Single Handedly

Title: Single Handedly
Genre: Romance, Angst
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Maedhros/OFC
Time: First Age 346 – Fourth Age
Chapter(s): 4/?
Chapter Summary: He could never truly appreciate her beauty and elegance the way he desired so fervently to; and that, he knew would regrettably never occur, for concern for her well-being and that of anything that was to come from such a union.
Author: Codi Lyn (a.k.a. i_luv_obiwan91)
Disclaimer: J.R.R. Tolkien and his family are the sole owners of his works including the Silmarillion and his Lord of the Rings series. I’m just inspired by his works and thought of different ways for different things to end as another option. It’s his music; I’m just playing it on a ukulele, not a guitar. ಠ_ಠ

Chapter Four – It is a Long Way Through Darkness

Maedhros felt the taut leather grip of the hand-and-a-half sword in his grasp, and the burn of withheld tears stinging in his eyes. Lips pressed desperately against his and he returned their urgent caress as tears belonging to another trailed down his cheeks. Just as the warmth of that sad presence was taken from him, his vibrant green eyes opened and took in the miserable sight of Kalin, weeping and being pulled away by some faceless edhel. Calling out her name as a nearby fire lit up her face, Maedhros struggled and tried to move himself, to call her name louder and take her back within his grasp but could not force himself to budge one muscle.
His waking eyes opened then and the Fëanorian was finally allowed the functions of his own body that in the dream had been denied. Every muscle flexed and he sat upright in a raging sweat amidst his furs, a tense voice hardly recognizable called brokenly for the elleth, fear of inability stressing his vocals to crack. In his post-unconscious blindness he felt his right arm being held, and fingers more delicate than an edhel’s, stroking where his hand had once been.
“Lord Maedhros… Maedhros, I am here.” A familiar lady’s voice drew his eyes, blood-shot and moist, to his right side where Kalin sat with a furrowed brow and concerned blue gems to look back at him with. Panting for several moments longer as his mind’s discernment refocused, he couldn’t help but question if this was reality or also a vision. “It’s all right now.” She continued. “Your dream is over and the sun will rise soon so darkness can not find you.” Soothing him with a maternal instinct, she moved her hand from his arm to push the sweat-soaked hair covering his eyes from her sight. Her palm stroked his face in the natural movement, yet with care. For, while she knew physical touch was a great comfort for her when she came out of any fright, she was unsure as to how he would respond.
Gradually, she saw his muscles relax and his breathing slow, though his heart kept its insistent thudding in his chest and the boiling of his blood only calmed to a low fever. They held one another’s gaze overlong: Maedhros’ questioning and overwhelmed, Kalin’s understanding and only slightly less worried.
With a gentle press of her hand and not a word, she rose from his side and turned to take a wet rag from the untouched bath, wringing it out and shaking away the excess before returning to him. He watched her in a somewhat enthralled silence as she wiped the cool cloth along his hairline, moving coarse tresses to trail down his face and then to his heated neck and chest, soothing the burn that tormented his skin. Wrapping the wet fabric and tucking it around her left arm, she pushed his long tangled hair to one side and pulled back the mostly open tunic to wipe his upper back to down between his shoulder blades.
Shocked, Maedhros could not make himself pull away or recover his exposed flesh as she successfully calmed the stress he had experienced in the vision. At some point he found all of his voice again and mentioned what he’d been initially so overcome by. “Why did you touch my arm while I was yet asleep? I could have killed you without a thought.”
Kalin continued to wash the back he had clearly not washed himself the night prior, and carefully went over both indented and severely raised scars shaped like barbed metal on his shoulder blade, just a few among hundreds of others that she studied as she sought an answer that would not be stupid to hear. Why not the truth, then? “I trusted you wouldn’t.” Her soft reply was met with a snort of scoffing that reminded her who she was talking to, and Mîrluiniel made certain not to meet his eye so as to conceal her disappointment at his becoming ‘self-sufficient’ again.
“You put your trust in others too quickly.” His remark was bitter, affecting a tilt of her face and she stilled her arm for a moment, causing him to look at her and meet an honest azure gaze, no judgment, as he would have thought.
“Perhaps everyone should trust more quickly. Illúvatar made us all good, it was Morgoth that sowed grief and distrust in our hearts.”
