Chapter Text
Maglor is worried about the end. Will his father let the silmarils be broken like the myth says? Will no one be re-embodied in his family?
... Or everyone?
Because then he'll have to deal with all of them. He's the only one who lived. He's very tired, in a way. Happily, his anxiety about it all is cut short when it suddenly happens. Then they are just all living in a world with the two trees out of the blue, and everything seems fresh and new.
Oh. Weird. He'd assumed there'd be the mythical great battle, or that something would happen. So much for their battle plans and contingency plans. He breathes a sigh of relief as Glorfindel excitedly says stuff like that out loud.
He feels young and healthy, and strong for the first time in so many millennia. It feels odd. Elrond blinks and looks at him funny; he must look different now. Elrond looks like a child, almost.
Then Glorfindel looks at him, and says, "Oh, is this what you look like? You glow worse than me. And your face ... you look so different."
"Really," he says.
Elrond nods. He looks younger and softer and even more sweet than he already did. It's like this new world, new age, has taken away the wear his terrible life had on him [and of course the burden of the enemy.]
Glorfindel looks as shiny as ever, but then he always has. He grabs a mirror and holds it up to Maglor. He does the same face Elrond did, unconsciously. "That's what I look like? What?" he says to himself.
He looks like another person. He knew he'd decayed in body and spirit during his life due to ... lots of things, but this is shocking. "That's what you originally looked like," Elrond says. "Galadriel showed me once, from her memory."
Oh. He'd kind of forgotten.
"I don't recognize myself," he admits, and looks away from the mirror. Glorfindel sets it back on the table near him. It takes a stupid amount of time for him to look at his hand, the ruined one. It's not ruined anymore.
It looks like a normal hand. He shows Elrond and Glorfindel who exclaim happily over it. He feels happy, but also weird. It was who he was, a symbol. It's freeing to be rid of it. But still weird.
The trees are back, glowing once more. Maglor never liked the sun, but Elrond is creeped out by the change.
Earendil shows up and doesn't know who Maglor is, because he looks like a different person now that he's been remade. "Shall I play something, isn't that proof?" he asks him, and Earendil smiles.
"Please, would you?" he says.
Maglor doesn't say, but thinks: Elrond's surety that it's me is enough. Our souls are deeply bonded. We would know each other if he were a bird and I were a flower.
So he plays, and Earendil happily says he is satisfied, and thanks him for the song. It's strange to play now that he's healthy.
Letters come soon, from Maglor's family of course. The whole group is alive again, he thinks grimly.
"Can you help me read them," he asks both of them, and they agree. He's the only one of their little group who has been separated from his family all this time in Valinor. Elrond and everyone else already got it all over with, the reuniting with people, all that. All except him, and his mother of course.
[Glorfindel took a long time to reconcile with his own people, but eventually did too.]
The Valar told her [and she told him] that they will put the re-embodied Feanor family in her house to keep the other elves from getting nervous. Also the Valar have had their authority end, so no one can tell the elves what to do, which obviously Maglor and his group like to hear.
They open the missives after Maglor hands them out. He keeps Maedhros's letter, and his father's, but gives the rest of them out.
His father's just says he's sorry, and that Makalaure is a better man than he is. It feels eerie to read those words. [He both loves to hear that and is creeped out at the same time; also, it makes him feel a flush of shame for what he's done.]
It's nice about the apology though.
And his brother's note just says he hopes he's been doing okay, and that he saw in the tapestries that Elrond found him and healed him, so it seems well. He says they all could see what was going on in the real world, and that he was happy that he lived with Elrond in Rivendell.
"I should get this over with," he says in a burst, and the other two look up at him. "I should go see them. Otherwise I'll be waiting for this shoe to drop."
"Do you want us to go with you?" Glorfindel says, and Elrond nods.
He pauses. He hadn't thought of that. Would that make things better or worse?
"What if we 'stopped by', after a little while, for the reason of 'introducing myself', and if you want to go we're there, and if you don't you could say 'oh nice to see you, I'm busy'," Elrond suggests.
"That's a good idea," he says.
So they go.
Glorfindel and Elrond wait a ways away, and they agree on the amount of time they'll delay before 'suddenly arriving'. He knocks on the door, trying to breathe deeply. Elrond always has people try that to calm themselves if upset or in pain.
His father opens the door. They look at each other. His father hugs him.
He just stands there. It's one thing to know he's alive, and even to get a letter from him. But to see him in real life is different. "I am sorry, my Makalaure," he says. How strange to hear his name after so long.
He never hears 'Maglor', and it's been endless thousands of years since he heard someone say Makalaure. Usually it's just 'Lindir' as his name, though he does like it very much. And Elrond calls him 'my friend', of course, just as he taught him to as a little boy.
He feels distant from his father, from all of them, in a way now. He's lived for so long. And then for longer in Valinor. They are an old story.
Is this how Elrond feels about his parents, he wonders. Like they are characters in a story of some other culture, of someone else? And he's supposed to pretend he knows these people. But he feels like he doesn't, despite his past.
"Come and see your brothers," he tells him, and he brings him inside. Fingolfin and Fingon are there for some reason, eating sweets. Fingon looks happy, which is good. They walk in through some rooms and he sees Mahedros. He looks healthy, happy, relaxed. Not in pain -- and also he has his other hand.
"You got my letter?" he asks. Maglor nods.
"How is Elrond?" he continues.
Maglor sits down beside him in a chair. "He is well. Good. Glorfindel is with him -- but you already know that, yes."
"Yes," he confirms. "I did want to hear it from you though. He is a sweet boy."
"He's old now," Maglor says, "but he doesn't look it, after being remade. I don't look like me either, like I did before. For so long. Of course Glorfindel looks exactly the same."
Apparently the edges of the map are all different now.
Miriel comes and says hello to Maglor and explains who she is. Indis is with her. "They are friends," his brother explains, as they both hug him. "Yes, you have two grandmothers," Miriel jests, smiling at him. Indis smiles too.
Finwe appears at some point as well, too. Maglor is polite to them all. His brothers don't crowd him all at once, they come and greet him at different times. Some wave from outside as he walks with his brother through the house.
It's not as terrible he thought it would be. It's calm.
"Elrond's going to come by and introduce himself to father," he tells Maedhros.
"Good," he replies. "He is our secret son. Let's just emphasize that we can't act like that in public, though."
Maglor nods, and rises to explain this to his father. He finds him in the kitchen with mother. "Do you know of Elrond?" he asks Feanor.
"Yes, from the tapestries," his father says. "Your son, in spirit. Not all elf; a healer. I would say he is my grandchild then, isn't he?"
"Yes," Maglor agrees. "He will come by today to say hello. But we cannot act like he's ours in public. Obviously."
Feanor nods. He too wants to avoid political dumpster fires and explosions as much as possible. "You live with him?" he asks.
"Yes," Maglor says. "For a long time, now."
"What is he like?" he inquires.
"He is a sweet boy," his mother interjects. "He likes books and plants. You should give him some of our books, show we favor him."
Feanor nods. "I'll get them together," he says, and Maglor agrees.
It's no surprise that they plan to do this so quickly since there is nobody else on the list of 'Feanorean supporters who have no, zero, non-existant reasons to support them'. Most elves are still a little nervous about them, scared. Even if they don't do anything to them, or say anything harsh, they are afraid of their supposed intensity and their infamy.
By this point Elrond and Glorfindel knock on the door, and Maglor decides he's had enough. "Here they are," he says. He can tell it's them because of his spiritual bond with Elrond. He knows his energy. "Come," he tells his father, and they go to the front door.
He opens it and smiles at Elrond to show him he's okay. Elrond looks very stoic; both of them do. They don't know what will happen or if he's fine; or if they didn't get along. "Father, this is Elrond, who I've mentioned -- and this is the famous warrior Laurefindil."
They both nod respectfully. Feanor nods back. "Well met, grandson, and you too, as well," he says easily, to both of them.
It's at this moment that Maglor realizes he taught Elrond to sa-si on purpose, and Glorfindel does too. Uh oh ...
"Okay, let's go," Maglor says. He feels much like mother, he always was similar to her. "See you later, father."
Feanor blinks, surprised, and waves, looking baffled, as they leave together. Elrond nods at him before they go, and Feanor smiles back. They get on their horses and start the journey back to new Rivendell -- thankfully this new world has the geography largely the same so their lands and home are safe. At first they ride in silence.
"My brother was there," he tells Elrond, after they are quite a bit away. "He looked healthy; his friend was there too." They both know which one he means, in both cases.
Early on he'd had to keep the twins away from his brother, because he was too ill mentally. Once in a while he taught the boys to fight, but mostly he was away from them. Maglor had told the boys about how his brother was devastated because the person closest to him, who had rescued him heroically, was dead. [He'd tried to gloss over his torture.]
"That's good," Elrond says. He doesn't say he wants to go in and see Maedhros, and Maglor doesn't ask. He feels like it would be rude to.
"What were they all like?" Glorfindel asks. He's always curious about them, which makes sense, as most people are. They are all infamous, after all.
"Very lively," Maglor says. "They were well. It's strange to see them all, especially all at once. My father seems less excitable than before, I think."
"I feel like everyone's going to be disappointed if there's no interesting gossip about him," Glorfindel informs him. "What do you think he'll do now that he's alive again?"
"I don't know," Maglor says honestly. Elrond gives him a sympathetic touch with osanwe. Later he tells Elrond about his sa-si thoughts, and Elrond agrees, privately practicing with Maglor to pronounce everything the other way. At least he's heard people around him speak in it for many years, if it was just him and his Feanorean servants, of course.
Maglor can tell it's hard for Elrond to look at him because of his glow, and/or because he really does look like another person. It's depressing. And not only that, but Maglor feels weirded out by how he looks too. It doesn't help that Elrond looks so young and soft now.
It makes him want to hug him and hug him and hug him. And not say sorry, because the boys banned him from it when they got to a certain age and had heard it too much from him.
They get back home and Glorfindel moves to carry him back inside, and he lets him. It's only once they get to their rooms that he realizes he's not actually tired. He assumed he would be, but he's not. His body is healed.
But he likes when Glorfindel does that for him. And when he rubs the arm of his injured hand; and when he does his feet too. He has some weird desire to do it, he likes it for some reason.
Maglor stays silent, and nobody says anything, thankfully. His father eventually sends them many boxes, and most of them are books for Elrond.
"These are fascinating," he says, looking at a book on the language of the Ainur [that Feanor wrote and hasn't let anyone read or know about, especially not the official loremasters guild] as they unpack them all.
Maglor sees that his father and mother also sent over the traditional things they all, the children, get at different ages -- jewelry, gifts. It's recognizing Elrond as a real Feanor descendant.
Of course he's not, but it's nice of them to give him these items. Because in a way he is. He is, and is not, at the same time.
"These things here," he tells Elrond, who puts another book down and comes over. "They are what you would have, as one of us."
He points out what each thing is and when it would have been given. Jewelry pieces, fabled swords. Gil-Galad appears at one point, and Elrond shows him his presents. He looks surprised, and impressed. [Few know the good side of Feanor's family, Maglor is aware.]
They have only spoken once in a while. Gil-Galad is polite to him, out of his love for Elrond. He's fine with that. He doesn't need to interfere in Elrond's relationship.
Actually, it's very unofficial, and Glorfindel's told him that Gil-Galad was always obsessed with him. Ever since he and his brother arrived in Lindon at his court, he was taken with him.
Well, Elrond is very lovely, in his way. But it's who he is as a person that's the true marvel. Few elves are so good and reliable and kind, especially when they have great power. When Maglor looks at him he still sees his little boy with the cloth toys Maehdros gave him. While he couldn't really interact with them appropriately all the time due to his general sickness and pain, he did often have little things made for them.
Gil-Galad is very respectful of Elrond, Glorfindel has told him. Otherwise Glorfindel would have ended him, he'd added calmly. Maglor had smiled at that. He does like having him around to rely on. It's no longer just him looking after Elrond. Finally, he too has backup.
And Glorfindel has backup also, in a way. Maglor would absolutely kill to protect Elrond, without even hesitating. It's easy, really. He's got nowhere lower to go. Defensive fighting probably doesn't even count as kinslaying, he thinks.
... Not that he's often been on the defense side before.
Elrond seems to like all his gifts. Maglor asks him if he can tell his parents, and Elrond agrees. They are pleased by this.
[Of course, he can't wear any of the jewelry or swords out for multiple reasons. This being a time of peace is a big one -- so any weapon or any piece of obviously Feanor-made jewelry is going to be something that incites problems.]
Feanor asks him in a letter to have Elrond visit, since he is his second grandchild. Maglor tells Elrond he doesn't mind either way, but Elrond says it would be interesting to speak with Feanor about his Ainur book. So sometimes Maglor accompanies him to his mother's house, their big family compound.
