Jump

Canon compliant.  It ends as it began, so says Maedhros of the House of Fëanor.  Quenya name used, so Maedhros = Maitimo.  This is completely based off a canon event and a rewrite of a story that I wrote two years ago that is probably still on fanfiction.net somewhere.  In any case, I'm trying to get into the head of a crazy person, so cut me some slack.  Could, I suppose, be paired off with "Mirror" and "Obsessive" maybe.  First part takes place on the day of the Oath of Fëanor in Valinor.  Second part takes place wherever it is that Maedhros throws himself to his death at the end of the First Age.  Introspective.

Disclaimer: Tolkien owns the Silmarillion

Pairings: none

Characters: Maedhros, Fëanor (mentions Finwë, Morgoth, Eru and the Valar)

Warning: canon-compliant, canon character death, suicide, insanity, murder, allusions to torture, skewed logic?

Song: The Truth Beneath the Rose

Words: 1,118
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jump (intransitive verb): to spring into the air: leap; to spring free from the ground or other base by the muscular action of feet and legs; to move suddenly or involuntarily: start
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/jump

All things that ended started somewhere, somehow.

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It started with a jump into the fire.

Though, in retrospect, Maitimo would hardly name it a "jump".  More of a startled hop, in all truth, it was that brought him to his full height at his father's right shoulder, jitters running up and down his spine, butterflies beating their wings across his insides.  "Who would join me in avenging their king?" his father had asked, and who was Maitimo to say "no"?

Physically, he had hardly moved, but the redheaded prince knew with great certainty that this was a pivotal point in his existence, the moment when everything began to go terribly wrong, when reality and right and wrong and sin and holiness were all mixed together like the ingredients of a primordial confusion until they were indistinguishable sludge, dissolved and reacted and conjugated into the unrecognizable.

That day, he had looked into his father's eyes and seen a chasm of fire.

It had swallowed him, stretching on for miles and miles into the depths of starlit eyes, waiting and watching and gaping hungrily for his untried, untainted soul.

Then, he had not understood what it was that stared back at him from his sire's eyes, branding him with their lust for revenge, with their insatiable need to reclaim and destroy.  He had not seen the madness for what it truly was, then, nor had he realized to what end he pledged his immortal being when he spoke the word "yes" and held his sword aloft as a torch, glowing in the overwhelming darkness of the unlit world, the herald of sin.

When he leapt, he leapt to his death.  Of this, Maitimo was certain.  For that young, impressionable man he had once been, intrigued by politics, silver-tongued, but in many ways still very naive and foolish, that man was gone.  He was charred and blackened, his bones crushed to dust and scattered upon a foul wind into the pits of filth in the deepest corners of Angband.  The same fire that seared his father's soul now scorched away anything that remained of the person he had once been, and a new creature was born in the place of the old, the roots of insanity already threaded into his foundations, seeping in at the corners of his mind.

When he had been faced with the order to kill, Maitimo had not hesitated.  Indeed, that new, strange part of his self--that justified part that languished in the thought of righteousness--had taken pleasure in spilling the blood of those who dared keep the Darkness from punishment at the hands of those so terribly wronged.

It had been blood spilled in the name of their king, Finwë, fallen upon the steps of his son's home.  It had been blood spilled in the name of taking back what had been stolen from their father's keep.  It had been blood spilled in the name of destroying the Black Enemy, whom the Valar had failed to control and failed to redeem.

He pushed all thought of guilt from his head--a foolish notion that had no place in his visceral world.  Even then, he had been naive, had bricked away any conscience that might have writhed its way to the surface of his thoughts.

Reborn and blooded, he departed the golden shores of Valinor to face his horrific fate.  He had not even realized he had jumped to metaphorical destruction.  He had not realized what was sacrificed until it was far, far too late to turn back.  For the walls were too high and too sheer, slimy and blackened with soot, burning to the touch, and he could not climb them.  He could not escape; only could he fall deeper and deeper until he reached the bottom.

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As it began, it ended with a jump into the fire.

But this was a true leap.

And this time the chasm of fire was glaring back at him, an infected wound in the rocky muscle of the world, bellowing scorched air into his face, licking at the toes of his boots eagerly, as if it were a sentient beast desiring to taste his roasted flesh, to devour him whole in all his entirety.  And who was Maitimo to deny it its dinner?

Perhaps it was the madness, growing and growing and growing like a poisonous tree with wilted rotting leaves branching out through his consciousness.  But the failure to carry out his oath, the rejection, it perhaps was the final ingredient, the toxic remedy that was now putting this vile thing in his mind into death throes.

All he knew was the searing facets imprinted forever into his fleshy palm and the pain, pain, pain worse than any torture Morgoth had inflicted upon his earthly body.  All he could remember was the gaping maw and his all-encompassing desire to escape, to scramble and crawl and claw his way out until his nails were torn and blackened and his hands riddled with dirt-encrusted lacerations.  He would do anything--anything to make it end, this plummet.

If his innocence and purity could be charred to ash, then so too could the corrupt, bloodthirsty monster that had taken his place.

It was the end, the bottom, and Maitimo did not hesitate to step over this edge.  The agony was beyond imagining, but he reveled in every second, screaming and weeping in bliss, because if Eru had any mercy in His heart for the lost and forsaken souls, He would melt away the memories and the torments and the insanity.  Maitimo would hit the bottom of the abyss, and he would shatter into a thousand pieces and be lost forever.

If his first jump had been a death of the soul, perhaps jump would be a new birth.

It should have horrified him to see the flesh and bone of his hand simply scald away at the touch of molten rock, to see the Silmaril glow like a fallen star and then disappear into the bosom of the world, perhaps never to be seen or held by mortal hands again.  But it brought relief and comfort.  His hair turned to flames and his vision turned to black and everything was burned away by the fire.  Perhaps even the inky grime of his spirit would be taken away and turned to ash.

And when the last droplets of consciousness fell away, he prayed only never to wake again.

But the prayers of kinslayers are so seldom answered.
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Another version of Maedhros' death.  I'm sure there are dozens floating around on the internet.  I know for sure there's at least one other, LOL.  Anyway, I wrote a piece for Maglor that could be paired with this also, now that I think about it.  "Done" fits rather well with this piece as a culmination of the end of the Quenta Silmarillion, since they both depict the final resting places of Silmarilli.  Maybe I'll have to write something with Eärendil then...

Listening to The Truth Beneath the Rose by Within Temptation.  To be honest, this song has reminded me of Maedhros for as long as I've been listening to it (so several years, since it was actually a new song), and when I play it on my iPod a picture of him pops up to remind me how much emotion I have crammed into his character, because for me this song is about him, even though I do believe it's rather conspicuously inspired by The Da Vinci Code and similar ideas.  And it's an f-ing kickass song, so go listen to it if you haven't.

Also, a picture to go along with the hot imagery: It ends in flame by =Gold-Seven on dA (so I obviously did not paint this picture).  Also, there's a coffee version.  Can you guess what that one ends in?