Maedhros was moved by the validity of her words, and then angered at how deeply the truth of them cut into his thought. ‘The sins of the fathers will pass on through their children, and to their children thereafter.’ The words of his grandfather, Finwë, warned him with the foresight he had shared not long before his murder. Maedhros constantly reminded himself of its truth. Fëanor had damned his seed by the countless crimes of distrust he’d committed and encouraged his sons to commit. And now his eldest son was ever cautious to trust.
She was right, he admitted. If everyone trusted instantly one another, then there would never have been a division of elves nor Kinslaying in any region under the Two Trees’ light. Instead of arguing between civil feuds, all would work together to defeat Morgoth and restore the light in Valinor.
Kalin’s cloth grew dry and she left him to dip it in the water once more. Turned away now, Maedhros felt her warmth leave him and a vision from the dream filled his eyes of her being taken away and he quelled the instinct to gasp out her name. He was shocked back into reality by a newly wet rag placed and stroked against his shoulder, beads of sweat already forming about his neck and brow from the momentary distress.
She noticed him flinch as she began again to cool him and asked quietly, pulling away in anticipation of his answer. “Would you like me to leave?” With his back facing her, she did not see his eyes close nor his dry mouth open to try and regulate his breathing.
Kalin did, however, feel his arm press against her knee in a silent plea to remain, his face jerking away slightly as he answered. “No.” His voice rasped until some control was regained, and he requested. “No… please continue what you were doing.” With a nod she returned the cloth to his back and massaged his shoulders one at a time through the damp material. Some minutes passed before he relaxed his body again and laid his arm by her leg, close enough to feel the warmth of her blood, but not quite touching.
“May I ask of what you dreamt, my lord?” Calmly, she began, but immediately the very mention of it called his body to tense up and he stiffened.
“You may ask, but I would not tell you, my lady.” They remained silent for another time and the elf allowed himself at last to rest, knee drawn up and arm upon it as his temple lay against the forearm. Mîrluiniel contented herself by continuing her massage and listening to his steady breathing as it finally became so.
Her voice remembered a lullaby that her ada had often sung her to sleep with, and she sang so without inhibition now that the Noldorin prince was at last asleep. Easing her hand, no longer the cloth, over his shoulders and down his back, she pulled the thin shirt up higher so that he was again covered and combed her fingers through his hair enough to untangle it just a little. Carefully Mîrluiniel pushed his torso back onto her left arm and laid him down into the pillows and furs, turning his knee and pulling a thin blanket up halfway to his shoulder without him awakening.
Yes, she trusted him. By the way he called out her name earlier, she knew she was at that moment even more assured of that trust. It would be a long road, but she hoped, one that would eventually find its end.

Maedhros had the same nightmarish vision several times their first week in Himlad; although he was thankful to not have alerted anyone during the night as he had that first morning with Kalin. No matter if her presence had soothed him more quickly than his mother’s embrace would have centuries ago; her hand on him, even through the barrier of cloth, was too strong a temptation for him to even want to resist. He should have sent her away as soon as he had known her to be there, long before she saw his scarred flesh, let alone touch the gruesome skin without covering. Yet lo, she had seen it, had touched those markings that he had so carefully guarded from anyone’s sight for so long. And did she treat him differently, or pity him repulsively? He could not say that she had.
‘This is becoming dangerous now.’ He thought; worrying again over a future that had yet to, and may never, occur. ‘I’m growing too close, and my feelings… my feelings for her grow deeper almost daily.’ An obsession he refused to allow it to be called within himself, though that is what it very well may have been. He measured how long her touch lasted during actions as simple as a chance pet upon Taurvantian at the same time, halted everything he was doing whenever her voice in song during a chore reached his ears, tried to match the vibrancy of her eyes when she smiled to something physical, though as yet had come up with nothing that remotely compared.
Always when he questioned his reasons for keeping away from Kalin, he was reminded of his grandfather’s foreboding statement. ‘But surely there is some form of redemption for a father or son’s sins.’ He would ask, yet could his own ancestor be wrong? In the end, he swore again and again to himself, that never would he bind to her. To force her to live with his duty to the oath, to love him despite the terrible things he’d done that even he could barely live with, and to subject their children to the same heinous acts. He knew he could never ask so greatly of an elleth such as her; a beautiful flower that would surely wilt from his poisonous touch. She was not for his taking.

