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Long shall ye abide and yearn for your bodies, Mandos had said; but when Maedhros found concreteness welling up from the sea of fog, it did not seem much time had passed at all. In turn he found sensation and time and embodiment. He found that he had fingers attached to an arm, and feet connected to legs, and proprioception and a dry mouth and an aching head, and only belatedly light. His eyes were closed. The light came in around the edges of what he recalled now were eyelids. He stood upright, on a cold stone floor, and he was barefoot and perceived the stone.

He was alive. There could be no doubting it, or supposing that perhaps he was only just restored to thought in the halls of the dead. He was most certainly alive.

It felt to Maedhros as though perhaps five minutes had passed since the agonized and sweltering oblivion of throwing himself into magma. If this was what Mandos had meant by long abiding and yearning, it was possible that Mandos had a less than complete understanding of those terms.

Maedhros opened his eyes. Then he cursed, startled back, and nearly fell; for far closer than was comfortable lurked the flat gaze of one of the Maiar of Mandos, a hooded figure with silver hair and glowing, featureless eyes, and a strangely flat affect, like gazing at a portrait cut out and stood upright.

"You are awake, Maedhros Fëanorion," said the maia.

"So it seems," croaked Maedhros. It occurred to him that it was profoundly unfair that this newly-made body could apparently be dehydrated, and then that if this was the worst he was subject to by the Valar he was getting off very lightly indeed.

The Oath. He thought then of the Oath, reaching for that wall that had encircled his thoughts these five centuries, and however long he had been dead, and he found – nothing. His mind stumbled, as if reaching for a barrier in space that proved absent. There was no constraint; nothing was there. Experimentally Maedhros thought, I don't care if they put a Silmaril before me on a platter when I get out of here, I'm not taking it – and nothing happened.

He was free. The Oath was gone.

Maedhros let out a shaky laugh, and disregarding the maia's speech completely, sat down on the stone ground and put his head between his knees. Certainly the knees and the head were both real; also to his relief, now that he thought of it, he was not nude but dressed in a gossamer gray robe that seemed of rather indeterminate construction but at least covered his body.

He had a body, and he was alive. Oath or no Oath, he wasn't sure he was glad; indeed, he rather felt as if he had drunk too much liquor and wanted nothing more than to go back to bed.

"Maedhros Fëanorion," said the maia, for what might have been the first time or the twentieth for all he knew.

"Yes," said Maedhros, head still between his knees.

"You may take some time to compose yourself," said the maia, in a tone as flat as the visage had been when Maedhros was looking. "Then you shall receive your judgement."

Ah. "I see," said Maedhros. "May I ask – how much time has passed?" He supposed he was to be brought before the Valar, or perhaps only Mandos himself.

"You have been dead for one year," said the maia, passionlessly. "Lady Elwing of Doriath shall come to you when she is ready."

"What?" said Maedhros.

"She is to judge you," said the maia, and – was not. When Maedhros looked up, disconcerted by the sudden sensation now of absence, the chamber was empty of all but him.

Elwing of Doriath. Maedhros, searching his memory, had an impression of a young girl in a practical mended tunic and seated on a pony, back when they had been on peaceful terms with Sirion; and a terrified young woman dressed in gauze, flinging herself off a cliff into the sea with the Silmaril.

"Fuck," said Maedhros.

***

ONE YEAR EARLIER

In the palantír, Maedhros Fëanorion vanished into magma; and also in the palantír, Elrond, dressed in the circlet of a Fëanorian prince and surrounded by Fëanorian knights, charged his horse forward in a panic, calling out.

Elwing watched for long enough to see her son halt his horse before they ran afoul of the broken, misshapen ground. Then she dismissed the image from the palantír and put her head in her hands.

Her thoughts came slowly, as though dragged through mud. Fuck, thought Elwing; and how dare he do all that and then leave my son alone again; and well, at least she'd been smarter than that. Water had given Ulmo time to save her.

Not that she had appreciated it; not that she really supposed the Valar were interested in saving Maedhros Fëanorion.

Elwing rose at length from the stool set behind the palantír, and went to the cottage window. The sky sparkled sunny and cloudless; the ocean, just visible over the dunes, was calm. No storm was coming tonight. Nevertheless she went about the motions of closing the shutters and barring them, and taking down the laundry from its line, and shutting the chickens in their coop and the pigeons in their cote. She called down one of the gulls and fed it, and asked it to take a message to Fantondilmë in the nearby Telerin village; Fantondilmë was friendly with Elwing and had an overly large family, and would be happy to come up and live in the cottage to take care of the birds for a few days. In this way, Elwing got all the way into her bedroom to pack before she really let herself think about what she was doing.

What was she doing?

It would only be polite to go and tell Lady Nerdanel, who had given Elwing the palantír decades back and taught her its use, saying she might thereby look upon her people and her sons. Lady Nerdanel had other palantíri, but she also had a life – which Elwing didn't – and responsibilities – which Elwing had disclaimed to the greatest extent possible – and therefore things to do besides sit and watch the sundered lands. If possible, she should hear the news of what had become of her eldest son from a living person, and tactfully. Elwing could accomplish precisely one of those things, and doubted anybody could be found to do both in this case. Certainly Elwing could warn her, if she hadn't already, not to seek a vision of her eldest son's fate.

But if Elwing had only intended to visit one of the very few people in Aman she would term friends, she wouldn't have needed to arrange for care for her birds for several days. She also wouldn't be standing with her hand on the flat box containing her circlet, forged by – oh – somebody in Doriath Refounded, where Elwing had lasted for precisely three days before getting into a screaming argument with her great-grandfather, throwing her wine goblet in his face, and storming out, transforming back into a bird as she went.

On the one hand she felt strongly that Thingol had deserved it for insinuating her attempted suicide and utter failure against the Fëanorians had been the natural result of such responsibilities inflicted on a young woman without even her husband. On the other, there was perhaps a reason Elwing still had few companions in Aman.

Elwing had another circlet, made for her by somebody in Finrod's service. She quite liked Finrod, actually; she had encountered him not long after storming away from Thingol's court, and he had marked himself unusual with his total willingness to converse with an albatross as though refusing to turn back into an elf shape was a usual thing to do. She might have stayed with him, but Finrod didn't like solitude or quiet and was surrounded by people all the time, who were much harder for her to take; and she might have taken the circlet from his people now, except that wearing that circlet marked her as a Princess of the Noldor by marriage to Eärendil, and--

And Elwing preferred not to do that.

It was Elwing who had chosen the Gift of the Elves, as had been pointed out to her repeatedly; and one aspect of that gift was the eternal immutability of elves' marriages. The last time this argument had occurred, before Elwing stopped agreeing to attend her in-laws' social gatherings, Elwing had retorted that it was also the gift of the elves not to get married at the age of twenty-five. This had effectively shut everybody else at the table up; but, as usual, at what cost.

They were picturing elf children of twenty-five, who would be children far from the first gasp of sexual maturity, unspeakable to think of married. Elwing hadn't been that young. But – she'd been younger than a human would be, and by a large margin. She hadn't known what they were doing, and it seemed nobody in Sirion had known what they were doing could get her pregnant unintentionally, as that, also, was not part of the general life cycle of elves.

At any rate, Elwing's parents had been murdered by mad Fëanorians, but Idril and Tuor had left voluntarily; and in Elwing's opinion if they wanted to have any opinions whatsoever about her personal choices and their consequences, they should have stayed.

It would have been easier, though, if Eärendil, also too young then, hadn't wanted to keep trying to be married now.

If he wanted to be married so badly, thought Elwing, he could have stayed with her – stayed when she was pregnant; stayed when she was struggling to raise unexpected twins in a refugee camp at the end of the world – instead of spending all his time cavorting about the sea in Vingilot, exploring islands and oceans free of Morgoth, and leaving her to be beset by supply problems and besieged by Fëanorians, only to decide he wanted to resume marital life in a constant way as soon as that marital life would take place in peaceful, plentiful Aman. But she was well aware that saying this would help nothing and so mostly didn't. Mostly, she said nothing to Eärendil at all.

She certainly did not wish to claim rank through him.

But Elwing was a princess of Doriath no matter what an ass any of her ancestors was, so she opened the first box and set the circlet on her bed, alongside a few pieces of formal jewelry. Then she took off her smock and shift, and took a moment to freshen herself in the wash basin, as her state of cleanliness lingered inexplicably between transformations. She got dressed again in an undyed gauze dress of a style woven at Sirion, and brushed her hair and put her circlet and jewelry on, and did not much consider what she was doing; except that she put shoes on when she left the house. Elwing hated to wear shoes, but she suspected she should have them for this errand.

She went out the door, and was an albatross before her next step hit the ground.

Valimar was a golden city filled with golden people, and not much to Elwing's liking at all; she had grown up a refugee princess of refugees and felt seriously uncomfortable with splendor still. She flew over the city watching with an albatross's eye, and disliked, too, how the elves pointed and stared.

Máhanaxar was not difficult to identify. Elwing circled it once, thinking; then she dove at the entrance near the city, and was an elf again as she landed. Eärendil had come here when all was strange and they had never been welcomed by anybody in the Undying Lands, she told herself; certainly she could do it if he could.

Lady Elwing, said Ulmo, who at least she knew, if indeed the sensation of being cupped in his hands and shown another shape before her release could be said to be an introduction. His speech was a tide acting on her heart and the ocean rushing in her ears at once; it was practically unendurable. She wanted to weep at the first word. What need bring you?

"I have come to petition the Valar, O King of the Sea," said Elwing in what she hoped was a polite tone, and drew herself up.

She had learned, too late, the skills of politics: the importance of a royal presentation, of the appearance of confidence whatever you felt, of choosing one's words with a certain sensibility of genre and form. If she'd had those skills in Sirion she might actually have exerted some control over the council of aristocrats; but then she had been young, then. She hadn't had time, or anyone to help her learn. Now, finally, she chose her words with care and she dressed for the image she presented – loose dark hair crowned in white gold, just a shade off the white gauze that veiled her form – and she set her expression to match it.

So come, O Lady of Sirion, said what must be Manwë from inside the circle. Elwing put fear out of her mind and went to the place of the petitioner on the hill of Ezellohar, and before the Valar she bowed.

What followed wasn't a lengthy conversation.

"O Rulers of the World, Lords of the West," said Elwing, concentrating very hard on keeping her speech at a good rhythm and not rushing too fast. "I, Elwing of Doriath, come before you with a request, for news has reached me that Maedhros Fëanorion is dead, and with him the matter of the Oath of Fëanor is concluded." This was a tactful way of phrasing it, for Elwing had been told she was never again to set foot in the Outer Lands, and was not entirely sure Lady Nerdanel had technically been allowed to give her the palantír to look upon them instead.

The Valar did not move – not to look at each other, not to speak, and in fact not at all; they stared unblinking and unbreathing upon her. It was seriously disconcerting. Elwing wondered if she ought to speak or wait. At length one of them said, Continue.

"It is said, too, that Eönwë, herald of Manwë, called upon the Sons of Fëanor to submit themselves to judgment; and if Maedhros Fëanorion abides in Mandos—" She paused for confirmation here but none came; and at last she continued, "If he abides in Mandos, then come to the judgment of the Valar he has." She took a deep breath. "Yet I submit to you – the crimes of Maedhros Fëanorion and his House were committed, not against the Valar but against other elves. I stand before you, Princess of Doriath, Lady of Sirion; and my great-grandfather the King of Doriath is brother to King Olwë of the Teleri, who have called me as kin. Indeed I have survived two Kinslayings myself as have few others, and none of royal descent among them.

"I petition you therefore for the right to judge Maedhros Fëanorion, and determine his fate; for I deem it right that justice be in the hands of the wronged. Grant me this, O Lords of the West, and I will strive for fairness, and for mercy and prudence both; and I swear unto you that I come with this petition out of love and not in hate or blind rage. So I humbly request," said Elwing, and bowed low.

After this the Valar were silent for a time.

At last, Manwë spoke, and he said: We hear you, O Lady of Sirion, Elwing of Doriath, and we must consider your petition. Be at ease, and go from us; we shall call you when we know our answer.

Ah, well, I tried my best, thought Elwing in no small relief, and she bowed and went from Máhanaxar, and took off to visit Nerdanel.

Lady Nerdanel dwelt in various places, depending upon the time of year and her mood; sometimes in her house in Tirion, sometimes with her father Mahtan, and sometimes in her own house in Formenos. In flight from Máhanaxar, Elwing could make it to Tirion that same day or Formenos, in a very different direction, on the next. Primarily on grounds of odds, she chose Formenos, spent the night camped in the oddly bloodless forests of Aman, and came to Formenos the next day.

Elwing remembered that she had been terribly frightened the first time she visited Lady Nerdanel in Formenos; the city was originally that of Lady Nerdanel's father, but it had also been the seat of Fëanor, and a majority of the residents were his supporters in one way or another. But equally a large plurality were not, and except for the particularly blatant there was no way of telling on the street. It did not seem worth the energy to be frightened of them anymore; and anyway they had become somewhat accustomed to her presence. In fact, a few people waved to her as she spiraled down to land in the main square. Shortly after turning back, she found she had been lucky, and was directed to Lady Nerdanel in her private house.

