lauriel and some of the other elves he’s failed whenever he’s lucid enough to talk coherently - but not Maglor. Never Maglor.
The first time he asks, he’s told that Maglor has not yet woken up. Every time after that, he’s always told that Maglor’s sleeping.
He wonders if this means that Maglor is dying or that he’s already dead.
They’ve failed the Oath, either way. The Everlasting Darkness awaits whenever he finally gives in to the pain.
The thought should probably bother him more than it does.
His veins feel like fire, and he’s fairly certain that either one of his foe’s weapons was poisoned or else that an infection has crept in despite all of Elrond’s best efforts. Whichever it is, it pushes him to the brink, and only Elrond’s cool tide of remedies and wall of song keep him from toppling off the edge.
Soon, it won’t be enough.
Maglor won’t wake up. His smaller injuries are healing well, there’s nothing at all visibly wrong, he just - won’t wake.
A Man probably couldn’t have lasted this long in that state, but apparently an elf can, and song helps to sustain him.
It just won’t wake him. Maedhros could, maybe, Elrond thinks, but Maedhros is in no condition to be using a song of power. He’s not even really in any condition for his conversations with Elros, Lauriel, and himself about what’s happening in the camp and what needs to be done.
Elrond is doing his best to hold onto both brothers, but he can’t hold both alone for much longer, and there’s no one else left with the training.
And even if he focuses on just one, they could still lose them both.
They meet in Maedhros and Maglor’s tent, because it’s the biggest and no one’s actually using it just now. It’s not the first time the three of them have gathered like this, but in this war, every day is a reminder that it could be their last.
They’re all leaders of some description. Anufin’s the quartermaster, and Thanduin and Lauriel are both captains of twenty-five. Right now, they’re the highest ranking elves in the camp that are both lucid and awake.
Thanduin says what they’re all thinking. “If they both die,” he says, “then what?”
There’s no need to question each others’ loyalty. They’ve all proven, beyond a doubt, that they’ll follow Feanor’s house no matter what. They’ll fulfill their duties to Maedhros and Maglor’s last breaths.
But. Then what?
Anufin looks to Lauriel. “You’ve been allowed to see them,” he says. “How likely is it?”
This is not information that’s being freely given out amongst one and all, but if they can’t trust each other, who can they trust? “Lord Maedhros would need a miracle,” she says, and her throat burns. With one more healer to share young Elrond’s burden, with a little more supplies . . . They could save her lord in that bright camp from Valinor, she knows they could, but they don’t have those things here, and instead he’s slipping away, and it’s not fair.
But they’re all long past expecting things to be fair, so she continues on. “I think Lord Maglor might make it,” she says slowly. “Only we all know how head injuries are, and I’m not sure . . . I don’t know when he’ll wake up.” The ‘if’ hangs unspoken on the air.
“Then who leads while we wait?” Thanduin asks. Because they will wait. Of course they’ll wait. It would take far more than this for them to abandon Feanor’s line now.
Lauriel is not actually sure what would make her turn aside at this point. They’ve fought so hard for so long, given up so much, that the very idea of declaring it all for nothing makes her sick.
Anufin gets the obvious suggestion out of the way. “Celebrimbor.”
If Lord Maglor actually dies, she might could come around to that, although the idea is a bit sour. He left them, after all, and she’s not at all sure how he would feel about them showing up now.
She’s also not at all sure that Lord Maglor would be safe to recover in Gil-Galad’s camp.
These objections must cross the others’ minds too, because Thanduin shakes his head and says, “Not Celebrimbor,” and Anufin doesn’t argue.
“We could keep things running, I suppose,” Thanduin puts in then with no great enthusiasm.
They could, probably. They’re hardly incompetent; everyone incompetent is dead. Anufin can stretch their supplies and keep it preserved, and she and Thanduin, who once commanded groups far larger than twenty-five apiece, can figure out how best to harass the enemy. Elrond’s running the infirmary better than anyone else they’ve got left could, and Elros seems to be managing the Edain. They could make it work.
The problem comes in the motivation. Without Maedhros’s iron determination, without Maglor’s music, Lauriel isn’t sure how long they can find the will to keep carrying on.
“We need someone,” she says, and then everything she’s just been thinking hits her, and, well, why not?
“Which of the twins is older?” she asks.
There’s no question of which twins she means. There’s only the one set left in the camp.
Anufin blinks. “I’ve no idea. They don’t talk about - You’re joking.”
“Why not?” she demands. “Unless Gil-Galad is Fingon’s son, and we all know how little certainty there is of that, the crown of the Noldor is their’s by rights anyway. And of course,” she adds piously, “the House of Feanor would never wish to do anything but follow the true king of the Noldor.”
The others side-eye her a bit for that, which is fair enough, really. They all know perfectly well that ever since Maedhros abdicated the throne, the Feanorians' relationship to the High King has always been one of, “You don’t tell us to do anything we weren’t going to do anyway, and we won’t disobey your orders,” but that’s not really the point.
“Lord Maglor did raise them as if they were his own,” Thanduin says slowly. “They’re practically his heirs, really.”
“Another good point,” she agrees triumphantly. “And it doesn’t even really matter which one’s the elder, come to think of it. Lords Maedhros and Maglor did perfectly well acting together; I’m sure they can too.”
Anufin is the last holdout, and she supposes she can’t really blame him. It is a bit of a - well, a counterintuitive idea, to put people who are still technically hostages in charge, but they’ve been going to Elrond for healing since their last healer died, and fighting beside both twins without concern, so she doesn’t see a problem, really.
