"Spring came late that year" by Himring

[hhimring]

B2MeM Challenge: Day One (Themes): Friendship
Format: vignette
Genre: angst (stream-of-consciousness)
Rating: Teens
Warnings: none
Characters: Maedhros, Elrond
Pairings: Maedhros/Fingon (implied)
Summary: He really tries, he does.




"Long before, in the bliss of Valinor, before Melkor was unchained, or lies came between them, Fingon had been close in friendship with Maedhros; and though he knew not yet that Maedhros had not forgotten him at the burning of the ships, the thought of their ancient friendship stung his heart. Therefore he dared a deed which is justly renowned among the feats of the princes of the Noldor: alone, and without the counsel of any, he set forth in search of Maedhros; and aided by the very darkness that Morgoth had made he came unseen into the fastness of his foes."

Note: I'll just pretend this has anything to do with the prompt, okay?


If you were here. If only you were here. And he means—so many whose light has gone out of his darkening world—which used to be full of fire!—is chill and faded now—but especially the subtle scent of trust, the warmth of the encircling arms that defended him from himself—could not deserve, could not keep, has lost—is lost.
He claws his way back to some semblance of... Earth beneath his feet, sap rising in the boughs and the patient, too patient face of: Boy, they say you resemble Luthien, but I see—I see Turgon and Elenwe and Finwe and… This gesture of the hand, that turn of the head and.... But no, no memories now!
Boy, Elrond. Has he got what he needs? Silly question! Second-rate, third-rate, fourth-rate: stopgap. But: here, now.
‘I’m sorry, Elrond,’ Maedhros says, ‘I lost track of what you were saying. Would you mind repeating the question?’

Comments

[zdenka]

Oh, I like this. I hadn't thought of it before, but it makes sense that the boys would remind Maedhros of so many people, and that it would be painful for him. I like that the resemblance is in gestures as well as looks; that seems very true to life to me.

[hhimring]

Thank you very much!
I think of Maedhros as being very family-conscious and not just in a narrow sort of way.
He sees Turgon and Elenwe in Elrond rather than Idril, because he knew them better. He may not ever have met Earendil.

[huinare.livejournal.com]

I love your prose here. It very much evokes how thought can go rambling off in an instant, and not always on sunny paths.

I like your author's note, too. =]

[hhimring]

Thank you! I'm glad I succeeded in evoking that. Stream-of-consciousness isn't easy to write, I think.

[shadowbrides.livejournal.com]

Aw, that was sad. Poor Maedhros but poor Elrond too - I doubt Maedhros is the only one who keeps seeing dead people in him. All those long-lived individuals with too many memories and too few friends left...

[hhimring]

All those long-lived individuals with too many memories and too few friends left...

Yes, there would have been many of those around at the end of the First Age and the beginning of the Second. And, of course, later as well, but by then the general mood may have shifted.

I have Elrond complain about something like that in "Something Un-Feanorian"--he says he feels burdened occasionally by all those ancestry issues.

[oloriel.livejournal.com]

Psh. If the prompt inspired you to write this, it totally has to do with the story.

Poor Maedhros! Yes, I expect Elrond and Elros would remind him (and Maglor as well) of a whole host of people they've lost...
Poor stopgap Elrond, too, of course. Can't be easy when people keep looking at you as if they've seen a ghost...

[hhimring]

Well, I was aware of the prompt and I wrote the story, but does it follow that it was the prompt that inspired me to write the story, I wonder?

Yes, poor Elrond! Although I didn't mean to say that Maedhros regarded him as a stopgap. I can see how that reading would make sense, too, if you read this ficlet as standalone, though. (I've written about these two elsewhere.) What Maedhros is saying is that he hasn't a hope of giving Elrond what he really needs, but is trying to concentrate at least on whatever Elrond needs him to do (or answer) right now.

Thank you very much for reading and commenting!

[moetushie]

*Heartclutch*

Poor Elrond though.

[hhimring]

Yes, poor Elrond.
But, being Elrond, he is is actually getting more out of Maedhros than Maedhros thinks he does.

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I totally agree with you. I always remember that he grew up to be the Elrond that I first met in LotR--kind as summer and builds a home that will be refuge and a solace for others in dark times.

[alasse-mirimiel.livejournal.com]

Wonderful, as always. Anything you write with Elrond and Maedhros will be wonderful!

[hhimring]

Thank you!!

[mikononyte.livejournal.com]

That was intense! @.@
The mad, nearly incoherent thoughts of one who is barely holding on to sanity; the curse and the oath are taking their toll and it truly shows here.
Pity anyone caught in his insane web!
And here I will have to re-evaluate my thoughts and feelings about Maedhros, for those who are Doomed by the gods, inevitably doom themselves and all around them.

