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F.A. 538
Soft to the touch. Findekáno runs his fingers along the seam lines, checking for loose threads or gaps in the stitching. Thick felt and what might be hare, or rabbit fur. When he sticks his hand inside, the warmth is instantaneous.
„How much?“
The human Woman names a price that seems low for good workmanship. Perhaps the sight of the child’s scuffed and grimy feet have wakened pity in her.
More likely though she is intimidated by the grim faced, blood stained elf lord towering over her.
In any case, he is not about to haggle upwards, so he pays her the stated price in coins which shed rust-red flecks on her table, wipes his hand clean on his own doublet and takes both pairs over to the shadowy doorstep where Elrond is huddled.
„That’s Elros“, Maitimo corrects. „He’s the one who fidgets.“
“You are bluffing. You cannot tell them apart already”, Findekáno mutters.
“You’re not paying attention”, Maitimo sighs.
He presents Elrond, or Elros, with the boots.
“Here. You needn’t be cold.”
The child stares up at him with obvious loathing. He says nothing.
“You might want to reassure him that this is a gift, not something he will have to pay for. And you might try not looming over him so.”
He ignores Maitimo’s advice in favor of tried and true tactics: “I have a pair for your brother too. If you don’t want them, then I suppose he won’t mind cold feet either?”
Eyes blazing with hatred, the child jumps up, snatches the shoes out of his hand and darts away. Findekáno follows at a more relaxed pace.
They had discovered very quickly, by accident, that the children will not attempt to flee alone. Since then, they have taken to separating them, whenever there is a risk of escape. As long as one twin remains at Amon Ereb, the other will stick to their erstwhile captors for fear of being lost all alone.
When he catches up, the child is indeed waiting by Findekáno’s horse, clearly eager to be gone.
“Careful, Elrond”, he warns, “Don’t stand so near her hooves, she may hurt you without meaning to.”
Hiþwe is a warhorse. She can bear silver trumpets as steadily as the roar of Balrogs. But if she catches a whiff of orc scent she will run straight to the aid of her rider, no matter who or what is in the way.
Makalaurë gifted her to Findekáno, once upon a time.
“I’m Elros”, the child sulks.
“Forgive me, Elros.” Findekáno does not sound particularly apologetic.
The ride back home – to the fortress, that is – is quiet. Even Maitimo has fallen silent. Findekáno thought he might at least hear: I told you so. But there is nothing, nothing.
F.A. 5
“Hold him.”
“You’re hurting him!”
“Out of the way-”
An animal sound rends the air. A reek of death, of battle and burning flesh. Findekáno’s eyes swim with tears.
“Maitimo, Maitimo!”
His beloved keens. Why is he still conscious? How can he be conscious through such terrible pain?
“Maitimo”, he sobs. Strong arms close round his chest like an iron chain and Findekáno lashes out, kicking and clawing.
“Someone get him out of here!”
Lake Mithrim is brown in the winter. Mist shrouds the opposite shore, so that not even the keen sight of the Eldar can make out the Fëanorian camp. But he can smell it. Always, where the Fëanorians are, there is something burning.
The hand on his shoulder feels wrong.
“They needed to stop the bleeding. I am told that, perverse though it may seem, a hot iron is the best method to seal a wound.”
Findekáno bites his tongue so as not to retch, to spit out words he would regret.
“They are trying their best. But this is all so new. I know you understand that.”
Fingolfin’s hand gives him a gentle shake.
“Come, my son. You have already been so very brave. The worst is behind us, and this hardship too will soon pass.”
F.A. 538
“I wish he’d stop singing that”, Findekáno sighs. Maitimo chuckles. Feather-light touch skims across the side of Findekáno’s face, the slightly concave plane of his stomach.
He wishes Maitimo would undo his braids instead, they pull at his scalp, tangled and half unraveled by the wind. But that would be a bit too much to expect from him.
He closes his eyes and tries to let the sensations come to him. Whenever he focuses too hard it ruins the illusion.
In the dark behind his lids, he feels a gentle kiss upon his cheekbone. Then the corner of his mouth. His breath catches. Almost, he can smell the warm spicy scent of Maitimo’s hair oil.
Then Maglor wails a drawn out high note and it all collapses.
Findekáno groans.
