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It takes Findekano two weeks to realise that Maitimo has brought an orc back with him from Angband.

The orc is not metaphorical, although Maitimo is changed enough that it could certainly be argued, and in fact is argued by many across Findekano’s father's camp.

But no. It is a literal orc, a real flesh-and-blood creature that people have been sensing out of the corners of their eyes, making them on edge and nervy, shooting at shadows.

It is an orc child, in fact, if such a thing exists. Findekano has never heard of one before, but its head reaches only chest height. When Findekano first looks at it, he thinks it is a Noldo, of indeterminate gender: it has long dark hair, pointed ears, if slightly odd in a way that Findekano cannot quite put his finger on. It is broad for an Elda, but so are both Maitimo and Findekano: it has skin lighter than Findekano's own, with his Vanyar blood, though darker than typical for the Noldor. It is dressed in rags, but in these days, so many of them are.

Oh, but at a second look, it makes Findekano shudder. Its eyes do not have the round pupil of all the speaking people, but the shape of a “w”, instead. It has claws, not nails, on its too-long hands, and he can make out fangs instead of teeth, although he has noticed that Maitimo also has those now, so perhaps it is something done to them in Angband. But it is most different in how it moves and how it looks at Findekano: no Elda has that unblinking look of a predator he has only seen in ice-bears, and it sways on its slightly bowed legs as if ready at any moment to pounce.

It does not look like a child, but like some nightmare that the Enemy dreamt up, some perverse distortion that would make you shudder to recall it, ten years hence.

It opens its mouth to address him, and Findekano can see the rows of sharp narrow teeth, not just filed like Maitimo's must be.

He is staring so much that it takes him a moment to realise it is speaking.

“Thank you for your hospitality, my lord,” it says, and its voice is just like any child’s, but it speaks in perfect, Feanorian-accented Quenya, the kind that proclaims long education and too much pride. And royalty. “This is much better than where we lived previously. I give you my thanks.”

And it bows, but it doesn't stop, until its head is on the ground, no, on Findekano's boots. He forces himself not to take a step back and instead shoots a horrified look at Maitimo, thinking help me, Russo, but Maitimo looks at them as if this is an ordinary ceremony on an ordinary day, and nothing is out of place.

“Rise,” Findekano manages, through gritted teeth, and the orc does so, moving like a cat or a wolf or a spider in its strange dangerous grace.

“Why are you here?” he asks, after a moment.

“Because of my da, my lord,” says the orc, looking at Maitimo. Findekano looks at Maitimo again, feeling desperate, but again Maitimo seems to see nothing wrong with this statement.

“He isn't actually my da, of course,” it continues, and Findekano cannot get over the discrepancy of its appearance which is wrong wrong wrong and its voice which if he closed his eyes would take him back to Tirion. “But in his goodness he saved me and raised me and protected me when I was small, so by reckoning he is more than most are entitled to that address.”

“But how did you get here?”

“Well, after da displeased the old master - ” the orc grimaces - “I used to visit him when I could, strung up on that cruel chain. But it was not often, for I reached the age to join a work party. But when I saw he was gone, how could I stay? All the birds and beasts were alight with the story of his capture, so it was easy to find out his location, and follow.”

“You are a dutiful son, my little star,” Maitimo says with approval, and the orc lights up, baring its fangs into some mockery of a smile. Findekano forces himself not to shudder.

“And your… birth parents?”

“I never knew my father. Most do not, under the old master. But I loved my mother, and knew her. She died not long before da joined us.”

“I'm sorry,” Findekano says, and says the short prayer for the dead.

“Thank you, my lord,” says the orc. “But she is still with me.”

Findekano had no idea orcs cared about each other. He knows very little about orcs, apart from how to kill them, and that only a year's apprenticeship between the Helcaraxe and his decision to rescue his half-cousin. But the orc’s love for its mother and belief in her love for it are touching. It is just like them, in some ways.

“Look,” says the orc, excitement in its voice pitching it up, so that he sounds to all the world like little Tyelpe. It reaches underneath its shirt and brings out a necklace, which it brings forward so that Findekano can see.

“My mother,” it says, and Findekano nearly gags. The necklace is made up of bits of bone and fangs, all strung neatly together on a black cord. “It's what was left of her after the old master threw her to the wargs.”

The orc is looking up at him, excitement on its face, clearly looking for approval or some kind of positive response, and Findekano cannot find it in himself to disappoint it.

“I'm glad you have that,” he says, weakly, and smiles at the orc.

Maitimo asks, smiling gently and apologetically, “Now that you know, is there any chance we could have more food? He's a growing boy.”

So that is why Maitimo has barely put on weight since he returned. The healers have spoken to Findekano about it many times: they are afraid that it is slowing the healing of his injuries, that perhaps there is some kind of worm or rot that they have not discovered yet.

Findekano wants to roll his eyes. Of course Maitimo is making himself ill giving his food to a small orc. Maitimo has never been able to turn off that side of himself, not after practically raising six brothers.

Findekano agrees. Maitimo smiles his beautiful smile at him, grateful, and sinks back into bed, exhausted even after that short interaction.

As Findekano leaves the tent, the little orc touches his arm, and says in a quiet voice so that Maitimo, half-asleep on the bed, may not hear, “Da will not displease you like he did the old master, I swear it.”

It looks at him with such worry and guilt in its eyes that even though Findekano recoils inside and does not understand, does not even know how to start understanding, he smiles reassuringly and tells the orc, “Of course not.”

*

When Findekano had first heard voices coming from Maitimo's tent, he had thought it was Telperinquar, or perhaps one of the twins. He could not quite make out what they were saying at first, but he could hear by the tone that they were young and excited, their voice rising eagerly and interspersed occasionally with Maitimo's low rumbles. He had thought that perhaps it could even be little Itarille, though if so, he was not pleased at her being left alone with Maitimo when he was so unpredictable.

When he had entered the tent, there was nobody there, and Maitimo had insisted that he had just been talking to himself. Even that was not so strange: Findekano had not thought through bringing Maitimo back from Thangorodrim, and his father had not been happy to have his treacherous brother's traitor heir in his camp, as he put it. Nolofinwe's anger had calcified with nowhere for it to go, when he had arrived in Beleriand after the death of nearly a quarter of his people ready to confront his brother and found him dead instead, and his heir gone, and High King Kanafinwe both miserable and ineffective.

After Findekano and Irisse had both begged and pleaded, their father had allowed them the use of a tent and healers: but Maitimo's family were forbidden, and Maitimo was no more than a prisoner.

So if some of Maitimo's family had snuck in, of course Maitimo would deny it. The youngest ones would be the best choice to send: even Nolofinwe could be swayed by youthful courage and familial loyalty, if they were caught, whereas he might just execute Makalaure or Tyelkormo in place of their father.

And while before they left Maitimo and Findekano had had no secrets and told each other no lies, now Maitimo lied reflexively, hiding everything he could without even thinking.

Findekano could not hold it against him: when Maitimo was in the right mood, he tried to tell Findekano the truth, but when the truth was so terrible, Findekano sometimes thought it better to remain hidden.

Maitimo had been lucid from the start, but he was not always… there. Although he sleeps almost all the time, during the times he is awake Findekano finds that now Maitimo has three moods.

The first is defiance: he fights the healers in particular, who are in the process of rebreaking many of his bones that have set badly, a few at a time, who stitch and restitch wounds, who debride his burnt skin, and who force him to eat when he would rather not. Findekano sympathises, but in that kind of mood he has to be restrained for his own safety and his healers’, which makes Maitimo panic wildly, as if he were a trapped and dying animal.

Findekano hates it. When he is in this mood Maitimo calls Findekano Thauron, and tries to hurt him, and nothing he can do helps. But it doesn't feel right to leave him alone, so he often sits outside the tent and listens, and weeps for his beloved.

The second one is worse. Findekano in some twisted way is proud of Maitimo's defiance, that thirty years of torment has not broken him entirely. He tells himself that as he forces himself to listen to his screams and curses as Maitimo fights and loses, again and again.

The second one takes Findekano longer to identify. Like the orc, he seems normal at first, as like Maitimo as he could be, except he… acts strangely. He shrinks at anger or harsh words: he does exactly as Findekano or the healers tell him, his wide frightened eyes fixed on Findekano. This is when he lies the most, and he will say anything to try and avoid angering anyone. Even offering water often only gets him the response “If you will it, my lord.”

Findekano had thought him merely frightened, at first, and tried to comfort him. That had been a mistake because it quickly turned into sex that, in retrospect, Findekano regretted. Not entirely, because even broken Maitimo was beautiful, and it was joy to reunite with his lover again: but because as Findekano was thrusting into him, Maitimo's smile was not the smile of a man in pleasure, or even a man who had missed his lover, but that slightly victorious smile of a slave who has escaped punishment.

When Findekano thought back on it, Maitimo had started touching him, ever so subtly, when the subject of the Helcaraxe came up. Findekano had thought it was comfort, but it quickly becomes a pattern, a way for Maitimo to escape the anger he feared, Findekano thought.

Findekano does not always refuse, as he ought, because Maitimo only gets distressed if he feels he cannot mitigate or manipulate Findekano: instead, Findekano tries to only talk about serious things in the third mood. But sometimes it is hard to tell them apart, and being joined with Maitimo again… how can it be wrong?

And sometimes it is useful, too: when Findekano had just rescued Maitimo, his father had been furious, and a few days later had decided on throwing Maitimo out of the camp, despite the healers saying it might kill him.

“We don't have enough resources for ourselves, never mind for treacherous parasites,” he had hissed.

Somehow, Maitimo had found out - and now Findekano had quite a good idea of somehow - and asked to see Nolofinwe. Nolofinwe had gone, reluctantly, but had left much happier.

Maitimo had been the picture of submission, somehow making himself small and humble even in bed, in a way that was entirely alien to the proud heir Findekano had known in Valinor. He deferred to his uncle and flattered him, and then, the winning blow, offered up his uncle the crown. Nolofinwe had been well placated, and had even told Findekano that Maitimo was much improved now he was out of the influence of Feanaro.

Findekano wondered, though he couldn't quite understand it, if perhaps this mood was a form of defiance too, just a less obvious one.

And some days Maitimo is almost his old self, lazily imperious, his eyes lighting up when he sees Findekano, making dark joke after dark joke. He is already helping Findekano with his paperwork and preparations for meetings: Findekano is absolutely horrified to be crown prince, and had tried to persuade his father to give the role to Turukano, who was much better suited for it, and also needed a distraction after the death of his wife.

One day Findekano had fled the tent with Maitimo's roaring in his ears, and the healers had left not long after, and Findekano is sitting behind the tent, building up his hope for the future. Gradually he is aware that he can hear voices in the tent, and is about to warn the visitor or throw them out, when he realises that Maitimo was not shouting, and no sounds of violence or conflict are coming from the tent.

When Findekano listens closely, he could hear they were reciting poetry.

Reciting poetry. Of course, all of Finwe's grandchildren had all been taught poetry as part of their education, and Findekano recognises it as one of the more famous ones, about the Great Journey:

The heart's thought that I on high streams
The salt-wavy tumult traverse alone.
Moaneth alway my mind's lust
That I fare forth, that I afar hence
Seek out a foreign fastness…

Maitimo's voice chants steadily, and the younger, higher voice of a child joins him, though it stumbles over some sections, not yet perfect in pronunciation or memory.

The heart turns to travel so that he then thinks
On flood-ways to be far departing.
Cuckoo calleth with gloomy crying,
He singeth summerward, bodeth sorrow,
The bitter heart's blood. Burgher knows not…

But even though Findekano has never been particularly precious about the Valar, something about it feels sacrilegious, like Maitimo is profaning something holy and important, particularly now it was gone, that they were far from their home and could never return. Even though Findekano had always wanted to leave, had not hesitated for a moment, he sometimes feels grief for the loss of his home which takes his breath away.

Findekano had been glad at the time, glad that someone was keeping Maitimo company, rather than scared away by his scars; glad that Maitimo had not forgotten all of the beauty of Valinor, all of the words which he had used to love.

Findekano would not have been glad if he had realised then that the other party was an orc.

*

A few days later, the camp is awash with rumours that a shadow is lurking. People talk about weapons and food going missing, about seeing a shadow at the fire which disappears when you look straight at it, and of feeling the prickle of someone watching you when you are alone.

Findekano dismisses it as paranoia, but he gets an unpleasant lesson when Maitimo is attacked.

When he first hears screams coming from the tent, neither he nor the healers hurry. It is not unusual for Maitimo to be screaming.

But when Findekano thinks back, the screams do not sound like Maitimo's.

When he gets to the tent, Maitimo is breathing hard, half off the bed, with his stump bleeding profusely. He has a long cut across his chest and a wild look in his eyes.

His opponents have come off worse, however; there are three dead Noldor on the floor, one with a dagger that has been reported stolen in his chest.

Findekano screams then, seeing Maitimo swaying and covered in blood, but most of the blood is not his own and the part that is seems to come from torn stitches.

He cannot stop asking, “How? How did you do it? How did an unarmed man who cannot even stand up kill three armed and prepared assassins?”

His lover is exceptional, he knows. But this is on a different level.

Maitimo cannot answer him. He shakes his head and tells Findekano that he cannot remember anything. He is shaking and collapses onto the floor, propped up as he has been on the bed. Findekano stops asking questions and helps him into the bed, holding him and whispering nothings in his ear until his shaking subsides and he sleeps.

The guards assume that the stolen dagger must have been taken by the assassins, to muddy the trail if they succeeded. It cannot have been Maitimo, who cannot stand unaided, let alone walk.

*

After Findekano knows about the orc - which Maitimo has named Gil, of all things - a lot of things make more sense.

What does not make sense, however, is how keen the orc is to talk to Findekano.

It does not tend to talk to him when they are both in Maitimo's tent, but often when Findekano leaves, the orc follows.

It is not that it is rude. In fact, it is overly deferential, always calling him “my lord” and bowing to the floor.

It disturbs Findekano how easily the orc makes that movement. What servile creatures they are, he thinks.

But in other ways it is just like a child. It likes to chatter on about the frog it caught in the steam, and while Findekano would like to believe that eating it was an orcish choice, he has spent too much time with Itarille and Tyelpe not to know that they had both also tried eating various insects and small animals.

Sometimes it doesn't tell him anything, just follows expectantly. Findekano can nod and smile when it talks, but he doesn't know what to do when it waits.

“How do you like it here?” Findekano asks, during one awkward silence.

The orc’s deformed eyes light up. “Very much, my lord,” it says, in its excited, perfect, educated Quenya, and Findekano still cannot help but be taken aback by the difference between the words and their speaker. “It is much better here than Angamando! The food is better and it is cleaner, and da told me you were kind, and it's true, you are much kinder than the old master.”

Findekano cringes at the implication that he is the new master, but he thinks, that is the way of orcs, they must always have mastery or be mastered. It is their nature.

Something makes him ask, “Do you think Maitimo is happy here?”

“Of course, my lord! If - if you want him to be, that is.” A shadow passes over its face, and Findekano, by that point, is starting to recognise that non-answer from Maitimo. So he frowns, and pushes.

“What?’ he asks, stern.

The orc looks agonised for a moment, and then breaks into speech. “My lord, forgive me for this is not my place, and my da would never complain, never, he would never say a word against you, but I know sometimes when you punish him he doesn't know why. Couldn't you tell him why? He doesn't know if he's done something wrong, you see, or if it is for this ancient wrong that he did you, which you bought him from the Lord Melkor and took his hand - I mean the Enemy.”

Findekano feels bile rise in his stomach. He does not know what to say, and the orc looks at him through frightened eyes and starts another torrent of speech.

“He has never complained, never said it is more than your right, my lord - only if you wish him to act differently, would it not be better to tell him? The old master used to tell us what we were punished for, and it worked very well, we learnt his wishes very quickly, and it is not so easy to learn yours. I know he struggles with that.”

Findekano must speak, through his haze of disgust. “I - I do not punish him,” he says thickly.

The orc cringes back as if it expects violence. “Of course not, my lord, you have every right - he would never question you - my apologies, my lord, for my impertinence -”

Findekano cannot stand it, cannot stand one moment more with this cringing creature, one moment more with these - these obscenities dripping from its voice that belongs to Findekano's home and Findekano’s family.

He walks away, his fists clenched.

*

The next time the orc follows Findekano from Maitimo’s tent, it says nothing but presents him with the skin of a rabbit. Findekano nearly drops it, but it is reasonably well finished: not to the standard of Tirion, of course, but easily good enough for the camp.

Findekano gives it to Itarille to trim her cloak, and she is pleased. He does not tell her where it comes from.

He mentions it to Maitimo when he is next awake and more or less coherent, and Maitimo smiles broadly.

“Ah! He was so keen on making you a present. Gil likes you a lot, you know, he tells me all the time about how beautiful you are and how kind. Of course, he's entirely right.”

Findekano cannot help but smile back, although he feels guilt rise in him at how different Findekano’s own feelings are. Turukano would say that is natural, that it is the place of the lesser to admire the greater, but Findekano has never quite subscribed to that. He would not have left Valinor if he did, but he cannot imagine a life at the knees of the Valar when he has a choice.

Maitimo must catch something of his thoughts, because his smile falters.

“I'm sorry, Finno,” he says. “I know it must be difficult to have him - to have us in the camp.”

Findekano bridles at us, at the idea that his beloved and that orc have anything in common, but Maitimo is still talking.

“He is strange, I know, but Finno, so am I, except he looks it and I - I am looking ever less so, on the outside. But on the inside…”

Findekano shakes his head fiercely, and takes Maitimo's hand. “No, Maitimo, you are the same as you ever were.”

“I am nothing,” Maitimo says, almost to himself. “I won’t be here long.” Then Maitimo looks at him with such sadness that Findekano stops arguing. “Gil’s whole life has been under the Moringotto, you see. He cannot understand the concept of not being so. I can't even understand the concept of not being so and I lived for so long before Angamando, with you, with my - my brothers. I am as much as orc as he is, only they wanted to preserve my appearance.”

Findekano does not understand, cannot understand. He wants to refute all the nonsense that Maitimo speaks, but the one thing Findekano does understand is that Maitimo wants to be understood.

So he smiles, and nods, and tells his beloved, “In truth, I do not wholly understand, but I think in time I will, and in the meanwhile it does not matter, for I love you, Russo, orc or Noldo or whatever else you could be.”

Findekano feels like he is melting as they kiss.

*

Maitimo is having a particularly bad day. The healers are doing some horrible but apparently necessary operation, but Maitimo is crazed and will not let them. He does not seem to recognise Findekano, and uses the books and mugs by his bed to keep him and the healers away. He is a remarkably accurate shot even with his left hand, Findekano notices, rubbing his nose, and also not lethal, so he cannot complain too much. These moods will pass.

But Maitimo does not settle. He will not eat or drink, startling like a deer if anyone enters the tent. He is less emaciated than when he was sneaking the orc all his food, but he is still too thin for anyone's comfort. Findekano decides to ask the orc.

“Have you finished punishing him, my lord?” is the first thing that the orc asks. He asks in a very neutral way, like the answer could be yes, or no, and the orc would accept this. Although presumably it would change its tactics depending on what Findekano said, or else why would it ask?

“I'm not punishing him,” says Findekano, annoyed.

“Of course, my lord,” says the orc in a patient tone. “The last time you told me that, you had them break four of his fingers afterwards.”

That was to reset his hand, which had been broken and healed wrong, not as a punishment. The orc always sees everything through its own lens, Findekano thinks, and it makes him feel a bit ill to see through it himself.

He tries to say as much, but the orc only asks, “Have you finished for the day, my lord?”

The healers will not try again today, Findekano knows. Probably not for a few days, after this reaction.

So Findekano nods, and the orc bows low and thanks him, and disappears into the tent.

Findekano braces himself for the sounds of violence, but there is none.

He hears the orc say, “Shh, da, move over,” and Maitimo’s answering grunt, and then the orc starts, in its ridiculous Quenya, what is clearly some kind of ritual.

“Pityo is safe, and Telvo is safe, and Curvo is safe, and Moryo is safe, and Tyelko is safe, and Kano is safe and looks after them all, far from here, singing them to sleep each night, and none of them are here.

“And your Finno, your beautiful bold Finno, is safe in Valinor, where he's probably furious at you, but he's hunting and riding and singing and playing his harp. He's safe, and he's not here.

“Pityo is safe, and Telvo is safe, and Curvo is safe, and Moryo is safe, and Tyelko is safe, and Kano is safe, and Tyelko is making them eat too much unseasoned meat and goes hunting for them all…”

It goes on, with little variations each time, and Findekano cannot help but sob silently as he listens. He realises with a jolt that the orc has no idea that he is Finno, that Maitimo has never told him who Findekano is, by design or by accident. There is a part of his heart which is touched that through thirty years of torment, Maitimo never forgot him.

There is a part of him which is furious that Maitimo expected him to flee back to the Valar, his tail between his legs, after Maitimo betrayed him.

*

Maitimo starts to spend more time awake, and of that time awake, less of it in his moods. Findekano worries that defiance and submission are still there, just quieter, more palatable, because he still sees them.

But it means he has more visitors, not just Findekano and the orc, and the healers on their relentless crusade to destroy Maitimo and remake him.

Much to Findekano’s surprise, Nolofinwe is the first visitor. Findekano has not been speaking to his father about Maitimo, after their fight over whether he should leave the camp. They talk about everything else, instead, both skirting around it because Findekano loves his father, and his father loves him, and without Arakano, with Turukano half-dead with grief after the loss of his wife, everything is hard enough already.

But kingship seems to have cured his father's heart. How long had he desired it? Findekano could not think of a time when his father had not believed that Feanaro was unfit to rule, that the title of heir should be his, instead, and cursed his own father's weakness.

Nolofinwe treats Maitimo with all the kindness Findekano knows so well from his own childhood, as if Maitimo was his beloved nephew rather than his despised rival. He strokes Maitimo’s hair and reads to him in a gentle voice, making jokes and encouraging him when he is down.

It makes Findekano want to cry. It is more than he could have hoped, and Findekano always hopes for a lot.

Maitimo is wary at first, but as nothing seems to shift Nolofinwe's new attitude, not when he is delirious and tries to fight him, not when he has nightmares and shouts in the Black Tongue, not when he is trembling and afraid of his uncle. In fact, he blossoms under Nolofinwe's attention. Findekano supposes Maitimo never really had much in the way of positive attention from his parents: Feanaro loved his children, yes, but more like objects or possessions than as people, and his approval was rare and desperately chased. Nerdanel was loving but absent, spending more time on her metal and stone and forgetting about her children as soon as they weren't babies any more.

Ever since Findekano had known Maitimo - they had met in near-adulthood - it had been Maitimo who fed his brothers, who washed them and dressed them, who saw to their hurts and helped them when they needed it. Feanaro taught them the forge, and other skills, but it was Maitimo who made sure they could all read and write, that they knew all the skills a prince of the Noldor should.

How Maitimo learnt them, Findekano did not know, because his parents certainly hadn't taught him.

All seven of Feanaro's children had all wanted to impress their father, but it was to Maitimo they brought their dreams and fears, Maitimo whose bed they slept in when they had nightmares, and Maitimo who protected them when they needed someone.

Findekano, who had a much more normal relationship with his siblings, had found it rather off-putting at first: he did not appreciate falling asleep with his lover, and waking up to his lover and two tiny red-headed twins. At least, as children, the twins had an excuse: Makalaure also slept in Maitimo's bed any chance he took, and his timing was uncanny enough that Findekano half-suspected he listened outside their door until they were finished.

Thankfully, Tyelkormo, who was also very affectionate and had no concept of personal space, had mostly been away with the Hunt, and the middle brothers, Curufinwe and Carnistir, were much more reserved and would only brave Maitimo's bed in emergencies, like when one of them was sick, or unhappy, or particularly happy, or wanted to work on a project but Feanaro had locked the doors of the forge.

It also meant that it had been impossible to hide their relationship from them. Which Findekano had not regretted: he would have shouted it from the rooftops, if Maitimo would have let him.

Findekano never mentions Maitimo’s brothers, because they do not know he is even alive, unless they have found out somehow, and his father has forbidden anyone from telling them.

But Nolofinwe is not so considerate, and Maitimo's eyes fill with tears when he thinks of them. The next time he visits, he brings a letter from them and reads it to Maitimo, and enclosed in it is a letter from them he gives to Maitimo. Nolofinwe has not even broken the seal.

Findekano sometimes wonders what has replaced his father. How is it that power has made him kinder?

Maitimo sleeps with the letter in his hand, tear-stained and ragged as it quickly becomes.

*

Findekano's father takes him aside that evening, and shows him the letter addressed to him, where Makalaure - King Kanafinwe, as he styles himself - begs Nolofinwe not to hurt Maitimo and not to hold him accountable for Losgar. He offers to swear on anything that Nolofinwe wants that Maitimo did not burn the ships, had refused and tried to stop their father.

“I am inclined to believe him,” says Nolofinwe, while the world is roaring in Findekano's ears. “Of course, it could be a ploy for better treatment for their brother - but though there are few good things about Feanor and his sons, they have ever been truthful.”

Findekano sits down. Cannot think.

“Kanafinwe asks me to tell you that Nelyafinwe specifically mentioned going back for you,” his father says. “It's a strange detail, but I suppose you were friends back in Valinor, and he wants Nelyafinwe not to lose that. He does not know my son is as generous of heart as he is.” He smiles at Findekano in pride, then, and Findekano thinks, oh, father, if only you knew.

Maitimo had not betrayed him.

Something Findekano thought was frozen by the Helcaraxe softens in his chest.

*

Others come to visit, too. Turukano does, stiff and furious and dutiful, after his father tells him Maitimo did not burn the ships: but he is so visibly angry that Maitimo is quickly cringing and Turukano thinks he is mocking him.

(“Why you,” Turukano shouts at Findekano later. “Why you, and not me, not her? She was blameless, no kinslayer, no traitor. She was kind and smart and brave and loving, she had a child, our little girl, and the Valar sent no eagle for her, they had no mercy for her.”

Findekano will know one day, far in the future, that it was no mercy for Maitimo and him, either.)

Irisse comes to visit, a bit leery of the sick, but although Maitimo had not been her favourite cousin, they had still been reasonably close. She brings her collection of skulls and antlers from the Ice to show him.

The orc pops up, fascinated, and Maitimo introduces them. Of course, Irisse of all people probably does not even notice that it is an orc and not a child, and is happy to show off as it peppers her with impressed questions. Irisse barely looks at other people, although back home she noticed the most minute differences in her horses or dogs or falcons. Findekano wonders if she still would, now, after everything.

“Of course it likes Irisse,” Findekano later says to Maitimo, amused and fond of his sister.

“I'm not an it, my lord,” says the orc, popping up from Valar knows where. “I'm a he!”

Findekano had not known it - he - was listening. He nods awkwardly, but the orc does not seem to have taken offense, and instead asks Maitimo question after question about Irisse.

“She's my sister, you know,” Findekano says to it - to him, with a smile.

“The lady is your sister, my lord?” the orc stares at him, impressed.

Maitimo laughs. “Don't you think they look alike? Though Findekano is more beautiful, of course.”

Findekano rolls his eyes at him.

“They are both beautiful,” says the orc, seriously. “The old master was beautiful too, but not as you two.”

Findekano raises an eyebrow. Of course, every Valar has something of beauty, but even back in Valinor, the Enemy had been unsettling and terrible rather than beautiful.

“Thauron,” Maitimo explains, seeing his raised eyebrow. “The shapeshifting Maia, his lieutenant.”

“Can you shapeshift, my lord?” asks the orc, eagerly.

Findekano shakes his head, and the orc looks disappointed.

“No Elda can,” Maitimo tells the orc. “Only Ainur, like Thauron.” The tone he uses suggests he should be spitting on the ground at the name.

Findekano says, an abrupt decision, “Don't call me my lord.”

Maitimo smiles at him, pleased, but the orc frowns. “I'm sorry, master,” it - he - offers.

Findekano thinks it is much more uncomfortable to hear him address him so, rather than it.

“Not master, either,” he says. “My name is Findekano.”

The orc hesitates.

“In Angamando that would be unforgivably rude,” says Maitimo. “Perhaps sir, or uncle? Those are what we Noldor use to address elders.”

The orc says nothing, looking at Findekano for approval. Findekano nods. He hates the idea of that thing calling him uncle, like Itarille does or Tyelpe did, but by this point, he has come to accept that the orc means something to Maitimo.

He hopes it will not break his heart too much when it - he - betrays them.

Perhaps he will only run back to his kind. Findekano is ever hopeful.

*

“Do you own this camp, sir?” The orc asks.

“No, my father does. I am his eldest son and heir.”

“Ah, sir, you are his second, then?” The orc seems pleased.

“I am,” Findekano says.

“That is good,” says the orc. “Do you have many slaves?”

Findekano tries not to choke. “No!”

The orc looks even more pleased. “We are privileged, then, da!” He smiles brightly at Maitimo, his fangs showing. Maitimo only smiles back at him and reaches out to ruffle his hair.

Findekano glares at Maitimo for not correcting this one. “You're not my slaves!”

The orc laughs. “You Noldor, you always have to hide the truth, cover it up with your pretty words. Can we leave the camp? Can da’s family visit him? Can your father the high lord kill us if he pleased?”

Findekano is silent. Those are true, though he doesn't like to admit it, but that doesn't make them slaves.

“The High King, my little star, not the high lord,” corrects Maitimo.

“That's what you're correcting?” Findekano rounds in Maitimo in sudden anger. Maitimo shrinks back into the bed and the orc leaps backwards, but Findekano doesn't stop. “He's saying you're slaves! Of course you're not slaves, not mine or anyone else's. Russo…”

He has lost steam by the end and just feels incredibly weary and sad.

“If someone hurt you, I would save you, Russo,” he says, and his tone is begging. “Like I did, like I always would. If my father tried to kill you then I would stop him and if I couldn't then we would run away together. Don't you know this?”

Maitimo takes his hand and squeezes. “I know, Finno,” he says gently. “But… in Angamando that would mean we were your slaves. Don't you see that you have all the power? Power to save us or kill us, to command us or not. He's not saying that you would use it for ill, only that the power is yours.”

Findekano pulls his hand away as if he is burnt and turns away, hot tears sparking at his eyes. It is not true. It cannot be true. Findekano loves him. Maitimo has just spent too much time with orcs, where everyone is master or mastered.

“Finno…” says Maitimo, ever so gently. “I trust you with my life, with both our lives. Please don't be sad.”

Findekano is not sure that makes it any better, but he does not want Maitimo to be afraid, so he turns back to him and tries to smile.

“I am yours to command. Or at least,” Maitimo says ruefully, “I will be when there is anything I can do.”

“King, god, master, what does the title of who you bow to matter, when he commands your life?” The orc says, as if quoting something.

“There is a difference between a slave and a prisoner,” says Findekano, stung. “There is a difference between a soldier and a slave, between a wife and a slave, between a servant and a slave. And between a king and his vassal.”

“I know,” says Maitimo. “I know.” He looks between them. “You are both correct. I do not know how to make you understand each other.”

He sounds exhausted, so Findekano leaves him, but he is uneasy for a long time, and cannot get the conversation out of his head.

Chapter Text

Maitimo is officially allowed to have visitors now, and Findarato is first. Maitimo and he had always been relatively close back home: he was probably Maitimo's second-favourite cousin, and of course Findarato, cheery and sociable, got on well with everyone.

He had visited in the early days, when Maitimo had been less with it, but had taken one look at him and told Findekano that Maitimo would not want Findarato to see him like this.

He had probably been correct. Findekano resented Findarato's consideration, probably unreasonably, and Findarato… probably resented the reappearance of Findekano's partner. Not the return of Maitimo, never: his cousin was genuinely overjoyed by the return of his kinsman.