There, she found Nerdanel in the workshop, accompanied by a flurry of loud banging and scraping noises amidst a cloud of profanity. Elwing peered in the door from outside and knocked, then proceeded around the workshop into the courtyard; depending on what Nerdanel had been doing and how she felt about it she might get around to Elwing anywhere from two minutes later, just after cleaning up, to five hours, but it wasn't like Elwing was in a hurry.

This time, though, it was closer to two minutes. Nerdanel came through the workshop's other door still drying her hands on a rag, which she carelessly tossed aside onto the walled edge of a flower bed. "I had some interesting news from Máhanaxar," she said, explaining her swiftness but raising further questions.

Hearing Nerdanel's voice, a child who was either an apprentice or wanted to be popped their head out of a different door. "Do you need anything, Master Nerdanel?"

"Get us some tea, please," said Nerdanel without looking, and the child vanished again. Nerdanel sat down on one of the benches and brushed wisps of escaping hair out of her face. This ruined the effort she had gone to to clean her hands, as outside the areas covered by the protective gear she had just removed, her face was still covered in stone dust. She looked at Elwing. "Well?"

"I'm surprised you've already heard," said Elwing. "I suppose I ought to ask you what you've heard, given that, in case I'm guessing wrong."

"Fair enough," said Nerdanel. "I heard by courier bird that you went to Máhanaxar and petitioned for the right to judge my oldest son for his crimes now he's dead, which was a bit of a shock, since I hadn't known he was dead in the first place."

"I was coming here to tell you," Elwing said defensively. "I saw it in the palantír. I just – made a detour, since Valimar is closer to my cottage than here."

"I'm not making any accusations," said Nerdanel. "Certainly you have a good claim to recompense from Nelyafinwë. It's just that that very fact worries me slightly."

Elwing had somewhat forgotten that her motives might concern Nerdanel. "Oh!" she said. "I'm not doing this for revenge. I mean, I'm not saying I like him, or I'm planning to like him," she said when Nerdanel's eyebrows contorted interestingly, "But the last time the Valar decided to punish Noldorin Kinslayers they were happy with killing everyone else in Beleriand as collateral damage. Twice! I don't know how they could apply that principle to this situation, but I don't want to find out, since it seems to be their only idea."

Nerdanel had put her head in her hand. "I see."

"Anyway," said Elwing, eyeing her host with some concern, "Besides that, Elrond and probably Elros would be very sad if he was banished to the Void or confined in Mandos for all eternity. I thought things might go more smoothly with them if I could at least say I tried. But that's all I did, really, since they put me off with a sort of very formal declaration of "hmm." I guess I should say I'm sorry to you, too, for that."

"The last thing I expect from you," said Nerdanel very firmly, "Is that you should feel any obligation whatsoever to defend my family, or apologize for anything concerning them."

Elwing shrugged. "One of the last things your son did was declare my son his heir and the Head of the House of Fëanor, which I think means your family is now my family."

"I – what?" said Nerdanel, and the apprentice came back with a tray. "—Thank you. Lady Elwing, perhaps you had better back up a bit and tell me how my son died, if you please."

"Well, it's unpleasant, but I was planning to," said Elwing. "Maybe you'd better wash your hands again first, though, and your face this time, if you're planning on refreshments while I do it."

Nerdanel appeared to notice the stone dust that had reappeared on her hands where they currently sat, anxiously twisting the ends of her plait. "Oh, damn!" she said, and got up to do it.

Then they had the tea, and Elwing had to do her best to explain what she had seen in the palantír, starting from Maedhros's request for the Silmaril and Eönwë's call to the Fëanorians to submit.

"Oh, no," said Nerdanel, her voice tired and soft, as though she could not summon the effort to come up with words bad enough for this.

"Yes, well," said Elwing. "Maedhros and Maglor told their followers they were going to surrender, and that was when Maedhros said he was abdicating and crowned Elrond. Then they went off on foot, hid their devices, snuck into the Valinorian host, and stole the Silmarils instead."

"Of course they did. Of course. How many people died?" said Nerdanel wearily. "I assume they both fell?"

"Ah, no, as far as I saw Maglor is still alive, and Maedhros's death wasn't there," said Elwing. "They killed the guards, and a few people getting out, I wasn't really counting, and then Eönwë told everyone not to pursue and slay them, so they got away. Possibly," she admitted, mostly because she was speaking to Nerdanel, "Because Elrond had just heard the alarm in the Valinorian camp from Elros's head and sounded the call for attack to go and cover their retreat—"

"Elwing!" said Nerdanel, horrified.

Elwing shrugged. "They didn't actually kill anyone," she said, "And to be honest, I've been expecting something like this since they started seating Elrond and Elros in the Fëanorian officers' council." Watching in the palantír, Elwing had, unfortunately, recognized a number of faces in those soldiers who had taught her sons to fight, and lead, and comforted them over failure and celebrated with them success – in short, everything that nobody had really done for Elwing, that she had in fact been desperate for somebody to do, once. Her sons had been with the Fëanorians since so tender an age that they didn't remember her. She had known perfectly well what would happen when the Fëanorian host next attacked other elves. At least Elros's little long-term espionage mission meant he wouldn't be implicated.

Nerdanel looked like she wanted, badly, to say something to this, or perhaps several contradictory and heated somethings, but she took several sips of tea instead. Eventually, she said, "And what happened to Nelyafinwë, then?"

Elwing grimaced; she wasn't sure this was something anybody could put tactfully. "They opened the box with the Silmarils, and – distributed them, and deemed the Oath complete," she said. "I assume it's the same as Elrond being crowned, they've decided the one with my husband is basically with Fëanor's kin now." Nerdanel sucked in a breath but Elwing didn't let her get a question in about that; it didn't exactly matter. "Shortly afterwards, Maedhros – er – took his own life."

"Oh," said Nerdanel, and buried her face in her arms on the table. "Oh, Maitimo..."

Mostly certain this was the correct and normal thing to do, Elwing put a hand on Nerdanel's shoulder. Nerdanel turned and seized Elwing in her arms, and began to sob. Trying, hard, to stifle the sensation of being trapped that generally came with embraces, Elwing awkwardly patted Nerdanel's back, and wished she had thought to make somebody else break this news. Possibly Finrod would have been willing to do it, if only to spare his kinswoman the experience of being brought tragic information by Elwing.

Subsequently and as usual, time passed. In the short term, Nerdanel eventually stopped crying and ate the cake the apprentice had brought and drank her tea, after which Elwing hung around awkwardly for a few days in hopes this was a helpful thing to do, until, as usual, the number of people around got to her and she flew back to her cottage.

There, Elwing more or less forgot about the whole thing.

Oh, she kept watching the palantír, which now showed her Elrond negotiating with Gil-galad, and Elrond reuniting with Elros, and the steady journey of those elves who had declined to Sail to the east in order to find habitable territory. Elwing was not surprised enough that Elrond was among them to feel much of anything about it, positive or negative. It would have been nice to see him, probably, but she wasn't very happy to be in Aman herself, and it was obvious Elrond had no desire to come. Apparently Elros would eventually be taking up residence on a new island raised by the Valar in visiting distance of Aman, and elves in general were supposed to be permitted to go. Elwing wasn't sure that applied to her, as she had been explicitly forbidden from setting foot in the Outer Lands ever again, but frankly, she also didn't care. She was reasonably certain they wouldn't notice and stop her flying there. If they did, she would just have to find a less expected strategy, like learning to turn into a fish instead.

Aside from watching the palantír, Elwing cared for and doctored birds, domestic and wild; gardened; spun thread for and subsequently wove enough Sirion-cloth for two more dresses and more pedestrian stuff for a range of household towels and cushion covers and such; and had another brief string of spousal arguments when somebody in that side of the family decided, again, that they knew what her "real" objection was and could advise Eärendil on meeting it.

"You ought to stop listening to them about these things," said Elwing, seriously annoyed on that particular evening because she had been in the midst of stringing a complicated new design's warp on her loom, and she had a feeling she would have lost track of the math by the time she went back. "I promise I have been completely honest and clear about my problem, I'm not trying to be subtle and I'm not playing games and I'm not confused. The problem is that I don't want to be married to you. I know I can't get married to anybody else either, but that's a separate problem and unrelated. You can help me with the first one by going away again."

Eärendil looked vaguely morose, like she had just kicked a puppy, which was her least favorite thing about these arguments. You could hardly call them fights, really, because fight, Eärendil wouldn't. Elwing was always left with the feeling that she was arguing with herself while he stood by miserably. It reminded her of when they had argued over his time at sea in Sirion, although then she had been arguing the opposite, that he should stay; he had been just as unwilling to actually respond to anything she said. "I brought you silk thread for your loom," he said hopefully.

"Well, you can bring it straight back out," said Elwing, and pointed out the door and glared until he gave up again.

That time he had been accompanied by Tuor, who was less formidable an opponent than Idril, at least. "Perhaps you would feel better if he had stayed with you before instead of spending so much time at sea," said Tuor gently. "I think—"

The best approach was to head off any attempts at marital counseling very fast, before they could get started, and especially before she was successfully drawn into an argument about something she did, in fact, have mixed feelings about. "I would feel better if he hadn't married me," said Elwing, "Which I did not in fact know was happening at the time, on account of our complete lack of appropriate guidance from, for example, wiser and more experienced kin who understand how marriage bonds work."

"I am sorry for that," said Tuor earnestly and not for the first time. "Still, now that you are bound—"

"I am happy to make the best of it by staying far enough away that I can pretend we aren't," said Elwing, and not for the first time, she shut the door in her father-in-law's face. Then she barred it, extinguished all of the lamps, and sat on the floor with her back to that very door where she was invisible from the windows until they gave up and went away again. Seated there, with no occupation but her memories, she thought with some real wistfulness of her cut-short youth, when everything had been simple. She remembered Eärendil watching her at the loom with admiration, and sneaking away to walk the beaches together and listen with rapt fascination to his explanation of boat-craft, and that moment when they realized that with Eärendil's parents gone, there was no one with real authority to gainsay their time together...

Perhaps Elwing wished there had been. She hadn't known what might happen, and had had no close kin to pull her aside and tell her. Neither her childhood nurse, grown more frail and tired each year with the increasing weight of her husband's death in the sacking of Menegroth; nor the sometimes-neglectful, sometimes-domineering remaining nobles of Doriath who sat in council had made any effort to educate her about sex before she had it. Maybe if she'd known what she was choosing she could have kept wanting it later – or said no in the first place. Gwirilind had faded before the Fëanorians came back for Sirion, so she was not there to hurl accusations at even if Elwing had felt like being cruel; and she would only have humiliated herself to confront those of her council who now lived in Aman. Eärendil was trying, too, so there was, Elwing supposed, nobody to blame but herself for her discontent. Yet that did not make her happy and it could not make her want to be married.

Eventually they left, as they always did. Elwing rose to kindle the lamps, and go back to her loom; she knew already that she would not sleep easily that night.

In this way a year passed after Elwing's petition. It was very like all of the years before it. The return of the Noldorin Hosts with some of the elves of Beleriand, and the replacement of Queen Indis's regency with her son once more, did not have much of an effect on Elwing. She never really went into Tirion. When she went to see Lady Nerdanel, she received a heightened amount of staring and people whispering explanations to each other in Formenos for a while until the new returnees got used to her, too; and visiting Finrod became even more annoying, and so for a while she didn't. She received a letter from Círdan apologizing for his failure to protect both her and her children, and telling her a good bit less than she already knew through the palantír, but nothing from either of her sons; this, too, did not surprise her, as she doubted writing to her in Aman would have occurred to either of them. It was Eärendil who they had at least been reminded of, when the Valar dangled him before Elros in the battle against Morgoth.

Precisely because so little had changed, Elwing had nearly forgotten about the petition completely when she opened her door and found a maia on her doorstep.

"Ah," said Elwing uncomfortably; she had been expecting either an in-law or one of the nearby Teleri villagers, and so had opened the door as she was. In this case, that was barefoot, with her skirt kilted up above the knee and her hair hastily pinned up, and covered in feathers and considerably less mentionable things because she had just been cleaning in the dovecote. Frantically Elwing scrambled in her head for 'princess.' "Please excuse my attire; I was not expecting such a lofty visitor," she said, in what she hoped was a dignified and even tone. She couldn't do anything about the rest of it at this point.

The maia was a silvery, vaguely elf-like being of indeterminate gender and a concerningly unclear number of limbs. "No offense has been given, Princess Elwing," they said. "I was sent with word, and a summons; for the Valar have granted your petition and wish to hear your judgment."

Elwing opened her mouth to say what judgment or perhaps more disastrously what petition, before, at the last minute, she remembered what she had immediately, perhaps in retrospect out of wishful thinking, put out of her head as a hopeless request.

Apparently not. She really should have spoken to Lady Nerdanel about this possibility, tactless as it might have been; presumably Nerdanel would have had actual insight into how to reform her oldest son. Or perhaps that was also wishful thinking.

"Please excuse me while I bathe, and dress," she said, both for its own sake and in a frantic play for time. "Shall you accompany me, or shall I fly to Máhanaxar?"

"Whatever pleases you, for the court shall hear you tomorrow," was the response, which meant she had a full night subsequently in which to panic. Elwing closed the door behind the maia, looked at it in silence for a moment, and said, "Fuck."

