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Chapter Text

If there is one thing Samwise Gamgee isn't going to do, it's leave behind Mr Frodo. There had been a moment where he had thought him dead, killed by the giant spider but he had quickly learned that he was in fact not dead and if he wasn't dead, Sam would save him. 

He had the sword of Mr Bilbo, the phial that had helped him fend off the spider and the ring. The last of which was held still on its chain around Sam's neck. He could understand better how it weighed down his master, how it affected hobbit thoughts with its unnatural ways. Only a few hours had passed, as he chased the trail of those who had taken Frodo, Frodo had been in constant contact with it for months. 

Sam was stubborn enough to withstand its lies and false promises because the only thing he wanted right now was Frodo safe and by his side again. Something that was entirely out of the ring's ability to grant him. The only way that was to be achieved, was to find Mr Frodo before the orcs did something terrible to him. 

Terrible and potentially permanent. 

Neither of which Samwise Gamgee would stand for.

The tracks led to a great tower. Not the one that was the seat of the eye thankfully but nonetheless it was going to be a difficult task to find Frodo all the same. Especially not alone as he was but Sam had no other choice.

Any good people had been left behind a good while ago. Gandalf was lying dead somewhere in the heart of Moria, Boromir also dead floating his way to the sea and the rest of the Fellowship likely on the other side of the river if they were safe. Even Captain Faramir's men were leagues away now.

"If a job's worth doing, it's worth doing yourself." He said to himself in an echo of his father's advice and set off with what courage he had to the dreaded door of this grim place. They were words his father had said to him at the time they had been about planting potatoes but he found them to be equally applicable to evil towers too on this day. 

The orc armour he had stolen from a dead one on the way, got him through the front door without too many questions. It seemed that the orcs had gotten lazy and weren't as on top of their game here, so far from the border. No-one stopped him. No-one questioned his blue glowing sword, until they saw it sticking out of them but then it was too late. 

Sam pushed an orc off the winding staircase and it fell down onto the gathered ones eating some foul soup below. Spilling the contents of their cauldron on the floor and causing a fight that further distracted from Sam's ascent. 

In fairy tales the villain always kept the Princess locked in the highest room in the tallest tower. 'Not saying that Mr Frodo was a princess.' Sam thought. 'But he's important and they won't want him escaping.' So he climbed what felt like a never ending stair (Better built than the one that had led them to the spider's lair.) that spiralled around the inside of the tower, his legs burning. Hobbits were not made for the amount of stairs Sam had been cursed to climb during this entire journey. 

Rivendell, Moria, Lothlorien, the stairs to the spider's lair and now these. Sensible hobbit homes had a maximum of four steps and even then that was only in places where it was likely to flood during the winter snow melt. Why people felt the need to live so high up or low down he would never understand despite how beautiful some of those places had been. 

As he reached the end of the stairs a landing opened up, from which sprouted off many doors. Sam sighed, if only this too could be as easy.

He started with the door directly in front of him and resolved to work his way around in a clockwise manner so he wouldn't accidentally miss one. If his hunch was proven wrong and Mr Frodo wasn't up here then he would simply work his way down the tower floor by floor until he did find him. 

Because Sam was filled with Gamgee stubbornness, he never left a job half done and he wasn't about to start doing so now. 

Behind the first door was nothing but a storage room filled with orcish weapons hastily thrown where it would fit. But something shined in the light of the vial he held aloft and caught Sam's attention. It was silver in colour and as the soft captured starlight hit it, the shield looked as though it was filled with dozens of stars. He unburied it hastily, knowing that he must not tarry but that something which appeared this fair could not be of orcish make. 

There was something about it that spoke of the elves. Sam was sure of it. It looked very old but showed no sign of rust or damage. When Sam had finally managed to wrest it free from the orc blades it was jumbled in with, it was easier to see what it actually was. A circular dome of metal. Too small to be a full sized shield for the elf or man that it had been made for originally, it had likely been used as a buckler instead. Yet for a hobbit it was the perfect size and weight to be a full shield. 

Sam dropped the shield he had acquired from the dead orc that had so kindly donated his gear to him and replaced it with the fairer one. The leather handholds had survived rather well given the climate, likely it had not been in this particular place for very long. 

As he walked out of the room, Sam wondered if it had belonged to one of the dead soldiers whose face's they had seen staring up at them from the waters of the marsh. Gollum had said there had been a battle a long time ago and despite his many lies this was something that Sam was willing to believe.

'I beg your pardon for using it without permission but I don't see as you'll be complaining of me taking it from the orcs and if I'm to get Mr Frodo free from here there's a lot of orcs between here and the mountain.' Sam thought. He wasn't stealing. If it was an elf's then they may still have family that would like it to be returned. 

A mathom.

He was borrowing a mathom to bring back, just using it for a small while whilst it was useful to him and then he would find someone to hand it to so that it would suit better. Hopefully there was someone who remembered it. It was for things like this that Gandalf would have been useful to have around. 

The second door opened to a long empty cell thick with dust and rusty manacles but no sign that it had been used in a very long time. Sam's hobbit feet left odd impressions in the dust like he'd been walking in a light dusting of snow.

It smelled even worse in this room than it had by the fire and he quickly moved onto the next one. More storage but nothing more interesting than a great pile of boots. Nothing to interest a hobbit. The fourth door was locked. That or it was so unused that it had ceased up entirely. 

He wouldn't put the latter past them. At one point the tower had been built by someone that knew their craft but everything had been left to the slow decay of time and very little attempt had been made to upkeep it.

Sam prized one of the silver prongs that held the vial of star water to the rest of the metalwork and inserted it into the hole in the door where a small key would normally be placed. Somehow he managed to manipulate the tumblers inside and thanked the Green Lady his Da had shown him how to do that little trick with a hair pin when one of his younger siblings had managed to accidentally lock themselves in Ma's quilting room. 

It had probably been Clover. Little Clover Gamgee was just as much trouble as Pippin had been as a faunt only she had been half the size of any fauntling her age and Pippin had always been tall. 

The prong was easy enough to bend back into place and he wondered if Lady Galadriel of the Golden Wood had thought her gift would ever be used for such a thing as picking Sauron's locks.  

