The only justification i have for this is that “until this place is full of sunlight” (@jaz-the-bard) fucks severely and i think glorfindel would be really hot scared out of his mind.
on AO3 here{basic premise: aredhel never made it back to gondolin}
#complete #CNTW #glorfindel/maeglin #glorfindel #maeglin #mind-control #dubcon #isolation #dream-sex #ficfic #jazthebard #nan-elmoth
Laurefindelë’s heart and Linquë’s hooves pound at top speed. They’ve made the jump across the river. He hears no one behind them – perhaps their pursuers do not dare risk the wrath of the water; perhaps they do not dare try the patience of the trees. Perhaps they merely do not care to cross the water to chase down one living Elf when there are seven corpses to loot in their wake.
He focuses on getting well out of sight, too far in to be worth the trouble of finding him.
This wood is really too dense for horseback, but he doesn't dare slow down. Linquë, though managing the treacherous footing impressively well, is not getting any calmer. Something is wrong with the sky. Something is wrong with the birds. Something is wrong with the path.
A song, just too soft to decipher, twists in Laurefindelë’s gut and drives his fear to abject terror.
It does so to Linquë, too. She stops short entirely, her whole body stiffening, and he has a bare half-second to brace before she throws him off, which she has quite literally never managed before. She bolts out of sight at once, the sound of her steps abruptly cut off a moment later.
When he looks up, there is an Elf standing over him: head cocked, eyes sharp, expression... disinterested. He asks, “Are you hurt, traveler?”
Laurefindelë is going to have some impressive bruises, but it doesn’t feel like anything is broken; he tells the stranger so. This person doesn’t – doesn’t look quite right. The faint starlight coming through the trees illuminates him more than it should, more than it does for the tree-trunks and the ivy crawling up them. When he steps closer and says, “I’m glad of it. That was a nasty fall,” he does not particularly look glad.
Then he leans down and offers Laurefindelë his hand. When he takes it, the stranger pulls Laurefindelë to his feet and he does not let go. Their faces are inches apart. The stranger glows, the only thing Laurefindelë can see, there is no sun and no stars anymore, and his eyes seem to – seem to –
Laurefindelë jerks back, closing his eyes and shaking his head. He takes a single sharp breath and the world stops tilting. When he looks again the stranger is gone. The light comes through the trees again, just barely enough to see clearly. He doesn’t know if it will stay that way.
He is alone, without his horse (or the supplies in her saddlebags), in the dim and suddenly-trackless wood. He calls for Linquë to come back, he picks a direction and runs, in desperation he calls for the vanished stranger, for anyone who might hear him. It is getting darker fast. The birds are laughing at him. At this point he can barely see his hands in front of his face. He begs the empty air for help – and steps into a garden. The trees lean out over it, shielding it from the sky, but pale purple flowers, softly glowing, line a path to the door of a little blue house. Its porch lantern is lit.
Laurefindelë stops, panting, and tries to decide how he feels about this new development. Before he makes up his mind, a voice says, “Did you need something?” from about four inches behind his left shoulder.
If he’d had the strength left to do so, he’d have leapt half his own height straight up. As it is he only jerks around to look, stammering wordlessly.
It’s the same person from before.
Oh, shit.
The stranger waits patiently while Laurefindelë recovers his breath enough to say, “I – well – I seem to have gotten lost,” looking at his pale, scarred hands instead of his face – instead of his eyes. “Somehow I think you could already tell as much.”
“Yes, I rather could,” the stranger says, his voice dripping condescension. “It’s getting late, and you look weary.” He offers a hand to Laurefindelë again, palm up, entirely relaxed. “Come into my home, traveler, let me offer you meat and drink.”
Laurefindelë looks down at him, trying to get his brain to work. Now that he says so – how late is it? The sun has only been up for a few hours, it isn't late enough in the year or far enough north for days that short. Is it? But – the starlight – Laurefindelë cannot actually tell if those are stars or pinpricks of sunlight, straining to get through the canopy.
All that is tangential. The question is: how dangerous would it be to accept this person’s hospitality? Is it hospitality at all, or a trap? But if he were entirely hostile, surely he wouldn’t be offering, since he very obviously can lead Laurefindelë wherever he likes.
Or perhaps the question is how dangerous it would be to refuse it. Whoever this person is, he does not seem likely to say, “Oh, that’s all right, if you go that way and take a left at the third sycamore you’ll be out of here on the other side in no time.” He seems more like a “Fine with me, if you want to walk in circles until you starve or get eaten by wild animals” kind of person, if not an “I was just being polite, but now you’re getting locked in my basement instead of given a seat at my dinner table” kind of person.
There is no evidence that his prospective host’s patience is infinite, either, so Laurefindelë does have to make a choice. None of the options sound particularly safe or pleasant, but he thinks there is some chance that the stranger is making the offer in good faith and it is the forest itself which is malicious, so… “It would be my honor. Please, lead the way.”
The stranger’s mouth, in the corner of Laurefindelë’s eye, does not move at all, but he still looks somehow pleased. He takes Laurefindelë’s arm and steers him up the path and through the door, through a sparsely decorated kitchen, into a room with two chairs. One is a comfortable-looking grey armchair next to a full but neat bookshelf. The other is simple and wooden, behind a small writing desk, which is between the armchair and the door. On the desk is a small punched lantern throwing dancing shadows through its myriad slits.
Laurefindelë is deposited into the armchair – it is indeed very comfortable – and offered a blanket (which he refuses) and a hot drink (which he accepts). The stranger steps back into the kitchen to prepare the said drink, and Laurefindelë is left in the little room alone. He tries to get his bearings a little. There is a painting on the far wall. He cannot decipher what it is meant to depict; is that a horse or a stag? Is the shadowed figure before it or behind? Are those leaves, or clouds, or watching eyes –
The stranger returns, with two steaming mugs and more food than Laurefindelë would have expected him capable of preparing in the time he was gone laid out on a slim metal tray etched with flowers. He sets the tray down on his desk and gives one of the mugs to Laurefindelë – the beverage is opaque and smells of cinnamon – and takes a long drink from the other.
“So,” he says, sitting down himself, “What were you doing in my woods, traveler?”
Laurefindelë is going to scream. Did he have to draw the attention of, what, the master of this terrible place? He asks, “...Your woods?”