It turned out that an extended panic session did not give her any better ideas, which possibly she should have anticipated after the last time she had panicked, and ended up jumping off a cliff with a Silmaril. Elwing paced the inside of the cottage, paced the outside of the cottage, alarmed the chickens, tried unsuccessfully to explain the matter to the seagulls (who did not understand why Kinslaying was considered bad) and only marginally more successfully to the crows (whose idea of community judgment was both alarming and rather impractical for this situation), and finally, as a last resort, found a bottle of plum brandy from Finrod standing forgotten in a cupboard and got very, very drunk.

In the morning, she woke up ragingly hungover with a handwritten list of ideas by her head. She read the list. Then she swore at herself for getting drunk and wasting a sheet of paper on this crap, crumpled the list up and threw it away before she went to bathe and dress. It was possible that she was not in even her personal best state of royal dignity when she arrived at Máhanaxar and turned back into an elf form, but, Elwing decided, if anybody thought she looked red-eyed and haggard they could attribute it to her grief over the devastation of her family, and hopefully not to Finrod's appallingly strong distilled liquor.

O Lady of Sirion, Princess of Doriath, said Manwë to her when she entered Máhanaxar again and bowed. We would hear your judgment on the subject of Maedhros Fëanorion.

No Maedhros was present, which was either going to be good or bad for the one remaining stalling tactic Elwing had come up with on her flight over. "I thank you for your wisdom and grace, O Lords of the West," Elwing said, and bowed again. "The sorrows of my people are many and I have learned them well and long, and gone without rest in contemplation of them. Yet there is more I do not know, which I think I must, to enter an honest judgment; to judge seeking both fairness and to avoid further harm. Might I speak with Maedhros Fëanorion, that I might better know his mind?"

The Valar did not actually move, but there was a sense of stirring nonetheless.

This thing might be done, said Lord Námo. Yet the dead are not like the living, and to predict the actions of the living by the thoughts of the dead is a subtle and difficult art; and so I warn you that if you would know his mind, to life he must be restored, in case that you should shudder from the idea of consigning him dead again after.

Well, thought Elwing with a tiny bit of hysteria, it was nice someone was thinking about this sort of thing. "I understand, Lord Mandos, and yet I entreat, let me speak with him," she said, and bowed again.

Then to Mandos you shall be conveyed, and Maedhros Fëanorion I shall return. If we are in agreement? said Lord Námo, now clearly addressing the others.

Again she had a sense of consultation – perhaps lengthy consultation – occurring where she could not perceive and in little time. So it shall be, said Manwë, Hail, Lady of Sirion – as your spouse brought hope unlooked for, may you bring restoration beyond hope; with gratitude as well as pity we place the House of Fëanor in your hands.

There was Eärendil again, thought Elwing in stifled anger as she bowed, and so she made it all the way to the Maia of Mandos preparing to convey her before she thought, wait, they're making me judge the rest of them?

***

Somebody was pacing just outside the door, and had been pacing for some time. Maedhros had no idea how much time, but certainly long enough to suggest a certain reluctance to come in and face him.

Well, assuming it was Elwing, he could hardly blame her for that.

Maedhros tipped his head back against the stone wall. His body was certainly real, however potentially temporary; he was stiff from sitting, tensely, on unforgiving stone for so long, and the hand he still didn't have was prickling again, and he was starting to get thirsty. He wasn't sure if that was a clue as to the time passing or not.

Possibly-Elwing turned and came back down the hallway outside the door again. Maedhros resolved himself. As footsteps passed the doorway behind the curtain hung there, he called in Sindarin, "Is everything all right?"

The footsteps paused just behind the tapestry. Maedhros wondered, feeling rather philosophical about the subject, if that had been a mistake. It was unclear at this point how meaningful an additional mistake would be, so he couldn't get too worked up about the possibility.

The tapestry was thrust aside; and the elf who entered was certainly either Elwing of Doriath or a very close lookalike. She was dressed in the same white gauze he remembered from her death, with a circlet of unfamiliar style on her brow, and, for some reason, no shoes. She looked exhausted, and upset. This duty could not be an easy one for her.

"Lady Elwing," said Maedhros, decided on the whole that he had better not stand up, and bowed stiffly from the stone bench instead.

"Maedhros Fëanorion," she said in an unreadable tone, and bowed back. Just as he was considering whether he should kneel, and if he could do it without towering over her in the interim or making any sudden movements, she made an odd expression, and said, "Look, I'm not sure I really thought this through."

"Ah," said Maedhros. He found himself suddenly bereft of anything better to say.

"I mean, I didn't think they would agree," explained Elwing, going back to her pacing, albeit inside the room instead of out. "That was the point. I showed up and asked nicely and I thought they'd say no, and then whatever stupid thing they did they'd be – well, not unassailable, but if the Noldor declared war on the Valar over it, it wouldn't be my problem, and I could tell Elrond that I tried later. I would have tried."

"You asked to judge me?" clarified Maedhros.

"Yes, which means that whatever stupid thing I do will mean everyone blames me for it, and I am not unassailable," said Elwing. "I had some ideas, but they weren't very good. I blame Finrod."

"Finrod?" echoed Maedhros blankly. He reflected that once he had been renown as an able diplomat and speechmaker.

"He sent me the brandy," explained Elwing, and as Maedhros rapidly re-evaluated her exhausted look, she collapsed onto the opposite bench, pulled her knees up and hid her face in them.

Making Maedhros pick his own punishment was certainly creative of Námo, but it seemed a little unfair to involve Elwing. "Just tell them to throw me into the Void," said Maedhros, who had not really been thinking at the time of his suicide attempt but now found the idea of actual oblivion rather attractive.

"No, I can't," said Elwing. "First, I told you, Elrond would be sad. Second, the Fëanorians here would find out about it and lynch me and then there'd be another major Kinslaying."

Of course he still had followers in Aman. Of fucking course. Why had he expected anything different?

"Besides," Elwing continued, "You don't really want me to do that." As Maedhros opened his mouth to argue, she said, "I only asked about you, but the Valar implied they're going to treat whatever I say as precedent for all of your brothers. And possibly your father, too? They weren't very specific and I'm afraid to ask for clarification at this point."

Maedhros closed his mouth.

"Yeah, exactly," said Elwing glumly.

"So," Maedhros said, when Elwing said nothing further for a while, "Your goal is to come up with some judgment to pass on me, which won't make anything worse if applied equally to all of my brothers and possibly my father, or provoke political turmoil in Aman, or upset Elrond – what do you know about Elrond, anyway?" Whatever Elrond should feel about him, Maedhros was sure Elwing was right; but there was no reason she should know that.

Elwing sighed. "Your mother gave me a palantír so I could check on my sons," she said. "That was fifty years ago. I've been watching you ever since." As Maedhros contemplated this horrifying statement, she said with displeasure, "It doesn't excuse the massacre, but I'm grateful that you cared for them well. Better than I could have, probably," she said.

"It takes time to learn to parent," said Maedhros, as reflexes from previous, saner versions of this conversation kicked in. His conscious mind was still wrestling in horror with the idea of Elwing of Doriath watching all of his decisions for the past fifty years. "And you had very few resources at Sirion." Certainly he suspected any number of parents of his acquaintance would have struggled to raise firstborn twins in a refugee camp under constant peril from Morgoth – and, of course, from Maedhros himself.

Besides, she had hardly had a chance to start before the attack. The twins had been very young when Maglor had taken them from the ruins of Sirion.

"I'm not just saying that. I didn't actually want children," Elwing confessed. "I didn't know peredhil could get pregnant by accident. Neither did anybody else."

Well, thought Maedhros, that certainly answered the nagging question of why, at the end of the world and under such circumstances there, she had. "Maybe you had better tell me what you know about the political factions you're trying to balance," he said. "Supposing that you want my suggestions."

"Please," said Elwing, and took a deep breath. "To start, the Valar summoned all of the elves in Middle-Earth to depart to Aman, except for the Noldorin leaders from the time of when you left, but a lot of them refused – Gil-galad and Elrond are still there, and I don't think many of your people came. Arafinwë has returned to Aman, and is High King of the Noldor in Tirion. Finrod was returned early and is Crown Prince. A lot of the Fëanorians are in Formenos under your mother's father, but they don't really follow him, they're just happier about living in his jurisdiction than Arafinwë's, I think. Some of the Noldor who died in Beleriand have started returning, and some of the Sindar from outside Doriath who died with your people there have returned and made homes with them. That's the Noldor, and it's just about all I know. Thingol was returned a few decades after he died, just before... I came... and he and Melian have refounded Doriath."

Elwing made a very interesting face on this comment.

Cautiously, Maedhros said, "And you do not reside there."

"And I do not," she said emphatically, though Maedhros was not sure with what emotion. "Most of the Doriathrim who returned or Sailed went to them, but not all, and some of the other Sindar don't want to live in either kingdom, and they've sort of filtered out away from the cities. I don't visit them much," she said, tone definitely drifting toward morose, "Because the last time I did they tried to crown me."

Inappropriately – but perhaps he could blame his lack of self-control on how recently he had been dead – Maedhros started to laugh.

"I know," said Elwing, drooping with most of her body. "They've worked out you have to have a monarch to deal with the Valar, and they think if they go and ask for one they'll be told to follow my great-grandfather like they were originally supposed to, so they want somebody else indisputably of his bloodline. Lord Alwedann and Lady Tathariel explained it to me – they're representatives of the unaffiliated confederation. I said no. And turned into a bird. And flew away."

"Surely you have at least one ambitious cousin who wouldn't mind," said Maedhros.

"I'm sure I have a number of cousins who you killed," said Elwing, which was, unfortunately, probably true. "I don't know my family tree very well, but a couple of Elmo's sons were still alive before Menegroth, weren't they? And my mother had family. Perhaps one of these days some of them will be back from Mandos and I can make that situation their problem instead. Let me see. There's the Teleri and the Vanyar, but I'm sure you know more about them than I do, since none of them have really left. Er, most of the Teleri who you killed are back by now, since they weren't under any sort of special judgment or ban, which made it an interesting ordeal to persuade them to take the Noldorin army this time..."

"I'd thought the Valar provided the ships," said Maedhros in surprise. "Or commanded them, if not."

"Oh," said Elwing, and looked up and directly at him. "No, they didn't. I persuaded the Teleri to lend the ships this time. They were going to refuse again."

In the entire hailstorm of absurd circumstances bouncing off him, this was the thing that made Maedhros's mind go blank. He stared at Elwing, Elu Thingol's great-granddaughter, Princess of Doriath, and slowly the image formed in his mind of her entreating the Teleri – those very Teleri who they had killed, and who had killed them, at Alqualondë – to carry the Noldorin army to Beleriand. Vividly Maedhros remembered the blood that had stained the swan ships, and the sight of Maglor's fellow music apprentice Hwindion dying of a gut wound from a Noldorin sword. Elwing of Doriath looking at that first bloodstain in the history of Aman and saying, well, we'll try again; this time they might do it. This after Sirion – just after Sirion; this after Doriath itself.

Only then did he realize they had been speaking Quenya for most of the conversation.

"I think I wish you had been King of Doriath instead," said Maedhros, and was promptly horrified this comment had escaped his mouth.

Elwing also looked appalled. "Don't say that! I'd be an awful king. Unless that was what you meant, I suppose, but he was dead before you sacked Doriath, wasn't he? Yes, that was why the Girdle fell, so he must have been."

Of course Elwing had been far too young to understand what was going on at the time.

"He was," said Maedhros, and with difficulty wrenched his mind away and his self control back. "I thank you for persuading the Teleri, as inappropriate as such sentiments may be from me," he said instead.

Elwing shrugged. "They went to save the remnants of my people along with yours – the survivors of Sirion, I mean, but what was left of the Sindar as a whole, too. Including the ones with your forces. I still don't understand why the Teleri refused in the first place. Everyone outside Doriath would have died if you hadn't come to Beleriand when you did, and somehow I don't think Morgoth would have left Doriath alone when they were the only ones left, or that Melian would have won if he came out to fight her directly."

Maedhros entirely agreed, but felt saying so would be offensive, so instead he said, "I suppose if they're a little more kindly disposed to the Noldor, that won't extend to me; so whatever you choose must avoid igniting problems between the Teleri and the Noldor, or with Thingol, or for that matter, Arafinwë." The guards he and Maglor had killed had been of Arafinwë's host, and he had recognized one or two of them from his time as Prince Nelyafinwë; and shame then lurched in him for his comments on the Noldorin army after he himself had caused their last casualties in Beleriand.

Not that Maedhros was sure what else he could have done. He could have committed himself to one last act of believing two things at once, perhaps, as Maglor had managed; if Maedhros had been capable of believing the Valar might relinquish the Silmarils, the Oath would have left him surrender. Maedhros, once-captive of Morgoth, had forced himself to believe many things, but could not manage that.

"Yes, but I also need to avoid the Fëanorians starting a war, or showing up at my cottage to lynch me, so—"

"Wait," said Maedhros, interrupting unwisely as he actually absorbed this hypothetical, "It's publicly known that the Valar left it up to you?"

"I made the petition in public," said Elwing.

She had said before that she had asked to judge him. "Why?" he said again.