He took in a deep breath as he prepared himself for what might be on the other side of the door. Though he had yet to come across any orcs on this level of the tower yet that didn't mean he wanted to casually walk in on a whole room of them unprepared. 

When the door opens it smells even worse than the last room. It's lit dimly by the light of a lantern hung from the ceiling and in a corner curled up on the floor is... something. Something he can't make out other than the basic lumpy shape of it.

He lift's the vial up to see better what wretched creature has died in here, when it moves and he almost screams in fear. It's not Mr Frodo, entirely too big to be a hobbit or a dwarf, yet not an orc or goblin either. 

High up on the wall of the cell a chain is bolted into the wall and leads down to the person laying on the floor. It's severely rusted but still clinks at the movement of the person it's attached to on a thin arm covered in scars. 

Their other limb ends at a stub just above where the wrist would be but that wound is old. Long since healed with actual healers not orcs bent on only prolonging the torment of a captive.

It's not till the other moves again as if trying to crawl towards him that Sam snaps out of his horror, he rushes forward to help them and the tip of a pointed ear slips through the matted hair. Sam almost cries right there and then.

It's an elf.

In this horrible place.

All alone.

Chapter Text

The elf is extremely thin. A level of malnourishment that made Mr Frodo look well fed in comparison and it caused Samwise shake in anger. It's not right that someone can treat another person like this, so callously and without concern for their wellbeing, for their very life. 

Someone who very obviously has no care for whether this elf lives or dies. No doubt Sauron himself is the instigator of this. If it's possible for Sam to hate the fallen Maiar anymore than he already did, then this sight alone is enough to cause him to do so. 

He's seen plenty of cruelty since he took that first step out of the Shire but there it just something about this that tips Sam even further over the edge than Mr Frodo being taken by the enemy orcs. 

Almost thin enough to slip his one remaining hand out of the manacle that holds him prisoner, the elf is somehow still alive. Though, he appeared to be made entirely our of bone rather than flesh. His lips are cracked like the long dry clay of an ancient riverbed. They look painful.

Sam pulled out one of the precious waterskins he and Frodo have left and slowly dribbled the small stream of water into the elf's mouth. Stopping long before the other has had their fill, so that he doesn't start throwing it back up again. Feeding someone who has gone too long without food and water is dangerous if not done correctly. Mr Bilbo had talked about the Long Winter and how even when the starved had been fed their bodies didn't seem able to remember what to do with food anymore and many had died. 

Little and often. 

Little and often had been the cure for that. 

Little is easy enough to provide for there was precious little food or water left in Sam's possession and all of Mordor was said to be a desert. There was enough left for kindness but not enough to waste.

Once his mouth was moistened the elf tried to speak with him but either because he has not spoken in so long, through injury or he's speaking an old elvish language that Sam knows nothing of, he can't understand him.

The elf looked up at Sam with a resigned look on his face and said some words in Sindarin that he does understand. 

"Cut it off." His voice shook as he said it and Sam's never been so glad to have been allowed to sit in Mr Bilbo's lessons for Frodo, even if at the time he hadn't always been all that interested in book learning.

Sting's glow is considerably weaker than before but he was grateful for it's added light, that better helps him to see the chain. Cutting through the manacle with a sword seemed entirely too dangerous but cutting through the chain felt like it might actually be feasible. 

"Don't you worry Mister Elf. Old Sam will have you free in two shakes of a lamb's tail." His new elf friend still had his eyes tightly closed as he waited for the blow to fall.  

'Maybe the light is hurting him after so long in the dark.' he thought as he brought down the sword on the thing that tethered him here to this horrid place. 

In one fair blow of the sword, the chain link it hit all but exploded into tiny pieces which fell, tinkling to the floor of the cell. It's metal had grown brittle with the passage of time. 

The elf looked up at him in shock, as he flexed his remaining hand. He was not free of the manacle yet but the chain at least was gone and he was free to leave this place should his body be able to support him. 

'Ah maybe he feared I would miss my aim and injure him.' Sam thought looking with pity at the elf who shuddered below him on the floor. That wasn't an insult. In the same position, Sam would find it hard to trust a stranger to do such a delicate job too. Especially if he only had one good arm to begin with. 

"Now begging your pardon Sir but my friend was taken prisoner and I need to find him, so if you can stand I will take you with me if you can't I will leave you some water and Lembas bread that was gifted to us by the elves and I shall save my friend and come back for you." Sam was already fishing out some Lembas for the elf when he began trying to stand leaning against the wall for stability. Despite his probably terrible Sindarin pronunciation, it seemed that the other understood what he was saying.

The elf's head and shoulders just kept going up and up and up until Sam almost fell backwards just by looking up to meet his eyes.

"When they made you they went all in on height didn't they?" Sam said in awe. He was taller than any elf that the hobbit had seen yet. Even taller than Glorfindel, Lord Elrond or Lord Celeborn and wider across the shoulders than Boromir or Aragorn. 

The elf laughed, though it seemed to pain him. Sam handed him a cake of Lembas and he took only the smallest of bites. Something that was likely wise.

"My name is Sam." He pointed to himself whilst looking to see if the other recognised the introduction. 

"Friend. Go find." The elf attempted to say despite his obvious pain. He took several steps towards the door that were surprisingly steady considering his condition.

And so, they left to find Frodo together and Sam was grateful to no longer be alone. Now he had Maehdros with him. 

They took a short moment of time to backtrack in order for Sam to find his new companion a sword from one of the storage rooms he had already uncovered. Once suitably equipped the pair forged on, with exploring the rest of the upper tower rooms. There were more storage areas and what had probably been some high up man's bedchamber that they stole clothes from for the elf whose own were in a very sorry state. 

There was a nightshift still serviceable among the pile of mouldered and moth eaten garments. Sam ransacked the drawers and found the elf a pair of breeches that were not so short as to be impractical. He would look a little odd wearing them but it was better than nothing especially under the harsh terrain they would have to traverse once they found Mr Frodo.

Because it was always best not to get caught with your trousers down, Sam stood watch whilst the elf changed into them.