Elrond is reunited with Maehdros -- privately, because Maglor is sure they are both going to get emotional. And he doesn't want his family to see how Elrond cries differently than regular elves. His maian blood somehow makes the air around him heavy with sadness, like a black cloud. Sometimes he even affects the weather accidentally, or the waterfalls [in either Imladris, old or new].
Of course Elrond also heals Nelyo again since he's there, a thing he's done since he was a boy. He can use his power to imbue a person with calm and peace and relaxation for a time.
Maglor tip toes up to where they are to see if they're done and accidentally hears his brother asking Elrond if he thinks Maglor resents him, hates him for leaving life. And for not breaking the oath like Maglor wanted to; instead he told him he had to follow him into their final murders.
Maglor has to cover his mouth because he's so close to crying out in shock and grief.
He hears Elrond say no, that Maglor has spoken of him kindly often, and always said he was happy that his brother was in Mandos, where he could heal.
...
Yes he did say that, but Elrond is being kind. Because he said other things, too. Elrond always has his back. If only it had been the other way around. Most of the time he failed the twins.
At least after Elrond found him and healed him, things could be different. He has stayed with him for all those millennia, afterwards. First in Rivendell, then across the sea, then in new Rivendell, and now too, in this new world. He's always told Maglor that he just wants him to rest, and enjoy himself, and be around. That he should do whatever he wants.
What Maglor wants is for Elrond to be happy and to have somebody not leave him ... despite his own earlier multiple horrific screwups.
Maglor finds out that his mother has sent Elrond some more clothes ... which are Feanorean in style. That is: a million stars everywhere, lots of red, so basically he can only wear them in his room with the door firmly shut. Glorfindel makes him model them all for him and Maglor, which he does but finds stupid. It's very funny.
He and Glorfindel always have fun together, and Maglor likes to be there and partake in it from the sidelines.
Elrond has always hated fancy robes, but wore them when necessary. Thank goodness Nerdanel sent super lightweight fabric robes, as he doesn't mind them then. It's nice to see him like the clothes, Maglor feels, even if he can't wear them anywhere outside new Rivendell.
They can't invite controversy -- especially on the side of him openly favoring his evil fake parents' family over his real/'good' parents.
Actually Earendil still visits with him sometimes -- Elrond seems to prefer seeing him to compared to seeing his mother.
Thankfully their valley is restricted still, so Elrond doesn't have to be too paranoid -- unless Thranduil or his people are visiting. They do love to visit Elrond and his home. He provided them with a lot of help back in middle earth, and asked in return for them to send him certain plants and to write down records of their culture for his library.
So they are able to tolerate him more than the typical high elves, who look down on them. They were also very pleased by Elrond's gift to Thranduil of their new forest and vineyards. Elrond very wisely set it up as a diplomatic alliance gift from Gil-Galad to make it less obvious that he just wants to be able to see his friend easily.
Maglor later finds out the real reason was to have have Thranduil near Elrond and Galadriel [who has her new forest nearby, she still has the desire to rule] for safety reasons. None of them trust the valar, so they need to still be ready for Morgoth's attacks or creatures no matter where they are.
This way the three of them can coordinate their response and get everyone into Imladris immediately for safety, since they can so easily destroy all paths in. The valley has many, many sources of water, and they grow their own food and livestock -- making it a place that could sustain life if they were attacked from beyond the valley.
They secretly stockpile loads of things just in case. Old habits die hard.
Galadriel likes to show up in the Greenwood as well. She explains to his people that she wants to come see him because Elrond won't share more of the wine Thranduil gave him [because it's good] and she's been mock annoyed, playfully, about it ever since.
Also, she's tired of the elves she usually sees, the typical royalty of the Noldor. She often cajoles Elrond into coming with her. They go with one of Gil-Galad's warriors that later lived at Imladris as backup to Glorfindel. They all like going to the new Greenwood because of how casual they all are; they can wear soft, simple clothes with no adornment and just go to their wild, unstructured parties.
Thranduil's people don't mind because they like how they humble themselves to come dressed as simple elves. It's clear to all that the three of them, the rulers, are friends.
Maglor likes to hear about it all when they come home to new Imladris the day after they sleep it off and tell him about it. Artanis likes to talk to him, surprisingly. She carefully calls him Lindir, which is nice of her.
Despite this new world, it's not like everyone forgot everything from the past. It's better to stay under the radar. People still send him letters [addressed to Elrond] asking him to sing, but he will not.
All the people he killed, the families he destroyed. He can't imagine how many lives were ruined. Lovers ripped from their soulmate; children without parents. It's upsetting to even think about in terms of his own group. Of Fingon dead or Elrond never getting to even know his parents until it was too late for him to even care [of course that's different, since they chose to leave him in a sense, but still.]
He doesn't like the idea of inflicting his presence on others. How horrid it would be to be in their shoes, he thinks, and see the destroyer of their happiness cheerfully belting out a song with a fancy harp, in fancy robes with jewels on.
How grotesque.
Seeing his brother and Fingon's love opened to his eyes to how important love is, and then feeling love for his little children changed him. He can feel the other side now. It's as if he was one of them, the 'other' -- the opponents of the Feanoreans.
But then to his horror he knows that no, he is on the evil side. He is the murderer. ... He still has bad days, even in this new world with everything restored.
Surprisingly, Glorfindel does too, actually. Elrond tries to make both of them feel better, which is ineffective in the literal way but very effective in the 'how kind of you to care' way.
Gil-Galad never goes to the forest, because Thranduil and his people don't want him to come. Also, as the king of Elrond's area, his behavior necessarily always comes with a political tinge or effect. Elrond is much more free. Maglor is pleased that Gil-Galad didn't try to force Elrond to act as ruler of anything, because Elrond is happy to do nothing but spend his days in fun and play as long as he knows someone competent is in charge.
The high king comes and stays with Maglor when everyone else goes on trips. Glorfindel doesn't always go either; everyone gets too intimidated by him, to his chagrin. It's nice to have one or both of them nearby when Elrond is out. Because of safety reasons, but also because it's soothing to have someone there. He lived for a long time alone.
Maglor kind of associates being alone with being hurt and insane, now. When Elrond rescued him and healed him, he had to practically relearn how to walk, eat and talk. He hadn't sung for a long time either. So that took a lot of work. It turns out being that isolated from civilization for that long while being crazy has some detrimental effects. Who knew.
Now that Gil-Galad is present all the time, they talk much more. He is quite reticent, but not due to hating Maglor or fearing him. He actually seems shy. Eventually he realizes that Gil-Galad appears to be wary of his opinion of him, so he tells him point blank that he approves of him being with Elrond.
Gil-Galad seems like he's going to choke on nothing and have an aneurysm at the same time. Thankfully he gets it together and calms. "Thank you," he says finally.
"Elrond is a good child, and a good judge of character," Maglor says. "You seem to be good enough for him."
He looks surprised. "I'm not really," he admits, looking a little down. "He's so special. I'm quite ... normal."
Maglor raises his eyebrows. "I don't think they'd call you a high king if that were true."
Gil-Galad grimaces. "That's just because no one else wants this thankless job," he says, almost bitterly. Maglor was not expecting this. "Elrond was kind to help me with it, all those years. Everyone else is happy to shove the burden onto me while they go do what they want."
He has to ask. "Do you not want to rule this city now?"
"That doesn't count," Gil-Galad demurs. "This is for Elrond. He deserves it."
"I agree," Maglor says, to no one's surprise, he thinks.
"Do you mind if I ask you about music?" Gil-Galad says out of the blue, and Maglor nods his head to indicate that he can. "How do you make your songs, and why are they so ... I don't know the word for it. They make you lean in to hear it, to want to hear more. How do you do that?"
He knows Gil-Galad's heard some of his songs before, since he's played for Elrond and Glorfindel many times since coming to Valinor. Elrond had told him that Gil-Galad wanted to listen, as he was so famous a singer, and he had acquiesced, so Elrond had opened a magical connection with him in the room so he could hear it.
Obviously he couldn't come over to Elrond's rooms too often, as people already gossiped about his still wild love for him. Maglor doesn't ask why they keep it all so hidden. Of course he's heard that Elrond wants it all private. But also is it so Gil-Galad's reputation as king has nothing and no one connected to it? Possibly, he thinks.
Especially since Maglor is here now.
"That's the progression of the notes," he explains to Gil-Galad. "They have to do whatever it is you're looking for -- evoke a feeling, pull you to some reaction. That's part of planning the song, that you decide what you're aiming for, and then work towards that. Whichever progression you use implies certain things; it's like a different language, a different way to communicate without words."
Gil-Galad asks him some other music questions, and he talks with him. He apparently does not dare say anything about Maglor's infamousness because he doesn't want to jeopardize his relationship with Elrond. He was clearly filled in before though, when Elrond brought him into Aman [unconscious] and had him live with him in new Rivendell.
Regardless of whether people mention his crimes or not, he never stops thinking about them. He still often rests, which of course means no one grasps that he does have strength and energy now. He's just sad. It's hard to look back at your youth and know you were a monster.
His eerily youthful appearance just makes him feel worse. It's strange not to have his appearance reflect his state of being a perpetual villain. He doesn't want to be one.
If he hadn't stole the boys, he wouldn't even have Elrond as a friend. He basically stole his love, he's aware. It's just so shameful. Even now he has periods where he doesn't want to eat or get up. Before it was all the time, now it's only once in a while.
Glorfindel has actually become very into laying with him, snuggling, when he does that. Maglor doesn't mind, but it must look funny, he thinks. The other elf is so big and strong that it's strange to think of him wanting to cuddle like a child. He's quite fond of Glorfindel at this point, independent of his importance to Elrond.
Eventually Maglor has to go truly spend more time with his brother, but he's loath to interrupt his reunion with Fingon. He also doesn't want to see Celebrimbor. Frodo definitely doesn't, he knows, after knowing how he worked with Sauron. They are all still sensitive; how good it was that Thranduil came with some of his people, because all of the 'recent' people come to Valinor prefer to spend time with them instead of the elves of Aman.
Thankfully the little mortal halflings still live in this new world, which is nice because Elrond likes them. He sometimes goes and spends time with them. Maglor doesn't mind Frodo, but still avoids Bilbo. Sam he is pleased with as he likes to hear his music. Amusingly he calls it 'proper elf music', and 'none of that nonsense some elves sing'.
Now that their family is reunited, Maglor has to turn down many invitations to events at his mother's house. He wants to stay separate from them and their wills. He followed his father, and then his brother. He's tired of it.
The only person he's willing to follow is Elrond. And thankfully, Elrond doesn't do much.
Elrond talks to Gil-Galad [etc, young love; they still seem to be in that phase, despite all the time they've been reunited, and it's nice to see, honestly -- Elrond deserves it, and his lover seems like a good elf], he hangs out with his erstwhile brother Glorfindel, he lives with Maglor. He reads books, he enjoys life, he heals people, he goes to parties when Galadriel or Thranduil have them. Sometimes he talks to his real parents.
Maglor did suggest once that he could go live with Gil-Galad full time, since he doesn't need his care anymore, but Elrond had shaken his head.
"I don't want to do that again," he explains. "He needs hobbies. He's amazing, but he's a lot, a big presence. I worry sometimes that he's just reacting to the magic in me, and not the real me. Who I am apart from that."
They discuss it.
After all this time Maglor can almost bear to talk to the Feanorean supporters in new Rivendell once in a while. Sometimes it overwhelms him, though, and he has to stop. They all seem to understand.
Elrond tells him some secrets, which unfortunately set him back. "We used to turn into animals all the time," he tells Maglor, to his disbelief. "When we were with you, back then."
At the fortress of the Feanoreans in middle earth, he means.
"You could have run away," Maglor says, confused. Like their mother, they could have flown away.
"There's nowhere to go when your parents have chosen to leave you," Elrond points out wryly. "Or rather nowhere you desire to go. At least you wanted us." Then he adds, "We also could see into the souls of everyone -- we knew everything about both of you, about everyone, the whole time. We knew what your brother had suffered, and how he loved Fingon."
He doesn't say, both they both hear: we knew what you all had done. How many you had mercilessly slain. How blood stained you all are.
Tears come to his eyes, and he has to take a break to weep. How sad, all of it. And also that children, his little boys, were so aware of it in that level of detail.
He avoids seeing his family for a while after that. They all send him letters, but he doesn't care. Elrond holds him and later shows him what he meant about animals. He turns into a little tiny cat, and Maglor lays down beside him on the bed, just looking at him. You'd never know it wasn't a normal kitten. Elrond walks over to him and lays against his arm. He feels soft.
Then eventually he scoots back and is a person again, all at once.
Maglor blinks and looks up at him. It's quite shocking to see the change be so instantaneous. "I wish I could do that," he says.