“When I said they were too old for lullabies I did not mean they were old enough for the damn Noldolantë.”
“He needs an audience.” Maitimo is ever apologetic for his brothers. “He forgets who he is, without someone to sing to.”
Findekáno snorts. “You were always far too soft on him.”
Maitimo sighs. His warmth has disappeared from Findekáno’s side. Findekáno dares not open his eyes in case there is no one in the room with him.
From a distance he hears Maitimo say: “I really, really wasn’t.”
F.A. 5
Makalaurë looks absurd in Fëanor’s crown. Why does he even bother? It isn’t as though anyone took him seriously, even before Fëanor’s rightful heir was proven alive after all.
The heavy golden thing looks about ready to slide off and hit him in the nose as Makalaurë bends over the bed.
“His hand…”
Findekáno tenses. He will not defend himself to Makalaurë, the one who left Maitimo, who could not even be bothered to make sure he was actually dead.
But the healer is already saying something about blood flow and dead tissue, making it sound like all Findekáno had done was merely snip a dead leaf from an otherwise healthy tree.
F.A. 538
“They are not your children, Makalaurë.”
Makalaurë scoffs. A loose hank of hair hangs before his red-rimmed eyes. He probably has no idea how mad he looks.
“And does that mean I cannot be kind to them?”
“It is not kind to make them grow attached, only to discard them later.”
“Discard-” Makalaurë’s lip curls. He pushes the hair out of his eyes and it immediately falls back into place.
“Stay out of this, Findekáno. You can steep in your bitterness all you like, but don’t expect me to follow suit and don’t sneer at my hope just because you have none. They are children, they have done nothing wrong, and I will give them what comfort I may.”
“Hope?” Findekáno smiles. “Hope for the Silmaril? Or did you mean your hope that there is some redemption for your selfish, cowardly-”
“Findekáno!” Maitimo shouts. As usual, Makalaurë does not hear.
Makalaurë’s lip quivers. He takes a shaky breath before speaking: “Sirion. Was your doing.”
F.A. 5
“Please, Finno, please don’t. Please don’t!”
“I have no choice Maitimo, I am sorry, you need to stop moving!”
“Please just end it! I cannot, I don’t want to- Stop!”
“I must. I must. My love, please, hold still.”
F.A. 455
A battlefield at night is little more than a killing frenzy.
Findekáno does not know how long it has been since the moon rose in place of the sun. He is not even sure it is still the same day as when the battle began. There has been nothing but the next breath, the next foe, the next slice of his sword.
The moment he realizes there is no orc flinging himself at his blade, that the cries around him are death gasps, not war cries, his knees give way.
Dragged to the ground by a sword arm suddenly made of granite, and armor so bent it may as well be a shackle, Findekáno just about manages to catch himself on one hand ere he falls face first into the mud.
He has not seen Maitimo for hours. He has not seen a single one of his allies. His brothers.
“Finno!”
A figure hurtles at him from the darkness. Were it Morgoth himself, Findekáno does not believe he could lift himself off his knees to die with dignity at this point.
In flickering torchlight he discerns a breastplate with the eight pointed star of Fëanor half covered in gore, before the figure collides with him and draws him into a crushing embrace.
“Finno.” A near whimper in his ear. “I thought we’d lost you too.”
He blinks unseeing into the torch-studded blackness. He ought to reach out and return the embrace, but he is too damn tired.
“Are- are you hurt?” Suddenly he is pushed back, held at arms length for anxious grey eyes to study.
After a few moments he manages a slight head shake. “I’m fine.”
Metal gauntlets cup the side of his face, as gently as instruments of war can be.
“Thanks be to Elbereth!”
Then Makalaurë leans in and kisses him.
F.A. 5
Oh, can’t anyone stop the screaming?
It goes on and on and on, high and raspy, a bloodied scream of the truly mad. It is giving Findekáno a headache, it is making him dizzy and short of breath, but no one makes it stop.
A crowd of people he’s supposed to know stand around a cart, the kind of cart used to haul hay or sacks of grain, but the back is filled with piles and piles of half-dead heather and a single sleeper, long of limb, shrouded head to toe in white.