But on the Ice Findekano and Findarato had shared their sorrow and comfort together, both alone. Amarie was left behind in Tirion, as she had not loved Findarato enough to follow him, and Maitimo had gone ahead, and they had thought he had not loved Findekano enough to bring him with him.

And now Findarato is alone, and Findekano is not, and Findekano feels a tightness in his stomach that he had turned to Findarato for comfort when Maitimo had not betrayed him. But he does not think he ought to feel guilty: Maitimo had left him, after all.

And it is not like Maitimo has exactly been faithful himself, from the sounds of things.

Findekano can see that Findarato feels uncomfortable, too, his smile slightly fixed at the sight of the two of them.

But smile Findarato does, and Maitimo is very pleased to see him.

“Ingo!” he calls, ever so glad, and when Findarato embraces him, Maitimo swings him across himself and into the bed, settling him next to him. Findarato is tiny, the smallest Noldo Findekano has ever met, but it still worries him. He doesn't want Maitimo to hurt himself.

It had taken much longer for Maitimo to be comfortable touching him. Findekano tells himself that was because Maitimo is more comfortable with everyone now, and tries not to glare at Findarato.

“You'll hurt yourself!” Findarato is scolding Maitimo, but he is giggling, flattered at the warmth of his welcome. He leans against Maitimo's chest and Maitimo drapes his arm around him.

“Gil!” Maitimo calls. “Gil! I have someone I want you to meet.”

The orc comes running, but stops short when he sees Findarato. Findekano has to admit that Findarato is a sight - his long golden hair almost scandalously loose down his back, drenched in the jewels that he had stubbornly carried over the Helcaraxe which he had often gone without food or comfort for.

His clothes were nothing like he would have worn back home, though, rough leather and fur and half-ruined cloth. But better than many of them have nowadays. Even so, Findekano feels a small, mean triumph that Findarato is stripped of his silks and lace.

The orc drops to his knees. “My lord,” he breathes, his eyes shining.

“My little star, the Noldor bow from the waist, remember?”

The orc scrambles to his feet and does so, very elegantly, in fact. He could be in Finwe’s train back at home. Findekano wonders exactly at what point in Angamando Maitimo taught his orc courtly manners, and has to stifle a laugh at the absurdity of it.

“Gil, this is Findarato, my cousin and the fairest of all the Noldor. Ingo, this is my son, Gil.”

Did Maitimo have to introduce their cousin like that?

Findarato does not even blink, just says, “Nice to meet you, Gil,” and preens a little at the awe in the orc’s eyes.

The orc looks at them shyly without saying a word, seeming for all the world like any child, so Findarato turns to Maitimo instead. “I spent a while thinking what I would say to you when I heard you were so bravely rescued. How are you? seems trite. For a while I decided on punching you for betraying us, but now I hear that you did your best to stop it.”

Maitimo flushes from ear-tip to ear-tip.

“You - you know?” He is looking at Findekano, not Findarato.

“My father told me,” says Findekano, as neutrally as he can. Does that mean it is true, then? He is still not sure - he would not put it past them to lie to ensure that Maitimo gets better treatment. He could not even disagree if they did: this is not the situation to be holding old grudges.

“It didn't help - it didn't do anything,” Maitimo says, miserable. “The boats still burnt. You still crossed the Helcaraxe. Arakano still died. My father never forgave me before he died.”

Findekano says nothing, but Findarato fills in the silence, his normally musical voice holding a note of steel. Everyone forgets that Findarato is not just jewels and silks and pretty hair, Findekano thinks.

“And I thought about holding you accountable for the deaths of my kin, and your theft of our treasures, but half our host is guilty of that, too.”

Maitimo says, abruptly, “We could have crossed the Helcaraxe. When I found out what you all did… we could have done it, too, and fled the Valar with no blood on our hands. But we didn't have the courage.”

He takes a deep breath, but he does not look at Findarato. “Ingo, there are no words I can offer, no penance I can pay, to make it right. Just know that I regret it, that it haunts my dreams…” He shudders. “There is no way to right this wrong, no forgiveness I can seek. Nor should I. I'm sorry, I wish I had more for you, but…”

Findekano has never spoken about the kinslaying with Findarato, though blood is on his hands as much as Maitimo's - more, perhaps, because he led his people into it, while Maitimo was led. His father insists that Findekano is innocent at heart, and it is true that he had simply seen his people attacked and fought his way to Maitimo, terror palpable in his mouth. But… he is not sure that is enough.

Maitimo and Findarato look at each other for a while, Maitimo sorry with his eyes lowered and Findarato with steel in his gaze.

“I do not forgive you,” Findarato says mildly.

“I do not ask for it,” Maitimo answers.

There is another silence, and Findekano realises that Maitimo has never spoken of apologies or forgiveness to him, either. Is he not owed any?

Then Findarato speaks again, and the brightness in his voice is back.

“I missed you! So I bought you a present, to cheer up your sickbed.”

Maitimo looks disconcerted at the sudden change of topics, but smiles gamely. “I missed you too, cousin, but I am afraid I have nothing for you.”

“When I am recovering from thirty years of torment, you can bring me presents then,” Findarato says, chipper.

Maitimo blinks and then roars with laughter, although it is not funny, and pulls Findarato against his chest under the crook of his arm. If Findekano were to squint, he could almost see Tyelkormo instead of Findarato, a scene he has seen many times before, and he feels the echo of the loss of Maitimo's brothers, even though they are not so far away.

Findarato even starts playing with Maitimo's hair, an incredibly intimate gesture even for Findarato who is half-Teleri and thus has no real decency. He twirls red strands idly around his fingers as he talks, admiring how the colour changes in the light.

Maitimo only gives Findarato a half-smile.

“Here, Gil,” Findarato calls out, and Findekano feels the resentment rise in him again. Findekano cannot call the orc anything but that, not his name or even the boy like Maitimo sometimes does. Findekano still struggles with saying him, not it. And Findarato uses its name - his name - so easily.

“See that package I brought in with me? Open that and show your father, will you?”

The orc does so, and gasps as he unwraps the package. It is a jewel, a large and beautiful cut stone that reflects the candle-light in the tent in a thousand directions. It looks like a ruby but from this distance Findekano cannot tell for certain.

Holding it up to the candle-light, the orc turns the stone slowly, watching how as it refracts the light each of its facets is a slightly different colour. He is mesmerised.

Findarato laughs. “He's Noldo all right, your son,” and elbows Maitimo.

“They don't have jewels in Angamando,” says Maitimo, quietly. “Thank you, Ingo. That… is a priceless gift. You must have brought that from home.”

“No,” says Findarato, his sweet voice sincere. “Your return is the priceless gift, Maitimo. I would give up all my jewels to see any of cousins safe.”

Maitimo looks overcome by emotion, flushing almost as red as his hair. He says nothing, but gathers Ingoldo against him almost tenderly.

“All your jewels, Ingo?” Findekano cannot resist a dig. “Not all your gold, though, surely?”

Findarato laughs, though Maitimo looks worried. “I mean, ideally only one or two of my jewels per cousin, of course. And I wouldn't give up my gold for anyone!”

They all laugh, although the orc does not, of course, since he probably takes it as a statement of literal fact. Findekano knows how greedy orcs are, and now he can see it for himself.

The orc reluctantly passes the ruby to Maitimo, who examines it and presses it to his chest.

“Can I get this set?” he asks his cousins.

“You're better asking your brothers,” says Findarato. “We don't have those kinds of tools here.”

There is a silence at the mention of Maitimo's brothers, and Findarato, always graceful, notices. He also notices the wistful look the orc is giving Maitimo's ruby.

“Here, boy,” Findarato says abruptly, and taking the ring off his smallest finger, throws it to the orc.

The orc catches it, and his dark eyes are wide. It is a decent sized princess-cut emerald in gold, surrounded by tiny diamonds. It's tasteful for Findarato, but the orc clearly thinks it's the best thing he's ever seen in his life.

“Oh, thank you, my lord, thank you,” he says fervently, clutching it to his chest and then sliding it onto his middle finger. Findarato has small fingers: it fits. The orc lifts his hand to the candle-light, admiring it, and then flings himself onto Maitimo’s lap, kissing Findarato's hands.

Findarato laughs, low but still sweet, and draws the orc into an embrace. “No need for that, Gil. Call me Uncle Ingo. I'm glad you like it.”

Findekano watches the three of them lying on the bed. Like that, Maitimo broad and large even when so desperately thin, Findarato so much smaller and resting against him in the crook of his arm, and the orc looking more like a child than ever, on Maitimo's lap but with Findarato's arm around him, they look like a family.

Findekano has always known what he was giving up, loving Maitimo. He has never grieved for the children he will now never have, as he knows Maitimo has grieved: his lover would surely have had his own large family, if he had loved a woman instead. And yet… Findekano had always thought he would have children, and the image still gives him a pang.

Maitimo must see something on his face because he calls to him, patting the closer side of the bed. “Come, Finno,” he orders. “There is space for you, too.”

Findekano thinks about refusing, since he does not want to be that close to the orc, but Maitimo wants him so he climbs onto the bed anyway. There is only enough space for him if he is pressed right into Maitimo, but Maitimo looks perfectly happy about it.

In fact, Maitimo puts his arm around Findekano, the one with the stump, and then kisses him, first on the cheek, and then, very hesitantly and gently, on the lips.

It is the first time Maitimo has ever kissed him, or let Findekano kiss him, in front of anyone else. He had always refused in Valinor, even in front of his brothers who were perfectly aware of what they were to each other.

Findekano’s heart is full and he cannot help but laugh when Findarato says solemnly to the orc, “Disgusting, aren't they!”

The orc replies, “Eeeeeew,” as any child would.

*

Nolofinwe meets the orc, and he is quietly kind and accepting, as he is with anything to do with Maitimo nowadays. He brings the orc sweets and toys which Itarille doesn't play with any more. He even sends him to his steward to teach him how to do his hair in the style of the Noldor.

The orc doesn't object - he is too awed by Nolofinwe to ever question any of his decisions - but he doesn't look very happy about being sent off to have his hair braided.

With a wink that only Maitimo and Findekano can see, Nolofinwe tells Maitimo off. “Letting him run around with his hair loose! He's getting old enough that it's indecent, Nelyafinwe. Honestly, anyone would have thought he would have been brought up by wargs rather than decent people.”

The orc runs to the steward as fast as he can, and the three of them laugh heartily as soon as he is out of the tent.

Later, when Nolofinwe and Findekano are eating dinner, Findekano cannot hold it in any longer. It is only the two of them tonight. “How can you, father?” he asks.

Nolofinwe looks puzzled. “How can I what?”

“How can you - enable Russandol like that. It's an orc, not a child, yet I seem to be the only one who can see that!”

“Oh, my son,” his father says, sadly, and grasps his shoulder tightly. “He's - your cousin is so damaged, Findekano. He spent thirty years - there, and yet he is somehow remarkably sane and functional. You know how much his brothers mean to him: everyone knows he raised them more than my useless half-brother ever did. Is it any surprise that he found something to try to love, something to cling onto, to try and survive?”

“Oh,” breathes Findekano, and feels a rush of shame and guilt and relief.

“It's a miracle he’s still able to love something. I believe it's how he coped there, using this delusion, and so challenging him directly on it would be unwise. I think… as he reintegrates more, and especially as he spends more time with his brothers, he'll lose his dependence on the orc. I think you're really helping, too: having real family around him is making such a difference.”

His father smiles at him again, proud, but Findekano remembers his furious, ragged disdain when he had first rescued Maitimo. He cannot integrate the two.

“As the orc grows up, it'll become less like a child and more like an orc, and grow into its nature. But by then Nelyafinwe will have his other ties back, and hopefully their parting will be mostly painless. So I think it's best to play along. I find it disgusting, to be honest, an orc speaking Quenya, aping our customs… but I am awed by Nelyafinwe’s capacity to love, and the last thing I want to do is more harm to him. And after all, what harm can such a small orc do to us?”

Findekano embraces his father. “I never understood,” he says thickly, trying not to cry. “I do now. Thank you, father.”

Nolofinwe pats him on the head. “I owe you an apology, Findekano,” he says, gruff.

“You… do?”

“You tried to tell me what Nelyafinwe was like, back at home. I could only see him as the eldest son of Feanaro, with all his mad arrogance and pride, but I was wrong. He's quite gentle, isn't he? Quiet and dutiful and intelligent, with none of Feanaro's fire. You always used to tell me that it was you who dragged him into scrapes, and I never believed you, but I see it now.” Nolofinwe chuckles. “Oh, it must have driven Feanaro mad, to have an heir as unlike him as that. In some ways, he would have been better suited as my son and you as Feanaro's, because you did not get that boldness of yours, that wildness, from me or your mother, my son. I admire it, because you temper it with kindness, which my half-brother never did. And with wisdom, for even though they call me wise, you saw what I did not. I am so lucky to have you.”

Findekano hugs his father again, burying his face into his chest as if he were a child again. “Thank you, father,” he whispers. “That means a lot.”

He is thrilled by the praise, which has been rare in recent years as his father had become more and more focused on the kingship. But he hates how his father sees Maitimo. It's not that he cannot be gentle and quiet and dutiful and intelligent - Maitimo is all of those things, when needed - but Findekano thinks what his father really means is weak.

He thinks that is what has changed Nolofinwe's opinion: that is the reason behind that kind condescension with which he now treats Maitimo. He may respect Maitimo's intelligence, but he no longer sees him as a rival, someone to be careful of.

Findekano, who knows that Maitimo is the only person in the world more stubborn than Feanaro, who knows with what fire his fea blazes, hopes that his father will not find out the hard way. If Maitimo presents himself to his father this way, it is for a reason - presumably for this exact reason, in fact. To get what he wants.

Thankfully, what Maitimo wants is the unity of the Noldor, better relations with his family, Findekano, his brothers to be safe and happy, apparently a pet orc, the Silmarils, and to destroy Morgoth. None of those have any likelihood of causing conflict between the two camps, so hopefully his father will never find out how unyielding Maitimo is, how single-minded he is when he decides on something. His brothers love him, yes, but there is a reason they obey him, too.

For the first time, Findekano clearly sees the defiance of Maitimo's supposed submission. It is a tool, like any other.

But at least Findekano's father sees more of Maitimo than he ever has before, and sees some of the qualities that makes Findekano love him so. And he approves of their friendship, although of course he would not if he understood its depth.

Or, perhaps, he would. Men loving men is not common among the Noldor, but it is not quite taboo: half-cousins is close, but even first cousins are not considered too incestuous as long as the parents are not close and they were not brought up together. It is only the anger between their houses and the fact that they are both eldest sons which forbids them. And with his father's new fondness for Maitimo…

Findekano thinks his father might enjoy the idea of having his brother's heir under his son’s thumb, although that would just prove how little he understands Maitimo. Or Findekano himself, for that matter.

Nolofinwe smiles fondly at Findekano. “I have a surprise for Nelyafinwe, you'll be glad to hear. I have decided to allow his brothers to visit. One at a time, escorted and guarded. They have already agreed to the terms. Kanafinwe will visit in the next few days.”

“Oh, father!” Findekano flings his arms around his father and hugs him tightly yet again. “You don't know what this will mean to him.”

Nolofinwe smiles, flattered, his face slightly pink. “I think the orc gives it away rather,” he says. “I'm glad you think it's a good idea.”

“I do!”

“You and Irisse were right to convince me to take him in,” Nolofinwe says. “If you had not… I dread to think what could have happened. You'll be a great crown prince, Findekano. I'm proud that you're my heir.”

Findekano beams. He had been right - they had been right - and he had never thought he would see the day when his father would admit it.

“But - you'll keep being kind to him, won't you?” He understands but does not love the way that Maitimo is treated in the camp. He is still a prisoner, albeit now one with the tentative favour of the High King. But if that favour were withdrawn…

“Of course,” Nolofinwe says. “We got off to a somewhat unfortunate start - but I blame that on my half-brother. No, Nelyafinwe will be as any other prince of the Noldor: he will have lands, and my protection and support. We are family, and he is a good lad: there is no need for us to have more conflict. Of course, we need the guards to keep him safe, but…”

Findekano has never loved his father more than in this conversation. Over the recent years his father has come to scare him sometimes - his insistence on being Finwe's true heir, his almost fey determination in crossing the Ice to challenge his half-brother, his coldness as he decided Maitimo was to be thrown out of the camp to die - but now he is listening to reason, to other people, to Findekano.

It will be the beginning of much better things for them all.

“Your kindness, your wisdom - I have never been so proud to call you father as I have been on these shores.”

Nolofinwe hums, pleased and surprised by his son's praise. “If only this could have happened in Valinor,” he says regretfully. “Without my half-brother’s influence, think what a life we could have led! Your half-cousins might all have been as close to you as Arafinwe's sons.”

*

With Nolofinwe's tacit approval, the orc starts to spend more time openly in the camp. His hair is now always braided in traditional Noldor style. He loves the soldiers particularly, watching them with a hungry gaze. Findekano is afraid of how people will react, but most miss children and view him with amused tolerance.

The soldiers more or less adopt him as their mascot. A game goes around the army, which of course comes from the orc, where someone twists the skin on your forearm until you cannot take it any more. The person who lasts the longest wins. Findekano is surprised that such an orcish game is so popular.

He, of course, has not played it.

People have been calling Maitimo the orc prince ever since he returned, which Findekano hates, so they only do it when he is not present. He still hears it, though.

It turns out the orc objects, too, although for entirely different reasons.

“He is the orc king!” he exclaims imperiously, tossing his dark hair back, his royal Quenya exactly appropriate. “I am the orc prince.”

There is laughter, and it works. In the camp Maitimo is now the orc king, and it is somehow a kinder title.

The orc loves being called “my prince” and “your highness”, however ironically it is meant, and the soldiers love his obvious pleasure in it.

But not everyone loves the orc prince. Many are afraid of him, and many more angry: Findekano is sympathetic to them. It was orcs that killed his brother, after all, unless it was the Feanorians. And Arakano was not the only one, not by a long way.

One soldier thinks that the orc’s ring is too good for him, or perhaps that he has stolen it. The orc turns up at Findekano’s tent, sheepish, bruised and bleeding - his blood is black, Findekano realises, with a shock of horror. In his hands he carries his ring, a knife, and a handful of long, dark braids, shorn from someone's scalp.

“My lord,” he says, and kneels at Findekano’s feet. “I don't know if I did right, but if I did wrong, I swear my da was not involved. I came straight here. He doesn't know a thing.” He waits for Findekano's verdict, eyes on the ground.

“What… happened?” asks Findekano.

“My lord, he took my ring, he said my ring was stolen, and that he would whip me for stealing and take it back. But it is not, it is my ring, Lord Findarato gave it to me, you remember…” The orc’s lip is trembling.

“And the hair?”

“In Angamando we take flesh for theft, but my da told me that is not the case here and I should not kill or maim unless I must in self-defence.”

Findekano considers. It is a fitting punishment for the Noldo in question, humiliating rather than painful or permanent.

The orc remains kneeling, and Findekano can see the expectation of pain in his eyes. It makes something twinge inside of him.

Findekano searches for words. “You did not do wrong,” he says eventually. “But next time, bring the offender to me, or point him out.”

The orc bows lower. “Of course, my lord,” he says. “It is your right.” He stays kneeling.

Findekano waits, and then realises that the orc is waiting for him to punish him. His stomach rebels.

“Get up,” he says, not too gently. And then: “Have you ever played the game of kings?”

He doesn't know why that is the first thing that comes into his head, but it turns out that the orc is a fast learner.

*

As Maitimo heals, Findekano spends more and more time in his bed. Maitimo still is too weak to walk or stand, but he is now well enough to be bored and frustrated rather than his earlier apathy.

Findekano can help with that.

They are slowly rediscovering each other. Maitimo finds it hard to believe that Findekano still wants him: Findekano finds it hard to believe that Maitimo still wants anyone.

So it is healing for them both, to lie in bed and kiss, like they haven't since they were young and under the Trees.

It is sweet and joyful and every day Findekano is amazed that he is so lucky as to have his Russo back again.

One day Findekano is escaping from the meeting his father wants him to be in, and rediscovering what areas Maitimo is sensitive in now. He is focusing on his ears and his throat.

Of course, the orc ruins it.

Findekano does not realise the orc is even there, until Maitimo clears his voice. “Hello, little star,” he says, pointedly.

Findekano looks and the orc is staring at them, watching intently.

“Hello!” And then because nothing the orc says is ever normal, “Are you going to fuck? Is it a punishment?”

Findekano thinks the worst thing is how casually the orc asks.

“No!” he says, as Maitimo says, “Gil, we've talked about this -”

The orc says, “That's good, because it's better when you fuck him than when the old master did. He used to cry afterwards with him, and with you he doesn't. Usually.”

The obscenity in the child's voice is nearly as shocking as the content of the words. Findekano stares at him.

It's not like he didn't know. Maitimo has returned with abilities and fears he did not use to have. But since Maitimo has never said anything, Findekano just tries never to know that he knows. But to hear it from the lips of a child - though he is not a child, he is an orc -

“Gil!” Maitimo is using that tone which means he is annoyed, but he is being patient. The orc looks guilty.

“Sorry, da,” he mumbles.

“What have I told you? No talking about that, and particularly no talking about me in that context. It's inappropriate, and you're too young.”

The orc stares at him beseechingly. “I wouldn't normally, but it's -” He gestures at Findekano.

“Definitely not to Findekano. You don't want him to think you have no manners, do you?”

The orc shakes his head and mumbles an apology.

“My good little star,” says Maitimo, soothingly. “Leave us, will you? Findekano and I have things to discuss.”

The orc runs away and Maitimo laughs, apologises, a little embarrassed and a little nervous. He starts to kiss Findekano again.

Findekano recoils.

Maitimo jerks back, worried. “Finno?” he asks.

“You fucked Thauron?” It's not exactly what he wants to ask, but he doesn't have the words for what he wants to ask. Quenya doesn't have the words for what he wants to ask.

Findekano can feel the fury building in his body, the urge to kill someone. Ideally Thauron, but anything would do.

Maitimo cringes back, cowering, raising his arms to protect his face. “I'm - I'm sorry, I didn't have a choice, I promise, I didn't want to, none of them. I didn't think - I'm sorry, I betrayed you -”

At that moment Findekano hates the way Maitimo reacts to him, too. He is not the Enemy. He is not Thauron. Why does Maitimo treat him as if he is, when he has done nothing but love him?

“Stop it,” he says, with more force in his voice than he meant, and Maitimo freezes. His only movement is his frightened eyes watching Findekano's every move.

“Stop it!”

Findekano gets up off the bed and stands facing the wall of the tent. He balls his fists and counts to ten, trying to breathe deeply. When his breathing is normal again, he turns back to Maitimo, who has not moved a muscle.

“I'm not angry with you,” he says, trying to modulate his voice. “I'm angry that happened to you. Do you understand?”

He is not sure that it's true. But it's what should be true, he thinks. None of this is Maitimo’s fault. Torture is torture.

Maitimo nods quickly, but Findekano thinks he could have said the cow on the moon was coming for tea and Maitimo would have agreed. He can see how quickly Maitimo is breathing.

Findekano sometimes feels that he is not allowed to have emotions around Maitimo, and he resents it. He cannot hide his emotions well enough for Maitimo, anyway: he always knows, so what does it matter?

“Aren't you angry?” he asks instead, frustrated.

Maitimo nods too quickly, too eagerly, but he also looks surprised at the question, which is a good sign. It means he's listening.

Then something about the situation hits Findekano, and all his anger drains away, replaced by pity for the terrified figure on the bed. “Oh, Russo,” he says sadly, wearily, and slowly gets back on the bed. He is careful not to touch Maitimo, leaving his hands visible and calm as if Maitimo is a frightened horse.

Maitimo slowly leans over towards him, as if moving too fast will set Findekano off again, and tentatively kisses him. Findekano lets him.

Maitimo's long fingers touch Findekano's body, and his mouth follows. Findekano knows what Maitimo is doing, knows that Maitimo wants comfort and control and not him really, but he also knows that rejecting him will be worse. He will only panic and try harder to find a way to control the situation.

Findekano closes his eyes and tries to pretend he is not here, but somewhere else, somewhere better. Somewhere that feels so long ago.

*

The orc likes to bring people presents.

The rabbit fur was only the beginning of it. He brings Findarato a pair of birds “for his supper”. Findarato squeals and shudders as if he has never been hunting and sends him to give them to the cook, but he kisses Gil’s cheek anyway, so Gil is pleased.

He brings both Irisse and Findekano himself squirrel fur on a regular basis. They are hard to trap, and small, so squirrel fur is rare in the camp: but the orc excels at catching them, and soon, both Findekano and his sister have full fur cloaks.

Findekano cannot deny that the added warmth is nice, even though Beleriand is so much less cold than the ice.

Then a soldier teaches the orc to whittle, and they all end up with a collection of wooden animals. He starts with birds, and even when he is new they are all distinctive, recognisable as a swallow or a duck or a wagtail. Of course, he makes Findekano an eagle.

As ever he learns quickly. He makes Maitimo a set for the game of kings, which it turns out the orc loves. After he found out that Maitimo knows it too, he tried to make him play with him every day: Maitimo refused on the grounds of not having his own set, and it being rude to borrow Findekano’s too often.

Maitimo soon regrets his choice of excuse. Findekano laughs and thinks it's good for him, and Nolofinwe and even Turukano come to play one or both of them fairly regularly.

Maitimo doesn't mind beating Findekano or his father, but he is always careful to lose to Turukano, who is a gracious victor but tends to remember his objections to Maitimo if he loses. The orc has no such scruples, and though he loses most of the time due to plain recklessness, Findekano enjoys seeing the occasions when his stuck-up younger brother loses to an orc.

For Irisse, the orc carves falcons and horses, and she points out all of his mistakes, however small. Perversely, the orc is pleased by this, and returns with better versions until she cannot find fault in them and she displays them in her tent.

For Findarato, the orc settles on beads and hair clips, carved with tiny but elaborate patterns. Findarato is much happier with these than with carcasses and often wears them, particularly when he visits Maitimo and the orc, which he does regularly.

And for Findekano, he makes puzzles. Findekano is not quite sure why the orc thought he would appreciate them, but he cannot deny that he does.

Findekano manages to never think about Arakano by thinking a lot about Maitimo instead. He focuses on what he has regained, rather than what he has lost. He is aware that he's doing it, and yet, it is vital that his little brother does not cross his mind, not his impetuous bravery, not his utter inability to be still, not the way he braided his hair like Findekano for years as a child, not his sharp mind that could grasp any idea in an instant.

Findekano could not cope if he did.

As he solves the orc’s puzzles, he thinks about Maitimo, and his orc, and the future, and his father and sister, and how they will defeat the Enemy and regain the Silmarils. He certainly never thinks about how much his brother would have loved to play with one of the orc’s puzzles, and would have solved it much faster than him.

He could not cope if he did.

*

Neither Maitimo nor the orc seem very aware that they are living in a tent, and thus can be easily heard from outside of it. He supposes neither of them have the extensive experience of living inside cloth walls that those who crossed the Helcaraxe do: that, or they do not care if they are overhead.

There are many times Findekano hears them speaking in some awful orcish tongue, which makes some kind of fundamental disgust rise in him when he hears it.

One time, he hears them talking in it, but then discussing it in Quenya, and he realises, they are translating.

“No, flesh is a better translation - try how now my flesh, my naked fellow.”

“Oh, I like that better, it has more of the rhythm of the Black Speech. What have we got now?”

“How now my flesh, my naked fellow,
Dug of the sea, the glanded morrow,
Worm in the scalp, the staked and fallow.
All all and all, the corpse's lover…”

Findekano is curious, and now he is allowed to know that the orc exists, so he enters the tent.

They both look up at him when he enters. Maitimo still cannot really walk but he can sit. They are holding parchment and quills, both in their left hands. The orc’s quill still has a lot of feathers on it, and so unsurprisingly his parchment is blotched and stained with ink.

“Finno!” says Maitimo, looking very pleased with himself. “Would you like to hear a lament from Angamando? We've been trying to translate it. Gil has been a wonderful help, he's got a great ear for poetry.”

The orc looks back at Maitimo, flushing with pleasure.

“Of course,” says Findekano, curious. He had had no idea orcs wrote poetry or music. It does not fit with his idea of them, but then, Maitimo’s orc has many surprises.

Maitimo gently elbows the orc, who sits up straight, looking nervous.

“Can I have your parchment, da?” He whispers. “Mine’s too hard to read.”

Maitimo snorts. “Mine isn't much better,” he says ruefully, turning the page so that Findekano can see it before handing it to the orc. Maitimo’s handwriting is barely legible.

Findekano sometimes feels like his and Maitimo’s lives are made up of thousands of tiny losses, little cuts at the fabric of their lives: here is another. Maitimo had had beautiful handwriting back home, and had been proud of it too.

“It's not finished, but this is the best verse we've done so far,” announces the orc. He hesitates, and Maitimo gives him a nod.

“Fear not the waking world, my mortal,
Fear not the flat, synthetic blood,
Nor the heart in the ribbing metal.
Fear not the tread, the seeded milling,
The trigger and scythe, the bridal blade,
Nor the flint in the lover's mauling.”

The orc recites like he is in the academy in Tirion, but what he recites is strange.

“A lament, you say?” Maitimo nods. “I can see it - a strange mix of tenderness and violence.”

Maitimo lights up. He has always enjoyed poetry, Findekano remembers. “Yes! It's very appropriate - they live short and brutal lives in Angamando, overshadowed by the cruelty of the Enemy. But - you can see the beauty in it, too?”

Findekano considers. “I can see the craft in it,” he says. “It could almost be a smith of the Noldor, with their blade and scythe and flint.”

“The orcs are clever at making things, like us. Though they tend to create for utility, not merely for beauty. But perhaps we too now create for utility. Could you have imagined Findarato wearing such an outfit as he does now back in Tirion?”

They both laugh. Their vain cousin would rather have gone naked than without his silks and fineries. Only Tyelkormo dressed in leathers and furs when not on the hunt, and those were of much better quality then.

Maitimo continues. “But the orcs acknowledge the ugliness of the world, the fear that they live with, the inhumanity of their tools. And yet they find beauty in it, perhaps all the greater for the contrast. Is it not suitable for us, too, beloved?”

Findekano smiles at him. “Perhaps,” he allows. “But you are beautiful yet, or you will be. You are getting there already.”

Maitimo flushes, and the orc looks thrilled.

Findekano hastily goes back to the poetry. “In some ways it is like our verse - is that your translation, or is the orcish original also split into hemistiches? That is the correct term, is it not, for the two balanced halves?”

“You were listening after all, Finno!” Maitimo beams at him. “Yes, you're right, although they're not technically the same as ours - it doesn't have the same metre, or the alliteration. But yes, that rhythm is in the original, and the way the last words echo each other too, almost like a song.”

“It's very clever,” says Findekano, which is about as positive as he feels he can be and still be truthful. The lament makes him uncomfortable: it feels like revelling in the orcs’ corruption, somehow.

But both Maitimo and the orc look pleased at the praise, and Findekano feels a little twinge of guilt.

“Oh, Finno, would you do me a favour? Can you trim Gil’s hair?”

Findekano feels horrified, and he must look it, because Maitimo laughs.

“Don't worry, nobody is expecting it to be good. Only he’s ruined a good part of it at the back - don't ask how - and it needs to be levelled out. He doesn't trust anyone else, and I'd do it, only…”

Only Maitimo’s hand is still so shaky he might cut the orc’s ear off. Findekano will do anything so that Maitimo no longer has that expression on his face.

“Of course,” he says immediately, and then to the orc, “Come on, let's leave Maitimo to rest.”

Of course, as they walk together, the orc asks him awful questions. Findekano has started to avoid being alone with the orc whenever possible: he is much more circumspect in front of Maitimo.