His host waves his hand noncommittally. “Well, more accurately my father’s; and truly he only keeps them on the sufferance of the Queen,” he explains. “But the Queen is not here, and my father has not been well lately. I have been responsible for watching our borders.”
Laurefindelë has not actually gotten any less confused. “Who is –“
His host interrupts, sharp, “I asked you. A question.” Laurefindelë is apparently trying his host’s patience. He would rather not do that. Seems healthier that way.
He says, “I’m – looking for someone.”
The stranger raises his eyebrows and smiles, saying, “Do you think you know what happened to them?” in the indulgent tone one might use with a small child.
Laurefindelë wants to weep, or to faint, or perhaps to violate the laws of hospitality in some spectacular new way. He says, “I think I might, yes.”
“Well, who is it?” his host asks, still sickly sweet. “Perhaps I can give you news of them – though if I am perfectly honest, I doubt you’ll be sharing it elsewhere.”
Even if – no, Laurefindelë cannot think now about whether he will make it back to Turukáno. Regardless of that, for his own closure, Laurefindelë has to try. He takes a breath and says, “I have come in search of Princess Aredhel of Gondolin.”
The stranger’s gaze snaps up from his plate, his whole body seized with sudden tension. Laurefindelë flinches from it, but he cannot keep his eyes averted. Laurefindelë’s host looks at him, pressing at his mind, demanding entry. Laurefindelë knows what he’s looking for, and does not actually mind giving it. In an effort to keep him at the edges Laurefindelë simply shows him. He remembers as vividly as he can Turukáno giving him the task, the journey here, the loss of his companions. Their speech is largely in Quenya, to which his host may take offense, but there’s nothing to be done about that.
The intense stare does not abate. Without any pretense at a polite expression or tone, his host says, “What is your name, traveler? If we are to speak at length I would address you properly.”
“Tell me what became of her,” Laurefindelë insists.
In response, he feels something at the back of his mind, like ice at the top of his spine. “I do not like," his host says, flat and annoyed, "To repeat myself.”
Laurefindelë breathes slowly and answers, “My name is Glorfindel of Gondolin,” because there is no point in losing the veneer of civility sooner than necessary.
“Well met, Glorfindel. My name is Maeglin,” his host says, the ice receding from both his voice and Laurefindelë’s mind. “Son of Eöl and Írissë.” Laurefindelë gapes at him. Maeglin says, with a sigh and a dead-eyed stare, “What became of her is she met my father.”
That. That is – Laurefindelë cannot even begin to process that. He puts some information together, halfway accidentally, and squeaks, “What, like this?”
Maeglin shrugs. “Vaguely, yes. Though it’s my understanding she was a little more…" He side-eyes Laurefindelë as he says, "dignified about it,” but his voice doesn’t manage the silky disdain he used before. He looks down into his drink for a long moment. “I remember her being much happier in my childhood than my adolescence, but it may just be that I learned to tell when she was lying.”
This is a completely incomprehensible series of decisions Maeglin is making. Laurefindelë cannot believe – “And you’re doing the same thing to someone else?”
Maeglin’s face blurs for a moment, a shadow cast by nothing passing over him, and then the cruel condescension is back in force. “Why should I not?” he says. “Perhaps you shouldn’t have ventured alone into unfamiliar woods looking so… noble and beautiful and Doomed.”
Oh fuck. Laurefindelë has to – what if – there’s a chance she’s still – she’s just trapped here. Somewhere else. Possibly. If – maybe he can – that’s a question for later. For now he needs to figure out how to ask -
“The one you seek has been dead for seven decades,” Maeglin clarifies, though Laurefindelë did not manage to speak aloud. “Her husband objected to her attempt to remove me from his power.” His eyes and teeth flash. It seems more like a real smile than any of his earlier ones. “I am so glad I did not ask you these questions on the road.”
A confused noise falls past the despair in Laurefindelë’s throat and out of his mouth. He does not look at Maeglin's face or the painting on the far wall. He watches Maeglin's hands instead: a danger which observation might mitigate rather than attract.
“Well, anywhere else, Glorfindel of Gondolin, he might be watching.” Maeglin stands and puts his cup down, then takes Laurefindelë’s and returns it to the still-full tray of food. Laurefindelë tries to rise, but Maeglin blocks his way and knocks him back down into the chair before he can find his balance. He falls still, breathing like a panicked animal. Maeglin takes his chin in cold fingers and tilts it up. Laurefindelë shuts his eyes and tries to – he doesn’t know – he just wants to get out, but the fear sits in his limbs like lead.
The hand on his face tightens, just slightly. There is a soft disappointed sigh. When Maeglin says, “I can keep you still enough to bind without using your eyes, you know. But if you make me tie you down and drag you up the stairs with my hands, then they won’t be free to leave you anything to eat,” his voice is horribly gentle. Laurefindelë tries to grab Maeglin’s wrist, or curl in on himself, or at least turn his head, but he doesn’t manage more than a jerk of his chin. Maeglin doesn’t lose his grip for a moment. “Your choice.”
…Laurefindelë opens his eyes. The world tilts, just as it did from the forest floor, and it doesn’t stop. His arms push him up from the chair. His legs cross the room, and climb some stairs, and turn him around. A tray is placed in his waiting hands. His eyes clear, but remain locked on those of his captor. Cold dread coats the inside of his skin, keeping his limbs and tongue still.
“I have some things to see to,” Maeglin continues pleasantly, as though he hasn’t just torn a hole in Laurefindelë’s mind, “and after that, I think you will be very useful.”
And then he leaves, taking the faint and flickering light with him.
The door closes, soundlessly and seamlessly. Laurefindelë is left alone in perfect darkness, holding a tray heavy with food and drink. Closing his eyes does not change how much he can see in the slightest.
At least he can close them – the vertiginous power that grabbed him by the inside of the neck and dragged him here is gone. Or perhaps that’s worse, because that power belonged to a person who could (at least theoretically) be reasoned with, while an empty room has no mind to try to change.
Laurefindelë breathes. Once, twice, three times. He does not know whether or where there is a table in the room. He does not know whether or when he will be getting any more to eat or drink than what he is already holding. He sweeps one foot around slowly, checking if there is anything directly in front of him. Gingerly, he lowers himself to his knees, taking care to keep the tray level, and sets it on the floor.
