Warning for mature themes and references to violence.

Disclaimer: I do not own Tolkien's works.

The Abyss Between the Stars

Maglor gathers up his papers with shaking hands, dropping half of them back on the table and scrabbling to pick them up again. The sounds of his actions prick the silence of this austere, grey council chamber. "You're an ass sometimes," he says, voice thick and unsteady, as if he is about to weep. I find that funny, and have to suppress a chortle. He never was a crybaby - not in Tirion, anyway. He would hold his chin high and roll his eyes at tears. Nowadays, it seems he finds a reason to be morose if a pin is dropped or a harp is out of tune.

But this is the first time he has insulted me since my return from Thangorodrim. I must say, I am proud of him. This meek, submissive version of my brother grates on my nerves. I weary of his tentative, darting eyes and of the way he fidgets with everything, from his fingers to the hems of his tunics; it strips away whatever energy I muster. He reminds me of an animal that has been cramped in a small cage all its life and has only just been let out, and is beginning to sip on trust.

He stands up, his chair screeching rudely over the floor, and leaves, shutting the door so carefully I know he might have otherwise slammed it so hard it would have been knocked off its hinges. He gets like that sometimes; sensitive people can be unnecessarily violent.

Celegorm leans back in his seat at the table and cleans some dirt from his nails. "I would have gone with, 'You are an ass'. I'm pitying you less each day." He speaks as if he is stating that the sky is blue; his tone is detached and disinterested, bereft of judgement.

"I do not want pity," I say.

He reaches for the bowl of fruits in the middle of the table and takes a wrinkled apple. Fishing out a small, retractable knife from his trouser pocket, he begins to peel it, avoiding my eyes. The soft scrunch, scrunch sounds carve the air, carve into my mind, languidly drag me back to the deep shadows of Angband. I cannot reprimand him for peeling an apple – some lines are foolish to cross – so I focus on the knots in the table.

Celegorm says, "That is quite evident, and has been so since Fingon rescued you. It would do Maglor well to understand that. But you did not have to be so harsh with him."

"He cannot expect me to coddle him and tell him his plans are sound when they are not. If something is wrong with his policies, I am going to tell him."

"Did I ask you to coddle him?" Celegorm says, looking up but not at me. "What you said to him was the kind of thing that's really funny if you're not the one on the receiving end of it. Why don't you pass your messages about his stuff onto me? I'll take care of it."

"You could not paraphrase a criticism of a policy if your life depended on it, and that is because you don't understand politics at all."

He takes a bite out of the apple and wipes the juice from his chin with his hand. "It is not my forte; but you are underestimating me. You are also being an ass again."

"I thought I was an ass? Why do you sound surprised?" I know I am annoying him, but cannot bring myself to care. Indeed, I am almost enjoying this; it gives me a strange sense of control. After being a captive for so long, I need to feel as if things are all in my hands – hand – to be moulded and tweaked as I please. I am not going to apologise for that. Yet.

"I am leaving," Celegorm says brusquely, getting up. As he walks to the door he adds, "Let me know if you need someone to extract that bug from your arse. I am going to need Curvo to make a giant pair of tweezers, though."

Maglor bends to my will because he pities me, the way one pities a child who has just lost its mother. He steals around the topic of Angband, careful not to breathe a word about captivity or dark rooms or even isolation. It makes me want to wring his neck, or at least bind a cloth around his eyes so he won't look at me like that. But I have already punished him, and he endured it passively, as if he either expected it or felt he deserved it; I suspect both.

Crunch, thump. Screaming. The pounding of racing feet.

What have you done, Maedhros? What did you do to him?

Celegorm's wide, disbelieving eyes. Caranthir, looking sickened, jaw slack.

I did not feel sorry for cracking his ribs, though I did drag up a wicker chair by his bed in the infirmary and sit by his side while the light from the window masked the greyish pallor of his skin. The place reeked of sharp herbs and of metal – a combination I had grown to loathe. As the sun sank in the sky, Maglor gained consciousness, blinked stupidly, and did not even complain about the pain – just gritted his teeth while a healer gently poked at his tender flesh.

Celegorm, sitting on a stool, tapping his finger on his knee. Sweat speckled on his brow.

Maedhros, I usually keep my nose in my own business, but if you do something like that again, I am going to let you have it. Do not think you can fight me just yet.

Oh, I won't, brother. I am not that stupid.

Celegorm looks as if he is in the throes of making a particularly cutting remark, but keeps silent. I recognise and hate the gleam in his eyes.

Don't treat me like some dried flower that is going to come apart I swear I will have my revenge I will be stronger than three of you combined –

"Why are you here?" Maglor had said, lilac shadows prominent beneath his eyes. I let myself bask in the venom that coloured his voice.

"You are my brother."

"Was I not your brother when you broke my ribs?"

"You were," I said without pause.

He appeared satisfactorily confused, gaze darting across my face, something akin to vague disgust in the curl of his mouth. Then, looking me right in the eye, he said, "Are you finished with me? Or do you have further use for me as a punching bag?"