The orc inevitably starts. “Why do you call him by his thrall name?”

Findekano blinks. “I… don't.”

“Yes, you do,” the orc insists. “That's what the old master called him. He didn't like it.”

Maitimo has said nothing of the sort to him. “Maitimo is the name his mother gave him,” Findekano says stiffly.

“Oh,” says the orc. “My mother called me Dog.”

Findekano winces. It is typical of orcs, he supposes, but still. No child should be so obviously unvalued.

“Maitimo’s name for you is better, then,” he says.

“Everyone thought he was a fool, when he gave it to me. Challenging death like that, they thought it would take me immediately. But look! I'm still alive!”

“Challenging death?”

“Don't you do that? We don't have proper names until about my age, so that death doesn't think we're anything special and come to get us. Gil… that would attract death right over. But I knew my da would protect me.”

The orc’s faith in Maitimo is touching. Findekano wonders how long it will last, particularly having seen Maitimo subject to all the terrors of Angamando. He can't always have been able to protect him.

“So do you know the old master then? Is that how he knew da’s name?”

Findekano would have choked at this question not too long ago. He is proud that today he does not.

“We knew the Enemy back home, though not very well.” Findekano tells him. “He used to pretend he was reformed, but of course, he wasn't, really. He used to try and talk to Maitimo, but Maitimo's father hated him, so he never would. I wasn't important enough for him to bother with.”

The orc nods. “Do you have a favourite form of torture?”

That does make Findekano double take.

“Why do you ask me these sorts of questions?” Findekano realises immediately that his voice is too loud, too annoyed, that Maitimo would be afraid if he were here and so too will the orc be, probably. He doesn't like the orc, but he is still a child, and he doesn't want to scare him.

But the orc is looking at him with his clear grey eyes. “Da says I should be careful what I ask most people, but that I can ask you anything,” he explains seriously.

Oh. That's - that's actually much more wholesome than Findekano had expected. And if Maitimo did have a child, Findekano would want the child to feel comfortable asking him anything. He thought back to the conversation he had with his father, and resolved to play along, act as if the orc was a real child. For Maitimo.

“That's right. You can. But - we don't torture anyone. That's why I was upset: if someone asked someone that here, it would be an insult, you would be calling them a bad person.”

“Only to help them?” the orc asks. “Da says that's why you were hurting him before. To help him.”

Findekano nods, relieved. At least Maitimo has listened to some of what Findekano has been telling him. “Exactly. So you help him with his writing, correct? Sometimes that hurts him and upsets him, but as he does more, it gets better over time. So it helps him.”

The orc nods. “That makes sense,” he says. “I'm glad you don't torture people here. That's better than Angamando.”

Findekano is, for the first time, genuinely curious. “Is there anything that's better about Angamando?”

“I miss my friends! There aren't many children here,” says the orc. “And it was warmer. And sometimes, I don't like the way people look at me and da. And there are so many new things to learn. Sometimes it's tiring. And I miss the music. Da says you have music here, too, but I haven't heard much, only very simple things. And… everything is simpler here. You live very simple lives, no machines, no smithing, very little craft. Da always talked about how his people were famed for their craft, but compared to home…”

“Ah, child,” says Findekano, “you should have seen us back at our home. We had craft you would have been amazed by. We have lost so much, and we are only starting to rebuild, but we will build wonders, don't you worry. Your father's people are better craftsmen than us, as well.”

Findekano wonders if Maitimo has explained the split between the houses, but the orc doesn't comment, so it seems so.

“I hope to meet them one day,” the orc says eagerly.

“Soon, child, soon.”

*

Then, as promised, Maitimo’s brothers are allowed to visit.

Makalaure visits first. Findekano realises that he must technically be the High King right now - Maitimo has agreed to give up the crown, but has not been well enough to do so yet.

The thought of Makalaure being in charge of anything makes him laugh. What use is a soft and decadent musician in times of war?

Makalaure is not dressed like a High King when he visits. He wears robes which are discreet and ambiguous, without Feanorian red or any obvious symbols. He could be any Noldo, though he is still much better dressed than any in Findekano's father's camp.

He cries when he sees Maitimo. Findekano stays, because Maitimo had asked him to, but he tries to pretend he is part of the furniture.

It is a very personal conversation, but Makalaure doesn't even seem to have noticed him.

“I'm sorry,” is all Makalaure seems to be able to say. “I'm sorry, brother, I'm so sorry.”

Maitimo has his hand on his brother’s and looks exhausted already. “Are the rest of our brothers safe, Kano?” Makalaure nods, tear-filled eyes wide. “Then you did everything I asked you to, everything I wanted.”

Makalaure stands there, tears running down his cheeks, making no move to hide them. Maitimo gathers his brother to him with such gentleness that Findekano is almost surprised: the other way around would seem more fitting to him.

“Could you leave us, please, Finno?” Maitimo asks quietly. Clearly whatever he feared has not come to pass.

“Shout if you need me, I'll be outside,” says Findekano, and goes.

The murmur of low voices goes on for a while and Findekano drifts, imagining if only he could be reunited with his own brother, and relishing the pain in his abdomen the thought brings him. It is proof of his love, proof that his brother existed.

“Findekano?” Makalaure's rich, musical tenor makes him jump, and he scrambles to his feet. Makalaure looks at him with swollen eyes, his face blotched, but he is smiling.

Then he drops to his knees, and kisses the hem of Findekano's robes.

Findekano stares. He cannot imagine Makalaure, arrogant, biting, proud Makalaure, the best musician of the Noldor, on his knees to anyone. And yet here he is, and part of Findekano understands; if someone had rescued Arakano -.

Part of Findekano, ridiculously, can only think about the orc. Makalaure is small and dark-haired, just like the orc, and it somehow seems like such an orcish gesture. Master and mastered.

But Makalaure's eyes are fierce, when he looks up at Findekano, with none of the fear that Maitimo’s eyes seem to always carry now. “Thank you,” he says. “You saved him twice, Alqualonde and here. You went to Angamando, you faced the Enemy alone, for my brother.’

“I didn't face the Enemy,” Findekano points out. “I didn't even see him.”

Makalaure, still on his knees, looks annoyed. Pedantry is clearly taking away from the dramatics of his gesture.

“Even if not his person, you faced him in the metaphorical sense,” Makalaure says, and the irritation is clear in his voice. He takes an obvious breath, and continues in a smoother tone. “You have our undying gratitude. Unfortunately Nolofinwe didn't actually tell us anything, only that Russandol was here, so I have no token for you. But, cousin -” and here Makalaure's voice falters, and it sounds genuine, small and sad and lost - “thank you for bringing my brother back.”

On an impulse, Findekano envelops him in a hug, and after a second, Makalaure hugs back. They have never been particularly close: Maitimo loves them both, but Makalaure has always been a little jealous of his brother's attachment to his cousin, and if Findekano is honest, the other way around is true, as well.

So this feels important.

Makalaure whispers in his ear, “My wife didn't even leave Valinor for me.”

If Findekano were Maitimo, he would blush. Makalaure is clever, as always, though in Findekano's experience he usually uses that cleverness to cut: but in this case, Findekano thinks, he is recognising and honouring their relationship, without saying anything explicitly, in case someone did overhear them. Little spoken is private in a city of tents.

*

The next brother to visit is Tyelkormo, and he does bring gifts.

Some are on Maitimo's behalf to Findekano's family - such as a small herd of horses for Nolofinwe as their camp has none, including a grey stallion trained to the hunt for Irisse, a large war-trained bay mare for Findekano, and a sweet-tempered dappled grey cob with lightly feathered feet for Findarato, who has never been the most confident rider.

Findekano is in love. The mare is as good as any he had in Valinor, and he recognises Makalaure's hand in the training. She is vicious and can even perform a capriole, the ultimate war-horse’s move: he has never had a horse who can, since they were prohibitively expensive even in Aman. It is a kingly gift, worth probably as much as the rest of the horses put together.

Maitimo has also arranged for tools for wood and metal-working, along with animals: mostly oxen, goats, and chickens.

Of far more interest to Findekano are the individual gifts. Tyelkormo has given Irisse a pair of hunting dogs and a young falcon: she still doesn't forgive him, but they do both suspiciously disappear for a period of time. To look at the dogs, Findekano is sure.

Findarato gets bolts of cloth: silks, linens, and wools mostly, in brightly-dyed colours. Some are embroidered already, and Findekano suspects Carnistir’s work, or perhaps Maitimo’s own, from before.

The other members of the family are given gifts too, if perhaps less personalised. Turukano gets books: Nolofinwe gets a sword, marked with his half-brother's symbol. His father weeps when he receives it. Angarato and Aikanaro also receive weapons, though theirs are newly made: a pair of spears and a shield each. Artanis receives a sword and shield instead, and Nolofinwe disapproves, but Findekano can see she is pleased, even though she hides it, since she has little love for her half-cousins.

Findekano gets a mountain of gifts. Findekano has always liked presents, feeling the excitement of a child on his name-day: he sometimes thinks he likes the occasion more than the gifts themselves. Tyelkormo somehow knows this or has been told, because he keeps popping out of Maitimo's tent to present him with one more gift, grinning manically despite his own tears, thoroughly enjoying his role.

Along with the horse, Makalaure has sent him a set of tack, leather for practicality but set with gold: it shines beautifully in the sun. He has also sent a large harp, as he must have realised only Findekano’s smallest could have made it across the ice.

The others have gifted him a rather ridiculous amount of things, many of which are eagle-themed. A pair of daggers with eagle pommels; a necklace that covers most of his chest in the silhouette of an eagle, rubies for its eyes; a blue jewel in a gold setting with an eagle flying across it as if across the sky; a set of perfectly-sized black robes with golden thread, with eagle motifs winding up both sleeves. It has only been a few days since Makalaure returned to the Feanorians: they must have not slept to make those so quickly.

It makes Findekano’s heart warm. He knows Maitimo loves his brothers: but it is nice to see it returned, and with such obvious devotion. Perhaps he had somewhat doubted them for not rescuing their brother themselves.

He had not expected gratefulness from them, athough he cannot really think why not.

It is all to his taste and size, too, heavy gold jewellery, and they have also included a lot which is not eagle themed: Findekano gasps every time Tyelkormo hands him another necklace or earring or bracelet or tiara or brooch. They have made him thin gold ribbons for his hair, enough rings for several people to wear, and of course, weapons. Bows, swords, spears, shields… Findekano feels like he now has more weapons than everyone else on their side put together. They even give him hairbrushes and belt buckles made of gold.

There are stranger gifts, too. A book of love poetry that Findekano has never heard of, but it makes him blush when he realises it is about two men; a pair of gloves and a tunic made of tiny metal rings, interlinked, which Findekano has never seen the like of before; an orb that glows bright when it is touched in the right place, which Findekano had seen in Feanaro's halls in Formenos, but which were never for sale.

Findekano feels almost embarrassed to have so much when his people have so little.

Maitimo's quiet voice calls him into the tent. The orc is there, stroking Huan who he clearly already loves, and Tyelkormo is stretched across Maitimo, his face buried in his shoulder.

“His name is Dog?” The orc is saying excitedly. “My mother-name is Dog!”

“Well, you must be all right then, mustn't you?” says Tyelkormo in a serious tone, slightly muffled by the fabric of Maitimo's nightshirt. “Dogs have much better qualities than the Speaking Peoples.”

“We have gifts for you, Finno,” says Maitimo, and Tyelkormo catches his eye with his predatory, toothy grin. Findekano almost laughs, but keeps his face straight, since Maitimo looks serious.

“My brothers regretted that this could not have been done more properly,” his lover says, quietly. He nods at Tyelkormo, who hands Findekano a package.

Inside is a silver brooch, again in the shape of an eagle, with a huge flawless green stone. It seems to reflect the light as Findekano admires it.

“My father gave the stone to me, a long time ago,” Maitimo says, “to give to - well, you know.” He blushes, looking at the bed rather than Findekano.

“Curufinwe made the eagle,” says Tyelkormo, his eyes dancing with amusement at his brother's embarrassment. “They say that anyone who wears it can heal the hurts of others.” He snorts. “Clearly father thought that Nelyo's wife would need it.”

Findekano stares, and then puts together Maitimo's embarrassment, Tyelkormo's amusement, and the priceless gift.

“Is this an engagement gift?” he asks incredulously. “Russo, don't you think it's a bit late for that? We've technically been married for over three hundred years!”

“Still newlyweds, then,” says Tyelkormo, not bothering to hide his laughter.

Maitimo’s face falls and he blushes again. “I just thought… you seem insistent that you still want me and we never recognised it, never had an engagement or gifts from family or rings or… but you're right, it is silly. I don't know what I was thinking. It's probably the last thing you want to remember right now, after… But take it anyway, just as a gift.”

“Russo, no.” Findekano says firmly, and his heart is full. He understands what Maitimo and Tyelkormo are offering: his family's approval and recognition. What Findekano has wanted for a long time.

“I love it,” he says, “and it means a lot. I was just - surprised, beloved. I didn't know you wanted all of that.” He leans over to kiss Maitimo, though it is awkward with Tyelkormo's face right there, and then pins the brooch on his cloak.

“I'll never take it off,” Findekano promises.

Gil is watching them with an unhealthy amount of glee.

“Oh, Nelyo is a romantic,” Tyelkormo says cheerfully. “He always wanted the big wedding and as many children as father. Perhaps now we're here, things can be different.”

With Feanaro gone… Beleriand is large, probably large enough for them to throw a wedding and not have Findekano's father find out for a long time.

Maitimo and Tyelkormo are looking at each other. Maitimo is frowning and Tyelkormo is grinning. Gil is looking confused: clearly he is not in on whatever this is.

“Yes,” Tyelkormo says firmly, teeth showing enough that he looks vaguely threatening. “How long have you been chickening out of this?”

Maitimo has an expression like he wants to run back to Angamando. Findekano looks from one to the other, his curiosity mounting.

“It's too much,” says Maitimo, protesting weakly.

“How long have you been saying that, dear brother?”

Tyelkormo doesn't wait for an answer, but brings out yet more packages, and gives one to each of them. “Ah, Kano and the Ambarussa will be so sad to have missed this. Moryo would have cried.” Tyelkormo's voice is teasing.

Findekano opens his package. It is a ring, made of gold, with tiny flowers studded along the rim, in all the colours of gem he can think of. It is incredibly elaborate work.

He looks up at them in confusion, and Maitimo will not meet his eyes.

“I told you he wouldn't get it,” says Tyelkormo loudly. “Look, this is your father's sigil, and this is ours, mixed together. But subtly, too subtly for some people, I think.”

Then Findekano sees it. It is very clever - obvious once you know it is there, but subtle enough to be worn in public without people wondering why he was wearing Feanaro's symbol.

He launches himself onto the bed, pushing Tyelkormo off, and kissing Maitimo hard. “Right, off you get,” Findekano says to Tyelkormo and the orc. “Russandol and I have things to discuss. You can come back in… half an hour. No, an hour.”

Tyelkormo laughs and grabs the orc’s hand as they leave.

*

Later Tyelkormo kisses the hem of Findekano's robe, too, thanking him, though without the tears. If Makalaure had been a surprise, Tyelkormo is even more so: but Tyelkormo has always been loyal above all, to Orome, to Irisse, and apparently to his eldest brother. He presses a set of heavy gold bangles into Findekano's hands somewhat awkwardly, and then strides off without looking back.

Despite the fact that Tyelkormo rarely wears jewellery, and then only leather or fur or his pendant from Orome, Findekano thinks they must be his own. There are seven bangles, each marked with a Feanorian star, and each has a different animal on it. A fox, a songbird, a dog, and so on.

*

Curufinwe’s visit goes less well. He turns up with a bag full of metal and tools and insists on trying his contraptions on Maitimo's stump. It hasn't fully healed yet, so even though Maitimo allows him to experiment, Maitimo is clearly in a lot of pain, and grumpy about it too. Curufinwe is always grumpy, so it doesn't make for a good combination.

From his guard outside Maitimo’s tent, Findekano can hear bits of the conversation when they raise their voices.

“You cannot give up our father's legacy,” Curufinwe is halfway between shouting and hissing.

“Well then, you should have rescued me! You had thirty years, Curvo, and then I would have had other choices, wouldn't I?”

And later:

“I'm not strong or brave, Curvo, that's horseshit, and frankly insulting. That's what you want me to be to make it easier for you. I survived either because of the Oath or because Thauron wanted me to, or maybe even both, and if it had been up to me, I would have made my way to Mandos’s Halls on the second day I was there. Or the Void. Believe me, I wouldn't have cared.”

And later again:

“I suppose you would have preferred me dead, and the crown still in the family.”

When Curufinwe leaves he is dry-eyed and furious. When he sees Findekano sitting outside, playing with one of the daggers which has an eagle pommel, he glares.

“Were you listening, Nolofinwion?” he spits.

“Only when you were shouting,” Findekano says mildly. “I think half the camp heard you then.”

Curufinwe kicks a clod of grass. He looks at Findekano for a long moment, disdain and reluctance written on his face, and then drops down to kiss Findekano’s robes - or more accurately, touch them and bring his head somewhat near him.

“Thank you,” he mutters, as if it physically pains him..

*

Carnistir’s visit is uneventful, because he is careful not to talk to anyone but Maitimo. Findekano thinks he is under instruction not to.

Even the what feels like by now obligatory gratitude to Findekano is peformed silently, and ends by shoving a very heavy pile of embroidered cloth into Findekano's arms.

When Findekano looks through them, the embroidery is exquisite, and Carnistir has included a large bag of gold coins in the center.

The twins are next. Findekano is fairly sure that his father specified one person at a time, but he does not say anything when they turn up, because he is too horrified by how they look.

The rest of the brothers look more or less as they had done in Aman, though as they were trying for anonymity they were less ornately dressed than had been the norm at home.

The twins look more like orcs than Eldar.

The orc, who is sitting next to Findekano as he guards Maitimo's tent, points at them when they approach. “They're like me and da!” he marvels.

They are horrendously scarred, the ripples of burns running down each one's face and neck on opposing sides. Their hair is almost entirely shaved off, with only one plait each running down to their waists, one red and one brown. He first thinks they are plaited with beads, but he soon realises it is actually bone. Animal bone, he hopes.

They are both tall and muscular now, warriors rather than the children he remembers them being, and they both look terrifying. Instead of the cloak clasps, necklaces or brooches the others wear to mark their allegiances, the twins have the Star of Feanor scarred into their foreheads.

They wear mostly leather, dyed black, and red cloaks. People are pointing and staring, and more so when they kneel to him.

The contrast between their ferocious appearances and their genuine gratitude surprises Findekano yet again.

“You saved our brother,” the dark-haired one whispers, tears in his eyes.

“Without Nelyo… it was worse than when father died,” the other adds.

“We have never liked you, Findekano.”

“Thanks,” says Findekano drily.

“But we do now!” the other says hurriedly.

“He means to say, we owe you our everlasting thanks.”

“Here, we’re adding ours to the pile.”

They both sit down cross legged on the grass and reach into the bags they have brought, and if Findekano does not look at them he can imagine they are dropping in for a visit at his house in Tirion.

Their gifts are practical. A leather cloak trimmed with fur, and a smaller one for the orc. Leather ropes, and a few different leather hoods, all made beautifully, of course, but meant to be used rather than displayed. They also bring pottery: a variety of objects are pulled out, elaborate cups and bowls among them, but there are plenty of things he doesn't recognise, such as what looks like smithing moulds.

He hurries the twins into Maitimo's tent as soon as is conceivably polite.

“Wait,” he asks Maitimo later. “Didn't only one of them almost burn at Losgar?

Maitimo's face is grim as he nods.

*

Now that Nolofinwe has allowed them to visit, there's always at least one Feanorion hanging around the camp. If Findekano isn't spending the night with Maitimo - and sometimes even if he is - they can be found in Maitimo's bed. It is the inverse of all the nights Findekano remembered back in Valinor, when Maitimo's brothers had slept with him for comfort.

It is like they believe that they can transmit their love and guilt and hope from their skin to his.

Makalaure comes the most often, looking progressively less and less exhausted, though still presumably burdened by trying to keep the Feanorians somewhat in line.

“Makalaure,” says Findekano, awkwardly, having gathered up his courage, when they are alone. “Can I ask you something?”

There is no scathing retort from his musician's quick tongue: instead, he follows Findekano back to his tent quietly.

Findekano is not quite sure how to ask. “I promise I won't tell anyone else about this conversation,” he says, “whatever you tell me. Not my father, not anyone. But, Makalaure, I have to know, so please don't lie to me - is it true about Russandol not burning the ships?”

Makalaure stares at him. “Have you not asked Nelyo?”

It would break his heart to hear of his beloved’s betrayal from his own lips, and Maitimo would not pull any punches. He never does, when it's about himself.

Findekano shakes his head. “I can't hear it from him. I can't. And listen, if it's not true, I understand, it was smart to tell my father that and I would never do anything, anything to put Russo in danger, I swear I won't tell a soul -”

Makalaure cuts across him. “It's true,” he says, and though his face is guilty his eyes have that spark which shows he is telling the truth. “Nelyo stood aside. He tried to stop our father, he fought him even. He spoke your name, Findekano the Valiant, when he did so.”

Oh. Findekano feels - Findekano doesn't know what he feels, but it is like being back on the eagle’s back, flying over the rivers and forests and plains, his lover in his arms, alive alive alive.

“Thank you, Makalaure,” he says, and only then does he realise he is crying.

“Call me Kano,” Makalaure offers, and takes him into his arms. He smells of perfume and sweat and horse. “I never thought you loved him, you know. I thought you would break his heart.”

Findekano laughs. “Never,” he says. “Never. It's the other way around we should worry about.”

Makalaure smiles, and it is soft and genuine, a smile Findekano has only ever seen given to his brothers. “I know that now,” he says.

*

Findekano overhears Maitimo and the orc talking about what to do if Maitimo is killed.

“Go to uncle Kano,” the orc says, and recites directions Findekano thinks he is not supposed to know.

“Good, little star,” says Maitimo. “And if you can’t? Or you need help?”

“Then your Findekano.”

*

The Feanorions’ presence is only barely tolerated, and wherever they are recognised they are met with glares and insults. Findekano is indeed celebrated for his rescue of one of them: but people say that doesn't means that they have to have them in the camp.

Nolofinwe, however, is thrilled by his own largesse. Maitimo is delighted to see his brothers again, and thanks Findekano's father for it so extensively and gratefully that Findekano feels a bit ill, though Nolofinwe laps it all up.

The orc is very pleased. He is thrilled to meet his “uncles”, who to a one take Nolofinwe's approach of going along with whatever Maitimo says, however ridiculous. Findekano supposes they are so happy to have their brother back that they will accept whatever comes with him, whether that be a brash Nolofinwion (as he has heard Curufinwe calling him - not a bad name, and not untrue) or a small orc.

Findekano thinks he probably ought to be offended.

The orc also apparently always needs to tell Findekano what he thinks and who he has met today, and Findekano must be growing soft, because he finds himself avoiding the conversations less and less.

“Uncle Kano told me that once we go back to his camp, then he'll teach me how to ride! I told him that horses were scary and he laughed at me and told me that he started riding when he was two. But I don't believe him, he tells me such stories -”

Findekano is about to tell the orc that he is fairly sure he started riding at the age of two so it's definitely possible when there is a shout from the direction of Maitimo's tent. It is deep and has power, will and intent, and Findekano recognises it.

The orc has already disappeared. Findekano sprints towards Maitimo.

He has time to think, if someone wanted to assassinate someone in this camp, all they'd have to do would be to arrange it near Maitimo and everyone would run to him instead. They'd easily have enough time to get their target.

Then he sees there is blood seeping out from Maitimo's tent’s entrance, black and red mixing together.

He pushes back the tent flap and the orc is struggling against a fully grown Noldo. They are both bleeding, and the Noldo’s sword is cutting into the orc’s thigh.

Maitimo is lying on the bed as if he has been up, white and panting, trying to force himself upright. A crumpled body lies half on the bed. The insides of its head are scattered across the room, and a steady stream of blood is snaking its way over the floor.

Findekano has forgotten how much blood a body produces when its head is removed.

Findekano takes this all in at a moment. His Russo is safe: so he turns to the Noldo, and cuts their throat with his belt knife.

It is over in another moment, and there is only Maitimo's harsh breathing, the orc’s small pained sounds, and the strong smell of iron in the tent as more blood leaks from the floor.

“Gil,” says Maitimo, struggling to speak, his eyes wide and his face white. He has vivid red marks around his neck: has someone tried to strangle him? He tries to say something to Findekano, but he can't, and the next moment his Russo is in his mind. You can't take him to the healers. Get Ingo and quickly, please, beloved!

It is the first time that Maitimo has touched his mind since the rescue and their bond thrills into life like a weed that has been waiting for rain. Findekano wants to stop and marvel, to feel his lover once again, but he is already running for Findarato.

When they return, both running - Findekano has forgotten how fast Findarato can be when he wants, not stopping even to put shoes on - Maitimo has made his way onto the floor and the orc is propped up next to him. The cut on his thigh looks deep, and it is not the only one.

Maitimo has tied his shirt tight around Gil’s thigh and it is stained black.

Findarato stops when he sees the scene, but doesn't hesitate after that. This is Findekano's favourite Findarato. Findekano knows that his pretty cousin is vain, enjoying jewellery and clothes and is well aware of how he looks. But that is all true of Findekano too, but nobody respects him less as a warrior or a hunter or an athlete for it. Whereas Findarato is widely considered useless: nice, pretty, vain, but without substance. People had expected him to turn back rather than join them on the Ice, particularly when he brought nearly his bodyweight in jewellery and not much else, and yet people's minds still haven't changed.

But right now Findarato is matter of fact and competent, in control of the situation in a way that people generally do not believe him capable of.

Findarato lowers himself to the floor, his feet and anklets already stained by the mixed black and red blood on the floor. “Are you injured?” he asks Maitimo, first, even as he runs his fingers over the cut on the orc’s thigh.

Maitimo shakes his head, raising his arm which has a shallow cut on it. His face and neck are going to be bruised, too.

Findekano tries to reconstruct events. Perhaps the would-be assassins did not want a clean death. If so, that was very lucky indeed. Or perhaps Maitimo had stopped them somehow, with that shout, but then why the marks and no cuts?

Findarato asks, gently, “Are you hurt anywhere else, Gil?”

“No,” says the orc. “Not really.” His words are brave but his voice shakes as if he's struggling to speak too. Findekano can see that he is crying, his eyes tight in fear and pain. Maitimo is putting his weight on Gil’s thigh, and Gil has his hands clenched white by his side.

Findekano’s heart goes out to him. Any child in pain is difficult to see, even an orc. “Hey, Gil,” he says quietly, moving on to the other side of the orc. He hopes they are not all crowding him, and is prepared to move back if Gil looks panicked, but instead he has relief in his eyes when he sees Findekano approach.

“You're being so brave, Gil,” he says, as he takes one of the orc’s hands. So small compared to his.

Maitimo flashes him a wide smile.

Findekano desperately hopes the orc won't die. It would break Maitimo. He is still too fragile.

Findarato is now sat in the blood and gore on the tent floor, his robes ruined, both his hands on Gil’s thigh, pressing the sides of the gash together. There is a line between his eyes: he looks worried.

“Keep up the pressure, Nelyo,” he says to Maitimo, and then to Gil, “I'm going to Sing, all right? It might feel strange, but please don't be afraid. Try and relax. Russandol and Findekano are both here, and they wouldn't let anything hurt you.”

That's a bit rich considering they just have, thinks Findekano, but Gil smiles faintly at them both with such trust in his eyes. Findekano squeezes his hand.

Findarato starts to Sing. His normally sweet voice is harder, stranger, carrying something around with it. It does feel odd, the power thrumming so close to him, and Gil’s face is definitely uncomfortable. Still, he doesn't say a word, only clings harder to Findekano's hand.

Findekano doesn't know how long they have been sitting in the rapidly cooling blood and gore, which is starting to stick to all of them, when Makalaure hurries in.

“I've told Nolofinwe,” he says to Maitimo, voice pitched low under Findarato's singing. “And the Ambarussa are coming. Nolofinwe offered guards, but -” he looks at the bodies - “these are his guards.”

Findarato gives Makalaure a pleading look, but doesn't stop Singing.

Makalaure gives him a thoroughly filthy look. “I hate you,” he mutters, and lowers himself gingerly into the blood-muck between Findarato and Maitimo.

He listens intently for a few moments and then starts to harmonise in his beautiful voice, adding power without changing the direction of the Song at all. It starts to feel even heavier, like a weight on all of them, crushing them as they struggle to lift it.

There is a refrain that Findarato keeps coming back to, and the next time around Makalaure pokes Findekano, not gently.

Findekano is afraid of ruining things, afraid of messing it up or doing it wrong: he enjoys singing, but he has little experience with Songs of Power.

But still, Gil is pale and his thigh is still bleeding heavily, and Findekano knows losing that much blood cannot be good for such a small child. So he sings.

He only joins in for the refrain, but even so, it is like being washed away by the tide. Makalaure is using him, somehow: Findekano can feel him extracting something from him with his voice, and adding it to the force against the weight in the room. He feels dizzy, but makes himself stay upright.

The Song is beautiful, he thinks hazily: like being underwater and seeing the light refract, while also knowing that the tide is slowly dragging you away from the shore, however hard you swim.

As they continue to Sing, Findekano has a faint awareness that it is not going well. Findarato looks anxious and drawn, his words fast and harsh: Makalaure is pale and he looks nothing like when he is performing and sounds nothing like it either, his Song now raw power with only a hint of music. And Findekano is barely staying upright with what Makalaure is drawing from him.

Gil’s clutch on his hand has gone limp, and Maitimo is holding him upright. The look on Maitimo's face shows that his beloved is well aware of the severity of the wound. If Findekano had anything that wasn't going into the Song, he would comfort him, but he can barely move. The Song is getting heavier and it is all the three of them can do together to keep it off the ground.

Findekano knows even through the fog in his mind that bad things will happen when it hits the ground.

He reaches for his ring, slowly, as a gesture, to tell his Russandol I love you. I'm here for you. The ring is deeply buried in a pocket, though, so he reaches for the Eagle-stone instead, which is on his cloak.

As he touches it, it hums with power, and Findekano’s eyes snap to Maitimo's. They both think the same thing at the same time.

Findekano rips it off the cloak, and holds it tightly in his two hands, pushing all the power he can through to Makalaure. Makalaure gasps and suddenly becomes a much healthier colour, as if all his blood were suddenly rushing to his face.

Then Makalaure takes over the Song for the first time, and Findarato, who has been concentrating entirely on Gil and doesn't understand what is happening, hesitates as he is visibly hit by a blast of power.

“Give it to him,” says Maitimo, or perhaps it is osanwe because Findekano cannot hear himself think over Makalaure's Song. Findekano does as he is told.

Now it is Findarato and himself adding power to Makalaure's song, which is simple and much more musical than the last one. The air still feels heavy around them, but they are pushing it up, up, up. It feels like the kind of manual labour that is satisfying rather than an impossible task.

Gil takes a big breath and starts to cough and cry again. Maitimo pulls him into his arms, as much a hug as making sure he can't move too much or push Findarato's hand on his thigh away.

Findekano feels dizzy from relief as they push the Song upwards, and soon it is hovering in the air by itself, light and airy.

Makalaure passes the Eagle-stone to Findarato and simply hums a line from the Song he has been singing, over and over, as Findarato establishes a new melody. This one is beautiful, light and delicate and detailed. It is asking them to join together, to find the correct paths again, to go back where they belong, and Findekano can feel it calling to him: he finds himself shuffling closer to Maitimo, and joins Makalaure in humming the previous song, though he is not sure if his voice is helping much at this point.