Mîrluiniel, also, was growing to hold more than just a high admiration for her Noldo charge with hair as dark as flame and a personality to match. Slowly, like a cautious animal seeking food from her palm, he would be near her for no reason, allow their skin to graze or touch when he granted almost no other physical contact. For all the expectancy of stealth in a Noldorin warrior, which she did not doubt he possessed on a hunt or during an ambush, she would feel his presence afar off or hear his feather-touch on the canvas of a tent she occupied. No matter if she looked directly into them or not, his intense green eyes were a tangible presence upon her when he stared or glanced in her direction, like an eagle’s plume dancing along her skin and fire igniting in its wake.
She had taken to watching him when he gave Celebrimbor his horseman lessons every day or so. Maglor had been correct in that Maedhros was most himself upon the back of a steed, and Mîrluiniel admitted to herself she had never seen anything more beautiful than that elf working perfectly with his animal. As Celebrimbor trotted gaily around a paddock on his skewbald pony, Maedhros would be in the middle ring upon Rúnyadal’s towering back, invisibly instructing the stallion to high-step, back and forward trot in diagonal lines, count, and run pacing in a graceful display of equestrian form.
When actively teaching Celebrimbor he was direct and held high standards for his nephew to achieve, while at the same time being mindful not to berate him when a mistake was made, understanding of the problems so as to give better advice. When it was something the elfling knew to do but would still forget, like keeping his heels down, he encouraged remembrance instead of rebuking forgetfulness. She wondered if this trait was a mirror of how Fëanor would teach his sons, or if Maedhros took extra measures to avoid his father’s teaching methods. Perhaps the inquiry could be asked of Maglor later.
It was a day like this when, eagerly, Celebrimbor rode up to her usual position on the fence where she observed and asked her with an adorable grin, his pointed ears sticking out awkwardly as the elleth knew, with reluctance, he would grow into. “Kalin! Uncle and I are going for a ride. Can you come with us, please? Please, please, please?”
“Celebrimbor. Give her a moment to answer you.” Maedhros reprimanded calmly as he trotted up beside his nephew and allowed Rúnya to drink from the water trough in front of them. “You are welcome to join us, Kalin.” He quietly forwarded the lad’s invitation.
“I don’t… I haven’t in so long, I…” She hesitated, not only for the sadness on the elfling’s face, but also because she so desperately missed riding. Mîrluiniel grew increasingly agitated with herself, as she was certain her desire to do so was writ all over her face. “I’m afraid not, young one. You’ll have fun with your Uncle, set off and I’ll tell your father that you’re going.” Quickly she made her exit before either of them could say anything else and struggled to keep her eyes lowered to hide the swiftly forming tears she could not control. Making to her garden after briefly instructing another edhel to inform lord Curufin of his son’s whereabouts, the elleth let out her overdue sobs of frustration and curled up against an old oak, beautiful in its remaining red leaves of fall that would soon to give way to barren branches and winter’s dryness.
It could be infuriating sometimes, her handicap, and this morning was not the first time tears had been shed over the disability’s effects. ‘What’s wrong with me?’ She hounded herself mercilessly. ‘Why must I be so afraid to re-learn? Lord Maedhros is the perfect example to show me that it can be done, and how much more has that elf been through than I? Surely if Morgoth, himself, could not take the prince’s love of horses away, then I should hardly let the effects of three wolves keep me away from mine!’
Her jaw set in determination, though still needing to let loose her anger, she turned and punched a fist hard into the root beside her, forcing new tears she gladly wept in place of the weak emotional ones from before. Striking once or twice more, the pain in her knuckles felt good to vent the quelled rage within herself, not often having a moment to truly do so whenever she felt like it. Though these moments of anger came very few and far between, hitting something or someone, usually her brothers, had always been her release. Someone’s temporary pain or her own tended to check the young elleth back into reality.