It was a quick affair and they were soon moving forward again. The next door was flung open as they approached and a scrawny looking goblin began shouting at them. 

"I told you The Eye has plans for this one and I am the only one to be-"

Whatever he was to say next never came, an orc blade had been plunged into his throat and he fell. 

The floor soon became wet with black blood. Sam blinked he hadn't thought that as tall, injured and starved as he was that the elf would be able to move quite as fast as he had. 

He panted now, as if he had drawn on some last reserve of energy that was now depleted. 

"If you would guard the door Master Elf then I shall retrieve Mister Frodo whatever his condition be and we shall leave this foul place." Sam said, making sure to pat him on his arm as high up as he could reach as a sort of reassurance that he would be back. Quite how much of that had been for himself and not... well... best not to think about that right now. 

The elf nodded.

"We must introduce ourselves properly once we are safe. It's not right for me to go around calling you Master Elf for forever and a day when you likely as not have a perfectly good name." Sam rambled his mother would be rather annoyed at his lack of manners so far from home.  

He missed the sad smile on the elf's face as he turned back to face the landing. 

This room was larger than the cell in which he had found the elf but instead of being bare, there were various tools and pieces of equipment that had only to Sam's eyes use as for being torture implements.

'Hopefully I've found Mister Frodo soon enough.' he thought as his eyes roved the room for signs of life. 

Something moved near the window under a filthy piece of fabric. The makeshift blanket slid off of a pale shoulder and Sam ran the rest of the distance between them.

"Mister Frodo. Oh Mister Frodo Sam has found you!" he cried.

Frodo sat up and reached out to him with shaking arms. 

"They've taken it." he whispered into Sam's ear. "They've taken the ring. All hope is lost."

Sam hugged him then and replied just as quietly. "They did not take it. I thought the spider had killed you and I wanted to finish the quest for you."

A dawning look of horror came over Frodo's face but Sam headed off his panic. 

"Here it is Mister Frodo, I'm giving it back to you now that you're found again." The ring was heavy about his neck but when he slipped his fingers around the chain it hung from, it seemed suddenly to be as light as a feather. 

Fear that had been brewing deeper and darker in Frodo's eyes lightened as Sam placed the ring back around his Master's neck. Though he feared that it weighed him down even more than it had Sam. 

"Mr Frodo. We must leave here as soon as we can. I fought my way up here but there is no telling how many orcs there still are yet that may find us."

"I cannot walk Sam." Frodo said despairingly.

"Then seeing as I can't carry the ring for you no longer. I shall carry you Mr Frodo!" It was an easy declaration to make. He wrapped Frodo in the blanket then and lifted him in his arms. There was no sight of Mr Bilbo's mithril coat and that was a sad loss but Frodo was alive and in his arms.

He was almost to the door before he remembered that he must tell Frodo of their new addition lest he panic at the sight of him. 

"When I was looking for you I found an elf that they had chained here. I have freed him and he will come with us at least to the gate."

"We must point to him the way to return home." Frodo wheezed. "For he must have been a prisoner here many years."

"We will Mister Frodo. We will."

The elf was still standing in the door when Sam returned and when he saw that Frodo did not have a shirt he rushed away, back to the odd bedroom returning with a tight inner shirt that he gave to Frodo to wear. It was riddled with tiny moth holes and Sam felt terrible that Frodo was forced to wear something so unclean. The shirt was a damn sight better than the rancid piece of fabric and he couldn't use Shire concerns for acceptable dress here in Mordor when it was lucky that anything at all could be found to fit him. 

"We must leave." The elf said once they had gotten the shirt on Frodo and Sam had him back in his arms. 

"Take this."  There wasn't enough space to carry the vial now that his hands were both occupied ensuring that Frodo didn't fall. Sting he could thrust into the belt of the orcish armour but the glass filled with starlight there was no space for. Not even in the bag of provisions he had managed to pool together from his and Frodo's belongings. Armour was not known for it's pockets after all but the elf did now have pockets to spare.

The vial looked almost impossibly small in that large scarred hand. Like a children's toy rather than a treasure. Sam had visions of hanging it as a decoration on a Yuletide tree at some point far into the future but shook them off. 

That was entirely too fanciful a thought. 

He started walking down the stairs but turned when he didn't hear the elf following behind. He was still standing there holding the vial from Galadriel by the very edge of it's tapered silver stopper as if the thing would explode in his hand.

Elves were weird about stars he recalled and this one had been held captive in a room where only a singular dim lantern had been a source of light.

'How long has it been since he's seen the stars?' Sam thought. He remembered Frodo saying that the Lady of the Wood had said the star it was made from was the elves most beloved star. 

'That would explain his facial expression then. It must have been so painful to have been forcefully parted from it.'

Sting glowed brighter momentarily. They couldn't stand around like this or they would be found.

"We need to go Mr Elf." Sam said contemplating whether to climb back up and attempt to grab hold of him and drag him down after them.

The long fingers of his bony hand closed tentatively around the silver filagree before he shoved it none too delicately into a pocket on the chest of the nightgown and picked back up his sword.

They descended the tower carefully ever aware that a great horde of orcs may pop up and surround them at any time but they found very little resistance in their path.

Lying in the courtyard where Sam had caused such a commotion earlier were easily thirty or forty orc corpses and a fire that was beginning to spread. Banners of the enemy billowed in the wind created by the heat of the flames and Sam did then have to push the elf who had frozen solid in the light of it. 

Such a face of terror, never before has either of the hobbits seen.

Frodo, who had lost all strength in his limbs but not consciousness translated for Sam the words that come spilling from his lips in what he thinks is some dialect of Quenya. 

"Brother? No, Losgar was long ago and far away. Sails! No, we are not at the shore. I cannot see the stars as I could not then, a great cloud of ash covers them."

"We are in Mordor." Frodo explained gently, he speaks in Sindarin for both his own benefit (he'd never gotten used to the strange lisp Bilbo had insisted that he learn) and Sam's. "The ash of the volcano fills the sky and Sauron's evil does not let fair winds drive it away. His ill magics make it feel as if you are living in a waking nightmare."

The elf seems to come back from whatever place and time it had slipped to at seeing the flames the more Frodo speaks to him.

