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It was not Maedhros’ first night back. If it had been, perhaps Fingon would have been prepared. But at first, Maedhros slept soundly--almost too soundly, as if one dead, and Fingon listened to his breathing (too-shallow, raspy inhales and weak exhales, but there) to make sure he was alive--and so Fingon was not prepared.It was common, to overhear snatches of the dreams of others; typically there was no need to keep your dreams private, and so precious few picked up the skill of maintaining the barriers around their mind when they slept. In Valinor, Maedhros’ dreams had been normal, everyday things, memories twisted around and replayed. In later days, they filled with the political intrigue of Tirion, but they were still mundane, for the most part, other than the strange logic of every dreaming mind.It was the middle of the night. Fingon was the only mind close enough to feel it when Maedhros began to scream.It was, of course, not audible the way a scream was. But it was loud in the same way, crashing over Fingon’s mind like a tidal wave--
--your skin is bubbling from the heat and you cannot move and you scream and it rips the stitches that had kept your mouth sealed shut and you are choking on your own blood and there are so many barbs lodged bleeding inside you, in and out and the degradation hurts worse than the spines, it is sauron becomes gothmog becomes morgoth, and there is whispering and questions and you are screaming, no, no, i will not tell you, no, and they are laughing, and you are screaming, and you hope that your brothers do not hear your screams because then they might come and they shouldn’t, and there is something in your intestines--oh--and you are dizzy but you know better than to hope for unconsciousness and you scream and scream and scream. and suddenly it is findecáno, dragging you to rescue, to safety, and for a minute you get to recover, only then he laughs coldly and pulls out a knife and flays ribbons from you to expose nerves to the air and his face stops pretending and the thing that is not fingon laughs at you for daring to hope that he survived what you condemned him to and you scream and you writhe as much as you can because you are pinned down by nails driven through your hands and you are not entirely sure you do not deserve it and you lose count of how long you are there because you are not allowed to sleep but it is enough time for whoever it is to get bored of your reactions and for three orc bands to come by and for thuringwethil to sip gently at fresh wounds and for acid to be poured down your throat so that you can no longer scream--
--Fingon stumbled outside, retching, dizzy from the sensation, vaguely numb. The stomach acid clawing up his throat felt at once familiar and tiny, in comparison to the sensations flooding him from Maedhros’ mind. He coughed and spat; in the moonlight, he could see a pea floating, whole, in the sick. He found himself remembering back to the healer’s words, that he was to be left undisturbed to rest, but then he coughed up more vomit, clumpy and stringy, lightheaded with horror, and he can’t, he just can’t. Maedhros’ room was dark and quiet and the ósanwë was so strong in there it felt realer than the truth. Fingon clung to the sound of his breathing, still shallow; the way a lock of copper gleamed in the moonlight. He dug his fingernails into his palms because in the dream his median nerves had been broken and he could not move his hands. He spoke softly: “Maedhros. Wake up. It’s okay. You’re safe, you’re out, this is real, I’m real--”Maedhros woke with wild eyes. Immediately his mind closed, turning private, invisible. His eyes calmed after just a moment; he was just the slightest bit too still, but he still gave a friendly smile, and his voice seemed bright and easy. “Fingon! Yes, of course I am. My dearest and most sincere apologies for waking you. I’ll have to ask for lessons in keeping my thoughts private while I sleep--silly of me for not thinking of that, really--”“Eru, Maedhros, that is not what this is about, you--I--” Tears pricked at the corners of Fingon’s eyes as he determinedly willed them away. A chill breeze rippled through the room, and Fingon was silently grateful for the reminder that they were far from the claustrophobic heat of Angband. He took a deep breath before continuing, steadying himself. “The reason I woke you up is not because I sensed the dream and wanted to stop. The reason I woke you up is because you were having the dream and--I would’ve tried to rescue you if you were in Angband itself instead of hanging off a cliff face, the issue is not the visibility of your suffering, the issue is that you are suffering at all!”“I am fine. I am not the one making a big deal out of this. I would be perfectly content to go back to sleep--”“You cannot lie to me about whether you were fine while in that dream, I could feel your mind, you were screaming in pain and wishing for it to stop and I could not stand by and let that happen. If you would be just as content in that dream as you are in this moment, you are not fine. Please, just--be honest with me.”The silence was palpable. And then--slowly, deliberately, Maedhros relaxed the barrier around parts of his mind, letting them hang in the shared space in the air; his gaze was focused, eyes glowing with the same intense light that his father’s once had.