Then he bursts into tears.
He shouldn’t, he shouldn’t – he needs to keep it together, there are so many unknowns and for the first time since yesterday he can’t feel any predatory eyes on him and he doesn’t know how long that will stay true –
But for the first time since yesterday, he can’t feel anyone’s eyes on him, and with that immediate pressure released he is breathing so fast it hurts and sobbing like the world is ending.
He should’ve – he should’ve had them moving faster. They knew they hadn’t found a well-hidden campsite, and they stopped anyway because they hadn’t stopped for two days before that, and they didn’t even finish setting up camp before they saw the warg-riders coming and had to get moving again, and then they all died – all the companions he’d had left, which were only half the ones he’d started with.
And this place. He knows where he is – where he probably is – where he would expect to be based on a map. It must be Nan Elmoth, since it can’t be Doriath proper, but it doesn’t make sense. That’s the meeting-place of Thingol and Melian, there are some Sindar who live there, it’s a known entity. It’s not like Nan Dungortheb or something. What’s wrong with the trees? The paths? The darkness?
And – and there exists a person who can yank other people around like they’re on puppet strings by looking at them. And Laurefindelë is in his house. He said he had some kind of use for him and then did not elaborate.
That person is apparently related to Turukáno, if he’s really Írissë’s son, so he’s technically part of the royal family of Gondolin and therefore directly outranks Laurefindelë. But he pretty clearly considers himself a Sinda, and –
Írissë is dead. She’s dead, and he can never fulfil his quest, and how is he possibly going to tell Turukáno –
He isn’t. He would only have to worry about telling Turukáno if he were going to get out of here, and he doesn’t see how he could possibly manage that when he’s just walked into the enchanter’s house like an idiot –
It’s so dark. He doesn’t know how big the room is. He doesn’t even have a sense of how far away the door is. At this point he’s not even sure he remembers which direction it’s in.
--
It takes him a long time to run out of tears.
--
When he finally starts breathing relatively evenly again, Laurefindelë rolls onto his back from the curled-up position he’d been crying in. His sleeves are covered in snot and tears. Things have not stopped happening for a moment since they left for the battle, and almost none of the things in question have been good… In fact he cannot think of anything good that has happened since then. The only time in his life he’s been more tired than this was on the Ice.
His head hurts; he needs to drink something.
There is no guarantee he will be getting any more water anytime soon. …And crying about it will only compound the problem. He breathes through the resurgence of fear, not letting it get back to panic, and then feels around in the dark for his cup. He drinks only enough to think clearly, not enough to sate himself fully. Similarly, he eats a few bites of some kind of pastry, but stops himself while he’s still hungry.
--
It’s so dark. Laurefindelë tries to sing to fill the space. It makes him feel less lost and more alone.
--
It seems like a good idea to try to learn the space he’s been left in. He can’t see anything, of course, and he doesn’t want to stand up and then trip over something and hurt himself. But at the least he can determine the room’s dimensions, find the door, and see if there’s any furniture.
Start with the door. Given which side of the tray of food he’s sitting on, and where he was facing when he put it down, it’s probably… this way? He edges around it and counts his “paces” to get to the wall. It’s… a wall. He feels along it, picking a direction and trying to find some hinges or the gap between the door and the wall, and he finds a door-frame.
Just the frame.
The baseboards are unbroken, but what is clearly a door-frame outlines a piece of the wall just like the rest of it. He stands up to check, and it goes all the way around. He goes back the other way to see if he just missed the door, but that really seems to be the place where the door should be. It simply – is not a door right now.
Which means, of course, that he cannot even begin to imagine an escape plan. Great. And he’s lost count of his steps, so he has to try to find the food tray by smell. While that’s doable, it’s not something he wants to have to repeat. There’s some kind of cabinet against the wall near the… the place the door belongs, so he moves the tray up against it. He can explore a little, perhaps, to build up his idea of the space in his head and orient it around that cabinet.
It’s something to do other than think about terrifying potential futures he doesn’t understand and can’t control.
--
The room, as he begins to feel his way around it, turns out not to be a cobwebbed attic nor a bare cell but a well-appointed bedroom. There are clothes in the dresser and the trunk, rumpled sheets on the bed, and other signs of habitation. Books, too, though they don’t do Laurefindelë any good in the dark. Is this Maeglin’s bedroom? Or was there some other poor soul in here until recently? If it does belong to Maeglin, why is Laurefindelë here? Where does Maeglin intend to sleep? When will he be back?
There is no way to know any of that, so there is no point in worrying about it, Laurefindelë tries to tell himself.
--
It’s so dark. Sometimes he hears bird-calls from outside: jays and owls and nightingales.
--
When he gets tired, he half-sleeps in the bed. If Maeglin didn’t want him to, he shouldn't have left him here. By the time he’s hungry enough he can’t ignore it any longer, he's able to navigate fairly well between the bed, the washbasin and its full lidded pitcher of clean water (which was such a relief to discover), the chamber-pot, and the food tray.
--
It’s so dark. The uncertainty of the duration of this ordeal is crushing. He eats a little more, the fruits that seem likely to spoil soonest.
They’re too sweet.
--
On top of the dresser he eventually finds a hand mirror. He nearly drops it immediately on discovering it, and the shards would have been horrible to try to deal with, but he manages to keep hold of it.
Without the mirror, the Treelight in Laurefindelë’s eyes only means he can sometimes see his own nose. But if he holds it up to his face, that light scatters, and it makes just the faintest glow. Not really enough to see clearly by, but enough to remind himself he’s in an unlit room and not the Everlasting Darkness.
--
He’s managed to drag himself out of the bed again, in the interest of not going entirely insane. This has led to lying down on the floor.
That floor vibrates with a dull thump from below. There is some more movement downstairs. He sits up and looks around, his heart in his throat.
Out of the corner of his eye Laurefindelë sees the darkness crack, a tiny vertical sliver of light. He turns his whole body towards it, taking it in like a hot drink on the Ice. Three more glowing lines appear, one after the other, forming a rectangle large enough to step through.
The door opens.
Maeglin and that single punched lantern step into the room like a sunrise. He smiles down at Laurefindelë and sets the light on the dresser. “Why art thou on the floor?” he teases, his voice loud and strange after the long silence. “Here, get up,” he offers Laurefindelë a hand and helps him to his feet, then guides him to sit on the bed. Laurefindelë is… not entirely certain that “in a bed with an enchanter newly thouing him” is a place he wants to be.
