Search

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Maedhros fails to find Dior's twin sons.  Quenya names used (Maedhros = Maitimo or Nelyo, Celegorm = Turkafinwë, Fingon = Findakáno).  This story opens with the continuation of the last scene of "Reap", but carries very close connections to "Panic" (they share an opening line, after all).  Also connected to "Get Up", "Obsessive", "Mirror" and all other Second Kinslaying pieces.  Maedhros does not know about the whole thing with Dior's parentage and does not realize that the twins are actually his brother's grandchildren, and thus does not know why Celegorm wants him to save the twins so much.  Takes place in the forest outside Menegroth in the First Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: none

Characters: Maedhros, Celegorm (mentions Eluréd and Elurín, Fingon, Fëanor and the Valar)

Warning: canon compliant AU, canon character death, child abandonment, mentions mass murder and child murder, insanity

Song: Virtue

Words: 935
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search (verb): to look into or over carefully or thoroughly in an effort to find or discover something; to examine in seeking something; to look through or explore by inspecting possible places of concealment or investigating suspicious circumstances
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/search

"Please... please protect them, Nelyo..."

Fast-fading silver eyes were staring up at him, cutting him open with razor-sharp edges.  The words were choked out from between blood-striped lips, a death rattle on their softly breathed whisper.

"You know I can promise nothing, brother."

"Please..." It was so very soft, lacking the innate firmness and surety of his younger brother's implacable confidence. Maitimo did not think he had ever heard Turkafinwë sound so lost.  So shattered and drained.  There was not a hint of laughter upon his voice now.

Nor a hint of insanity.

"I will try."  It was all he could think to promise.

"Thank you..." Turkafinwë was smiling at him then.  But his eyes were empty.  And Maitimo could only grasp tightly the now-limp hand clutched in his own fingers.

"I will find them."

He should have given up hours ago.

Long since had dusk fallen into deep, soupy darkness, shrouding the world in a blanket of morose silence.  Even with a torch, Maitimo could barely see more than a couple of feet in any direction in this labyrinth of wood and shadow.  He certainly could not easily find two hiding elflings in this thicket, not unless he stumbled right over them lying in the middle of the ground at his feet.

It was a useless venture and he knew it.  He did not have any more time to waste on hunting for victims of their assault on Doriath, victims that should have had their throats slit the moment they were captured.  Had their misery ended before it had even begun.  It would have been easier for Maitimo--he needn't have thought about them, about their ruined lives, about the fact that they were hardly more than infants and on their own left to die--and more humane.

But he was not even out here to end their suffering.  He was out here to kidnap them.

What in the name of the Valar did Turkafinwë even imagine him doing with two frightened, toddling Sindarin princes?  Carrying them around on his lap as they rode off to battle and fought orcs?  As they chased after the Silmarilli and slaughtered hundreds more in the name of their Oath?

It was a ludicrous idea.

Yet, despite the logical, cold-hearted thoughts poking at the back of his mind, Maitimo just could not make himself cease his search.  He had promised.

"Please..."

And Turkafinwë had never begged for a single thing in his entire life.

Maybe it was redemption.  Maybe in his last moments, the third brother had been searching for something to ease the guilt that could no longer be stifled in the wake of his passing.  Maitimo knew plenty about guilt and remorse and necessity, knew that he must steel his heart against sympathy with his slain kindred as they fell beneath his sword.  Knew that he could not back down, not with the Oath hanging over all their heads like a black noose ready to fall about their bared throats.

Knew that he should not care about two elflings, no matter how much his brother had pleaded for their safety.  Knew they should not be important.

Yet his feet carried him on.  And his voice continued crying their names.

Maybe...

Maybe... maybe he wanted that redemption, too.

Maybe it would soothe the writhing tangle of poisonous thoughts that had overgrown all sense of true right and wrong, leading him to become every bit as fey and obsessed as his sire had ever been.  Maybe, if he could save them, two simple little children, it would take away some of the sheer weight (of sin and despair and treachery) heavy upon his shoulders.  Maybe it would put a stop to all this horror that seemed to encompass and overwhelm his life now that all the hopes and dreams of his people were crumbling to dust.

Maybe he was searching for the same thing as had been his brother.  Maybe he was searching for a way to escape.  A little ray of hope in the darkness, that he could do something right.  That he wasn't the same as his father...

Throat aching and voice hoarse, he called for them into the night, tripping over raised branches of ancient trees and yanking his hair loose from grasping fingers of branches.  Growing more and more frustrated and weary with each passing moment lacking in success and relief.  Until the clawing of exhaustion at his body and mind began to prevail and any small glimmer of hope gave in...

Was crushed...

Resisting the urge to scream--and ignoring the burn of his eyes--he turned around and began to move out of the dense tangle of the woods.  Blocked out the despairing voice screaming at the edges of his mind.  That there would never be any redemption or salvation, never be any turning back from damnation.  That everything he had ever worked for had culminated to this moment.

How disappointed Findekáno would have been.  How disappointed Turkafinwë would have been.

They put their trust in him.

And he had failed them both.  Failed them all.

He never did find what he was searching for.

And as he departed the woods, dirty and smeared in the blood of close kin, Maitimo knew that he never would.  There was no longer a path back to the light.

Nowhere to go but forward, into the darkness.
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It's strange for me to write this.  I've written a version of the Second Kinslaying from Maedhros' POV before (not on this blog) which is completely different from this one here, which might be why it's come out a touch choppy.  I have an ingrained "once it's written it becomes head-canon" problem that comes with being very nearly OCD on occasion, so forgive me.

Anyway, I know he and Maglor supposedly "foreswear" their oath after this, but I honestly don't think Maedhros ever really forgives himself for any of this shit.  I have yet to write his version of the "night before" thing ("Villain"), but I have a feeling that he believes he has to do this, but that he really doesn't want to any more than Maglor did.  And it's driving him crazy.

We'll just have to see how the prompts fall.

In any case, sad and depressing music to go with the theme.  Virtue composed by Hans Zimmer for the movie Hannibal.  I've never actually seen the movie, though I must say the OST cover is rather creepy (understandably), but I listen to OSTs all the time without ever having watched/played the anime, movie or video game they came from, so... Yeah, and there's the solo violin... Big surprise, right? LOL.