“Oh my boy, my boy, it will be alright! Please-”
They are going to burn the heather and the sleeper, and the ground is frozen solid, he heard his Father’s people laugh about it earlier, heard them joke and spit and say the earth itself refused to take a foul Kinslayer and all that’s left is to throw him in the fire like the chewed-clean bones of a rabbit carcass.
“Don’t look, my son. Come, come inside.”
Findekáno has swallowed broken glass. Inside him it cracks and cuts, like the icicles of the Helcaraxë that fell like daggers from the sky, and inside Findekáno it is cold and sharp. He cannot stop the screaming.
One of the six figures around the cart slowly collapses. It sinks to the ground and makes itself small, shaking as though with sobs.
“Enough!” Another shouts and clicks his tongue and the horse takes a step, the wheels of the cart jolt-
And Findekáno has pushed his father to the ground, his sister, his brother, all that would restrain him. He cannot let them take Maitimo away, he will fight them all with hand and teeth and break their bones ere they take him away!
A figure steps into his path. A name swims up out of the noise and the madness but Findekáno cannot quite bring it to the front of his mind. It matters not, the figure raises a hand and the cart stops moving. Findekáno stops too, ears ringing.
Has the screaming ended?
The blurry someone comes closer, hands outstretched, two hands, pale and delicate, and it places the left hand on Findekáno’s face. It brushes tears from his eye with it’s thumb and caresses skin raw from cold and crying.
“Come with us”, says the figure. It’s voice is so soft. Like dawn, like blankets, like tea and honey. Like Maitimo’s hair, downy soft between his fingers.
“Come and help me take him home.”
Findekáno sees the mist resolve into a face of childhood, of trust. To this one they had told their secret, and known it in safekeeping.
“We will lay him to sleep together, shall we? What do you say?”
Findekáno goes with Makalaurë to see Maitimo burn. He stays to watch Morgoth burn one day.
F.A. 455
Makalaurë is not well suited to cold. Neither is Findekáno, but he is used to bearing it.
Makalaurë kisses as though he wants to hide himself away inside Findekáno. Like an animal burrowing deep to hibernate away from the snow. It is not how Maitimo kisses, but Maitimo is not here now. Or if he is, he does not wish for Findekáno to see him. Findekáno accepts the kisses. Does not begin them, but he does reach for Makalaurë, he strokes his hair and winds it round his fingers.
It is always cold in the lands to the east. The refuge, the exile of the Dispossessed, the accursed followers of the Burned King.
Once there was word from Irissë, written in code, for Findekáno’s eyes alone, which spoke of forgiveness. Of a path of return. To light. To a second Tirion. A new home.
I risk my life by telling you of the secret path, she had written in their childhood code. But more would I risk to see my brother again.
The code was a long ago memory. Further away the memory of a sister. Of home. Of death as something to be feared. She will stop expecting him to come back, eventually.
He returns Makalaurë’s kiss, and crawls over him, holds him caged, the weight of many quilts and furs around them both.
It is cold in the east, and the people of King Nelyafinwë, his people, have long since run out of wood to burn.
F.A. 470
“You do not need to do this.”
Makalaurë’s watery eyed sincerity is what truly tips the scales towards absurdity. He looks more and more upset the longer Findekáno laughs, but whenever he is about to stop he catches Maitimo’s eye, where he lingers over his brother’s shoulder and begins again.
“Finno!” Makalaurë shouts at last, grasping for his hands and his attention.
“I am speaking in earnest! There is no Oath upon you.”
“If only you had applied your powers of persuasion to our brothers, maybe you would not have to do this either”, Maitimo remarks, though he knows by now that only Findekáno will hear him.
Indeed, Makalaurë chooses odd moments to hold his tongue. He had reproached Celegorm only once, for his treatment of Lúthien. As though the act of plotting an attack on her home was better by comparison. The Land of the Dead that Live, they are calling it.
Findekáno does not take his eyes off the place over Makalaurë’s shoulder, where a tall shadow ought to fall. Ought to, but does not.
“I have every reason you have and more.”
That is what makes it so funny. Were there no Silmaril clasped arrogantly about Lúthien’s throat, still Findekáno would have reason to march upon her and her husband, her one-handed hero, the great exception. Were he alone, with not even one of the miserable oath-bound brothers at his side, Findekáno would not be denied his chance to place his blade against her throat and ask her why?