Maeglin glances at him for a moment, pauses to look closer, and then bursts out laughing. “No, don’t worry, I just want to sit next to thee while we talk,” he assures him, “and I’m certainly not sitting on the floor.”
While Laurefindelë casually boils alive about that, Maeglin takes three steps past him and – opens a window. A window in a wall Laurefindelë went over about twelve times trying to see if there was an exit he’d missed. He knows the shape of the picture frames that hang there quite well.
Of course Maeglin’s house has windows and doors that only exist when he wants them to. Why not? Why should anything about this make sense?
Maeglin comes back over and sits directly next to Laurefindelë at the foot of the bed. His false smile is lit softly with what little reaches in through the trees outside and dappled with lantern-light.
“Listen,” Maeglin says, leaning in uncomfortably close, “I’m nearly ready. I need something from thee. All right?”
Oh, no. Now is when he discovers what mysterious use Maeglin intends to get out of him. “What is it?”
Maeglin puts one hand over Laurefindelë’s white knuckles. “I will release thee to return to Gondolin,” he says. Laurefindelë holds his breath. “If thou wouldst bring me with thee.”
Laurefindelë blinks.
He wants to go to Gondolin? That – he seems so at home here. Laurefindelë tries to imagine him standing in the Tower of the King and it simply doesn’t work. He doesn’t even know what Maeglin looks like fully lit.
“Wilt thou?” Maeglin presses.
He is Írissë’s son; theoretically Laurefindelë only has his word of this, but really – when one knows to look for it, he looks like someone painted her in greyscale. Laurefindelë thinks he’s seen a painting of her dappled by the shadow of a tree, aiming a bow with precisely the expression Maeglin is wearing now.
“If thou refusest, that’s all right. It will only make everything take a bit longer, I won’t be angry.”
Even if Laurefindelë could get to Gondolin alone, would Turukáno forgive him for forsaking the only opportunity to let him meet his nephew? Maeglin’s very existence is so unbelievable, the only way to explain him would be if he were there to introduce.
“Thou mayst stay as long as thou likest, of course. Thy choice entirely.”
If he says no, Maeglin is going to shut the window and take the light and leave. He can’t – he can’t. He would bear it if it were to keep Gondolin safe, but to keep his liege’s nephew from his birthright? No. It’s not a real choice.
He nods, as he’s sure Maeglin knew he would.
A real grin bursts onto Maeglin’s face. He wraps his arms around Laurefindelë, one cold hand curling around the back of his neck, for just a moment. Laurefindelë holds very still. “Excellent! I need to go… give my father the news, but we’ll leave as soon as I get back,” Maeglin says, as though leaving Laurefindelë here for however long that will take is of no consequence at all. As though – as though Maeglin’s father did not murder his wife for what Maeglin intends to do! Why in the endless void would he–
Maeglin stands. He pats Laurefindelë on the head and steps away, ignoring Laurefindelë’s bewildered sputtering. He shuts the window, and picks up the half-empty tray of food, and puts the light on it – “Wait!” Laurefindelë cries, and Maeglin stops with his hand on the doorknob.
Then he can’t figure out what to ask for. Maeglin raises an eyebrow, lit from below like a tale-teller behind a campfire. “Could – couldn’t I come with you?” Laurefindelë tries.
Maeglin smiles in response, and quite softly says, “No,” just as Laurefindelë expected him to. It still hurts. “It’s going to be delicate work. But…” He gestures to the dresser, where – where he’s left some more bread and fruit. “Thou shouldst eat more than thou hast been. I really will be back soon. Two days, probably. Four if something absolutely ridiculous happens. Thou shalt be perfectly fine.”
And then he leaves. The cracks of light outlining the door thin and vanish, one by one, until Laurefindelë is once again alone in the dark.
Some time later – which Laurefindelë has spent singing and sleeping and worrying, sequentially but also at least briefly all at once – there is a sudden and terrible clatter downstairs. Laurefindelë stands, shaking, trying to orient himself.
The door slams open. Something shatters. There is enough light for the world to look like a blur of grey instead of a sheet of black, but no more.
The person who opened the door, whom Laurefindelë prays is Maeglin and not his father, stalks wordlessly over and grabs his arm, then drags him stumbling out of the room and down the stairs. At the bottom, he trips, expecting another step, and crashes into a wall. Probably-Maeglin’s hands turn him to face away from it and pin him in place. Then, thank the Weeper, Maeglin’s voice demands, “Are you keeping your word? Will you lead me to the hidden city?”
Laurefindelë pants for a moment, trying to gather his scattered wits. The hand on his shoulder moves in toward his neck and an elbow digs harder into his ribs. He finds the words to say, “Yes, of course, I agreed to it–” before Maeglin cuts him off, pulling him off balance. He’s towed unceremoniously through the house and out the door. Outdoors! There’s no firelight, but the glowing flowers in the garden are in bloom, and the canopy lets a little light through. He can see.
He tries to pause, to savor it, but Maeglin is already moving on. They’re walking directly towards a pair of shadowy figures – large quadrupedal ones.
When he recognizes one of them, he stops short. Linquë is there, looking in better health than when he saw her last, ready to go, and staring balefully at him as though the strangeness of this place is entirely his fault. He runs the last few steps to greet her. He’s never been happier to see a horse in his life.
They are not allowed a long reunion: Maeglin is already in the saddle of his elk, and he snaps, “Come on, we do not have all night.”
“Why not?” asks Laurefindelë, looking up at him. And then, belatedly putting some pieces together, “Are we running from something?”
Maeglin’s teeth flash in the gloom. “No idea. I wanted plausible deniability, so I didn’t stay to watch.”
If this conversation didn’t have their earlier ones for competition, it would be the most baffling thing Laurefindelë had experienced in many years. “To watch what?”
The back of his neck prickles: Maeglin finding handholds in his mind, ready to force the issue if he delays further. “Get on your fucking horse, we are leaving.”
Laurefindelë takes a deep breath. He gets on his fucking horse. And they leave.