Sam left them for a moment moving to stand in the entrance to the tower where he noticed something that would be of vital importance on their journey to the mountain. He sprinted to a well he spied in the corner of the courtyard and drew as much water as he could, as he dared to, into empty waterskins and prayed that it will at least be somewhat potable before the fire makes it impossible to continue and he darted back once more. 

There Sam found them still talking about boats. 

"Let us leave this place and find somewhere to shelter a while." Frodo said when he sees Sam's return laden down with the extra weight of the now full waterskins.

Sam carried him again despite his protests because even though Frodo claims that he can feel his feet again he's nowhere near steady enough on them to march.

All three of them walk for what feels like a solid hour until they find somewhere to sit where they are not in direct line of sight of every orc in Mordor.

A place in which all three members of their party can catch their breath. Now that they have a rejuvenated store of water, Sam made sure to pass a canteen of it around between them. There was no point collapsing from dehydration before they even get to the mountain. 

The elf dampened the corner of the sleeve of his nightshirt to wipe at his face and hands before he took another bite of the Lembas Sam had given him earlier. It's just as small as the one he took before which is also good. 

"Thank you." The elf said before passing the rest of the wafer square back to the hobbits.

Frodo refuses to eat. Sam and the elf looked at him concernedly but Frodo waved them away. He's been eating less and less ever since Moria, though he tried to hide it from the other members of the Fellowship, Sam had noticed almost immediately. Now it was profoundly worrying. 

"It seems only right that I should introduce myself to you Master Elf. What with you helping my dear friend Sam to rescue me." Frodo said looking up at the elf who towered over them even when he sits beside them on the ground. 

Beside Frodo, Sam nodded furiously glad to finally be able to show proper hobbit manners to their companion now that there was the time and leisure to do so. 

"My name is Frodo and this is Samwise or as many call him Sam." Frodo explained.

The elf has turned pale again. Almost looks like he's ready to bolt at any moments notice but where to is anyone's guess. Before them lies a featureless plain until 'the mountain' rises from it and to all other sides the encircling mountains are steep and treacherous. It's hard to believe looking at them that Frodo and Sam managed to get this far at all. 

"Why are you in this wretched place?" He asked. 

"We have been sent on a quest that we hope to fulfil." Frodo explained further, still keeping the nature of their task as vague as he can. This elf seemed good but there  was still the chance that they had fallen into some trick of the enemy. They were practically standing in Sauron's parlour room right now, it was best to proceed with caution. 

The elf's head snapped around with the same speed that Sam had first seen when he had first seen the vial. 

"You swore an oath?!" His eyes were wide and as he reached up with a shaking hand to pull the great mass of his matted hair from his face Sam saw the burn upon his hand. It was deeply scarred and in form looked like a six pointed star.

He had seen that symbol somewhere before but he couldn't quite for the life of him remember exactly where. 

"Promises were made between the free peoples to go only as far as we may." Frodo said. "It was made very clear to all that they were not an oath nor were they binding should unforeseen chance or misfortune hit us."

Seemingly reassured the elf seems to calm a little.

"You bare something terrible Frodo. Something great and terrible. I can feel it. It tries to tempt me but it is but a shadow of the evil I have known. There is nothing it can do or promise me that others have not before and whilst the ill fated oath I swore in my youth holds strong this evil thing will have no hold on me." His words are sure and he held out the vial of Galadriel where the water's light sparkled.

Sam squeezed Frodo's knee when he saw that he was about to tell the elf just as much as he has told Faramir. Whether he does it in encouragement or warning was hard to tell. This is a person they know little about and the fewer that know the true nature of the quest the safer it will be. They are so close to the end goal now. Only a few days of walking. Mount Doom rises from the black soot covered soil directly ahead of their temporary camp. A journey of hundreds of miles and months is boiled down to this. 

"We and seven others, two of our own kin, two men an elf of the Sindar a wizard and a dwarf set out from Rivendell tasked with destroying a weapon of the enemy."

"Rivendell?" He asked and looked very confused as if he had not heard of the place before. To not know of Rivendell must mean he has been help captive even longer than the Battle of the Last Alliance.

"Rivendell is an elven city in Eregion ruled by Lord Elrond." Sam added when he saw Frodo was just as non-plussed as he was at this information they've both independently deduced. 

"There is no greater news you can give me than that Elrond is still living." His eyes seemed brighter in a way that reminded Sam of a younger Pippin finding out that yes there is another biscuit still in the jar he had thought to be entirely empty. "on this day you have given me two great boons, news of Elrond and my freedom."

"Are you his kin?" Frodo inquired, for hobbits love of genealogy runs deep.

"In a way we are distant cousins of a sort by blood but there was a time where my younger brother and I were foster fathers for Elrond and Elros."

"I could guess at your name." Frodo said casually looking at the elf out of the side of his eye as he brushed his fingers over the hair of his own feet, knocking out some of the dust that has collected there. Not for the first time Sam grieves the loss of their combs. 

"You likely could but I will not make you guess when you have trusted me with the nature of your quest. I stand before you Maehdros Feanorion" His head is bowed and the fingers of his hand are trembling against the pocket where the star water lays against his breast.

It glowed in gentle pulses that quicken with his heartbeat. 

Chapter Text

The world didn't fall out from under his feet at the sharing of his name as he had feared. The two hobbits, as Maedhros had learned they were called, didn't flee from him in fear either. Instead Frodo held onto the bottom of his amputated arm and said, "The past is a land that is long ago and far away. You have done nothing but aid us despite being gravely hurt, Sam and I must go on to destroy this evil thing of Sauron's. If you would like to come with us we would gladly take you with us." 

Sam nodded at his side.

"But if you would rather leave then we will tell you the way we came." Frodo looked over to the mountain in which dwelled Shelob and the tunnel through which Gollum had led them, before he explained to Maedhros the danger that awaited there if he should choose to take it. 

"If you would have me go with you then I shall come with you and bring what aid I may. There is no love lost between Sauron and I and I would see him destroyed if I may." Maedhros is determined to aid them in their quest to destroy this item of Sauron. He has lived this long in captivity in order to see this day it feels and if by his actions he can help them then he will. If danger lies in both directions then he will choose the nobler path to tread this time despite his curiosity about the spider. 

