Work Text:
Gil-galad, son of Fingon and Alphangil, wore no gold in his long hair.
Instead it was his helm, after the make of the House of Fingolfin, that was overlaid in gold—that, and a long spear carried lightly in his right hand. The spectre of Maedhros' right hand clenched around the emptiness in his breast pocket, over his heart, where he had once carried a single one of Fingon's gold ribbons, the same exact shade of bright gold: Gil-galad's father remained with him.
The braid that spilled out fully when Gil-galad removed his helm, the expression half curious, half aghast at the scene before him, was not the shade Fingon's hair had been. It was not the midnight-dark blue of a raven's wing—it was simply black, with none of that glorious, oily, starry sheen. His mother's Sinda hair, black soil instead.
Maedhros loved it only a little less; in the fitful light of the encampment his hair did little to dampen the illusion that Maedhros was indeed face to face with Fingon once more, one last time, some unexpected, unlooked-for, cruel grace. Instead he wondered if there was some irony at play here, in Gil-galad's too-earthy hair. Alphangil, after all, had been named for the stars, and she had passed the moniker on to her son.
Comparing the young High King to Fingon hurt deep in the center of Maedhros' stomach, a sharp, stabbing pain. It would be wiser to seek differences where he might, and he did not have to wait long. Gil-galad's skin, when his face became fully visible, the helm discarded and handed to an attendant, was darker than Fingon's, light-brown and scattered with freckles: These, too, were his mother's inheritance, though neither as thickly strewn over his entire face, nor as prominently dark as hers. His eyes were Alphangil's as well. Fingon's had been a brilliant blue-grey, eyes of the House of Finwë. Gil-galad's were brown, and absent Fingon's effervescent tree-light that had seemed to dance alive in his eyes for centuries, even after the Darkening and the Ice. This, perhaps, was the most profound difference.
It had been in Fingon’s eyes that Maedhros found possible to chase after his youth, indulge in memories of a carefree time when he—Maitimo then—had been alone together in love with Findekáno, not oath-chained in a war-torn land, and his lover dead by in a war wrought by his one hand. Alphangil had professed to have forgiven him, to hold him blameless for the Nirnaeth. But she had finally seen him for the monster he was after Sirion, un-gentled at last.
Where in Eönwë's war camp Alphangil was, if her son was here, he did not know. His back to Maglor's, Maedhros felt painfully, terribly watched. For a moment it was not because he clutched the fulfillment of the Oath, the triumph of the Host of the West.
Perhaps it was only Gil-galad's eyes watching him, but then shook his head. Surely Alphangil must be somewhere in the crowd, out of view. If Gil-galad was here, she would not be far. Her resolve to not lose her son to war had been thus that even gentle Alphangil Lothwen, a lover of flowers, a herbalist, and a gardener first, and only then a diplomat and a queen, had taken up arms and learned to fight when the host of the Valar arrived on her shores.
At least those were the reports that his scouts and spies had brought, those few who could travel to Balar and back under the guise of yet another disenchanted follower who had by some miracle survived the Nirnaeth Arnoediad and wandered without home since. Alphangil might know, and reportedly she sat on the council of Balar still, but her son was High King of the Noldor after she had ceded the crown not long after he had passed his hundredth year.
Not long after Sirion. Not long after their last farewell.
Maedhros missed her with another sudden, sharp pang to his stomach that surprised him in its intensity. He missed Fingon at all times, like a persistent physical ache in his lungs, behind his breastbone, although he had learned to live with that as much as with the other lasting pains that Angband had inflicted on him. Now that he no longer had a Master Healer who would brew him tinctures to numb or ward them off, he could not help thinking it was a punishment for his attack on the Havens: Idhlinn had died in her own blood at Sirion, a revenge killing or perhaps a mercy blow when she had never raised her hands against another Elf. But perhaps she had made herself just as guilty, just as complicit, by keeping the kinslayers alive as much as her skills allowed. For most of them, even she had found no healing.
He breathed out through his nose, slowly, and felt Maglor move restlessly against his back where they stood, shifting his sword in his hand. How much time had passed? Surely no more than a heartbeat or two.
Or had he been so distracted by the way his thoughts meandered, so entranced by Gil-galad, son of Fingon and Alphangil, and all the comparisons, that he had stood like Melian and Thingol had once stood in Nan Elmoth and his brother had refused to leave him?
For in all the other ways that Maedhros could see, Gil-galad was his father's son. Tall. A narrow, Noldorin face, high-cheekboned. The same eye-shape. A nose much more sharp and proud than Alphangil's, the same tight set of his lips that Fingon had had when he was angry, a dimple on the right, even now that he was furious.
Gil-galad had been far too young when he and Alphangil had been sent away to Eglarest to remember either his father or Maedhros as more than dim spectres, figures out of tales no doubt softened, sweetened and tempered by his mother's feelings before he had fallen—hurtled himself—from her grace. And yet, all the similarities to Fingon, and so many more to Alphangil, both of whom Maedhros loved, spoke of a deeper kinship than just tales.
You could be my son, Maedhros thought. If the world were kinder. Or crueller.
He could not bear to look at Gil-galad any longer. His gaze fell to the Silmarils in their crystal casket, clutched between his right elbow and body, and the red blood on the sword in his left hand.
He shifted, and the light from the casket changed, radiating out, drawing his gaze upward once more, flowing over Gil-galad's hair, and waking to brief life a sheen of blue deep within the strands of his hair, a minute, treelit reflection in his eyes, transformed. Now, only the gold in his hair was missing, and Maedhros felt himself stir in spite of himself, a desire not felt since Fingon's death, choking on shame and grief and strange lust.
Gil-galad, Starlight, High King, his would-be son, living ghost of lovers, source of—whatever he might name it—the boy had woken in Maedhros.
At least Maedhros had the grace to feel ashamed. At least that.
He turned to flee.