Work Text:
This barred window,
this earthen jug,
these four walls
From Letters From A Man In Solitary by Nâzim Hikmet
Fingon was one of the last to be released from the Halls of Mandos.
He did not remember much, but he did retain flashes. By piecing those together with what his family had told him, it seemed that he had not been considered repentant enough. Apparently it had taken the intervention of many of his family and of the High King himself for Fingon to be released.
But it meant that almost his entire family was waiting for him. His father, hale and hearty once again, laughing as he embraced him, no longer the hopeless worn figure dragged down by the weight of impossible responsibilities that Fingon remembered; his mother, not the cold angry woman that he remembered but loving and soft once more; Turukano, still stiff and awkward, but genuinely pleased to see him, and softened once more by Elenwe’s kindness and humour; Irisse, wild and laughing too loudly once more as he remembered her, with a strange pale young man who avoided eye contact at her side who she watched with the protective fervour of a mother bear; and Arakano, who had been so young when he died that Fingon had grieved longer than he had ever lived, but was now taller than even Turukano and happy, happy.
Fingon wept. He could not help himself: he shed tears of joy and relief. It all seemed like an impossible dream, that they would be so forgiven, that they could live together and love once more.
Over the next few weeks he met the rest of his family. Arafinwe, grand in his role of king of the Noldor, if looking perpetually slightly harassed: Finrod, who wore if anything more jewellery than Fingon remembered, and clung to him while telling him all the gossip that had happened while Fingon had been dead: Angrod and Aegnor, who had apparently forgotten their grudge against him and slipped back into the easy friendliness they had shared back in Aman.
Even the sons of Feanor seemed to be back, although there was no sign of Feanor or Maedhros. Fingon played the harp with Maglor, clumsily, for he was thousands of years out of practice: but Maglor, who looked just like the prince he had been once upon a time, only gave him some not-as-condescending-as-it-could-be advice, which Fingon had to admit was actually helpful. Except for the twins, who he went hunting with, he did not speak much to the others, as he had not in his first life: but still, he was glad they were returned.
Things had changed, of course. His parents were no longer together, but they seemed to have settled into a stable civility. Arakano had lived more years than Fingon had now, in a way, and was so level-headed and wise that Fingon could not help but struggle with it. His baby brother, the sage.
Arafinwe as high king meant the court was much less efficient than it had been under Finwe: Arafinwe seemed to spend more time on travel than administration and left much of the work of governance to his quarrelling lords. But Fingon resolved to have nothing to do with it. Instead he enjoyed himself exploring all the lands he had once known and getting to know his family again.
But of course he missed Maedhros.
Whenever he mentioned him, people would look away, and change the subject. Fingon wondered if, when he had been dead, his name had been taboo in the same way. When Fingon brought Maedhros up tentatively to Maglor, Maglor had broken a harp string and told him to never bring him up again.
Would he never be released, then? Fingon resolved to ask Mandos.
He took a horse from the stables and rode the several days’ journey back to where he had emerged.
“Is Maedhros in the Void?” he asked the doors which had no handle, only a blank mass of stone.
But a figure materialised, or half-materialised: its edges were still vague and smokey.
“The Lord of Mandos sends word to you that he who you seek has been released long before you were,” the Maia said in its strange grating way.
“Released?” Fingon asked suspiciously, his heart dropping. “To the Void?”
“To life,” the Maia said, obviously frustrated with him already, and then disappeared. Fingon did not remember being dead, but he supposed it was likely he had been annoying.
If Maedhros lived, then where was he? Fingon could not understand it. Surely he would not have left his brothers. Surely he would have come to see Fingon.
Perhaps he was doing some term of penance, or was away with… Fingon didn't know who, but many things could change in such a long time.
But then why would no-one have told him?
With a sinking feeling in his heart, Fingon rode back towards Tirion, determined to get to the bottom of this.
Several days back into his return journey, a cloaked rider on a large white horse approached his camp. Fingon went for his sword, but then remembered he did not carry one: Aman was supposed to be safe. Still, he drew his belt-knife.
“Findekano,” the figure said, and pushed back his hood: it was his father. “Don't go searching for him, I beg you.”
“Where is he?” Fingon demanded, blood thundering in his ears.
Fingolfin told him.
*
Fingon’s horse clattered into the courtyard, the iron of its shoes striking against the stone. Guards with spears turned to him, standing in front of a pair of closed formal doors.
“Ah, you can't come in here,” one said to him, and turned to take the reins of Fingon's horse. It thankfully caught his mood and lunged to bite the guard, who hastily retreated.
“Only the current parents are allowed in, your highness,” another one said sulkily. “There's a list, you have to wait your turn. All you new returnees think you can just turn up and take your revenge without following the proper order of it -”
“Let me in,” Fingon shouted, his hand going for his belt knife.
The guards exchanged a look.
“Well, perhaps we could make an exception.”
“Can we?” one asked doubtfully.
The other guard nudged him. “Perhaps if you pay a special fee,” he suggested to Fingon.
Fingon felt sick. “How much?” he asked.
The guard asked for a clearly extortionate amount, but Fingon didn't care. He waited impatiently as they unlocked the doors they guarded.
At first Fingon could see no-one. Inside was a plain room, clean, with a large bed and not much else. But then he spotted a shadow hiding in the corner, between the bed and the wall.
“I'll get him out for you,” the guard suggested, pleased with Fingon now that he had paid him.
“It,” the other guard sniggered, as they raised their spears to poke at the figure in the corner, who raised his arms defensively to cover his head.
“No, stop,” Fingon said, filled with a sudden foreboding. “I'll go to him.”
The guards raised their eyebrows.
“As you like, lord,” one said oilily. “But we need to take your knife. He's not allowed anything sharp in there, or else he'll take it off you and hurt himself again.”
