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Chapter Text

Salgant died weeping, and he was reborn weeping as well. His family had to be summoned to Este’s gardens to retrieve him; he had not thought to send for them on his own. No one of his family but he had made the Crossing; his aunts had died at Alqualondë, and his parents and little brother never left home. Home, Formendessë, in the northernmost reaches of Oiomurë, where winters were long and summers poignantly brief. Salgant had left for honor, vengeance, and the Swan-ships. He returned with neither honor nor ship, and no vengeance either.

His family, his beloved family, had wanted to celebrate his homecoming, and Salgant had to beg them not to. No one had told them of Gondolin, or Salgant’s role in its fall, or what became of him after. All they knew was that their lost son, their older brother, had come home. There was no celebration, but Formendessë was a small village and everywhere Salgant had to avoid well-wishers and curious neighbors. This he could tell them: Beleriand was more dread and more terrible than even rumor painted. He had songs, and he would sing some of them, but he would not talk about what he did there. And he would touch no stringed instrument at all; if anything convinced the Teleri of Formendessë that Salgant’s fëa was sorely wounded, it was that. He said nothing of Gondolin, nothing from its founding to its ending, not even the most harmless of memories. (He’d had more members in his House than made up his entire town. He had, personally, failed more people than the entire population of Formendessë, even before the rest of Gondolin was accounted for.)

He sent no message to anyone to announce his return, crowning cowardice with more cowardice. He slept poorly in his parents’ house, which was much increased in size from his youth. His little brother had wedded in his absence - wedded and had grown children! Two sons had moved to Alqualondë, but Salgant’s niece had stayed, and herself was wed and expecting a child. The house had grown apace; his niece’s husband was from Avallonë, and had no family house in Formendessë. Salgant sometimes questioned the man’s wisdom for moving to remote Formendessë, but he took such joy in Oiomurë’s raw mountains and glaciers that it was easy to see his reasoning. Niece and nephew-in-law both treated him with entirely uncalled-for awe, as some of the younger villagers did. It made Salgant want to scream. Every so often, he went out to the hills and did so. It did nothing whatsoever for his newfound reputation.

The Sea, at least, no one could take from him: Salgant put himself aboard his family’s fishing boat as soon as he stopped weeping at stray gulls and sea-foam. The work was familiar, bred into his very bones, and soon Salgant’s hands became callused again, his face toughened by clean salt. He and his brother took the dogs out sledding, as they had in his youth, and brought back game, wild sheep and elk and once even a bear. Gondolin began to seem like more of a dream than his own past; what happened after the city’s fall could have been a passing nightmare.

Maeglin came that spring.

Salgant returned from the docks one chill evening to find the other traitor lord of Gondolin speaking with Tilissë, whose two spare rooms served as Formendessë’s inn. She was pale and worried in the face of Maeglin’s circlet - the last time royalty came to Formendessë, it had been Fingolfin’s host crossing the Helcaraxë, and Salgant had gone with them.

“Salmaganto!” Tilissë called when she saw him, waving her hands. “A lord is come to see you!”

Salgant was aware that he had stopped walking, that he was staring. Maeglin looked well, clad in dark grey and blue rather than his customary black. He was unsmiling, which was reassuring; Maeglin had been full of good cheer before the fall of Gondolin. Salgant had, at the time, been too pleased to see the dour young prince happy to question it overmuch. After the fall of Gondolin, he had seen that same smile on the face of a Power and understood what it meant even before he was told. (And oh, how the Enemy had laughed in the face of Salgant’s horror! He still heard it sometimes.)

Maeglin was watching him, his face set and cold, but Salgant could see the resignation in his flat gaze. What did he expect? What grievance did he think Salgant could have against him, Salgant who had fallen even lower and for less cause? Salgant did his best to brush himself off as he walked over, abruptly aware of his rough, sturdy coat compared to Maeglin’s fine clothing. “Lord Maeglin,” he said, bowing. “I… did not expect you here.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” Maeglin said, wary as a deer. Tilissë had backed away, giving them some semblance of privacy, but Salgant knew perfectly well that she was listening for all she was worth, and news that a Lord with a Noldo accent and a Sinda name was here for Salgant would be well-known on the docks before the catch was in.

“…My lord, this might be a conversation for my home? It isn’t far,” he suggested hopelessly. “Tilissë, if you’d let my family know we have a guest?”

“I’ll send some bread with them,” Tilissë promised. “Your lordship,” she added to Maeglin, and bobbed another nervous bow.

“Inviting me to your home, Salgant?” Maeglin said once they had walked out of earshot. Almost everyone was at the dock; those who weren’t were, like Salgant, sent home to prepare dinner for the rest. “I did not expect such a warm welcome from you. The innkeeper had no idea who I was; news does not come here often.”

“Not about the Golodoi, no,” Salgant agreed. Not since Formendessë’s lost son had returned. “What news should I have heard?”

Maeglin glared at him with such fury that Salgant was taken aback. “You can’t have forgotten what happened. Duilin almost put an arrow between my eyes, decree or no decree.”

Salgant could hear, again, the Enemy’s earthshaking laughter, and fought down a shudder. “I know nothing of any decree, but I know what happened. You have nothing to fear from me.”

“How do you know.”

“I learned it afterward. Here, this is my family’s house.”

“Not your own?” Maeglin studied the house critically, and Salgant tried to see it as a stranger would. No Noldor had helped construct Formendessë, and shipwrights turned impatient house-builders lent the buildings a strange air. Unworked stone and earthen walls for strength and warmth, shells and mica flakes for beauty, tough driftwood for timber; it had little resemblance to anything in Tirion or Gondolin. Perhaps Cirdan’s fortresses were made of such unprepossessing material; Salgant had not seen them to compare.