He did know that Elrond had a lot of maia-level power because he used to make sure they had enough to eat -- even as a little boy he'd go to the garden and ask all the plants to give him a snack and be his friend. He'd babble away to them in Sindarin, and the plants would all give endless, strange amounts of fruits and vegetables. Basically, they didn't starve because of him.
All of the Feanoreans knew to treat the children with kid gloves. Not just because of the food situation -- but more because it was obvious that Maglor would literally kill his own people for these children. They may have been stolen, but he loved them.
Elrond was also able to heal people even when tiny, and would often put Maehdros into a blessed, peaceful rest or sleep. Often he would bring him mental peace, or just soothe his arm where his hand was missing.
Feanor writes him letters all the time, telling him about what everyone in the family is doing, and what his mother is working on sculpture-wise. Sometimes he writes back. His own letters aren't very interesting. They are mostly about how he is resting in new Rivendell, or about songs he's working on. He doesn't talk about Elrond or his friends.
"I only used to do it with my brother," Elrond says quietly. "It wasn't fun after he left for his stupid little island."
"At least it's good for safety," Maglor says, and he nods. That is, Elrond could escape easily if taken prisoner.
"Glorfindel has told me he's been after you," Elrond tells him, changing the subject. "But that you don't prefer him."
Maglor laughs. "He's crazy, and I can speak with authority on that," he jokes. Elrond smiles at his levity about such a dark topic; sometimes they joke about things, other times everything seems too heavy to do it. "I don't know why he wants that type of thing with me, it's so ridiculous. Anyone would want him. He literally could beckon to thousands of elves, and none would hesitate."
Elrond shrugs. "Maybe that's the problem, everyone would. But you are different."
He can't help but almost laugh again. "Yes, different in a bad way. For a bad reason. My goodness. I keep telling him he needs to choose someone decent."
They talk of other things. Eventually Elrond talks about seeing Elwing -- she's been happy and healed, spending a lot of time with her brothers, who are now re-embodied. He's been visiting both his parents more regularly recently. It took a long time for her to initially return from healing.
"She seems much better," Elrond says. "She says she can almost forgive herself, but sometimes it is hard to see me or think of me, as apparently my continued existence means she is a monster, in her own opinion. ... Which I don't care for, that I'm just a symbol, obviously. Once again, I am the afterthought. Not the priority. And Elros comes out looking better!"
He is very annoyed, but Maglor knows he lies like a rug when he's with his parents and is very polite to them.
"I am sorry, my dear," he tells him, and Elrond waves his hand.
"At least my father looked chagrined when she said it," Elrond says, pleased. "He's not too bad, sometimes."
That is high praise from Elrond. ... Especially when it concerns his [real] father.
He does not ever directly push him to talk about his conversations with them, because that is not his business. Also, he's sure Elrond ripped them a new one when his mother inevitably tried to defend not giving up the jewel and condemning her people and sons to death. And yeah, also the whole 'abandoning her kids' thing. At least her parents got her to safety; Elwing deliberately refused to give up the jewel in endless letters.
[By that point in his 'murderous career', Maglor was obsessed with 'diplomacy first, murder second', for all the good it did him re the havens. His brothers indulged him, but they all knew -- no one ever gave up the jewels. Ever.]
Strangely Earendil likes to come and speak to Maglor sometimes, he has admitted to him before that he thought maybe they could be friends.
... Maglor did not ask any of the obvious questions or say anything like a normal response to that insane statement. He had just said 'of course'. Apparently he has no friends, despite being so famous.
At first he assumed Earendil would want to talk about Elrond, to find out about him without having to go to the source [ie Elrond himself], but that's not what it's about.
He just wants to literally chat, about nothing. About gossip. [Maglor does not give him information about Elrond, that is for him to work to learn. He is still building a relationship with him, even after all this time.]
Elrond actually is an odd combination of strange characteristics -- some of the Ainur's power, some of man's frailty, and sometimes elf-like. But mostly unusual. He switches between things often. One day he'll eat nothing and say he feels no hunger or any normal bodily feelings, and the next he'll sleep very long because of the 'pleasure' of it.
Even though he eats more bread and sweets [when he chooses to eat at all] than a normal elf, he rarely goes to the bathroom or gets tired. Sleep seems to often be about enjoyment for him instead of need; he likes to do it very much. He often communicates with nature at length, in depth; Elrond can understand all parts of it easily. Many elves can do this to a very light degree, but Elrond had to literally go discuss that he was leaving for Valinor with many inanimate parts of the valley, and the living plants, too, and the little animals like birds. Afterwards he gets very tired though.
Eventually Elrond shows him the technological advances his Rivendell people have made -- he assumes these are new until Elrond admits they all started back home. And that he and Glorfindel kept it a secret from Maglor in case it reminded him of his family, what with all the genius, creating, inventing, etc.
His father eventually asks him to visit, so he goes with Elrond [who strategically stays nearby and will 'appear' if Maglor asks him to with mind to mind talk.] "Your brothers think you ... find them irredeemable," Feanor tells him, to his surprise.
They are in his forge, at home. It looks like Maglor remembered it to look.
... Some of what his brothers did was, Maglor thinks, but so was what he did.
"No, I don't think that," Maglor tells him.
He and his father are standing at his big table with many plans and papers on it. "They seem to fear to ask you why you do not visit them," Feanor says carefully. They both notice that he does not also say 'and live here like all of them'. Even Fingon basically moved in. ... So it looks weird that he won't, out of all of them.
"I need to be with my fam -- " Maglor starts, and then stops hastily. Feanor blinks, and nods. Family.
"The boy," he says, and Maglor nods back.
Of course he means Elrond, but because he's so much younger in terms of being born, Feanor thinks of him as a child eternally. Maglor does too, so he can't criticize it.
"I was the most ... against the group of all of us, I think," Maglor tells him. "I do feel strange about it. About them. My bro -- Nelyo, I understand. That's different. But the rest of them ... "
The rest of them were dogs. [Except the youngest one, dead by his own father's hand.] He hadn't realized that before. Sure Maglor killed elves too but not gleefully, not viciously. He was good, in some small part of him. But the rest did not seem to be. [The eldest and youngest excluded.]
He promises his father he'll come by the house more often. Really though he just wants to be his own person, away from them. He used to miss his family, then wonder what it would be like to have them back.
Now he misses when they were gone and he was free to be 'Lindir' with Elrond. He became his own self during all that time, even in Valinor with his mother. His own self without anybody else's pressure on him.
He won't go back to being the 'loyal son of Feanor'. If anything, he's the 'loyal parent of Elrond', really.
Finally Maglor consents to formally see the Feanorean supporters in new Rivendell. At home he had needed to be hidden, and then in Valinor he had needed to be kept out of sight so as not to incite more violence by his mere presence.
Elrond brings them in one at a time, and has pre-warned them about what not to say. ... It's a long list of banned topics. Maglor doesn't want to hear about a lot of things, and god forbid any loyalty to him be mentioned. The first two come in and bow to him and he already feels nervous.
"Please don't do that," he says, despite himself. "That's for Elrond and the high king. And I guess the other rulers."
They smile and sit down. One asks him what he thinks about the current music fads in new Rivendell and he answers. Then eventually they're gone. And he deals with the next group. This goes on for a while.
It's very tiring to be an official representative of something. Especially since he no longer views himself as loyal to his own family, in a way [except mother, of course.]
Maglor is pleased now to write music for the musicians of new Rivendell, who are always eager to try their hand at his compositions. He won't perform himself with a crowd, but he does like to compose. Of course he plays for Glorfindel, who greatly likes it, it seems, and Elrond [who only likes music without lyrics].
He finally listens to new Rivendell's many styles and odd, distinct types of music, and works on pieces in all of them. Glorfindel helpfully is a dab hand at being his music critic as he composes them.
He is very blunt and very funny as he comments on Maglor's compositions. Some are 'too emotional', others 'too sad'. A few are 'confusing', and some are 'spooky, eerie'. Glorfindel can't decide if he likes the last type.
After all this time Elrond and his friends and Gil-Galad decide they need to explain to the 'regular' elves of Rivendell who Lindir actually is and what happened. Maglor agrees. They should know.
He'd want to know, if he were them. And god, he'd love to be.
He does want to still be called Lindir though, he likes it. Even Elrond calls him it. It just feels like him now. His chance to be reborn with his sweet little child. Elrond has saved him over and over, and he's never deserved it.
Sometimes he feels like the child instead.
Maglor finally gives in to Glorfindel's desire for a relationship. This pleases him. He also takes his suggestion of working with dancers and costumers, which means Glorfindel wants to give his songs a visual element.
It turns out the weavers don't mind, and neither do the other people involved with gathering wool, spinning it, making cloth, dying it, cutting it and sewing it. ... Or the embroiderers.
Glorfindel listens to Maglor's finished songs and hears what the dancers want to do, and then draws up crude pictures of what he thinks the dancers' outfits should look like. Then he works with the seamstresses to explain his vision for the outfits as one of the dancers listens.
Glorfindel likes attending the performances and seeing his vision realized; Maglor doesn't attend, since it would seem like he wanted acclaim for his music or something.
He sees his brothers once in a while, but all of their attempts at conversation hit a dead end, despite some surprising moments of their emotional intelligence. Maglor cannot talk to them or anyone [except maybe Elrond] about lots of things.
He can see that Finno wants to get to see Elrond and be part of Maglor and his brothers' relationship with the boy but it's too late. Maedhros was barely involved back then, even. It was just Maglor mostly.
And also, Elrond is an adult now. He does not like to think back on his childhood, Maglor knows -- not because of the Havens, or his parents, or being kidnapped, or any of that. It's because of Elros. All his memories are either of Elros, include him, or remind him of their shared magic power.
But as Elros aged he always wanted to be mortal, so he grew differently, and Maglor didn't even know what was going on until Elrond told him. They cried together. Elros simply wanted to be free, he thinks. Free of endless life, of everyone knowing who he was and what happened forever.
Free from the kinslayers, from the high king's court, from his parents, from elves altogether. From the world altogether.
Elrond didn't like any of that either, but he was willing to suffer through it and hang on. After he told Maglor about Elros, he clung even more to Elrond. This would be his only surviving little boy. It had made him weep uncontrollably all the time.
Even now they don't talk about Elros without testing the waters first, both ways. Neither of them want to be capsized into despair out of the blue. Of course Finno doesn't know that, and mentions Elros once when they're all at Feanor's house, leading Elrond to simply walk out. He doesn't even say anything.
Maglor finally gets past his shock and goes after him. His guards are trailing after him with his horse [in case he wants it] as he walks down the street in the distance. Thank you guards, he thinks.
Thankfully, the Feanorean supporters cleaved to Elrond after Maglor and his brother's suicide [well, Maglor's was more like a 'pretty much suicide but not quite' situation by the shore]. Elrond is perilously close to being demi-god in some kind of religion for them.
They tested Elrond's food for him surreptisiously, they followed him, trailed him, kept watch around him.
They also had helped him build his city in middle earth, and then acted as the warrior group protecting the valley, the ones who weren't acting his personal servants instead.
Now that their actual lords are back, alive again, none of them leave Elrond for them. Maglor notes this with approval. They are loyal to Elrond permanently, which he likes. Elrond deserves much more than he's ever gotten in any respect, from anyone or from fate, but this is still good.
In new Rivendell, it's still the same. Gil-Galad told the re-embodied Feanorean supporters, who died during the battle he did, that they could come live at new Rivendell. It went unspoken by all that they were really awaiting Elrond to arrive.
In the mean time, they served the high king as a mark of respect for Elrond. And then when he did arrive, they all switched jobs and went to serve him specifically.
They are especially careful to have people in the kitchens handling Elrond's food. They remember how easy it was for him to become ill before. The way Maglor's people prepared their food had made the little twin boys sick, to the chagrin of all.
So Maglor had asked them to make plain mash, food more fit for farm animals than for princes. And then he'd eaten it with the boys, to everyone's surprise and horror. It looked disgusting.
The boys though, could it eat it and were fine. So forever after that a certain amount of plain food in that manner was set aside for them specifically. Now as an adult Elrond tries the rich, spicy food of the Feanoreans sometimes, but his food is always made plainer on purpose.
His meals are always separate, even if they look the same as others. And they are always prepared separately and delivered separately, for safety. And even still, someone tastes all of his food. You never know.
Who would even want to kill Elrond? Anyone, really. Honestly, even a person from the Havens might want to, thinking Elrond had been brainwashed and bewitched.
Actually, Elrond is careful to never speak of his life, because either narrative [being kidnapped by monsters vs being rescued after his monstrous parents abandoned him during a battle] is going to provoke people.
Eventually Elrond meets Finwe, who tells him he's heard about him.
"It sounds like you are a third my great-grandson by Makalaure, if you don't mind the phrasing," he jests, smiling. "Fingon seems determined to have some type of claim on you as well. I am happy to have even a percentage of a new child in my family. Do you like music like Makalaure does?"
