New Direction

Right, well, I'm trying.  I go on break this week, so we'll see if I can't get caught up.  I would really like to not give up on this.

Canon-compliant AU.  Things change for Maedhros in the face of Maglor's newly adopted fosterlings.  Who would have thought that he still had a heart?  Quenya names used (Maedhros = Maitimo, Nelyo or Nelyafinwë, Maglor = Kanafinwë and Fingon = Findekáno).  This is related most closely to "Repeat", "Panic" and "Memorial", but obviously many others as well.  Too tired to list them all.  Takes place in the late First Age.

Disclaimer: I don't own the Silmarillion

Pairings: none

Characters: Maedhros, Maglor, Elrond, Elros (mentions Fëanor, the Fëanorions, Fingon, Elwing and other random Noldorin elves)

Warning: canon-compliant AU, mentions (vaguely) torture and mutilation, hints at insanity and unhealthy mental states, mostly just slight fluff and depressing foreshadowing

Song: 

Words: 1,816
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new (adjective): having recently come into existence: recent, modern; having been seen, used, or known for a short time: novel
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/new
direction (noun): guidance or supervision of action or conduct; the line or course on which something is moving or is aimed to move or along which something is pointing or facing
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/direction?show=0&t=1385351581

Always, he had assumed his life would follow a certain path.  A certain set of secretly written guidelines and regulations that he dare not breach or disobey.

A prince's firstborn son, the second in line to the throne.  Perfect.  Intelligent.  Handsome.

A writer and a scholar, but first and foremost a politician.

That was what his life should have been.  Always, Maitimo knew that was what he had been created to be.  He could speak and write and debate and no one save perhaps his own sire could stand in the way of his onslaught and hope to remain standing.  That was his purpose, his perfection.

But his life had been nothing like that at all.

And now, run down and tired, having just burned the body of his young brother, Maitimo only wanted to go back to the moment he had stupidly raised his sword in a fit of fear and pride and paternal loyalty, and he wanted to snub his father right in the face.  Declare that he would not be abandoning his wife to loneliness and his children to certain death, that he was brave enough to face those glowing eyes and speak his mind for once in his life.

Maybe then he wouldn't be here, wishing to die.  Wishing to die but having no choice to live, because he couldn't leave Kanafinwë all alone and he daren't disappoint Findekáno further.  And because he couldn't drive the tantalizing glow of the Silmarilli from his mind, nor the knowledge that one was so close and yet so far out of his grasp.

"Brother."

Kanafinwë's voice was small and fatigued, but underlying even that was a sort of tension.  An underlying nervousness that had been there, nearly inaudible, since before the Second Kinslaying.  Since the last time the second-born had tried to disobey the oldest.

Maitimo hated that his brother feared him.  Hated that, when he was lucid, he could see that lingering worry and terror.  Hated that, when he was lost in the tides of senility, he did not even care.

"What need you, Kanafinwë?"

"I... I have a request."

Half-expecting another entreaty against further action--and what more could they do at this point, anyway?--Maitimo prepared to admit temporary defeat.  To agree to some rest and some time away from this endless field of death, if only so that he could breathe air that did not stink of rotting corpses and drying blood. "Continue."

"I have Elwing's twin sons..."

It took a few moments to register those words.  Captives.  Kanafinwë had captives.  And Maitimo almost winced when the first words to rise upon his tongue were cruel and cold, words of death in petty vengeance.

"I want to bring them with us."

It was then that Maitimo turned to face his younger brother, found two small elflings clinging to the back of said brother's knees, half-hidden beneath his tattered and blood-stained cloak.  Peering out of the folds and up at Maitimo as though he were Morgoth personified.  Silently to himself, he admitted that he hadn't expected them to be so tiny and fragile.  So utterly helpless.

If he decided they were to die now, they would not even be able to put up a fight.

"Our war-camps and fortresses are no place for children," Maitimo muttered, still watching them, observing how they cringed and flinched at his deep, raw voice washing over their ears. "I wouldn't have our men burdened with--"

"I will look after them myself." A stubborn set came to that jaw, a striking and sudden resemblance to their sire that had Maitimo shuddering.  Once his father had that look, there was no changing his mind.  And it seemed Kanafinwë was much the same. "You need not bother yourself, nor need any of our warriors.  I will watch over them and cook for them and keep them out of trouble."

If only you will let me take them with. That voice, strong and steely, trembled ever so slightly upon its foundations.  A weakness that an enemy would have exploited, but Maitimo felt no need to tear his brother apart, nor to be unduly cruel.

And, perhaps, he did not want to kill any more children.  Perhaps he did not want to hear any more high-pitched squeals of terror just before...

"Very well," he acquiesced. "Just keep them out of the way."

Too late to take back his decision, Maitimo arose from his spot leaning against his lonely tree with a view of the slaughter-field and walked away.  Let Kanafinwë keep his little ones if so he wanted.