"Welcome then to our merry band." said Sam who was digging through one of the packs. "Let's all eat some more Lembas before we make the final push. There's plenty left between the three of us."

Lembas recipes have decidedly not improved despite the many years that have passed since Maedhros was last in the unfortunate position of having to eat it with no accompaniment. Sure it was nutritionally dense and you could live on it for an extended amount of time in a pinch but it would make you miserable in the process. Moryo and Telu had at one time been trying to develop a better tasting recipe... 

Frodo insisted on walking when they eventually left their place of temporary shelter. His face is pained in a manner that makes Sam walk with his hands firmly stuffed into his pockets as close to Frodo as physically possible lest he should slip or fall so that he could catch him. This Frodo tolerated until they reached the steepest part of their descent onto the plain. It's then that Frodo made an expression that Sam describes as one he's seen many a time, 'on the face of Mr Bilbo when facing his cousin Lobelia'.

He'd also said that it, 'Was likely the same facial expression he'd shown the dragon'. 

As much as Maedhros wanted to politely enquire as to how exactly Frodo's uncle, who was presumably also a hobbit, had come close enough to a dragon to show any sort of facial expression to a dragon, he suppressed the urge. If what they were about to do didn't kill them then there would be time for dragon stories later. 

Frodo was showing that look not to a dragon but to the mountain ahead of them. One that spewed fire from familiar looking fissures in the rock. 

As they descended into the plain before it, the thousands of black dots below them became clearer. Numberless orcs that stood between them and their goal. 

That was probably the moment Sam first truly felt despair in their mission but Maedhros stood beside him and offered what bolstering words he may. "They are gathering towards the gate. It seems that you could have chosen no better time to carry out your task."

"Fate is on our side." Frodo whispered before he fell not soon after, sliding a small distance in front of them on the disturbed gravel. He didn't have the strength to pull himself back up so Sam rushed to carry his friend again. 

Maedhros would offer to be the one to carry Frodo, his weight would be less of a burden for him despite his own current physical state but carrying Frodo seems to give Sam a sense of purpose that he would not take away from him. Still to lighten his load, Maedhros sneakily took Sam's pack from him and had his free arm slotted through both of the straps before he could so much as protest about it. 

Covered in dark ash and small pieces of pumice, the plain seems to stretch on forever, the heat radiating from it hurts Sam's feet. Even the durable nature of hobbit feet have their limitations in regards to walking on ground hot enough to fry an egg on. Maedhros' feet must be blistering beneath him but he walks as if he is taking a leisurely stroll through Green Hill Country.

They were using up too much of the water, even though the elf refused to take more than the smallest of sips whenever Sam offered him any. Frodo sweated profusely and complained of debilitating pain inside of his head. Whether that is because of dehydration or because of the ring's growing desperation the closer they draw to the mountain Sam cannot tell. The skin of Frodo's neck bled sluggishly from the weight of the ring's chain that burrowed into it under the ring's weight. 

Even Sam can feel that it continued grow heavier with each step. Impossibly so for its size but then it is a cursed piece of jewellery made by a dark lord, who had poured quite a bit of malice into it from everything Sam's heard from people wiser than himself. Maedhros' frown deepened at the sight of this new injury to Frodo who has begun to grow weaker and paler rapidly.

Sam wanted to sprint with Frodo in his arms, so that they might get to the heart of the mountain just that little bit faster. So that Frodo might suffer just a little bit less before all is done. The elf fished out a miraculously, somewhat (mostly) clean handkerchief from the bag he had taken upon himself to carry. Soft light blue fabric with embroidery on one of the corners of cowslip flowers. 'Pippin's handkerchief' Sam notes. 

Together, they wrapped the fabric about the chain which held the ring, at the point where it bit deepest into Frodo's flesh. Though his distress heightened at their contact with it. Sam felt no more compulsion to touch the ring itself than when he had personally worn the chain himself. 

Maedhros seemed to be just as unaffected as he was. Though the hobbit made sure to keep an eye on him all the same. After Boromir's corruption by it there was no telling what might happen, especially if Sauron clued on to what they were trying to do. 

"There now Mr Frodo. It's all wrapped up nicely and for a while it should hurt you less than before." Sam soothed. He made sure to thank Maedhros too for his thoughts as to Frodo's comfort. 

It felt like they had been walking forever. Maybe days, though it was possible that only a few hours had passed since they escaped the tower. There was neither the light of the sun, the moon or the stars by which to track the passage of time, only their increasing number of footprints in the black sand and the slowly increasing size of the mountain that had begun to loom over them. 

The orcs were quickly making their way to the gates as Maedhros had pointed out before. Whatever fell deeds they were headed to in such a number made Sam shudder to think about but they also brought this new Fellowship great luck as they were able to skirt around the straggler packs of orcs and trolls that were hurrying to catch up with the main force. It added time to their final approach and caused the path to snake back and forth but it was safer. 

When they were finally unlucky enough to draw the attention of some orcs that were all but dragging their heels after the main force, Maedhros rushed in dispatching of them with ferocity and skill. Sting looked no larger than a kitchen knife in his hands and yet, despite the awkward grip Maedhros used it well. 

They walked non-stop to the mountain after the first fight. There is no cover that will protect them and an entire army that needs only one orc to turn around and see their odd shapes in the distance and everything will have been for nought.

Rest finally came at the foot of the mountain when they reached it at last. Sam's arms shook as he was finally able to put Frodo down on a somewhat soft patch of fine pumice and Maedhros slept with his eyes closed wedged firmly between two rocks where he had fallen. Lingering here too long would be ill advised but none had the strength left to climb the mountain. 

So they rested hoping to gain enough strength to begin the ascent. Mount Doom was no small hill in the Shire, taller and steeper still than Caradhras the cruel. Two sides of a coin were they in Sam's mind, one bitter cold and the other boiling hot. 

With no-one else to stand watch over them, Sam dared not sleep despite the way his eyelids threatened to close with every passing second. He could not sleep when they were so exposed to the enemy but his body would fail him if he did not rest, so the hobbit laid down between Frodo and the rock that separated them from Maedhros and waited for the elf to wake. 