This time, she leveled a long look in his direction. "The last time the Valar decided to punish Noldorin Kinslayers, they flooded Beleriand and killed everybody else still there; and the time before that, they consigned everybody in Beleriand to die at Morgoth's hands or be enslaved by him to avoid helping your army. I don't know how they could turn punishing your family into somehow making another go at murdering everybody who didn't come to Aman, but I'm sure they'd manage it somehow. I do not trust their judgment, thank you."

"...I feel that this conversation perhaps should not continue in the Halls of the Doomsman," said Maedhros in his most polite tones.

"Oh, he knows I think this," said Elwing, horrifyingly. Maedhros began to wonder if perhaps she had used up her lifetime's supply of fear when he had cornered her for the Silmaril, and was no longer capable of experiencing it. "I also tried to punch Lord Ulmo over the bird transformation, so I think on the whole either they're already waiting to punish me horribly at some future date or they think I've suffered enough already. But what I meant to say is that you're probably right that you need to be adequately chastened for your enemies' sensibilities, but it has to be something your followers will tolerate, too."

"Who are my followers? Surely those with us at Sirion have not begun to return," said Maedhros. He understood approximately how the host with the Fëanorians after Doriath had, mostly, grimly kept going on for lack of better options and a reluctance to admit to their own crimes; but he would not have expected so much as civility from those of his followers who had died before that.

Elwing shrugged. "I'm hardly being asked around for tea by them! I don't know, exactly; but I think it's some mix of the ones who you left here – the ones who didn't sneak into the host and stay in Beleriand with Elrond – and ones who have been reborn, with a small handful who Sailed. There are definitely Sindar with them, because my great-grandparents complain about it."

"Wonderful," said Maedhros, visions of being accused of deliberately fomenting a Sindarin civil war floating in his mind, and buried his face in his hand. "I think I wish I was still dead."

"Now I know at least one way to punish you," said Elwing, laughing; and giving into the situation, Maedhros laughed, too. "No, but I already knew that! You were stupider than me, you know. Lava gave no time for second thoughts! I might have made it even without Ulmo if I started swimming fast enough."

"I suppose I cannot deny it," said Maedhros, and horrified, "You were watching that?"

"Mhmm. I told your mother, which probably wasn't kind, but I thought anybody else would be worse about it." Maedhros winced. "Elrond was watching, too," said Elwing. "So I must be careful judging you; I don't want to make anything worse for him when he finds out what happened!"

"Elrond was watching?" said Maedhros, and tried to drag the sequence of events just before his death into order in his head. "How was Elrond watching?" He was certain he had suggested Elrond wait at least a few days after what he had claimed would be his surrender with Maglor before coming in with the remainder of the Fëanorian army. The last thing Maedhros had wanted was for Elrond to get hurt in the middle of the inevitable clash over the Silmarils, and appearing with so many soldiers could easily be taken as a threat before he was recognized.

Elwing gave him a direct and cynical look, eyebrow cocked. "Did you really think he was going to listen to you?" she said. "He found out what you'd actually done immediately through Elros and rallied your army to attack the camp." As Maedhros spluttered with the unexpected discovery that he could still be horrified by what he had done, she said, "So you see, I can't deny he's your son, even if he's mine, too. Don't fear – they hadn't killed anyone by the time pursuit was ended, so he's still not a Kinslayer. Technically."

Maedhros could not think of a single thing to say to that. Elwing seemed content to sit in silence, possibly because she knew she had told him the one thing that could possible be worse than knowledge of what he himself had done: the certainty that he and Maglor had corrupted Elrond, too, and all their striving to keep the twins out of what they were had been in vain.

Finally, Maedhros forced himself to think forward, as he had been doing for centuries. "So you're in want of suggestions for how to judge me, Princess."

"Please do not," said Elwing with a decidedly pained expression. "Call me that, I mean. Suggestions would be welcome."

Maedhros had once been a major figure in determining the shape of Tirion's courts and legal proceedings, but unfortunately there was still little precedent to draw on here; elves rarely killed one another deliberately, and typically, unfortunate oaths were deemed their own punishment. When Maedhros dealt with the murderers of Eluréd and Elurín, he had forced them into oaths to never again harm children and banned them from carrying weapons, until their shame took them away from Amon Ereb to disappear. But nobody carried weapons in Aman, and he suspected that absolutely no one would feel better about Maedhros Fëanorion taking another oath. "Assuming you have already dismissed the idea of remanding me to Mandos for some time..."

"Too easily conflated with cases of actual healing, while still making your followers angry," said Elwing.

"—Yes, it's the worst of both worlds in terms of the factions, isn't it?" Maedhros thought he might have liked to spend a few centuries in Mandos, at least, possibly up to and including the rest of time; but his brothers wouldn't. "Humans have more homicide cases, but their precedents are unhelpful." Elves were universally appalled by corporal punishment. "I suppose if somebody can be found who wants it, some period of service might be the best compromise."

Elwing gave him a disgruntled look. "I don't like people," she said, though it did not seem to be a serious complaint. "I don't want one living with me!"

It was a fair one, even if not serious. "I've hurt a lot of people," said Maedhros baldly. "I'm sure at least one of them wouldn't mind the idea."

"My great-grandfather would probably be delighted, but I'm trying to avoid starting a war in Aman." Elwing sighed. "So I had better not solicit offers, either, or he'll make one. I don't have anything for you to do, either. You're going to spend fifty years cleaning my gutters out and feeding chickens. Fine." She rose abruptly in a flutter of gauzy skirts. "Does fifty years sound acceptable?"

"Perhaps a bit short, frankly," said Maedhros. Events were suddenly moving quickly, and he was aware again of how recently he had come to life; his consciousness was as the gauze of Elwing's dress stretched over a frame, thin and see-through.

"Well, I'm not promising to put up with you longer than that, let alone every one of your family members consecutively," said Elwing, going to push aside the tapestry covering the door. "We'd better do the promise in public. I think you're going to have to swear after all, but give me some sort of release lever in the wording aside from the time."

Maedhros, contemplating the horrifying prospect of Curufin trapped alone in a cottage with this awkward, half-regal woman, was too distracted to reply.

Máhanaxar was as Maedhros remembered it, though now overseen by the ghostly, standing-corpses of the Two Trees instead of radiant light. The ever-changing road from Mandos had led them directly up to the gates; which was, if nothing else, expedient. On the whole it was probably better that he appeared in the gray garb of Mandos, without crown or jewel or even shoes, but he nevertheless felt as though he was about to commit some terrible breach of social etiquette.

It had been a while since that was a major concern of his. Possibly if he concentrated, he could feel nostalgic, or at least pleased by the ability to concern himself with trivialities, instead of this curdling, all-exposing shame.

Elwing had put her shoes back on when the gates of Máhanaxar rose up in the distance on the trail. Now she shook out her skirts and sleeves, adjusted the circlet holding back her loose hair, and started forward with a set jaw and furious eyes. Maedhros, falling automatically into a position two steps behind her to the right, thought for a moment how that expression resembled his father.

"O Lords of the West," said Elwing, when they had come onto the hill of Ezellohar and made their bows. "I have returned from the Halls of Mandos with Maedhros Fëanorion, having had words with him."

So we see, said Lord Manwë, and Maedhros had forgotten the shock of the voices of the Valar, as he always forgot between occasions. He wondered sometimes that Celegorm had borne thousands of years in Oromë's train and daily, even intimate, contact with one of those voices. It did not seem the sort of thing one became accustomed to. Manwë's voice was more than the wild, frenzied winds it contained, more than lightning and thunder, more than the feeling of soaring, half-dead and exalted with unexpected mercy, on an eagle; the thunder and the lightning and the storm were forced inside your skull, taking place in some depth of your spirit and not only around you.

Elwing was still as Maedhros was still at that impact, and Manwë continued: Have you rendered a judgment, Lady of Sirion?

"I have," said Elwing, "And I thank you for your sufferance, O Rulers of the World." Her bearing was stately and her face was calm. Maedhros remembered none of this dignity or frankly maturity the one time they had met in person to argue over the Silmarils. She had learned; he had forced her to learn, probably. "Maedhros Fëanorion has come from death and will remain, as there is no reparation in the Halls of Mandos; for what good shall it do anyone should he retreat again from the harm he has caused? We have agreed that he shall serve me for fifty years as reckoned by the sun; and in accepting I shall not use him cruelly but have always the good of those who he has harmed in mind. Do you approve my judgment, O Lords of the West?"

Maedhros was not really sure he cared for his own sake, but he felt some concern over everything else at the pause. It was not Manwë but Námo who spoke, in the end:

So you have pronounced and so it shall be, said the Lord of Mandos, who must have heard that entire, dizzying argument in his Halls. O Lady of Sirion, we shall watch over you – in guardianship and in hope.

"I thank you, Lord of Mandos," said Elwing, though this time the strength it took her to respond personally to Mandos was obvious.

And Prince Nelyafinwë? spoke for the first time Lord Aulë, who had sat for the conversation with his head upon his folded hand. Maedhros flinched – he could not help it – but he looked up, and before he could speak, Lord Aulë continued. Good luck, and welcome back.

Neither of them spoke as they made their way down Ezellohar before the eyes of the Valar, and out the gates. Maedhros would have liked to drift as he had drifted in Mandos, letting Elwing convey him where she wanted, but some concern for logistics stirred itself, just as whenever he had wanted to give up and die in the past. "Was your horse left at the Hall of Mandos?" He wondered where she actually lived.

Elwing looked over her shoulder. The dignity had faded and she seemed merely hungover again. "No horse. I flew. I suppose you can't do that." She gave him a chagrined look. "And you don't have – clothing, or – or anything. Damn." She sighed. "If you're going to promise me service, we should probably do that in Tirion, so the members of the public who are most likely to have opinions about it can see for themselves to get the right impression; it will certainly be easier to get you clothing there, but – how far is it from Valimar to Tirion, if you have to walk? I've never made the journey by land."

Right. Elwing had flown, because Maedhros had murdered her people and tried to take the Silmaril from her; and she had jumped, and Lord Ulmo turned her into a bird; and, apparently, she could still change shape to repeat the event. "Valimar to Tirion isn't so many leagues, but there's a steady uphill climb as you make your way into the pass of Calacirya," he said, trying to focus. "It's a few days' walk for elves in good health with reasonable supplies, and you can make the trip in one on a horse bred in Aman, but at the very least I would need to eat first. And shoes."

Elwing gave him a look of profound disgust for this complaint, but at that moment a maia came down the hill after them: "Lady Elwing! Er – Prince Nelyafinwë!" (He was going to spend a lot of time correcting everyone about his name, or else suffer Nelyafinwë again, wasn't he.)

"Yes?" said Maedhros, because Elwing hadn't said anything. He turned and summoned his best diplomatic smile, and tried not to feel his skin crawl or the suddenly-discernible, fragile bindings between his spirit and his flesh when he responded to the name Nelyafinwë. He had not felt so when he originally shed it for Russandol – the use of Maitimo had had the power to upset him, but Nelyafinwë had only been politically awkward in the wake of his abdication – but it seemed time had made responding to Nelyafinwë even worse. He was going to have to be Nelyafinwë again, despite all of his crimes, for Maedhros Fëanorion, Lord of Himring, had no place in Aman. They would not be content to consign him to exile nor Mandos as a criminal; they would force him to try to take up that long-gone life, and fail, and know himself incapable even of receiving mercy.

The maia was offering them transport, something about the train of Lady Nessa, but Maedhros struggled to listen, and what he heard suggested Elwing was handling it. He stopped trying, and was insensate of anything but those fragile silver threads that held him to his body, and so seemed suddenly intolerable bindings, until Elwing's hand came down on his shoulder.

"What was that?" she said.

He had to respond to Elwing; it was his job, presently, only to respond to Elwing. "What?" said Maedhros.

"You went translucent, around the edges. You're not about to Fade, are you, or slip free? You only just got that body."

Maedhros breathed in the sunlit and hyperreal air of the land just outside Máhanaxar, and concentrated a moment on the pressure Elwing's slim fingers made on his shoulder, four individual points, and then the thumb a little further down, until he could say honestly, "No." Naturally she would have seen such things growing up in Sirion, and could recognize them. "I don't like being called Nelyafinwë, or Maitimo," he said, for some explanation was obviously necessary, and when her eyebrows arced, "Stars – I'm fine, Lady Elwing. It's happened at times ever since – after Morgoth. It never actually killed me before. Possibly to your sorrow."

Granted, for all of those years, the Oath had bound him to life and to his task, and now did not.

Elwing looked unconvinced, but she let go of his shoulder and started walking again. "Lady Nessa is lending us deer from her train to take us to Tirion," she said. "We're supposed to go and meet them – oh, I suppose they've arrived."

Dubiously, Maedhros looked upon the pair of deer just emerging from around the hill; though the stag was massive for his kind, they were slightly-built, ethereal beings, and he could easily imagine Elwing riding one but had trouble believing they would carry him. Though he did remember Huan, he reflected, and went forth and bowed to the deer.

"Lady of Sirion, Prince Nelyafinwë," said the doe, and Maedhros winced as Elwing eyed him sidelong. "Please mount. We will take you to Tirion shortly."

"We thank you for your courtesy," said Maedhros, and went around to find his way onto the back of the stag.

