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Chapter Text

We were confused by the light behind us at first, fearing some new danger. You’ll think it daft perhaps. How could the moon ever be a threat? Understand this: as Tilion arose in triumph, winding that clear silver horn of his loud enough to reach even our distant ears, the light blinded us. Pure liquid silver, dazzling from all angles as it hit each facet of the constantly shifting ice, blinded eyes that had for so long beheld only faint starlight in the dark. I covered mine. It was useless to shield them, surrounded by fractured light as I was.

                “Look!” Argon cried eagerly, jostling my shoulder with one hand, his other reaching into the distance to a sight my stricken eyes had at first missed. Land! And scarcely a league ahead. Behind us I heard our father take up his own trumpet in reply. Soon a glorious chorus sounded all around, for the joy of arrival under this new moon. I had no brass of my own, nor a horn to blow, so I shouted my gratitude to the stars, my breath clouding the frigid air. It was premature, even foolish perhaps.

                Scarcely had we stepped over the threshold when clouds swarmed the sky and we were beset. Then, Argon, my sweet, foolish, impetuous youngest brother, ran ahead. I found him, you know, before he died. The tallest of us all, he still managed to look so young, lying half obscured beneath the last orc he’d cut down, strewn amid the wreckage of his triumph and defeat. A sword cuts both ways. My brother barely breathed. The shallow rise of his chest tore through my sorrow with bright hope, quickly dashed when I hauled him out by the arms and saw the extent of his injuries.

Sinking to the bloodied ground, my dying brother cradled in my arms, I twisted to face the sea and screamed for father. And do you know, the new moon broke through the clouds at that moment. That very moment! Oh, the audacity of the thing. And, gods help me, but I thought not about grief but beauty, as that sliver of light unveiled wreathed in colour, spraying gleaming flecks of rainbow across the ice.

                “Arakáno, look! Please, brother, open your eyes,” I pled with him. And he did so, brow creased and groaning in pain as irises of deepest blue found my face. Kissing his still perfect forehead I gently tucked his head against my shoulder, tilting him just enough to see the jewel-light strewn sea. And so, Argon, whose laugh was more beautiful than the rush of waterfalls, whose warmth would have rivalled the sun, died with silvery rainbows reflected in his eyes. I am glad that his last glimpse of this world was one of beauty, his last touch one of love. I think of him often at moonrise. I miss Argon, with all my heart.

Chapter Text

Argon is on my mind as I leave camp with barely more than a sword, harp and bow. There is a dreadful vulnerability to being so divided, I think, watching red Fëanorian flags snapping breeze-blown on masts across the lake. Our brethren, so painfully close, remain ever out of reach.

                “Not everyone is as forgiving as you”, father told me, urging patience. But how can I wait quietly when next it could be my other brother, sister or cousin bleeding out on the cold ground? Our sun-shy enemy does not care for our grief or pain. He will spring upon us soon, ready or not. If I can prevent one more death like Argon’s, then gladly, I will climb down the darkest pit in Angband to do so. We were friends once, Maedhros and I, close beyond any right circumstance gave us to be. I hope I am not too late. Sun-kissed dandelions lift their faces before me as my feet turn Northward.

                There was no ambush when Arien leapt, blazing, into the sky. She did not call out to us as Tilion did but wept bitter tears of flame. It was poppies that sprung from the grass at her touch, black eyes amid crimson and white, like our blood mingling with that of orcs in the snow. We marched all the way across the vastness of Ard Galen in anger and sounded our brazen chorus at Angband’s gates, not in joy, but defiance. In crystal skies the golden orb shone unopposed, as Morgoth cowered behind his doors, craven hearted.

                The sky is not clear now. Smoke-brown pollution reflects in my cousin’s mirror-silver eyes that beg more ardently than his words, obscuring the jade flecks that so mesmerized me once upon a time.

                “Kill me, please,” he asks for the second time this day, breath rasping from wasted lungs. Instead, I rest his head on my shoulder, wrap his free arm tightly about my neck and twist thin fingers into my tunic so that he clings, bracing his body with mine against the rough rockface. When my blade swings, the sound of freedom is sickening crunch and blood-curdling scream, not song. It is a mercy that Maedhros lapses into insensibility when he does, and the etchings of pain smooth from his still-beloved face. Though I think it a shame I cannot share the beauty of this flight with him as we emerge from the smog to unstained cerulean skies. Distance renders the emerald and crimson of Ard Galen below in muted softness; delicately unfocussed.

                “What right has the world to such comeliness amid our torment?” he would bemoan, if my cousin could see it now, missing the point of the sublime entirely. Argon would have inhaled its perfection, savoured the rush of wind against his face and told Maedhros that hope needed no permission: snatching it from the jaws of suffering only magnified its worth hundredfold. I am glad that his last sight will not be ugly, besmirched firmament, nor his last touch the sting of my arrow or blade. He has time to learn, yet. One of these days, come Moonrise, I will teach him.