He would sleep then. 

It might be night, Sam guessed when Maedhros finally awakened. Somehow, it seemed even darker than before. A strange gloom hung over them as they ate more Lembas. Despite having slept, Frodo's dreams were filled with dark torments and he woke with bruised looking eyes and barely enough strength to hold himself up and chew. 

A hobbit going off of their food is a terrible sign. One that Sam takes note of and adds to his list of 'things to worry about'. Both he and Maedhros tried to encourage Frodo to eat more of the elven waybread but he was so weak that he choked trying to swallow even the smallest of bites long chewed over. 

Sam panicked, frozen, unable to think of what to do to help him. It's lucky that they have Maedhros there with them for he simply picked Frodo up from the ground and placed him head down along the length of one of his impossibly long legs and he hit the choking hobbit on the back with his hand whilst he used his stump to stop Frodo from falling. 

To Sam's shock and horror a piece of Lembas came flying out of Mr Frodo's mouth and fell down to the ground several feet away. 

"Everything out?" Maedhros asked before he righted him and gently placed Frodo back where he had been sitting previously. 

"Thank you." Frodo replied still a little breathless but his colour had returned to its normal pink hue. Sam offered him a drink of water once he had his breath fully back and wasn't at risk of choking again. 

"Sorry for hitting you quite so hard Frodo but that's the best way to get something stuck out. Take it from me. The amount of times I had to do that for my younger brothers as children..." His eyes were glazed again with past memory and the two hobbits left him alone till he returned back to the present. 

"Once..." Maedhros said, his eyes firmly placed on the summit. "I was chained to the side of a similar mountain. By the time... someone found me I couldn't swallow solid food either." He sounded on the edge of tears as he looked down at his stump. "They had to make soup out of the Lembas to feed me."

Sam still had a pan brought all the way with him from home and there was no need for a fire, the ground itself was hot enough to make a lukewarm soup for Frodo. Maedhros fished out the one spoon that remained from Bag End's cutlery set the two hobbits had left the Shire with.

Frodo's hands were shaking too much for him to feed himself this strange brew. So his Sam gently folded his own fingers over Frodo's curled around it and helped to stabilise the spoon. Lembas dregs in the bottom of the pan began to dry out again just as Frodo had eaten his fill. 

Considerably more food had just gone into Frodo than Sam had been able to coax him into eating since Lothlorien.

"Mr Maedhros, thank you for your culinary advice." Sam said to the elf who was rubbing the end of his stump with his good hand and frowning down at it ferociously.

"I'm glad that my misadventures have some use." Maedhros helped them clean up their temporary campsite, peeling the dried Lembas out of the pan and wrapping it up in one of the dry empty leaves that they still carried. With so little food it was vital that they lose not even this.  

After all traces that they were ever here were erased from the area, the only thing left was to begin the ascent proper. Sam carried Frodo again, because although he had regained some of his strength after eating it was not enough to climb the side of a volcano. 

Sam carries Mr Frodo.

Frodo carries the ring.

Maedhros carries everything else. 

They were only a small way up when Maedhros put his index finger up to his lips and then surreptitiously looked down behind them. Following the path of his eyes, Sam could easily make out below them, the form of Gollum as he sneaked his way up behind them. 

Gollum has been following them now for months, Gandalf had pointed out the creature stalking them in the darkness of Moria. Who knew when he had found their trail?

Sam understood that Frodo sees something in him worth saving, some glimpse of a future that might have been his Uncle's or even his own but Gollum's betrayal on the stairs and in leading them into the lair of the spider cannot be forgotten. He had gone too far for Samwise Gamgee to ever forget what had been done. No-one put Mr Frodo's life in danger without getting the oldest son of Hamfast Gamgee as an enemy for life. 

"That there is Gollum. He was once something like kin to Mr Frodo and I but he found the weapon of the enemy many years ago and it has done its foul magic on him ever since. Once he was our guide but he betrayed us. I think only evil can come of him on our climb." Sam explained. Frodo merely closed his eyes and nodded his head both reluctantly and gravely.  

"He has been following us since we left the tower." There was a stiffness to Maedhros' shoulders, he looked apologetic that he had kept the information to himself so long. Sam wondered whether he was still expecting them to abandon him. 

"He has been following us since Khazad-dûm ." Frodo sighed, rubbing at his neck where the chain had already begun to bite into his skin once more despite the buffer of the handkerchief. A red stain slowly soaked its way across the pale blue fabric before their eyes. 

Maedhros sighed, shifting to watch Gollum climb still higher in his pursuit more openly before looking up at the ground they are yet to cover. There was no way that with Frodo's increasing weakness the closer they drew to the summit, that they would make it there before he intercepted them. Sam could see the thought forming in his eyes and shook his head. 

"Give Sting to me now Mr Maedhros! I see as there's a great deal left to climb and what with you having longer legs and all I'm a thinking you'll be faster at the climbing than little old me." The blond haired hobbit said. 

Maedhros found himself being bullied by one tired hobbit into carrying the other and relinquishing his hold on the short sword. There was no doubt that Sam was stubborn, Frodo also. They wouldn't have come so far without personalities like that, given the little of their quest Maedhros had learned or guessed so far. 

"Don't you stop now." Sam demanded. "Not for nothing. The ring's mighty unhappy this close to its end. It's going to try and make you do something to keep it alive but you have to keep going. I will guard the back."

It's more than the weight of a hobbit Sam has placed in Maedhros' arms. The oath now so deeply embedded in his being demands that he forsake this quest but the light of the tiny vial shines through the thin fabric of his raiment and it's just enough for him to fight it. The ring whispers evil thoughts to dash Frodo upon the rocks, to take it and regain the Silmarils and Maglor, to wrest his family from Namo's timeless halls, to return everything to as it once had been but the past was gone, never to be regained. 

He was tired, all he really wanted was to go home to his mother and for her to hold him as she had done when he was an elfling beneath the mingled light of the trees. For that to happen, he needed to make himself worthy enough that the Valar would let him back across the sea or die trying. 