Both the Singers look less ill, now, although both look exhausted: Findekano feels like he could fall asleep right here. But they Sing on, and Findekano can feel Findarato’s touch on him sometimes, using what is left of his power, and when he isn't, he and Makalaure simply keep reminding Gil’s body of what it likes doing: making blood, circulating it, breathing. Healing.

At last Findarato’s Song drops off, and Makalaure stops humming. All three of them look at the boy. He is asleep, but as he sleeps he is breathing normally and his skin is glowing under the blood and gore.

Maitimo reaches out and hugs all three of them tightly, spreading more gore around, but he clings to them. “Thank you,” he says hoarsely. “Thank you.”

He is still struggling to talk, but Findekano can hear him clear as a bell as he broadcasts to them over osanwe: You saved him. You saved my son. And then specifically to Findekano: You saved my life, Finno, and now you've saved his.

Findekano shakes his head, and puts his spare hand around Maitimo's still too thin waist. “They're the ones who deserve your thanks.”

Findarato shakes his head, exhausted. “Without that stone, and Makalaure's power…” He gives the Eagle-stone back to Findekano, eyeing it covetously.

Makalaure says, “Without your knowledge, Ingoldo, we could never have done it.”

They all know just how close to death Gil was.

“I see why you wouldn't call the healers,” Findarato says to Maitimo. “When people called him an orc, I thought he was just… like you. But he must have some orc blood in reality, mustn't he, for his blood to be black?” He looks searchingly at Maitimo, who says nothing. “Don't worry, I won't tell.”

Maitimo has his hand occupied, so he gently touches the side of his head to the side of Findarato's.

Makalaure stands then, and his pale robes are heavily stained with black and blown. He looks very unhappy.

“Findekano,” he says. “Findarato. One of you has to show me to some clean clothes and ideally a bath - but I'll take a river - or else I'm going to cry. It's in my hair.”

Findarato stands, and his anklets jingle, even though they are so covered in dried blood that Findekano cannot tell if they were once gold or silver.

“I will,” he says. “And then I want to get drunk.”

“Yes,” says Makalaure, with feeling.

Findarato takes Makalaure's hand as they leave, saying something to the Ambarussa who have apparently been there for a while keeping people out.

Maitimo nods at Findekano and then towards them. Aren't you going to join them?

Findekano looks at the tent, the two corpses and the floor covered in blood, and his lover, whose hair looks brown with it.

“Let's get him into bed,” he says instead, and picks Gil up. Maitimo is too weak to stand by himself so he has to help Maitimo up too and back into the bed. They are both filthy, and so is Findekano, but he is exhausted and he doesn't care.

Findekano, Maitimo’s thought hits him, and he can feel his horror through their bond, shallow and newly remade as it is.

Finno. She hit me, and told me her children died on the Ice, all three of them, and their names were -

“Shhh,” says Findekano, stroking his back

And then I killed her.

“She would have killed Gil,” Findekano says sharply, surprising himself. But if it might help Maitimo… “Fuck her. She deserved it.”

Maitimo nodded, and his mind is a whirl of concern for Gil now - and love and trust and an ocean of gratefulness for Findekano.

“I'll just ask the Ambarussa to get someone to clear this all up,” says Findekano. He does, and then joins his lover and the sleeping boy, all curled up together in bed.

They're ruining the sheets. He does not care. All he cares about is Maitimo's warmth and touch, listening to the sounds of his breathing, knowing he is safe.

He reaches out for the boy, too, to check that he is breathing and warm.

Chapter Text

Chapter 3 - Gil

Findekano awakes to people talking in the tent. He is curled around Gil and Maitimo, or at least as much possible considering Maitimo is more than a head taller than him. He has his head on Maitimo's chest and his legs across his stomach, and Gil is curled up in the space between them.

Findekano knows he ought to be panicking when one of the voices is his father - he will find out about them - but Findekano cannot be properly awake yet because all he can feel is the heavy warmth of sleep and an undercurrent of relief.

He must have moved because his father appears above him. “Findekano,” his father says warmly. “Your loyalty to your cousin is admirable. Your friendship warms all our hearts. If only Feanaro and I had had the relationship that you two do, the world would be very different.”

Findekano tries not to choke, and then realises, it is not like he has never slept like this with his other cousins: Aikanaro and Angarato particularly. It is just to him that it is obviously different. Though he never slept holding Aikanaro or Angarato’s hand like he is holding Maitimo's right now.

The Ambarussa peer at him over Nolofinwe's shoulder, since apparently they are now taller than him. They look extremely dubious at his father's words. Findekano wants to laugh. “When did you two get so tall?” he asks, sleepily, and then smiles at his father. “Thanks, father.”

“Will you speak with me?” his father asks, indicating Maitimo and Gil, still asleep on the bed. They must all have been exhausted, because now that Findekano is awake, he realises there is a lot of noise and movement happening. The corpses have been removed and the blood is being scrubbed out of the tent by several people, all somehow very loud, and just outside the tent someone is shouting about the guards letting her down.

Findekano nods, and carefully gets up, trying not to disturb Maitimo or Gil. He even, emboldened by his father's words, places a chaste kiss on Maitimo's temple. Nolofinwe looks fond and approving: the Ambarussa look like they're going to burst out laughing.

Nolofinwe and Findekano retire to Findekano’s own tent, leaving the Ambarussa to guard Maitimo. One stands inside his tent and one outside, hands on the hilt of their swords.

“He's very beautiful, isn't he?” Nolofinwe says, when they are inside his tent, a strange and distant look on his face which Findekano does not like. “I can hardly believe he is the same skeleton you rescued and brought here atop that eagle. And those scars... But somehow, he is more beautiful even than he ever was, except for that hand. People say it is like he has been reborn.”

Findekano shrugs. “He is healing,” he says neutrally. Maitimo is always beautiful, to his eyes, and it is not something he wants to talk about with his father. “What did you want to talk about?”

This is the second attempt on Nelyafinwe's life -” begins Nolofinwe, but Findekano interrupts with sudden anger.

“Yes, by our own people! Our own guard! Can we not even trust our own people now?”

Nolofinwe's mouth twists. “It is a shame,” he says quietly. “But he is blamed for the suffering of our people.”

“But he didn't even burn the ships! It is less his fault than anyone else's. We chose to cross the Helcaraxe - they could have turned back.”

“Not all of them could have,” says Nolofinwe, quietly, and Findekano looks down, ashamed. His father is right and it is his fault. Not once has anyone blamed him for leading a part of his people to become kinslayers - they all say that he was ignorant of the cause, and thus innocent - but a heavy weight lies on him still. As it should.

It is true that he was ignorant as to the cause, but even had he known, he knows he could not have stood aside while his Russo was in danger.

He has never told anyone that. He thinks Irisse might know, though, or at least suspect. She is the only one of their siblings who joined him, who also has blood on her hands, and he thinks perhaps the right and wrong of it did also not matter to her as much as the adrenaline of battle, a chance to test her skills, and to fight aside her childhood friends.

Aikanaro and Angarato had also followed him, and he thinks that is a large part of the reason for the death of their friendship, for the three of them had been close in Valinor. Their friendship has been strained since Alqualonde: since Maedhros's rescue, they have not spoken to him.

Findekano cannot find it in himself to care.

“I think,” Nolofinwe continues quietly, “that the anger will die down once he has given up the crown. The healers say he should be able to start walking within a week or so, and I suggest we arrange it for as soon as possible.”

He pauses. “Nelyafinwe owes you a life debt, you know. The crown is nothing.”

Findekano swallows, and nods. He does not like this: it was not his intention to take Maitimo's crown, when he brought him here. He had not thought. And now here are the consequences of his actions.

And yet, he cannot bring himself to really regret it. Maitimo is alive, and his father is happy: relaxed and confident in a way he has not thought would be possible again after the Helcaraxe and Arakano's death. Like a poison has been drawn from him.

Findekano supposes his father has won what he had been angling for, all those years ago under the Trees. He does not quite understand why his father needs it so: nor why Maitimo seems content to give it up without a fight. Sometimes he feels like a child at the table with adults around the pair of them.

“Why do you want it, father?” he asks suddenly, because apparently Findekano can never just let things go.

Nolofinwe studies him in surprise. “Because I'll be a better king than Feanaro. Do you not think?”

“Yes, of course you will,” Findekano agrees hurriedly. That part is not in question: Feanaro never had any talent for ruling, and had he been High King for long, he suspects it is Maitimo who would have ended up doing most of the work.

Even he cannot ask, but do you really think you'd be a better king than Maitimo? Maitimo who was grandfather's second for hundreds of years, who Finwe taught everything he knew?

Instead he asks, “That's not in question, father. But why do you want to be king?”

Nolofinwe looks thoughtful. “That's a good question,” he says. “I suppose… I feel responsible. I feel like I could have protected our people, had it been me. I could have protected you and Irisse. I could have protected your Nelyafinwe, even. Arakano…” He cannot finish the sentence.

Taking a deep breath, he continues. “And… a small part of it… my father never saw me. He loved me, of course, and I loved him: but I don't think he ever really knew who I was, not really. He never saw what I was capable of. He never believed that I could be better at anything than Feanaro, the greatest of the Noldor. So… I want to prove him wrong, even if just to myself. I want to do it right.”

He looks at Findekano. “Do you think me hopelessly petty?”

“Not at all, father.” Findekano squeezes his father's arm. Nolofinwe is rarely so open, rarely talks about his childhood or his feelings. Findekano likes it when he does.

“I've always tried to see you as you are, as you really are, and accept you, and your siblings,” Nolofinwe continues.

Findekano thinks of how little Nolofinwe sees him, and tries not to wince.

His father must have seen it, because he laughs. “I'm not saying I always manage! I suspect no father will ever entirely understand his son, or his daughter for that matter. But I hope I try to understand you, and to accept you where I cannot.”

“You do, father,” says Findekano, but all he can think about are the ways his father does not see him. His relationship with Maitimo, for one: even though they have purposely kept it a secret, what father misses his son’s marriage for so many years? But also, there is Nolofinwe's unrelenting assumption that Findekano is good. And Findekano is not sure that is true any more. He is not sure it ever was.

He scares himself with the depths he is willing to go to, and while he has to admit that he is impulsive and doesn't think through things… Nolofinwe seems to think everything he does can be dismissed like that. It is almost infantalising. He did not leave Aman, fight at Alqualonde, cross the Helcaraxe and rescue Maitimo simply because he didn't think any of it through properly.

Something burns in Findekano, some ambition, some want, for more than he has. For glory. For discovery. For more power and more acclaim. He wonders if it is the same in his father: perhaps that is the real reason he wants to be king. Perhaps he cannot recognise it in either of them.

Perhaps Findekano too would keep his nephew as his unofficial prisoner for his chance at the kingship.

He does not like to think it, but not thinking of it is worse: he wonders if his father has ever admitted it to himself. He thinks not. It is much easier to not see it, to not see yourself truly, but the one thing Findekano has never been is a coward. Whereas Nolofinwe would have to admit to things he hides from himself if he saw his son truly, so he does not.

But part of Findekano wonders if Findekano does it to other people: it is so easy to see what you want to see and no more. He has no reason to, but he thinks guiltily of the orc. Gil.

He remembers again, Gil desperately fighting the guard who was armed and armoured and much, much taller than him, the deep cut in Gil’s thigh gushing blood. For a fight that was not his own. It had been Maitimo they were targeting, Maitimo who Gil was prepared to give his life for. His husband.

Findekano had never expected that from an orc. He had only seen them flee against a superior force: never seen one sacrifice itself for another, or try to rescue another.

Why would a thrall do that?

Whatever else Gil is, he is not that.

How much else is he wrong about?

*

Gil recovers quickly, and while he does, he loves being the centre of attention. He has many visitors, and is soon well enough to lie in Maitimo's bed to receive them: which Maitimo allows, somewhat reluctantly because it means he has to talk to people too, but he cannot deny his son his happiness.

Findekano is a little jealous at how much the boy now admires Makalaure and Findarato.

“Shaper!” he addresses them eagerly when they come to visit him. It is clearly some kind of orc-title.

Even Findarato and Makalaure seem to have made friends, and Findekano is just a little bit jealous that he is no longer the only non-Feanorion cousin allowed to call Makalaure Kano.

He is also a little bit jealous that Gil has taken so strongly to Findarato and his uncles, who are very clearly trying to get Maitimo's approval via Gil. It seems to be working.

But Gil still seems the happiest when Findekano spends time with him, and Findekano finds himself increasingly pleased by that.

“Would you like to play dice?” he asks Gil, who is bored, trying not to move too much next to Maitimo, who is dozing. Tyelkormo is on guard outside the tent, whittling something and scaring passers-by by pulling faces. Carnistir is supposed to be in the tent, but almost all the brothers are deferential to Findekano and tend to leave him alone with Maitimo when he visits. Most of the time.

“Yes!” Gil says enthusiastically, and then looks embarrassed at how loud he is. He shuffles over to the side of the bed slowly and carefully, trying not to disturb Maitimo.

Maitimo looks beautiful asleep, Findekano thinks. Serene and elegant, like a statue. He doesn't have much damage on his face, only some scarring on one side of his jaw that somehow seems only to enhance his beauty, and he now he is so thin that it makes him look younger. In some ways, Maitimo looks very similar to the youth he had known in Tirion.

But he is taking up too much of the bed. So Findekano ignores Gil’s careful efforts, and gently pushes Maitimo over.

Maitimo's eyes shoot open, but he closes them when he sees who it is.

“Go back to sleep,” murmurs Findekano, pressing a kiss to his cheek, and Maitimo relaxes. He then has to gather Maitimo's hair off the bed to give them a place to roll the dice, and tries not to get distracted by the feel of it running through his hands. It is much more silky now. Maitimo becomes more and more his old self each day.

Gil is watching them, looking very pleased.

Findekano drops his lover's hair, feeling embarrassed. “Have you played Passage?” he asks instead, and Gil shakes his head, looking intrigued.

“It's much less complicated than the last game I taught you! There are three dice -” Findekano demonstrates the overly elaborate ivory and gold dice he brought from home, how ridiculous to have ivory and gold dice when most people don't have proper clothes to wear, not that giving up the dice would change that - “and I will be the banker. You will be the caster. You roll the dice.”

He nods at Gil, who shakes them in his hands, blows on them, and throws them onto the bed.

“And the score is eleven - see, a three, a two and a six - which means you win. If it's ten or less, I win.”

Gil thinks for a moment. “Exactly half,” he says.

Findekano beams at him. “I've never done the maths,” he says. “I'm glad it's correct.”

“Now, the next part is the fun part. We switch the rolls every turn - so I'll be caster now, and you'll be banker. And if I win, then you owe me double the stakes. And if I lose, then I just give you my stake.”

Gil is frowning.”That isn't fair,” he protests.

“You're right!” Findekano says cheerfully. “Smart boy. But, remember we'll swap again next turn? So it ends up evening out.”

“We don't have anything to use as stakes, anyway,” Gil points out.

“Oh yes,” Findekano says, feeling stupid. “I don't want to leave your father alone, so I'll grab some when someone else comes.”

He touches the hilt of his sword to reassure himself, though between himself and Tyelkormo, he feels like any assassins have a low chance of success.

Gil hums, tossing the dice on the bed aimlessly. He looks exactly like a Noldorian child now, if it wasn't for the teeth and the pupils. But Maitimo has the same teeth now, and the pupils are barely noticeable with how dark his eyes are. His hair is braided just like Tyelpe’s or Itarille’s, his nails (claws?) are cut back, and though his fingers and ears are long and narrow… the way he moves has changed, Findekano thinks, and that was always the biggest tell. He moves straight into a place now, standing upright and graceful, just like an Elda: not his previous half-shrunken gait that made him look like an animal to Findekano. A dangerous animal, too.

He thinks suddenly of what Findarato said, when they were all exhausted.

“Gil,” he said suddenly. “Are you a full orc? Were both your parents orcs?”

Gil looks around cautiously,

“Yes, of course,” he says.

“Do all orclings look like you?”

“I mean… not exactly like me. Some are tall and some are short, some dark and some pale -”

“Yes,” Findekano says. “I'm aware of basic variations, thank you. But you don't look much like an orc, is what I mean. Findarato was surprised to find out your blood was black - and he's not the only one. People think you are an elfling, just captured and changed by Angamando.”

Gil shrugs. “Well, I haven't reached my majority and gone through the - I don't know what they are called in Quenya. To make the scarring, to show your people? But my people is da, so perhaps I'll just get scars like him.”

He looks almost challengingly at Findekano. “Or perhaps, sir, I'll get scars like yours.”

Findekano blinks, but presses on with his questions. “So orcs don't look like they do naturally?”

Gil scoffs. “I mean, do Noldor look like they do naturally? You grow and braid your hair, put jewels in it, put gold through your ears and in your teeth, wear paint to change how you look…”

He has a point. A rather worrying point, if all that separates them from orcs is fashion and the colour of their blood. “That's just Ingo, the rest of us only do that on special occasion,” Findekano jokes, to try and lighten the mood. Gil does not smile.

“Da thinks it's best if people believe I'm not… what I am.” Gil throws the dice so hard they bounce onto the floor, but he does not retrieve them. “He says there's nothing wrong with what I am, but then why do I have to hide it?”

Findekano sees that the boy is blinking back tears, and reaches out for him. Gil melts into his arms with a look of surprise.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Findekano says. “It's not because there's anything wrong with you. I have to hide that I love your father, you know, and there's nothing wrong with that, is there?”

Gil is definitely their biggest supporter - whenever Findekano is even slightly affectionate with Maitimo in front of Gil, he looks absolutely thrilled.

Findekano really hopes it's because he thinks they are good together, and not some leftover of how he used to think how he arrived, that it means he is not angry with Maitimo. Or perhaps that he is favouring him.

“Of course not!” Gil sounds shocked. “But people know about that - all da’s brothers know.”

Findekano would love to know how he knows that. “Yes,” he says. “But my father doesn't, my brother doesn't, and most of the camp don't know. And it's the same for your - heritage. Nobody is asking you to hide it from people who - you're close to, just people who might not understand.”

Findekano almost said who love you, but he thinks of what his own father had said, about people playing along with Maitimo’s delusions. This time it is not a relief: he feels slightly sick.

Doesn't every child deserve to be loved?

After thinking for a moment, Gil smiles broadly at Findekano, though there are still tears on his cheeks.

“See?” Findekano murmurs, and finds himself reaching over to wipe them off Gil’s cheeks. “Everyone has things that we don't tell strangers. It's not a secret, and it doesn't mean that there's anything wrong. It's just - private.”

“You should explain everything, Finno,” says a deep, sleepy voice, and Findekano jumps.

“Russo,” he says. “I didn't mean to wake you, love.”

“You didn't,” he says, smiling at both of them.

Carnistir chooses that moment to stick his head in, his dark hair braided in the most conservative of styles as always.

“Ah, you're awake, Nelyo,” he says. “Should I take Gil? Are you hungry, boy?”

Carnistir's manner is rough and harsh as always, but Gil doesn't mind, and runs straight after him.

“And now we are alone,” says Maitimo, with a hungry grin, reaching out for Findekano.

“Actually.. I've been thinking, Russo,” Findekano says, and rushes on before Maitimo's inevitable scoffing comment, “about what you and Gil were saying before.”

“Oh?” says Maitimo, looking wary.

“By your logic, if you're my slave, then I'm yours, too.”

Maitimo freezes. “Don't mock, Findekano. It's not funny, what it’s like in Angamando.” His tone is cold.

“No, I'm serious. You have as much power over me as I do over you. Maybe more. If you asked me to, I'd follow you anywhere. I'd do anything you wanted. I did follow you anywhere, into exile and battle and across the ice and to Angamando and you didn't even ask me to. Imagine what I'd do if you did.”

Maitimo is annoyed, brows furrowed, but he looks at Findekano for a long minute and his face clears. He leans out of the bed and kisses Findekano, instead.

“I appreciate that you mean well, but that's different, beloved. It's a choice. The power to come or go has always been with you.”

Findekano shakes his head. “It doesn't feel like a choice. It feels like - an inevitability. And if we're talking about choices - everything you said was your choice, too.”

Maitimo scoffs, but he waits for Findekano to expand.

“Maybe it wasn't at first - but now, Russo, you only don't have the power because you chose otherwise.”

“I didn't have a choice,” says Maitimo, mildly. “I needed your father on side, and that was the only way. I would be dead otherwise.”

Findekano laughs. “Then you're lying to yourself, or you're lying to me. Especially now you're in touch with your brothers - it would be nothing to you to leave. Our forces are about the same size after the Helcaraxe, except yours are well-provisioned and well-equipped. We don't even have horses apart from the horses you've given us and we lost almost all of our armour on the ice. It would be a slaughter. If you threatened to fight, we'd have to stand down or lose.

“It wouldn't even need to go that far, just your brothers making a fuss would probably cause enough political embarrassment that father would let you go.

“And then, once you were at your brothers’ camp, it would be nothing for you to say you never gave up the kingship. Even now you could do it. Who knows for sure otherwise? Only me and my father - and I could never speak against you, and you know it. It would make my father look just as bad as yours, to be challenging the kingship of his nephew just rescued from Angamando, based on what, some delirious promises at best?

“And Nienna's tits, you never had to wait that long. I do not believe that you and Gil couldn't have found some way to smuggle yourselves out of here if you wanted. You could even have assassinated my father, and Eru, Maitimo, I would have hated you but I would have still loved you.

“So don't tell me you didn't have a choice. You had a choice, you have a choice, and I don't believe for a moment that you hadn't thought this out, hadn't considered all the options. I know you. You have a plan of exactly how to attack this camp if need be, you know how where and when and you have backup plans for your backup plans. I'm sure you have options I haven't even thought of, and don't bother denying any of this, you fool, because I won't believe you.”

He glares at Maitimo, who shrugs and smiles apologetically. “I won't deny it, then.”

Findekano is not quite sure if that counts as an admission, but he doesn't need one to continue. “So you're only in my power, such as it is, because you chose to be and you continue to choose. The same as me. So if you're a slave, so am I.”

Maitimo looks uncomfortable. “It doesn't feel like a choice. What did you say? It feels like - an inevitability. Any other option is unthinkable. Either civil war or - I wouldn't have you by my side, not happily, not with your full self.”

Findekano smiles, slow and victorious. “I know, Russo,” he whispers into one of his lover's long ears, and he is gratified when Russo shivers. “I know, but don't pretend you don't have a choice when you chose me. Pretend to everyone else, if you like, but not to me.”

“I think I chose you a long time ago,” Maitimo murmurs, closing his eyes.

“And I you, beloved. And - in Tirion you never hid your power, Nelyafinwe, and in Angamando you learnt to pretend you didn't have any. And that's worked well for you here, with my father, and I'm not saying it's not a good strategy. I'm not someone to comment on strategy, as far as I’m concerned it's never mind the maneuvers, just go straight at them. But you're good at strategy, so… I'm trying to say, Russo, use it, but sometimes I worry you're halfway to forgetting it's a strategy and believing it yourself.”

He hesitates, thinking of Nelyafinwe, the perfect son and heir in Valinor, and then adds, “Though thinking about it, I'm not sure you weren't doing the same thing back home, just… differently.”

Maitimo looks at him thoughtfully for a moment, and then smiles widely.

“I underestimate you, Finno. I thought of you every day, you know, but I still forgot so much about you.”

Findekano smiles back. “But I know you.”

That night, for the first time since Valinor, it is Maitimo who chases their pleasure, Maitimo inside of him, Maitimo slow and deliberate and making Findekano forget everything except sensation. It is the first time that finding pleasure in each other feels like more than running through the motions since they have reunited, and Findekano has forgotten what it is like. Their bond thrills with joy and light until neither of them are quite sure who is experiencing what, and though Findekano can feel the constant pain of Maitimo's body he can also feel its delight.

*

When Findekano leaves in the morning, a smile on his face and a spring in his step, Tyelkormo is there waiting for him. He rises to his feet with animal grace, gestures at the Ambarussa, who are squatting outside the tent with him, and says, “Findekano, may I speak with you?”

It is very formal, especially for Tyelkormo. Findekano raises his eyebrows, but he is too happy for mockery today, so he agrees.

“Come to my tent, if you like,” he says.

When they are there, he offers Tyelkormo breakfast, but Tyelkormo refuses it.

“Well, what is it, Tyelkormo?” he finally asks, when Tyelkormo does not say anything.

“Call me Tyelko,” he says, but doesn't add anything else, shifting foot to foot.

“Tyelko, then,” says Findekano, touched. “What is it?”

Tyelkormo looks at the floor. “I, uh - well, yesterday Nelyo wanted to talk to me. About - Orome. He wanted to know if he had done the right thing.” He looks very quickly up at Findekano, and then back down to the floor, very intently.

Findekano has no idea what he's talking about, or why it's relevant to him.

“You'll have to give me more than that,” he says gently.

“Oh, uh, I ran with the Hunt in Valinor,” Tyelkormo explains, as if everyone did not already know that, even people who had never met a single son of Feanor. “But it was Nelyo who gave me permission. He came on a hunt with me, met everyone, and persuaded our parents.”

He grins suddenly, wicked and sharp. “I didn't even wait for my parents’ permission, actually, only Nelyo's.”

“And Russandol now thinks he shouldn't have given you permission? Or he's questioning it?”

Tyelkormo nods awkwardly.

Findekano does not get it. “Because… the Valar aren't to be trusted?”

Tyelkormo snorts. “Well, yes, but - because of his own, uh, experiences. New experiences.”

Findekano feels like there is something he is definitely supposed to be understanding here, and he is not.

“Just say what you mean, Tyelko,” he says. “You were never one for beating around the bush. So Russandol doesn't like Orome because the Enemy is a -”

“Valar,” says Tyelkormo, with frustration. “You might be brave and pretty, but you're not very smart, are you? Ah well, I suppose that's why you like my brother.” Findekano feels like he should be angry, but Tyelko is grinning at him, and - well - perhaps it's not entirely untrue, either. He certainly doesn't feel very smart right now.

“It's got nothing to do with Orome, I was only telling you that so you might understand without me spelling it out.”

He pauses. Findekano still does not understand.

“I mean,” says Tyelkormo, slowly, and very uncomfortably, “that the Enemy took Nelyo.”

Findekano looks at him. “Yes, I know,” he says slowly. “I rescued him, remember?” Is Tyelkormo drunk?

”No,” hisses Tyelkormo. “Took him - as if they were married.”

Findekano can feel his face draining of blood, and Tyelkormo looks horrified. “No, I don't mean - Findekano, they weren't married, he didn't betray you, he didn't choose to, that's what I'm trying to say. It's not the same. That's what he was worried about with me, how much choice you ever have, with a Vala. And Nelyo had no choice at all, he would never -”

It is Findekano’s turn to look at the floor. This is the worst possible conversation to be having with Tyelkormo, even though it is sweet that he thought to warn Findekano.

“But I thought you should know,” says Tyelkormo eventually.

“I know,” Findekano says. “Or at least, sort of. Gil… mentioned it.”

Now Tyelkormo is staring at him. “You know?” he asks, and his voice is quieter, deadlier. “You know what he did to him? And you still… do the same?”

Ah. Perhaps they should be more discreet with Maitimo's brothers guarding the tent.

Findekano has to laugh. It's very sweet of Tyelkormo, but… “Have you ever tried to say no to your brother?” he asks.

But… that might be true of last night, he suddenly thinks, when their love-making was a shared joy, and he felt like he had his own Russo back. But has that been true of all the times before that, when Maitimo has been… not been quite right?

They were taught, back at home, that when you are married, your spouse's body is as your own. So Findekano cannot see how it could possibly have been wrong, not when they are married and love each other so, and it obviously made Maitimo feel safer.

He can understand wanting a lover’s touch when afraid, and it clearly makes Maitimo feel more in control in situations he finds difficult. And yet…

Last night had been different. Maitimo is strange, yes: after thirty years of torture, who wouldn't be? But then why had it been so different last night?

Findekano has a bad feeling, although he cannot even put it into words.

Tyelkormo looks lost in a world of his own, like he might be considering going for his knife. But he suddenly barks in laughter, drawing Findekano out of his thoughts.

“I know what you mean,” he says, ruefully. “Well, let's forget we ever had this conversation. And if you hurt him, I'll kill you, and I'll make it hurt.” He grins at Findekano, sharp canines showing, but there is no humour in it at all. It makes Findekano shiver.

Has he hurt Maitimo?

Without another word, Tyelkormo turns to leave the tent.

“Tyelko,” Findekano finds himself saying. Tyelkormo turns around and looks at him. “Should Russandol have intervened?”

Something dark flashes in Tyelkormo’s eyes. Perhaps he should not have asked. They are not close. It is not his business.

But it is gone immediately, and instead Tyelkormo flashes him his charming toothy smile, slightly lopsided. “Perhaps,” he allows. “But I take after my brother too much for it to have helped.”

That is not the reassurance that he thinks Tyelkormo meant it to be.

*

Gil brings Findekano some seedcakes, fresh from the kitchen, and they eat them together, Gil chattering about the birds he had seen and the soldiers’ gossip.

“- so they turned the pheasant loose, right in the middle of the kitchens, which is how I got these!” Gil finishes his rather rambling story with triumph, and Findekano laughs.

“You mean you stole these cakes? Gil!” Findekano says with mock solemnity.

“Am I in trouble?” Gil’s voice is small. “Are you going to cut my hand off, like you did da’s?”

Findekano’s blood seems to freeze in his veins, and all traces of humour flee. “Of course not,” he says, aghast. “Gil - how could you think -”

But then he realises that Gil is laughing, and the boy is smart because he flees before Findekano even realises that he is chasing him, even while laughing and stuffing seedcake in his mouth.

Findekano still finds himself shaking when he returns to his own tent.

*

“All right,” says Findekano, after another too-long evening of Findarato and Maitimo exchanging extensive mutual admiration and flattery. “What is going on with the two of you?”

He cannot put his finger on what exactly it is. Maitimo is always careful to prioritise him in front of Findarato, and in fact he is more affectionate, if anything. Findarato is particularly flirty when they are both there: knowing him and his Teleri morals, as well as suspecting he has some lingering guilt about what had passed between them on the Helcaraxe, Findekano thinks he is probably angling for a threesome.

Which is how he knows that that isn't what Maitimo wants, because it would have happened by now. So if it's not sex, what is he angling for? Forgiveness? Support of some kind?

Maitimo blushes, scarlet as his hair. “Nothing,” he says, unconvincingly.

“Tell me the truth. Please, Russo.” He pauses. “I won't be angry. I promise.”

Maitimo hesitates for a long while. “I can't deny I’ve considered… If you left, perhaps he would protect us. I'm not really well enough to move yet.” Maitimo looks up at Findekano, his grey eyes anxious.

Well, that is nonsensical enough to probably be true, at least. But...

Gil shrugs in agreement. “I like him.”

“What the fuck, Russo? I won't leave!” says Findekano, louder than he meant to. Does Maitimo really trust him that little? Is he that disposable to his lover, his husband?

Maitimo cringes. “Of course you won't,” he says soothingly. “I didn't mean anything by it. It's just - it's just one rather gets in the habit of making contingency plans…”

“Planning who you'll bed if I leave you is hardly a contingency plan!”

“I - I didn't mean that…” Maitimo says, in what in Findekano's opinion is very clearly a lie. “Please, Finno, it's only you I want, only you I love, I swear it.”

He pulls Findekano down on top of him and kisses him, frantically, while waving his stump at Gil for him to leave. He obeys.

“I love you,” says Findekano, cold fury still beating in his heart, straddling his lover, “but I don't understand you.”

“I'm messed up,” Maitimo says. “I am, Finno, I know. But I love you, I do, please forgive me. Let me show you.”