“It’s the custom to add to your parents’ house rather than build another,” Salgant explained, ushering Maeglin inside. The walls were lined several times over in wood stacked up to the ceiling - a sensible precaution for the cold months, when fuel needed to be ready to hand. Spring meant the walls were thinner than usual. “I need to finish cooking before my family returns. We’d be honored if you would join us.”

“The inn can’t have much traffic,” Maeglin objected.

“Tilissë? She’s only an innkeeper because she didn’t want to take down her son’s rooms after he and his wife left for Alpalondë. Her husband is a blacksmith; she’s a baker.”

“Efficient,” the prince said, and watched Salgant cook. It was strangely companionable; Salgant had always enjoyed cooking, and Maeglin did not mind assisting him. He had never been shy of work, Maeglin.

“You should know,” Maeglin said at last, “why I’m here.”

Salgant braced himself, and nodded. Best to get it over with before his family came home. He did not want them to hear; it would not be good news.

“Lord Turgon’s alive now,” Maeglin announced. “He wants to see you. I told him not to bother waiting: you weren’t going to come unless someone fetched you.”

“You’re not wrong,” Salgant admitted. He would have been happy enough to spend his life here and never hear another word of Beleriand.

“Too bad he knew where you lived,” Maeglin said. “He thought about coming himself, you know.”

Salgant felt his face drain of color. His King, come to reveal his shame to everyone in his home? No! No. Please no.

“You’re welcome,” Maeglin said, curling his lip just a fraction.

“I am grateful,” Salgant returned, and meant it.

“I thought I’d handle the two matters at once. You sent no word, after all,” Maeglin added bitterly.

Salgant chose not to dissemble. “I did not imagine anyone would want to hear from me.”

“I am hardly in a position to judge you, Salgant.” Maeglin sighed. “At least if you already knew, my name won’t terrify your family.”

“…Ossë’s frozen grip!” Salgant swore, and added a few words that he would never have used in Beleriand. Maeglin stared at him, nonplussed, and Salgant put down the tableware. “…I have told them nothing of Gondolin at all,” he said hollowly.

Maeglin leaned back, eyebrows rising. “Nothing at all?”

“Nothing.”

Maeglin looked at him for a long time, as if searching for words. Then he shook his head, neatening the spoons beside their bowls and cups. Salgant looked at the steaming teapot and thought about what he was going to say.

Chapter Text

It went well enough at first, thankfully: Maeglin was courteous, and Salgant's family intimidated into uncharacteristic quietude. His father Halatirno apologized for serving only lobster, as they had not known to expect guests, and Maeglin assured him that lobster was a delicacy where he had been raised. Salgant wished for his niece Hyalmeche to be more circumspect about eyeing Maeglin's dark hair and eyes, at least while her husband was also at the table, but Maeglin ignored that as thoroughly as anything else he did not care for.

It was after dinner - Maeglin sitting uncomfortably while Hyalmeche and her husband washed the dishes - that the trouble arose. Salgant's father asked, very reasonably, what had brought Maeglin to Formendessë, and Maeglin looked instead at Salgant.

Salgant looked at his family. They were watching him expectantly; Maeglin had turned his gaze to the fire. Salgant looked down at his tea. He thought about vanishing into the night, about dying of exposure on the mountains or throwing himself into the icy sea and returning to Mandos. He quashed the thought ruthlessly: his family would be heartbroken, and Maeglin would be left to tell Turgon. "I haven't told you everything about Hecellubar," he began. "I told you that I was of some service to Lord Turukáno, and went with him to Nevrast. I did not tell you that in Nevrast, he was visited by the Far-Sighted, and told to build him a city, high in the mountains, hidden from all but Manue. Turukáno named it Ondolindë; we called it Gondolin. "

Someone made a quiet sound of realization; it may have been Talangan. Salgant did not look up. "I had a position of great responsibility," he went on. "We prospered for some time. The Lady Irissë, Turukáno's sister, left the city." Salgant could hear Maeglin stiffen, drawing himself up straight. Salgant ignored him. "She made a poor marriage, and returned to Gondolin with her son Maeglin. She was killed in a terrible accident shortly after they arrived."

"This is not your best storytelling, Salgant," Maeglin muttered.

Salgant raised his gaze just enough to glare at him. "Tell it yourself if you like." His mother hissed a reprimand at him for his rudeness, and Salgant winced. "...We went out to battle, the one that no one speaks of because it was so terrible. We held the rear-guard... Afterward, Lord Turukáno sent messengers across the Sea, despite the Balai's curse. Each year, he sent them, and each year they did not return. Turukáno was much beloved of the Far-Sighted," he added as his father made a noise of disapproval. "And in the four hundred ninety-fifth year of the Age, the Far-Sighted gave back one of the lives he was offered, and another messenger besides."

"Tuor," Maeglin growled. He did not care for long tales, and this story was close to him.

"Tuor son of Huor," Salgant agreed.

"I know that name," his niece's husband said, startled. Billino, Salgant remembered, was from Avallonë, and would have more news from his family there.

"Go on, yonia," his mother urged, when Salgant would have stopped.

"He spoke in Ulmo's voice, and he reminded Turukáno of that doom, and bade us abandon the city we'd built. His advisors could not come to agreement about it."

"It seems straightforward enough," Billino objected. "You had warning, and at no small price, it sounds."

"Oh, not hardly," said Salgant's mother hotly, and his father hid a smile. "Don't you remember the story of Formendessë? I know Hyalmeche told you. The Terrifier roared against our shores and said that it was too dangerous, we would die so far from Aman, that he'd see to it himself if he had to. I remember that, Billino, I heard him say he would grow coral on our bones!"

