Shackles

Mellow Soulmate AU.  Maglor knows the futility of arguing with his older brother.  And, in all truth, he knew they had no other choice.  Quenya names used (Maglor = Makalaurë or Kanafinwë, Maedhros = Nelyafinwë, Fëanor = Fëanáro, Fingon = Findekáno).  This is most closely related to "Jump", "Memorial", "Panic", "Worst Day" and "Villain", but is related to a great many others.  You could say all the stories are beginning to coalesce.  Takes place somewhere in Beleriand at the end of the War of Wrath in the First Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: none

Characters: Maglor, Maedhros (mentions Fëanor, Fingon, Manwë, Varda, the Valar in general, Vardamírë (OFC), Ilession (OMC) and Erestor)

Warning: mostly canon compliant AU, possibly insanity, obsessive behaviors, discussion of sin, depression?, self-hatred, premeditated theft, possibly confusing because it was written at 2 in the morning

Song: Invasion

Words: 1,416
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shackle (noun): something (as a manacle or fetter) that confines the legs or arms; something that checks or prevents free action as if by fetters—usually used in plural
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/shackle

"We do not need to do this, brother."

He knew it was a lie as soon as he spoke.  It sounded hollow upon his tongue.

"Please, reconsider.  Please."

Hard eyes--dark eyes shrouded and dripping noxiously in sin--shifted abruptly to stare back at him, soul-piercing and narrowed with cold-blooded calculation.  Nelyafinwë had halted his pacing at the interruption, loose red hair hanging limp about his shoulders and face set in a scowl that would have sent the forces of Angband scurrying back to their dark little holes of misery and filth, shivering in terror at his visage.

Beneath his brother's scrutiny, Makalaurë winced back as if struck.  By no means was he immune to that glare.

But he knew he could not back down from the argument, not without trying.  So many times, he had believed that they were past the point of no return--of no redemption or resolution.  That they were so deeply entrenched in wickedness that there was no way back to the light.  But he knew that this move, this insane plan laid before him like a suicidal plunge off a sheer drop, was doomed to failure.  Doomed to end in demise.  The last chance.  The true point of no return.

Nelyafinwë wanted to demand back the Silmarilli.  And, should they be withheld, he wanted to storm the camps of the victorious host of Valinor and take them back.

It was beyond suicidal!  Two men could not face off against all the warriors of Valinor!

And yet... and yet...

"Be not ridiculous, Kanafinwë.  We both know that there is naught else to be done."

It was said so matter-of-factly that it made the younger brother absolutely sick to his stomach.  With distress and grief and horror.  Nelyafinwë sounded completely resigned, but it was a resignation formed of gleaming, vicious steel, tempered and battle-hardened with determination and desperation.  There was no room for question in his statement.  No room for hesitation or kindness or consideration.  This was their path.  Their only path.

And those silver eyes, the eyes that he remembered once being so very gentle and sweet, remembered glowing in affection and joy, they were so very cold and so very hot.  Through the dim light of their shared tent the silver orbs were like lightning, flashing with each movement.

With anger.  With hatred and loathing and vengeful lust.  But also with fear and pain.  So much pain that it stung and burned to witness its fingers digging deeper and deeper into his beloved sibling and shaking until Nelyafinwë was torn to pieces.

And, though he wished to argue further, though he wished to make his brother reconsider, Makalaurë knew very well that he could not.

If Nelyafinwë was the fiery, wrathful spirit, curdled in anger at the desolate unfairness (or perhaps the strikingly true justice) of their fate, then Makalaurë was his counterpart.  The water's smooth, rippling surface, cool to combat the searing, bubbling heat.  The sorrow and denial lashing against the bitter acceptance and the resulting self-hatred.

Two parts of a shattered whole.  All that was left of a broken family.

Torn apart by a single Oath spoken in conceit.

Upon his tongue, bitter was the memory.  It was not a night he could ever forget, with the torches splashing premonitions of blood across their swords and cracks of shadow upon their heraldic shields.  With his father's eyes outshining the very stars as they stared down into his inner core, urging, demanding, screaming silently for his undying, unquestioning loyalty.  Never taking denial as an answer.

Makalaurë had not felt that he had the option to back down, to turn around and flee back to his wife and sons in the safety of their home, not beneath the unyielding adamantine of his father's eyes.  To surrender filial devotion and run like a traitor and a coward away from the seemingly impossible task of vengeance and domination suggested by his sire, it would have painted him with unnamable shame.  And he, unable to stomach the thought of disappointment and mockery for his misconceived cowardice, had given in and taken the wrong path.