Findekano loves him too, however messed up he is, so he kisses him back hard, revelling in the warmth of his lover's body. He is no longer emaciated but now just thin: almost willowy like the youth he once was, despite his incongruously broad shoulders. Findekano likes his lover best hale and strong, but he cannot deny that this has some appeal, too.

They kiss desperately, and Maitimo is pulling up his nightshirt and unlacing Findekano’s leggings as quickly as he can, and Findekano is hard already because his Russandol has never not been breathtakingly beautiful, particularly in the throes of passion, and even when he is incomprehensible and aggravating, they still have this, they still have love.

Maitimo has found oil already and is pouring it over Findekano’s hands and his own, he is running his hand over Findekano's cock and then his long legs are over Findekano’s shoulders and Findekano is pressing his fingers inside him and then his cock, too fast really but neither of them care, they just want to be connected and Maitimo shows no sign it hurts him anyway. He is breathing heavily as Findekano pushes into him and his body welcomes Findekano home, his legs are bent almost backwards under Findekano's weight as Findekano thrusts deep into him and Maitimo's fists are clenched in pleasure so hard they are white and -

That catches Findekano's attention even through his lust-addled brain. Then something clicks and he is across the room before he even knows it, curled up on the floor and staring at Maitimo in horror.

This is not like the other day. Findekano knows it deep inside him as his stomach rebels and he heaves. This has something to do with what Tyelko was trying to tell him. This is not real.

Now he has seen again what real is, he knows that whatever this is, it is something else entirely.

Maitimo looks just as horrified as Findekano feels. “F-Finno?” he asks, his arms tight around his own body. “What's wrong?”

Findekano licks his suddenly dry lips, his mind blank. He has no idea how to deal with this. He has no idea how he missed it for so long, either.

“I don't think it's a good idea,” he says hesitantly, and then before he can stop himself, because restraint has never been his virtue, “Did you ever really want me, Russo?”

It comes out angry and plaintive and Findekano hates himself for it.

Maitimo looks aghast. “Of course I did! Of course I do! Please, Finno… don't you want me?”

Findekano feels helpless. He does not know how to talk about this. He doesn't even know how to think about it.

“Of course I do, but… you seem strange,” Findekano says weakly.

“I'm sorry,” Maitimo says earnestly, a note of panic running through his voice. “I'm sorry, I'll do better, Finno, please don't leave me, give me another chance…”

Findekano looks at him and cannot understand how he has not seen this before. This is not just wanting comfort or control or familiarity. This is nothing like the other night.

He does not know what to do now he has seen it, and he cannot think clearly. All his mind and body are rebelling against him.

What has he done?

He must have been staring for too long because Maitimo is babbling now, his fingernails digging into his arms so hard that it is leaving little streaks of blood.

Oh, Russo, Findekano thinks with a sudden rush of compassion that overwhelms the horror, and he has an idea.

He approaches the bed slowly, Maitimo looking at him with a combination of fear and hope.

“Russo, I want something. Will you do it for me?”

He is trembling, Findekano notices, but he nods. “Of course,” he whispers. “Anything for you, Finno.”

“I want you to do my hair,” he says, slowly and clearly. “Will you?”

Maitimo blanches. “I can't,” he says, and he is trembling even more. “My hand…”

Findekano curses himself. How had he forgotten?

“Don't braid it, then. But brush it? Please?”

Maitimo nods again, but he stays completely frozen until Findekano rummages through the boxes and approaches him with a hairbrush. A primitive wooden affair, but it will do.

“Can you get the braids out yourself?”

Maitimo nods again, and Findekano settles between his legs.

Maitimo's hand is shaky and tentative at first, but he undoes one of Findekano’s braids and slowly starts to brush the first section. He starts to relax as Findekano is careful to show that he is enjoying it, making little hums of contentment. It does feel good: Maitimo has always been gentle with his hair. Bringing up six younger brothers will do that for you, Findekano supposes, and he is glad to reap the rewards of that.

Findekano carefully does not think about anything but enjoying his hair being touched, and tries to project that to Maitimo with his body language and his noises and, in case Maitimo checks their bond, his mind.

Maitimo slowly starts to calm, his hand becoming less shaky and his breathing back to normal. He spends a long time brushing Findekano's hair, and when it is done, Maitimo puts his arms around Findekano's waist and Findekano leans back into him, his hands on Maitimo's arms.

They stay like that for a long while, without speaking.

*

Findekano is staring at the wall of his tent, trying to make everything make sense, when Gil slips into his tent. He doesn't say anything, but stands very close to Findekano instead.

“I don't understand either of you,” Findekano says softly.

Gil still does not say anything.

“I will protect you both, if needs be, not that you need it. I keep telling you. I keep telling him,” says Findekano, frustrated. “You don't need to do… he doesn't need to do… whatever he thinks he has to.”

“And who will protect us if you change your mind, or if you leave or you are injured? What happens to us then?”

Of course, the orc thinks they are just like orcs, and Findekano does not know how to explain that here, things are different. It is an insight into how Maitimo has learnt to think, at least.

“You're safe. Both of you are safe. The Enemy can't reach you here.” He doesn't understand why they don't understand that, and it is frustrating that they both cling on to this delusion, like they are still in Angamando. Thirty years is a long time, he supposes, and he can intellectually understand that it takes time to heal, but still.

Gil snorts. “Forgive me, prince, but we're a long way from safe here.”

“What on earth could harm you?”

Gil looks at him like he's stupid. “You? Who would stop you? Your father? Who has already tried to throw da out at his weakest and took his birthright in exchange for his life? What does da have to bargain with now your father has taken that, tell me?”

It has been a long night. Maitimo had been having nightmares, waking everyone up screaming every half an hour: Turukano has been sniping at him, saying he cares more about Maitimo than he did about Turukano or Elenwe, and Irisse and his father made tactful comments which more or less amounted to the same thing.

And the camp is poor, and Findekano is sick of constantly thinking about provisions and supplies and what they can afford to sacrifice for something else. He has never had to do this before and he does not like it. Findekano likes problems that have a clear solution.

None of his current problems have clear solutions.

So Findekano loses his temper. “Every fucking thing that comes out of your mouth is corrupted. You're just an orc trying to pretend to be better than you are to manipulate him into loving you. I don't know what you want from him, but I see it, and I won't let you. You're trying to poison him, to poison all of us.”

An ugly sneer appears on the orc’s face, but his words are carefully controlled. “Is that better than what you do? Pretend that his servitude is love, that he fucks you for any other reason than he wants to survive? While you turn a blind eye to the chains that your family put him in and pretend he has a choice!”

“That's not true, he loves me!” Findekano feels almost dizzy with rage. Howdare the orc sully what they have with his accusations.

Accusations that come all too close to what Findekano fears.

“Would he act any differently if he didn't?”

“Of course he would! You're twisting things. You may have escaped Angamando but your mind is still there. He's always loved me.” Findekano waves his ring in the orc’s face.

His wedding ring. That Maitimo had made back at home, and brought with him.

Gil’s face is black. “Gifts carry so much meaning when given by a prisoner, don't they? Do you think the gifts he gave your family means that he loves them?”

Findekano… had thought so. Perhaps not love, but gratefulness for his rescue and remorse at his family's abandonment, at least.

“What, you think it's some kind of… bribery?”

“You think it's wrong to try and change your status when you're a prisoner?”

Findekano blinks. “No. But… you aren't prisoners. I keep telling you both this and I don't know how to make you understand. It's not Angamando here. Yes, my father and my siblings are angry at him, at his family really, but they would never hurt either of you. Not really. They're good people.”

The orc's face twists, and Findekano can see that under all that fire, he is afraid.

“But how can we know?” he whispers. “How can we be sure?”

That strikes Findekano like a spear to the chest. He thinks that is exactly the root of it all, for both of them. He imagines Maitimo thinking that, after Findekano's rescue, after his brothers’ visits, after Nolofinwe's kindness.

How can he know? How can he be sure?

Maitimo has always been one for contingency plan after contingency plan, even before Angamando. He can see how that has become a bit unhinged, in the circumstances.

“Oh, Gil,” he whispers, and he pulls the boy against them. “I'm sorry I said all of that. I didn't mean it, I was just angry. You can't know. You can't be sure, but I didn't understand, and now I do. It's time, Gil, time is the only answer. You don't need to believe me, because I'll prove it to you, and I'll prove it to Russo, I swear it. But you're safe. You are safe.”

Gil cries in his arms, huge sobs that are surprising coming from such a small boy. Findekano clings to him tightly and thinks of how much fear they hold, both of them.

People have commented on how normal both Maitimo and Gil seem, after so long in captivity. Findekano has thought it himself at times. But of course they are hurt. Of course that hurt takes time to heal.

But they are safe now. He will prove it to them.

“I'm sorry,” Gil cries, his voice choked with tears. “I didn't mean it either. He loves you, he always has. He told me stories about you, ever since I was small, how you saved his life by killing that wild boar that cornered him, how you hid him from his family when his father was on a rampage, how you helped Uncle Moryo join the Weavers’ Guild, how you found a child who had got lost in a collapsing mine… He told me you weren't here, though. He thought you'd gone back to your home.”

“I know,” Findekano murmurs, holding him close, though he is surprised that Maitimo remembered any of that. He barely does himself.

“He loves you,” Gil cries. “I love - I like it here, too. I want it to be real. But I'm so afraid that it isn't. There were many fair things back at my home, and none of them were real.”

Findekano holds him as he cries. He feels a surge of protectiveness for the child. He deserves better.

“I know,” he says soothingly. “But it's safe here. I promise.”

“I don't believe you,” Gil cries.

“I know,” says Findekano. “That's all right. I'll show you.”

*

Maitimo has started to walk, or at least something close to it: Nolofinwe has set a date for the abdication, and so Maitimo practices. Findekano, Gil and Makalaure spend a lot of time trying to hold him up as he tries to regain muscle and balance again.

Unfortunately they are all at least a full head shorter than him, which makes leaning on them rather ridiculous.

Findekano asks Turukano to help, as he is very proudly a tiny bit taller than his eldest cousin, though Findekano cannot see it. He thinks they're about the same height, but Turukano is delighted that he is taller than “Maitimo the Tall”.

Arakano had been taller than both of them.

Findekano curses again that he is the shortest in his family. Like Makalaure, who is the shortest of his brothers except for Curufinwe, the line of Finwe seems to run true in him rather than their mothers’ height.

Turukano refuses, though: he has not forgiven the Feanorions for their betrayal, after Elenwe’s death and Arakano's: neither has Findekano, but he does not blame them in the same way. Yes, they betrayed them: but his Russandol did not, and both Elenwe and Arakano chose to cross the Grinding Ice. Neither had blood on their hands: they could have chosen to return.

When he says this, Turukano seems to think he is blaming them for their deaths, but Findekano thinks that recognising their agency, their choices, their bravery, their heroism is what matters. They were not just victims. They fought. They chose.

Turukano says it is not shameful to be a victim of cruel circumstance, and if Feanaro had not burnt the ships, they would both be alive.

Findekano cannot stop thinking of his brother's last stand, his joy and his absolute unshakable confidence as he fought the orcs, and wonders.

Either way, Turukano now seems to blame Findekano nearly as much as his half-cousins.

“Why do you choose them, and not your family?” Turukano says when Findekano asks if he could help Maitimo.

“They are our family!” Findekano does not dare tell Turukano the truth about him and Maitimo: it would add insult to injury. There was no eagle for Elenwe, as Turukano already reminds him frequently enough.

“They stopped being our family when they burnt the boats!” Turukano is raising his voice.

“Russandol didn't! The twins didn't! They were nearly burnt alive! Isn't that punishment enough?”

“No!” Turukano is shouting now. “There isn't punishment enough for them. Not for my wife, my love… they killed her, Findekano, and Arakano too. And yet you still can't stop following them around like a child after its betters.” He sneers at Findekano, his face hard. “You've made your choice. Get out, Findekano.”

Findekano hesitates, but goes. He has never been able to change his brother's mind.

When he gets back to Maitimo's tent, Gil is sitting on Makalaure's shoulders, and Maitimo is leaning on them, stumbling around the tent. It looks very unstable, and somewhat predictably they all end up on the floor moments after he walks in, narrowly escaping being knocked over himself. At least they are all laughing.

“What if I sit on your shoulders, Findekano?” Makalaure suggests from the floor, still snorting with laughter as he looks at them, collapsed like trees after a flood.

“No!” Maitimo protests, sitting up with a groan. “I'm lucky you didn't all fall on top of me!”

“I'll protect you!” announces Gil, although it seems somewhat quixotic to Findekano as the boy is somehow half stuck under Makalaure.

“Of course, Kano,” Findekano says, ignoring Maitimo entirely. “We're Noldor, we can't back down from a challenge, can we?”

*

The night before the abdication, Nolofinwe drops in to visit Maitimo.

He has been coming fairly regularly, to the extent that Maitimo's brothers do not even bother pretending they aren't there any more and just greet him politely.

Nolofinwe is in a strange mood, though it is not surprising: it is not every day that you become High King tomorrow, and Findekano thinks he must feel some guilt at least over usurping his nephew and in such a manner, however much he feels the crown is rightly his.

He has brought wine, which he pours out politely for Maitimo, Gil, Findekano and the Ambarussa, who are on guard tonight, as well as himself. But he does not pay attention to their conversation, only smiling politely on occasion, sitting on the edge of his chair.

It is understandably subdued, with Gil and the Ambarussa doing most of the talking about a hunting trip the twins had gone on.

When Nolofinwe does look at them, Findekano thinks he looks almost sad. Almost regretful.

Findekano thinks his father is a better person than he thought, to honour the Feanorions and their loss even in his own victory. It is… gracious of him.

He wants to tell his father to go and celebrate, but thinks it would not be polite, so he holds his tongue.

Nolofinwe makes an excuse to go as soon as he can, and he kisses Maitimo on the forehead, and Findekano too.

“I'm sorry,” he says to them. “I hope you will understand one day.”

Findekano understands already, but he supposes his father still feels guilty. It is a good sign that he does, Findekano thinks, that he hasn't justified it to himself entirely.

He thinks about walking with his father, but his loyalties are too split for genuine cheer, so he tells his father to find Turukano instead.

Maitimo is silent that night, and Findekano is sympathetic. He cannot imagine giving up your birthright, even to prevent civil war. Maitimo has never spoken about it to him, and Findekano understands that, too, because he will benefit from it, or possibly suffer because of it, depending on your perspective. Both, really, Findekano thinks.

Part of him is thrilled that he will soon have power, that it will be him who has the choice of the best lands, he who will be closest to the High King. It is a childish ambition, he knows, but still he feels it.

He is, after all, his father's son.

*

The day of Maitimo's abdication dawns, and Findekano realises that Maitimo still cannot walk far enough.

Findekano is worried. He tries talking to his father as he gets ready, surrounded by attendants. Nolofinwe just sighs and says it's better to get it out of the way as soon as possible, for Nelyafinwe's safety if nothing else.

Findekano tries talking to Maitimo, who bats him away. “Either help or leave me alone, Finno,” he says, his voice gruff, but his eyes burn with a strange fire, like a rock which had been opened to reveal the crystal underneath.

It is unnerving.

So Findekano helps Makalaure braid Maitimo's hair in a complex design he has never seen before. Findekano does the simple bits, and Makalaure finishes them off. They do not add jewels.

“Humble,” says Makalaure. “We're going for humble.” His lip curls in distaste. He looks miserable and exhausted: Findekano thinks that after all it is him who is really losing the kingship.

Maitimo has forbidden his brothers from attending: they are not supposed to be at the camp, for a start, and he tells them he does not want a riot. They are all unhappy about it, but they obey.

Carnistir brings out a white robe, covered in white embroidery. It looks simple at first glance, but it is not: the designs can be made out if Findekano looks at it for long enough. There are wild horses along the seams, eagles flying across the chest, and a magnificent stag along one arm.

Free creatures.

Something about it makes Findekano want to cry.

“Makalaure and I designed it,” Carnistir says. “He insisted on white on white. I've never seen such a thing.”

“You've outdone yourself, Moryo,” Maitimo says, and Carnistir swells with pride, blushing crimson just as Maitimo does. “Though I'm still not convinced…”

“If you're going to do this, you have to do it right,” says Makalaure firmly.

“Can I do your hair?” Gil asks Findekano. He is reluctantly allowed to attend - he asked Nolofinwe directly, presumably because he knew Maitimo would say no. So he is dressed up in finery, a set of beautiful brocade robes and gold threads in his dark hair, in a style which looks suspiciously like Findekano’s if Findekano’s hair was less thick. He wears a gold circlet and heavy gold earrings, too.

“Of course,” Findekano smiles. Makalaure and Maitimo exchange a dark look, though Findekano does not understand why.

“Give me a moment to finish Nelyo's,” Makalaure says, “and I'll help you, Gil.”

Gil nods. “Are you going to wear jewellery? Can I pick?”

Findekano is rather underdressed, he knows, dressed for a formal council meeting rather than an event. But they have never had an abdication before, he argues, and there is no dress code.

It might be a little bit of a protest.

Findekano hesitates, and Carnistir raises an eyebrow. “Don't shame us, Findekano,” he says.

“All right,” he says resentfully. “Gil, could you fetch my jewellery boxes from my tent?”

The boy nods and runs off, carefully lifting his robes as he does so.

“How are you feeling, Russandol?” Makalaure asks.

“Fine,” Maitimo says shortly. “Stop fussing. In fact, you should all go back to camp.”

“We should,” says Makalaure, but he doesn't sound convinced.

Tyelkormo sticks his head in. “Absolutely not,” he says. “You might be right that there's enough guards at the - at the event to protect you. But afterwards? Nolofinwe has even less reason to protect you than he does right now.”

“You can come home, Nelyo!” says one of the twins.

Findekano suddenly feels like he has been gutted like a fish. The Feanorian camp is not that far, but with all the hostilities…

“You can come too, Findekano!” the twin says kindly, presumably noticing the look on his face.

“Can I?” he looks at Maitimo in hope.

“Of course you can,” he says impatiently, as if Findekano is being dense.

“Why didn't you ask me to?” Findekano narrows his eyes.

Tyelkormo is looking at him with hard eyes. Makalaure sighs. “He didn't think you'd want to,” he says wearily.

Maitimo gives his brother a look and Makalaure turns away.

“You are my husband, Findekano,” says Maitimo, rather formally. “Of course you are welcome wherever I am, should you wish to. You do not need an invitation.”

It would be a relief, but Maitimo is definitely being strange, and Findekano doesn't know why.

“Maybe think about it tomorrow,” Makalaure mutters.

Gil rushes back in, with several jewellery boxes and a few bags.

“You have a lot of jewellery,” he says breathlessly, not noticing the mood. He immediately dumps it all on the floor and starts rummaging through it.

Findekano is about to protest, but stops himself, wondering what the point would be.

“Oooh,” says Makalaure, his eyes lighting up. He sinks to the floor gracefully and starts rummaging through it too. “Where's Curvo?”

“Sulking,” says Tyelkormo, watching them with amusement in his pale eyes.

“Shame,” Makalaure says. “He'd enjoy this. Ambarussa!”

The twins come in and join Makalaure, exclaiming at particular pieces and holding them up for everyone to admire. Tyelkormo is laughing at them, and Findekano has to too: it feels a little like they're going through something private, but he cannot deny that he'd jump at the chance to go through someone else's jewellery.

Only Maitimo is not amused, looking grim at the wall in his white robes and elaborate hair. He doesn't seem like he’s even aware that they are there: he looks like someone going to an execution, which in a way, he is. He is Nelyafinwe, after all: the crown has always been his birthright, part of him. Now it will be no longer.

They pick jewellery for Findekano and he puts it on: long gold rectangular earrings that reach past his collar bone; golden chains to attach to the hoops in his ears; deep sapphires to clip to the golden wires in his hair; a crescent moon shaped necklace, thick gold with filigree; and rings and bracelets and armlets and everything else.

“Much better,” says Gil, looking at him with approval, when they are done and Findekano is decked out like a queen at midsummer.

“Adequate,” says Makalaure.

Tyelkormo just grunts, and the twins look at Maitimo for his approval.

“Nelyo?” says Makalaure.

Findekano thinks it's funny how Maitimo's brothers are always looking for his approval. He does not think any of his own siblings care much what he thinks: if he loves them, yes, but not so much his approval.

But Maitimo does not give it to them, just makes a humming sound and continues looking at the wall. Findekano feels obscurely disappointed, and he can see Gil and the Ambarussa feel it too.

“Well,” he says, breaking the silence. “We'd better go.”

“Nelyo -” says Makalaure, but Maitimo interrupts him with a harsh ”no”.

Now it is Findekano's turn to exchange a look with Makalaure. They both wish they could spare Maitimo this.

Maitimo allows them to wheel him to Nolofinwe's attendants in a wheeled chair, and then orders them at least back to his tent, if they will not leave the camp. They obey. Gil runs into the crowd after some of his soldier friends: he has no official place.

Findekano can feel a rising anxiety as Maitimo will still not look at him, and he leaves to take his place with his father without a word between them.

They are in a field, with wooden barriers erected to make it look like an oversized throne room. Tents and pavilions surround them. Their people crowd around the sides, and Nolofinwe’s throne is at the end. Both Findekano and Turukano have slightly lower seats on either side of their father.

Findekano is suddenly very glad that the Feanorions made him dress up now he is in front of so many people.

But the entrance to what would be the hall if it was indoors and permanent is far too far for Maitimo to walk. He has managed a few steps: this would take Findekano himself nearly a hundred. Maitimo might have a longer stride, but…

Perhaps he will stay in his wheeled chair. Still, he whispers his worry to his father as they wait to enter, who dismisses him. He has other things to think about right now, Findekano knows.

His father looks magnificent: truly kingly, Findekano thinks. In some ways this has brought out the best in him: he has a cool, confident bearing which Findekano has not seen on him often. Victory suits him, he thinks proudly.

He slides his hand into his father's. “You look every inch the king you are, father,” he says admiringly. “And I know you will be a great king - you are already a great king.”

Findekano wishes it was not his father's gain at his husband's loss, but Maitimo does not seem to care, and his father is almost shining with pleasure. Perhaps after all it is better this way.

Nolofinwe smiles at his son, pleased, and kisses his forehead. “As you will be great as my crown prince, Findekano,” he says.

They are ready. They move onto the dais, Findekano and his father and brother, the audience a mass of faces and noise. Findekano takes his seat, and thanks Manwe that he does not have to make a speech.

Nolofinwe rises, and the crowd quiets.

“O Noldor!” he addresses them, and they erupt into cheers.

“Every single one of you knows what sacrifices we have made to be here. Each of you has lost someone to our fight against the Enemy. As I have lost my father, and my son.”

There is a silence, and Nolofinwe lets it linger on. He is no Feanaro, but he knows how to control a crowd.

“And when we defeat the Enemy, o Noldor, we will extract the price from him for those we have lost. Those he has taken. Those who have died, defending us or standing with us!

“But the Enemy’s corruption, o Noldor, has worked in ways we might not expect.

The air is tense, and Findekano wonders where his father is going with this.

Nolofinwe drops his voice. “Our king abandoned us,” he says, barely audible. “He burnt the ships, after we swore our fealty, many of us in blood. He left us no option but to cross the Grinding Ice, an act of courage and endurance he could not even imagine!”

This is not the conciliatory speech that Findekano was expecting at all. The knot in Findekano's stomach tightens.

“Are these the actions of your king, o Noldor?”

There are resounding shouts of no, and Nolofinwe waits for them to die down, a small smile on his face.

“A king gives up his right when he treats his people so,” Nolofinwe agrees, as if this is a conversation and not a speech. “A king must serve.”

The crowd are wild, and there's an aggression there that makes Findekano worry. Is this why Maitimo insisted his brothers stay in their tent?

Maitimo made a sensible choice: he can smell the violence in the air. But is rousing the crowd like this wise? They want blood, and revenge, and Findekano worries that Maitimo's abdication will not be enough.

Findekano hopes his father knows what he is doing.

“Whom will you have as your king, o Noldor?” booms Nolofinwe, standing up and spreading his hands, a father welcoming his children home.

Their people shout, chanting his name, and Nolofinwe sits down with a small smile, satisfied. He waves his hands at an attendant, who signals someone else, and soon Maitimo steps out of a tent right at the end.

The herald stands, and announces, “Nelyafinwe Maitimo, eldest son and heir of Curufinwe Feanaro, eldest son and heir of Finwe Noleme.”

The people are expecting him, of course; they all know what they are there for. But there are still angry mutterings when he steps out.

He walks smoothly, gracefully, and his simple-seeming white robes only accentuate his beauty. He has come so far, Findekano thinks: he looks nothing like the almost-corpse he was when Findekano rescued him. He is tall and proud and beautiful, every inch a king.

Maitimo holds his head high, and for a few moments Findekano believes in him, and thinks he's going to make it to the throne.

He does not. He makes it further than Findekano thinks he can on willpower alone, but he is no more than a third of the way when he starts to stumble.

Findekano automatically rises to help him, but Nolofinwe puts an arm across him without even looking at him, his eyes intent on his nephew.

Nobody else helps him either.

Maitimo stumbles forward a bit further and falls suddenly to the floor. The crowd laugh and jeer as he tries to struggle to his feet, but he cannot do it, and falls again.

“Father!” hisses Findekano, urgently, but Nolofinwe does not remove his arm or stop watching. He has a small smile on his face.

He does not look at Findekano.

Findekano thinks he might be sick as Maitimo continues on his knees. Each shuffle forward is obviously a struggle for him, though his face is calm and blank. Some wound has torn when he fell, and bright red blood is staining the back of the white robes.

It's not just the back. The sleeve of Maitimo's right arm, which has no hand - because Findekano cut it off - is blooming red with blood, too.

Their people are ecstatic at the sight of blood. They whistle and shout at him, kinslayer, traitor, dog, thrall, and Findekano can feel himself trembling with anger and hatred. He wants to rescue Maitimo from this, take him away somewhere and never see any of these people again.

It is awful.

Even Turukano is laughing, and Findekano hates him for it with a violence that surprises him.

Maitimo looks like he doesn't know he is being humiliated. He must be in pain, but Findekano cannot see even a flicker of it. From his face you would think he is walking in a park in Valinor, and even in the midst of all of this Findekano cannot help but be captivated by his beauty and nobility as he suffers.

It is not even his fault, Findekano thinks. He is being punished for something that he did not even do: it is not fair that he is being forced to take the crime of his father and of his people onto his own head.

It takes Maitimo forever to make his way to the throne on his knees, and he is visibly trembling by the time he gets there. The crowd watch him like hunters who have cornered a wounded fox. Ready for the kill.

“Well, Nelyafinwe?” Nolofinwe says, his lip curling in contempt. “What do you have to offer for your sins?” Everyone laughs.

And yet Maitimo's voice is steady and dignified when he speaks, even on his knees with his white robes bloody. Findekano thinks he looks more like a king than Nolofinwe does, his head still high and proud, looking at Nolofinwe’s greed for blood and power with a steady gaze. Unashamed and unyielding.

“If there lay no grievance between us, lord, still the kingship would rightly come to you, the eldest here of the house of Finwe, and not the least wise.”

The crowd mutters, angry that he is no fun, and Findekano hopes that they are ashamed of themselves. As they should be, Findekano thinks savagely, tears in his eyes.

The guards pass Maitimo a crown, and he tries to get to his feet but overbalances. This time there is a hush rather than a laugh when he falls, the thud he makes as he hits the ground echoing in the silence.

Even some of the audience are starting to give Nolofinwe uncomfortable looks.

Findekano stands to press past his father and help, consequences be damned, but the guards are already helping Maitimo up. Most of Maitimo's weight is on them as he extends his shaking left arm to crown Nolofinwe.

Nolofinwe stands and bows as the guards fairly drag Maitimo away, and Findekano sets his teeth and applauds with his teeth clenched as the crowds cheer.

Chapter Text

As soon as Findekano can get away, he rushes to Maitimo's tent. Maitimo is lying in bed with his face to the wall. His brothers are shouting all at once, so none can be heard over the others, trying to get his attention and each other's.

They hush and stare at him when he enters, but Findekano could not care less about their glares.

“Eru be damned, Russandol!” Findekano says angrily. “What were you thinking?” As if it was Maitimo's fault, he berates himself angrily. As if he would have chosen this.

Maitimo turns his face towards him and looks at him steadily. "Let Nolofinwe be content with such paltry offerings,” he says with quiet contempt. “I have bigger aims.” He sounds like all of it is beneath him.

Findekano cannot help but stare. All the brothers erupt at once, except Makalaure, and Maitimo turns back to the wall.

“What happened?” demands Tyelkormo, grabbing Findekano's robe to draw his attention. “He won't say, but he came back covered in blood.”

“My father,” starts Findekano, furious, but he cannot continue. The brothers are all looking at him now.

“It must be serious if you're angry at him,” says one of the twins.

“Your father is an usurper,” Curufinwe hisses, and Findekano does not argue.

Curufinwe turns to Maitimo instead, looking very like Feanaro in his fire. “Even his own son agrees with us! Our people will not stand for this insult. We can win, Nelyo, only let us avenge this insult.”

The twins and Tyelkormo chime in, agreeing, and even Carnistir and Makalaure are nodding. Findekano finds himself looking to Maitimo for the word. He cannot fight against his own people, surely - but the fury in him needs to do something. He will not be left behind.

But Maitimo ignores them all, until they eventually trail off. The last person to speak is Tyelkormo, hissing about that usurper.

Maitimo laughs harshly. “Yes, he is an usurper,” he agrees, and Findekano finds his heart beating hard, his blood up, and his hand reaching for his sword. No good king can start his rule as his father just did, he thinks. This is justified. He can see the others with him, standing tall and dangerous, their hands on their own weapons.

But - but it is his father. The man who sang to him when he was small, who has always championed Findekano through thick and thin. Who invited Maitimo’s brothers to the camp when he saw that he missed them, damn the politics: who has covered all the work that Findekano had abandoned to look after Maitimo without a single word.

Maitimo is speaking. “But so what? Why do we care as long as we get what we want? Do you think I have not been through worse?” He laughs then, abrupt and harsh and awful.

Findekano blinks. Everyone else looks as confused as he feels. With a sense of relief, he takes his hand off his sword: he will not have to make that choice today.

But he is no coward. He cannot be his father, forever pretending he would not have made a choice.

“Don't we want the kingship?” asks one of the twins, in a small voice, as if he is afraid of asking his tutor a question which he should already know the answer to.

Maitimo laughs again humourlessly. “What good is a title?” he asks.

Curufinwe does not say anything, but it looks a lot like he wants to. In fact, they all look mutinous.

There is a long silence.

“You have a plan,” says Tyelkormo slowly.

“Of course he does,” says Makalaure. “He always has a plan.”

“And back up plans for his back up plans,” adds Carnistir.

Findekano does not know what to do with his adrenaline and fury and fear. He knows he is not thinking clearly.

“Let's go back to our camp,” Curufinwe says. “His orc of a father has no reason to hold you any more.”

The brothers assent, and look at Maitimo, who inclines his head.

“What about me?” Findekano asks, swallowing, suddenly nervous. “If you'll have me.”

Makalaure looks at him approvingly. “Of course we will, Findekano,” he says. The others nod, with various degrees of enthusiasm and reluctance.

Findekano is quite touched to see that it is only Curufinwe who is hesitant: Tyelkormo gives him a hard look while agreeing, but the Ambarussa smile at him and Carnistir grimaces in what Findekano thinks is supposed to be a smile also.

“I don't know - he's my father.” Findekano confesses, and he expects the tentative approval to vanish. But he is only met with glances of sympathy. He supposes if there is one group who understand being torn between their father and everything else, it is them.

Tyelkormo even clasps his shoulder in brief commiseration.