(More than he was willing to admit, Maitimo knew that his brother longed for his children.  And he also knew exactly who should have shouldered the blame for their loss.  Perhaps it was that which had stayed his tongue and blade.

But either way, his heart felt just a bit lighter.)

---

Of course, life in his dingy and depressing fortress suddenly turned in a new direction.  One that Maitimo was not entirely sure he could stomach.

(Or maybe he did not want to admit that he liked it too much).

Where usually there was silence, there was noise.  Logically, Maitimo had known that children were prone to noise--he had helped raise six, none of whom were good at being quiet and well-behaved--but he hadn't remembered just how much ruckus a set of twins could bring down upon his doorstep.  Squealing and the patter of footsteps and giggling laughter when he was trying to work.

The pair of rambunctious troublemakers lost much of their shyness after the first month of living amongst ornery soldiers and their foster father's very unpleasant older brother.  They had started calling him "Uncle Maedhros", even in front of the warriors and guardsmen--and he knew Kanafinwë was laughing at the tension in his shoulders and the twitch in his cheek every time it happened--and were it not for the fact that he was perpetually in a bad mood, he suspected they would step half the day following him around like little ducklings rather than sticking close only to their primary caretaker.

He was not looking forward to the day they gathered the courage to start interrupting his time alone in his study like little time-devouring hooligans.

(Mostly because it reminded him too much of those other twins who always wanted lullabies and cookies and to play games, drawing him away from his studies and his papers into the afternoon sunshine, always making him smile.)

But for now he was content with watching.

With listening to their unsteady and childish plucking away at the harp lessons Kanafinwë had insisted upon.  With wincing each time he heard a crash echoing down stone walkways and knew somewhere there was a shattered vase or a pile of armor needing to be cleaned up.  Even with observing at a distance--and studiously avoiding--messy "family" mealtimes.

It was different having the little ones there.  And not only because of their loudness and messiness and troublesome boisterous behavior.

It was fresh, much as he hated to admit it.

His warriors smiled more often, the shadows that normally hung as a gloom over the faces of his comrades suddenly parted by light bursting through their net and tearing it apart with resplendent claws and fangs.  There was laughter amongst the camps and talk of making toys and teaching swordsmanship and archery and horsemanship.

As though all of these broken warriors had also, in some strange way, adopted the twins just as thoroughly as had Kanafinwë.

And it was infectious.

Enough so that Maitimo felt his dark, fey moods drifting and waning like fog in early morning.  Often he had to fight the upturn of his lips at each stupid, silly question they asked or each strange and nonsensical phrase they produced.  Whenever he was around them, the obsession grew fainter, the voices dwindling into silence and the heady need to go out and hunt down his salvation faded.

Faded into something that resembled a frightening sort of contentment.

Of course, there was still the war.  Of course, there was still the past.  And, of course, Maitimo was still as barren and alone as ever.

But he had trouble keeping to the Oath.  When next Kanafinwë begged him to forswear his vows, Maitimo had almost surrendered without thinking of the consequences.  Without thinking of what might happen should the other Silmarilli be uncovered and their way be cleared of an implacable obstacle.  Without even stopping to consider all the options, he had almost agreed.

By the third time Kanafinwë asked, Maitimo had given in to his brother's persistence and patience.

"We are happy, brother.  Content.  You are happy and content; I can see it in your eyes no matter that you try to hide it.  Why deny us that boon?  For the sake of a few glowing stones?"

Maitimo was supposed to be the persuasive one, the expert in rhetoric and debate.  But somehow the thought of the twins--of their upturned, grinning faces covered in sticky jam or smudged with mud from playing in the rain--was more persuasive an argument than any Kanafinwë could have presented with mere words.

(He tried to convince himself that it was a figment of his imagination, this attachment.  They were not his sons--adoptive or otherwise--and he was not their father.)

"I..."

"Please, Nelyafinwë--Maitimo, please consider it."

"I need not consider it, brother."

"But Nelyo--"

"I will forswear our Oath." Even speaking the words had brought such profound relief that his knees would have given out had he not been sitting.  All that weight lifted with ease.  So many lives saved.  So many innocents whose blood would never run into the earth, testament to the crimes of his House and his brothers.

"I will..."

Stubbornly, Maitimo persisted with his grumpiness and antisocial tendencies.  Still, he avoided being alone with the little ones and chose to keep an eye on them from far away.

All the while telling himself that they were not his.  Telling himself that, one day, he would be able to let them go and life would reorient itself.  Re-establish the pattern that for so long had been cultivated.  Bring him back to the brink of desperation and insanity as though he had never strayed from its path.

(Except they were his.  As much as any child of blood would have been.  And, in the dark of night, he knew he would not be able to let them go.

They were his.  His sons.  And that changed everything.)