And even if it doesn’t work out, there have been enough other bad ideas in this war that she doubts hers will be remembered unduly.
“Alright, then,” Anufin concedes. “We’ll follow them.”
Elros notices the increase in his workload, but he doesn’t think much of it. It was already increasing due to the Edain and having to take a few things over since Maglor and Maedhros are . . . unwell . . . and a few more elves bringing their problems to him goes pretty much unnoticed.
It’s not until Anufin delivers his weekly report on their supplies directly to him and then Lauriel delivers her compilation of the scouts' reports that Elros puts the pieces together and has a quiet, blinding moment of panic before he goes to find Elrond.
Elrond is exhausted, and his voice has gone hoarse. Elros hadn’t even realized elvish voices could do that before now, but perhaps it’s a half-elvish thing, not an elvish.
Regardless, Maedhros is currently asleep, so Elros is free to grab his twin’s shoulders and say, “I think they’re trying to make us be in charge.”
It takes Elrond a moment to get it in his exhausted state, but not more than that. Even half-asleep, Elrond’s mind works fast. “Us, or you?” he asks.
“Us,” Elros says firmly. “Lauriel asked me to tell you everything she just told me because she didn’t want to disturb you while you were working.”
The panic is already calming. It’s not that he doesn’t know how to do this, he’s certainly been watching the Feanorian brothers do it for long enough, it’s just that . . .
It’s another sign, another reminder, that Maglor and Maedhros are slipping away, and unlike Elrond, there’s nothing Elros can do about it.
“That explains Thanduin,” Elrond says slowly. “He was trying to figure out which one of us was older earlier.”
They look at each other.
“What did you tell him?” Elros asks with forced casaulness.
Elrond looks away a little. “I didn’t.”
It’s just, well. Elros is pretty sure that neither of them actually knows.
They’d just been so young when they were taken away, and Elros can only assume that their mother hadn’t wanted to put a wedge between them by making a production of which one would inherit before it was strictly necessary. No one had ever thought that there wouldn’t be someone around to ask.
“We can do this,” Elros says firmly. “We’ll make them proud.”
It’s one of their unspoken rules that Elros doesn’t specify which them he means.
Maedhros slips away. Maglor doesn’t wake up.
No one outside the Feanorian camp actually knows this, because in the fight against Morgoth, Feanor’s Star keeps marching on.
They fight in the last battle and present themselves afterward to, very politely, request the Silmarils.
Elrond holds out a small hope that holding them might wake Maglor up. Elros just hopes that if they can at least get the lot of them given to Celebrimbor that Maedhros won’t have to spend eternity in the Everlasting Darkness.
Eonwe is impassive, but Gil-Galad looks first startled, then saddened when he realizes who they are, and Finarfin looks disappointed.
“Will my nephews not come themselves?” he asks.
Elros looks like he’s about to say something unwise, so Elrond steps in. “Lord Maedhros fell ten years ago,” he says. “Lord Maglor was injured in the same battle, and despite all our skill, he has yet to wake.”
In the stunned silence following this announcement, Elros regains his temper and says, “Closer blood could perhaps do what we cannot; if you would come and try to call him back, we would be grateful.”
Gil-Galad leans forward. “Who, then, has been leading the House of Feanor?”
Elros is too quick for Elrond this time. His voice is dry. “I would think that would be obvious.”
For some reason, this seems to stun all present too. Elrond takes advantage of the silence to press his point.
“We have hope that possession of the Silmarils might wake Lord Maglor. Failing that, perhaps - perhaps it would at least grant him peace.” He is in pain from the Oath, even asleep. Elrond has felt it, and nothing he’s done to stop it has been enough.
“The House of Feanor has lost its right to the Silmarils,” Eonwe proclaims.
“And what did Lord Celebrimbor do?” Elros asks immediately.
That’s not the end of the conversation by a long shot, but in the end they carry their point. Celebrimbor is to have the two just recovered Silmarils.
They also get permission to go speak with their father, a request that somehow also seems to surprise those present for reasons that escape Elros entirely.
And elves say Men are confusing.
Celebrimbor is considerably easier to badger than Eonwe. It helps, Elrond thinks, that he was never really against the idea in the first place. He just needed someone to confirm that it wasn’t a terrible idea.
It might be a terrible idea, actually, Elrond supposes, but it’s the only one they’ve got.
Earendil is not allowed to set foot on Middle Earth, but they’re not forbidden from climbing up to see him. They have, several times, and talking him around to their idea is surprisingly easy.
The Valar were smart enough to realize they’d have to rule on him returning to Middle Earth. They apparently did not consider it necessary to explicitly order him not to hand the Silmaril off to anybody.
Elrond has a vague idea that he might take it back afterwards, but he’s careful not to let that thought fully form. He’s not sure it’ll work if the Silmaril is only a loan, not freely presented.
It’s just him, Elros, and Celebrimbor in the tent when they do it. The Silmarils are in a leather bag - well, several leather bags, layered over each other, in an attempt to at least dim the light so as to avoid notice for as long as possible.
Elrond hesitates with the bag just over Maglor’s slack hand because Finarfin has tried and failed, and this is the last idea, the last chance, short of sending him across the Sea, and Elrond desperately does not want to do that.
“Please wake up, Ada,” he whispers, and he puts the bag in Maglor’s hand.