“Let's go tonight,” Makalaure says, command in his voice, because Maitimo is obviously not going to make any decisions. Findekano looks at him in surprise. He forgets that it has been Makalaure in charge of his brothers and their people for thirty years: he is not used to seeing him that way. Perhaps he had not entirely been a figurehead after all.

“Ambarussa, pack anything of Maitimo's. Tyelko, find Gil and pack his things. Make sure he understands and cooperates. Then make sure everything is ready.”

Curufinwe glares and opens his mouth, but Makalaure is faster. “Curvo, Moryo, get us out of here. Secret and quick. I don't like the mood of the camp.”

The brothers turn to each other, talking rapidly.

“And Finno, decide what you want to do. If you choose to come, pack what you want to take, and bring it here. If you don't - keep silent until we're gone. I'll stay with Nelyo.”

Makalaure gets on the bed and curls up carefully into his big brother. Maitimo does not say a word, but as soon as Makalaure joins him he sighs and puts his bloody arm around his younger brother, visibly relaxing.

Makalaure is very clever, Findekano realises. Perhaps before he would never have seen it, would never have recognised power that is hidden, but he sees it now.

*

When Findekano gets back to his tent, Gil is there, his dark eyes furious.

Findekano has never seen him openly angry before. Nor Maitimo since he was rescued, it occurs to him, although he had always been quick to irritation and slow to anger.

Findekano cannot meet his eyes. “Hello, Gil,” he says to the floor.

“You tell me it is so different here,” Gil says, flashing wild with fury. “Yet there is no difference at all between here and there! You cannot look at me now and tell me my da is not just as much a thrall here as he was in Angamando.”

There is silence. Findekano looks at the floor.

“You lied to me, slave-master,” says Gil bitterly. “You told me all these pretty words and pretty ideas, valour and honour and love. A pretty pack of lies for a people of rabid dogs.”

He glares at Findekano, who does not look at him or answer. He cannot bear to.

Gil’s voice goes up in a wail that is probably supposed to be angry but just sounds heartbroken. “You lied to me. You said you would protect us, that we would be safe here. And now you won't even look at me.”

Findekano does not know what to say. He does not know what to think. If he starts, then he knows there are many things that will have to change, and though Findekano is not a coward, he knows there are many things he will lose.

He does not want to lose them. Hasn't he lost enough already?

But he also knows, deep inside himself in an ache that is close to where he keeps Arakano, that the fact that he is even thinking about it means he knows what the right decision is. Who to choose.

“We're leaving,” he says, because it is right, and after all Findekano is not a coward. “Find Tyelko. We can't stay here.”

Gil glares at him as he leaves. “Your father is a monster, you know,” he spits.

Findekano cannot even be angry. The boy is hurt. He has lost what he thought was true, and safe, and good.

He wishes that his own heart did not recognise that so well.

*

Findekano packs as light as he can, though he still brings far too much luggage with him. It's mostly Feanorion gifts, anyway, so they cannot complain, but all the same, he does not want to leave any of his equipment or weapons or clothes behind. He has a newfound appreciation for his things, after the Ice.

He considers telling his father he is leaving, but he remembers how he sneered at Maitimo crawling in his own blood, and his heart clenches in fury.

That's his husband.

But he cannot leave Irisse without an explanation, or Ingoldo. Aikanaro and Angarato have been distant with him practically since leaving Aman, and Turukano has been downright hostile. He doesn't owe them anything. But Irisse and Ingoldo…

He goes to see Irisse first. She had not attended the abdication: she said she did not care about politics, but he thought she was angry that only her brothers were to sit with their father.

It had ever been the way since they were young: Findekano celebrated and indulged for the same traits and interests which were condemned in Irisse. He wishes now that he had stood up for her, but he had only been a child, and had not seen it clearly at the time.

“Ris?” he calls, outside her tent.

“I'm busy!” she says, her voice thick.

“It's important.”

There is a giggle from the tent and then Irisse sighs. “Come in,” she says with reluctance.

Findekano opens the tent flap and tries very hard not to look at the half-clothed woman in Irisse's bed. “I need to talk to you, Ris,” he says. “Privately.”

“Would you mind, darling?” Irisse asks the woman, a dark-haired Noldo, entirely typical except for the bones adorning her hair and the paint on her arms. A Huntswoman, Findekano thinks.

“Of course not,” the woman says. “Find me later. I have a stag I wish to show you.”

Irisse laughs, and the woman leaves.

“What is so important, brother?” she asks.

“You have to tell nobody of this,” he says first. “Promise me, Irisse. Not Turvo, not father, nobody.”

Irisse nods. “I promise.” Her face is wary.

Findekano is relieved. Even if she doesn't agree with his decisions, he knows she will keep her promises.

“I'm leaving,” he says abruptly. “Tonight. With Russandol. I couldn't leave without saying farewell.”

Irisse's eyes narrow in anger. “Turvo is right! You are choosing him over us.”

“Ris, if you had seen what happened today…” Findekano feels sick even thinking about it.

“Yes, I'm sure it's very hard to give up the crown,” Irisse says with exaggerated sarcasm. “I'm sure it made crossing the Helcaraxe look like a walk in the woods.”

Findekano looks at her helplessly. He does not know how to explain: if she had been there, he knows she would understand, would be furious on Maitimo's behalf.

“It was awful,” he says, knowing how weak his words are as he says them.

Irisse clenches her fists. She looks worn, Findekano notices, and her inevitable white dress is patched. “What is awful is that Turvo wants to die every single day, and you don't see it because you're too busy looking after your lover. Arakano is dead. Dead, dead, dead and never returning. Gone to the Halls of he who Doomed us and we all know what kind of mercy he has for us. What does the crown matter to that, Finno? Who cares who leads? Is it worth abandoning what you have left of your family for?”

Findekano would not be leaving if it was just that, or at least not in this way. Her accusations are unfair, and it boils in him, taking his tongue.

The silence is too long, and Irisse turns away.

“I won't tell,” she says evenly, “but I won't condone it, either. Leave your family if you will, brother: I will not give you my blessing.”

Findekano suddenly feels exhausted. He has no idea how to say any of the things he wants to, needs to, so after a few silent moments he turns to leave.

“I love you, Ris,” he says as he leaves. She does not respond.

*

Ingoldo will not even agree not to tell. Findekano stands in his tent as Ingoldo argues with him, wishing he had just left without a word for all the good this has done.

“How can I promise not to tell, if I don't know what it is?” Ingoldo asks for the third time, as if he is the one being reasonable.

“But I cannot tell you if you don't promise,” says Findekano wearily, again. He tries to think how to explain without giving anything away.

“Look, it's just that my father will be angry. And… I don't like how everyone is acting tonight.”

Should he just leave? This is pointless.

Ingoldo shivers. “It's scary,” he agrees. “What happened today was - oh. You're leaving. With the Feanorions.”

It's not a question. Findekano winces.

“Please don't tell,” he says.

“I won't,” says Ingoldo. “You should have just said that! Honestly, I'd be tempted to come with you, if my siblings weren't here, and they never would. Today - we were no better than orcs. Worse than orcs. I used to think Alqualonde was a one-off, the product of fear and madness, panic in the dark. But they would have killed him today, if they could.”

Findarato considers, his head on one side. “Yes. And I hate them for it, Ingo. I can't stay here. Though I'm not sure the Feanorians are any better,” he adds sadly. “Maybe with Russandol in charge.”

Findekano looks at the floor. He hadn't seen it, but slight Findarato and his much more imposing sister had both tried to restrain their people when they realised who they were fighting. They had been weaponless, luckily, or Findekano thinks they would have ended up dead. Findarato had still ended up with a deep gash across his side that had never really healed in all the time they were crossing the Helcaraxe.

Findekano has touched it many times, rubbed salve into it and bound it tight for Findarato. Findarato had never once mentioned that it was Findekano’s fault the Noldor had won.

He wonders if it has healed now.

Findarato is suddenly right in front of him, and Findekano looks up in surprise. “Good luck, cousin,” Findarato says, and stands up on his toes to kiss Findekano's cheek. “I'll see you when I can. Give my love to your Russandol and Gil.”

Findekano stares at him for a second, remembering Findarato open for him, moaning and begging in their tent on the ice. He had been a shockingly lovely sight against the brutality of the Helcaraxe, his fine golden hair loose beneath him.

And he thinks of how supportive Findarato has been since Findekano rescued Maitimo. He seems to have no resentment at all, only joy for them.

Impulsively he picks Findarato up off the ground in a bear hug, making him squeal, but he can tell Findarato is pleased.

“Thank you, Ingo,” he says roughly, burying his face in Findarato's hair and not letting him down. “I'm so glad we're friends.”

Ingoldo squeaks a little and kicks his feet. “I can't breathe, Finno,” he protests, but he has a big smile on his face. Findekano does not put him down.

Then Ingoldo kisses him on the mouth, wet and sweet, a kiss that is decidedly un-cousin-like. “For Russandol,” he says, grinning mischievously.

*

The plan Carnistir and Curufinwe come up with is simple.

They meet in Maitimo's tent, and everyone in the camp is celebrating and feasting, so noise does not matter. It is a cold night, which means everyone is wrapped up in cloaks, so the identity of the Feanorions is not immediately obvious.

The bags have already gone, though Findekano does not know where. Gil has so little: it pains Findekano to see a child without toys. He has never seemed particularly interested in them, has never kept things he has made for himself, but Findekano hoped as he felt safer that might change. The boy has been forced to grow up too fast.

“Wouldn't it be safer if it was just one or two of us?” Findekano asks. “More stealthy. We're a big party to be sneaking out.”

“Better together if we have to fight,” Tyelkormo says grimly.

Surely they will not? His father has no need to keep them now. But after today - Findekano cannot be certain of anything.

The brothers have not said anything to him about his decision, silently making room for him instead. Only Makalaure smiles at him, tense and small, and Curufinwe pulls him aside to discuss tactics.

“Will you bear the biggest risk?” Curufinwe asks, blunt with his cold snake’s smile.

Findekano's heart jumps. “Of course,” he says without hesitating.

Curufinwe's expression does not change. “Good.”

*

Findekano walks in front of the group through the throngs celebrating, smiling and waving to people. The forced cheer makes his stomach turn. Tyelkormo, Carnistir and Makalaure are pretending to drink and laugh as they walk, and Makalaure is quietly humming a tune laced with just a little power,don't notice us, don't notice us. Not enough to deter any determined interest, but enough that most people pass them by without a look.

Findekano can feel the tension thrumming in his body as he walks. If they were to get caught now… He tries to think about something else, about how Tyelkormo is so loud and obnoxious that he might actually be drunk, jumping around annoying his brothers and making them laugh reluctantly. How irresponsible in the circumstances, but he admires his gall.

The Ambarussa are carrying their brother, all of their hair of course casually covered. Occasionally people stop their crown prince and ask if he needs help with the casualty, but Findekano just waves the bottle that Curufinwe has given him, plastering a grin on his face.

“Can't hold his alcohol,” he says. “Cheers to the High King!”

It never fails to distract them. Curufinwe is right again.

Findekano finds this somehow harder than any enemy action, because it is his own people, and yet how badly it could end.

They make their way to the stables, carousing as they go. Carnistir and Tyelkormo are singing a drinking song out of tune, to Makalaure's obvious fury. Gil is riding on Tyelkormo’s shoulders and waving a blue Nolofinwian banner he had found. He looks thrilled, though Findekano is sure he cannot be.

Nobody looks at them twice. Nobody is suspicious. Nolofinwe has not sent guards after them, which Findekano had half-suspected he would.

As soon as they are inside the stables, and there is nobody to see them, everyone is instantly serious. Findekano blinks at the change.

He is so relieved that there has been no violence that he feels dizzy. He is sure there would have been, if they had been seen: there would be no mercy for Feanorions in the camp tonight.

Though the night is not yet finished. Only the first leg is done: the more risky action is still to follow.

“Horses are tacked up,” Tyelkormo says, command in his voice. “I'll take Nelyo, and the Ambarussa will take Gil.” He is all business, his previous playful drunkenness utterly gone.

He pauses to rummage through what looks like a rubbish heap and withdraws a cache of weapons: mainly small swords and bows. He distributes them in silence to all but Gil.

“Ride as if we were out to relieve a patrol, in their formation, like I explained earlier. Findekano in front,” Curufinwe tells them. “And if we are challenged - let Findekano talk to them. And if that doesn't work, flee, and we'll meet back at our camp. Protect Nelyo first, and if he is safe or taken, protect the Ambarussa and the child.”

Everyone nods, already aware of the plan. Curufinwe must have explained it all to them before taking Findekano aside. This is a very military operation, but the Feanorians have been fighting the Enemy for thirty more years than Findekano has. He should not be surprised by their competence.

He half expects Gil to say something, complain at being protected, perhaps, or insist on being given a weapon, but when he looks at his face Findekano can see he is terrified.

Findekano wants to reassure him, but Gil has not forgiven him yet. He would not believe him.

It hurts.

Curufinwe turns to Findekano. “If that happens, pick someone to follow. I'm afraid it's the most risky for you, but you're also the only one who faces no chance of execution if caught.”

His voice is utterly calm, and Findekano realises that he means every word. It will not come to that, of course. The Feanorians have ever expected worse from his side of the family.

Or perhaps Findekano is naive about what his father is capable of. He clearly is: it has been proven today. But he hopes he is not wrong here.

Maitimo has not said a word, still lying unmoving on the floor where the Ambarussa put him down. Findekano pulls back the cloak covering his face to check on him, and he is breathing, but asleep. Probably unconscious. It’s a mercy.

“We drugged him,” says Makalaure, and Findekano whips his head around, outraged.

“We asked him first!” Makalaure steps back, laughing, holding his hands up in a gesture of surrender. “After today he could not ride, and he'll be in less pain this way.”

“And, more importantly for us, he'll be quieter,” adds Tyelkormo.

“Everyone ready? Any questions?” snaps Curufinwe, glaring at them.

Findekano looks around for Gil, who is standing with the Ambarussa, holding their hands and refusing to look at him. They will keep him safe.

“Let's go.”

Findekano swings up onto his bay mare, and they move to the entrance of the stables, as far as they can go without possibly being seen. The bay mare can feel his tension, his excitement, and she is attuned to his every signal, ready to fight or run as needs be. She moves almost by his mind more than his touch.

The Ambarussa help put Nelyo over in front of Tyelkormo's saddle, efficient as if he were some game they had caught, and Tyelkormo tightens his straps to secure him there. Hunter’s tricks. One twin then swings up to his own saddle, putting Gil in front of him, and all three of them line up behind Findekano.

Carnistir and Curufinwe move behind Findekano too, in a line with the twin without Gil. Tyelkormo and the twin with Gil are behind them, and Makalaure brings up the rear on a beautiful dancing black that Findekano admires.

“Ready?” asks Curufin shortly, and when there is no answer, “Go!”

Findekano rides out at a steady trot, looking ahead, keeping the bay under tight control. He often rides out and leads patrols, so it is not hard to pretend. His mare responds perfectly, arching her neck, eager yet obedient. She is wonderfully trained.

Makalaure is singing loudly now, ostensibly a song of celebration that also says go away, go away. Findekano knows of no other Singer who can sing the words of a song while the song’s power works otherwise.

They ride over hard, stony ground. It is not forgiving for the horses, but they are Feanorian and thus well-shod: there is no such shortage of materials in the Feanorian camp. The mountains in the background are just a shadow in the mist.

Findekano settles into alertness. He keeps picturing the confrontation they will have: the inevitable challenge, the doubt morphing into suspicion, and then their battle, or their flight. He keeps fingering the hilt of his sword for comfort. He will not be a kinslayer again: he is decided on that. Better to risk himself than to kill, and there are many ways to stop people that are not lethal.

Most groups of riders give them a wide margin, and it is so misty that visibility is low. Each time one appears the tension is almost tangible until they disappear again. They do not break formation, and Findekano makes sure to give occasional commands as if he were really leading them.

A shape looms out of the mist, almost running into them. They are close enough that Findekano can see the silver beads in the commander's hair and the frown on her face. Her expression changes as she struggles with Makalaure's Song, from suspicion to acceptance to confusion, but eventually she does challenge them, though her speech is halting.

“Hail, Captain,” she manages. “Where - what -”

“Hail, Captain.” Findekano puts his hood back, but keeps his weapons covered. His fingers itch for their sword. “My father asked me to check on something,” he says, resisting the urge to spin a more complicated story, and winking at the riders instead. Again, it's Curufinwe’s words, and it works, along with Makalaure's Song: the riders clearly want to be gone. They laugh with relief: the captain claps him on the back, and they ride off, with cheers of long live the High King. The Feanorions join in, of course, because it would be a giveaway if they did not.

“See? I told you,” he hears the twin behind him say, presumably to Curufinwe. Findekano grins.

After that it is steady going, if not easy riding. Findekano has more confidence in himself and his ruse: perhaps he is more cunning than he believed he had the capability for.

After a point, Curufinwe orders, “Cease formation!”

A host of silent riders melt out of the mist to join them: Makalaure stops singing and starts giving orders, so presumably they are his own regiment. They are excellent riders on well-trained horses, but something seems… off about them.

The riders wheel off to surround them, some on the edges constantly turning away and scouting and then coming back to the group. Two ride ahead of Findekano to show him the way, their spears tall. Two ride slightly behind him. He tries not to feel threatened, but he cannot make out any individual feature on them: it feels like being heralded by ghosts.

Because it is difficult for him to get a proper look at them, it takes a while for him to realise that what is wrong is their faces.

Their features are too regular, too unchanging, and their skin glints oddly in the occasional peek of the moon. Findekano's skin prickles, and he reins in his mare and drops back to the two behind him.

“Hail, lord,” one says, and the other echoes. Their faces move towards him but their mouths are still.

“Hail,” Findekano says, trying for as ordinary a tone as possible. “How far are we?”

And then he realises as they answer and he misses the response entirely: they are only wearing masks. The masks are made of some kind of metal, perhaps brass or bronze but are good replicas otherwise. They are just like a real face but slightly wrong, and then copied across dozens of riders. Small holes for the eyes are carved on them, as well as subtle expressions - some are neutral, some have a slight smile, and some have the mouth slightly downturned, with tears etched into the metal.

Even knowing how it works, it sends a shiver down Findekano’s spine. He knows there are real flesh-and-blood people behind them: but even so, in the dark they are eerie, their impassive metal faces watching him, like ghosts reanimated for war.

It is probably very effective in battle.

Urged on by the cavalry, they let their horses into a canter, still not too fast for Maitimo's sake. Findekano is glad he's unconscious: trotting for that long would have been incredibly painful with his wounds, particularly bound across the front of Tyelkormo's saddle. Cantering is gentler, and the horses are eager to be going back home.

It's a long journey, though. Findekano is swaying in the saddle and his mare is blowing hard as they get into the Feanorian camp.

He checks on Gil. The boy looks tired but happy, his eyes glinting in the starlight as he looks at the Feanorian camp.

Compared to his father's, it looks more like a city. There are few tents; it is mostly made up of basic wooden buildings, with some made of stone. It looks like the most primitive village compared to Tirion, but the people are well-clothed and the guards have good armour and are alert: it seems well-run.

“If this is Noldorian architecture,” he hears Gil say, “I don't think much of it.”

People also seem to be waiting for them. A cheer rings out as Tyelkormo unfastens Maitimo and hands him down: Findekano leaps off his bay and follows him. A guard takes the reins immediately.

“Walk her,” he tells the guard, and she hesitates, but nods when Makalaure announces loudly, projecting as if he was back in a concert-hall, “We could not have succeeded without Findekano’s bravery, twice over!”

There are cheers for him then but Findekano does not care. The brothers dismount and kiss and embrace each other with the fervour that follows a battle, full of the joy of survival, of living to see the evening and those they love safe again. Some even embrace him: Tyelkormo swings Findekano spluttering off his feet and the Ambarussa join them, all exuberance despite their now-intimidating appearances, and they all end up in a pile on the dirt. Findekano cannot help but laugh.

It is undignified, but nobody seems to be looking at them askance.

Makalaure does not embrace him, but he touches Findekano’s shoulder after they have untangled themselves from the mess of brothers. He says quietly, “It was well done, Valiant.”

Smiling, Findekano follows Maitimo as he is taken into an official-looking building and put into a wooden bed, still unconscious and silent. Carnistir is quietly following behind them, and when he sees Findekano standing at a loss, watching Maitimo's white face in a kind of grief, Carnistir hesitantly pushes him into a reclining chair next to the bed.

He looks so young and vulnerable, unconscious. Findekano wants to never leave his side again.

Carnistir clears his throat. “I suppose you want to stay with him,” he says sullenly, or perhaps that's just Carnistir. Findekano just nods and Carnistir goes to speak quietly to a healer with a headdress who has just entered the room.

“Can you make sure Gil is looked after?” Findekano asks then.

Carnistir’s eyebrows raise in surprise. “No need,” he says. “The twins are looking after him.”

Some more healers have arrived and they are stripping Maitimo and examining him, tutting over the burst and bandaged stitching and his old scarring, shocking below the neck. A second reclining chair appears that Carnistir claims wordlessly, and he immediately starts on sanding something from his pocket. Findekano wishes he had something to keep his hands busy, but his eyes will not stay open.

*

When Findekano is woken by a strip of dawn light hitting his face, he panics a little at the unfamiliar location. He reaches for his sword, but that is gone, so he reaches inside his tunic for his knife as he looks around. He has a crick in his neck, and he is inside a building: this is not either his tent or Maitimo's. He has spent every night for as long as he can remember in one of those locations.

But Maitimo is there, his copper-red hair strewn out over the bed. He is not moving, but when Findekano bends over the bed in alarm, he can see the gentle rise and fall of his chest: Maitimo is sleeping, and without the furrows in his face which means he is in excessive pain.

Findekano breathes a sigh of relief. No nightmares, then, and their escape doesn't seem to have done him too much harm. Though he supposes “not actively bleeding” is a low bar, it's still better than yesterday.

He checks over himself, then: someone has stripped off his armour and his weapons, and replaced them with blankets and a garland of flowers Findekano does not recognise around his neck.

Findekano fingers it, curious and touched, and then crawls into bed with his lover, trying not to wake him.

Maitimo is warm, and seems to recognise him without waking entirely. He swings an arm around Findekano, muttering, “Finno,” and Findekano relaxes into him, nuzzling into his side. He loves to smell Maitimo: he always smells right somehow to Findekano, warm and inviting.

“Finno?” Maitimo's voice is warm and sleepy. “Finno!” He cracks his eyes open.

“Russo,” Findekano replies quietly, kissing him on the cheek. “I'm sorry. About my father. I'm so sorry, I never thought… I would never have let him…”

Maitimo just shrugs. “You chose us,” he says instead, and Findekano can hear the wonder in his voice. As if he hadn't dared hope that Findekano would choose him, even after everything.

“I don't know what's wrong with him,” says Findekano, blazing with anger again.

Maitimo does not respond, and Findekano brushes Maitimo's mind, expecting it to be walled off, but it is not; or at least, only the parts that Maitimo never lets him see, a tight core of pain and memories.

But Findekano can see most of his lover's mind. Maitimo feels sleepy, mostly, but there is no embarrassment or outrage or any of the things that he himself is feeling.

“Fuck, Russo,” he says heatedly. “I didn't think you'd just be fine with what my father did.”

Maitimo turns to look at him, fully awake now, his eyes flashing dangerously. “You think the Moringotto could not break me, but your father could? Let him have his petty victories, Finno.”

Findekano is frustrated. Nothing anyone does seems to make any sense to him any more. “You know that's not what I'm saying. I just… I don't understand why you don't care, Russo. You're acting like nothing ever happened. What do you even want? Just to pretend?”

Maitimo raises himself up onto one elbow, and the unrestrained fire in his eyes makes Findekano shiver, a little in fear and a little in arousal.

“What do I want?” he repeats softly. “I want to be safe. I want my brothers to be safe, I want Gil and Tyelpe to be safe, I want you to be safe. I want to wake up one day and not be afraid any more. I want revenge for my father and grandfather. I want Thauron dead and Morgoth too, ideally by my hand. And I never want anyone to have power over me again unless I choose it. Currently your father has a lot of power over me. But every choice he makes like that… he loses some.”

The fire in his eyes is hypnotic, like watching something burn in a dark night, when it is the only light for miles around. They look at each other for a moment, Findekano unwilling or unable to break it, but eventually Maitimo does with his diplomatic smile.

“Don't worry, Finno. It was the only bloodless way to avoid civil war, and you wouldn't be very happy with me if I killed your father,” he explains patiently, as if to a child.

“Don't joke about that!” Findekano cries, suddenly distraught. “It's not funny, Russo, haven't we had enough death?”

“More than enough,” Maitimo agrees. “We've all had our fill of it. I don't want any more. We've been buried in the stench of it since we left Aman. Alqualonde, our people who died on the ships, the Helcaraxe, my father, your brother - and death is a constant companion in Angamando. So let this be a new beginning, let us start as we mean to go on. Or - you started it, Finno, you chose a better way, and I cannot do less than follow you, can I?”

Maitimo looks at him with such trust and devotion, then, that Findekano swallows. He does not want to think that any decision of his led to Maitimo crawling on his knees in front of the assembled Noldor, covered in his own blood. He shakes his head, trying to clear the image from his mind.

“Except the Enemy and his lieutenant,” Findekano says instead. “Those are two deaths I haven't had my fill of.”

Maitimo laughs grimly. “Agreed,” he says.

“I don't know what I think any more, Russo,” Findekano whispers. “Everything I thought I knew… my father who I would have trusted with my life, who everyone agreed was one of the best and the most wise of our people, and he did this. I thought we were fundamentally good and now I cannot. My own family… Arakano is dead and Turvo and Irisse hate me. And you,” he says with sudden anger, “Nothing about you makes sense. You say one thing and mean another, you do things for reasons I cannot comprehend, and you adopted an orc who is somehow one of the more reasonable people in this camp!”

“Do you know how orcs were created, Finno?”

“Like horses, I presume,” says Findekano, slightly bewildered at the tangent. “Or like us.” Could there be other ways for living beings to be created?

“I don't think so. Some people say the Enemy made them from the earth, that they have no soul. Or that they're just beasts like any others, like a dog or a wolf.”

“Surely not,” Findekano says, because it cannot be true. If Findekano has a soul, then Gil does too - perhaps a twisted one, but isn't that true of him, or of his father, or of Maitimo?

“But there's another theory,” says Maitimo, “which I believe. Which I saw. The Enemy cannot create: he can only corrupt. I don't understand it: if a dog loses a paw, her puppies will still have four. But he does something so the changes take.”

Findekano stares at him in horror. “No,” he breathes. “No. You're saying…”

“I'm saying that they aren't wrong when they call me an orc.” Maitimo smiles, but it is humourless. “They're not correct, either, not yet, but if you hadn't rescued me, if I had been there a hundred years, two…”

Findekano sits up abruptly. He cannot bear it. It cannot be true. “But that would mean… we're fighting Eldar. Quendi. We would be kinslayers, all of us. No, I cannot believe it, Russo, I think you must be wrong.” He takes a controlled breath in. “No. I have faith. I have hope. The eagle came for us. It isn't true.”

Maitimo says nothing.

“Is that what you believe? Is that why you consider him your son?”

Then Findekano realises something, and with it comes a rush of sympathy. “Oh, Russo. Gil makes you think of what you could have been, isn't that it? You believe that you could have been like him, given enough time. But you couldn't have. The Enemy could have killed you, but they could never twist you so. Please, love, believe me.”

Maitimo looks at him, his grey eyes cold. “I love you, Findekano,” he says. “But I don't always like you.”

“I know,” says Findekano, wretchedly. “I'm sorry to tell you the truth. But you know I cannot do otherwise. I am no coward, to hide the truth from me or from you. I know you love him. I love that you love him.”

“But you don't think it's real.”

“Don't be angry at me for saying what I believe, Russo.”

Maitimo sighs. “I'm not. How could I be? I know you love me. I know you try to do the right thing. I know your courage, your kindness, your hope, your light, and I love it. But Finno, you're wrong here.”

There is a silence as Maitimo thinks for a moment, his head cocked at an angle. Then he looks directly at Findekano and his eyes burn.

“Maybe I should have faith. Not in the Powers, but in you. This is new to you. It's against everything you've been brought up to believe. All of this is. How can I expect you to arrive at the conclusion without first seeing the evidence? What would I have believed, newly arrived? No, I am unfair to you. I need not be afraid: you will get there yourself, without any convincing from me.”

“I believe the same. With time… you will see, Russo,” says Findekano, because he doesn't want to but he knows that nature cannot be changed. He does not need to convince Maitimo: time will. He only needs to love him and support him when his lover’s heart is broken.

Or at least, that is what he has known, until recently. Yesterday he would have sworn on it. But can he trust what he believes now? Or is that another holdover, from back when he believed that his father and the gods were kind and merciful?

He lost half that comfort at Alqualonde, and he feels he is losing the other half as he speaks. Like Findarato had said, once could be a mistake, an awful error, a temporary madness. But perhaps… it is all simply who they are.

The world is so much darker than he ever thought.

Is Gil so different from any other child? What would he do if someone discovered Gil was an orc, and tried to kill him in revenge for their own lost kin?

“We are agreed, then,” Maitimo says solemnly. “And I will admit it is a load off my mind. The child is so attached to you, you know.”

He speaks as if it is a foregone conclusion that he will prevail.

Findekano smiles at him, trying to shift his mood to something more light-hearted. “Do not speak to me of loads and burdens! You made me crown prince. I hate you for it.”

“Ai. Don't you remember?” Maitimo says, touching Findekano's hand very gently. “Your secret ambition. Back in Tirion. You said you wanted to be the dark king of a dark land, where everything mattered. Where bravery and great deeds meant more than fashions and conceit, where there was no need for paperwork and pretty words.”

Findekano breathes in sharply. “I remember,” he says, and the grief is so strong, for his lost innocent self, and the joy is so sharp, because they will always be them, in love, whatever shape the future will hold. “And you said there would always be a need for paperwork and pretty words.”

Maitimo nods solemnly, but his grey eyes are laughing as he looks at Findekano.

“And you said… you said that you would do that part of it, that you would stand behind me while I ruled if I wanted, because we are two halves of a whole.” Findekano is whispering by the end, his voice choked with tears.

“I know that I am less than half of a whole, now, Finno, but while you will have me, I will not go back on my part.”

“Nor I,” says Findekano, hoarsely, the tears streaming down his cheeks, and he kisses Maitimo, wet and hot and everything that matters.

“So after all, I have lost nothing,” Maitimo murmurs.

Chapter Text

Chapter 5 - Artanaro

When Findekano next wakes, Curufinwe and Carnistir are there, followed by two small dark-haired boys. He is half-surprised that none of them are in his bed yet. The boys seem to have made fast friends already and are holding hands.

“Gil!” Findekano exclaims. “Tyelpe!”

Both boys leap up towards them. Curufinwe opens his mouth, but he is too late, and both are on Findekano and Maitimo before he can stop them.

Findekano tries to pull them over to his side, but despite them not yet being fully grown they are still quite large and Maitimo wakes to their kicks and giggles.

“Ah, I should have known who it was,” he says drily, pulling a face at the boys. Gil giggles shrilly and Tyelpe pulls a face back before cuddling up to him.

“We're going to regret introducing them to each other,” says Carnistir. Both brothers have clearly been there for some time: Carnistir has some kind of report in his hands, and Curufinwe is carefully embroidering the Star of Feanor on something that is too small to be anyone but Tyelpe's.

Curufinwe rolls his eyes and shoves his brother, not hard, but not gently either. He is very carefully not looking at Maitimo for acknowledgement, Findekano notices.

“I'm assuming it was a success, then?” Maitimo looks to Curufinwe, who nods. “Well done. Kano said he'd assigned Tyelko to commander of our armies and you to strategy. I can see it was a good choice.”