[hhimring]

Well, that is pretty much how it feels from the inside, how it feels to Maedhros. It is he who believes, by then, that he inevitably dooms all around him.
But in fact I've written a story about Elrond in which he looks back, later, and disagrees with that assessment.
You say you "will have to re-evaluate your thoughts and feelings about Maedhros". I'd be interested in how exactly my piece made you re-evaluate your thoughts!

[mikononyte.livejournal.com]

It's been 2 years since I read Silm so that being said: I absolutely hated the Feanoreans. I thought they were despicable! I thought Maedhros's behavior was disgusting. BUT, I took it at face value.

When you misbehave, there is ALWAYS the opportunity to stop doing so, to accept chastisement for being as ass and move on. Maedhros could have stopped at any time, but refused. He dug himself deeper and deeper.

It never occurred to me and really it should have! that his madness had gone so deeply. Talk about shallow reader! @.@ I felt pity for him, reading your words. PITY! Pathos! omg!

I have now pushed up re-reading Silm for this year again. I really want to see how it plays out with a different or more neutral point of view. Each time I read that book I learn something new, grow to love that world more, and grow to understand those less than perfect beings (who in many ways reflect the christian idea of 'downfall') the Noldor elves.

So, maybe now I can see them, and the Feanoreans and Maedhros in the light of classic myth: where the gods make mad those whom they would destroy.

[hhimring]

I don't think canon gives us an entirely consistent portrait of the Feanoreans, because Tolkien seems to have changed his mind about them as he wrote and re-wrote, perhaps repeatedly.
So I would never claim that my reading of these events is the only possible one. But we are not really ever told, it seems to me, that either the Oath or the Doom of the North have escape clauses.
My own particular version of Maedhros could, I guess, among other things be said to be a study of the effects of having to fight despair for a very long time...

[independence1776]

Ooh, this was painful. Well done!

[hhimring]

There was a lot of pain around...
Thank you very much!

[engarian.livejournal.com]

Such a clear pathway of madness, the moving effortlessly between one incomplete thought to the next, losing his way and then finding it again, only to drop it and then have it handed back to him. Loved it.

- Erulisse (one L)

[hhimring]

Thank you very much!
A pathway of madness... It is the pathways of depression I think I'm describing here rather than psychosis--the thoughts of someone who can no longer entirely emerge from mourning.

[engarian.livejournal.com]

I think we're actually describing the same thing, just from different hemispheres :-) Acute depression is a form of madness, at least it was considered so when I was experiencing it during my teenaged years. It just wasn't quite to the "lock them up and throw away the key" level :-)

That said and nonetheless, I again find myself floored by how delicately you manage to portray the relationships between the two of them. It is your fine detail work that enriches your canvas. No sledgehammers for you, just a gentle dance to an irrepressible rhythm, even if it is only within memory.

- Erulisse (one L)

[hhimring]

Thank you very much, Erulisse!
Yes, I know. It is just that when Maedhros is described as "mad", people sometimes seem to mean something rather different by madness--as if he were liable to suddenly running amok without warning, etc. It doesn't seem likely to me, and it's certainly not the case in my verse.

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

This is beautiful and moving. The last line sums it up. He is sorry that he cannot give more and he does call himself up short and forces himself to focus on Elrond again and asks what he needs of him. I always figure less from Maedhros in a clearly diminished state is more than some people could give operating at full capacity.

[hhimring]

Thank you very much, Oshun!
Yes, I agree. Maedhros sees himself as failing, but his standards for what Elrond is owed are high. And I also think Elrond is perceptive enough to pick up on Maedhros's intentions and wishes.

This is what I make Elrond say later, in Something Un-Feanorian:
I struggled to find words for how it had been, those years spent under the care of the two surviving sons of Feanor, sheltered and secure and yet not, as if wrapped tight in a very large, very warm cloak but one that had huge rents and holes through which the cold of fell winter seeped. Unlike Elros, I had had little choice but to remain aware how crippled by their losses both of them were all along. But to do even without the memory of that warmth…!

[ysilme]

Oh, how painfully intense. Poor Maedhros, and poor Elrond. But still, both got something out of it, and I can't agree more to what you and Oshun say below: Elrond must have gotten out a lot of this and much more than Maedhros; and I'm absolutely convinced his years with Maglor and Maedhros have formed the character we meet later not only a little bit. Being compassionate and living with these two Fëanorions - what could teach you compassion and patience better than that?

[hhimring]

Thank you!
I agree it must have been a formative experience for Elrond.