Then--

Oh, Nessa's deer were fast, faster than any horse; and probably not faster than the eagle of Manwë, but they felt faster, possibly because they were traveling over ground, or else simply that Maedhros was fully conscious. The world around them blurred, green meadow and blue sky into strips of color; time blurred, and he had no idea how much was passing. Maedhros's breaths came ragged in his chest, and he clutched at the stag's neck convulsively, bending down to press his head to it as though he was racing a horse. Dimly he knew Elwing on the doe was just ahead of them, still visible as herself in the blur the world had become, but he had no attention to spare for her in the whirling, surrounding kaleidoscope.

The world returned. Maedhros half-fell, half-dismounted from the deer – Elwing was alighting more easily next to him but looked as though she might vomit – and found himself in the main square of Tirion, in front of the palace and under the tower Mindon Eldaliéva, in the shade of a great white tree. The square seemed relatively empty to Maedhros, though it was – he checked the sun – still early in the afternoon, and not much time must have passed in their travel by Nessa's deer. It occurred to him that they had nearly emptied Tirion in their voyage to exile and he had no idea if this was crowded or not; and, too, how strange it was to see the Great Square of Tirion lit by the sun; and finally to turn to the deer and bow:

"I thank you both for our swift transport; and ask that you convey my gratitude also to Lady Nessa," he said. Elwing had pressed one hand to her mouth, and he had the distinct impression that if asked to speak at that moment she might vomit.

"We receive your gratitude with thanks as well," said the doe, and both doe and stag seemed to bow in response, bending their forelegs and their heads.

"Prince Nelyafinwë," said the stag, and Maedhros hoped, for the sake of those ever-watching eyes of Tirion's crowd, that he hadn't flinched this time at the name. "Welcome back." Then in the blink of an eye and the blur of their forms, they were gone.

Maedhros looked at Elwing, who was just lowering her hand, cautiously, from her mouth. Then in his distraction he looked past her: she had her back to what had been the University Quarter of Tirion, with the Hall of Light, its oldest building, facing directly onto the Great Square. The Hall of Light still indeed stood and faced him; but what had been an open courtyard was now walled, and gates had been built extending from that wall across the main street of the quarter. Just now these gates stood wide and open, but Maedhros could see in an instant that closed, they would create a formidable barrier, connected to the blank stone wall of another building – he couldn't place this one just now – and defensibly constructed of iron. In the next moment he saw the guardhouse by the gate, and that it was manned by two armed soldiers.

All of this, of course, was draped with two banners: that of Tirion University and that of Maedhros's father.

Your followers would lynch me, Elwing had said, at least twice. She had clearly meant it in earnest. Tirion's outer walls were delicate and decorative, boundary markers only, and in Maedhros's memory, some of the settlements deeper in the wilderness were fenced or walled to keep out wildlife. But he had returned to an Aman where city quarters made preparation for attack.

Shouts were ringing out, and Maedhros heard his name – or rather his names, all of his names – called out, and greetings, and cries of joy and disgust and anger. He saw people gathering on the second stories and balconies of buildings on the square as well as crowding into the street, and doors flung open. The mood of the crowd seemed fickle; they had better get going at once.

"Come on," he said softly to Elwing, "Under the tree, I think – we'll be visible, and it isn't a partisan space."

"Yes, of course," Elwing said under her breath.

Maedhros pictured the image the two of them made crossing the courtyard: Elwing slight and dark in her white gauze and circlet, Maedhros still barefoot in gray robes from Mandos, his hair equally unbound. That had been a tactical error: everyone had been used to it in Beleriand, where Sindar considered it normal and no one really wanted to bring up his hand, but it was a provocative way to appear in public among the Noldor in Aman. But he wasn't sure he had really had an alternative, since asking Elwing to style his hair seemed extremely inappropriate. Hopefully it would be taken of a piece with the gray robes and his continuing lack of shoes.

They reached the shadow of the tree and turned to face each other; and in that moment Maedhros saw the door of the high balcony of the palace open, and a crowned figure with shining golden hair who must be Uncle Arafinwë come out to watch. He pulled his attention back to Elwing, and the closer edges of the crowd pressing in to the green space surrounding the tree, for just long enough to be sure there was no violence imminent, and then Maedhros knelt to Elwing and extended his left hand, cupped.

Elwing drew herself up and looked down upon him. She put back on the composed face, and said, projecting her voice – though she wasn't so good at it as most of the royalty of Maedhros's acquaintance – "Speak, then, Maedhros Fëanorion," and though she named him in Sindarin she spoke Quenya.

They really should have taken the time to work out a script in advance. "Princess Elwing Dioriel," said Maedhros steadily after a deep breath, pacing his words and controlling their volume, "Though little that has been done may be undone, and deeds cannot be easily withdrawn, I would offer you what small recompense is within my power, for I look upon those deeds with grief."

Fortunately Elwing picked up the thread without apparent trouble. "As your crimes are great, so our sorrow is never-ending, as the Sea Ekkaia that encircles the world. Yet vengeance is cold comfort, if comfort at all; and further strife shall ask yet a greater price for each struggle, until the world's end. Would you have peace between us, and between our Houses?"

"I would have peace, my lady," said Maedhros.

The crowd was definitely reacting, but Maedhros paid just enough attention to be sure it wasn't in the form of, say, thrown objects, or anyone coming up to seize either or both of them. Otherwise he waited on Elwing, who seemed to have frozen.

"...As I would have peace," she said at last, as the muttering was starting to pick up. "Would you offer me then your service?"

"For all the days until the Battle of Battles if that is what is necessary, my lady," said Maedhros.

Elwing laughed raggedly, and Maedhros tensed, but she said, "Yet you are needed by others, and even the dead shall not be so kept from their families until the end of time. Fifty years I ask from you, Maedhros Fëanorion; and fifty years it will be only that you shall so serve."

"Then fifty years I will serve you," said Maedhros, and waited tensely, hoping she actually knew the Noldorin fealty forms, until Elwing did indeed extend her right hand so he could take it in his left. "Princess Elwing Dioriel," he said again, "I, Maedhros Fëanorion, swear hereby to serve you in good faith and with obedience for a period of fifty Years of the Sun from this day, or until you release me of your own will; I place my honor in your hands in hopes of redeeming it, and if you should send me from you I still shall act with your intentions in mind and in faith."

He hesitated a moment, but certainly this promise must bind as strongly as possible; and it was only fifty years. "This I swear in the name of Lord Námo, who released me to you, and Lord Manwë, who deferred to you judgment; and in the name of Eru Ilúvatar by whom I am released from Oaths prior." Elwing winced at that, but the crowd certainly needed to hear it. "May there be peace between us and our peoples both," Maedhros said, and he drew Elwing's hand to him and kissed the back, trying not to think of Findekáno, whose hand he had last kissed in fealty.

He saw the moment when Elwing started to draw him up and realized she wouldn't be able to reach to kiss his forehead, and bowed his head, trying to cue her to reverse the steps. Fortunately there was only a single missed beat before she understood and stepped in.

"I, Princess Elwing Dioriel, accept and welcome you to my service for fifty years hence; I shall not treat you cruelly or wastefully but act only with love of my people and of peace itself in mind, and in honorable service honor shall be restored to you. May there always be peace between us and our peoples," she said.

Her lips brushed his hairline in a ghostly touch, and then she raised him up, and the world was still. Maedhros and Elwing faced each other in the shade of the white tree in the Great Square of Tirion-upon-Túna, and were silent in a silent and changed world.

"Maedhros!" somebody called from the crowd, which was now parting to let him through, and then, "Elwing!" The stillness cracked like glass and fell to pieces, and Maedhros turned to see--

"Finrod" he said in astonishment, for here, coming to meet them, was Finrod – Finrod alive and whole, dressed once more in the lightweight silks of Tirion and unarmed as in their years of innocence, before the Exile. He was wearing a circlet of unmistakable Aman craftsmanship, and finer – more highly ranked – than anything Finrod had worn before in Aman. Yet he was still recognizably his Beleriand self, for Finrod, Maedhros's little cousin in Aman, had never had that perfectly light, ready balance to his steps or slight wariness in his eyes.

Maedhros was trying to figure out what to say, and compose the correct apology for Celegorm and Curufin's actions in this hideously fragile, public setting, when Finrod reached the green space and cut things off by hugging him.

There was a new moment of whirling disorientation: Finrod's muscled form under the silks, cloth lightweight enough that when Maedhros threw his arms around Finrod's back and squeezed with a sudden ferocity that surprised even him, he could feel the lines of new scars under the fabric; and the smell of perfume in his hair, which was not his formerly customary rosewater but the anise scent Findekáno had used as a youth; and there came a despairing, high hysterical laugh Maedhros did not recall from Finrod at all. Maedhros couldn't remember the last time somebody who was not Maglor or Elrond had embraced him. Most probably it had been Elros, just before he left to spy.

Then Finrod released him, and turned to hug Elwing. She could not have been surprised by the motion, which was clearly telegraphed, but nevertheless stiffened slightly, as would a cat embraced by an enthusiastic child. "You returned him to us," Maedhros heard Finrod say into her hair, and missed most of Elwing's retort, except for "brandy" and "your fault" and a much louder, more joyful laugh from Finrod.

Then Elwing stepped back and frowned at him. "Well!" she said. "You had better get clothing and so on before you come. Shall I give you three days in Tirion before starting out? However long the journey takes after that doesn't matter, I don't know offhand."

"I – yes, of course," said Maedhros, feeling, with some distress that he tried to keep hidden, the gentle pressure of a command on his spirit, with no pain – yet – but the threat of leverage behind it, as a bit worked in a horse's mouth. She glanced to both sides and started backing up into the clear space behind her. "Wait," said Maedhros quickly. "I don't know where you live—"

"Ask Finrod!" said Elwing, and a moment later was an albatross, who immediately took flight.

Disoriented, Maedhros stood back. He looked about himself. Finrod was still smiling, but he did so with a set jaw and a somewhat fixed expression. A shuffling was going on in the crowd, and finally Maedhros had the attention to spare to look into it. He saw many strangers, but also many faces he recognized, and some he knew very well indeed.

"Harmaquen!" said Maedhros in sheer surprise at the sight of his maternal cousin. Harmaquen was the grandchild of his mother's sister, another of Mahtan's apprentices, and in the same generation of elves as Maglor's older children and Finrod; and like them, Maedhros had often minded him and his siblings as children. As through fogged glass, Maedhros remembered that Harmaquen had come to him just before the departure of the Noldor to apologize for staying; Grandfather Mahtan, Harmaquen had said, had asked him to stay so that he might have Harmaquen's assistance running Formenos in Prince Fëanáro's absence. Certainly if one excluded Maedhros's father, Harmaquen was reputed to be the most skilled of Mahtan's heirs, and Maedhros had given him leave to obey Mahtan as he felt he must, with no grudge between them.

Now Harmaquen looked as though he were about to kneel before Maedhros. "Prince Nelyafinwë—"

"I prefer Maedhros, now, and please do not," said Maedhros. He closed before Harmaquen could go down and caught one hand in his, then put his right arm around Harmaquen's shoulders in an embrace that his cousin, thankfully, returned. "Right now I am Princess Elwing's liegeman and may not take any higher priority for fifty years – leave it for now!" He pitched his voice so that the crowd around them would hear that part.

"I am, however, in sore need of some better clothing and perhaps a meal, if you would spare some aide to a kinsman in need?" He emphasized 'kinsman' slightly. As soon as he had seen his father's banners hung on the University Quarter's border, Maedhros had known whatever he asked for or suggested would be taken by some as a command from, at best, the Prince of the House of Fëanor, and at worst the rightful High King. He probably couldn't stop them from looking upon him so, and it was almost certainly a bad idea to try. But he could, at least, make it plain that he expected everybody to play along with the fiction he was a private individual – and particularly make that intention plain to Arafinwë. (Turning his head slightly, he confirmed that Arafinwë still watched from the palace's overlook.)

"Of course," said Harmaquen, who kissed his cheek, and studied him now more like a kinsman than a superior – thankfully. "Did they drag you to Máhanaxar straight from the gates of Mandos? --Don't answer that. Someone fetch Lord Maedhros some shoes, at least!"

It was not long at all before some cobbler's apprentice came running back with a pair of sandals sized mostly correctly for Maedhros, and some tailor came trotting up with several changes of elaborate robe to choose from to toss over the gray of Mandos. Maedhros thanked both craftspeople with profound sincerity and put off further suggestions of jewelry: "I am not actually naked without it and I really would like something to eat before I am forced to arbitrate between the jewelers of the Fëanorian quarter," he said, making his tone by turns wistful about the food and dry about the arbitration.

The crowd around him laughed, and somebody made a quip about the temerity to set a jewel on any son of Fëanor. Their mood had turned bright: their prince was back and they were being allowed to fuss over him. Some of them undoubtedly would have preferred a different Fëanorian prince, but Maedhros's return must surely be taken as a reassurance that his brothers would be released from Mandos in turn, too.

That, of course, was a description of the crowd immediately surrounding Maedhros: the Fëanorians. Maedhros saw darker expressions on some of those grouped further away, and he heard a few snatches of hisses and boos as his people bore him off and through those heavy, defensible gates; but that, he thought wearily, was a problem for tomorrow – or perhaps fifty years from now. Elwing did not seem fond of cities.