--if I do this every time then they will get the satisfaction of hearing me--they’ll do this every time, over and over--but if it is Findecáno, he would deserve to know--they hear me anyway--i’ll hide it better next time--they’d find another way to torture me--it doesn’t really matter--
But there is a sickness in there, that he might be opening his mind up to the enemy.It would be wrong to describe it as a certainty; it is just enough uncertainty to hurt, to oblige him to play nice. It is enough uncertainty that instead of spitting at Fingon’s feet he is making peace and putting kingdoms back together. But it is also memories, of conversations not quite like this one but not different.
--in this memory, findecáno is the only one from his family that survives the helcaraxë, and he rescues you only to pin you down with a snarl and fierce grey eyes and tells you that he is getting revenge for what you did to his family. in this memory, findecáno is sweet, and they are winning the war easily, and he is sweet for enough days and months that you let down your guard and believe him only to watch as the vision of findecáno warps into a vicious mockery and the hills of middle-earth become the hallways of angband and the laughter echoes so loudly. in this memory, findecáno rescues you to a political nightmare, with maglor and fingolfin both already dead in the succession dispute, and you would be glad that it is not real except that it could be real and happening outside without you and you would have no way of knowing--
It is a cold, terrible uncertainty as to where Fingon is, whether he’s dead or alive, whether the one in front of him is real. It is a thousand different triggers--heat and touch and voices and laughter and fire and blades and the smell of smoke--all constantly kept under conscious control, so that his breathing and heart rate stay perfectly in the center of normal, so that nobody will notice the panic, because if it is not real then his tormentors will be proud of themselves and if it is real then it will worry everyone and set behind the work of saving lives without any real point. It is a thousand different things that should upset him but don’t, anymore, because he has been through so much worse, but he knows how to move the muscles in his face so that he matches the rest of the room and nobody thinks twice about it. He moves and thinks from a sort of distant autopilot that can do enough diplomacy to keep anyone from dying, and somewhere very far away, where nobody can hear him, he is constantly, constantly screaming. Maedhros’ mind snapped shut again. “I hope this has answered your questions to your satisfaction. No, there is nothing you can do to help, save defeating Morgoth. In a few decades, when I am certain of you as much as I can be… Perhaps it will be better. When that day comes, we can have this conversation again, and you might help. Until then? I do not mind dreaming more than I mind being awake. But I would like to learn how to keep my mind closed while I sleep. It is kinder to everyone that way. Now you see why I did not want anyone to know? It doesn’t help anything, knowing. I don’t want it to hurt more people than it has to.”Fingon nodded. Bile was again working its way up his throat, but he was out of things to say. “I will ask for teachers to be sent to your room as soon as you wake up.” He paused. “I’m--still glad you told me, even if I can’t help. And… I’m sorry.”At that, Maedhros laughed; the sound was a short, sad sort of wheezing. The light in his eyes dimmed, a little, in its intensity. Whether that was good or bad Fingon did not know. As soon as he closed the door he began to cry silently; he managed, at least, to get all the way back to his own chambers before throwing up again. Over five hundred years pass. Maedhros still has nightmares.He no longer fears that he will wake up in Angband; instead, he prays for it, a silent hope that is only outweighed by his hope of this time, perhaps they will be a better swordsman than I. On his best nights, he will dream of dying, and for the moment between the sword piercing his chest and his eyes fluttering open, he will be happy. When he dreams of Angband, he wakes with panic in his chest fighting against his ribs, but he does not mind; he has spent many years living that way. He keeps his eyes closed, for a couple minutes, and lets himself believe that he is still there, that this was one of the visions, that everyone is still alive, or at least that he was not the one who killed them. There is no amount of suffering he would not trade for those minutes; more precious are they to him than gold or silver or gemstone, save only those gems which he was bound to.The nightmares--the nightmares are different.