Though Grandfather Finwe looks quite like a king of the ancient elves should look, he seems almost nervous, Maglor thinks. He's seen this look before on elves who are meeting Elrond. For some reason they're intimidated. Even Mahtan seemed nervous when he shook Elrond's hand.
It's all funny, since Maglor knows Elrond and knows how gentle and kind he is. But he also knows he has power of many kinds, and these elves know that too. Elrond's bloodlines make him a great king, and an ainur-style one as well -- and Maglor's obsession with him only adds to his immense theoretical but also real political power.
Elrond looks amused and says, "I do, but I have no skill in it, only in healing."
"Really?" Finwe says, looking interested. "Can I ask you ... about healing."
"Yes, of course," Elrond says. "Do you have any health complaints? Or do you mean the topic in general?"
It turns out Finwe does have health issues, it seems, because he looks uncertainly at Maglor and says, "Could you go to the kitchens and see if they have anything Elrond would like? So I can talk to him for a moment? It will be boring."
Maglor blinks. The table is covered with little sandwiches and cakes already. He turns to Elrond and says, "Indeed, I would like to get out of this conversation. I'll be back."
Elrond nods, understanding the whole situation, and he leaves.
It's interesting how the Feanorean or Finwean elves try to politely recognize his obvious love of Maglor by saying he's related to all of them; while on the flip side Elrond's other two bloodlines try to pretend all that didn't happen and think that clearly Maglor must be his prisoner.
He goes down towards the kitchens and they of course are shocked to see him. He ignores the stares and when a servant addresses him, he asks for some snacks that the king has requested. They bring them up, not letting him carry the trays. Which he's grateful for, really.
He still feels weird about his hand. It's no longer scarred, or causes him pain, but he can't forget it. He knows it doesn't hurt, but he still avoids using it. He's seen Nelyo do the same thing, thinking he has no hand. Sometimes Finno says, "It's there," to remind him gently, and he'll nod, re-remembering.
Nowadays he writes music all the time, and gives it to the singers and players of new Rivendell to do with what they will. He doesn't actually listen to it played often, but well, his 'lover' Glorfindel, if he has to use a word, tells him which ones everyone likes best.
He doesn't really think about it until Elrond starts getting letters he shows him, that are all of people requesting to come into new Rivendell and hear the music that's performed. Apparently word's gotten around enough that elves from all over Aman want to come hear it. Before only nobles came, as a kind of political thing; now normal people are writing, lots of them.
It's not like it's a secret that it's 'Lindir's' music. Everyone in new Rivendell knows that. Everyone from Lindon that's there knows he's Maglor, of course. As do the Feanoreans who serve Elrond, obviously.
"Do you want to let them come?" Elrond asks him.
He twists in his chair, uncomfortable with the idea. "I don't know," he finally says.
This is bigger than just him. There's politics to consider, though he knows little about it. He assumes Gil-Galad and Elrond talk about it.
And his status as ... what he is, is an issue as well. In a way, his existence is still a political problem, even more so because his father lives now. His whole family does, all in their original home to show they get along with his uncle.
And Tylpe lives in Formenos, which they all use as a kind of vacation house/city. Gimli and rarely other dwarves [a few popped over from wherever Aule has them live] work there with him and visit all the time. Legolas is there as well sometimes, as he and Gimli often do things together.
No one quite knows what's going on there, and no one asks. Same for the whole Narvi situation.
The rest of the time, Maglor's heard that the two of them are usually with the ringbearer.
"You don't take students," Elrond points out, "we could say it's in the same vein as that. Or we could say that this music was commissioned by me, and it's for me. So I get to say who hears it."
Maglor shrugs, unable to decide what to do. He doesn't ever take students, though they get endless letters on the topic -- all of them. It's pretty nuts. For a murderer, he's in high demand.
"I want the politics for your king to be good," he says, "but letting lots of people in is a big thing."
Elrond nods. They still keep new Rivendell rather closed, though it's more open than it was at first in Valinor. Typically they all went out if they wanted to see other elves, before.
Now though, some dwarves are allowed in [obviously Gimli always was, the whole time he's been in Valinor], and a few other elves for specific reasons.
To allow huge amounts of people to just show up at the daily concerts that are put on in the valley might not work. But not allowing it could cause an issue where the other elves think Elrond [or Gil-Galad] thinks he's better than them. And everyone knows Elrond kept the last Feanorean people with him.
It's common knowledge at this point that Maglor is Elrond's ward or prisoner -- or something creepy and weird.
No one quite knows, and all seem too 'something' to ask. It's always one of these: hesitant, confused, weirded out. His grandfather Finwe asks him awkwardly once if he likes living with Elrond, or if he'd like to live somewhere else. Because he could help him do the decorating ... and also help him move if so.
It takes a second before he realizes this is a subtle way of him asking if he needs to try to rescue him from Elrond's clutches. "Oh. I do like it there. I choose to be there. It's not like they're clamoring for some messed up relic problem from the ancient past. It would be easier really if I weren't there," he muses.
Finwe tries to interject, but he waves him off and continues. "I wonder if they actually would prefer I go home, or to Tylpe. I've never even thought about it. I needed Elrond before. I guess I ... don't now."
Not that he wants to find out. Elrond's always been his distraction, his unhealthy obsession. His way to express love and feel it in return. He can breathe when he's with him; he's emotionally safe -- from himself.
"Well," Finwe starts, but he keeps going again.
"It does seem weird that I live there even as Earendil does often. Maybe ... Hmm. I'm going to go talk to him about it."
With that, he gets up and goes off to see what Elrond's doing in the library.
Elrond is looking at the shelves while Finwe's servants watch from a distance away.
They look at Maglor when he comes in and he looks back. In their culture, this means he wants something, so one steps forward to acknowledge this. "P-- Leave us," he says, and they rush out.
With his old crowd, he speaks Quenya the old way, the real way. He has to say it slower than usual, due to how he hasn't used it forever. Of course the problem is that he's spent so long saying the 'wrong' or new way, starting from when he taught Elrond, that he often still speaks like that to him, sometimes. It's a habit.
Besides, it wouldn't be good for Elrond to speak in real Quenya, as the other 'non-evil' elves would be appalled. It would be taken as a political statement.
He almost said 'please' to the servants, whoops, which would be weird. That isn't part of their culture, or Maglor's. But it's part of Elrond's. And Maglor is used to it, since Elrond set the tone of both Rivendells [yes, even the second one where he showed up after it was built].
"Find anything?" he asks Elrond, who turns and smiles at him.
"No, I just like looking," Elrond says. "Are you done?"
Yes, he's had enough of grandfather, even though he's nice.
"I am," he says.
"Where do you want to have lunch?" Elrond asks him. "We have several options." Most are standing invites. It goes without saying that any related to Elrond are off the list except for Earendil. And he goes to new Rivendell for food mainly, so.
Melian has told Elrond she doesn't mind if Maglor comes by, but he's too afraid of her and her awe inspiring power. She could hurt him easily. She might not even have enough of an elf's feeling and sensitivity to wait until Elrond wasn't there to do it!
... Also she has many reasons to turn him into a literal bug and step on him.
"Maybe mother is free," he says, and Elrond nods. They often eat with her. She knows about how he eats soft food. So they collect their horses and go to the old area where Feanor's original house was. Nerdanel is often there. Feanor is too, and his sons are usually up there or with Tylpe at Formenos.
"Let's take the back door route, see if she is working in her studio," Maglor says, and his 'son' agrees.
"It's so strange to never have any real injuries to treat anymore. I know it's good, but it's odd," Elrond says as they walk up the streets towards that area. Guards from new Rivendell trail them in the distance, like usual.
"Peace does feel weird," Maglor agrees.
"I suppose we should all really mainly focus on healing the soul, now, instead," Elrond says, "but I never trust anything. So I want to keep up our training and practice of real wounds just in case."
"Yes," he murmurs. "I agree."
"Do you think I should stay at home -- I mean Rivendell," Maglor asks him.
"What do you mean?" Elrond says, confused.
"I don't need to be hidden anymore," Maglor explains. "You all could be free of me, if you wanted."
Elrond turns suddenly and looks at him, squinting. "Well, I like you being there. Who else can I complain about Gil-Galad to, who will take my side instead of his?"
Maglor laughs. Gil-Galad is very good to Elrond, so their arguments are more like 'we haven't had enough beach days recently, wait which beach should we go to?' discussions than actual quarrels. And Elrond doesn't have the temperament to argue with people unless it's important.
"Besides, Glorfindel would be hysterical if you left," Elrond continues. "I don't know how I'd handle it. It would be terrible."
"Well, I'd hate to dump that on you all," Maglor says, and Elrond smiles.
"Do you like him?" he asks. Elrond is probably the only person in the world he would be honest with.
Even mother's a step below. Sorry mother, he thinks.
It's strange, how having your own child changes you. It pivots you from your real family to some new family that's just made up of 'you and child'. Now his first thought of 'his family' is of Elrond [and Elros, and he tries not to think of him because of his sorrow.]
"Well, he's interesting," Maglor prevaricates. "And I like him when he's not so energetic. He likes music, which is a plus. It's flattering how he wants to design clothes based on my songs."
"Is he ... good to you?" he asks.
Maglor nods. "Yes. He's very unusual. Very sleepy. Not what I expected."
They walk through the streets close to mother's house now, almost there. Elrond wears dark colors in public usually, almost black; and Maglor does the same. They wear little adornment when out, either. No trigger colors either -- nothing red [ie Feanor] or blue [ie Earendil].
Obviously no stars of any kind. Then everyone would want a closer look to see: is it a Gil-Galad star, an Earendil star or a Feanor star?
Maglor still dresses in a too-big cloak so he can cover his face when they go out in public. Everyone knows that Feanor and his sons are back again, but he doesn't like to be recognized. It upsets him. Yes that's not as bad as what he did, of course, obviously. But he tries to soothe himself so that he can be the best 'friend' possible to Elrond and Glorfindel ... and not be such a sickly burden.
It was easier before this new world, because he looked so different. Many barely recognized him as an old elf, even.
Even in this new world, he has bad days. He has no scars on his hand now. But he can almost feel the pain sometimes. Like an echo.
Elrond has finally gotten used to how strange he looks, all remade and glowing and healthy, but he hasn't. He actually never looks in the mirror and instead will just ask Glorfindel how he looks.
It's strange to know they're supposed to be in some re-made, perfect world. They go in and greet mother, and Maglor kisses her hand before they hug. It's how he expresses his respect for her, after everything. She then embraces him, which feels nice. It's like being a little kid for a moment.
Elrond bows to her very respectfully, as if she's a queen of the valar and not the wife of a famous evil prince [and evil sons]. She always laughs when he does it and even now says, "A grandson of mine must hug me instead, child, come!"
He smiles and does.
"Eat something. You both always look so slight," Nerdanel tells them, and they follow her into a room the servants have set up for lunch. She allows servants to work for her again nowadays.
They both eat her servants' food out of respect for her. Maglor eats mostly soft food though, still so unused to real food. Elrond has always eaten strangely, but for Nerdanel he eats like a regular elf. No one knows this but Maglor, he thinks.
His mother asks about what's going on in new Rivendell, and they tell her. She asks about Maglor's music, and Elrond's latest book he's reading. It's a nice time. Afterwards they make the trek home to the valley on their horses.
Elrond goes to sleep when they finally get home. Maglor has his old energy back, so unfortunately he cannot rest as easily as he used to. It's a strange, unwelcome feeling.
Glorfindel sits with him in the room beside Elrond's bedroom. Now that they're more intimate together, he likes to lay down and hold him all the time. Maglor's a fan.
Glorfindel seems in good spirits these days, happily kissing him all over when he allows it. It's nice to see how much he enjoys it. Maglor's body seems to appreciate him, and so does the rest of him, so he lets him touch him. It does feel nice.
Thank goodness Glorfindel is still interested despite Maglor not being at death's door anymore, or looking like a weird skeleton. How crazy that he was into that. At least his new body is good for something, since he can only assume Glorfindel will prefer this new prettier one over his real body.
Actually Glorfindel likes many odd things, really. He likes to pick out clothes and suggest Maglor wear them -- but they're mostly plain things Maglor would have worn anyway. So he usually agrees. And he likes to take baths with Maglor, and brush his hair for some insane reason.
It's especially strange since Maglor often still cuts off his hair when he isn't feeling well. So there's barely any of it there in the first place. Elrond always gets worried when he hacks it off again for the millionth time, so he tells him he's okay at those times. He's just dealing with some stuff.
Also weirdly, Glorfindel likes to dry and wash his hair, too. Despite the aforementioned lack of it, usually. Glorfindel is happy to snuggle against him all day while he works on music. It's odd. Who would think he's like that?