F.A. 5
Maitimo is a picture in red and white. In his head, Findekáno pushes the pigments around. He draws from the well of paint round his right hand and readjusts the color balance, smears just a little rosy touch to the lips, to the apple of his cheeks. He would take a vial of gold powder and dust it across the canvas while the lacquer is still wet, and the shine of Laurelin would remain forever in the tips of Maitimo’s hair and his freckles, and his eyelashes.
His eyes were open earlier. He had tried to make a sentence, but they had barely understood the broken words.
He had mentioned his brothers. And Findekáno’s father.
There was a lot of excitement then, about the crown. But Findekáno had wanted them all to leave, to let him rest, let him truly sleep until it is Maitimo who looks back at him from those eyes again, and not some shadow, some thrall in his beloved’s shape.
Now he sits alone and waits for Maitimo’s eyes to open. For him to see Findekáno and to smile at him at last, and say his name as he used to.
Patience has never been a great strength of Findekáno’s, but for this he can wait. He will wait as long as he must, to see that smile again.
F.A. 587
Elros’ tears soak the front of Findekáno’s tunic. He had almost put on his armor before saying farewell to the twins.
“Please! Please don’t let him go”, Elros sobs. “He will listen to you.”
Findekáno snorts. He pushes the lad away, not ungently. Over Elros’ head he locks eyes with Elrond, who is weeping too, but silently.
“I have no more power over your father than you do.”
Elrond’s eyes blaze, but he does not argue. Just presses his lips together until they turn white.
Elros shakes his head. “He will not return. If he goes now we will never see him again.”
Findekáno sighs.
“He loves us.” Elrond is not grieving but angry. Not angry but furious. “He loves us, and he doesn’t care about the cursed gems anymore, he’s sick of it all! So why would he leave us if not for you? So you don’t have to go throw your life away alone.”
Findekáno is silent. Out of habit, he turns his eyes to left and right, searching for two answering points of treelight.
Maitimo is not here.
When had he last spoken to Findekáno? Not, he thinks, since they made the choice to go after the Silmarils one last time.
“There is no choice, where the Oath is concerned. Don’t talk of things you don’t understand.”
Y.T. 1441
“Don’t talk of things you don’t understand, Káno!”
Maitimo laughs, half superior elder brother, half sheepish youth caught in the act. Findekáno had warily withdrawn his hand from Maitimo’s grasp, but he thinks it may be safe to return it. To once again lean his head against Maitimo’s strong shoulder, inhale the spicy scent of his favorite hair oil, which he uses to keep his elegantly braided hair so sleek and shiny.
Makalaurë folds his arms, looking most unimpressed. “I understand enough to know father won’t like it.”
Maitimo tenses beside him. For an instant Findekáno sees their moment unfold in myriad directions, like threads of different colors lying splayed ere the weaver pulls them into place. Red or black or gold or blue, and he truly could not say not which it will be.
But Makalaurë raises his hands quickly, grey eyes wide and earnest.
“I won’t tell him! I wouldn’t make trouble for you like that. You’re secret is safe with me, I swear.”
F.A. 5
“Shh, shh. Don’t cry now, my love. This too shall pass. You’ll see.”
Findekáno winds two hands around Maitimo’s left. He doesn’t understand. How can he be shivering, when his skin is so warm? The room is warm, fire blazing. And Findekáno is here.
“You’ll see. You just need to be brave a little longer.”
Maitimo coughs, jerkily. Spittle foams at the corner of his mouth. The Eldar have always rested with eyes open, starlight reflected in their faraway gaze. But Maitimo’s eyes are dull. He sees nothing, knows not who speaks to him. Can answer no question. Is moved by no song.
Four days ago they had burned the wound. Three days ago he had slept a healing sleep, so restful and quiet that he had not woken once while Fingon combed and brushed his hair, braided and oiled it and kissed his brow.
One day ago the skin around his maimed wrist had begun to turn black. No speech has passed his lips since then, just quiet sounds of pain.
“I’m sorry-”, he begins but stops himself.
Maitimo’s hand is limp in his grasp.
“I know it’s hard to understand, but I had to do it. I had to get you free.”
Maitimo does not react.
“I promise”, whispers Findekáno, “It will all be better soon.”