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The Oath constricts uncomfortably when he thinks about sending the children to Gil-Galad and truthfully, so does his heart, so for years he manages to convince himself that sending them is impossible.
Then the Hosts of Valinor advance, communication with Earendil becomes theoretically possible, the Oath’s demands start to turn into the realm of nightmares, and sending them to Gil-Galad is no longer just a theoretical right choice, it’s a necessity.
But it’s still impossible, at least if approached directly.
The rules of the Oath are not hard and fast. It’s hold tightens and loosens for no reasons he can see. So his plan is not quite a plan so much as it is a vague collection of thoughts, loosely assembled, for a purpose that he knows but will not admit.
Or, in other words:
“We’re very close to Gil-Galad’s camp now,” Maglor observes as he prepares the thin stew they’re to eat that night. “A hard day’s ride.”
Elros frowns. “Do you think he’ll bother us? He’s been playing things defensively up till now.”
“Or was Maedhros thinking of sending someone to him? I’m sure he’d want to hear of the dragons we saw flying overhead a few days back. They did seem to be heading his direction,” Elrond says.
“I’m sure he would like to know,” Maglor agrees. “But you two are probably the only ones he wouldn’t kill on sight.”
“And we can’t leave,” Elros concludes.
Yes, you can, you have to before -
But of course that’s far too direct.
“Exactly,” he says instead, and the word burns his throat like the heat of a funeral pyre.
He makes sure he’s the one guarding the horses that night anyway, just in case they’ve taken the hint, and then makes a show of being tired.
His intention is to feign sleep at the first hint of any elflings sneaking out to steal some horses, but Elrond preempts him.
“Are you alright? You don’t look well.” Elrond frowns at him in concern that he most definitely does not deserve.
“I’m fine,” he claims, and he is, really. His exhaustion may not be totally feigned, but it is at least mostly so. He’s as well as he ever is these days.
“I can take your watch for you,” Elros says, and Maglor agrees instantly before his mind can betray him by exulting over the way that this is even better and in doing so trigger his Oath.
He is surprised when he wakes that there was no outcry in the night when the horses and elflings were discovered missing.
Then he rolls over and sees both children tucked into their bedrolls and the morning guard for the horses watchfully eying exactly as many as there should be.
Maglor takes a deep, steadying breath and buries his head in his hands.
He suggests that the children are now old enough to start carrying more in their packs and explains to them, in detail, exactly how long the supplies now in said packs would last them. He finds a way to mention not five minutes later that it would take far less time to get to Gil-Galad than the limit just named. He manages to contrive more time for them to be alone with the horses. He commends certain horses’ speed as being capable of outrunning any orc or spider likely to be found in these lands, particularly in the area between their camp and Gil-Galad’s. He praises their increased ability to defend themselves - says that they could probably defend each other indefinitely, even if they stood alone, if need be.
In response, they stick to him like limpets. In Elros’s case, an increasingly angry limpet, but limpets nonetheless.
Maedhros leaves most matters concerning the children to Maglor. Once they work out some sort of system where at least one of them is within arms’ reach of Maglor at all times, however, it is perhaps inevitable that he notices.
Particularly after he orders both of them over to a flat spot of ground for another lesson in swordsmanship, and Elros announces, “One of us has to stay with Maglor.”
Maedhros looks over at Maglor as if expecting some kind of explanation.
Maglor doesn’t really have one.
Maedhros looks very close to hauling them both over there bodily, but he manages to restrain himself. “He won’t disappear if you look away for a moment,” he says with considerable exasperation and also a quick flick of his eyes over to Maglor to make sure that his last living brother has not, in fact, disappeared.
“He might,” Elrond says quietly. “Amil and Atar did.”
“And he keeps talking about how we’d be fine on our own,” Elros says, crossing his arms. “Which he wouldn’t need to if he wasn’t planning on sailing off, or jumping off something, or - “
Maedhros’s eyes widen, and Maglor sees more panic in that moment than he’s seen since the Nirnaeth.
“I’m not going anywhere,” he tells all three of them, and he resists the urge to rub at his growing headache. “It was … meant as reassurance. In case something happened. That’s all.”
Apparently, hinting at them to leave isn’t going to work. He’s just going to have to keep leaving opportunities and hoping that when the Oath finally breaks him, they’ll have enough of a chance to run.
With those as the stakes, suddenly he is far more sure of his ability to hold the Oath back for a long, long time.