Billino quailed beneath her gaze, saying meekly, "Yes, Mirewen," as though she were like to turn him out into the cold spring air. Maybe she would; it was almost warm enough.

Maeglin was watching this exchange with great interest; Salgant, who had grown up with the unexpurgated version of the story, wondered what the summary sounded like to him. "This explains so much," the prince commented. "At least about the shouting match you and Glorfindel had..."

"You heard that?" Salgant asked, distracted; they had been in the corridor outside the council chamber, as he recalled. Salgant had the notion that drowning them all and sending them to Mandos could very well be Ulmo's way of hastening them home; pious Glorfindel had disagreed vehemently.

"Salgant. Everyone heard you. The Eagles heard you."

"'Glorfindel?'" asked Salgant's father.

"One of the Vaniai," Salgant explained briefly. "Another adviser. He counseled obedience."

"Ahh, well, Vaniai," his father said dismissively, as though that settled everything, and perhaps it did.

"But what did Turukáno decide?" his mother demanded, as though Salgant could have forced Turgon to make the decision she wanted.

"We stayed," Salgant said, and she nodded in satisfaction.

"We fortified our defenses, but I can't say we did rightly," Salgant admitted. "One of our number had been unlucky in love, and had taken to wandering beyond the borders of the protected lands. He..."

"It was me," Maeglin said abruptly, clipping each word. "Salgant, don't lie to your family. It was me. I disobeyed King Turgon's laws and went out alone in the mountains. I was captured and brought to the Enemy, and he took Gondolin's secrets from me. He sent me back-"

"He sent back," Salgant interrupted, his bard's voice easily drowning out Maeglin's, "a puppet wearing Maeglin's face, who took control of his House and followers. I was one of those who listened to his counsel when Gondolin was assaulted at last. And I," he faltered, "when the city began to fall..."

"Salgant was not to be found," Maeglin said into the gap. "He sent his forces to the Lesser Market, but he was not with them, and no one heard tell of his whereabouts. Gondolin fell soon after. Turgon had no chance to see justice done, and now he has sent me to bring him Salgant."

Salgant put his face in his hands, so that he would not have to see them, and nodded.

There was a long silence.

"We'd like to speak with our son alone," Salgant's father said at last.

"Hyalmeche, Billino, come help me brush the dogs." Tacollien, his brother's nearly-silent wife. "You, too." That must have been to Maeglin. Chairs moved around the table; Salgant half-expected Maeglin to protest being ordered around so peremptorily. He didn't. The door opened and closed. That left his brother and his parents. Chairs moved again.

Warm arms wrapped around Salgant's shoulders, and he leaned back, closing his hands around his father's arms and squeezing his eyes shut. He breathed deeply, trying not to sob aloud. His mother put her roughened hand over his.

He did not know how long they stayed like that.

"Yonia," his father said quietly, "it's all right. We're with you. We'll always be with you. Open your eyes, it's all right."

Salgant obeyed, blinking hard, and saw his little brother frowning. Talaganto said, thoughtful, "It does explain some of the things you've screamed about."

"...I don't scream," Salgant protested, and he didn't, he had mostly stopped going out into the hills for that.

"You do when you're asleep," Talaganto informed him. "You don't remember? We've started taking turns singing to you. Seems to help."

"Talaganto," his mother said firmly, "Mind the rigging." Her determined expression was the same one she wore when they were caught in a storm at sea, and Salgant took no small comfort in it. "Now, Sallo, tell us what you need. We can borrow Tili's little skimmer and have you leagues north before the night's out. You could stay up there until it's safe. Or we could take this, this Golodo up north and leave him there, for that matter."

Salgant was already shaking his head. "I'm going with Maeglin. I owe that to Turgon. It was... unforgivable, what I did. I swore to serve him, and I didn't. I have to face him. I owe him that."

"Should we go with you?" his father asked, and Salgant stiffened in horror.

"Please don't. Ossë's briny balls, no. I'll be with Maeglin, I won't be alone."

"He's a friend, then?" his mother pressed. "I thought he was just a messenger."

Salgant took a moment to admire Maeglin's abrupt demotion from 'prince' to 'messenger.' "He's a friend. Yes. It's a good sign, I think, that he came," he mused. "Turgon really could have sent someone else."

"So Toa shouldn't feed him to the dogs?" Talangan asked.

Salgant laughed helplessly, a little hysterical. "Oh, stars, she's making him help, isn't she? Oh, at least he's not wearing black as he used to... No, they can come back in, I'm well enough." He wiped at his eyes, wishing he were as stone-faced as the young Maeglin had been when he came to Gondolin. The worst had happened now. His family knew, and had not thrown him aside in disgust. Salgant doubted they understood the true depth of his failure, but they had never seen Gondolin or Turgon, and knew almost nothing of war. They didn't truly know, but at least he'd spoken the words to them.

Talangan must have said something to Tacollien, because the door opened to admit Maeglin. Billino and Hyalmeche stayed outside with Tacollien; she must have gotten them to help her finish brushing. Maeglin was already carrying a full bag, looking wary and a little overwhelmed. He was, Salgant could not help but notice, covered in white fur, and his dark clothing showed it very well.

"Ah, Toa got you too," Salgant commented, and got up. His parents and brother still looked at Maeglin with caution - less, Salgant thought, for his capture by Morgoth and more for his current task, but Maeglin would not see it that way. "How did you find the dogs? She's very proud of them."

"They're... remarkable," Maeglin said neutrally. As Salgant showed him where to put the bag so that Tacollien could wash and card it, he muttered, "I thought we were being charged by wargs. Fluffy wargs."

Salgant, still giddy with relief, smothered his laughter. "You know, now that you bring it up... No, they're only dogs. Horses fare poorly in the winters here."