He remembered staring straight into those eyes and raising his sword to the sky, reflected in scarlet.  Remembered swearing--Manwë and Varda as his witnesses--to uphold the Oath of Fëanáro through life and death until the day his soul was irrevocably destroyed and all that he was ceased to be.  Remembered feeling the crushing weight upon his shoulders and the metal bands closing around his wrists with striking, sickening finality.

These shackles were stronger than any iron or mithril alloy could ever hope to be.  These shackles were forged of words and oaths, could not be foresworn and could not be abandoned.  Could not be forgotten.

They imprisoned him completely.  Yanked him around by his tender wrists until the skin bruised and blistered and bled out in dripping rivulets over cold, unfeeling metal.  Tortured him with wracking waves of agony, for they would not suffer to be ignored for long.

And they were shackles of his own making.

For he knew he could have said "no".  He knew he could have followed his instincts, could have found the fiery center of his own spirit and snarled back at his sire.  He knew he could have walked away from all of this if only he had not been such a coward.  If only he had not been so utterly naïve and so completely trusting.

If only... If only...

He knew not any sadder words than those.

For, like the manacle that once had been soldered into a never-ending, impenetrable circlet about his brother's right wrist on the slopes of the Thangorodrim, these shackles could not be broken or worn down or unlocked.  They held fast and brutal.  No key existed and no lock was forged.

Absolute.  They were absolute and permanent.  Damnation at its finest.

And he had no one to blame but himself.

There was no "going back" now.  The bridges were burned and the labyrinth of time unraveled at their heels.  They could not harken to Valinor with their Oath incomplete, could not follow the Silmarilli to those golden shores and would not be welcome even if they did heel to the will of the Valar and crawl back like slaves.

This was their last chance to take back the Silmarilli.  To hopefully complete the Oath once and for all.  To take away the weight and the searing pain.

To make the darkness of obsession disappear from Nelyafinwë's eyes.  To bring back the man from before the torture and before the war and before the betrayal.  Before their fosterlings were taken away and before Findekáno had died.  Before all of the tragedy.

He wanted again the kind-hearted soul who tucked him in as a child.  Who had a heart ten times the size of their father and the will to nurture ten times as potent as their mother.  Who wanted to have children and who knew how to laugh and who was not afraid to shed tears...

He wanted again the Nelyafinwë unburdened by their fateful Oath.

And it would never end if they did not end it now.  Thus, in despair for their fate and loathing for their own foolishness, they would pursue their goal to whatever ill end it might find.

Feeling his eyes burn, Makalaurë looked up at his brother and did not wince at the clashing of their eyes, his soft and deep with sadness and his brother's boiling over with the roiling inner ocean of negativity and senility. "Yes, I know," he whispered.

"Good.  Be ready to leave at first light." There was no compassion for his plight and no diffidence in his brother's resolve.  Nelyafinwë, fey-eyed with the madness and the need and the utter loneliness, would not be convinced.  He stared at Makalaurë, and his eyes might as well have been spears for how they stabbed through his body and left him hanging in unimaginable agony, helpless and hopeless.

"Remember where your loyalties lay, Kanafinwë.  And do not falter again."  Cruel and ruthless.

And he did not falter a second time, no matter the certainty of failure resting heavy in his heart.  In truth, Makalaurë knew that any argument he made was in vain.

They had been since the very beginning.
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First off, I'm so sorry for how late this is!  I have been out of the house literally all day and haven't had time to write at all, so I'm scrambling to get it done now.  I also want to say that any amount of incoherence demonstrated is directly correlated to the fact that I have been walking/socializing all day and feel like I've been run over by a truck.  I really need sleep, so I won't stick around long.

This is, basically, Maglor characterization.  It's not quite "Memorial" and "Done" compliant, but Maglor has evolved since then.  It's more "Worst Day" and "Hero" compliant, if anything.  It's mostly prodding at motivations, because I don't believe that Maedhros and Maglor were just arrogant enough to think that the hosts of Valinor would hand the Silmarilli over without a fight.  They were suicidal for doing what they did, and it doesn't make much sense unless you're (a) crazy or (b) really, really desperate.

The nature of the Oath is difficult to embody.  Whether it really means eternal damnation is questionable.  A possible argument is that, when the sons of Fëanor reach the Halls, they are never allowed to leave, but some people believe they are not allowed in Valinor at all, which would imply that they couldn't enter the Halls.  I did not follow this theory and played my own game, so if things are shady it's because I'm making it up as I go along.

That being said, I want to add that today's song has nothing to do with the prompt.  The Rayden Remix of Invasion (originally by Shiro Sagisu and from Bleach) is my new favorite strange music.  It's very different and radical and I like it.  I like the original, too, of course, but I thought a little new flavor and spice couldn't harm anyone too terribly.  Hope you like.

And now that that's done, I am going to bed.  Goodnight all.