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The body on the bed is not his brother’s. It cannot be.
The hair is not right. It is too drab, too brown, too thin. The face, cheekbones too sharp, the eyes so deeply sunken in, skin falling about them as loose folds of cloth. Nelyo had had thick eyelashes, copper and curling playfully upwards, and the body has none. The lips— the lips are thin and cracked, slashed over with two criss-crossing cuts, half-healed.
The poor wretch. It is not him. It cannot be him.
But Káno cannot blame them. Cannot blame Findekáno for bringing it back with him, cannot blame Ñolofinweë for calling him. They do not know Nelyo like he does, and the body does resemble him. It is the shape of the head, the square jaw. The one ear that is not torn to shreds, the one that curls back, as Nelyo’s had. The body is unusually tall and broad-shouldered, though the arms are so thin they look insectoid, though the knees look swollen as twisted root.
The left hand — the only hand— has a scar over the palm, thin and white. In Aman, when they were children, Nelyo had cut his hand helping mother pick up shards of broken pottery. It had healed quickly, but left thin little curve, as a scythe or a question mark. The body bears a similar mark.
The body bears the same mark.
The body—
Káno backs away so sharply he sees not where he is going. He steps on Ñolofinwë’s foot, his back hitting his uncle’s chest. Run. He wants to run. Wants to pull his eyes away from the body, away from the scar; wants to look at the sickbed, at the dark blue curtains, drawn over the window, wants to turn away completely and look at his uncle’s face. Wants to speak.
It is not him, he wants to say, you called me in error, Uncle, for I know my blood.
He is caught under the ice. The cold seeps in under his skin, freezes each muscle solid. He cannot run. He cannot speak. He cannot look away.
But then the hand twitches, and the body stirs. It has a jerky way of moving; one sharp movement to jam its elbows against its ribcage, then a sharp, shaky breath, one exhale broken down into several weak gusts of air, and it heaves its head, neck held stiffly, up. Turns to look at Káno with familiar silver-grey eyes. There are freckles on that white skin, buried between the wrinkles.
Alive. Alive.
It makes him think of when they had first seen orcs. Orcs whose limbs bent in ways limbs should not bend, whose jaws hung from their faces at strange, half-turned angles. Who radiated pain in each broken grunt and shout, the sort of pain that is sharp to the touch. They should not move, Káno had thought, they should not live.
“Káno,” the body rasps, in his brother’s voice, “Káno, Káno, Káno.”
The face lights up. The cuts on his lips bleed at the force of the smile, the skin folds in new and strange ways. He is missing teeth. One of his upper incisors, his left canine.
He is missing a hand. He is smiling, with such pure joy as Káno has not seen since the darkening, has not seen in this land. He is smiling, and he says Káno’s name. He is missing a hand.
Káno falls to his knees, taking Nelyo’s remaining hand in his. Kisses the bruised knuckles, the broken, bleeding fingernails, the little twisting scar on the palm. The hand is clean. Someone has cleaned it, has washed blood and dirt off the fingers, has rubbed sweet-smelling lotion into the skin. Someone has braided his hair. Someone has wrapped a deep blue blanket about his shoulders, tucking it into a silver clip.
“Brother,” he says, and his voice sounds worse than Nelyo’s, a ragged, breaking thing, “Nelyo— Maitimo, Varda forgive me, Maitimo.”
He should not cry. He has heard so, in the halls of healing, in the encampments they have set up in this new land. Cry not. Hide your fear, and your anguish, and show only your hope. Wounds of the flesh should not be allowed to become wounds of the spirit.
He cries, feels his shoulders shaking with it, horrible sobs— loud, wailing things, sure to hurt his brother, to hurt this, and he cannot help it. He is ever aware of the breath in his lungs, the air he draws in and lets go as song. He had once amazed his cousins with how long he could hold his breaths under water.
There is not enough room in his chest, now. He sucks in air desperately, but he cannot hold it.