"I am not even surprised that you ride them, Salgant, what does that say?"

"A sign of your perceptive nature?" Salgant tried. "Here, I imagine you'll want your own bed." He drew Maeglin after him into the bedroom, digging into the piles of furs and folded blankets for the best of them.

"You imagine rightly," Maeglin said, but then hesitated, a strange expression coming over his face. "If I don't wake before your family rises... tell them just to call my name. I don't... wake well... when touched."

"My brother just told me I scream in the night," Salgant offered. "I hadn't even known."

Maeglin took the offering for what it was, shooting him a grateful look. "You don't wake yourself? Salgant, I'm fairly certain I saw you sing down an entire reinforcing wall in the Nirnaeth."

"That is not the same thing," Salgant protested; he was not sure how well he'd take being teased by anyone else on such a shameful matter, but he couldn't summon any offense in light of Maeglin's own admittance.

"If you say," Maeglin said, and so Salgant was arguing the finer points of songs of power as they rejoined his family. The morrow would bring a journey and the days afterward would bring justice, but this, for now, was well enough.

Chapter Text

He should have known that it would not be a private audience. Almost all the Lords of Gondolin were there; Glaeron who had been his second in the Harp was there with his wife Neleth, as well as some others he recognized of his House.

There was only one person in the gathering that Salgant had any attention for, and he went to his knees before his king without being told. He had to remind himself that he was not expected to press his face to the floor; Turgon would not want such a gesture even if he were to understand it.

Behind Salgant, Maeglin announced, "I, Lomion Irission, have brought Salgant Halatirnion of the Harp to account for his actions in the last battle of Gondolin." He withdrew to Turgon's side; Salgant saw his dark gray boots, but could not raise his gaze above his king's feet. No one who had looked on the face of Morgoth from Salgant's place could have.

"Reports have not been kind to you, Salgant Halatirnion, nor have you offered any other accounting of yourself to me of your own will," said Turgon coolly. "You are summoned here so that we may find the truth of the matter and set it into the records of Ondolindë. Do you understand?"

"Yes, my king," Salgant answered, addressing Turgon's boots.

"Glaeron of the Harp, you were among the last of your House to see your lord yet living. Tell your tale," Turgon commanded.

"Before the battle, we were waiting in the King's Square to hear the decision of the war council," Glaeron began. "I saw my lord come down the steps of the palace in haste. This was after Lord Tuor," he added, "for Lord Tuor was at a run, calling his men to him." He did not say that Salgant could not have run, though it was true then. He had been long crippled by that time. "My lord called for his horse, and I saw that his face was ashen. He told us to mind the supplies in the Lesser Market lest they burn, but he rode away in haste, and waited for no one. We went thither. It was well that we went, for by the time we had reached the marketplace, the Balrogs had begun to set the roofs aflame. If it were to be a siege, as we thought at the time, the supplies would have been much needed. But Lord Salgant was not thence; I did not see him again."

"What did you, Salgant?" said Turgon.

"I went in pursuit of Lord Tuor," Salgant answered quietly. "For it was I who told him that Lord Maeglin meant harm to Lady Idril and Earendil, and it came to me that I had set them at each other like -" Here Salgant stopped. But no: he would not dissemble to Turgon. Halting, he went on. "It came to me that I had become like unto Fëanaro and M -Moringotto, setting kin against kin." The court murmured to each other; few of the Noldor would dare to compare Fëanor and Morgoth in the same breath, and fewer would call their deeds indistinguishable. But Salgant was Telerin, and saw no difference.

"And then?" Turgon was inexorable.

"I could not make much headway through the crowds," Salgant told the floor. "But I could hear the Mole and the Wing, fighting. It was... It was as Alqualondë had been. It was as though I were there, at that time and that place. My horse bolted. I think I cried out and panicked him, but I... I cannot recall. When I came to myself, I was in a stable; my horse had fled thence." He took a breath. "I did not go back out into the city. Orcs came into the stable, at the last, and I knew myself in Gondolin. I killed what I could, but I saw that the city was lost, and brought down what buildings were in reach of my voice. That is the end of it." It was the truth: that was the end of Lord Salgant of the Harp. The thing that lived on did not deserve that name.

Salgant did not say, 'I was in Alqualondë in my mind, and when I was not thence, I knew, I knew that all of the fighting was kin against kin, from the Mole and from the Wing; I had no thought for orcs or balrogs. Would that I had!'

What Salgant said was, "I failed. As your sworn lord. As a citizen of Gondolin. As any man faced with evil." Salgant could no longer resist pressing his face to the floor. He longed with all his heart to kiss the toe of his king's boot.

"Yes," said Turgon. "That is true." He lifted his voice. "Will any speak in defense of Salgant?"

"I will," Tuor answered, and at that Salgant raised his head. "I would not have known of Maeglin's - of Morgoth through Maeglin - anyway, of the threat to Idril and Earendil if it were not for Salgant. It was he who advised me to go to them, with all of my forces, because he feared some foul play of Maeglin's. Knowing their friendship beforetimes, I thought it must be dire indeed, so we went with all haste. I do not like to think what would have happened without his warning."

Nothing so kind as death, Salgant thought. The Lord of Werewolves would have found much interest in a half-human child and his elven mother, and what Lord Melkor would have thought did not bear considering.

"I understand your defense, Lord Tuor," said the king, "and I will take it into consideration. Salgant Halatirnion, go and bide in the antechamber until you are sent for."

Salgant went. He thought distantly of those who had not attended his hearing. Rog had not been there, nor Galdor. Galdor's heart had never been within Gondolin, though, and Rog - it was a blessing that Rog was absent; he would not have looked kindly on Salgant's cowardice. Salgant had not been able to meet the gazes of his House. Perhaps someday he would be able to. Perhaps not.