Sam had dropped back as Maedhros wrestled with such thoughts and he could hear the tell tale sounds of a fight below him. 

There were plenty enough orc corpses in the tower for him to know Sam is capable of holding his own. With every step Frodo grows heavier and heavier as the ring tries desperately to thwart them. 

The ground is hot enough that it burned his feet, charring them just as badly as the silmaril had his hand but he gathered what strength he still possessed and all but sprinted to the glowing opening into the mountain. It had likely once been a secondary vent but a significant amount of work had gone into fashioning it into a domineering entrance.

"Almost there!" He cries out as Frodo's eyes began to roll in his head and a stream of blood trickled from his neck. 

They stepped into the chamber and were hit with a wall of heat that knocked the elf to his knees. Frodo tumbled out of his arms only to start pitifully crawling to the edge of the walkway they found themselves on. 

"Out of the frying pan and into the fire indeed." Frodo chuckled to himself before he broke into a fully blown disturbed sounding fit of laughter.

The image of his own brother's despairing face came to Maedhros through the light the magma below them casts. He retched either at the memory or the smell. No burning wood is this but the roiling innards of the world. Ea's own blood brought forth. 

When he looked at Frodo again, he was no longer crawling but stood firmly on his furry little feet, in his hand dangled a plain looking gold ring upon a silver chain. Maedhros had known it was a ring since helping to wrap the handkerchief around it but he had unfortunately been distracted by monitoring their odd stalker's approach. He hadn't noticed the tell tale signs of his nephew's art upon it. Not done in his own hand. No this was entirely too inferior in make for it to have been made by Tyelpe, even if he'd been forced against his will, even under torture Tyelpe couldn't make anything this ugly to look at. 

No, Sauron had stolen the designs of his innocent nephew, his enthusiasm for his craft, his trust and the secret techniques handed from father to son to son's son. 

Rage welled in Maedhros' chest. 

This is what Tyelpe had suffered so much for? This was what Sauron had stolen his craft for?

A weapon?

A ring?

His jailers had told him of Tyelpe's end. Back when anyone had remembered that he existed here at all they had come to mock him for the various atrocities that had fallen upon what was left of his family house and its people. Tyelpe had not died a clean and easy death. 

Frodo turned and his face, half illuminated, half in shadow slackened for mere seconds before a sickening smile took over his face. In the distance over the sound of the rock which bubbled beneath them he could still hear Sam as he fought with Gollum on the slope. 

They are so close to the end.

The end of Sauron or the end of everything. 

Frodo needed only drop the ring into the pool below them and everything will be over. Sauron will at last truly be defeated as much as a maia could be.  

Frodo walked closer to the edge of the platform they were both standing on, his feet seemed like they were made of lead so strenuous the movement seemed as if he was fighting against some invisible enemy. The ring still fought with the kinslayer too, desperate to survive it spoke to him of the silmarils again of finding Maglor and diving into the depths of the ocean, drilling into the crust of the earth and flying into the sky. 

Such promises it could not fulfil.  Even reunited with his ring, Sauron would not regain his power of old. He was diminished without Morgoth at his side and he had never been one to keep promises even then. 

Sauron was a mousetrap laden with cheese. 

Maedhros was a seasoned veteran of the umaiar's games, he could see the trap long before it was sprung and had no intention of stepping into it again. Not today, not right now and definitely not when Frodo needed him to pull him out of the one he had fallen into. 

Frodo reached to lift the chain from his neck and the makeshift bandage fell from it. The once blue fabric now stained red and the dark brown of dried blood lay crumpled right on the edge, ready to tumble down into the lava at a moment's notice. Even the smallest updraft of hot air would make it topple. 

His hobbit companion (he desperately wanted to call him friend when they had barely known one another for more than a day) looked just as fragile, just as ready to let go of himself. His final defences against this tainted manipulation of Sauron were crumbling, Maedhros could see it in his eyes. 

Frodo's fingers were small, no larger than that of a human child or an elflings but the ring looks like it was made to fit his finger. The ring shone in the light of the molten rock and Maedhros almost thought that he saw in its reflection a great eye wreathed in flame as Frodo seemed to slip into some sort of trance, reaching out one of his small fingers as if he were about to wear it. Maedhros might not know exactly what would happen if the hobbit wore it but a magic ring forged with the stolen knowledge of his nephew, to be a weapon for Sauron, would not end well. 

"Frodo!" He shouted across the short distance he's made sure to keep between him and the hobbit in case Sam should prove unable to stave off Gollum and Maedhros is the last line of defence. "You must resist it just a little longer, Frodo."

Frodo's eyes turned to look at him but his hands did not stop their movement in the slightest. Everything feels like it's moving faster than he can comprehend but also slower than an Age of the earth simultaneously.  

There's this tiny patch of time available to him, something barely big enough to call a strip, where the fate of the world lies hanging by a thread. 

He doesn't know what to do. 

What can one person do?

And then the words just fell into his head as if someone has scooped out all his thoughts only to replace them with the answer he's been seeking and Maedhros sings. He sings in a way the elves haven't sung since the end of the First Age. 

The roof of the magma chamber is a concert hall ceiling, the walkway is his stage and the whole world his audience. If there was anything other than the song within him he might wonder if this was how Finrod felt, how Luthien sang before Morgoth but there is nothing other than the desperate need to sing THIS song. 

He sings of the power that corrupts, that steals and breaks. Of treasure and oaths those kept to bitter ends and those broken and woe that came from those foolish enough to force them to be upheld despite the cost. Of cities that lie in ruin, of blood that is diluted by the sea, of the dead and the dying and great forests burning. 

In this strange half darkness Maedhros sings of a family that supports one another and loves so deeply it's destroyed them. How even the living lie in shattered pieces. Memories of home that cannot be taken from the good by capture or threats of torture. Of freedom, of fields of barely beneath the sun and feasts and dancing. The bonds of friendship, of an ending to the weight carried on shoulders too small to carry their burden but who carry it anyway because there is no-one else who can and pain that fades into nothing but a distant memory.  

All Frodo needed to do was let it go. Let the chain slip through his fingers link after link until it fell from them into the fire that roiled beneath him. 