He is in a forest and he is screaming names. His ears are straining, listening for the slightest rustle in the woods. There is laughing, laughing everywhere, echoing all around him, but no footsteps save his own. He runs, and the laughter gets louder and softer independently of where he is. He is in a forest and he can run and run as far as he wants in any direction and he will never find what he is looking for. He does not even know what he is looking for, not really. He has names, so very many names. He’s dripping blood; it marks a trail through the trees.
At some point, screaming joins the laughter. The screaming is his little brother--is a king--is his own--is an unfamiliar child--is a stranger.
He finds two children, huddled together in a snowdrift. They look like Elwing, but they’re boys, larger than she was at the Second Kinslaying but smaller than she was at the Third. They look already dead: unblinking, glassy eyes, flesh white and frozen to the bone.
Despite the cold, they do not start shaking until they see him. One of them claps his hand over the others’ mouth, as though they will not be killed if they do not scream. It’s silly of them; they’re screaming anyway, he can hear it.
He tries to kneel down, to offer them help and shelter. They run away, but he runs after them, for days and days and days; the sun and moon move, but still he runs. They get tired before he does. He gathers them in his arms and sings them a lullaby and tells them he’ll keep them safe and--
--he is back in Angband, and they are there too, and it is Melkor’s laughter, Melkor is laughing and thanking him, for bringing such charming young elves back with him, Melkor is complimenting him and listing names and he recognizes every scream.
“You have outdone yourself,” Melkor says, laughing, and he tosses a silmaril up in the air and tells Maedhros that he can have it, he need only do as he is told, and the boys are held down and Maedhros--does not want to--he cannot tell if it is the Oath puppeting his movements or Melkor--Maedhros unsheathes his sword and begins. The ghostly screams die out as the real ones begin.
When he is done, the bodies flicker, a thousand different corpses all at his feet: black-and-gold braids matted with blood, flame-bright hair and a gaping throat, a red face still scowling at nothing. A shipbuilder, gray and ghostly, only ever seen in starlight--an elf, barely of-age, fear in his eyes as he faces his first battle--a dirty refugee woman who jumped in the way--
Melkor throws the silmaril up in the air again before vanishing; he tries to grab it, but he is too far away, a woman gets there first, black hair and a brave expression. They are standing at the edge of a cliff. The bodies at his feet stop changing. They are two twins, hand in hand, dark hair and young faces that are not as young as they were when he found them behind a waterfall, and they are mutilated and bleeding and dead and he is dripping with the blood of friends and family, innocents and children alike.
The woman looks him in the eye. She clutches the silmaril to her chest. “You did this.” Her voice trembles but stays defiant. “Watch,” she says, and falls backwards, off the cliff. He runs forwards, but he’s not fast enough; his movements are in slow motion, but the effects of gravity have been sped up. The water seems impossibly fast.
He turns around. There is the mountain of corpses from the Nirnaeth. The screams of children ring still in his ears, but everything is silent but the call of a circling vulture.
He wakes up, not in Angband but in his chambers in Amon Ereb; outside it is warm, the wind blowing through tall grasses as spring fades to summer, far from the wintry forests of Doriath.Later that day, he takes Elrond and Elros out to practice fighting. They spar with each other, joking and shouting playfully. A chill runs down his spine, uncaring of the season, to hear their laughter as sword meets sword.