Time passed. Maeglin came to fetch him; he was frowning, but Salgant judged it did not mean much. He knelt before Turgon again, and listened to his fate.

"The Valar frown on bringing punishment not their own into Aman for deeds done in Endor. This is therefore my judgment. Until thirty years are past, you are no longer a lord of Gondolin, Salgant. You have no title given by me, and no claim to anything of that city. Nor do I want to see you in my holdings until that time is over."

"My king is merciful," Salgant told the floor tiles. It was true.

"I am done looking at you, Salgant," said Turgon, but where his words were cold, the king's voice was almost pitying.

Salgant bowed as low as he could and departed the palace.

Chapter Text

Salgant walked back to Alqualondë. There were only some few tradesmen with their carts on the road; five times a driver offered him a seat, and five times he declined. He did not want to be asked about his tale, and he did not want to listen to another's story. Nothing had changed in his circumstances, Salgant reminded himself. Turgon's banishment had been largely symbolic - but it was a symbol that struck Salgant to his heart. He had put his own people aside to follow Turgon, and to have failed him was a hard blow. It was done now, done and judged, but Salgant couldn't separate the parts of his life so neatly again now that they had been joined together.

He had time to study the walls of Alqualondë when he came to them. He remembered well what they had looked like after the Noldor had taken the city, and the repairs were sturdy but crude, to Salgant's Noldo-trained eye. Olwë had not, he judged, suffered any offer of aid after the battle. The Teleri were indifferent stonemasons, but no Noldo would touch their city again.

He had not sought news of his aunt in Alqualondë when he and Maeglin had passed through it, nor of the relatives he knew had moved there. It came to him that he had no such reason to avoid them now, though he did not much want to see anyone. 'Urgent business in Tirion' was enough of an excuse during his and Maeglin's journey through Alqualonde, but it would not suffice for his return trip.

He doubted that his aunt would have moved far from her old home, which had been small but near the docks, and he was right. It had a second floor now, he saw, but that was all he could take in before his aunt spied him.

"Salmaganto!" Surillë shouted, and if Salgant's unrestrained voice had been enough to rattle windowpanes, his aunt's might have shattered them. Surillë flew at him, colliding with almost enough force to topple them both. "You clappered minnow! You shell-sucking vagrant! Uinen's bloody shark-rags, what were you thinking! Get in here!"

A pale-haired head appeared through the second floor window. "Ulmo's floating logs, is that Salmaganto? Actual uncle Salmaganto?"

"Actual whale-fucking Salmaganto! Get your brother!" his aunt called, and Salgant let himself be hauled inside. Surillë seized him tightly, and Salgant realized she was weeping. He had never seen Aunt Surillë cry, and could think of nothing to do but hold her, even as she thumped her fist against his shoulder. (It was odd, being the same height as she was - returning to the court of Gondolin, however briefly, had reminded him of centuries spent looking upwards. The children of Formendessë were never tall.)

"What the hell were you thinking," Surillë raged, grabbing his shirt and shaking him back and forth. "You think I wanted to lose my nephew and poor Foamrider? You idiot!" Salgant was too dazed to resist her - his thoughts had all been of Gondolin, and he had not prepared himself for this reunion.

A reunion and an introduction, because Salgant's nephews came down the stairs, one of them holding a young woman's hand.

"I should fasten an anchor to you!" his aunt told him, with one last rib-bruising embrace. "That's Ciuran in the blue tunic, and Páne in the dark brown. And Telecalepte, when did you come in, you sneak?"

The young woman - Telecalepte, presumably - shrugged and waved. All three of them were eyeing Salgant with interest and, for his nephews, some amount of shock. Surillë scrubbed at her eyes, composing herself. "He's the one who - stupidly - went over the Heclaraxë to try and rescue our poor ships," she explained to Telecalepte, who looked impressed.

"Ugh," his aunt went on, seeing Salgant only nod to his relatives, "Sit! Come and have tea, you wretch, hug your nephews, honestly, where have you been?" Salgant let himself be herded into the kitchen, where the ever-present hot water was waiting for them. He exchanged awkward, stilted embraces with both of his nephews, nodded again to Telecalepte, and sat at the table.

"You haven't said a word," Surillë announced suspiciously. "What's gnawing you?"

Salgant had to clear his throat before he could reply. "I had to take some bad news in Tirion," he explained. "Nothing unexpected, but it has me out of sorts."

"Murdering Golodoi," Surillë said, and peeled her lips back from her teeth. "That's enough to rot anyone's catch."

Salgant remembered, very suddenly and very clearly, on the Ice - early into their journey, soon after he'd crumbled in the face of starving Noldor children. Turgon on his knees, thanking them for the lives of his wife and child. He had been weeping, and even when forgiveness had still been unthinkable, Salgant's heart had cracked underneath him like bad ice. He had been horrified at himself, knowing Turgon's hands still bloodstained, knowing only chance had kept Turgon's boots from a Swan-ship's deck.

"Uncle?" said Ciuran, cautiously.

Salgant blinked, found all four of them staring at him. "No," he said, "It wasn't like that. I'd rather not go into it, if you don't mind."

"If you say." His aunt patently did not believe him.

Salgant forced a smile. "But come, tell me of Alqualondë! What of your lives here?"