Nelyo reaches for him with the stump of his hand, those same horrible, jerky movements. Sways. He cannot sit up right. Ñolofinwë steps delicately around them, his steps making no sound on the bare wooden floor, and comes to steady Nelyo, wrapping an arm around his shoulders.
“I am here,” Nelyo says, the stump brushing awkwardly against Káno’s shoulder. He closes his hand around Káno’s fingers, his thumb brushing over Káno’s knuckles. There is no strength left in it. No strength left in him. “I am here, Káno.”
Káno catches a breath and drags it into his lungs. Holds it there, even as it tries to run from him.
“Forgive me,” he breathes, “Nelyo, forgive me. I thought— forgive me.”
He can feel the shape of his brother’s words. Can hear the ghost of his voice, patient and measured. How often, these days, he hears his brother’s ghost. There is naught to forgive, the Nelyo in his head says, his voice warm as the treelight, I was not angry, Káno.
Slowly, painfully, Nelyo pulls his hand away from him. Reaches to smooth Káno’s hair back from his face. A strand of it has stuck to his cheek, wet with tears and already crusting over.
“You are forgiven,” he says, “I forgave you long since, Káno.”
And it is right, the cadence; the way he says, the warmth that clings yet to his voice, the slight of deliberation between each word, as though he chooses them with the utmost care. But not the words themselves.
Káno climbs into bed with him. His brother leans on him, absurdly light; Káno fears to bruise bone should he embrace him. For a little while they do not speak. Káno tries not to think of the blood, the scars, the drab, brownish hair. But is almost worse to see the freckles and the smile, to hear his brother’s voice.
So he helps Nelyo arrange himself on the pillows. It is strangely hard to close the space between them and touch his sharp, skinny shoulders. It is hard not to think of how strong his brother had been, wide-shouldered and fair.
He touches Nelyo’s shoulder and thinks, bodies should not be so. Kisses his cheek and feels bone, tastes blood. But he has been in the sickbed long, and his loose braid has began to come apart, weathering as rope. It needs re-done. That he knows. That he can do.
Káno pulls the braid loose and combs it out with his fingers. He braids this one higher, just a little tighter, so it may hold for longer. He opens his lips to sing, as he ever does working, thinking to sing a lament, or perhaps a song of celebration, of spring come after too many cold winters.
But what comes is a ditty from their childhood. It sings of a hen that sits on a clutch of eggs, and waits for chicks to hatch. But the first egg is a snake egg, and the serpent slithers away into the bushes. The next hatches a great walking turtle, the third a leaping frog, the fifth a handful of crawling centipedes. By the time he reaches the sixth egg, which finally offers the hen a nestling crow to raise as her own, he has finished braid.
“Is it good?” he asks, “does it pull?”
Nelyo raises his hand to his head and gingerly runs his fingers over the new braid. Smiles.
“It comforts me,” he says, “you comfort me.”
Findekáno slips into the room then, settling silently at Nelyo’s other side. The right side. The side with the stump and the bandages and the blood yet dotting the sheets. Káno spares him a glance. He is little changed in profile, though the ice has left him thinner and wearier, and, though new upon the land, he wears the familiar scars of orc blades upon his hand and his cheek.
Struck with sudden feeling, Káno leans over Nelyo to grab Finno by the collar.
“Káno—“ Findekáno starts, but he cuts him off.
He kisses him, kisses him though some part of him hates him already. Their cheeks brush against each other, and his tears smudge his cousin’s golden face-paint. He does not think he could ever be more grateful than he is now, cannot imagine a greater debt.
Finno stares at him as he pulls away, his eyes wide and owlish, lips still slightly open. Then he laughs, and that makes Nelyo laugh too, a strange, huffing sound that seems at risk of crumbling into coughs.
“Cousin,” Finno says, laughing yet, “what a greeting that was!”
“He has grown quite strange in this land,” Nelyo rasps, again taking Káno’s hand, “I almost did not know him when he came, so much he looked as some wise and noble king, hair of raven and crown of gold! Look, brother, how you have changed!”
No, Kánafinwë thinks desperately, feeling the crown upon his head as he shakes it, no, no. I haven’t.