And yet the effort to do it was gargantuan. 

Whether Frodo still had the strength left in him to do so remained to be seen. 

The walls of the mountain rang with Maedhros' words. His regrets and his fears are added into it too. 

'Do not fall to madness as I once did.' He prayed. 'Do not doom all you love to destruction for a treasure that cannot love you back. Remember where you came from. Remember...'

Frodo fell once more to his knees and he screamed. He screamed from somewhere so deep inside of himself that  Maedhros felt like he could feel the very air shake with the power of it but he did not let that stop his song that was lying on the end of his tongue demanding to be brought forth into the world by him.  

Maedhros sings of his torture at the hands of Sauron, of his missing hand, of his love that died upon the field of the Nirnaeth and his hair as dark as a raven's wing filled with golden ribbons. He sang of Tyelpe and the lies of Sauron of his cruelty to one who only wanted to make good things and seperate himself from the destruction wrought by the silmarils. Of the people waiting out there in the world at large for true freedom and safety that Frodo could give them if he just let the ring go.

Anything to hold onto. 

Anything to remind Frodo of their shared hate for Sauron.

Anything to help him remember the good things that they could still save. 

'Love this world enough to save it.' Maedhros pleaded desperately in the fabric of the music 'Or hate Sauron enough to spite him with his destruction.' 

Renewed screams from Frodo's uncontrollably shaking form almost knocked Maedhros out of whatever trance has brought the song's words to him. He wanted to run to Frodo and pull the ring from his fingers but something within him says this HAD to be Frodo. That no-one else could do this. 

He began a new verse as the very rock itself vibrated with the power emanating from the words. 

The great eye's gaze finally fell upon them, it burned Maedhros' fea to have it focused upon him. Sauron finally knew who they were and what they had done here in Mount Doom, the place he had thought the most safe. They were both screaming now. Sound and song dissipated on the wind that whipped around the platform leaving only the words of an infuriated umaia in their place. 

Maedhros stuffed his fingers of his one remaining hand into his corresponding ear and flattened the other one into his shoulder as Frodo somehow regained enough power over his body to throw the ring at last. 

The song was neither as beautiful as Maglor could have made it, nor as strong as the power Luthien had once wielded but it had worked. 

Crushing is the weight of the eye's gaze as it flattened the elf almost to the floor beneath it, squeezing out what air is left in Maedhros' lungs. 

Beneath them, the surface of the magma pool broke up beneath the weight of the ring and it slipped below the surface. 

His connection to the place of song failed, snapping back to whatever place it had come from, the weight lifted and the burning eye's fire went out like a begetting day candle.

It was over.

Sauron, the enemy of the free peoples of Middle Earth, was gone at last.

How they managed to get out of there alive as the magma level rose, Maedhros will never be able to truly understand. Not even centuries later, when Aule himself had drawn very detailed diagrams to help him. But they do escape. 

Maedhros ran with Frodo held securely in his arms and together they sped down the mountainside, headed towards the place that they had last seen Sam. 

He might still need their help. He could still be fighting Gollum. He could be injured. 

They were within sight of one another when the mountain blew up and then everyone was left frantically scrambling for higher ground. It was a mad dash that ended with Frodo, Sam and Maedhros all collapsing on the same rocky outcrop, laughing hysterically about... just everything they've been through to get here only to be melted by lava. 

For Maedhros this is the second time he's looking at death in lava as one of the few options left open to him. 

Contemplating that only made everything all the funnier. 

That it was a laugh that might very well kill him because Maedhros cannot even sit himself up right now, only makes him laugh more. There wasn't any way to escape now! The lower slopes were awash with lava and above them, there was only sky. 

A wind was blowing from the west. It smelt of something green and growing like newly crushed grass beneath the feet of children in the summertime. Something Maedhros had ceased to hope for long ago. He hadn't seen a plant of any kind longer now than he had been alive before his imprisonment. 

Slowly, softly the wind blew from the West and with it, the thick clouds that had for centuries hidden the land of Mordor from the sun, moon and stars began to be chased away. Maybe they would be able to see the stars one last time before they die. 

That would be nice.

'It's not that bad dying like this.' He thought as the hobbits talked to one another. His ears were ringing too loudly to make out their conversation but he can see the burden that has fallen away from Frodo and the relief in Sam's. 

Glimpses of starlight poked their way stubbornly through the clouds as they drifted away. Shiny specks of light long beloved by the eldar who woke beneath them long ago at the edge of a great lake lost to them for forever but among them is the silmaril. It greeted him with a familiar twinkle, comforting in its presence like his father was watching over him. 

"The stars are very beautiful tonight." The words stumbled their way out of Maedhros' numb feeling lips and he lays down, in order to better see them. Not at all because his abused body refused to keep him sitting up at all. 

One of the silmarils is out there among the stars and tonight that feels like maybe it was enough. The sky belonged to the House of Feanor just as much as it would ever belong to anyone. 

Atar might understand when he meets him at last in the halls of the dead or the void, that he and his brothers tried their best to fulfil their oath. 

In the distance there was the sound of a bird's high pitched whistling scream. Maedhros' giggles it's either one of those fucking huge seagulls or one of Manwe's eagles. 

Maedhros' eyes were slowly closing. 

There's someone riding an eagle to come and get him. Now, he was absolutely sure that he was in fact dying.

"Fingon." The name slipped from his lips unbidden. Fingon had come to take him to Mandos. He was saving him again.

It's extremely awkward when he wakes up, isn't dead and Elrond is glaring at him from the foot of his bed, held up by twins that could only be his sons. Ones that bare an almost uncanny resemblance to Elrond and Elros. To the point where Maedhros' painkiller filled brain is tempted to ask Elrond whether he birthed them through parthenogenesis. He decided against it best not to ask awkward questions immediately upon their reunion. 

"Nice of you to finally turn up Atto!" His once foster son said before promptly bursting into tears. "First a hobbit brings me Erenion's shield I never thought to see again and now another brings me you."

"Sam's responsible for both." Maedhros attempted to joke but his little Elrond jumped into his bed flattening him like a pancake. Maybe he shouldn't be calling him 'little' quite so confidently anymore.