Even Elrond does a split-second double take once in a while, Maglor notices.
Maglor finally realizes he doesn't have to eat soft food anymore, but to be honest he feels more comfortable that way. It's been so long since he ate regular food. He's used to soup.
Even with cookies and cake, he pours some tea or drinking chocolate onto it to make it soft.
Elrond tells him he's going to ask their Feanorean people in Rivendell if they want to return to Feanor himself.
"Really?" Maglor says, surprised.
"It seems wrong if I don't," he tells him, shrugging. "They're only here because of you. What if they want to go back to their real lives? He's their real leader, like you are. Maybe they want to go live where they came from."
Maglor blinks. Their real lives were 'going off to die fighting Morgoth after he killed their king, and then the king's son'. This is an improvement on that. They're actually 'only here' because of Elrond himself.
"I can't imagine them wanting to leave, but I agree, I suppose," Maglor finally says. Elrond waits for his counsel; he often does. It takes Maglor some time to think for many of his opinions. "The only people here should be ones who want to be here."
"Do you want to tell them, or should I?" Elrond asks him, and he demurs.
"It must be you, since you're in charge. They came to you as my heir, I assume," Maglor says. "I'm a weird technically dead person, really. In terms of succession."
So Elrond goes and does that. It takes all day because there are so many of them, and he speaks to them all personally. Finally he returns to his rooms, where Maglor is working on some music.
He looks up and smiles to see it's just Elrond. He looks okay.
"What happened?" he asks, and Elrond gives him a bemused look.
"They all want to stay," he tells Maglor, almost confused.
"Well, you are their little lord," Maglor says, with a gentle laugh.
"That's what they said," Elrond says, almost exasperated. "I'm just a random person. I'm practically the enemy, to them."
Maglor shakes his head. "No, child. I died, for all intents and purposes, and the same for my brother, and you are our heir. No matter how you ... got there. Besides, you are much better than us re-- us old ones, you're the next version, the improved version."
Elrond laughs. But he means it; Maglor really does think that. He's a better Feanor descendant than the real ones.
After meeting him, he's only ever been Elrond's servant, if you can call it all that now. Or if you can call parenting that. But it's obvious that Elrond's a much better choice to serve than a true son of Feanor, or even his father himself.
Elrond is flexible, gentle, soothing; he desires very little. He acts like a normal elf among those who destroyed his home and family; he also acts like a commoner despite being one of the highest ranking people they had in real, old Rivendell. He's kind, reliable, almost boring in his lack of need for pomp or power or control or fancy things.
Feanor and his sons are uh ... a little different.
Elrond's Feanoreans are always trying to make him fancy jewels, clothes, shoes, but he never becomes greedy or ostentatious.
He always wears plain clothes, the same ones even, and he never wears jewelry; of course secretly the Feanoreans know he has Maglor and his brother's chests of treasures wrought by Feanor himself. They also know he has what they've made for him, and what Gil-Galad gave him.
But instead he dresses like a poor, low-born elf and rarely looks appropriate for his station, power or level.
They all despair of him ever dressing right, but secretly Maglor thinks they like it, really. They like their humble little lord who has no pride or greed. They like to whine to each other that he dresses too simply, but they are pleased at the same time.
They've seen where pride takes you. ... Nowhere good.
Elrond is better than everyone else in his city, but never acts like it. He and Glorfindel often eat together in his rooms and ask for simple food. Glorfindel too is someone the group approves of, Maglor can tell. He may look the part of what Elrond's supposed to do and be in terms of dress and overall look, but he's quiet too.
He reminds everyone of Elros [in spirit, a little] and no one says anything to each other or obviously to Elrond himself.
The two of them are brothers in arms. They do what Erestor tells them to do, and then they do what they want. Glorfindel teaches people the basics of fighting if they want to learn, and Elrond heals people. Also, he heals the Feanorean supporters' old wounds.
Maglor once asks one of them obliquely about a wound he's sure he remembered them having but that's now clearly long healed. "Lord Elrond looked upon it," the elf tells Maglor with obvious pleasure and awe. "And after his work, it was gone."
Well, Elrond couldn't get rid of them now even if he tried, Maglor thinks. He saves them from his own potential justice, from Gil-Galad's potential punishments, and then he personally heals them and their old wounds. Elrond is a master of cultivating loyalty unwittingly, which makes it even more effective than if someone tried.
Maglor knows without asking that the Feanoreans here in new Rivendell feel like they got a great bargain. They're technically perfectly loyal, as they promised to be -- it just so happens that it's to someone that's the best person ever. It's sheer luck that they got to cleave to Elrond, and serve him as a kind of 'Feanorean heir, uh, kind of, let's all go with it, cause he's kind of an improvement on the real ones ... and also they're all dead'.
Elrond doesn't even know how to act like a ruler of old. He's friends with his servants, not only with his equals in power and bloodline. He talks to the elves who garden and raise and butcher animals, the people who do menial tasks, the lady who cleans the fancy bathrooms in his area of the house just as easily as he talks to the Lady Galadriel. Elrond likes to talk to them.
He gets to know all of them. As a child Maglor kept the boys with him most of the time, except for when he brought them to lessons in all different areas. Back then he'd had everyone they had teach the children everything they possibly could. Now, Elrond can truly know everyone personally, instead of just knowing his lessons.
Even when Rivendell was being built, Maglor finds out over time time that Elrond and Glorfindel literally slept with the regular Feanoreans in a rough tent until there were some better structures to sleep in.
Despite both of them being the most important people there by several leagues and also areas, they both acted and still act like they're regular elves.
Maglor is personally aware that none of the Feanoreans have ever interacted that way with their lords. Elrond's manner is strange, disconcerting, adorable, sweet. To them he seems like an eternal child that happens to be tall, and his supposed mortal-ish frailty simply makes them all look after him even more.
Of course he is weirdly both more powerful and magically stronger than a regular elf and weaker in body at the same time. He usually dresses very warmly, and isn't extremely hardy.
But Maglor knows that part of it is that Elrond doesn't want to use magic or power unless he really needs to. He likes to have it sit there, banked up and unused, in case of emergency. So for the majority of the time he suffers the annoyance of being 'less' than a regular elf.
Maglor likes when he sees that the Feanorean are very loyal to him; once he had accidentally asked for tea, and a servant had told him that 'Lord Elrond already asked for it to be sent in later, but did Lindir want something else instead currently?'
Because to them, now, Elrond outranked him permanently. He could not change tea time.
He is glad of it. He doesn't want to deal with people, or power or anything. He wants to be an unremarkable assistant to Elrond, to stay hidden.
Even Gil-Galad does him the favor of never saying anything invasive to him, like ask about what he's done, or how he took the twin boys or why he's still living here with Elrond. He doesn't seem to resent his presence, thank goodness.
It must be annoying to live with your husband's foster-father. Who's evil.
Finally Maglor has to come home early one day from visiting his family -- by this point he only goes with some Rivendell elves of the Feanorean persuasion. He's clearly upset but says he just 'felt like coming home'.
Eventually he tells Elrond that his younger brothers finally challenged him on how he never wears red or their star or lives with them all.
"I may have told them to fuck off," Maglor informs him grimly. "When I left, Finno looked like he was going to go over the table and choke some of them out. Nelyo looked like he was going to let him."
He leaves out that his brothers have no issue talking about what happened, or the oath, or the silmarils, or their enemies [back then]. Or the fighting.
Maglor can't bear to hear about all that. It nauseates him. Also, they shouldn't talk about the past in front of Neylo, in case it upsets him -- that's very important.
"We could always invite Finno and Maedhros to stay here, in their own house, if you would like it," Elrond suggests, and he agrees. After so long of Finno being in new Rivendell with them most of the time, it feels weird that he's been gone.
So they work on setting up a house just for the two of them, for privacy, and they make sure it's far away from Earendil's house, for obvious reasons.
Maglor sends Nelyo a letter to invite them, having Elrond write a few words at the bottom to co-sign the idea and show he wants them there too.
Sure enough, they show up quite quickly with a small amount of stuff. That's fine, since the Feanoreans there are happy to make clothes and goods for both of them. Glorfindel and Gil-Galad contribute lots of clothes for them to use in the meantime, as they pick out what they'd like to be made for them with the tailors.
Finno especially is very excited to be asked to come. They are both interested to see their private house, all the things in it, the rooms. Elrond explains the routine of new Rivendell to Nelyo and gives him a map of where everything is. [Finno had more exposure to new Rivendell after he was re-embodied before, so he doesn't need this level of introduction.]
He also shows them the fancy parts of their house in terms of technology and the healing potions he already put in the kitchen in a special cupboard. They all know these are for if Nelyo has any health problems -- despite his long convalescence in Mandos, he is still a bit slower and quieter now; and his new hand has to be adjusted to.
Then Maglor and Elrond leave them. They go back to their main rooms, where Glorfindel is trying to play a harp; in all this time of practicing, he's barely improved. Maglor privately despairs of him ever learning.
Though he has warmed to him, in other ways. He is flattered by his attention, his desire. He likes it. He still lectures Glorfindel on how he needs to get with someone worth his well, everything.
His level of heroism, his attractiveness, his goodness, his prowess in all areas.
Unfortunately, Glorfindel never seems to take these talks to heart. He likes to hold him, and just lay there, snuggling. It's pretty weird. He does sometimes want to get intimate, but not very often. Maglor goes with the flow. He doesn't mind, it's actually nice to spend time with Glorfindel, regardless of what they are doing.
After all this time, his body finally feels a little desire. The first time Glorfindel snuggled him and he felt passionate, himself, Glorfindel was surprised, since that had never happened before.
Apparently going crazy and being practically dead removes physical desire from the body or something. But now, even he feels it sometimes. That he wants more. Glorfindel is very obliging. Especially with how he lets Maglor touch him first, so that he can be second. He usually falls asleep directly afterwards, and it feels very good.
He's not used to feeling this good. The ecstasy of release is a revelation after all this time. And he likes that it's with Glorfindel, someone he trusts and cares for.
Glorfindel is more than just a lover, he helped heal him. He took care of him. He wouldn't let anyone kill him, even now. It's soothing to be near him. And also to lay in his arms in a warm bed.
The presence of Glorfindel means everything is okay, and safe, and this is the [only] good time period Maglor's lived through.
Feanor writes Elrond letters, strangely. Elrond tells Maglor about this of course, who shrugs. He rarely understands his father, he's told him before. "He likes children, and grandchildren, very much," Maglor tells Elrond.
They go up to see Elrond's 'grandmother' Nerdanel once in a while. Feanor is often there, and Elrond talks about books with him. Always Feanor tells him to borrow more books. He alone knows how important Elrond is, other than Maglor -- because a vala came and told him what Elrond did.
Maglor figures out that his father knows that Elrond broke the oath curse eventually. His first clue is that Feanor treats Elrond with special respect, even above how he would treat another 'grandchild'.
He treats him extra nice, almost like an equal weirdly, and scolds Finno for mentioning Elros [after Elrond leaves the house abruptly, due to that, silently].
Everyone is shocked at the time, as none even understand that he grasps who Elrond is in the first place, much less his dead brother. Most of Maglor's brothers barely know who Elrond is; he's some weird kid Maglor has following him around for some reason.
Nelyo has to leave with Finno after that and they both go to new Imladris, because Finno is so upset to know that it's he himself that's angered little peaceable Elrond. Of all people.
He has Nelyo ask Maglor first, on if he thinks he can go apologize directly now or if he should wait. Or do a letter. It's a big question.
Maglor tells them to let Elrond cool off from it all first. He knows how Elrond feels as he feels a maelstrom of feelings about Elros too.
Finally he tells him mind to mind that Finno wants to apologize; he doesn't need to mention why, as that is obvious. Elrond twists his face in an instinctive reaction of distaste. He's glad Nelyo has him but it's weird to see your 'family-like member' be so obviously in love with someone.
Apparently it's different with Maglor and Glorfindel, as everyone thinks Glorfindel wants to sleep with an orgy's worth of people every day. He's just got that look, that energy.
Of course Maglor knows the truth is different. Glorfindel's image is not what he's like in real life.
Elrond finally says, "Could you tell him there is nothing to forgive, I forgot it moments after it happened. I am very unpredictable for a moment if people mention ... that 'subject'."
"Of course," Maglor says. "Finno seems much grieved to have done anything wrong."
Upsetting, he thinks, but does not say.
Elrond nods. "It is innocent, as is he."
Maglor rises and goes and tells Finno. "But I must say sorry to him," he tries to convince Maglor.
"No, it is done," Maglor explains. "That would only make things worse. Forget it ever occurred."
Finno does not like this idea obviously, from his manner, so Maglor turns to Nelyo and says, "Don't let him" with his mind to his. "Tell him that subject is banned. For Elrond, and for me, too!"