With Maeglin leading the way, the wood feels much less menacing than it did on the way in. It is gloomy, and quiet, but not oppressively so. There is a path, broad enough for each of them to ride with little difficulty, though they cannot do so side-by-side. Sometimes Maeglin stops suddenly, and waits for a few seconds or a few minutes for some unseen signal before he moves again.
Sometimes the trees seem to slide around in the corner of Laurefindelë’s eye; not walking, just – being displaced. When he comments on it, Maeglin only advises him not to look. “It makes newcomers sick sometimes. You don’t have to get used to it, don’t worry about it.”
Laurefindelë worries about it a little bit. Even so, he tries not to watch that, nor the movement of their shadows sharper than they should be with so little light, nor the witch-lights beckoning him in the distance. He keeps his eyes on Maeglin, and Linquë follows the elk hoofprint-for-hoofprint, and they make their way steadily along the path.
Eventually – fairly soon – they can suddenly hear rushing water, and their surroundings get markedly brighter. A few steps later, they're past the treeline.
Laurefindelë feels a weight on his heart lift. The moon hangs low and full, the stars are brilliant, and the sky stretches unbroken for hundreds of miles. It reminds him of seeing the eastern shore for the first time, watching newborn Isil’s light cascade across the landscape and turn the snow shining silver. A reprieve from long darkness.
He shakes his head; he’s being silly. It’s nothing like that at all. He spent all of a week or so in that house.
“Well, o guide? Which way are we going from here?” asks Maeglin, as Laurefindelë draws up next to him.
Laurefindelë blinks. He has no clue what time it is, so he doesn’t actually know which edge of the forest they’re on. “Uh. Where are we now?”
“Exactly where you came in.”
Well. Alright then. “Then mostly we’re just continuing straight,” Laurefindelë says, pointing. “Though we’ll have a difficult choice to make on the other side of the plain, and I don’t know which parts of it will be mostly free of Orcs and which will be overrun.”
Maeglin does not seem concerned in the least. “Then we shall have to be careful, I suppose,” he shrugs, and urges his mount onward. The elk leaps across the narrow river with such grace it looks effortless. Perhaps Maeglin's people don’t build bridges, and just do that whenever they need to cross it. It isn’t as if a wheeled cart could traverse the paths inside, so he supposes they needn’t bother.
Linquë makes the jump as well, not effortlessly but elegantly. Maeglin isn’t watching.
They ride on, the stars wheeling above them, the only sounds those of night-birds and insects.
They make fairly good time. There is no longer obvious evidence of the desperate flight south; Laurefindelë carefully does not think about what the Orcs did with the bodies. They see only one fire near their route. It could be a campsite, or a pyre, or a smoldering ruin. They give it a wide berth.
Eventually the sky begins to lighten. Maeglin pulls something out of a pocket and ties it around his forehead – no, over his eyes.
He shouldn’t ask. It’s a bad idea, it’s rude, he probably won’t even get an answer.
He asks. “Why are you wearing that?”
“So that I can see,” Maeglin returns, with no little irritation. “We probably shouldn’t stop yet; I’d like to be quite far by the time a messenger could have gotten to Menegroth and back.”
What did he do? Laurefindelë tells himself the specifics don’t matter. What matters is that Maeglin thinks Thingol might be looking for him soon, and they therefore still have a ways to go before they can rest.
He doesn’t actually have a sense of how long that would take. Obviously, the specific location of the house he was... staying in is not actually information he has. He acquiesces, and after a moment dares to ask, “Is there anything we can eat in the saddle?”
It turns out there is, and so Laurefindelë passes the morning savoring the space and the sunlight, with little to complain about, comparatively. Maeglin is not being sinister beyond the oddity of his eyeless gaze. In point of fact, he seems to be making an effort to be friendly – asking and answering some non-invasive personal questions with no threat, implicit or otherwise, behind them. He also asks questions about Laurefindelë’s journey east and the circumstances which led to it. When he hears that yet another High King of the Noldor has been killed by the Enemy, he is silent for a long time. Whatever he is thinking about, Laurefindelë does not know, but for his own part he can only think of how terribly sad it is that Maeglin will not get to meet his elder uncle.
They find the relative shelter of the Aros’s riparian trees before dusk. Maeglin doesn’t so much suggest that they rest as stop without warning and dismount to go drink and rinse his face, but it does get the point across.
After a brief discussion, it is decided that they will stop for several hours. Traveling west into the sunset is apparently uncomfortable for Maeglin even with the blindfold, so they will not continue until some time after dark. One of them will take full-sleep, and the other will half-sleep, so that they can continue until the next afternoon when they wake.
Laurefindelë fusses over the mounts – Maeglin’s elk does not have a name in spoken language, but he is magnificent and (if Laurefindelë is honest with himself) more polite than Linquë. Maeglin sets up a place for them to sleep, and spends at least twenty minutes calculating which trees to paint warding signs on. And then, over a (somewhat) heartier meal, they must make a plan.
They cannot go through Doriath; Maeglin is apparently in hiding, and in any case Laurefindelë cannot get in. Normally, which route to take towards Gondolin would not even be in question; without a very pressing time limit, following the Aros up to its source and crossing Dorthonion is the only sensible choice.
Unfortunately, certain recent events have rendered that choice significantly less sensible.
Even taking those recent events into account, Laurefindelë’s company chose to take the northern path over that through Nan Dungortheb, reasoning that they were all much more practiced at dispatching the servants of Morgoth than the spawn of Ungoliant. But it was the wrong choice: “overrun” is not a strong enough descriptor for that place, in these days. It would take them too long to cross, Maeglin says, for him to keep their passage secret. If they are discovered there, they will be caught, and they cannot afford to be caught.
The other path is no safer, Laurefindelë argues. It is a valley of horror, and none who go in emerge whole, if they emerge at all.
“I have been to the north marches of Neldoreth, you know,” says Maeglin. “Where spider country presses against the Girdle.”
“Is it as terrible as the stories say?” asks Laurefindelë, who has never before been desperate enough to go near that place.
“Perhaps you would think so. To me, it felt like home.”
And so they will be taking the southern route. If nothing goes wrong, they will reach the ford around sunset the next day, and cross into Nan Dungortheb in the middle of that night.
It is full dark by the time they make this decision, so it is Maeglin who will stay at least half awake while Laurefindelë gets some proper rest. Which means, of course, that he must try to sleep knowing that if nothing goes wrong, he will be walking into the valley of spiders in less than two days.