Maedhros spent two days being paraded around the Fëanorian quarter, and he mostly let his followers do it. He could have justified this as a politically wise decision not to antagonize his allies, but he wasn't sure it was wise; surely the nearby quarters had noticed, not to mention the palace, and were distressed by it. Frankly, he lacked the energy to protest. He hadn't seen so many elves in one place since, at least, the Bragollach, and perhaps the gathering of the three hosts after Alqualondë. He still felt unsettled in his body, and he worried his people more with one or two more moments when memory grew corrosive and he felt his spirit try to separate from his flesh. At night, when he was hosted in Harmaquen's house, he dreamed gray dreams of dimly lit halls lined with tapestries, and on waking knew his spirit longed for Mandos. Forget entirely any mention of imprisonment; Maedhros had not been ready to leave. He was tired, too tired to exactly take much pleasure or genuine interest in the endless stream of gifts showered on him and luxurious formal meals and tours and introductions; but stopping it would have been far more exhausting, and doing so tactfully even harder.

There were reunions, too, all the more exhausting for his genuine pleasure at them, for he greeted many people he had never thought to see again. Some had remained in Tirion all along: there was Master Maltalimba, to whom he had been apprenticed in calligraphy, and who had come on the original Journey to Aman; and Ostan, an apprentice of his mother's, among the quarter's craftsmen; and Curufin's granddaughter, Princess Yúyaleär, whose mother had remained with her husband among the Vanyar; Yúyaleär had still been under the age of majority during the Exile, but it seemed as an adult she had come to live with the Noldor.

Too, there were those who had died, for it seemed that 'long' was indeed a subjective measurement or perhaps had been entirely figurative from Lord Námo; most of the dead Exiles had not returned, but some had. There was Angahen, who had left Celegorm's service in Nargothrond and died in the city's fall; and though she lived in Formenos and could not come to Tirion in time, Maedhros was told that Curufin's wife Hellekilin, who had drowned in the sea crossing, had been returned; and late in the evening on the second day, Maedhros turned to find Ruanel at his elbow and nearly wept. Ruanel had been in his own service at Himring, and captured in the Bragollach; and when she had come back to Himring, claiming escape, he had seen Sauron's chains in her mind and understood... And he had known Ruanel as a child, once; and let her sneak into his office to beg for sweets when her mother visited Queen Indis.

Yet here Ruanel was: alive, with white ribbons braided into her dark hair. Her tunic was of an Amanyarin style that had to be pinned together down the shoulders, and scars showed in the gaps between the fabric and down her bare arms, but she was smiling at him and she was whole, and healthy. "My prince," she said, with tears in her eyes.

"Ruanel," he said, hearing his voice break. When she reached for his left hand he let her take it, and kiss the back. "Ruanel – I am so glad you were returned."

He wanted to apologize, but he couldn't think how, and then she dropped his hand and hugged him instead. "I'm free now," she said into the fall of Maedhros's mantle over his shoulder. "You were right, but I'm free – and so are you."

On the morning of the third day, Harmaquen's house – large and well-furnished, for Harmaquen was both Mahtan's heir and the administrative head of what had been formally renamed the Fëanorian Quarter – was disrupted at breakfast by the arrival of, Maedhros was informed, Crown Prince Findaráto. By now he had seen a great many people, turned away the gifts he could without offense and had to accept many more, been given a short and horrifying history of Aman since the Exile and a list of grievances both imagined and very real, and, thankfully, found his spirit no longer shuddered against its bonds of flesh when he was addressed as Nelyafinwë.

"Well, let him in," said Maedhros, smiling gently in response to their collective distress. "He was happy enough to see me when I came back. I'm sure there's no reason for concern. Hello, Finrod!" he called, for Finrod was politely, indomitably elbowing his way past the recalcitrant steward at the door.

"Hello, Maedhros," said Finrod, and came over to kiss his cheek. "You look better – and much better dressed! I've come to invite you to the palace, to dine and because my father wants to speak to you. And so do I."

Everybody around him was doing their best to indicate that if Maedhros gave the slightest word, they were prepared to shut up the quarter against siege and go to war to prevent this. Maedhros refrained from rolling his eyes. "Of course; I would have come to call if you hadn't, as I must leave tomorrow," he said, cheerfully enough. Between himself and Finrod they made any argument from his cousin's household impossible until Maedhros was actually dressed to go out the door.

Finrod took Maedhros's arm loosely in the street. He was, of course, accompanied – Maedhros dimly remembered that it had once been possible for him to go around Tirion alone as Crown Prince, but that had ended well before the Darkening and the city was far more tense now – but by only two guards, nowhere near enough to surround Maedhros threateningly, and they actually stayed a fair bit back, enough to let them speak privately.

Finrod waited for several minutes to say anything, though, for which Maedhros was increasingly grateful. Finally, he said, "You really do look better, but I'm sure it's mostly an act. I remember when I came back."

"I should have stopped them from carrying on in celebration, and I know it," Maedhros confessed. "I'm just..." He stopped.

"Tired," said Finrod. "And it takes so much of you to so much as pay attention – and pay attention to the right thing, and not some stray noise or sight, or the presence of the crowd, or the smell of smoke from cooking, or whatever it is – and caring about the right thing is worse, and your spirit keeps trying to slip back to Mandos. I remember."

"Then this is usual for the Returned?"

"No," said Finrod unhappily. Maedhros raised his eyebrows. "It is usual when Mandos throws you out against his better judgment to appease the external political process. I was certain you wouldn't have been back this quickly on your own, even aside from the manner of your death and your appearance here."

Ah. "I suppose you were not summoned back for judgment," said Maedhros.

Finrod actually scowled, which was an expression Maedhros couldn't recall seeing on his little cousin's face since he had grown too old to sulk when animals didn't want to be pet or child guests of the palace didn't like him. They were watched, as ever, and Finrod suppressed the look quickly. "My father had apparently gone to the Valar not long after he was officially forgiven and crowned, and petitioned for them to send him an heir back as soon as possible. I don't know why Angrod wasn't returned first, but I was in Mandos scarcely six months."

"Not Aegnor?" said Maedhros, who should probably have come up with something better to say; but it seemed he had used up all his pretty words in the last few days. In lieu of those words, he reached up to put his right arm over Finrod's shoulders and squeezed gently. Finrod knocked their shoulders together. (This, too, was watched; but it probably wasn't bad, at least, for the audience of Fëanorians.)

"Not Aegnor. He fell in love with a mortal in Beleriand, and doesn't want to come back at all," said Finrod.

"I'm sorry," said Maedhros, and meant it – for Finrod, and for himself. He thought of Aegnor, not as the lord of Dorthonion most recently seen (and when had he last seen Aegnor, before the Bragollach? Barad Eithel? Visiting Himlad at the same time?) but as an adolescent, anxiously knocking on Prince Nelyafinwë's office door because he needed help with problems set by his math tutor. "His absence will leave many hearts wounded."

Finrod sighed. "Perhaps he will reconsider his decision in time; not much has passed." He glanced sidelong at Maedhros. "Had you heard – anything of your family? I had to be told of Aegnor's choice after being brought forth myself; shades of the dead in Mandos do speak, but only after more rest than I was granted."

"I don't recall anything," said Maedhros cautiously. "There is news, then, I suppose?"

"I was told a few things in my capacity as Crown Prince," said Finrod as they left the gates of the Fëanorian quarter (Maedhros made sure to smile, and wave at the guards, lest panic be provoked) and started across the Great Square. Maedhros felt briefly unnerved by the clear sight lines and dismissed it; Aman might be less a stranger to war than he recalled it, but certainly the city wasn't as unsafe as Beleriand.

Finrod seemed to be hesitating, but Maedhros was certain it would be harder to have this conversation privately immediately after entering the palace, so he said, mildly, "Tell me, Findaráto." Just as when Finrod was an adolescent, words came spilling out:

"Lord Námo was able to remove the constraints of the Oath from your brothers, after their deaths – he told us so, and that they had consented to be so altered when... I didn't fully understand it, something about having them in his power in Mandos meant he could lift its influence from them for long enough to ask, and this was different from actually removing it. I am not sure my father realized..." He stopped, which was unfortunate, as Maedhros would have liked to know what Arafinwë had or had not realized, but then continued, "Your father – Maedhros, I'm sorry."

"My father would not so consent?" said Maedhros, feeling – tired. He had known the logic he and Maglor had used might be rejected by his father. Fear came to him then, that if Finrod confirmed that his father had disagreed, the Oath would come roaring back to life, and he would not be able to choose to die to escape it while it was active. He did not know if having sworn obedience to Elwing could circumvent it, but such a thing could delay him for a mere fifty years.

But Finrod said, "No. I mean, I don't know, because the conversation about your brothers was different, about what would happen if they were returned, and your father – refused."

"Refused return?" said Maedhros, feeling if anything rather surprised anyone had asked; but it had been centuries, and Fëanor had not actually killed anyone more than the rest of the combatants at Alqualondë. Perhaps it had been a hypothetical discussion of the far future, which seemed more likely...

"He said he would never return, if return meant dwelling in Aman; not until the End of Days," said Finrod quietly, as they reached the start of the white path up to the glimmering white steps of the palace. Guards were posted there, as before, but rather more seriously armed and professional in demeanour; they saluted Finrod as the two of them entered.

Maedhros had no idea what to say. He had not been awaiting some reunion with his father, whether joyous or angry. He had not expected to see his father again at all. He had not known that he wanted to.

Hearing Maedhros would not see his father again, unless he should die once more, and stay longer in the Halls of Mandos left him – cold; only cold. He still did not know how he felt about the prospect of reunion.

"Thank you for telling me," said Maedhros finally, because some reply was obviously necessary.

Finrod then frowned. "The Oath," he said, cautiously. "Lord Námo did not ask you for permission...?"

Oh. Yes, of course there would be questions. "He had no need," said Maedhros. "Maglor and I fulfilled the Oath."

Finrod glanced at him sidelong, perhaps wondering if he lied. "You and Maglor reclaimed two Silmarils."

The stairs on the Great Square side of the palace led first to a wide terrace, and here Maedhros turned aside, gesturing for Finrod to follow. There was a garden around the side, where relatively informal parties were often held, unless they had changed the layout – but no, it was still here. Maedhros went to the edge of the garden, and leaned against the railing at the edge of the terrace, overlooking the streets in what had been the weavers' district. Even at this height, Maedhros's hair and size made him recognizable; he could see passers-by far below looking up occasionally, and shouting, or pointing, or pulling aside companions.

"Please do not argue with this logic, which I am about to explain to you," said Maedhros. "I am not currently bound by the Oath, as Maglor and I agreed it was fulfilled to our satisfaction. I have no idea what would happen if I were to be convinced we were erroneous, or merely persuaded to doubt. Perhaps there is no further grip on my spirit – but I do not know." Oaths, sworn badly or well, were a staple of elf history and myth and moral tale long before Maedhros's birth, for they always marked the spirit of the one who swore; but nobody else had done quite what the eight of them had.

"I understand," said Finrod.

"The two Silmarils we stole from Aman's camp are obvious," said Maedhros. "The third was given, we heard, to Eärendil's custody by his wife, who inherited it. Eärendil and Elwing's children are Elrond and Elros."

Maedhros paused here; he had to. He thought of the last embrace he had given Elrond, and the frantic worry Elrond had failed to conceal, as Maedhros spoke to him of diplomatic procedures and Maglor fixed his hair on Elrond's first morning as Head of the House of Fëanor; of how afraid Elrond had been, thinking Maedhros and Maglor meant only to surrender.

Elwing said Elrond had seen him die. Elwing said Elrond had attacked the Hosts of Aman intending to rescue him, and only luck and fragile mercy had prevented a battle.

Maedhros never should have lied. He never should have left. But he shouldn't have done a lot of other things before that point.

"Ah," said Finrod cautiously.

Maedhros breathed in, slowly, and out again, and did not let himself think through the logic or the words as he said them. "Elrond is my son," he said, "Raised by Maglor and I from the age of six, named Ceuramo Nelyafinwion as well as the names his parents gave and joined to my spirit – and Maglor's – so that he might live in the absence of his parents. He is my heir; I named him such long ago. I recently abdicated all of my remaining titles and crowned him Head of the House of Fëanor, which he accepted and was acclaimed by my soldiers. He is my kin. Therefore, he is Fëanor's kin."

"Ah," said Finrod, now definitively.

"Kinship is a transitive property," said Maedhros. "The other parents of my child are certainly my kin, and thereby the kin of my father. Eärendil is Fëanor's kin, and the Silmaril is in his hands. Therefore all three Silmarils were possessed by Fëanor's kin and the Oath was fulfilled."

"That," said another familiar voice, "Is a very interesting argument, Prince Nelyafinwë. Please elaborate on how it applies to Elros."

With a certain reluctance, Maedhros turned to face Arafinwë: Arafinwë, High King of the Noldor in Aman, and his youngest half-uncle, younger than Maedhros by some years. Like Finrod, Maedhros had minded Arafinwë as a child. He had been franky sorry to send Maglor to face him alone, and guilty to be relieved not to do it himself.