Neylo nods.
He leaves, and walks back to Elrond's rooms. It's a long way, but he doesn't feel concerned he'd get tired as he knows there are Feanorean guards that follow him at a distance. Really it's just for his own safety, especially in terms of health, for him specifically. He doesn't mind. It makes him feel better. He doesn't have to worry.
He come back in after his walk to see Gil-Galad there, clearly trying to cheer Elrond up. Elrond glances over at him and Maglor tells him, "I put Neylo on the case after getting some pushback."
Maglor can see that Elrond understands. He can also see that Gil-Galad is not happy with his clear failure to both find out why Elrond is pissed and/or make him feel better.
He makes to leave, and Maglor follows him out, asking, "Could I walk with you for a moment, and ask you about some of your harpists?"
"Of course," the high king says, surprised. It doesn't make sense that Maglor would ask, since he's the best musician in Valinor. [Poor Daeron, he thinks, that would have been some competition for him.]
"I was wondering how many harps your people have here, that aren't personally owned, and what styles, and sizes," he continues, until they're out of earshot of Elrond's room.
"Finno mentioned Elros," he says into Gil-Galad's mind, who startles and looked at him. "It will take some time for him to relax."
Thankfully, life in new Rivendell is quite laid back. Elrond doesn't actually 'have' to do anything at all.
Gil-Galad nods.
Elrond decides to let a certain amount of people into new Rivendell -- they all want to hear the music. They all know it's Maglor's music. Gil-Galad officially announces to his grandfather and relatives that he personally can invite people in. So they all send him letters.
Maglor is grateful for the subterfuge and also that it's not him that's being bombarded with letters. He of course stays out of sight when there are foreigners in the valley, especially now. Elrond tells him they all want to come back and want to bring more people, because the music is so popular.
It is nice that his music is liked.
Really though he writes it for himself. Even with no audience, he would do it. Maglor stays away from the rest of his brothers, who send him letters once they realize he's not around, and isn't showing up when they're there anymore. His father sometimes comes to new Rivendell to hear the music with his own brothers, Maglor's uncles, who apparently like to listen to it. Maglor knows his father is not a music person, he likes other things.
After all this time, Glorfindel tells him how people thought he sang by the beach like some type of magical ghost when he was actually insane, starving and dying. And trying to die. How funny, he thinks. He wasn't well enough to do that then.
Nelyo asks him to play for him sometimes when he's feeling tired; he'll have Finno go and ask a servant to ask Maglor to come play some music. The Feanoreans of Elrond have en masse decided to ignore Nelyo being their old lord in the same way they pretend Maglor isn't there. Nelyo likes it, but finds it weird.
Though they still linger near his house on various pretexts that are technically all legitimate, in case he or Finno need help, medical attention, or just a servant for whatever reason. Like one works on a garden for them of flowers, and others do menial tasks or bring them food.
Finno is still in the habit of taking care of him, and even though he has his hand back, he's not used to using it or having it, so he rarely moves it. Elrond's already working with him so that he'll be able to use it more in the future.
Earendil still visits Maglor, but now since he's living at new Rivendell a lot of the time, he hears the concerts in person and tells Maglor his opinions on different songs face to face.
Nelyo doesn't meet Earendil or anyone else they killed or adversely affected, mostly due to everyone else being worried -- for his sake and for the other people's sakes.
Nelyo can be very inflexible sometimes, and no one wants to find out if one of those times is him telling Earendil that Elrond is his and Magor's son, and he can suck it. Because Elrond'll never love him; he never even knew him.
No one asks him about it, just in case.
While Earendil eagerly talks to Maglor and writes to Nerdanel, he makes sure not to go near Finno or Maedhros -- or Feanor, when he's around. He didn't talk too much to Fingon in Valinor before, either. No one knows why. Elrond finally asks him privately who he wants to meet if anyone, and he says no one.
"I'm not good with people," he tells Elrond. "I was terrible in the Havens, at being a ruler with your -- ... my wife. I couldn't wait to leave and sail. It's like you're everything good of our blood, and I'm the opposite."
"You've done many great things," Elrond corrects him gently, but he shakes his head.
"It was lucky Maglor took you," Earendil admits. "He made, makes, a much better father than me. I barely know him, and even I can tell. He'd do anything for you. I couldn't even stay. In a way I knew what I was doing ... it just felt unbearable to stay."
"You could only breathe when you were in nature, on the water," Elrond adds, and he nods, surprised at his words. "I felt that way too, in regular cities. I was always outside, or in the healing areas, which were usually located near fresh air. My Rivendell, the real one, was designed to make one feel they were existing in nature instead of an elven city of old."
"That's exactly how I felt," Earendil murmurs. He didn't expect Elrond to empathize with him. Only despise him.
"Well, blood will tell, I suppose," Elrond says and smiles. "We are the same, then. I just like to be near water, not on it."
Earendil is very pleased by this, to have even a little tiny commonality with his son, and Elrond tells Maglor all about it.
So the next time he's going through books with him, and Earendil asks Maglor if he likes being in nature, or the sea, he knows exactly what to say. Not only is it true, it will make Earendil feel better.
Maglor can tell that it pains him to have no similarities to his son. Elrond has no interest in his strengths of being a great warrior, an adventurer and also a sailor.
"I've never really cared for water," Maglor tells him. "The boys always did, of course. They loved it. And my more recent time by the ocean in middle earth was terrible. Thankfully my mind retained few memories of being insane near it."
Earendil nods, discomfited. Most elves are too, only being able to imagine madness and that type of death.
"Oh, I forgot for a moment -- what happened here, when you fell into ... " Earendil suddenly blurts out, horrified.
Into the water.
It takes a second for Maglor to figure out what he means, and then he does. When Elwing came to show him the stone, here in new Rivendell. And he jumped into the river to get away.
"When she came here, you mean," he realizes, and Earendil nods, blanching a little. "I do not begrudge her it. How could I," Maglor says calmly. "And it was a great opportunity to find out that it does not call to me. I am free from being cursed now."
"I have ... I have often thought who can say what they would do, have done, in your shoes, all of you," Earendil tells him, which is generous of him, Maglor thinks.
"I have thought that of her," Maglor parries, and Earendil looks surprised. "I never expected to have a family, so being around ... the children, it changed me so much. All I could think about was doing right by them, being good to them. It saved me."
"I wish I had been better for them. Look what happened," Earendil tells him somberly.
"We took your whole opportunity from you," Maglor says, trying to be kind.
But he shakes his head. "No, I took it away," Earendil says miserably. "I failed them. Why he pretends to be nice to me, I don't know. It's all a joke. The people here must laugh to see me. And you're always nice to me. What you must think of me. And him -- how he must hate me," he finally stops and puts his hands over his face.
Maglor gingerly hugs him, and his aura seems like he likes it.
"I always told him good things about you, and how complex the situation was. He's always known that you are a great hero," Maglor soothes him.
"To all but my own family," Earendil says, full of self-hatred. "What happened to you, and what you did, didn't stop you from being a great parent to the other side's child during a war. You didn't beat me by an inch, you beat me by a million miles. I wish I didn't have to know I am myself. I feel such shame."
"This is a new world now," Maglor tries to comfort him. "You can be someone new. The past was bad for everyone, but now you are free. I know he values you."
"Does he ever say anything nice about me," Earendil asks, a little piteously.
"Yes of course," he says, "all the time. He's always happy he has gotten the chance to know you. He always wanted to meet you."
Earendil eventually calms down, and looks embarrassed. "Do you know, I've been all jumbled up mentally for a long time still?" Maglor asks him, to spare him the shame of it, and he shakes his head. "At first I was so ill, I wasn't really awake. I was just dumb and silent. Elrond tried to help, only he could have saved me, I'm sure. And then I woke up eventually, and cried all the time. I still do. Sometimes I cut my hair off when I get upset."
This is a sufficient distraction, which is good.
Earendil is surprised by the hair thing, because elves don't cut it much, and they definitely don't cut it short. Here in Aman everyone's hair is super long, too [of those that haven't returned from middle earth, mostly].
Maglor tells Elrond everything; he's surprised his father is so emotionally volatile. He himself has never been like that, even when he was a child. At least Fingon is better now, and off with Nelyo, so they don't need to deal with him [his emotions] too.
Of course, Maglor privately thinks that Elrond might be calmer than his father due to his life -- how he tried to heal both Maglor and his brother and others as a little kid. Healing requires calm. Elrond shouldn't have been around people so wounded and ill in the first place.
"I prefer my hair short, or at least shorter than elves seem to like," Earendil says to him.
Maglor nods.
"You know, if you want to, you could come sail sometime. In the sea or the air," Earendil adds.
This surprises Maglor. "I don't think I should leave here. It's best I stay out of sight," he explains to Earendil, who looks confused. "I know I go out sometimes, but that's with a whole platoon of people guarding me. So no one will get nervous."
"Why would anyone get nervous?" Earendil asks, befuddled, seemingly, at this idea.
Maglor laughs bitterly. "Because I'm very, very evil and have done very bad things," he tells him mildly. Sometimes he worries that Elrond got his kindly and forgiving streak from Earendil, who seems to be too gentle for his own good and/or survival.
"But ... " he says, in disbelief. Probably thinking 'you look too tired and/or dead inside'.
"I know you know me as sickly," Maglor explains, "but I was the reason my brothers got as far as they did. Not in planning or strategy or something, but in sheer violence. My music lets me access power in a way my brothers cannot."
"But it's just music," Earendil says. "And you're so ... not energetic."
Maglor smiles at him. "Thank you for the polite phrasing. I'm not into bloodshed, that's true. But when it's to protect my brothers, my people, against the enemy -- then it turns out that I'm frightfully successful. When I use music as a weapon, people wish they die quickly. It's gross."
Earendil blinks.
"I'm not hiding in here randomly," Maglor adds gently. "I'm a monster. That's why I've been living here under a fake name."
"I can't imagine you doing things like that," Earendil tells him seriously. "You don't seem like that."
"I wish I hadn't," he says, still bitter.
"Surely though, you don't need to hide anymore," Earendil says naively. "That was so, so long ago. And the world's been remade, since."
Maglor looks at him and laughs. "I somehow doubt the elves whose last memories are of dying in excruciating pain because of me would like to see me. Or the families I ruined. Or the children who grew up without parents."
He points vaguely out towards the door. "It's not like it's not obvious that Elros chose to die due to what I did. I will never see him again. Even if it was just him bitching at me. And he never got to meet his parents, as you obviously know. I ruined the boys' lives. They were the only people I've ever loved, other than Nelyo and my parents."
Earendil awkwardly comes over and hugs him, which feels weird.
"Are you not listening?" Maglor asks into his shoulder, just to make sure. This is not the appropriate response.
"You are the only good thing to come out of that whole long bad situation," he tells Maglor. "You saved innocent children. Even if you hadn't been there, Sirion would have fallen. But you were there, and saved the boys, and Elrond helped the fight against Morgoth. You set off a chain of good events with your goodness. And I got to meet Elrond, because of you. One is better than none."
Maglor pauses, surprised. He just can't kill this guy's optimism, can he, he thinks wryly.
Sometimes Nelyo asks Maglor to come over to his house, and sends Finno out to try and then also fetch him the latest food Elrond's people have invented or created or whatever. "It's just a ruse," Nelyo tells him when Finno's gone. "To get him out of the house. I think he won't leave, but it will do him well to, for little spells."
Well, that's obvious, since servants bring them food. Although hopefully Finno doesn't think this is a flare up of paranoia or hysteria on Nelyo's part or something.
Maglor mhmms in agreement. "You've cut your hair again," Nelyo notes.
"Yes," he agrees.
"Why?" Nelyo asks.
He shrugs. "I go through times when I want it short, it makes me feel better," Maglor explains.
Nelyo accepts this as the final word on the subject.
"How is Elrond taking it, me being alive again -- all of us," Nelyo asks.
Maglor shrugs. "Fine, I think. It's been a long time."
Nelyo nods, and begs off, saying he wants to sleep. So Maglor waits outside thinking about a current song he's been working on until Finno re-appears.
Earendil eventually starts talking to Elrond's cleaning lady. Specifically, she cleans Elrond's personal room, which always looks like a hurricane went through it due to how Maglor, Glorfindel and Elrond are always there, and Erestor too.
The two of them go on walks together sometimes, and people report this to Elrond, who tells them he does not want to know, it's their business and it's not his right to be spying on two random people. And not to tell him.
... So they just tell Maglor.
Since the world was remade, all elves are aware that their old vows are void and gone, so some elves re-marry [like Feanor and Nerdanel] and many divorce. Earendil is obviously in the latter category.
Of course they aren't two 'random' people -- one is a Feanorean supporter kinslayer and the other one is one of the victims [kind of] of some of those kinslayings.
