Chapter Text
Steps in the sand make impressions consumed by the sand around them as he moves on. The water, the earth, swallowing up every trace of his passing. Wet, hard sand; dry, crumbling sand. Footprints on wet sand erased by the rising tide, gone by the tide’s falling. Footprints in dry sand consumed by the sand itself. No matter where he walks, his passage erased. His presence, erased.
He has to remind himself, sometimes, that he chose this. That he chose to wander the world, to shun all settlements of Elves, avoid even settlements of Men or Dwarves, to live in utter solitude. He chose this...this penance.
He has to remind himself, because with every tide that goes out, he can feel it dragging a little bit more of himself with it.
The burns still will not heal. The bleeding, finally, has stopped, after...days? Weeks? Years? He has no concept of time, anymore. Not sure he has a right to one. He has a right to nothing else...The bleeding has stopped, but the pus continues. Infection. A rare thing for the Eldar, and a condition all the more serious for its rarity. The bodies of the Amanyar, especially, were resistant to it--for an Elf born in the light of the Trees like himself to have an infection at all is a sign of the gravely damaged state of his soul. The soul’s power could no longer sustain the rapid rate of healing to which the Amanyar were prone.
Soul’s power. What power? So little of him was left...the Oath had moved into every crevice of himself, sunk itself down into all the little folds and wrinkles left by stress and time...and like a glacial ice, frozen, expanding, and thawed, widening the cracks. And then, the Silmarils. The Silmarils burned the Oath away, opened up the crevices the Oath had widened, laid them bare, his soul bare and raw as the scorched nerves of his hands. Exposed to every breath of wind, every grain of sand, every stray emotion, every stray thought. He was raw and vulnerable and breaking down, not little by little, but by leaps and bounds.
Or was he healing? The bleeding had stopped. The pus hadn’t, but the bleeding had. Maybe the pain in his soul was just growing numb. The pain in his hands had not, but the pain in his soul had to have been. And yet, he could feel a little more of himself drifting away with the tide, every day. Every morning--each as grey to his eyes as the next, whether the sun shone or not through the cloud-layer haunting the shore--his vision grew dimmer and dimmer. Every morning, his hearing grew more fractured. The cries of gulls, over and over, so embedded into his mind that he’d caught himself growling at the gulls to be quiet , leave him be, only to discover that there were no birds on the lonely shore with him.
What did it matter, anyway?
Maybe he needed to go out with the tide. Give the whole thing some symmetry. One Silmaril given to the air, it’s bearer sailing the sky with it. One Silmaril given to the fire, its bearer giving himself to the fire as well. One Silmaril given to the water, and its bearer...still haunted the shore. Why? Honestly... why ? Why take another step? Why keep putting one foot in front of the other? Why bother trying at all, when he could feel a little bit more of himself erased with the crumbling sand, with the shifting tides?
Something in the back of his mind murmured--of stories that needed to be told, songs that needed to be sung. Of two children who still loved him...still loved. Him . The thought of them twisted his heart and he let out a strangled, keening cry, his steps faltering in the sand. His boys. His boys . They had no reason to love him. He had no right to love them. They were the best of his life, but he had only ever caused them pain...hadn’t he? Hadn’t...he’d killed everyone they ever knew...then why did he have memories of their clear eyes, their sweet little faces, staring up at him with awe and adoration; their voices raised up in song, singing songs that he wrote? He’d done good, hadn’t he? Then why did it pain him to think of them?
The clouds settled over his mind again, and with an agonized moan, he stumbled on. Once again, he wondered why. His mind hurt. His soul burned. Every part of his body hurt, not just his inflamed hands.
Maybe he needed rest. Maybe he needed to stop. Maybe forever. Maybe he just needed to...needed to…
Maglor took one more step. He wavered, dizzied. Faltered. Stumbled. His eyes rolled back into his head, and he collapsed into the sand.
-----
Soft light awoke him. Pale, white light--not the harsh midday sun reflecting off the water, nor the grey morning clouds that troubled the shore. Soft and white. He heard a faint snapping off to his right...cloth. Cloth snapping in the wind.
Cautiously, he opened his eyes, expecting the light to pain him. It didn’t. He was in a startlingly little amount of pain. Bleary eyes the color of a stormy sea surveyed himself; he was clean. He was in clean clothes. Loose white robes and loose white sheets; warm white blankets. So much white. He closed his eyes for a moment just to breathe. He didn’t understand.