Over tea, he learned that the Teleri had rebuilt their fleet, and Surillë had joined with another fishing crew instead of building her own vessel again. ("I hadn't the heart for captaining, after Foamrider.") He learned that Ciuran loved numbers, and managed accounts for Surillë's vessel and others besides. ("There's not enough work in Formendessë," Ciuran admitted. "I know Emmece's disappointed that I only come back for visits, but this is what I love. I don't love fishing." Surillë added affectionately, "He's an unnatural child.") Salgant's younger nephew, Páne, did fish, and had been accepted under Surillë's captain. He was courting Telecalepte, who was apparently as swift as her name implied when it came to mending and making nets. ("We're thinking about spending some time up in Formendessë, to see if Leppe likes it there," Páne confided.) Salgant shared news from home, how the catches had been and how Hyalmeche's pregnancy was progressing, and avoided speaking of his first life at all. Surillë was kind enough to let him dodge the issue, but he thought the younger elves were burning up with curiosity. Salgant had no mind to indulge them.

The door-chimes rang out, interrupting Salgant's anecdote about Hyalmeche's more unusual requests during her pregnancy. They were remarkably loud, Salgant thought, trying to pretend he hadn't jumped at their jangle.

"Well, I wasn't expecting anyone," Surillë said. "You're already here, Leppe, not that you ever ring the bells, and surely it's not your parents. Uinen bless their hands, they know where you always end up. Sallo, were you going to meet up with anyone this evening?"

"No," Salgant said slowly. Surely Turgon wouldn't have sent anyone after him. He had done as he was bidden, after all. And none of the other Lords would want to have any more words with him than they must. Unless..."I'll see who it is," he offered, with a sense of foreboding.

As he had half-suspected, Maeglin was at the doorway, looking stiff and defensive.

"What in the stinking hells are you doing here?" The words were out of Salgant's mouth before he had a chance to reconsider them - curse his aunt and her foul tongue!

Maeglin drew himself up, clearly offended. "What in the 'stinking hells' were you doing, taking off like a spooked horse? By the time I came out of that damn council, you were long gone! And no one in this entire miserable cesspit would give me a straight answer about where to find this place."

Salgant looked at the prince as he hadn't before: dark Noldo hair, but pale Avari skin; pinprick tattoos on his hands and face, but Noldo-styled clothing. In Alqualondë, just enough to get him the right directions, but not enough for any kindness in doing so.

"Not to you they wouldn't," Surillë said from behind him. Salgant turned to see her staring coldly up at Maeglin. "What's your business with my nephew?"

Salgant saw on his face the moment Maeglin chose diplomacy over bluntness, and resolved to thank him for it later. "Surillë of Formendessë," the prince said, and bowed. "Salgant's sung of your valor."

Surillë lifted her chin, not appeased. "So at least you know why you're not welcome here."

Maeglin shrugged, and just as clearly abandoned conventional diplomacy. Well, at least he'd tried, Salgant thought. "It's nothing new. Too Noldo for the Sindar, not enough Noldo for the Noldor. Why should the Teleri be any different?"

"Aunt," Salgant inserted, trying desperately to salvage the situation, "He's a friend."

"Friends? With a Golodo?" Now Surille's glare was turned on Salgant.

"Salgant," Maeglin said, "I understand you'd rather not discuss your old life, but this is becoming ridiculous."

"Chasing me halfway across Aman is what's ridiculous, Maeglin," Salgant shot back.

"Maeglin the Traitor?" Páne's voice was high with shock - the rest of the family had joined them in Salgant's distraction.

Maeglin crossed his arms and fixed Salgant with a stare.

"He wasn't a willing one, no matter what rumor says," Salgant snapped - Maeglin may have given up defending himself, but Salgant had not.

"How do you know?" his youngest nephew demanded. "The lady Eluingë's husband spoke about his old Golodo city, and how the Traitor tried to kill him. Everyone's heard it."

Salgant gave up. "I know because I was there, and I reasoned it out afterward."

"I have," Maeglin inserted, sounding bored, "a pardon saying as much from the king of Gondolin."

"More to the point, why were you there, Sallo?" his aunt said slowly. "That was supposed to be a hidden Golodo city."

Salgant opened his mouth to answer, but Maeglin was faster. The prince said, with a certain malicious pleasure, "He was in King Turgon's service."

"Turukano the murderer? Turukano, who turned away from Ulmo?" Surillë said, power gathering with rage in her voice.

"I am not asking you to forgive him," Salgant said, very calmly, "I am telling you that I did."

His aunt stared at him, and Salgant knew he would never forget her expression, not until the end of Arda itself. "You forgave that Kinslayer, that kidnapper, someone who would have put his filthy hands on Foamrider? Get out of my house. Get out, and take your Golodo friend with you!"

Salgant did not argue. He caught Maeglin's sleeve and pulled him away from the door. Behind them, his aunt began to scream out her fury. He did not stop walking or turn to look at Maeglin until they were out of earshot entirely. That was some time; his aunt's voice was at least as powerful as his own, and she was not holding back.

Maeglin spoke first, after they had left even the reverbrations behind them. "That could have gone better."

"No," Salgant said. "No, I don't think so."

Chapter Text

"So, that was your aunt," Maeglin said, once they were safely away.

"And my nephews," Salgant agreed. "I don't think Páne will be coming back to Formendessë, as he'd said he might. ...That was the one who called you a traitor," he clarified after a moment.

Maeglin shrugged. "I go by Lomion these days. Pengolodh wrote a fairly unflattering account of Gondolin, and it's what most people know."

"Is that where the idea that I'd falsified Turgon's orders came from?" Salgant wondered.

"That's the one. He speculated I had orc blood. From Father's side, of course."

"It would be a waste to make an orc of you," Sauron said, "We can do so much better than that!" Salgant could see nothing but the Maia's lambent eyes in the darkness, but he could feel, he could feel -

He'd stopped walking, and Maeglin was in front of him, snapping his fingers. "Salgant! Think about your rebuttal to Pengolodh later. I expect it to be superb, mind." Maeglin had spoken in jest, Salgant saw, but he was frowning, concerned.