"Your majesty," said Maedhros, and bowed. He knew perfectly well what address forms Arafinwë used from both Maglor, and from the information Elros had continuously passed to Elrond for several decades. The twins had volunteered to spy on the Hosts of Aman with their osanwe, and Maglor had pretended to trade Elros, alone, back to address a desperate need for certain supplies

Maedhros had no idea if any consequences would or could be inflicted on Elros, now King of the humans waiting to receive the Isle of the Gift, if he revealed this fact to the Valar via Arafinwë; nor if the Valar already knew. He certainly wasn't going to test it. "The need Maglor went to address was real; the twins volunteered, although we had a long conversation about whether they had considered the experience of being separated," said Maedhros, still leaning against the handrail. "I would have preferred to send them both to you, but they were adamant about refusing that. Elrond was trained as a healer, and the much stronger Singer of the two; I don't believe he wanted to leave us without him," said Maedhros with a thin smile.

Arafinwë frowned. "You would entrust your people to a healer in Beleriand?" he said in apparent surprise, and perhaps disapproval. There was not exactly any shame in general for a man to train in healing, but anyone who had heard Elrond Eärendillion had been raised primarily as a healer by the Fëanorians would assume it was meant to keep him away from the throne by depriving him of the skills for war.

"Elrond is both a healer and a soldier," said Maedhros, who had actually managed to forget about this sort of thing. His side of the family had always been less rigid about it, while at the end of Beleriand, almost their entire following of elves had been soldiers and the distinctions had mostly collapsed. He studiously looked out over the street to avoid both Arafinwë and Finrod's expressions, as breaching the peace of Aman by punching the High King of the Noldor for insulting his son was probably not going to help the political situation any.

Though it might persuade the Valar to throw Maedhros into the Void, or at least send him back to Mandos for a while, so maybe he would do it anyway. The ensuing Fëanorian rebellion could be someone else's problem.

That seemed rather unfair to Elwing. Damn it.

"How interesting," said Arafinwë at some length and in a carefully polite tone.

"How Fëanorian," said Finrod, who seemed to be trying not to laugh.

"I somehow don't believe Lady Elwing will be offended by that detail," said Maedhros.

"Probably not," agreed Finrod.

Maedhros didn't want Arafinwë to talk him back into the Oath, either, which meant he had to change the subject; and to avoid an argument he couldn't be perceived as doing it to save himself guilt. "You have spared me from asking the next question I had of Findaráto," he said, "Which was, 'You do know about all of the people I killed, right?'"

"Ah," said Finrod. "Well, as Lady Elwing has taken on the duty of judging you, to be frank, I am delighted to leave that problem to her and simply be very happy to see you again. I hope it does not offend you, although if it does I'm not certain I care."

"I am grateful for the famous generosity of your spirit," said Maedhros, unfortunately; but rather than taking offense, Finrod did laugh.

Arafinwë did something much worse than arguing. He said, quietly, "Maedhros. I always wanted to know, in Beleriand – why did you do it?"

Powers preserve him – or rather, stop. Maedhros would far prefer to be sent into the Void rather than answering that question asked by a child he had once cared for – and there were so many children he had cared for, and betrayed later as grown elves. He closed his eyes.

"I'm thinking of how to answer," he said, when he perceived Arafinwë was about to speak.

If he had been able to say straightforwardly, the Oath compelled me – or that it was not the Oath, that he had chosen his crimes – he at least would have known what to say.

It was so difficult, to separate out yourself from the bonds entwined with your spirit and grown together with it; to know what was you and what was the vow that compelled; to understand your own past actions, and how you had altered yourself by what you spoke into words. What had he been thinking, as he raised his sword and swore along his father? Maedhros had gone over the moment in his mind so many times that he no longer knew what was memory and what was fabrication.

"I don't know, exactly," said Maedhros finally. He braced his elbows on the railing and pressed the fingers of his left hand to his brow, and the end of his right wrist to his temple. "At times it seemed a brand on my soul, undefiable, with a will of its own; at times I laughed at myself and ignored it. I don't know – except that every time I gave in, to grief or weariness or the creeping voice that said it could all be over, I gave up something I never got back; every surrender was eternal. I was so grateful, Aryo, when the Silmaril passed beyond Middle-Earth – do not tell me of the logic I was just arguing, I came up with that later and I don't want to risk it – but I thought that no matter how it tormented me there was nothing else to give it, and nothing I could do in pursuit but fight Morgoth.

"My brothers told themselves, for most of our time in Beleriand, that they pursued the Oath by obeying their brother and King, that I was the general who knew what to do – but all I could hold up to it, after Luthien and Beren, was the very same logic; that I had sworn fealty to Fingon and must keep my vows to him to maintain my honor and my command, and any hope of fulfillment. I was so angry when he died, and I had no master! Eru Ilúvatar, that may be the worst of it – he tore my soul in two when he died, and still, I was angry with him—"

He heard Arafinwë give a heaving sigh, just as he had as an adolescent when frustrated by the complexities of history lessons or court procedures. Fingers closed on Maedhros's shoulder and he jumped. But it was only Finrod, who said quietly into his ear, "I am so sorry, Nelyo."

The nickname had no power to wound. "I didn't know what you knew when my brothers--" said Maedhros, and changing his mind about speaking of it directly, "You should not apologize to me, Ingo."

"But I also took an Oath," said Finrod, and his voice was bleak. Maedhros opened his eyes, incapable of not responding to that tone, and turned to his little cousin. "I understood, Maedhros; I knew it would set us in conflict, and that against Celegorm and Curufin together I could only lose, even in my own kingdom – but I had no choice. Fate was written and I obeyed," said Finrod, and shuddered.

It came to Maedhros that he might be the only one who did understand, in shining, peaceful Aman; and that he could not possibly abandon Finrod to lonesomeness in that understanding once more. "I'm sorry," he said. "I would never have wanted you to understand it," and he folded Finrod into his arms. His cousin went willingly.

Maedhros looked up, then, for the High King: but Arafinwë, in the midst of that exchange, had left. There was no one else there.

The remainder of Maedhros's visit to the palace was more scripted and therefore impersonal. He was pressed with more gifts and managed to refuse some of them, and he was also pressed with cutting comments and deniable insults, which was practically nostalgic. He attended, possibly as an obscure punishment, a full court luncheon with formal etiquette and a full compliment of the court's current bureacracy, who had a variety of reactions to his presence, presided over by an apparently appalled Queen Indis. The worst moment was when somebody asked him how he had gone about raising his sword against elves, and Maedhros was so occupied with not replying in a dry and literal manner that he couldn't think of anything else to say to fill the long silence. Maedhros recognized fewer than a quarter of the names of Arafinwë's courtiers; about half the palace service had left to follow Prince Nelyafinwë, and most of the rest had instead followed Prince Ñolofinwë. Some of them had died early in Beleriand, and returned to both their lives and their positions already; but most were replacements appointed by Arafinwë.

Arafinwë himself was present, of course, but unreadable. The only notable comment he made was toward the end of the meal, when Maedhros and Finrod were discussing the actual route to Elwing's cottage. "When your service is up, you must return to court, of course," said Arafinwë, with an inscrutable smile and what had to be deliberate ambiguity between the exhortation of kin and order of a monarch. "We have found it very difficult to manage without your expertise. But now you must go; safe journey!"

With this pronouncement, Maedhros foresaw decades sorting out whatever they had done to the infrastructure repair budget in his absence after several thousand Years of the Sun's worth of managing the thing neatly. He contemplated leading a Fëanorian rebellion himself for a moment. If he usurped the kingship, after all, he could force somebody else to deal with it.

"Naturally, your majesty," he said with his emptiest smile, and raised his wine cup before he drank the last sip.

The meal so concluded, Maedhros was outfitted with a horse and travel provisions, and a map with the location and trails hand-marked by Finrod; and then, astonishingly, they actually turned him loose. Maedhros set forth from Tirion accompanied by cheering Fëanorians, who he could not convince to leave for the first mile out of the city, but finally they dropped back. There they waved him onward to the road that led first east, out of the Pass of Calacirya, and then northward along the shore, away from Tirion and Alqualondë both.

Maedhros had a full week on the road ahead, and privacy; and he did not know how to feel about it.

The horses – one to ride, and one to carry the luggage he had acquired in Tirion over only three days – helped a great deal. They were steeds of Aman, and might be fine in his absence, if Maedhros should dive over the often-high rocks adjoining the sea; or take a knife to himself; or only give up, and sit down unmoving until he returned at last to Mandos. But they were only horses and might equally not be; and he had taken on their charge when he accepted the gift of each horse from their owner, each a follower of his family's and someone Maedhros owed respect in return for their fealty.

It occurred to him passingly that he was not sure Elwing had anywhere to keep horses; but as long as there was grazing nearby it should not be too much trouble. He wondered in a vague and dreaming way what awaited him in Elwing's cottage, aside from, as she had said, cleaning out her gutters for fifty years. Truthfully, fifty years was not so very long a time for an elf of Maedhros's age, but clearly Elwing had felt it more than long enough to tolerate him, and possibly, depending on the Valar, every one of his family members in a row after.

Maedhros imagined his father clambering up a ladder to clean out the gutters of a cottage roof, and for the first time in many years, thinking of Fëanor, he laughed. Perhaps he really would never return – quite possibly Elwing would be relieved to hear that; Maedhros was carefully not considering his own feelings – but then, Mandos had not actually asked Maedhros for permission. Maedhros tried to imagine his father and Elwing in an isolated cottage together. Certainly, Father would want to document her dialect of Sindarin, and ask after the smith who had forged her circlet...

He rounded another bend in the path, and found himself looking down a steep drop, not at open ocean, but at a sloping landscape below and a small village. Maedhros halted his horse for a moment, looking down on a sight he had almost forgotten at the end of Beleriand: a peaceful settlement, unwalled and totally undefended; wealthy despite its size, with bleached white sails on its fishing boats and a glowing Fëanorian lamp at the center of the small village square. His heart unclenched to see it, and he thought that Aman might not be so terrible a place to return to life, after all.

One of the small figures pointed up at the cliff and turned to its companion; and together the two of them turned to run.

Maedhros swallowed. It was his hair, he thought, and not for the first time, he damned his vivid, called-beautiful red hair. He couldn't be anonymous unless he went about in a deeply-hooded cloak. Even from the side of a cliff top, he was recognized – and his spirit was aloft and longing to go with the wind, invisible and weightless...

There was no use in alarming them further. Maedhros, back in his body, turned his horse and rode onward.

***

Elwing's cottage consisted of, downstairs, a general space for living and cooking, and a workroom with the palantír and her looms and so on, and the loft for sleeping. Attached to the cottage but with no inside door was the dovecote. Then there was the chicken coop and the garden and so on. When Elwing had first come to live in the cottage, people arrived quite regularly with spectacular and inappropriate gifts, the worst of which had been that visit from Lady Tathariel and Lord Alwedann with the circlet they wanted her to wear. That had tapered off slowly, but she still received gifts of food regularly from Teleri and Sindarin villages nearby, particularly from Lord Alwedann's small settlement in the nearby Pelori foothills, and anything she made casual reference to wanting tended to be delivered quickly thereafter.

Elwing was not socially deft enough to make people stop this, and since her garden couldn't have fed even one slight adult year-to-year it was probably for the best. Instead, she resorted to pressing her eggs and her weaving on her suppliers in turn, knowing the weaving in particular was fine enough for gifts, and later, once she felt what she produced was decent enough, the products of her baking, too.

She was absolutely not sharing the loft with Maedhros Fëanorion, but there wasn't anywhere else to sleep. Her weaving supplies had increased in volume over the years so that there was no real prospect of fitting them into one of the other rooms. Instead, when Elwing got back to the cottage, she decided to move her things out of the loft and sleep in the workroom, and possibly instruct Maedhros to see about constructing an extension for the cottage.

Elwing was in the midst of this process of rearrangement when Lady Nerdanel arrived from Formenos. It had been about a week since the judgement, and Elwing thought Maedhros should arrive in the next few days, although she wasn't entirely sure. If he was walking and not riding from Tirion, it might be considerably longer. When a knock came on the cottage door, Elwing cursed, believing her husband's relatives had come back, and strode irritably to the front room, thinking that at least she could get something out of this arrangement and ask Maedhros to throw them out next time; she had a feeling he would be more convincing about it. Then she realized it probably was Maedhros, and felt a small twinge of relief.

But in fact, the face behind her front door was Lady Nerdanel's. "Hello, Lady Elwing," she said calmly. She was wearing trousers and a tunic, and had her hair tied up under a scarf for the trip. Two horses stood in the traces of a cart a short distance away, ears swivelling toward the cries of the dove. "I'm here to meet my son when he comes. I thought you might want some help with your cottage if he's going to stay here for fifty years. I mostly sculpt, these days, but I trained as an architect a long time ago as well, and I have the bits we need from civilization for another room in the cart."

"Oh," said Elwing dumbly. "Yes, I was concerned about that. I just cleaned out the loft, but he's so tall, and besides, there isn't much privacy." She looked at the horses. "What do we do about those?"

"I'll take care of them, but your help would certainly be appreciated," said Lady Nerdanel cheerfully, waving Elwing with her. "You said you didn't have many horses at Sirion, didn't you? Let me show you how the harness comes off."