Inspecting her bruised knuckles, she sucked on a few open cuts and dabbed the rest on her apron before taking the cloth and wiping her eyes. “Get over this, Luin, you’re not doing yourself or anybody any good by moping around.” She righted herself and stood, shaking waist-high skirts free of dried leaves and dirt, hoping not to look entirely disheveled.
“’Luin?’ Is this an invisible friend of yours, or have I been wrongly introduced?” Maglor’s melodious voice came from behind her and she made the mistake of turning to him as soon as he used her father-name.
With a sigh, she lowered her gaze as one caught in a wrong act. “Will I be sent away?” Her voice asked softly.
The second eldest of Fëanor’s children neared her, soothing. “Nonsense. I said your secret would remain well hidden with me and so it shall, still.” He lifted her chin gently. “You truly wish to stay? Then here you shall be; and to everyone’s continued happiness, I can assure you. My only wish is to know your true name.”
Smiling, she once again dabbed her eyes and thanked him silently, explaining. “I did not lie, for my mother-name is Kalin; but only my eldest brother calls me by that since my Naneth faded. My father, and given name, is Mîrluiniel.”
He grinned then. “Ah, blue jewel… a fitting and beautiful name. Who, then, calls you ‘Luin?’ Aside from your own tongue, of course.”
She granted a smirk at his jest. “Another brother, but my family’s names I would still keep from you, even though my own you now know.”
He nodded in acceptance, and smiled playfully after a pause. Taking one step back and bowing as he would at court, Maglor took her hand in his to kiss the fingers. “It is an honor to meet you at long last, my lady Mîrluiniel.”
Laughing now, she curtsied low and responded in kind, fully aware of how to conduct herself royally. After all, her great Uncle still ruled in Doriath from the throne of Menegroth.
Not surprised in the least by her easily graceful manner, Maglor was sure to hold his kiss upon her hand longer than decorum called for and succeeded in bringing a crimson blush up her neck to fair cheeks.
“You are the most talented of flirts, my lord Maglor.”
“Aha! A title I am ever striving toward, and at last to have been granted it by so lovely a maiden.” Winking, he grinned broadly at her musical laugh and pulled her arm to link through his; choosing with purpose not to directly mention the bruised knuckles upon which he had earlier placed his lips, thinking he understood the reason as he had seen the frustrated scene from afar. “May I inquire as to why my dear lass was so troubled that she came to this tree and not to one of her own kind?” She remained silent. “Come now, don’t think I cannot see the tears you were weeping e’er I came to you.”
Sighing, she offered. “Would you believe me if I told you I simply injured myself?”
He patted her damaged hand through his elbow affectionately and answered. “Only partially.”
A smile. Subtle, but there on her rosy lips all the same. “I needed to release some frustration and I believe I’ve gotten over it now. I’m all right. It happens only rarely, but when it does I don’t often hold back, so I try to go somewhere by myself.”
“That is perfectly understandable. When all five of my younger brothers began to annoy me-- more than by accident, mind you-- I went to my music.” He laughed then at a thought. “No doubt that is surely some large reason for my being so proficient at it. I’ve had plenty of practice.”
Mîrluiniel laughed also and thought of her brothers as well, now that he’d brought on the subject. She’d always gotten on better with Galathil, her eldest; but Celeborn being closer to her age knew her ribbons and which to pull at any time to aggravate her. She loved him dearly, but he tried her the hardest, and therefore received the harder blows of aggression. Mediating between them was often Galathil’s chore; and his efficiency at such only grew once he became married and sired a child of his own. Amazingly, even with an elleth to lavish attentions with in their courtship, Celeborn had still not stopped his provocations. Instead, he chose to become only more protective of his little sister, so as to keep her from every possible attention from the opposite sex… at all costs.
Kalin smiled to herself; if he could see how much male ‘attention’ she was receiving here, he would likely try to castrate them all. “You’ve put your aggravation to a much more productive use than I, then. I’ve tended to be a bit more… violent.”
He chuckled and parried. “Oh, do not think I was always the docile one, now. Whenever Maedhros pinned the boys in a wrestling match, it was always my name to be called out.” In jovial conversation with one another, Maglor and Mîrluiniel walked along the river for a leisurely hour until finally turning back and beginning their path that returned to camp. Something caused her to stop them well before the canvases of her current home came into view and she craned her ear to listen behind them.