Salgant made a vaguely assenting noise. He was in Alqualondë with Maeglin, he had just left his infuriated aunt's house, he had died in Angband. He rubbed a thumb over his fingers, over his wrist, and felt nothing but callused skin.

"Come, I found an inn that would stable my horse," Maeglin told him, "We can get something to eat there and send you on in the morning."

"You rode? You should have caught me up before I reached Alqualondë," Salgant said, puzzled.

"The council meeting was exactly the long-winded shambles you think it was," Maeglin said, curling his lip, "And then I had to actually search for you afterwards."

Salgant had done his best not to think of the council meeting at all, to be honest. Now that he did, though, he can imagine how his former peers would have filled Turgon's ear. "I suppose."

The innkeeper turned out to be Falathrim, Salgant saw, which explained how Maeglin had found stabling so easily. It was Maeglin, for once, who arranged a private room, dinner, and, unnecessarily to Salgant's mind, a bottle of wine.

"You need it," Maeglin told him, in a tone that brooked no dissent.

They ate in silence for the most part, discussing little more than the wine's provenance and the state of imports in Tirion. Maeglin, Salgant gathered, had only barely settled in Tirion at all; his mother had been eager to spend time with him, and eager to drag him to all her old haunts. Maeglin seemed both embarrassed and wildly pleased to have so much of Aredhel's undivided attention; Salgant was glad for them both.

Such neutral topics lasted them through the meal and most of the wine. Then Maeglin struck. "All right," the prince said at last, drawing himself upright, alert as a terrier. "That is enough. I must ask, and I will know, Salgant."

Salgant flinched backwards, realizing suddenly that Maeglin had made sure he'd had the majority of the wine, that he had been lulled into complacency. He did not know what Maeglin intended to have from him, but his stomach dropped to his feet.

"What happened to you?" Maeglin demanded. "You did not say to Uncle that you died, you said 'that was the end of it,' and you are not the Salgant I knew in Gondolin. You already knew I had been captured, where nobody could have told you. You - yes, that, you cringe away, you cowered before Uncle like he were Morgoth himself!"

Salgant felt the color drain from his face. Maeglin's eyes narrowed.

"--ahh. Ah, I see now," the prince said slowly. "You've been there. You've seen him. How long?"

Salgant was transfixed, pinned by Maeglin's stare. "I don't know." There had been no day, no night, no time in the Iron Hells. Years, certainly. Centuries, perhaps.

"Long enough," said Maeglin.

"Yes."

"Uncle took reports from some of the Gondolindrim who had been captured, after they died and awoke in Aman. They never spoke of you."

"They wouldn't. I was not with them. Lord Melkor - Morgoth - thought I was amusing. I dwelt underneath his throne with the serpents, and sang for him and his commanders.

"...Sang for him?" This, at last, turned Maeglin's iron gaze into puzzlement.

Salgant licked dry lips. "In the Black Speech," he said. "Of the triumphs of Angband and the conquest of Gondolin. Praise of Melkor. I would have gone mad, I would have died, but they did not let me."

Maeglin hissed.

Salgant went on. He could not seem to stop. "They knew very well how to break a mind and change it into a new form. The body follows after. Because I was amusing, Sauron, he - preserved it, my mind, instead. He said it was an... interesting challenge. To change the body alone, and not the spirit. He enjoyed himself."

"He would. I remember Sauron," Maeglin said. "I remember him well."

"Yes. I thought you might."

They stared at each other across the table in silence, until Maeglin reached over to take Salgant's glass and drain it. "Damn him!" he muttered. "Damn him. Why didn't you tell Uncle this?"

"Why would I? Salgant of the Harp died when Gondolin fell. It made no difference if I kept breathing for longer than that."

"You know," Maeglin said, staring at the empty glass in his hand, "Nothing happened to the rest of my House. Despite what I had them do. The king decided that the punishment for sedition and rebellion should come on the Lord of the Mole's shoulders, and that Angband had done that and worse for him. Said something about Fingolfin and 'the Doom' and not repeating mistakes."

Salgant smiled despite himself. "Yes, that sounds very like Turgon."

"He'd do the same for you," Maeglin pointed out.

"And now you know why I said nothing."

"Hmm." Maeglin twirled Salgant's glass. "You mean to keep it a secret from everyone, then? Your family, too?"

"The less I tell them anything about Beleriand, the happier I am! You saw how well it went with Aunt Surillë."

"That's an excuse, your other family is hardly so fiery. Wargs aside. In the Gardens - I know you spent time there too - they told me that speaking about it would help."

Salgant shrugged; his healers had been mainly concerned with the tenuous connection between his spirit and body. "They told me that being with my family, doing tasks I knew well, would be of the most benefit." More specifically, Este had said that it would remind him of which shapes his body was meant to take and which shapes were unnatural to it, but Salgant did not like to remember the times that he could not distinguish the two.

"Still," Maeglin insisted. "I think you should seek Rog out. He'd not be surprised by anything you told him."

"Rog? Why, in the name of every arm of every sea-star on all the world's shores, would I want to seek out Rog? He wasn't even at the council," Salgant protested, aghast. Speak to Rog, valiant Rog, Rog who had won his own and his people's freedom from Angband itself?

"Of course he wasn't there; he never comes to anything about Gondolin. I think he has Ecthelion send him summaries. You shouldn't fear his judgment, though," Maeglin said, moving straight to the point of the matter. "He fared little better than you or I in the battle."

"I heard the Hammer of Wrath was largely destroyed...?" Salgant said, half a question. He'd sung of it, in fact, Rog and his House of slaves' humiliating and painful defeat. (That, at least, was the Balrogs' version of events.)