He manages it. Eventually.
Laurefindelë is dreaming. He lies flat on his back. Someone is leaning over him. Someone is caressing his face. Someone is trailing their fingers down his neck, his chest, his arm – to take his hand, to kiss it.
Laurefindelë looks them in the eye and recognizes Maeglin just as he pushes a long iron nail directly through Laurefindelë’s wrist, between the bones of his forearm. It hurts, but in an abstract and muted way. He bleeds, but slowly. He will not stain the sheets very much. Maeglin leans down again to press the nail into the bed, trapping Laurefindelë’s arm there.
Laurefindelë is frightened, but the fear is behind a veil; he cannot bring himself to do anything with it. Maeglin smiles, and he watches Laurefindelë’s face intently while doing the same thing to his other arm. The softness, the sting, the careful arrangement. Laurefindelë feels like – like a jewelfly pinned to a board for display. Maeglin looks at his work, considering, and moves. His weight shifts, so that rather than across his hips Maeglin is sitting on one of Laurefindelë’s legs. He lifts the other, examining it, gently pinching its soft places, looking for somewhere to pierce. He bends Laurefindelë’s knee and pushes it sideways, so that his whole leg rests flat on the surface beneath him. Laurefindelë’s breath quickens, waiting for it.
This time Maeglin is looking down at Laurefindelë’s leg. It would be so much easier to bear with Maeglin’s eyes on his. The pin pierces the meat of his thigh, just behind the knee. It moves, slowly, sinking diagonally through Laurefindelë and into the corkboard.
One more to go.
Laurefindelë swallows, that veil between him and his emotions thinning. He feels sick, and scared, and small. Why is Maeglin doing this? He thought Maeglin liked him, he thought they were at least – Laurefindelë pulls on his wrists, the pins threatening to tear him open further. The pain is growing more intense, more insistent, inexorable as Maeglin himself. Maeglin lays out Laurefindelë's other leg, and stabs him carefully one more time, and sits back on his heels to admire his handiwork.
Laurefindelë is dreaming. He is flat on his back. His hands are pinned above his head, and his legs are pinned open. He is weeping. Maeglin is leaning over him. Maeglin is looking at him. Maeglin's mouth is inches from Laurefindelë's neck. Maeglin's left hand is holding Laurefindelë's arm still, and his right is scratching Laurefindelë's thigh. Maeglin is watching him wriggle and bleed and he is enjoying it. Maeglin bares his teeth and says –
"-indel. Laurefindelë. Hey, wake up."
Laurefindelë sits up, gasping. Maeglin is a few feet away, where he'd been half-sleeping on watch. He's looking at Laurefindelë intently, his ears perked up. Laurefindelë blushes. Maeglin tilts his head and asks, "Was that a nightmare or a sex dream?" and Laurefindelë blushes harder.
"Wh- were you watching it?" Laurefindelë demands, mortified.
Maeglin says, "Wouldst thou rather I’d noted thy distress and just… ignored it?"
Laurefindelë would like to melt into a puddle, perhaps. Or the earth could open beneath him and swallow him whole, that would be great too.
Worse still, Maeglin smiles and adds, "Wilt thou not indulge me? I’m curious," and his voice doesn’t even have that sickly-sweet edge whose informality is a weapon. He genuinely just wants to know the answer.
To this Laurefindelë can only throw his hands up and burst out, "I don't even know!" Then he feels Maeglin’s eyes against his mind, checking to see if he's lying (he's not, it was – he doesn't – it’s just – ugh), and he shudders.
Withdrawing into his own head, Maeglin flaps a hand at him, dismissing the whole incident and retreating back behind that indifference which borders on disdain. He says, "Well, it's almost time to get moving anyway, what say you we start a little early?"
So they pack up and go, and can pretend to be almost normal again.
It is unbearably awkward.
They ride, at the fastest sustainable pace, along the river. Tonight, there are no stars. The moon is just barely visible behind the clouds. Laurefindelë is acutely aware that, of the sapient creatures likely to be nearby, he is the one with the absolute worst night vision. He thinks Maeglin might also be feeling tense, but Maeglin is not the world’s most easily read elf. Perhaps he is being silent because he does not wish to be distracted. Perhaps it is because he expects danger at any moment. Perhaps he is thinking about Laurefindelë’s dream.
… Now Laurefindelë is thinking about the dream.
He tries to think of something, anything, else. It works as well as avoiding a thought on purpose ever does. The eyes of the dream-Maeglin, pinning him in place as surely as the stakes, return to the forefront of his thought again and again. It’s the way Maeglin looked at him when demanding his guidance. It’s the way he looked at him when he heard Írissë’s name.
Come to think of it, that conversation took quite a turn in that moment. Laurefindelë finds himself wondering where it had been headed originally.
They are close enough for fairly quiet speech. Though he’s not sure whether it’s a good idea, what kind of mood Maeglin is in, Laurefindelë asks him, “If I hadn't been from Gondolin, would you have… married me?”
Maeglin doesn’t answer for a moment. Then he just says, “No.”
Laurefindelë blinks. “It’s just that – you seemed to imply that – was the threat a lie, then?”
“Also no.”
No detail seems to be forthcoming. Laurefindelë is so confused.
Maeglin sighs, as though Laurefindelë should already understand perfectly and he’s an idiot for asking. “If you hadn't been from Gondolin you wouldn't have been all that interesting; I would have given you material for a horror story and then thrown you out. I won’t say you weren’t in any danger, but I wasn’t intending on doing anything permanent,” he explains. Laurefindelë tries to fit that into his understanding of the situation. It doesn’t really work. “But you are from Gondolin, and so I was absolutely prepared to use up a small dark room on you for as long as necessary to get you to agree. I’m not sorry. It meant the difference between getting rid of my father and surviving getting rid of my father. Which we still won't manage if we don't get where we’re going, do not slow down.”
Laurefindelë hurries to catch up, and then – “Wait, getting rid of him?”
“Did I not tell you?” Maeglin says, turning to raise his eyebrows at Laurefindelë. “He’s almost certainly dead. If he’s not, I’m sorely disappointed in several people I will never see again.”
He turns away again before Laurefindelë answers. “No,” he says faintly to Maeglin's back, “You didn’t tell me that.”