Maglor, seeing her alert, also listened for a moment and inquired. “What is it, Kalin?”
She turned around out of his hold and looked into the distance from where they had just come. “I hear hooves, but… Maedhros knows Celebrimbor has not experience enough to gallop, they’re coming faster even than a run.”
Maglor stepped closer to her side and heard it as well. “Perhaps he decided to let him try it while they’re out of the paddock.” He offered, but she was already shaking her head.
“No, something isn’t right. And I can see now, it is only one horse. Celeb’s pony is not with him.” They shared a look of worry and Mîrluiniel strode forward to close the distance between them and Maedhros’ sprinting stallion.
“Aiya! Maedhros, what’s happened?” Maglor called out to his brother once he slowed Rúnyadal to a prancing halt and panic set in for Kalin, taking in the disheveled form of the lord out of breath and Celebrimbor lying limp against him, unconscious and soaked through.
Maedhros met her gaze with his own anxious eyes and explained hastily. “We were along the river bank when I had gone ahead and let him out of my sight. I heard his mare and once I turned, I saw the pony swimming rider-less to the shore and Celebrimbor under the river’s current.”
Maglor steadied the excited charger and slid the child from Rúnya’s back as his brother spoke, gently bringing his nephew to the ground before Mîrluiniel where she knelt and checked the lad’s vitals. His heartbeat was slow and she briefly took note of the elfling’s broken leg before placing the heel of her hand in a certain spot upon his unmoving chest and with her stunted arm also pushed in short, measured bursts. Tilting the child’s head back, the elves watched as she breathed air into his mouth and repeated the process twice more until Celebrimbor choked and she turned him on his side so that he could cough up the water constricting his lungs.
Mîrluiniel cried out happily and rubbed the young one’s back until his throat was cleared and he turned into her arms, crying in shock and pain from his broken bone. Tears of joy welled in her eyes as she stroked his sodden blonde hair and laughed softly just for the fact that he was alive and well, not unlike the happiness and relief that accompanies a newborn’s first wails of life. “Oh, Celeb… it’s all right now, dearest. You’re going to be fine.” She assured him motherly and looked up with a weepy laugh to the stunned faces of the child’s uncles looking on.
Blessing the mentors who had taught her such a technique in her healing lessons long ago, she shushed the slowly calming boy who still hiccupped into her chest. Finally soothed enough to snub and cough only occasionally, Celebrimbor looked up to her reddened eyes with his own, the two of them looking quite alike in that moment.
He spoke at last. “My leg hurts, Kalin. Where’s Atar? Where’s my pony?”
Breathing deeply with a remaining smile, she wiped his face with her skirts that remained yet dry and responded. “Your father is still at home, little one. And your leg is broken, but Atar will fix it and you will be feeling well by supper, I promise.”
With a fair, furrowed brow, he nodded and then turned to Maedhros. “Uncle, is Bellsui all right? Where is she?”
Kneeling down to squeeze his nephew’s hand, the elf stroked his head and assured him. “Yes, she is fine, young one. And while Maglor is taking you to your Atar, I shall fetch the pony and bring her back home, is that well?”
Smiling faintly through his troubled expression, the lad was taken into Maglor’s arms as he was bidden and set in Rúnyadal’s saddle once more while his uncle mounted up behind him, taking the reins to guide the horse smoothly home. Mîrluiniel touched Celebrimbor’s good leg and gave him a comforting grasp that was repaid in an encouraged smile before they started off in the opposite direction.
Maedhros turned, still dripping wet from rescuing the child, and addressed her. “I would rather you not return alone, my lady. I’ll be back shortly with this pony and we can go.” He offered politely but she shook her head and shrugged off the last of her quickly spent adrenaline, moving quickly to follow behind the Noldor prince.
“No, I’ll come with you. I don’t tire so easily and, like you suggested, I’d rather not be alone. Not at present, in any case.” He glanced at her sidelong as they walked and she kept her gaze downward. She held her left elbow in front of her with her right hand in an insecure posture and he couldn’t be sure if the elleth’s thoughts were replaying the rescue of moments ago, or if she was recalling another series of events less pleasant in ending.