Curufinwe looks pleased, and without the sour expression on his face, Findekano thinks he looks both beautiful and very young. Of course, he's the son who looks most like Feanaro, who was widely considered to be one of the most beautiful of all the Eldar, so it shouldn't be a surprise, but his constant frowning does tend to ruin it.

“Mood here is as expected, though,” Curufinwe reports, and when Findekano’s confusion must show, he explains. “People were already mistrustful of your father, thinking he was taking advantage of Russandol's capture to usurp the kingship. With… yesterday going how it did…” Curufinwe again does not look at Maitimo, though this time Findekano thinks it is for different reasons.

Reports must have come through even to the Feanorion’s camp. Findekano is grateful he has not been stabbed in the night.

Maitimo sighs. “I'd hoped Nolofinwe might be a bit less… forceful. It was already going to be difficult for our people to accept him as High King. Now…”

“Well, if you will work with Nolofinwe,” Curufinwe says, his lips so tight they are barely visible. Clearly this has been the subject of many past discussions. “Then it doesn't matter, because they're still loyal to you, more than ever now they feel Nolofinwe has wronged them. I suggest working with that angle: letting them know to give lip service to Nolofinwe, but having them stay personally loyal to you.”

“Which was your plan anyway,” says Makalaure, who Findekano has not noticed entering. “You need both armies to fight the Moringotto. You don't see a way to take over Nolofinwe's: he won't work with you as an equal. So he thinks he's won, you've kept your own army and increased their loyalty, and there's no chance of civil war.” Makalaure’s sharp smile contains no humour, but a lot of victory. “I worked it out.”

“Which is the same as why father did it,” Findekano realises. “He wanted to make sure there was no chance his army might be loyal to you.”

Curufinwe raises his eyebrows. “Well, yes. He's not been popular since dragging them across the Ice for the sake of revenge. There's been a lot of discontent in his camp, and this was his solution. A successful one, by most accounts.”

“Your father is ruthless indeed,” says Carnistir. He sounds almost admiring.

“Stop talking, Moryo,” Makalaure says acidly, putting his hand firmly over Carnistir's mouth. “Nelyo, we've been praising Findekano to the heights of Taniquetil. Everyone knows he's a hero. There shouldn't be any problems with him here.”

Maitimo nods, and Findekano’s hand goes to his garland. “I suppose that's why I have this?”

“You are a hero, Findekano, rightly named Astaldo. You snatched Nelyo out from under the nose of the Enemy and all of us last night. And so on.” Makalaure is complimenting him, but in such a dramatic and venomous tone that Findekano wonders if he instead ought to be insulted.

“Good, Kano,” Maitimo says. “You've all done well pulling this off. Has there been any communication from Nolofinwe?”

“Very polite, very formal,” Makalaure says. “Happy to have hosted you… wish you all the best in your continued recovery… May we have a long and happy friendship between our houses…”

Curufinwe speaks up, looking up from his embroidery at Maitimo and acting like Findekano is not there. “Actually, we have your husband to thank for that too. Apparently little cousin Ingoldo insisted that Findekano left of his own accord, and that he promised to be back soon. My sources say your father is convinced it was all Findekano's idea and he's reluctantly impressed by his audacity.”

That's… nice. Findekano was prepared to be at war with his father: but he does not want to be.

Findekano does not understand how his father can still be his father, who loves him deeply and admires him even when others would criticise him, and at the same time be the man who would hurt and humiliate his wounded nephew to consolidate his power.

He doesn't understand how the man who forced his husband to crawl to him in public can also be his father, who loves him beyond measure and is kind and loving and understanding.

If his father can do evil, what does that mean for everyone else?

What does that mean for him?

“Our lovely cousin is pretty and useful,” Makalaure says, elbowing Curufinwe, who glares back at him. Maitimo glances instead at Findekano. Although there is no censure or worry in his gaze, Findekano ducks his head.

“There's a note from Ingo too,” says Makalaure. “Blah blah cousins, hope to meet you all again soon in the spirit of kinship and discovery, blah blah parties back home. He's enclosed some confectionery for Tyelpe and Gil. Half of it is about some new species of bird he found.”

“Anything from Irisse?” Findekano asks hopefully. “Or Turukano?”

Makalaure shakes his head. Findekano had not really expected it, but he had hoped.

“Nothing for Tyelko?” Curufinwe asks.

Makalaure shakes his head again. Apparently Findekano is not the only one unforgiven.

“Is it true that Findarato brought all of his jewels over the Ice with him?” Carnistir is asking Findekano idly.

“He brought twice as much as anyone else, made his people carry them, and they nearly died for his jewels several times, too,” says Findekano, angry for some reason and therefore meaner than he would otherwise be.

“Bringing jewels is sensible,” says Curufinwe sourly. “Good gems are hard to find, and good metalwork harder. And that goes double for here.”

“Would you have done the same thing, brother?” Makalaure teases him. “I can just imagine you and Ingoldo, the smallest of the Noldor, each of you with a sack of jewels as big as you are…”

“It's portable wealth!” Carnistir objects.

Findekano opens his mouth to say that they used sledges, and anyway, the Helcaraxe wasn't funny: people died, a lot of people, and he doesn't think he will ever stop having nightmares about it. But Curufinwe is already tackling Makalaure and the two topple over onto the floor, Makalaure shrieking, though they do not seem to be really trying to hurt each other. Tyelpe leaps off the bed and tries to pull Makalaure off his father, but just ends up getting drawn in himself, and Gil follows a second later, defending Makalaure.

Gil has not once looked at Findekano today.

Maitimo is laughing and Carnistir is giving them a disapproving look. Findekano thinks it is nice that they're more relaxed here than in his father's camp, where none of them had been comfortable enough to roughhouse: but it does make him miss Arakano with a deep sharp ache in his chest.

*

As reported, Findekano is indeed popular in the Feanorian camp. People stop him to say thank you, mostly for his rescue of Maitimo, but also for saving them at Alqualonde and for getting their lord out of Findekano's father's camp. They give him wine and food and presents, and children drape garlands over them. This camp is much richer than his father's so he feels no guilt, and he cannot pretend he doesn't enjoy the attention.

What he doesn't love is the criticism of his father. Strangers toss him their complaints so casually, how supposedly Nolofinwe had usurped the crown and used the Enemy's torture of their prince in order to take advantage.

They imply even worse things.

They also tell him if they have to have a non-Feanorian king, then it should be him: Findekano is starting to be aware of exactly how much politics being in charge really does involve. Perhaps when Maitimo is healed and by his side, things will be easier.

Despite the situation, he cannot help but smile whenever he thinks of his conversation with Maitimo. Two halves of a whole. He feels like his Russandol is coming back to him. Not the same, no: but the same in all that matters. With Gil, it feels like they have a family.

Which is good, because he doesn't think much of his real family, right now, and he imagines they think even less of him.

*

Now he is in the Feanorian camp, Gil is very happy. He has all his uncles, he is already attached to Tyelpe at the hip, and as the recognised son of their prince, saved from the dead, he is universally beloved.

Findekano had worried that Gil’s ascension - he is widely recognised as a prince himself now - would mean that he came to despise the people beneath him. Master and mastered: it is all he has known. Gil has never lived in a different world.

But nor, for that matter, has Findekano: only his world had been gilded in a way that Gil’s has not been.

But Gil has copied Maitimo’s approach, which comes straight from Finwe, where princes serve as much as command. Maitimo explains to Gil over and over that obligations run both ways: he looks rather pointedly at Findekano when he does.

Findekano tries to speak to Gil, but he is not yet forgiven.

Nobody believes Gil is an orc here. Findekano finds himself forgetting it, seeing Gil’s strange-shaped pupils as simply his own idiosyncrasy. Though he has not yet come face-to-face with an orc since getting to know Gil, and dreads a little to face the boy's features across the battlefield.

He still does not believe Maitimo in his theory of the origin of orcs, cannot believe him: but even so. Orcs are clearly thinking creatures: they plan, they speak, they grieve. Whether or not they are Eldar… he is not sure how much of a difference it makes.

They still attack. They are still enemies.

There is more outrage in the Feanorian camp on Gil’s behalf than Maitimo's, when rumours trickle back of the orc king and his orc prince. Some of the Feanorians lean into it, and file their teeth to be as sharp as Gil’s or Maitimo’s: Tyelkormo and the twins do with glee, along with many of their personal followers and Maitimo's.

Findekano sees Gil stand a little taller. He has never noticed that the boy covers his mouth with his hand when he laughs. He notices when he stops, though.

He misses Gil, he realises. The boy still will not speak to him.

“Absolutely not, Tyelpe,” Curufinwe says with horror when Tyelpe asks permission to have his teeth filed.

“But, father,” Tyelpe says, in the adult tone of a child who until recently has not had any companions his own age for a long time, “they'll grow back within a hundred years anyway.”

“You'll be grown in a hundred years! It's a nasty trend anyway.” He gives Gil a somewhat filthy look.

(Findekano had once asked why Curufinwe, alone of his brothers, seemed to particularly dislike Gil.

“He's not a bad child,” Curufinwe had said grudgingly. “Not particularly talented, but sweet and smart enough. It's just the adoption: he doesn't have any Feanorian blood or skill, and there's no point pretending he does.”

Findekano had surprised them both by laughing. “No, maybe he doesn't have skill or blood, but the boy has guts. He nearly died fighting two armed guards who attacked Russandol, you know, and he unarmed and half their size. Ask Kano about it. Feanaro would have admired that.”

Curufinwe had inclined his head. “Perhaps so,” he had allowed.

“You know it's true,” Findekano had said. “That's why Feanaro always used to say I should have been his eldest son, and Russandol my father's.”

“I think,” Curufinwe said, silkily, “he was intending to criticise Russandol by the comparison, rather than compliment you.”

Findekano had laughed again. “Oh, I know, any time Russandol didn't immediately agree with his latest madcap plan. And yet - there was truth in his words. There always was, when your father spoke, and it wouldn't have been quite so hurtful to Russandol if we hadn't all known there was truth to it. And yet what could I have brought to your father that Russandol didn't? Not skill, not craft, not blood, not duty: Russandol outshines me all in all of them. Only blind loyalty and recklessness. And loyalty and courage - those Gil has in abundance.”

Curufinwe scowled. “Perhaps he should have made Tyelkormo heir then, for all the good it did father.”)

“Please, father,” Tyelpe begs, pulling at his own father's hands.

“Come on, Curvo,” Tyelkormo chimes in, flashing his own gilded and filed teeth to the glee of both boys. “It won't do them any harm. There's no court here, you know.”

“Absolutely not,” hisses Curufinwe. “Who knows where we will be in a hundred years? It is foolish of you, Tyelko, not that I expect anything less from you.”

Hurt flashes across Tyelkormo's fair features, but before he can snap back, Tyelpe is speaking again.

“What about those lessons in the forge you promised Gil and me, then? You know he's been wanting to learn for ages.”

Curufinwe glares at his brother, nonchalantly picking at his nails with a wicked hunting knife, and then at Gil and Tyelpe. “Fine,” he snaps. “After lunch. Watching only until I am confident you can follow instructions adequately. If you are late, I won't wait for you.”

He storms off, and Gil and Tyelpe turn to each other with victory in their eyes.

Findekano wonders if that had been their objective all along.

*

Maitimo is healing fast now. It only takes a few weeks until he is walking around the camp, and of course, being who he is, he immediately makes everyone train with him. Makalaure, Tyelkormo and Curufinwe are still running the day-to-day life of the camp: Findekano has to admit they make a good team, and the camp is run well. It gives Maitimo as much time as he needs in order to get back to strength.

It is exhausting. Maitimo, used to being waited on, had not seemed bothered by having things done for him: he seemed instead to take it as his due. But the long process of learning to do things again by himself, clumsy as a child, is much more painful for him.

They are careful about his safety. At all times at least one of his brothers insists on being with him or, when Maitimo puts his foot down and demands privacy, outside his door: servants are not allowed to enter Maitimo's rooms, and although Findekano does not say a word, it fills him with satisfaction to see the proud sons of Feanor sweeping the floor, changing Maitimo's bedding, or lacing his boots like a servant.

Findekano helps, of course, although he has to be taught how to do some of it: they had always had servants back at home and at his father's camp. But the brothers do not seem to find servants’ tasks humiliating, and even Curufinwe shows him how to make a bed as if he is explaining some facet of jewel-craft.

It is a difficult time for all of them. Findekano is starting to feel restless, in a camp full of people who are not his, an eternal guest, though they fete him and garland him still, and that goes some way to soothing his soul.

He struggles with Gil’s silence, who has been his companion for so long, now, and through so much.

“My home is yours, Finno,” Maitimo tells him, over and over again, but he can feel that something different is coming and he is restless for it. He came to be a dark king in a dark land, and the dark lands are here, but he is no king.

But then he thinks, better to be with Maitimo, better than… what his father chose.

He worries about his own ambition. He sees now how it has brought his uncle to ruin, and his father to cruelty: and he sees the same greed in himself. He does not want to be like them.

He has always wanted to be like his father, ever since he was a child, so it feels like losing something.

“You are not the same as our fathers, Finno, and neither am I. We can do better,” Maitimo says patiently. “Ambition by itself is no bad thing. It's when you start to destroy people for it that it becomes evil.”

“But what if I do?” Findekano cries. “I'm sure my father has rationalised his actions. I'm sure he says, it was regrettable, but I had no other choice. I could do that too, to get what I want. It would be easy!”

Maitimo sighs. “Finno,” he says. “You already risked everything to help me, because you thought it right. You are the best person I know. Do you think I do not worry about the same thing? I don't want to be my father. In lots of ways he was admirable, the best of the Noldor. You know that I loved him. And yet… in the end, that wasn't enough. He never forgave me before I died, and I'm glad.”

Maitimo’s voice cracks. “But I still miss him, and I still wish he would forgive me. I wish he was the person I thought he was, the one I thought I was following.”

“I feel like I'm grieving my father,” Findekano says. “Even though he's not dead. I'm grieving the father I grew up with.” He looks at Maitimo. “I don't think he's the man I thought he was, is he?”

Maitimo reaches for his hand. “I'm sorry, beloved,” he says.

“I don't want to be like him,” Findekano says again. “I don't want to talk to him ever again.”

It feels like the end of something, admitting that.

“He's the father you have, Finno. And he may be flawed, but he loves you. He wouldn't hurt you for a thousand crowns.”

“But how do you know that?” Findekano cries. “And how can you say that, after what he did to you? We are joined, you and I. It did hurt me. I should have seen it before - he was always cruel, when he had a reason to be.”

“Oh, beloved, I don't know. I don't have the answers. If you don't want to speak to him ever again, then I would support you. Only that if my father came back, I would try to make things right, because I love him. Even though I think there would be no chance, even though my father would despise who I am now. He would have nothing but contempt for my,” Maitimo grimaces, “weakness. Even though he nearly killed my brothers.”

He thinks for a moment. “I don't know, Findekano. Is that weakness in itself? I should hate him. I do hate him. But there are some people that you just love, and there is nothing you can do about it. Whatever they do or say. Even if they never speak to you again, even if they betray you so profoundly that you can never forgive them. Like you, beloved. There is nothing you could do to make me stop loving you. Or Gil. Or my brothers.”

Findekano laughs shakily. “I'm not sure that's healthy,” he says. “I'm not sure you should love like that.”

He loves Maitimo like that, though, without reason, without limit, without sanity. He could not hate him even on the Ice, when he believed his lover had betrayed him utterly. He does not want to admit to it: but he is no coward, at least in his own mind.

Maitimo shrugs. “I'm sure you're right, but it is, and I cannot change it. I would burn the world down for you, and them. It scares me.”

Findekano shakes his head. “I didn't expect to leave home and discover we're all terrible people, you know,” he says, and laughs because what else can he do?

Maitimo does not laugh. “Should we pretend not to be, like your father? That we don't all have that possibility within us? That we are not already murderers, or complicit in it, all of us? That with power at our fingertips, it is more than a possibility? That choosing good over evil is not always innate?”

He shakes his head. “This is why people want to believe we are different from orcs, that we are good without trying and they evil. But it is not so. We have seen that, now. None of us are stainless now, even golden Ingo.”

“I don't think believing we are good helped my father,” says Findekano. “I think it makes it worse. Because he can pretend he doesn't see what he does, pretend that he does things for the right reason.”

“Then surely it is better to do things differently, and face the truth? Then we can do better. We can be better.”

Findekano cannot argue there.

“I think,” he says slowly, “he has no-one to challenge him any more. He rarely listens to me. Turvo is… absent. His advisors are syncophants. Irisse isn't interested.”

Maitimo looks interested. “Power without oversight,” he says.

“Exactly!”

“My father's split with my mother was the beginning of the end,” he says thoughtfully. “Before that, he listened to her counsel. And then he stopped listening to me, too, and my brothers.”

“Perhaps we should be each other's restraints,” Findekano says. “I will tell you if you go too far, and you will tell me. And we will listen, no matter how much we want it.”

“We are agreed. You will be my keeper, and my conscience, and I yours. Two halves,” says Maitimo, and he kisses Findekano softly.

“But I worry even then that will not be enough. You know, I think about Alqualonde every day. Blood on the sand, the smell of people dying… we should have crossed the Helcaraxe, yes. But how can I reconcile the worst thing I did in my life - except for leaving you, Finno - with the fact that I still to this day cannot see a better option? That if I were in the same situation, where my father and brothers were fighting for their lives, I would step in again, right or wrong?”

“I would do the same,” says Findekano. “I have thought about it, too.” For Maitimo. But if it had been his family… he would have done the same thing as Maitimo.

“I used to think in Angamando that this was punishment for my crimes. That I deserved it. Perhaps we all do: perhaps we deserve no better than to be thralls to the Valar, because look at what we do the minute we have a choice. Commit atrocities. And I can find no way of guaranteeing it will not happen again, except for renouncing love and duty, and this I cannot do.”

They are silent for a moment, both thinking. Maitimo turns to Findekano, and he is shocked to see that tears are trickling down Maitimo's face. “Am I to accept that we are forever marred, you and I, not by the Enemy but by inescapable love, inescapable duty? Shouldn't they be a fount of good in our lives? How can the only plausible answer I can find be not to love, and that impossible?”

“I don't think it is our responsibility to find a remedy for evil,” says Findekano.

“Is it not?” replies Maitimo. “Isn't that what we came here to do, destroy evil?”

There is a long pause again, and he continues. “I want it to never happen again. I want to believe it was a mistake, something I can atone for. And yet… what I would do for you, for my family, scares me. If the right circumstances happen… what is there that I would not do to save you or Kano?” He shakes his head. “Perhaps your father is right to be ruthless. Perhaps I have too many personal attachments to have been king.”

“Do you know, we still don't know who started it. Us, or the Teleri. I don't know why I feel like it matters.”

Fingon has been thinking. “These situations… I don't think they'll happen again, Russo. I think you're torturing yourself with fantasies. We fight the Enemy, not each other: there is no civil war. And I will be your keeper as you will be mine. I don't think this is corruption, Russo, I think this is reality, and perhaps there never were any good answers for choosing between love and…”

“And murder?” Maitimo says bitterly. “It seems obvious to me in abstract, that you choose not to murder for love, or even as part of it. I could have written a nice speech about it, back in Valinor, how being virtuous is part of how you love someone.”

“Perhaps that is the corruption, then, that duty and love are twisted for such foul ends. Yet we cannot abandon them: that does not strip their value.”

“So what is the answer, Finno? Do we just give up, accept in despair that it is impossible not to be evil, that we all have circumstances under which we would do wrong? Or pretend that we wouldn't, that we alone are better than other people, that there are no circumstances where we could be pushed to the same, not again? If you had been captured with me in Angamando... you can't even imagine the things I would have done for the faintest chance of sparing you even once. There's a reason I ordered Kano not to attempt a rescue. I don't think I have it in me to pretend any more, nor you. But I also cannot just give up and accept the evil that is in me. So what is the answer?”

“I don't know,” Fingon says, “but we know more than we did before. We know there is a question. We know how easy it is to pretend, and how important not to. And we will find the answer together. How's that, Russo?”

Fingon continues. “Perhaps that is why we are here; to learn, to find the answers. Perhaps it is part of Eru's plan, and what we see as corruption can lead to greater beauty.”

Maitimo looks tired. “How can it? How can snapping the neck of a captured prisoner in the name of mercy be beautiful? How can the way that woman screamed - do you remember? Before I cut her throat - be beautiful? No plan that contains those can be beautiful. I can't believe it. We would be better off slaves again, children who cannot be trusted to make our own decisions.”

“Or maybe,” Fingon says, “that's why it happened. We were not used to making decisions of right or wrong for ourselves. Perhaps it is a thing that needs practice, to make the right choices. Isn't it a craft like any other, and if so, we can surely master it? Could you expect someone new at the forge to create a ring without flaws on their first try? So why is that different?”

“Because we hurt people, Finno. We killed them.”

Findekano shrugs. “I love you, and I cannot regret that part of it, though I wish it had never happened.” It occurs to him suddenly that his lack of real repentance is probably why Findarato has never spoken to him about it.
“But I struggle to believe any decision made out of love and hope can be evil. How can it be? What can I believe in, if not those? I feel it, Russo, that those things are good and not evil, that we will not come to ruin while we follow them. Look: here you are, and here I am, only because of my love and my hope.”

“My heart misgives me when you say that. Perhaps it is different: perhaps you are pure and I am not, and your hope and love are pure and lead to virtue, and mine to evil.”

Findekano scoffs. “You think yourself of too much importance. Love and hope do not bend to the likes of you and I: serve them wholeheartedly, and we will be rewarded. We should have hoped to cross the Helcaraxe at Alqualonde, and loved well enough to forgive the Teleri their betrayal of our friendship. Your father should have hoped for loyalty, and loved well enough for faithfulness. And mine… it was fear that drove him, fear and ruthlessness. With a little love, and a little hope, what a different decision he would have made! So, you see, Russo, I have it figured out. It's not so complicated after all.”

Maitimo laughs. “Love and hope. You are convincing, somehow. Well, I love you, and I have hope of you, if not much else: may it be enough. But I will not deny that your words give me more. Perhaps your heart shows you the answer that all my philosophising cannot.”

Findekano kisses him. “Love and hope, he said. That's all we need. Have faith: As long as we try, it will be enough. And I know we will try.”

Maitimo nods, and kisses him back. “It's not the answer I want,” he says. “But it's better than the answer that I had. So I will try.”

*

“Gil has disappeared,” Makalaure informs them one morning, looking frantic.

“Disappeared?” asks Findekano with rising panic, but Maitimo looks calm.

“He'll be back,” Maitimo says, entirely unconcerned.

Makalaure glares at him. “He's a child! Nelyo, what would happen if…”

Findekano cannot help but agree. Gil is brave and competent, yes, but he is still a child. He should not be out alone in a hostile land for days. He does not like that Maitimo allows Gil to go when and where he will.

Maitimo laughs. “Kano, most beloved of brothers, Gil is not Tyelpe. He has not spent his entire life as a spoilt Prince of the Noldor.”

Makalaure's ears are back, offended. “But it's not safe.”

“Is it not his decision to make? Do you deny he has the experience to make it, more than you or Findekano?”

Findekano does not think that is quite right, but he can see Makalaure is not going to win this one. Maitimo will not tolerate any limit to Gil’s freedom, even for his own good. He had not had the same attitude when raising his brothers: Findekano does not know where it comes from, though he can guess.

“Kano,” he says instead, to try and avert the argument. “The healers keep trying to get your brother to try those useless prosthetics. Could you…?”

They all look at Maitimo's stump, which is more or less healed now, though the scarring and stitching is still obvious. People stare at it: some openly, some less so. Maitimo is defiant and will not hide it.

“The only reason they want me to wear it is so that they feel more comfortable,” Maitimo says, his eyes narrowed. “It hurts, and it does nothing for me. If Curvo or someone makes me something beautiful, or useful, then I will try it, but I will give no ground to their grousing.”

Kano nods. “They are cowards. A blade, perhaps,” he says.

Maitimo grins savagely. “My thoughts exactly. You are my right hand indeed, Kano,” he says, bending down to kiss Makalaure’s forehead dramatically. “I do not need another.”

Findekano likes that Maitimo does not hide his stump. He likes how proud his lover is, how defiant: and on some twisted level he likes to see the proof that his lover is his, that Findekano alone bought his life from the Enemy. The proof that everyone can see. Perhaps he should feel guilty, but he only feels possessive. Findekano never says that out loud, of course: but he thinks Maitimo knows, because he winks at Findekano and says, “It is a scar I am proud to bear. The only, perhaps.”

But he looks at Findekano a little bit too long, and the devotion in his silver eyes says yes, yes, beloved, I am always and only yours.

Sometimes the possessiveness they both feel scares him. He wonders if the way they love is quite sane. I love you, but I am not your master, Findekano responds.

Ah, but you are, beloved. We talked about this, remember? I am yours as you are mine.

Maitimo strides off before Findekano can respond, leaving Findekano and Makalaure in his wake, looking at each other.

“Even if he wasn't my lord, I'd follow him anywhere,” says Makalaure, sounding faintly resigned.

“I don't know how he does it,” says Findekano. He does not say me too, but they both know the truth.

*

Practising fighting with Maitimo is something for Findekano to focus on. Maitimo is, frankly, terrible: slow and weak and uncoordinated, but he is dogged. He forces himself to keep going longer than Findekano can, despite the fact that it must be harder on him since he loses over and over again.

Findekano thinks it only makes his recovery slower, and the healers agree, but they cannot convince Maitimo to stop.

As he heals and becomes stronger, the evidence of his torture becomes more obvious to Findekano. He doesn't know if it's because he's just more used to Maitimo now and can read him well again, or if it is one of those things which is made more obvious by its absence, but Findekano notices his hollow eyes and expectation of pain more on Maitimo's bad days than he ever has before. The well-hidden relief when something as simple as a hand on his arm does not cause him pain makes Findekano's stomach twist unpleasantly, but he is careful to treat Maitimo no differently.

Otherwise Maitimo acts much like he always has. He bullies Curufinwe into trying to help him figure out a way to forge one-handed, but it is only possible for very basic things, and both precision and safety are sacrificed.

Tyelkormo is dragged into helping him to ride again. This goes well - the horses were already trained to be guided by their rider’s seat or legs, and all Maitimo and Tyelkormo needed was a way to secure the reins with a sword or spear in hand. Their experiments with a bow are much less productive, and nearly result in the murder of a passing guard.

Carnistir helps him first sign his signature and then write again. The twins are bullied into helping him with practical skills - tying ropes, eating gracefully, cutting meat, all the hundreds of things which nobody thinks about until it turns out Maitimo can no longer do them himself.

Makalaure, of course, tries to teach him to both play and sing again, insisting that a harp can be restrung for left-handed play, but Maitimo's voice is ruined and a harp needs two hands for anything more complicated than a child’s song.

Findekano does not say anything when he sees the harp that Makalaure restrung to be played on the left smashed into the ground.

The twins come up with ways of braiding his hair which are simpler and possible with one hand, but possible does not mean practical or good, and mostly Makalaure or Findekano do Maitimo's hair each morning. Maitimo forces himself to do every task himself now, but his hair is an exception. None of the complicated styles the Noldor preferred in Tirion were possible alone anyway, only with the help of family or servants. Still, it is the only form of softness he allows any of them in most of his moods, so Findekano clings to it.

Findekano has always loved Maitimo's hair, his beautiful, unusual copper colour: it used to be discussed among the Noldor as a but when talking about Maitimo’s beauty, and Maitimo himself has regularly mentioned how much he wished he had hair like Findekano's, dark like a Noldor's should be and thick and curly rather than the fine straight hair that all the sons of Feanor have.

It is, of course, a very intimate task, and though theoretically a half-cousin could do his hair, when he has so many brothers around to do it for him, it is a bit of a declaration.

He is often supplanted, though. By Makalaure most of all, but each brother takes the time to do Maitimo’s hair sometimes, from Curufinwe’s traditional regal styles to Tyelkormo’s hunting braids. And of course, they all teach Gil, who insists on doing Tyelpe's each morning, to Curufinwe’s disgust until Gil improves enough that he deems it acceptable. As children, of course, there are far more people who are allowed to do their hair, rather than the direct family, lovers or close servants for the adults.

Findekano wishes Gil would do his hair. He wouldn't mind if the boy messed it up.

Gil has rather been taken over by the Feanorions. He spends a lot of his time with Tyelpe and his tutor, since Curufinwe says having another child in the lessons helps Tyelpe learn. And with so many uncles, the child learns a lot, very quickly: hunting and riding, weaving and sewing, metal and stone and jewelcraft, writing and reading in Quenya and Sindarin, history and literature and poetry, numbers and calculations, singing and dancing and instruments…

He clearly finds it difficult to adapt to the life of a Feanorian prince. He enjoys the jewels and finery, but has a tendency to forget he is wearing them and so accidentally destroy them, and clothes and jewels are not so abundant even among the Feanorians that they do not miss their loss.

Findekano is very glad when Gil and Tyelpe start turning up at his sword or spear matches with Maitimo. It is the first time Gil has chosen to spend time with him, even indirectly, since they left his father's camp.

Maitimo loves to teach, and it takes the edge off his ever-present anger at having to relearn basic skills. Findekano loves Maitimo for his relentless, unyielding drive, and so he cannot wish him different, however much he makes Findekano's life difficult.

But with the children, Maitimo laughs, and paces them, and though it is not like the hard-fought battles with Findekano or Makalaure, their best warriors, the drills and practice help him, as does the rest and the patience he insists on when it comes to the children, and he does not injure himself so regularly. Tyelpe is adequate at the sword and spear, but his heart already lies in the forge: Gil is ferocious, with a blood-lust and unshakable intent that is almost an exact copy of Maitimo's in battle.

He is not ignoring Findekano any more, but he is still cold with him. Findekano is starting to understand why.

Watching Gil fight, his black braids ran through with gold in a copy of his own, his skin a shade between Findekano's and Maitimo’s, and his stance with a sword a combination of his own and Maitimo's… it is as if he is their child, of their blood. It is easy to imagine.

Findekano raises his eyes to Maitimo, who is watching the children spar too, and he reaches out to circle Findekano's chest with his arms from behind, dropping his chin onto Findekano’s head.

It is exactly the pose that Curufinwe and his wife watch Tyelpe forge and fight and dance in.

Findekano half-closes his eyes, relaxing against the warmth of Maitimo's chest and the security of his arms, watching Gil and Tyelpe exchanging blows.

It is the happiest he has been since he arrived in Beleriand.

*

Gil declares one morning that he does not want to learn how to use a shield.

“Only cowards use shields,” he announces, glaring at Findekano. “They’re boring.”

“I use a shield,” Maitimo says, mildly.

“You only have one hand, da,” Gil points out. “That’s different.”

“It’s still important to learn to use one,” Findekano says. He wonders if this is because he sometimes fights with one, as opposed to Makalaure's pair of swords which Gil is very taken with.

Findekano is very impressed by Makalaure's skill with a blade. Combined with his Song, he can beat any of them easily: he is utterly lethal, and seeming small and thin and delicate only gives him an advantage when people underestimate him.

Apparently Maitimo used to be able to win against him. Findekano hopes he will be able to again.

“Why?” Gil whines.

Findekano and Maitimo exchange a look.

“Well, if you lose your sword…” Maitimo pulls Findekano’s sword away from him. “It’s still a weapon.”

Maitimo advances on Findekano, his height and his long broadsword when Findekano is unarmed a double advantage. But Findekano knows what he is getting at, and grabs his shield.

He parries a few of Maitimo’s blows, then spins, knocking Maitimo's sword out of his hand and pressing the edge of the shield to Maitimo’s neck. Maitimo stills.