“Ah. There you are, lad.”
Maglor’s chest constricted at that voice. Familiar--more than that. It was one of the voices of someone who--someone he had hurt--
He opened his eyes again, now afraid, seeking out the source of the voice. An Elf with brown skin and a white beard filled his vision, and his vision began to blur. Hot tears pooled in his eyes.
“Cirdan.”
“Easy now, lad.” Cirdan’s smooth voice resonated with something deep inside him, something that longed for safety and warmth. Something that let the warmth wash over him. Something that reminded him of his grandfather. “You were in quite a state when we found you. We’ve done what we can for your hands and your other injuries, but you’ve got a lot of healing yet to do. You must take things slowly.”
“I…” Every word he wanted to say died on his lips as his throat swelled from the sobs clawing their way up it. “Cirdan, I--I’m so sorry …”
“Shhh.” Maglor’s breath caught as the ancient mariner’s warm hand settled over his eyes. His body went limp, tension and fear bleeding out of it. All he could feel was that warmth. Distantly, he thought he heard a song--in an ancient tongue, a tongue older than the written word, one that sang of starlight by still, cool waters.
For a moment, he just let himself breathe. But he couldn’t simply allow one who he had hurt show him kindness when he deserved the opposite.
“...You...Cirdan, why...what I’ve done...how can you...after Sirion…” His throat choked up again; the only thing holding back his sobs was sheer exhaustion.
“You called for your grandfather in your sleep.” Cirdan’s grave voice cut through every guilty, spiraling thought that Maglor had. “You called for him in the old tongue.” A deep sigh ran through the mariner, a sound that betrayed in a single note just how old his soul was. “He taught it to you, did he?”
“...M...mostly just the songs,” Maglor admitted. “I tried...I tried to learn it in full...but Grandfather always said...he was no linguist. And it was hard...to explain, to teach...the Unbegotten had to remember. None of them wanted to...to remember Cuivienen. It was too painful.” He swallowed, thickly. “I understand why, now.”
“...He should have taught it to you.” Cirdan shook his head. “Why, the music you could make with that tongue on your lips!” He ran his hand over Maglor’s forehead, smoothing his short, ragged hair.
“Listen to me, lad. Know this now. Forgetting the past will not change it. Forgetting pain will not heal it. Forgetting sins will not undo the damage they have done. You wandered the shores looking to lose yourself...looking to forget.”
It was not a question. And Maglor had no words to refute it.
“I will not say that your grandfather was wrong in wanting to move on from the pain of the past. But I will say that he was wrong to try to pretend like it did not happen. I’ve heard this story many times from the Noldor who returned out of Aman--that the Unbegotten in your land refused to tell you what happened to us in ours. They should have. They should have taught you our language. Taught you our songs. They should have told you of what we suffered there. Laid it out for you in detail.” The mariner’s kind, bearded face crinkled into a scowl. “Made sure that you did not repeat our mistakes.”
“...m...Mistakes?”
“...How can I condemn you, lad?” Cirdan’s smile was pain--his ancient, sea-foam eyes agony as he stroked Maglor’s forehead with all the loving care of a grandparent. “You know not the sins we committed on the shores of our awakening. Your sins are egregious, yes. And no--I cannot forgive them. That would be a disservice to all the people you’ve harmed and killed.”
“I--don’t disagree,” Maglor blurted, almost indignant. His sons had no business forgiving him, that was for sure…
“And I will not forget them, either. Because that is part of moving on. Remembering the past--so that you never again repeat it.”
“...wh...what are you saying?”
“I’m saying, my people and I saved you because I know that you are capable of changing. You are capable of moving forward. You are not your sins. You can accept and own what you have done--and still be better in the future.”
Maglor stared at him. The light in the healer’s hall was white, and soft. The divider curtains fluttered softly, creating a rhythm of a song he didn’t know yet. A song he didn’t know yet! What a wonder to discover. What a strange thing, to be here in a white room paved with white stone, in a fair city by the sea, and for there to be songs he did not know! How very strange, to be alive!
“...do I...do I deserve…?”
“To try? Yes. Yes, lad--you do.”