Then Maeglin stops short and turns in his saddle. Laurefindelë tries to follow his gaze to whatever has alarmed him, but he hisses sharply, “No, fuck, look at me you idiot,” and Laurefindelë flinches. His mind races – why does Maeglin want to do that, what is he frightened of, what is he going to do with – another furious whisper: “At least make the fucking horse stand still – shit. Too late.”
Too late for – oh.
Some Orcs are as tall or taller than Elves, when they stand up straight, but some of them are shorter than Men, or have very low gaits, or both. Some Orcs couldn’t understand the concept of stealth if you explained it in their native language for five hours, but some of them are quick and quiet and clever.
Even those are not quite quiet enough. Laurefindelë flicks his head out of the way of the arrow and lays his hand on his sword just as Maeglin shouts a halt with a staggering compulsion behind it.
The movement in the grass stops. One of the Orcs steps forward, warily, and demands to know by what right Maeglin commands them. As Laurefindelë watches, Maeglin pulls his cruelty on like a cloak, speaking in riddles about birds and bounties. He’s… implying that the two of them have backup, perhaps, or that the Orcs’ superiors wouldn’t approve of what they’re trying to do.
Laurefindelë ignores the conversation and counts.
Three in decent armor, near the commander. Maeglin, to all appearances bored and a little annoyed but not concerned in the least, is making eye contact with it and backing away at the same slow pace they’re advancing.
Two coming around behind them, their movements unsettling the grass. With the night animals all gone quiet, Laurefindelë can hear the archer nocking another arrow a little further away.
“Maeglin,” he says, “Don’t look.”
Then he draws his sword, throwing its light as hard as he can, following the motion sideways and down off of Linquë’s back. She bolts immediately; she’ll stay nearby, but she knows to get out of the way. Her shadow is long and strange, dancing in the sword-glare. The Orc-arrow whizzes through the space he’d just been occupying, and before its arc is complete the archer is dead.
Six left.
Maeglin did look, he thinks, but he’s recovered faster than the Orcs did. His eyes are back on the commander, and he’s muttering to himself.
Laurefindelë will take the ones Maeglin isn’t looking at next, then. They were relying on their stealth; he has advantage of reach, speed, and strength on them. It takes another few moments to behead one and gut the other.
Four left.
Two move, one to swing its axe at the elk’s legs and the other breaking to run. Laurefindelë takes one, two, four strides and catches the attacker by the wrist, twisting until something rips.
Three left.
The commander tears its eyes off of Maeglin and charges at Laurefindelë, which is convenient. It puts the remaining Orcs in a straight line. Laurefindelë’s sword follows that line without slowing down; their armor was decent, not seamless.
Laurefindelë waits one, two, four more seconds for any more unpleasant surprises, but nothing comes. He lets the sword dim and calls Linquë back.
Maeglin is staring at him.
Laurefindelë looks back at him and shrugs, “There really weren’t that many of them,” before checking on Linquë and cleaning off his sword.
Maeglin sputters. “Not that- Glorfindel, there were six of them!”
“Seven, actually, but with you splitting their attention it was really one or two at a time. They weren’t very good, anyway. Their only advantage was surprise.”
Another several moments pass while Laurefindelë finishes cleaning up and remounts. “I assume we will not be stopping to give them funeral rites?" he asks, bemused.
At this Maeglin shakes himself and turns to continue on their way, muttering, “How the fuck did I survive attacking you?”
It’s not clear whether this was rhetorical, but Laurefindelë answers anyway: “By being an Elf.” At Maeglin’s quizzical look, he adds, “Well, I don’t generally expect Elves to be my enemies. Sindar don’t like Noldor, but they don’t attack us on sight either. It took me too long to register you as a threat, and then you were in my head.”
The grey and wordless dawn crawls up behind them as Maeglin considers this. When it reaches its full brightness, they reach the Arossiach: the river here is as shallow as it will get. Maeglin peers west, tilting his head as if the workings of Nan Dungortheb will lay themselves bare to him from dozens of miles away. Maybe they do.
It is another long day of little rest before they reach the threshold of that dark place. They spend it mostly in silence and both on high alert, but nothing attacks them. Multiple times an hour, Laurefindelë thinks he feels the ice-grip of Maeglin's mind on his, fading the instant he notices it. He almost asks, but he asked enough foolish questions last night. If he's the one to break the silence Maeglin prefers so strongly yet again, then – he doesn't know what would happen.
Maybe nothing. How would he know?
They make camp on the east bank of Esgalduin. The longest and most treacherous stretch of their journey lies ahead, and the river feels like very scant protection. They aren’t bringing their mounts across; both of them are anxious and restive, and the elk refuses even to approach the river’s edge. Maeglin says it’s just as well, because there’s no reason to feed perfectly good steeds to spiders. At least this way they can take most of their gear, instead of losing it when one of the mounts bolts and turns a corner that isn’t there a moment later. Laurefindelë would rather not feed Linquë to Orcs, either, but Noldorin horses aren’t summarily banned from Doriath. Apparently the elk intends to show her around.
Laurefindelë is quite glad that they're trading off sleeping; he's not sure how well he'll manage even half-sleep in the shadow of these mountains.
Three hours of eerie silence and almost-rest later, Laurefindelë gently shakes Maeglin awake. The moment Maeglin opens his eyes, Laurefindelë’s vision fills with grey smoke and he nearly loses his balance completely. At least Maeglin finishes waking up before actually stabbing him, but he could have been a little more gracious about waiting for Laurefindelë to catch his breath before they set off again.
The boundary of Nan Dungortheb is not perfectly sharp, but there is definitely a change in the air as they cross the bridge. Once they step onto the west bank, Maeglin stops for a long moment, peering into the distance. When he’s finished, he says only, “Straight west?”
At Laurefindelë’s affirmative, he nods decisively and turns to walk directly north.
… Somehow it seems unlikely that Maeglin is more confused than Laurefindelë is. He doesn’t comment, instead merely falling into step just behind him. It’s difficult to see; Laurefindelë has to be careful not to trip. Maeglin doesn’t seem to be having any such trouble, of course. He slips across loose scree and over dry and gnarled tree roots as surefooted as if he were in his own home. It feels very much like the first night, with Maeglin moving in fits and starts, responding to signals that Laurefindelë cannot see. Like that, but they have to go much slower, and what’s lurking in these shadows owes Maeglin no allegiance.