Both of the people in question ask Maglor if Elrond knows and what he thinks, and he repeats what he's said to them. They take this as the blessing that it was meant as.
No one else in elvendom approves of this -- or rather would if they knew, but Earendil talks to basically no one outside of a few people in new Rivendell.
And Elrond's people don't talk to those outside their own, Elrond-loyal Feanorean group.
Eventually the two of them hang out all the time. They try to keep their friendship extremely secret. Elrond doesn't even know her real name, as most Feanoreans used fake ones at Rivendell.
'Lindir' being called that just confirmed to them that they were smart to do so. They all carefully don't ask questions or say more about that name.
The lady goes and visits with him in his house sometimes, and still does her usual light work of looking after Elrond's disheveled room. She goes to see Elrond and tells him what's going on, and he tells her, smiling, "That's not my business. And if you get tired of him, which I can understand, please don't leave me. I don't want to have to get used to another cleaner coming in here."
In the interim, Maglor finds himself enjoying being with Glorfindel. It's kind of nice to have someone want to hold you and kiss you and take a romantic bath with you.
It's nice how he wants to see him and talk to him. With Glorfindel he can admit things he doesn't always feel like saying to Elrond. Though they are very brutally honest with each other, truly. He can talk about how he kind of wishes he'd faded away as nothing, or been killed and gone to Mandos.
How that now seems like a kinder fate than his actual life.
Of course the Feanorean elves in new Rivendell eagerly attack all the work that has to be done, so there is little left. They have work as a vocation, unlike the elves of Lindon, who bemusedly observe this strange phenomenon.
They continue keeping their perimeter around Elrond, and trying his food, and everything. Maglor likes to travel with Elrond once in a while, mostly to his mother's house. Nerdanel, that is. Obviously not Elrond's mother.
Honestly, everything goes pretty well until Maglor gets over confident and travels without Elrond. He goes with his brother and Fingon to see his grandfather.
It's eerie to be there. Creepy.
It makes him feel like he's a boy again, and his real life never happened. Of course, then that just makes him think of what did happen. What he did, saw, felt.
Maglor feels less and less happy to be there until he wanders off and ends up in a deserted corner of a library room.
He squeezes himself into a little corner of the room, behind a bookshelf and tries to sleep for a moment.
Being here with everyone from the first age makes him keep thinking about back then. Back when he wasn't stained forever. Back when he was happy.
He puts the medical candy he brought with him in his mouth; it has an strange handle or end to it so it can't be swallowed by accident. Maglor falls into blissful unconsciousness.
Later he wakes up and Elrond is there. That's nice, he thinks, still drugged. Elrond asks him some simple questions mind to mind.
Leter he really wakes up with full consciousness does he realize exactly how long he was out. "What happened?" he asks Elrond.
"You went missing," Elrond explains. "Finno and Nelyo couldn't find you, nor could Finwe. He called Feanor to help, and Nelyo called me. I found you hidden in a storage room. What do you remember?"
Maglor blinks. "I just wanted to rest for a minute," he explains, trailing off. He hadn't meant for them all to think something happened to him. "I got uncomfortable. It was all too reminiscent of when I was young. I kept thinking about ... everything. History. I used a candy to go to sleep."
More like pass out, of course.
Elrond nods. "You cannot keep that in your mouth for that long a time. It's not meant for that."
"Oh," Maglor says, understanding. "I put myself into a deep sleep, kind of, is that it?"
"Yes," Elrond says. "Your father was very worried, and Nelyo, and so were the rest of them."
"Well, this is embarrassing," Maglor says, and quirks the side of his mouth at Elrond. "I'll have to admit I knocked myself out for all that time by accident."
"Can I call Nelyo and your father," Elrond asks, and he says okay.
His father appears pretty quickly. "Has the doctor cleared you," he jokes quietly, and Makalaure smiles at his father.
It's taken a lot of time, but he's closer to him now. Maglor still lives with Elrond, despite being aware that everyone in the whole of elvendom takes that as a sign of his rejection of his real family.
Well, they're not totally wrong. At this point it's less like he adopted/stole Elrond and more like Elrond has taken him hostage permanently. And he's willing ... and he actually can consent, if one must get into details.
He likes to be free in new Rivendell with his fake name and his child [Elrond] and his friend, Glorfindel. He likes to hear the waterfalls all the time, a soothing reminder of where he is. It's safe, Elrond's safe, he's safe.
"This is embarrassing," Maglor tells his father, who looks surprised. "Because the truth is I accidentally took too much of a medicine and did this to myself without realizing it."
Feanor blinks. "Well, at least your little boy could fix you," he says, clearly trying to find a positive take on the story.
"We can't say he's mine unless we're in our house," Maglor corrects, and Feanor nods.
Maglor knows his correction is in vain; everyone from the first age thinks of Elrond as that half the time, but he is spoken of in an awed voice due to his bloodlines and power. Elrond's gentle demeanor and unintimidating look is something everyone attributes to his mortal frailty and it weirdly highlights his oddness, his un-elf-ness, his ainur blood and magic.
His softness really emphasizes his untouchableness. Maglor has seen him do magical things many times, even absentmindedly, like when walking he'll walk above the ground by accident, hovering in the air.
Later Maglor goes in and tells his grandfather the king what happened. At this point, all of his father's step-brothers are there. They all looked disturbed and upset by what happened. It's like they don't grasp that it was an innocent mistake.
Elrond says he is taking him home and none dare speak against him; of course what they don't see is that Maglor tells him he wants to go. Maglor just doesn't want to say that in front of his grandfather and father, because he doesn't want to hurt their feelings.
Elrond doesn't mind that everyone thinks he has some weird revenge/possession complex with and against Maglor for obvious reasons. They've talked about it.
So off they ride, back to new Rivendell. Finno and Nelyo come with them; they'd both been pale and silent when he saw them after Elrond found him and woke him up. They still are on the ride home.
Instead of going to their own house in the valley, the two of them follow Elrond to his rooms with Glorfindel and Maglor. Glorfindel of course knew the second Elrond felt he was alright, as he mind speaks to him all the time; he was the one outside the room, guarding it but also there to help Elrond with healer things if he needed help.
Nelyo is extremely upset with what happened. Finally Glorfindel privately tells Maglor the truth -- that everyone couldn't decide between being scared someone had killed Maglor or that he had killed himself. And that was before Elrond showed up.
"I've never seen people get out of someone's way faster; it was almost impressive, how afraid people were of Elrond," Glorfindel says to him. "Finwe looked nauseous. I suppose he didn't know what Elrond would do if he didn't produce you somehow. We all went looking for you; your father came too and was looking with everyone else."
Many seem to think Maglor's association [or whatever's going on, few actually know] with Elrond means Elrond himself is now more dangerous, which is ironic. It's not Elrond that would viciously wipe out elves without a second thought if they threatened someone he loved. It's Maglor who has done that, and worse, and now would again if Elrond were threatened.
Also, Elrond already has Glorfindel as his personal guardian as well as a literal army of Feanoreans that view him as a literal savior.
No one knows about him and Glorfindel, not even Nelyo or Finno. And of course not his parents. Glorfindel finally met with his own parents, and his people from Gondolin more often as time went on in Valinor. And he went with Elrond to visit Elrond's ancestors from there as well.
But generally he eschews them all and likes to live in new Rivendell instead of where all of his own new people are. Maglor has gotten used to his love, his presence, his jokes. His aura, his smile, the feeling of being held by him, or doing the same back. Glorfindel likes it when he touches him gently on his skin, his neck, his hair, anywhere really.
It's funny, because this isn't what he'd think Glorfindel was into if he didn't know him. He's a huge, tough looking elf. Really he looks more like Feanor or Finwe in stature than any regular person. Compared to Elrond he looks enormous.
They have a steady stream of visitors there to hear the music in new Imladris, so Maglor stays in his secret rooms -- they connect to Elrond's but are often used if any of them wants to hide.
... One would assume that only Maglor would need or want to do that, but one would be surprised.
Earendil sends him a letter saying he doesn't like all the new people being around all the time, especially since they all like to talk to him and bow to him. "I don't care for it," he tells Maglor. "It's like I have to hide out at my house, here. It was nice of Elrond to give me one."
Maglor nods, understanding. Today is one of the 'free' days when no visitors are present, so Earendil has come over from his house to see Elrond and Maglor.
Elrond is currently outside playing badmitten with Glorfindel, and losing terribly since he's been forbidden from using his magic to cheat, so they're alone. He's not good at sports.
"Were they cute children?" Earendil asks Maglor as he tries some little cakes, since it's tea time. They'd had some extra food sent up on account of Earendil's presence.
"Yes," Maglor says. Tears come to his eyes just thinking of them as little boys. It's terrible to think what he did to them; it's worse to think of what could have happened to them if he hadn't found them. "They were very sweet. Elrond once said I was his favorite teacher, which is good, because I was his only teacher at the time. Later of course I had him learn from many people, in many areas."
Earendil takes this in.
"At first I didn't know who they were," he confesses. "I thought they were random kids. It took us all an embarrassingly long amount of time to figure it out."
"What did you call them?" Earendil says. "Not their names, then?"
"No, I made up names for them," Maglor explains.
"What were they?" he asks, interested.
"I'm sure they were too young to remember this," Maglor says, to make Earendil feel better. "So he wouldn't know about it now. I called Elrond in Quenya 'my diamond' and Elros I called 'my adventurer', because he was very energetic back then. And Elrond was very, well, magical seeming. I thought. Precious."
Earendil nods, absorbing this while Maglor tries some of the new beverages the kitchen has come up with. Elrond has asked them before to let them try new recipes on certain occasions. The three of them often enjoy that, testing them out.
Mostly he called them 'my darling', Maglor thinks. Or 'my little darling'. He still does sometimes when it's just him and Elrond.
"Do you want to try it, the sharing memories," Maglor asks him, and Earendil says yes hesitantly. "I have little skill with magic of this kind, so I may not do well, or have to start, or stop, abruptly. I don't know how long I can do it at once."
"That's fine," Earendil hastens to assure him. Maglor closes his eyes and tries to show him some memories of the boys when they were young.
He breathes in deeply, and out. He can hear the waterfalls in the distance. Think of then, he tells himself. Show it to another mind.
He thinks of the boys looking at flowers outside; of Elrond magically making all sorts of plants grow; of Elros running around playing; of Elrond trying to touch his harp and it sounding terribly; of the boys eating their desserts at dinner with Maglor. Of them with their soft toys, playing together with the early, unintelligible speech of toddlers.
He thinks of Elrond when he told him he healed someone well, and how excited he was. Maglor had known that elf had been thought well into death with no hope of recovery; instead Elrond had shocked the whole settlement into silence with his success at healing grievous wounds.
I feel very tired, Maglor thinks. And passes out.
Later he wakes up and finds Elrond there. "How did it go," Elrond asks him.
Elrond seems calm, so it can't be that bad. "I thought alright, I got tired and went to sleep, I think," Maglor explains.
He nods. "My father was worried you'd hurt yourself somehow and came and got us after he came out of his daze." From the look on Elrond's face, he's leaving out the details.
"Is he well?" Maglor asks. "It must have been strange. You were very cute in my memories."
Elrond rolls his eyes fondly. "He was sad in general, I think. But he will be alright."
Maglor understands. To think of his darling child stolen from him, and then to only see him from an enemy's memories; it must feel terrible. Earendil often seems overcome with sorrow randomly. Maglor knows the feeling in a way other elves probably do not. Ironic.
Instead of avoiding him, or being angry, Earendil comes by all the time just to have a friend, it seems like. Glorfindel kindly tries to include him as well in whatever he's up to, if he likes.
Nowadays, when there are festivals or events when everyone by custom and tradition wears the images, colors, symbols of their house, Elrond wears Nelyo's copper circlet as well as a Numenorean plain brooch. And also he wears a necklace Idril gave him, with his real father's star on it, and the colors of Elwing's lineage on his robes.
It looks insane, all together. But Elrond simply glides by, totally at ease and this cows everyone's shocked looks. Of course normal elves have one symbol at best, typically.
Maglor hears him offer Nelyo back his circlet if he wants it -- "Glorfindel says it will look good with that outfit you wore the day before last," he hears Elrond tell him, and Nelyo laughs.
How beautiful, to hear that sound, he thinks. Before this, Elrond's worn no adornment [of the family symbol kind] usually and skirted around those holidays, claiming he had to work in the healing rooms.
"No, child," Nelyo tells him. "I like you having it."
Maglor smiles to himself. It is nice to see Elrond wearing something of theirs.
Finally Tylpe comes to new Rivendell and sees Gil-Galad, and Elrond. Frodo decides not to meet him.
Same for Maglor. Of course Tylpe hasn't been educated by Nelyo or Feanor on how things are, so he point blank asks Gil-Galad and Elrond what Maglor's doing in new Rivendell.