“See? He’s dead,” Findekano explains.
Gil’s eyes are wide, and Tyelpe’s are wider. “Do it again!” Gil demands.

*

Findekano takes Gil aside afterwards. He looks deeply unhappy to be there, and Findekano wonders if he will run away.

“Gil,” Findekano says firmly. “I need to apologise to you.”

Gil rolls his eyes. “Let's hear you blame everything on your father, then.”

Findekano presses his lips together, and takes a breath. “No,” he says. “I'm sorry I said I could keep you safe.”

Gil looks startled. Findekano takes advantage of his silence, since it is unlikely to last for long.

“I meant it,” he says. “I want to keep you safe. And Russo. But that doesn't mean I always can. I don't… have that power. I can't protect you from everything. There might be some circumstances when I can't. And you're right that I can hurt you, both of you, and that I have. And I probably will again. That's… normal, I think. But I shouldn't have told you otherwise. I wanted it to be true.” Findekano realises he is crying. “I wanted it to be true, but it wasn't, and I shouldn't have lied to you. I'm sorry.”

Gil looks at him with an unreadable expression.

“You don't have to forgive me,” Findekano says. “If you'd rather me leave you alone with your father, I will. I… know what it is to realise that your parents aren't the people you thought they were. I wish I could be the person you thought I was. I'll do my best, but I'll fuck up again, I'm sure. But I'll protect you to the best of my ability. And if you tell me I've fucked up, I'll listen to you.”

It was exactly what Findekano wants his father to say to him, he realises.

He can do better than his father.

Gil looks sulky. “No, I don't want to just be with da,” he says eventually.

Findekano smiles. “Good,” he says, and ruffles Gil’s hair. Gil snaps at him half-heartedly.

“I just… I suppose I always knew da would do what he could to help me, but he didn't have much power. But you… you always seemed like such a hero in da’s stories. Like you could do anything. And then you saved him and protected us and I thought maybe…”

“I'll do what I can,” Findekano says. “I promise.”

“You can't save me from everything, though.”

Findekano shakes his head. “No,” he says. “I wish you'd been able to believe it for longer, though. Knowing your parents can't always save you isn't any easier even when you're much older. But,” he adds, laughing, “I promise I can save you from most things.”

“How can I know?” Gil asks. “How can I be sure?” But he is smiling, too.

*

“Have you seen my new jewellery?”

Gil likes to wake him up far too early, excited for whatever the day brings in a way Findekano remembers from his own youth.

Maitimo is, as ever, awake already: he sleeps after Findekano and wakes before him, and sometimes wakes them both with nightmares in the short time he does sleep.

Findekano is just grateful there are currently no other Feanorions in his bed.

The lack of sleep can't be good for his healing or muscle growth, Findekano thinks, but Maitimo seems quite content to spend much of the night watching him, and the healers say rest is nearly as good as sleep.

“It suits you, little star,” says Maitimo, fondly.

“I know you've seen it, da, I meant -” He gestures with his head towards Findekano.

Gil never seems to quite know what to call Findekano. He calls almost all of their other family uncle, but Findekano is glad that he doesn't call him that. It would be too… impersonal.

He does not think about what he does want Gil to call him.

“Let's see then,” says Findekano, his voice thick with sleep and his eyes still blurry, Maitimo's arms wrapped around him.

Gil climbs in between them, and Findekano is very glad that Maitimo's dislike for his own body means that they both tend to wear clothes more often than not. Gil pushes his way in, and he is not so small as he seems: grumbling quietly, Maitimo lets go of Findekano so there is space for their boy.

“Look,” Gil says brightly, taking Findekano’s hand and bringing it to his neck, to a necklace there. It is too dark for Findekano to properly make it out, but by feel it is an eight-pointed star.

Maitimo laughs, and Findekano can feel the lurch of his fea as he lights the candles and the fire in the room. Findekano is still not used to the casualness with which Maitimo does this: it's not that it might not have been possible in an emergency, in Valinor, but now Maitimo’s fea burns so fiercely that even his eyes have changed, the barely-concealed white-hot flame in them disconcerting even for those who love him.

Maitimo seems unaffected by fire, now, though nobody has tested it extensively: Gil seems to have the same trait, although he has never liked water and took a long time to not flinch in direct sunlight. Findekano does not know if it is an orc trait from Angamando, or the legacy of Feanaro’s spirit of fire, or something entirely their own.

As for their people, they are in awe of their lord returned to them, but many of them are also terrified of him. They love him to an extent that is almost worship, but people quail when he looks at them: they act like he is returned from the dead, and it was Findekano who did it.

Findekano sometimes himself feels like they are not far off.

People have always wanted to please Maitimo, high-born, beautiful, well-spoken and powerful: but now opposing him seems physically difficult for people even when it is a matter of no importance, and when it's something Maitimo cares about, it is like being pushed back by the wind in the middle of a storm in a tight corridor.

Findekano, of course, is stubborn enough to outlast him, and anyway Maitimo has never tried particularly hard with him: here in his own camp where he has no need to pretend for Nolofinwe he has reverted to casual tyranny over his brothers, to their combined relief and irritation, but although he orders Findekano around as well, he never seems to expect him to obey. In fact, Maitimo takes the barest hint of Findekano's preferences as instruction, and seems to find great joy in sourcing everything Findekano could possibly want: Findekano has more acquired more things than even he could possibly know what to do with, and every meal is made up of increasingly ridiculous delicacies.

“I didn't rescue you for the food,” he complains the next morning, at yet another overly elaborate breakfast. Today Findekano is served a peacock pie with a pastry eagle on top, and Maitimo has porridge. “This is getting ridiculous.”

Maitimo shrugs, grinning. “It wasn't me this time, beloved. The cooks came up with it of their own accord.” The worst thing is that this is probably true. Maitimo's servants seem to feel they owe him a particular debt for saving their lord, even more than the rest of the camp.

“I think his wings were bigger,” Maitimo says, poking the pastry eagle critically.

“What do you know?” says Findekano, exasperated. “You didn't even know if I was real or not, never mind analysing Thorondor’s wingspan so you can criticise your poor hardworking cook.”

Maitimo grins, unrepentant. “If you're not going to eat it, I will.” His hand hovers threateningly over the pie, and Findekano slaps it away.

“Get away with you,” Findekano says, mock-stern. “When you break into Angamando alone to rescue me, then you get…” He takes a bite of his pie, leaving pastry Thorondor intact. “Nutmeg. Wow. I didn't know you could get that here.”

“You can't,” says Maitimo, successfully stealing a mouthful to Findekano's baleful look. “Or at least, Carnistir hasn't sourced any yet, and it's him and the twins doing most of the trade. Nothing but the best for our crown prince, hey?”

There is a knock at the door and Makalaure and Gil enter. Makalaure is clutching his harp, his very long, dark hair only loosely braided, whereas Gil looks like a young prince, dressed for court.

“Oh, Gil, you look stunning,” Findekano says, with sincerity. His new set of jewellery had looked lovely in the firelight, but it really shone under the sun. Someone has created a whole set of jewellery for him in gold, set with red stones and incorporating the star of Feanaro, over and over. Findekano spotted a circlet, a necklace, several bracelets, an elaborate dagger, and a ring, though he notices Gil is also wearing Finderato's emerald ring.

Maitimo has had Findarato's ruby set himself, in a simple gold setting that he wears on a long chain under his clothes. Findekano wishes that he had something new to give Maitimo, since the promise-necklace he had given Maitimo back in Tirion was lost forever to Angamando.

Gil poses for Findekano in a way directly copied from Makalaure, arm and leg outstretched.

“Ah, Kano,” says Maitimo in what Findekano realises is a typical greeting to his favourite brother. “Bring us some wine, will you?”

Makalaure rolls his eyes but leaves to fetch it without comment.

“It's the eagle!” Gil exclaims, spotting the still-standing pastry Thorondor. “Your eagle!”

“Here, you can have him.” Findekano pulls him off the remains of the pie gently enough that even his legs don't break, and hands him to Gil.

Maitimo gasps in mock offense. “Gil gets some but not me? Favouritism!”

Gil waves the eagle in Maitimo's face. “I can't decide whether to eat him or keep him,” he says.

Makalaure returns with wine, and pulls up a chair when Maitimo waves his hand for him to join them. He pointedly kisses them all before sitting down, showing up Maitimo's lack of manners, and casually slings his legs across Findekano's.

It is nice to be accepted.

Maitimo pours wine for all four of them, and doesn't speak until he is finished. He is still clumsy and slow, but he doesn't spill a drop, and they do not try to hurry him.

“I received a letter from your father,” he says to Findekano. “He invites us to a meeting to discuss land.”

Land. Findekano cannot wait. His realm will be beautiful: rich and powerful, a shield against the Enemy with his leadership and Maitimo’s organisation. He will finally be able to come into his own, without his father hovering over his shoulder at all times. Their people will be a martial one. But that won't be all: their colonisation will bring education and craft and culture to the Sindar already here, along with their military protection. Findekano can make such a difference, he knows it: he can change their lives for the better.

He can save them, too.

“You and Finno?” asks Makalaure. “Will you want my company too?”

“No, all of us. All the princes and princesses of the Noldor was his phrasing, so I assume that extends even to Tyelpe and Gil.”

Gil's eyes are very wide. “I can't imagine Nolofinwe will appreciate my presence.”

Makalaure winces in sympathy. “Ooh, that's going to be a fun meeting.”

“I will fight him,” Gil says solemnly.

Makalaure sighs. “Our brothers are a bad influence on you, Gil.”

“He was always like this,” Maitimo says, somehow amused and proud and disapproving all at once.

“The meeting is to discuss land distribution?” Findekano asks, still lost in his own daydream.

Maitimo nods. “Your father can't control everywhere he would like to: he doesn't have enough people, and certainly not enough soldiers.”

“And you have a plan,” Makalaure says.

Maitimo nods. “We take the East. It's strategically the most important - we'll stand between the rest of the Noldor and the Enemy - and we can make a continuous realm with our brothers which has everything we need to be self-sufficient and wealthy.”

East. Perhaps Himlad, or Amon Ereb. Both have hospitable climates and rich land. Findekano imagines he and Maitimo inspecting agricultural lands - perhaps lines of grape vines - dressed in rich fabrics, with their Sindarin servants who have learnt to read and write in Quenya, and who are grateful to serve such great lords. Gil rides with them too, sitting on a horse like he was born to it, and they try some of the wine made from their grapes as the sun sets.

Findekano pushes the image at Maitimo, but their bond is closed.

“Moryo will be pleased,” Makalaure says. “There's a lot of potential there. Lots of trade routes, too.”

Maitimo hesitates. “You might not be, Kano, I've picked the hardest job for you and your cavalry.”

Makalaure grimaces, but a smile plays on his lips. “Aww, you trust me, Nelyo!”

“Don't get ahead of yourself,” Maitimo warns him drily, but then gives in and ruffles his hair. “You and Finno are the only people I could trust for this job.”

Findekano is holding his wine glass too tightly. (How quickly he has become used to all the trappings of wealth again!) He does not like the way Maitimo is not looking at him. This should be a joyful moment.

“So what's the problem, Russo?” he asks.

Maitimo pulls out a map. “This is the best strategic location for me to hold.” He points out some mountains far in the east. “And we are here,” he points at Mithrim, “and I imagine your father will want you to take either the plains to the west of here, Dor-Lomin, or the plains to the west of that, Nevrast.”

Findekano stares at the map in dismay. “But we're supposed to be doing this together!”

Makalaure looks at them both, takes Gil by one hand and his wine-glass in the other, and leaves them. “Come on, Gil,” he says, “I’m sure Tyelko will let you ride Huan again.”

“But, Shaper! Why do I not get a voice in our plans?” Gil asks indignantly. “Will I not have my own lands? Why do you expect me to be silent and only obey?”

Makalaure draws him away quickly, and they can hear the argument echoing down the hall. And this despite the fact that Gil obeys Makalaure more than any of their other brothers.

“Finno…” Maitimo's voice was gentle, but he still would only look at the map. “Beloved, I want to do this together. You are welcome to join me, or if you can think of a solution…”

“Join me,” Findekano urges. Was that not always what their plan had been?

“I would, beloved, but someone has to stand between the rest of the Noldor and the Enemy, and I cannot have it be my brothers.”

Findekano looks harder at the map, and curses. “That's a ridiculous spot to choose,” he says, trying to keep his emotions under control. “Are you trying to provoke an attack - of course you are.”

Findekano puts his head down on the table. “I hate you,” he says, muffled through his arms, “and I love you. I wish you weren't such a - such a you. But then you wouldn't be you.”

Maitimo lays his head on top of Findekano's, kissing his neck. His lips are soft. “I promise, we'll still work together. Send me your paperwork, your taxes, your problems. It might be a bit slower than we planned, but we can still do it. You'll probably have to do some of the boring bits, but I can still do most of it.”

Findekano groans, and Maitimo nibbles on one of his long ears. “And you're my crown prince,” he says, his voice low. “I have to do whatever you say.”

Findekano sits up abruptly, his ear twitching. “That's the biggest load of crock I've ever heard. You aren't going to listen to my father any further than it gets you exactly what you want.”

Maitimo nuzzles into his neck, grazing his teeth over the sensitive skin ever so gently. “I never said I would,” he says, mildly. “I said I would listen to you.”

“You wouldn't listen to anyone else if they were crown prince,” Findekano complains.

“Again,” Maitimo says, biting slightly harder and making Findekano groan, “I never said I would.” He slides his hand around to Findekano's thigh and brushes ever so gently across his groin.

“You implied it!” Findekano can feel himself starting to get hard, and reaches for Maitimo. “You're distracting me.”

Then he realises what is happening. Some of this may be real: but some is definitely not.

Findekano pushes Maitimo away a bit harder. “You're doing that thing,” he accuses, “where you think I'm going to be angry with you and so you seduce me.”

“I always want to seduce you,” Maitimo says in a low, throaty voice, which Findekano has to admit is very seductive. “Is it working?”

Findekano pushes his lover again. “Stop it,” he says, annoyed, his ears flat back against his head. “You always do this. It's - it's a way of controlling me. Let me speak. Let me be angry.”

Part of him remembers how Maitimo used to panic when Findekano stopped him, back in the early days before Findekano learnt not to reject him. But Maitimo is doing much better now, he hopes, and it cannot go on like this forever.

The whole situation still makes him feel slimy.

Maitimo blinks at him, and draws back. “All right,” he says, his voice a little hurt. His body is unnaturally still.

Findekano ignores it. “It's not that I don't want you,” he says, since he knows Maitimo is self-conscious about his looks now he is scarred. “It's just that I want to talk about this first. And you… you seduce me to stop me speaking when you don't like what I'm saying. When you're afraid of what I'm going to say, I think. I don't think you really want me, not right now.”

Maitimo flushes and hesitates, his eyes wide, but he does not deny it. “We'll only be a week away by horse,” he says quickly. “If that's what you're worried about. I'll come and visit you every year when we've finished building, and you can visit me whenever you have time or inclination.”

Maitimo wraps his arms around himself as he speaks, as if that would protect him.

Findekano ignores him. “Why can't I come with you?” he asks, though they both know he will not. Perhaps their dream of ruling together had always been impossible. He needs his own realm, to develop how he chooses. Maitimo has experience ruling: he does not. And the East is too far: he wants something more central, to work with his family and the Sindar. He is crown prince, after all.

Maitimo makes a move towards him, but stops himself and pulls back. “You can, beloved, of course. You are my husband: you will always have a place with me. But your father and your people will expect you to rule your own realm...”

Findekano cannot really argue with that. It is true. And it is what he wants, and what Maitimo knows he wants. Thank you, beloved.

“Both Dor-Lomin and Nevrast have a lot of potential. They both have a lot of Sindar living there already, good lands, good hunting, you'll be able to build - the east will be cold and hard, at least at first. And Hisilome, as your father has named this land, will need to be a bulwark against the Enemy. And I'd rather have you and your valour protecting the Noldor than Turukano and his paperwork or Angarato, who has never thought about anything for more than the time it takes him to raise his fists.”

Findekano laughs.

“It's the same reason I'm giving Kano the hardest realm to protect,” Maitimo says. “I don't have the right to tell you what to do, of course. But someone with sense and courage needs to stay down here.”

Maitimo is flattering him, Findekano knows. Part of him is annoyed: can Maitimo ever have a difficult conversation with him without lying or trying to get his own way?

Findekano considers saying something, calling him out. But this at least is better than seducing him, at least they are actually talking, and he thinks perhaps it is more of a reflex than anything intentional. He doesn't know for sure, though. He wonders if Maitimo does: he doesn't think so.

And of course, Maitimo is trying to persuade him to do exactly what Findekano would choose anyway. And Maitimo is giving him reasons to choose it without having to not choose him. And Maitimo is not even wrong.

Valar damn him. Maitimo is giving him exactly what he wants, and acting like it is a favour or a sacrifice, so that Findekano does not have to choose between him and the power he craves.

Maitimo sees him, he realises. And he loves him enough to give him what he wants, and protect him from the consequences.

“And this is the only way to keep the Noldor united,” Findekano says eventually. “It's only me. You're right, Russo.” He reaches out for Maitimo's hand and squeezes it.

“I want to have better relations with your father,” Maitimo protests. “I'm doing my best. And him deciding I'm not a threat is at least the first step.”

“But until then, it's only me.”

“And Findarato,” Maitimo says. “I've no idea where he will want. But he's got brains and diplomacy, though he hides it well. He can't keep the west by himself, but he'll help you.”

Findekano snorts. “Only when he's not thinking about his cock or his jewels.”

“Better than my brothers,” Maitimo says. “Perhaps we can persuade your father to abdicate in favour of you, like my father was supposed to in favour of me.”

“I wish,” says Findekano, gloomily. “You and Findarato and I could do much better. There's no chance, though, not for a long while. He's beyond thrilled to be High King.”

There is a silence for a while, and then Findekano slams his fist onto the table. “Damn you,” he says, and is relieved when Maitimo does not flinch.

“I know.” Maitimo's voice is soft and sad.

“What about Gil?” Findekano asks, almost afraid of the answer.

“I thought he would come with me. He'll miss you, though.” Maitimo's voice is carefully neutral.

Findekano knows this is the moment. He can accept what his father says, that Gil is a placeholder, a nothing. But that is not the boy he has come to know - and love, Findekano realises. And he owes Maitimo this. Perhaps he owes Gil this, too, that too-smart arrogant boy who is an orc and entirely Noldor and too much like Maitimo already.

Sometimes he feels like nothing in the world is what he has been taught it was like. Mostly it is worse. At least this is better.

It is hard to reject what you have been taught and what you have believed. It is one thing to travel to a new land with your family supporting you and shouting you on: it is another to do it without that base to lean on, when they disagree with you, when you might lose them over it. Findekano's relationship with his family is fraught at best, now: adding an orc to the mix will not help.

Findekano is many things, but he is not a coward.

“Russo…” Findekano swallows. “He's your son. And I'm your husband.”

Maitimo just looks at him, his face carefully neutral.

“Shouldn't he spend some time with me?”

A smile slowly spreads on Maitimo's face, until he is grinning so widely that Findekano feels bashful. He does not move, though, and his tone is restrained when he says, “He should.”

Findekano swallows. “I don't know how to be a father,” he confesses. “You basically raised your brothers, but I didn't. What if I do it wrong?”

Findekano can feel through their bond how much Maitimo wants to kiss him, touch him, but he does not move a muscle.

“Don't make him swear any oaths, or try to burn him alive, and you'll be fine.”

Findekano splutters. “Surely - surely your father didn't burn your brother on purpose?”

“Not exactly,” says Maedhros matter-of-factly, “but he certainly didn't care overmuch when he found out.” Having seen Feanaro just before that, wild and mad in his grief, Findekano could not be surprised that he had left love behind along with his rationality.

“I suppose you're not one to talk, then.”

“No,” Maitimo laughs. “Have you met my brothers? The sanest one is Kano, who more or less raised himself.”

“Carnistir is sane. Not socially adjusted, but sane.”

“You're proving my point for me,” Maitimo says.

“All right. So we have low standards.”

“It won't be easy,” Maitimo warns. “Your father at least knows the truth about Gil. And he won't approve of you and I. He's fine with me being your catamite, but your husband? No.”

There was no word in Quenya, so Maitimo used the still-strange Sindarin.

“I'm not sure I care all that much about what my father thinks,” says Findekano, evenly.

Maitimo shrugs. “I have confidence in you. Be better than my father or Angamando. You could do that with your eyes closed.”

Findekano sighs. He can almost see, in his mind’s eye, Maitimo and him raising Gil together, in a fortress surrounded by fields of wheat and flowers, the cool spring breeze as the three of them breakfast together, looking out across their lands and their people, as far as the eye can see. Free.

But that would not be the reality: it would be cold, cold, cold, and with Maitimo's people he would be at best a figurehead. Even in the time he has been at the Feanorian camp he can see how they do not take him seriously: they turn to Maitimo or even Makalaure for every decision, although he is highly praised and appreciated.

Maitimo is too used to command, he realises, to not understand what Findekano would lose. They both know that it has to be his own people.

The three of them - their little family - is an impossible dream.

The ache of loss for something he never had feels unbearable.

Maitimo is regarding him with sad, soft eyes, the fire in them burning low. “Every year,” he says. “As long as there's not actively a war on. I'll visit, Finno, I promise.”

Findekano nods, and kisses Maitimo on the lips, sweet and soft. Maitimo makes a noise of surprise, but kisses back quickly.

“Does that mean I get to give Gil a name?” Findekano asks.

“Give him a father-name, if you like,” Maitimo says, and looks uncomfortable.

Findekano laughs fondly. Maitimo can be so transparent: of course he wants their son to have every advantage. The Noldor reckon house and lineage through the father, always, which is why Findarato who is a quarter Noldor is considered a Noldo, and Irime whose children are half but who was married off to a Vanya are not. “The line of succession? That's what you're thinking of? Really, Russo?”

He does not say, but he's an orc. He does not even really think it: it is just a reflex, an echo of something he used to think.

“It's not just that,” Maitimo insists. “With the oath… the less association he has with us, the better.”

“Which is why he's not Kantafinwe, I suppose.” Findekano laughs again. “I never imagined you as a mother, but I suppose you are overprotective.”

Maitimo's face went the same colour as his hair. “If I could, I would,” he mutters, and Findekano can suddenly see all the times Maitimo has wished for a child of his and Findekano’s, ideally a whole brood of them. Findekano likes children, but he doesn't care that much: but he knows for Maitimo it is a permanent wound in his heart that choosing Findekano means giving up on his dream of children of his body. He would never mention it to Findekano, but Findekano knows it. Knows him.

Perhaps it is why Findekano tried so hard with Gil.

He does not want to be Nolofinwe.

“I see you've never met my mother,” Maitimo says more loudly, trying to distract him. “I'm not sure you could call her overprotective. I'll definitely do a better job.”

Findekano cannot help but laugh at the idea of Maitimo as a traditional Noldor mother - while he has always been the one to cook and care for his brothers, and who they came and come to when they need help, he is too entirely the family patriarch.

Accepting Gil is the least Findekano can do for Maitimo, he realises. The closest they can come. Oh, how he loves Maitimo, he realises. What he will do to make him happy.

So Findekano resolves, and then asks as if they had managed to have a baby: “Do you already have a name? Surely you can't just call him Gil?”

“I was thinking of Starlight.”

“Gilgalad. Isn't that a little…”

Maitimo glares. “Again, have you met my mother? Kano’s the only one with a proper name.”

Findekano laughs. “I think Maitimo is quite accurate, personally.”

Maitimo flinches, and then says drily, “You and Thauron both.” For some reason this makes them both laugh hysterically, collapsed in each other's arms.

Is this love? To give each other what they need and cannot ask for, and to preserve each other's illusions?

*

There are long discussions about where they should all go. Of course, the children are excluded: of course, Gil objects strenuously.

“Why aren't I good enough to be included?” he mutters mutinously, when the adults are gathered and the children are told to go and play.

Maitimo just laughs, clearly pleased with his son’s boldness. The other brothers glare. Makalaure looks like he has a headache already, and the meeting has not even started.

“Are you sure he's not actually your blood, Findekano?” Curufinwe asks drily, who is lying with his head in Tyelkormo's lap. “What is it grandfather used to say about you - all balls and heart and no brain? I think he's inherited it.”

Findekano is stung. “Grandfather never said that!”

“He definitely did,” says one of the twins, doing the other’s hair. “It was after you jumped into the sea entirely naked apart from your sword to fight that sea monster.”

“I remember that,” says Curufinwe, disapproving.

“I remember that,” says Maitimo, in an entirely different tone, and leers at Findekano.

“I think he meant it in an admiring way,” says the other twin.

“I never saw it as a bad thing,” Tyelkormo adds.

Carnistir snorts. “You wouldn't. Gil’s got more brains than you!”

Makalaure sighs. “We actually need to talk about this. Gil, come on now, I'm sure there's something Tyelpe and you could be doing…”

“Isn't it my future, too? Why shouldn't I get a say in it?”

“You're too young,” Tyelkormo says firmly. “I'll sit on you if you don't go.”

Gil immediately drops into a wrestling stance that Findekano is fairly sure Tyelkormo taught him.

“Come at me, crow-fucker!” he cries.

There is instant pandemonium. Tyelkormo pushes Curufinwe off and springs to his feet in a wrestling stance himself, light and predatory on the balls of his feet and with a gleam in his eyes. The Ambarussa are on their feet with glee, circling round the two of them, pushing back chairs so they have space. Findekano stands up, though he doesn't know what for. Even Maitimo's steward looks interested.

“He's a child, Tyelko,” Curufinwe says, although he doesn't sound like he has much hope of convincing him.

“You're all children,” Makalaure says with a sigh, and then lacing his voice with just an undertone of power, “Anyone not back in their seats by the time I'm finished talking can go and play with Tyelpe.”

There is a scramble, and then a silence.

“Thank you, Kano,” Maitimo says mildly. “If Gil wants to stay, he says. After all, as he says, it involves him too. Curvo, would Tyelpe want to join?”

Curvo shrugs sharply, and Maitimo nods at his steward, who exits.

“What are your thoughts, then, Gil?” Findekano asks.

“I want to stay with you both,” Gil announces, and Findekano notices his lower lip is wobbling dangerously. Sometimes Findekano forgets just how young he is.

“And so you will,” says Findekano. “And so you will.”

*

Maitimo reads about everything that's happened in the past thirty years: he studies geography and everything he can find from the grey and green elves. He learns Sindarin, and chooses a new name.

“Nelyafinwe is dead,” he tells Findekano when he asks, though he sounds far too pleased about it. “My birthright is gone. And Maitimo is dead, too, killed in Angamando.” He gestures at his scars.

“You don't fancy being… Finelfin?” Findekano asks. Nolofinwe's new name and renaming of his brother is a source of great mirth in the camp.

“Only if you use Fingonfin,” Maedhros says.

“I'm not sure imitating my father's hubris is a good idea,” Findekano sighs.

Both Maitimo and Gil eat like they are starving, like some long, lean winter is coming.

Now Maitimo washes himself, he does so multiple times a day, often scrubbing himself until his skin is red and raw. Findekano notices, but does not say anything.

Gil is not so tightly controlled any more: in some ways, he seems younger. He has nightmares and loves to be babied afterwards in the way of a much younger child: Findekano thinks it is only Tyelpe’s influence stopping him regressing entirely.

Still, Gil does not have toys. He will play with them, when given them: but he will just as quickly forget about them again. Findekano wonders if he has learnt not to get too attached to objects, or if he is simply reaching that age where children naturally leave toys behind.

Sometimes he is very aggressive, and will hit out verbally or physically at whoever is nearby for very little reason. Thankfully all the Feanorions are casually violent and so it is barely noticed. It is surely the first time anyone has been grateful for that, Findekano thinks.

Maitimo is worried about the changes, but Findekano thinks it's a good thing. “He feels safe enough to do it,” Findekano says. “I've seen Itarille do something similar, after the Helcaraxe.”

Gil’s favourite times are the evenings, when Maitimo is too exhausted to boss anyone around or run himself into the ground. They gather in Maitimo's room almost every night: it is always the three of them, but various brothers turn up too.

Findekano likes to read to Gil and Maitimo, if it is just the three of them. When Makalaure or the Ambarussa turn up they play music and sing: Findekano brings his harp, and nearly all the brothers have some kind of musical ability. Gil’s voice is sweet and pure: Makalaure has been teaching him.

Sometimes they recite poetry, which is Gil’s favourite: they teach him Noldor classics and make some up on the spot. They tell riddles, too. Sometimes they just sit together around the fire and talk about everything and nothing, working on embroidery or whittling or knitting or drawing or doing each other's hair.

Maitimo almost never participates, but he watches them in satisfaction with almost a proprietary air. Mine, he seems to be saying.

Gil laughs when someone points it out and quotes,

“I am monarch of all I survey,
My right there is none to dispute.”

*
“I love you,” Findekano tells Gil, thoughtlessly, out of nowhere.

Gil stiffens. “Do you really? Or do you love the person you've convinced yourself I am?”

Findekano blinks. “What do you mean?”

“I mean… is it only because you can pretend I am not an orc? Because I look like you all know, and I have taken on your customs? Because I assimilate.”

Findekano thinks of who he was when he first met Gil, and he is right: the man he was could only have loved someone like he was.

Now, he simply loves Gil. He looks for a limit and cannot find one: if his past self was right, and Gil leaves them for his own people, then he will be broken-hearted along with Maitimo. But Gil is right - love with control is only captivity.

“I think,” Findekano says, trying to be as honest as he can, “that it makes it harder to know you, and to understand you. That you see the world in ways that I never can: the world will hurt you in ways that it will never do to me. But I do not love where I am told to, or simply when it is easy. I love who you are. I feel it: it just is, without reason, without sense. The time for pretending is over.”

Gil looks like he is about to cry again as Findekano continues. “This time, I make no promises, except I will try. I will try to be good enough, I will try to love you how you deserve, and I will try to protect you. I will try to listen to you, and know you.”

“Father,” says Gil, choked with tears, and Findekano realises he is crying too.

*

In the days before Findekano and Gil leave for Dor-Lomin, and Maitimo and his brothers for Himring, they gather for a naming ceremony.

Maitimo and Findekano stand together, hands clasped. In public, like any other couple. Findekano is still not used to it: he is proud and thrilled every time to stand openly with his beloved.

Findekano is also not used to how tall Maitimo is: he towers over him when not in a bed. He is still thin but now covered by a layer of lean muscle. But he is alert, dangerous, beautiful, and a fire burns in his eyes that is impossible to resist.

“You chose us,” Maitimo whispers to him, so quietly that Findekano half-hears it through their bond rather than physically, full of love and adoration and wonder.

Findekano presents Gil with the elaborate golden bracelet which is the traditional gift of the naming-day ceremony, engraved with the chosen father-name on it and the sigil of the father's house. It shows legitimacy and membership of a house: proof that the child is claimed and acknowledged, if any is ever needed. Findekano has heard that it is a relic from the Great Journey, but perhaps here in Beleriand it will be important again.

He clasps the bracelet around Gil’s wrist.

“My child. My son. Artanaro,” Findekano says solemnly, and it feels right. He has never been given to foresight, but he can feel the Gil of the future, tall and noble, commanding his armies, his battlecry filled with power and fire in his eyes.

Maitimo is right. Gil is no more an orc than Maitimo is, or Findekano, or Findekano's father. No more and no less. Findekano will believe what he sees, not what he has been taught. He has been living that decision already.

The Gil of the present does not cry, but he looks at Findekano and Maitimo with his huge dark eyes, as if this is something that he never could have imagined. Maitimo looks at them both with a similar expression.

Their child.

Findekano can imagine no better victory over the Enemy and the Valar both than this.