He chanced an inquiry with thought to possibly take her mind off of those thoughts or memories in particular. “Where did you learn to return the breath like what you did for Celeb, just now? I’ve never seen anything like that, nor have it work so promptly.”
She looked up to him for a moment, and then away again while she thought of how to respond without revealing too much. “Ah, when I, learned the healing arts… my instructor taught me. I know not if many know such a technique. And it is quite possible for it to not be as prompt as you saw this day… indeed it is very possible for it not to perform well at all.” Mîrluiniel became silent for a moment afterwards until she looked ahead and put on a masked smile. “There she is.” Then, with a true smile of mirth that returned her countenance to its normal brilliancy, she turned to him with a quip. “Will you be riding her home, my lord?”
Maedhros grinned openly and allowed a gentle laugh, which she had never before then heard, and therefore delighted in. “Nay, my lady, I’m afraid I care little for the feel of my boots dragging upon the ground whilst I trot.” Laughing sweetly at his returned jest, Kalin watched as he walked ahead of her to take hold of the mainly black and white pony’s low-hanging reigns.
Mîrluiniel’s pleasant smile faded, however, when he turned to return to her and inadvertently revealed amongst his dripping garments a tear in the tunic under his right breast, a rough gash making its presence known with bright red blood staining the exposed flesh. She cursed herself for not having noticed it earlier and approached him with purpose, unknowingly putting him on the defensive.
As he deflected her, she wondered how he could be ignorant of such a wound and persisted, explaining. “Maedhros, you are hurt! I saw it just now. Please let me take care of it.” Still he evaded her and asked gently that she stop. “How can you not feel it? It’s right th…”
He gasped when she accidentally pushed against it and then told her firmly. “I know where it is, and I can, indeed, feel it, lady. I ask you again, let it be.” He took her hand by the wrist to stay the next attempt and she sighed.
Kalin took a breath before starting again, more calmly. “Forgive me, my lord. But it is not the kind of hurt to let heal on its own. Allow me to at least wrap it until more attention can be given. Besides, I have no needle and thread with me, so there’s no need to get upset on that account.” She looked steadily up at him again, with something of a maternal air that, in his opinion, became her quite well. But he didn’t want to so expose himself to her again; it had been a lapse in judgment on that first night. Yet by the knowing look on her fair features, it would be quite more than a struggle to keep her away.
At length, the gash began throbbing more abruptly and he felt it was not worth it to argue with this one any longer. Moreover, if their previous encounter with touch had been any indication, his pain would likely be vanished in but a moment. “I thank you, my lady.” He consented at the last and she smiled only in gratitude, not superiority, as he would have expected. Releasing her wrist quite reluctantly, for more than one reason, she reached behind her and untied the apron from about her waist.
Methodically she requested of him. “Have you a knife I may use to cut this? I’ll need the strips to bandage your waist.” Quickly unsheathing his dagger from its place, he handed her the blade and watched as she knelt, pinning one corner of material between her handless arm and knee while the other corner was held in her teeth and she began the tear as such. Glancing up to him, she instructed. “Take off your shirts, please. If you care not for one or both of them, press the cloth firmly upon the wound to slow the bleeding.” Maedhros did as she bade him and clenched his jaw as the fabric was pushed into his side by his own hand. Finished cutting the rags, she set aside the knife and draped them across her left elbow before coming to him, asking that he let his right arm rest on her shoulder to keep it out of the way.
Gently taking the sodden shirts from his flexed grasp, she wiped the surrounding blood away with them and then folded only the under-shirt to carefully place on top of the gash. “Hold that a moment.” She took a strip of apron and placed the end of it under one of his long fingers to hold while she hugged close to him and brought the cloth tightly about his waist, disconcerting him when her cheek pressed against his bare chest momentarily.
Mîrluiniel subtly studied him as she worked, and could not help but be shocked at the amount and depth of scarring upon his flesh. Her eyes had only seen a part of them on the early morning of his nightmare, and in the darkness of a tent at that. She was appalled now by how many splayed across his torso, alone. With more respect now for his wishes to remain private, she could hardly express what profound concern she felt over the markings of lashes and blows of terrible torture instruments used on him during that long thralldom.