"Shouldn't he be at home? With everyone? Why is he here?" he asks Elrond, baffled.
"Nelyo and Finno have a house here too," Elrond says mildly; Maglor can hear him from the other room. "Maglor apparently likes it here. It's the waterfalls, I think. Also, people really like his songs."
Tylpe is very confused. He finally goes away, and Maglor relaxes. He has no interest in his brother's son. Really, before he found his twin boys, he'd barely noticed Tylpe. He'd been busy with his music writing, and performing, and with teaching Finno how to play the harp.
Funny how the latter turned out to be helpful later. It had been terrible though, back then, when so many people thanked him for doing that. It had just been sad all around.
It's true though, he does like the waterfalls. He knows Elrond likes them too. Even when he found them as little boys, they had been playing in the water; he's not said to Earendil 'clearly the love of water runs in the blood', though. Not to withhold happiness or comfort from him, but because the big example is Elros sailing to his island, and loving sailing.
They try not to talk about him.
Earendil can cry and cry about him, wretchedly, and he didn't even know him. Maglor keeps himself from being upset in front of Elrond's real father. It would seem wrong to do otherwise.
Of course, he actually knew Elros to mourn him. So he's even more invested in not thinking about him, fearful of falling into an abyss of sadness he cannot climb out of. He doesn't think even Elrond could pull him out -- he'd pull Elrond in.
Once in a great while Elwing asks Elrond if she can sit in the garden with the Elros statue, and then does. Maglor makes sure to stay hidden then, even now. It just makes him feel better. She did write a thank you letter to Nerdanel for making it, which was nice of her, they all felt.
They also have to hide from the Lindon elves and foreigners [metaphorically] and people like Elrond's parents a fact about blessings -- normal elf marriages or ceremonies invoke the valar, or ask for their blessing.
The Feanorean supporters hate the valar for their evil, their incompetence, their impotence. Their malice. So they all have always asked Elrond to bless them or whatever's going on instead. It seems to make sense really since he has ainur blood anyway. He's 'their maia-ish person'. The only 'good one' in their eyes.
At some point, Feanor's sons who don't know Elrond all realize as a group that Maglor having a 'child' means that they all have a nephew they don't know. So they ask Elrond to come with Makalaure to Feanor's house and introduce himself to them all.
"We all saw Tylpe as a kid, but we don't know anything about you," Amras says, as others of them agree.
Elrond sits beside Makalaure in a room with a lot of chairs and sofas. "I filled my room with frogs once," he says simply. "Illusions of them. Not real ones."
Makalaure smiles to hear it. Elrond does not take follow up questions, simply ignoring Makalaure's rambunctious brothers [Nelyo not counted of course]. The other sons of Feanor are startled by his mention of illusions, of course, having no magical power themselves.
"Makalaure unfairly forbid me from eating only cookies for every meal," Elrond continues. "I couldn't believe it."
Maglor won't tell his brothers or father or mother, or anyone, things about Elrond unless he approves it off a list first.
"I shudder to think of the disappointed look if I tried it now," he adds. "Though I have been tempted, a few times. When I was young, he had me try other art forms, in case I had anything else come easy to me, like healing. ... I almost burnt down the kitchen by accident. I turned one fire in the forge into ice with magic -- not on purpose, obviously. And I poked myself with a needle while trying to sew and cried grievously. The drop of blood turned into a flower on it's own."
Makalaure reflects that it's not often you see his whole family sitting in confused and stunned silence. This is so far beyond their experience, and the experience of elves in general, that they are all shocked. Even his father is taken aback.
"I'm still bitter about that time ... someone got the bigger half of that one cookie," he turns and says to Maglor directly. They share mentally a moment of sadness that Elros is gone.
"What can you do with magic?" Moryo asks. "What are the limits?"
Elrond shrugs. "I can't do much. It helps me do healing a little."
Everyone is openly disappointed. Maglor almost laughs. The group gives up trying to make Elrond more known and relatable after this, viewing him as some kind of non-understandable, strange spirit/elf-looking thing that Makalaure is obsessed with. As if a magical being enraptured him or something, like Thingol with Melian. It's pretty funny of course since that isn't what happened.
Maglor is happy to go home with him to new Rivendell, and once they're at home Glorfindel picks him up off his horse and carries him to their room and rubs his back. It's delightful.
He looks forward to it now. Being with Glorfindel, kissing him, his weird obsession with taking baths together. "I don't understand what your interest in me is," he tells him for the millionth time the next day.
Glorfindel is currently snuggled next to him outside on a blanket in some soft long grass by a crystal clear pond. They're having a picnic because it's a nice summer day that's not too hot with lighter sun [so Elrond won't tan]. Elrond is walking around a few steps away, looking at butterflies, which is funny because he liked them as a little boy.
There are Feanorean underlings there too as well of course, because they never let Elrond go anywhere without guards, and pages in case he needs or wants anything [that way the guards don't need to worry about actually serving him]. And of course there are servant-like servants too as well, to actually carry the picnic supplies and hand out the food and everything.
Maglor doesn't mind being cuddled by Glorfindel in front of them because they all saw him practically dead on Elrond's sickbed for centuries ... and also they've all seen him with his hair hacked off zillions of times by now. And they've seen Glorfindel carry him from his horse and help him go to bed. Eventually Elrond had revealed to the Feanoreans that he'd found him and explained his condition, he'd told him back after he became truly conscious.
Also, he just doesn't care about a lot anymore. He's more into practicalities: are they safe? Is there food? Okay, it's probably fine. Especially as long as there are no non-Feanoreans around them. Then they're golden.
Maglor still tires easily, but of course his body is strong once more. He has realized it's his soul that's tired, in some kind of echo of what happened to him.
He likes letting Glorfindel do whatever it is he's feeling like. He's quite the low key lover. He's able to adapt to Maglor's varied emotional landscape. If he's having one of his sad days ... or periods, Glorfindel will hug him, and rubs his back, or brush his hair.
Other times he helps him feel warmer as he rests [bottles, heated bricks], or tries to help him eat something when he's in one of his 'no I can't eat' phases. Elrond helps too.
When he's in the mood to be romantic, and Glorfindel isn't in one of his 'lay on the floor; can you play music for me' glooms, he asks him to take a bath with him. Elrond often goes over to Gil-Galad's suite to spend the night [romantically, he assumes], so it's just them in their big suite of rooms all the time.
He likes to have someone to sleep next to regardless. It soothes him. It's probably because it makes him feel safe, he thinks. Being warm and with someone has been the only good parts of his life, barring when he was young. Even with the boys, he slept in their room with them sometimes on some pillows on the floor so that they wouldn't be afraid or alone.
Of course the whole 'close your eyes when sleeping' thing was quite the ordeal at the time. Maglor was extremely afraid for the children, fearing them horrifically ill.
Strangely, the Lindon elves are very intimidated by the Feanoreans, who don't really care about them at all. All they care about is Elrond, and Maglor. And Glorfindel, since he's Elrond's bodyguard.
And Gil-Galad, since he's apparently Elrond's lover.
The Lindon elves are concerned that Elrond favors his own people -- which he does, of course. But he doesn't want to hurt their feelings. So when they give him outfits or food or whatever, he makes sure to wear it/take it/eat it. Erestor makes a special recurring note on his master calendar so that Elrond remembers to use and wear their things when they will see him, so they won't feel second best.
This very much amuses the Feanorean elves, silently. But they are pleased that their 'adopted child' leader is held in so much esteem, though not surprised. Elrond is much better than other elves, in many ways, in their opinion.
Despite how different he is from the real sons of Feanor, they like his peaceability. His quietness, his love of healing. How he knows them all personally, and talks to them one on one, sincerely. He and Glorfindel have no artifice in their manners.
Elrond doesn't ask for much of anything, really. He's not a true king like they are used to. But they want to give him what he should have:
-as their 'king', since he's Maglor and Maedhros' heir
-because he deserves it due to being so good and kind
-because he rescued them despite them ruining his life
-out of respect for his love of Maglor, who they love too
-because he found, rescued and healed Maglor, and then got him into Valinor and protected him
It's Erestor and the other Feanoreans who decide what the Rivendell menus are, what Elrond's fancy clothes look like, everything. Elrond could care less about that type of thing. He does not ask for anything special, much less order and demand things.
When he has free time the Rivendell elves often see Elrond simply reading in his worn, plain clothes. He and Glorfindel go to the healing rooms every week to work on people and Elrond has a special 'mail for him only' box so that people can express concerns about anything to him directly.
Maglor's brothers get more and more used to being alive, and him being there too, that they start asking personal questions. This usually ends up with him storming out of his mother's house, furious and upset. His guards from new Rivendell rush after him, to accompany him back.
Eventually he decides to just go only to Formenos when his father visits there with his uncles. Tyelpe has been trying to rebuild it with a contingent of Feanorean people.
This way he can see his father without the annoyance of his brothers' presence; they mainly stick around home nowadays. And mother often comes to new Rivendell to see him and Elrond, and brings statues with her sometimes. Elrond likes them.
[The dead brother one nonwithstanding.]
He puts them in special places in new Rivendell, only in his area of course. The city is divided into the Lindon area and the other half of the city that Gil-Galad built for Elrond and whoever he brought with him. So the areas begin to look very different over time.
The Feanoreans don't do anything overt obviously -- no red, no stars. But their style is different many times over from the Lindon elves; and Elrond's style is too.
Nelyo and Finno divide their time between new Rivendell and their parent's house. Finno won't even leave Maitimo to go see his own parents; he told him he'd be fine, even Glorfindel was right there, and Elrond too as a healer, but Finno simply won't leave.
It's hard to be the observer, Maglor knows. He should know. He watched Nelyo burn to death in shock.
Sometimes he gets angry about it and deliberately busies himself so that he doesn't see his elder brother. He and Elrond talk about it. Elrond knows what it's like in part -- some worse [Elros is dead forever], some not [he didn't watch him burn to death after their horrible violent lives ended].
Elwing eventually does become more of a friend to Elrond, and she even talks to Maglor, too. She no longer is afraid of him. He feels sorry for her, and that he owes her, obviously.
She kind of looks like a lady Elrond up close, which makes him more soft towards her.
Eventually Elrond actually gets a cold when he was going to go to see Finwe and his court party, and Maglor goes instead with Glorfindel, not Gil-Galad, and explains to his grandfather in private that half-elves get sick.
Finwe at first doesn't understand, having never really seen mortals or mortal sickness before. Finally he gets it. "So he's just condemned to feel poorly once in a while with no recourse?" he asks Maglor, baffled.
"Yes, exactly," Makalaure explains.
"How terrible," Finwe says, appalled.
Makalaure shrugs. "That's what having his blood entails."
"He can't magic it away?" his grandfather asks.
"No, he doesn't use magic for frivolous purposes," Makalaure tells him. "He uses it for healing and things like that, serious things. Now I am going to back to him, as it will not look good for me to stay in his place, of course."
"But -- " Finwe says.
Makalaure is already out the door. He cannot be seen as some substitute Elrond is sending in his stead. People would lose it.
Glorfindel is right there outside the door, so off they go, get their horses, and go home. Elrond is still just as sick when they get back. Gil-Galad is with him.
Makalaure goes to his little child's side just to see him up close, to be with him in this moment of light distress. Elrond opens his eyes, sensing him, and shuts them, looking not happy. He touches him mind to mind and he can feel how disgruntled and annoyed he is; he touches his mind back gently, saying his trip went well.
Elrond flops out a hand towards him on his sickbed, and he takes it.
Gil-Galad looks literally excited that he's back, as it's Makalaure that knows how to handle Elrond having a cold. He apparently never talked about this with the high king back when he went to live with him, when Elros was alive, instead barricading himself in his rooms until he felt better.
"I think it's getting less," Makalaure says, and indeed, it does. Glorfindel goes out and asks a servant for food and tea for them all. That will please the people, Maglor knows.
They get very nervous when Elrond gets sick, though they all heard of it before when the boys were young. Then though Maglor had kept them to himself, not letting others see their mortalness, the odd things they did. So in a sense the Feanoreans are still kind of taken aback by Elrond's random illnesses.
Whenever it happens, a bunch of them camp out on the porches near his suite rooms in case Glorfindel or anyone comes out and needs something, or asks for something. They all look very dour and upset, and Glorfindel telling them that Elrond will be fine, it's just normal for him, does not do anything.
They all know that, it's just that it's so creepy.
Now that Maglor's back, Elrond tells the others to go. Gil-Galad is clearly not happy to be sent away, but obeys. Glorfindel knows this is normal and so doesn't care, skipping out to go get some more food from the kitchen himself.
Then it's just Makalaure and Elrond. He just sits there on a nearby chaise, because that's all that Elrond wants or that can help -- just to have his parent/friend nearby, but not bothering him.