Some of the shadows are cast by nothing, and some of them are cast by unforgivingly solid rock faces. There is no apparent way to distinguish these without walking into them, for someone without Maeglin’s talents. The air is punishingly dry and perfectly still. It smells very faintly like something is burning. They brought water from the Aros, which they know is safe to drink, but they need it to last even if they get lost for a while, so there will be no relief from either of those sensations for some time.
Laurefindelë wishes they could light a torch or something, but he knows that would be stupid. The attention such a thing would draw is far more dangerous than the risk of falling on his face.
After a few hours, they start to really notice the cobwebs.
It’s not that there were none before. Even the previous day, there were an unusual number of them. But these are not the result of an unusual concentration of spiders – they are very clearly the work of unusually large spiders.
Their pace must then slow down still further if they want any hope of stealth. There should be at least some daylight, by then, but all Arien has really accomplished is to make the grey of the sky and the grey of the rock slightly different shades. Several times Maeglin swears under his breath and makes a very sharp turn. At one point, he turns in place extremely slowly for a solid quarter of an hour, scowling viciously. Laurefindelë just tries not to block his line of sight.
Like that, it takes them another two days to get across the valley, which is much less time than most accounts suggest it ought to take. Even so, every moment of it is disorienting, anxiety-inducing, and generally unpleasant. Three times they are attacked by spiders, and once by a vicious creature with far too many eyes that might have borne some resemblance to a wildcat, if wildcats had exoskeletons and three-jointed limbs.
Laurefindelë kills (or at least injures to the point of harmlessness) the cat-thing and one of the spiders. Another of the spiders is so focused on trying to eat Laurefindelë that it misses Maeglin's presence entirely, and he drops onto its back from a ledge and drives a knife into the joint between its head and abdomen. Afterward, he is so rattled Laurefindelë can see it even in the dark, and they have to find a relatively secure spot to take a break.
The last spider is nearly twice Laurefindelë’s height, a monstrous shadow that shines a sickly green in the light of his sword. He doesn’t particularly expect to survive, but Maeglin settles his grip on Laurefindelë’s mind and stalls for time, warning the spider that they’re unlikely to be quite so easy a meal as it expects. Laurefindelë has no idea what Maeglin is waiting for, but he tries to look – difficult to digest.
Then his body abruptly dives sideways without his input, and he lands on hard ground clean of cobweb. Maeglin lands on top of him a moment later. They remain surrounded by looming pillars of grey stone, but the air smells different, and Laurefindelë can hear the sound of running water. They must have – taken a shortcut.
They scramble up together and stagger in the direction of the water, turning a corner to come face to face with the setting sun.
They made it.
Faced with this information, Maeglin immediately collapses. Laurefindelë catches him, obviously. He must have been more exhausted than he’d let on; he fights his eyes open, looks at Laurefindelë for a moment, and then goes entirely limp.
Well then.
They shouldn’t rest yet; it would be better to be west of the river first. Laurefindelë gets Maeglin better situated in his arms, and goes to find a good place to make the crossing.
Neither of them has slept nearly enough in the last week. They decide to take three hours each; Maeglin is well enough to help set up camp, but Laurefindelë still takes the first watch. When he wakes Maeglin, he does so carefully. The cold fog only grips him for a fraction of a second this time before Maeglin relaxes and comes fully awake.
Laurefindelë is dreaming. It is a dark and shapeless dream. He’s not sure he remembers which way is out. He’s not sure he remembers which way is up.
It is a very dark dream, but not in the sense that it portends any kind of Doom; simply in the sense that it – has no visual component. Or maybe it does, and he only hasn’t found it yet. He feels along the edges of the dream, looking for the door and the light behind it.
He finds a door-frame – just the frame. He feels sure there ought to be a door there, but the darkness is unbroken. His hands hurt where he is digging them into the border of it. Surely there is a crack somewhere. He only has to find it.
He pulls and scratches at the door-frame in the dark, tracing around it again and again, and eventually – when he is so tired he has nearly given up, and his hands are wet with his own blood – his fingers catch on something. He looks at it, even though of course he cannot see it. He holds onto it, trying to pull it further open without breaking anything or losing it and having to search again. He peels apart the tiniest sliver of an opening, and through it comes a little blade of light, piercing the Void and dazzling Laurefindelë with its brightness.
There is someone behind him, and that someone dislikes that light.
A hand – a familiar one – grabs him by the arm and pulls him upright. He loses his grip on the crack in the darkness, and he cries out with grief and fear. The darkness swallows the sound whole, and its hand doesn’t seem to notice, dragging him down away from the door instead of answering him.
One hand has a vice-grip on his right arm, and one pins him to the empty air by the throat. One hand fists in his hair and one hand covers his mouth.
They’re all the same hands.
He knows them, he thinks. He wishes they would speak, that they would tell him what they want, but as he tries to fight their grasp he can’t find the body (bodies?) they belong to. Another pair of hands pushes his wrists up to his shoulders. Fingernails dig into his sides. It covers his eyes, too, as though there's any need to in the endless dark, and he loses track of how many places he’s being touched. Every time he thinks about a patch of skin exposed to the emptiness, another hand grabs him there.
Laurefindelë is dreaming a dark and shapeless dream, and it is shoving him to his knees and suffocating him with Maeglin's hands.
He wishes Maeglin would say something, and he can’t ask him to with his mouth full, and he’s going to die in the dark without ever--
A sound pierces the darkness, and Laurefindelë is so disoriented by the fact he didn’t make it that he falls right out of the dream, and narrowly avoids falling out of the tree entirely. After a moment he realizes the sound was Maeglin calling his name. “That one, at least,” he is saying, “was definitely a nightmare.”
Laurefindelë stares at him, panting, and then laughs a little wildly and drops his face into his own hand, because – “No, I think that one was a sex thing, actually.”
There is a pause. Then Maeglin says delicately, “Noted.”
Laurefindelë stares at him. “What - what in Arda does that mean?”
He can hear Maeglin’s smirk as he replies, without a hint of concern, “Go back to sleep, we should get another half hour or so of rest and then get going.”
And then he simply settles back as he was before, and pretends Laurefindelë has obeyed him until it’s true.
They reach the gates of Gondolin two days later.