“It,” said the other guard again, and they both laughed.
Fingon thought that kinslaying would be a poor way to start his new life, and so kept his temper as he handed his knife to the guards. Then he slowly entered the room and even more slowly approached the cowering figure, whose long matted red hair fell around him as he curled up on the floor.
He was trying to hide behind the bed, though he was too tall to really manage it. But at last Fingon could see the lover he had been looking for so long.
He filed away his feelings for later, turning off the part of his brain that was crying out with horror and anger and such terrible grief. Now he had to act.
Fingon knelt in front of him, his knees all but buckling. “Russandol,” he said gently, trying to keep his voice from shaking. “Maitimo.”
The figure did not respond, and Fingon reached out to touch him gently, bracing himself, for since Angband Maedhros had often reacted badly to unexpected touch.
The arm he touched was Maedhros's right, and it had a hand, and dozens of deep scars that Fingon knew had not been there before.
At his touch Maedhros's head snapped up and he flinched away violently. His eyes were hollow and burning, and his face was utterly gaunt, as it had been when Fingon had rescued him.
Fingon stared at what the movement revealed. He wore no clothes - only his hair covered him - and so through the copper strands Fingon could see how thin he was.
He could also see that Maedhros had small yellow-bruised breasts and a different shape than the one Fingon had known. She, now, Fingon supposed.
She was also clearly pregnant, the swell of her belly somehow obscene against the jut of her ribs and her razor-sharp hip bones.
“Findekano,” she said, staring right through him, and laughed a dreadful wheezing laugh. “You're so beautiful. I'm always grateful when my mind imagines you.”
There was a noise behind him, and Fingon spun round to see the guards standing behind him, watching eagerly from the doorway.
“Aren't you going to fuck it?” one asked.
“Or at least hurt it,” the other asked, and then shrank at Fingon's look. “Come on, we don't have much to do here,” he defended himself. “Let us have our fun.”
Fingon wanted to kill them. His glare alone made them step back, though they still laughed. He took a breath, and then turned back to Maedhros.
“Russo,” he said, trying to ignore their presence. “Do you know where you are?”
Maedhros did not answer him, only rocked back and forth quietly, her eyes wide in fear.
Fingon recognised that look. She was not here: and he had no safe place to bring her mind back to as he had in Mithrim and Himring.
“I'm taking her away,” he announced abruptly. He did not care if he had to fight his way out, or battle the entirety of Aman: he would do it.
But his plans were interrupted by the sound of his father's voice. “Findekano!” he heard, and the guards’ faces blanched.
“Out,” they hissed, and immediately hustled him outside. Numb with shock, they had Fingon outside before he realised, where they tried to look as if everything were entirely ordinary.
Fingolfin took him by the arm and led him into the woods. Fingon glanced back, but the doors were already shut. He realised he was shaking, and his fists were clenched.
“You knew,” he hissed, when he could speak. Fingolfin pulled him down until they were sitting on the grass, as they had on hunting trips long ago when Fingon had been a child, obsessed with learning the art of the bow and pestered his father until he took him.
Fingolfin did not let go of his arm.
“You knew and did nothing,” Fingon accused.
Fingolfin sighed. He suddenly looked old: much more like the worn king Fingon remembered from his life.
“He would not thank you if you interfered,” Fingolfin said gently. “After the Valar… made their judgment, a life for a life… they decided every killer must carry a life for each they took… he spent years arguing that it was only he who should bear responsibility for the later kinslayings, that his followers had only obeyed him as they were obliged to. And since his father is imprisoned forever in Mandos, he argued that the responsibility for the first kinslaying lay on his shoulders too, as his heir. And I don't think he was wrong.”
Fingolfin's face hardened. “Should he be spared simply because you love him? Isn't he a murderer? It doesn't change what he did. He could have chosen otherwise. He had enough chances. And I cannot help but think that if it wasn't for him, you would never have become a kinslayer. Why shouldn't he bear the consequences and not you, like the Valar originally decreed?”
“I don't regret it!” Fingon said, his fury rising to the surface.
Fingolfin continued as if he had not spoken. “Think of how many people died because of him at the Nirnaeth, including you, my son, my precious boy. All for his insistence on those cursed jewels and following his father's terrible oath come what may.”
Fingon wanted to argue, almost shaking with the effort of staying still: his body wanted a fight, a battle, some concrete action he could take.
Fingolfin sighed. “I know it was not only him. But think of the people of Doriath, of the refugees at Sirion… How many died at his command? Refugees who fled the Enemy or the sack of Gondolin, looking for safety, only to be mown down by their own kin. Don't they deserve justice?”
Fingolfin paused, and stroked Fingon's hair as if to soothe him.
“No… it's better this way, yonya. You did not see where the oath led him, in the end. How far he fell. And isn't it after all a kind of mercy, that even now he can still choose to protect his brothers, his people, you and the others whose only fault was to love him? He is finally doing what he ought to have done all along.”
Fingon could hear a wounded noise come from his own throat, and Fingolfin looked at him with pity. “It is not such a terrible fate, is it, to bring life back into the world after all the evil he has done.”
Then he folded his arms, as Fingon had seen him do many times before when making hard decisions.
“I do not say this lightly, Finno, but you have been a king, and you know as well as I that there must be a reckoning. No-one can be above justice. He failed his people by leading them to ruin, after all. Now, at last, he can atone. Don't set yourself against the choice he made.”
“He doesn't know where he is,” Fingon said desperately. “He's afraid, and they're hurting him, atya...”
“It's probably better he doesn't know what's happening,” Fingolfin said, his tone terribly gentle again. “He wouldn't want you to see him like this, Findekano. Don't you remember how proud he was? Come on, son. Come back home.”