Like her eldest son, Lady Nerdanel was very tall, and very strong, which were helpful attributes under the circumstances. The two of them marked out ground for an additional room for the cottage. They took the emptied cart and horses to the forest nearby, and, receiving permission from the Lord Alwedann and the forest's maia, cut timber, then hauled it back to the cottage to to dress it. In the process of dressing, they discussed the modifications further and extended their plans: Nerdanel suggested constructing a two story extension with a real stairwell, and adding a large pantry to make use of the connecting space along with the stairwell. She had brought everything they couldn't get locally in the cart, from nails to supplies for installing sash windows, so they would have no need to go elsewhere for more supplies.

"Among other things, if Maitimo is going to live here for fifty years, you are going to need a guest room for whoever else drops in," said Nerdanel. "Perhaps a guest house, eventually, but we can start here."

They had not discussed the political situation much over the years. Elwing knew that the Fëanorians were torn between respect and scorn for Nerdanel, who had not abandoned Formenos for Tirion but equally would not espouse their cause; but Nerdanel also knew them all personally and had the occasional dry comment to share with Elwing now as they worked, anticipating that she would need it. She also knew, for example, who had been involved in the riots that had swept Aman in the wake of Alqualondë, and in what way, and other things Elwing was certain Maedhros would want to know and Elwing herself probably should know about potential guests.

Aside from the politics, Elwing was enjoying herself immensely. As a child, she had loved to drift into any lesson or craft proceeding she could and eavesdrop. She had had to eavesdrop because her council had thought most of the survival work ongoing in Sirion inappropriate for a young girl of her rank, and kept sending servants to retrieve her. This forbidden status only increased the lure of the potters' shed, the forge, and any given construction site – and so on. The craftsmen of Sirion had found their lurking princess hilarious, and indulged her whenever the nobility wasn't in sight, but of course she couldn't learn anything substantive that way. Eventually, Elwing had discovered weaving was deemed an appropriate occupation for a noblewoman of Doriath, and focused on it, which allowed her to do something more productive than be paraded around council meetings and ignored. She had had one Sindarin weaving master, Merilas, formerly of Doriath, and one Noldorin weaving master, Yantanissë, formerly of Gondolin, and both had been killed by the Fëanorians. But she had never entirely lost her general curiosity.

On the third day after Nerdanel's arrival, Elwing was continuing the process of dressing logs (something she had already improved at considerably) while Nerdanel put the foundation for the extension into place with local stone and mortar mix. Elwing, focused mostly on swinging her adze as she split logs, was thinking of nothing much; this in her experience was a chief virtue of work. The sound of horses was no longer particularly notable, but Nerdanel's cart horses were grazing on the other side of the cottage. When she heard hoofbeats from the other way, Elwing leaned the adze against her log and picked her head up: if the horses got into the garden she was going to be seriously annoyed.

The sea was behind her, and ahead were hills that grew steeper in the distance until the slopes of the Pelori began. Over the crest of the nearest hill and along the road came a single rider; a rider with long red hair. Maedhros was descending the hill, a strange and distant look in his eyes.

All things considered, it might be a surprise that he'd made it without pitching himself over the conveniently located roadside cliffs. On the other hand, he'd sworn to serve her and Elwing had told him to come.

Unease prickled in her heart at that thought, but Elwing pushed it aside. What was she going to do about it now?

Nerdanel was presently on her knees, testing the current foundation with a spirit level. She hadn't turned around at the hoofbeats, and perhaps had not noticed. Awkwardly, Elwing dusted her hands off on her skirts. She started forward as Maedhros reached the yard of the cottage, and looked about himself in what looked almost like fear.

Elwing came up to his stirrup, since he hadn't dismounted. "Hello," she said. "Your mother came; she thought we wouldn't like to share a bedroom. Are you all right?"

Behind her, she heard something hit the ground as Nerdanel cried out. (Probably it was the spirit level. Elwing hoped she hadn't broken it).

"Fine," said Maedhros, eyes wide as he slid off the horse, and Nerdanel came up to him then, saying, "Maitimo!"

Elwing winced, but Maedhros did not go translucent and ghostly this time, only flung his arms around his mother in turn. Elwing began to hope, optimistically, that she would not be required for this conversation.

Nerdanel drew back from her son after a moment, then, and looked at him. Elwing looked at the horses, wondering if she should be taking bags down or unsaddling them or something. The horses looked back at her, and it seemed they looked dubiously. The nearest one's bridle was beautifully finished and jewelled – or rather its halter; Elwing had learned recently that steeds of Valinor were ridden or driven with reins attached to a simple headstall, with no bit or hackamore noseband. There was a Fëanorian star suspended in the center of the horse's forehead. Elwing decided to wait for Maedhros or Nerdanel to take charge of the horses.

It occurred to her that if she said something casual to Maedhros, such as, 'Deal with the horses while I get the door,' he might have no choice but to listen to her. They had better talk about that soon. Hopefully he would have some idea of how to handle it, having lived in sworn service to others in the past.

"Your hand," said Nerdanel, and Elwing's attention was jerked back to them.

"Oh, that – it's fine, Mother," said Maedhros, looking almost nervous. "I'm used to it – and it's a good thing that it's gone, you know, if Findekáno hadn't cut it off Morgoth would still have me." Then his gaze transferred over his mother's shoulder to Elwing, and he faltered, perhaps thinking of whether that would have been better for her.

Elwing was certain it wouldn't be, anymore than it would have been better for Doriath if the Noldor had never come and Morgoth, after taking the Faladhrim, had come to dispute with Melian directly. Elwing had met Melian only once, but she doubted very much her great-grandmother's capacity to fight a Vala. Perhaps Elwing, child of the intermarriage of Doriath and Men, would still have been born to parents who were slaves of Morgoth. She could not imagine that to be an improvement, as desperate as her childhood might have been.

"Let me go and get you something to drink now that you've come," said Elwing, resorting to something practical. "You can – er, Lady Nerdanel, do you want to show him where your horses are turned out?"

"Certainly, Lady Elwing," said Nerdanel, whose voice had returned to normal. "We'll have to see what you can help with one-handed, Maitimo. Let's get these saddle bags off for now, then?"

Elwing washed her hands and forearms in the spring before she went inside, thinking to get some of the leftover bread from the morning, and cheese; and that maybe if she was going to have to come up with chores to distract a terrifying sequence of Fëanorian princes for the next several centuries, she would start keeping dairy animals herself and substantially expand the garden. She was cutting the bread and arranging slices on a plate, distracted by sheer exhaustion and nerves, when she heard the door open again.

"Hello, Lady Elwing," said Maedhros. "I'm sorry about earlier. I was taken aback to find my mother here."

"So was I, but she's definitely right about the size of the rest of the cottage," said Elwing, still concentrating on the bread knife.

"So I see. What's the other room?"

"My weaving. There's too much to move out. I put my bed in there instead, so you can sleep in the loft while we finish the extension. I wanted to ask," said Elwing roughly, "How do we manage this without yanking on your spirit like a chained dog every time I say, I don't know, could you get the door, or check on the horses while I get this?"

There was silence behind her. "I don't mind," said Maedhros, which had to be a lie.

"You'd mind eventually," said Elwing. "And I know this is meant to be a punishment – sort of – but being shut up in a cottage this size with somebody I can't help torturing by speaking sounds unpleasant for me, if not outright dangerous."

"Lady Elwing," said Maedhros in what she suspected was his most diplomatic tone, "I promise you I would not—"

"That's not the point. Is there something I can do that will help, or do I just need to be very careful about phrasing so I don't give you commands unintentionally?"

"If you tell me I'm only to take instructions as commands if you say so, or that I should interpret commands about household chores as polite requests, or something of that nature, it should work," said Maedhros, and when she had, "I want to ask – my mother is, unlike me, virtuous and generally considered kind; but she can be... overwhelming. That is to say she was also generally considered an excellent match for my father. Did you intend for her to show up and commandeer you on renovations?"

"Not really, but I'm enjoying myself," said Elwing honestly; and heard, for the first time, Maedhros laughing in joy and not bitter rue.

"I'd think you were Noldorin."

Elwing shrugged. "I grew up in a mixed settlement," she said. "It's why I speak Quenya. My parents don't know what to do with me." Not that she'd given them much choice. She hesitated. "I can tell her to stop calling you Maitimo."

"It doesn't bother me," said Maedhros.

Elwing turned and frowned at him. "I do not especially want to deal with the consequences if you slip from your body, or Fade living here."

"The names really aren't bothering me as much. I think what you saw was half shock from leaving Mandos." Maedhros looked away from her, out the kitchen window, which faced the sea. "You also... Lady Elwing..."

"Say it, whatever it is," said Elwing. She thought living for fifty years in a small cottage with somebody who tried to stand on formality sounded unbearable.

"Was it only panic that made you jump?" he asked.

She suspected him of meaning something else, and turned to get the pitcher as she thought how to answer. "You remember," she said, "How you and your men cornered me on the cliffside – Sirion burning behind you! – and you took your sword and helm off."

"I remember," said Maedhros.

"You came toward me," said Elwing, hearing her voice come from her almost dreamily. "You told me that you didn't want to hurt me – that all of this could be over, and all I had to do was drop the jewel. And I thought, this could all be over."

"Ah," said Maedhros.

"It was such a nice thought," said Elwing. "But you were lying. It wouldn't be over if I gave you the jewel."

"We only—"

"Morgoth would still be there," said Elwing, cutting him off. "The politics would still be there. My parents would still be dead. But if I died – and I thought there was some chance I was mortal, and nobody knew what Mandos was like – then it really would be over. And it was really a lovely thought, everything being over. So I jumped."

The pitcher was nearly full and quickly Elwing stopped pouring. She turned to look at Maedhros, thinking with a sudden panic that this was not what you said to an elf you did not want to Fade, but Maedhros was solidly himself.

"I'm sorry," he said.

"I know. When we met over the Silmaril you were sorry the whole time; it just didn't help anything." Elwing looked at Maedhros and saw him exhausted but unmistakably alive. "Was that what you wanted to know?"

Maedhros turned back to the window. "Do you still want to die?" he said.

"Every minute," said Elwing. "But there's no point. I tried and Lord Ulmo stopped me. That was why I tried to punch him. Let's go back out. Can you carry the pitcher while I get the tray?"

He carried the pitcher, and they went back outside; and he did not ask her, as she had always expected anybody she confessed to would, why then Elwing had chosen the Fate of the Elves if she didn't want to live.

She was what she was. Elros hadn't chosen the Fate of Men because he wanted to die, either.

Maedhros was indeed limited in which tasks he could help with. On the other hand, he had clearly assisted construction before, unlike Elwing. The extension was soon built, roofed – though not with the ceramic tiles used for the main cottage – and finished on the inside with floorboards, plastered walls and glass windows. On Lady Nerdanel's final day, Maedhros and Nerdanel used leftover wood to build a bedframe with a tensioned rope mattress, and shelving, and a table and simple trunk; meanwhile Elwing sewed together an additional bed tick mattress bag and stuffed it.

Finally, the three of them stood together, looking at the nearly-empted room. Nerdanel and Maedhros's eyes met.

"Well, I had better go and check on the doves," said Elwing, and left in a hurry. The doves were perfectly fine, but they could always use some attention. She normally spent much of her time talking to her birds for lack of other conversation partners, and the presence of other elves had substantially reduced her time with them. She was happy to distract herself with collecting eggs, and checking they were healthy, and hearing their complaints and gossip about their fellows, until at length somebody came to the door.

It wasn't Maedhros this time, but Nerdanel. "Hello," said Elwing, putting the dove in her hands down gently. "You're about to announce something. Are you going, then?"

"Perhaps," said Nerdanel, who looked surprisingly nervous. She was wearing a full-length dress today, unusually, and she had bothered to braid her hair instead of simply shoving something pin-shaped through it to hold it up and out of the way. "Lady Elwing – I know that this decision was yours, but if you do have second thoughts..."

"I've already pronounced the judgment to the Valar," Elwing pointed out.

"Nevertheless, if you should – it would be entirely understandable if you did not wish to be left alone in an isolated cottage with my son, after what he did to you and your people. Please do not think for a moment that I have forgotten that, or discarded it. I will certainly not leave you alone with him if you do not willingly choose it."

Elwing tried to decide if Nerdanel was saying these things out of concern for her or a desire to stay with her son, but soon gave up. She wasn't that good at anticipating people.

"I'm all right, but if it bothers me I'll send him to you to visit, all right?" she said, and that won her at last a smile.

Elwing went out then from the dovecote to help harness Nerdanel's cart horses, and make sure everything was stowed securely, and thank her for her work on the cottage. Then Maedhros came out to say a cautious goodbye while Elwing turned to the horses pointedly and concentrated on petting them, and calling them sweet names; she felt she might be able to learn the language of horses, and not only birds. It would be terribly strange to keep domestic animals she couldn't speak to, so maybe she had better learn.

Finally, Nerdanel climbed into the driver's seat and shook the reins. Maedros and Elwing watched as she turned the cart, and drove away to slowly ascend the hill up the road.

Elwing looked at Maedhros, and Maedhros looked back through inscrutable gray eyes gleaming with a light lost otherwise to the world.

"I haven't had time to look in the palantír lately," she said, "But let's go and get it out now; I'd like to check on Elrond."

Maedhros smiled at that. "Thank you, Lady Elwing," he said with a steady voice. "I would like that."

Together, they walked to the cottage door.