As she tied off the taut dressing around his middle, she took the fallen and bloody shirt that was once a charcoal grey, now stained a reddish black, and moved to the shore of the river to wash it out as much as she could. Maedhros came beside her to once again gather the pony’s reigns, allowing it to drink from the frigid water. “So what happened?”
Kalin’s inquiry came to his vacant ears and he turned to her in a moment of uncertainty before responding. “To Celebrimbor? It seemed he tried to jump to a sandbar in the river and the horse likely stumbled upon him in the gravel. As I said before, I turned only after it happened. I dove in after him and managed to pull through some rapids before getting him to shore.” With an expression of consternation, he continued. “I lost my grip several times, and on one instance was caught upon a jagged rock.” Finished, he gestured to the neatly bound injury.
She nodded as she listened and rung out his shirt before standing and draping it across Bellsui’s rump. “I’ll see if I can salvage the jerkin tonight.” She offered as they began to walk back to the encampment.
Maedhros simply waved her off. “There is no need.”
She thought a moment and looked ahead of them as she spoke, choosing her words carefully. “At least it is still here for you to put on should you choose, once we’re returned to your brother’s camp.” He looked her way and she chanced a look back, hoping her meaning had got across in an inoffensive manner. By his appreciative gaze she gleaned that it had, and she was glad to see that her foot was placed tentatively further into the door of gaining his trust.
“I thank you.” His low voice murmured and, tucking some fallen hair back behind a pointed ear, she averted her gaze with a smile to hide some of her blush, even as he clearly saw it and smiled admirably upon her.
In moments like this, Maedhros wished that she would look fully into his eyes so that he could gaze into and study hers longer; take in the fades and brilliancies of their color, the depth of beauty, which at each moment reflected all her loveliness from within. Yet mentally he checked himself. He could never truly appreciate her beauty and elegance the way he desired so fervently to, and that, he knew would regrettably never occur, out of concern for her well-being and that of anything that could possibly come from such a union.
Upon further foreboding thought, he concluded that even this day’s incident was all of his own doing. It was he who had offered a ride and some practice outside of the ring, which led them to the bank of the river, where he had taken his eyes from his nephew just long enough for such a thing to happen. If it had not been for him, Celebrimbor would have safely been trotting his pony in the paddock and not having a broken leg mended due to his careless uncle. How was Maedhros supposed to father a child and not subject it to the atrocities of the oath’s doing or accidents due to his own negligence? What grief would he give to Kalin by doing such things so unintentionally to their children? He could not bring himself to think of it.
“My lord, are you well?” Kalin asked after him innocently and he only turned enough to see the missing left hand at her side. Even her disability was his doing! And had not his brothers interfered, and then surely she would have faded that very evening. Everything dear to him would be brought to harm so long as he remained near to it.
He turned to her as she waited, patiently concerned for his answer. Abruptly, he questioned her. “Do you love my nephew, Kalin?”
Not expecting such a question, nor so suddenly, Mîrluiniel answered truthfully without forethought. “Yes… as if he were my own.”
He exhaled with a humorless smile, grimmer than she would have liked. “You realize had it not been for your, most welcome, interference, that he would have been dead by my hand this day?” Bitterly, he accused himself and disregarded her attempts to dissuade this current line of thinking. “Why do you continue your kindness toward me? It was my fault he almost became lost, and it was my doing to distress you so for Celebrimbor’s sake. You are too good...”
Not certain how these mutinous thoughts and notions had come upon him so out of the blue, or even at all, Mîrluiniel made a valid point more potent by turning him to face her and stopping their movement to gain his complete attention. “And you, also, are too good for your own health, Maedhros!”
He shook his head and looked away, but as her grip tightened and her body stepped even closer, he was sorely tempted to look at her.
“Yes, you are. If you were as you say, would you be so concerned to worry yourself over all this as you’re doing now? If you weren’t good and kind, then you would not care. You do care. What happened was an accident, and could have happened to any one of us, and under even worse circumstances for I doubt my determination alone would have carried your nephew to shore.”
Looking down in dejection, Maedhros shook his head slowly, gradually bringing a grieved and conflicted stare to meet the blue eyes that sought to console him. More quietly than his earlier arguments, even his own heart wishing the statement false, he whispered. “Good things happen to good people, Kalin… I’m not one of them.”