I leaned back in my seat and tapped my chin, pretending to think. "That depends. Are you finished making my capture about you by slinking about the place looking like a kicked puppy?"

Maglor dropped his head against the wall and released a rasp of a sigh. He raised his eyes the bare stone ceiling, as if it were the place where Eru resided, and gave a little shake of the head. "Please leave. Just...leave.

The blade surfaces from the black. It slits my throat with blasé carelessness. Panic rises in me and threatens to burst through my skin. My tunic sticks to my back with sweat. It is dark. I am in a chamber - no, a dungeon. Suddenly my nose is assailed with the stench of blood and urine. What has happened? Who is in the shadows?

I need to close the cut, or I will die. A needle and a thread are on the filthy ground. I pick them up and begin to sew, but I am not a surgeon and my fingers are clumsy and trembling and I fumble and keep dropping the needle. My hands are slippery with blood, and I have lost, and am fading.

I blink at a ceiling that is streaked with milky light. Am I not in the dungeon? Why is there no pain? I look to the window – there is a window! And there is a tree outside that is swaying in the breeze. It is dark.

How much time till the Mingling of the Lights? I wonder if Makalaurë would snap at me if I woke him and insisted he come for a stroll in our gardens –

No.

I blink again, the clouds in my head clearing.

This is Mithrim.

The constant companions and escorts ceased when I stopped screaming myself awake. I am grateful that I am alone; to be seen feeling anything strips me naked. My nightmares and pains are my private affairs, not meant for the stares of outsiders. They can wallow in their own suffering all they please, but not in mine.

I roll off the bed, take a handkerchief from the bedside table, and wipe the sweat from my face and neck. My tunic is sticking to my back, and I grimace. I have an urge to bathe with cool water, to wash the filth and the memories from my body.

I return my gaze to the window. The moon is full and bright, painting the leaves of the tree with its pale glow. I do not feel like walking all the way to the river, but there is a well near the courtyard.

Putting on some loose, thin clothes, I slip downstairs and outside. Night is worse than day. As troublesome as politics and learning languages are, they distract me from my thoughts. I cannot afford to have an idle mind, so I rarely allow myself to rest during the day. But at night I am shackled to dungeon walls or have my hand hewed off once more.

A fresh, crisp breeze plays with the ends of my hair, and I breathe it in deeply. My shoes shuffle against the earth. I am safe, I am safe, I am safe. I have clothes, and hot food, and a bed – for dinner we'd had fish in a sweet and sour onion sauce, and I had plucked a soft goose feather from my pillow before falling asleep. I am smiled at – there were smiles aplenty at dinner, some patronising, some nervous, most too tight to contain warmth. There are no dark things here, no dark things, no dark things.

I reach the well, and halt. Someone is sitting on the ground, his back against the rounded wall and his legs splayed before him. "You are not supposed to be awake," he says.

"Neither are you," I reply, walking over to him.

Maglor raises his head and gazes at me, an unreadable look in his gleaming eyes. "Are you not tired?"

"No." Suddenly, shame sweeps over me. The shackles I had put on my tears break, and I swallow, blinking hard. I should never have treated him in such a cruel manner. "May I join you?" I ask quietly. He pats the ground beside him with his hand, but does not smile. There is a bucket half-full with water on the ground; Maglor must have pulled it up. I wash my face and neck before sitting next to him, our shoulders brushing together.

Something bright catches the corner of my eye, and I turn my head to one of the fortress walls on the right. Thick ivy clings to the masonry, crawling upwards and sideways. Around the leaves float hundreds of golden fireflies. I have not seen fireflies in a very long time. Indeed, I had forgotten they existed. "I've been watching them for a while," Maglor says, drawing up one knee and cupping his chin in his hand. There is a distant, dreamy look in his eyes, such as I have not beheld since one of our last conversations in Tirion.

I feel a sudden surge of happiness. It races through my veins, warming my body and giving me energy such as I have not felt in years. I reach over and tuck a stray lock of hair behind his ear, and he looks at me sharply, as if afraid. "I am sorry," I whisper. He searches my face, as though he is unsure whether I am lying. I do not blame him.

At length his expression softens, and he returns his gaze to the fireflies. "There is nothing to forgive," he says. His hand, warm and damp, fumbles for mine in the dark, and he gives my fingers a little squeeze. In that moment I know he cannot be my sun - for there can no longer burn a sun in my faded life - but he is and always will be my moon, offering me solace in my grimmest nights. It is enough; I feel I can draw an ocean of strength from his mere presence.

He asks, "Are we brothers again?"

"We were always brothers," I say.

He gives a nod. Something flickers in his eyes: determination, and flames, and a resemblance to confidence. I glimpse, for a moment, the unruly youth who would stare in the mouth of catastrophe with a smile on his face. "We will work something out. We will win." The back of my neck prickles, and I rub it slowly. I know he is speaking of the Foe.

I look to the fireflies, swirling lazily among the leaves. Above us, the sky is ablaze with bone-white stars. "I hope we will."

-finis-

'What hears with their ear? The abyss between the stars.'

– Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked This Way Comes