"Entirely destroyed," Maeglin corrected. "To a man. They over-extended and got cut off. He blames himself somehow, so he'll have nothing harsh to say to you. Also," Maeglin added significantly, "If you go see Rog, I won't hound you all the way back to Formendessë."

Salgant felt the brief but intense desire for a song about twitchy little mole noses in other people's business. There was no melody in his heart for it, or even any verse, but he wished for a moment that there were. "...You drive a hard bargain," he said aloud, resigned to his fate. "Where does he dwell?" He would see Rog, but speak of nothing important - that should meet the letter of Maeglin's demand.

"Aulë's halls," Maeglin said, all too obviously pleased with himself. "Go ahead and take my horse; it's a short enough walk to Tirion."

"I wish you every blister in the world," Salgant told him feelingly.

Chapter Text

The Halls of Aule were nothing like Salgant had expected. If pressed, he may have admitted that he'd expected something like Angband, perhaps without the jagged rawness and miasma, but nonetheless dark and smoking, claustrophobic and unwelcoming save to its devotees. Instead, he found fields of cultivated plants, open smokeless forges, airy elegant buildings buzzing with activity, full of bright excited voices. Salgant relaxed despite himself. Maeglin's horse flicked an ear back at him, noticing the change in his seat, and Salgant patted his neck in apology. Out of practice or not, he was a better horseman than this.

Rog, apparently, had some notoriety here; Salgant only had to ask one person for directions, and the young weaver he'd asked had been wide-eyed that Salgant would seek out such a famous personage. It wasn't all that surprising, in truth: Rog had always been exceptional in his craft as well as his life, and everyone in Gondolin had known it.

Salgant forced his shoulders to relax. He wasn't actually going to speak to Rog about Angband, he reassured himself: he would exchange some few pleasantries and be off again. That would fulfill the letter of Maeglin’s demand, if not the spirit. He and Rog had never been so close that Salgant would seek him out for no reason, and there was the matter of Turgon's judgment, but Salgant could press through those, and if Rog wanted to berate him for his failure, then surely he of all people had the right.

The forges were communal for the most part, Salgant noticed, and his directions had been for Rog's dwelling. Perhaps he could wait long enough to plausibly claim that he had sought for Rog, and then depart again with no words on either side.

The house, when he found it, was small but elegant. Salgant would have known it for Rog's by the styling alone. Many of Rog's House had been Avari, as was Rog himself, and it lent a certain flair to their work that was not echoed by the Noldor.

He had not expected the woman outside. Dark-haired and pale-skinned like Rog himself, she was short, managing an enormous loom as tall as herself with the aid of a stool. For all her silence, enchantments glittered like gems in the roll of finished fabric. Salgant was half-afraid to approach at all, lest his horse's step somehow disturb her threads.

"Ah, you must be Salgant!" she cried, looking up from her work. A hoarse gull's call echoed her from the roof, and Salgant was abruptly consumed with fury. 'Traitor' indeed - Maeglin must have found someone to send a message via gull; Rog was forewarned!

He mastered himself after a moment, closing his eyes and breathing: such anger was an artifact of the Iron Hells. Maeglin was his friend. He meant well. And was decidedly too clever for his own good. "Yes," Salgant answered, forcing a smile. "I am he."

"Your friend wasn't supposed to send word, I take it?" the woman asked, leaving her loom. She didn’t look so much like Rog that Salgant thought them to be siblings, but she had something of the same blunt mien.

"I would sooner he hadn't," Salgant was forced to admit.

"Well, I'd sooner he hadn't too, Caued's had a bottle by him since he got the message," the woman said crisply. "I'd be grateful if you took it from him."

"'Caued...?'"

"Eh, 'Rog,' I suppose. A wife can't call her husband such a thing, though, or at least I can't."

Salgant blinked. Rog was wed? ...Rog was drinking? Rog never drank, not in the entire history of Gondolin, as far as Salgant knew. Few of those reclaimed from Utumno did; Salgant himself now among them.

She laughed at him, unaware of the real cause of Salgant’s bewilderment. "Yes, he has a wife! That's everyone's face when they hear it! They think him very fearsome, I gather.” Her voice revealed that she regarded her husband as fiercer only than a kitten. It said altogether too much about them both. “But go on, I'll take your horse." Baffled, Salgant dismounted and let her take the reins.

“If I may have your name? You have me at a disadvantage on that score,” Salgant remarked with another baleful look at the gull.

She smiled at him. “Ornait,” she said, and Salgant raised a brow, for that was almost certainly a reference to height, and she was no taller than he himself. “We’re mighty in spirit, you and I!”

“Well, I can’t gainsay that, now can I?” Salgant said, flashing a smile that felt surprisingly genuine. Rog was very tall, if lean, and the contrast must grate from time to time. “I’ve also brought bread and smoked fish for your household, from Alqualonde.” Ornait tilted her head to the side like a bird, and Salgant waved a hand to dismiss her confusion. “It’s the custom with my people; I never broke the habit.”

“It’s generous of you,” Ornait told him with a nod. Then, with typical Avari bluntness, she shooed him into the house like a stray chicken.

The inside of Rog's house was dark and intimate, richer with tapestry and needlework than Salgant remembered of Rog's older home. It was not difficult to guess whose work adorned the walls and furniture, and it was little wonder that Rog had preferred plainer weaves in Gondolin. He wouldn’t want reminders of his dead wife’s absence.

Rog had flung himself over a low couch, and while he was not drunk to Salgant's eye, certainly neither was he sober.

"Does the Mole think I do this for pleasure?" Rog said, offering no greeting. "Think he that I take enjoyment in this, Salued?" Rog had never, in the history of Gondolin, called Salgant by such a friendly appellation - Salgant had never even heard any of Rog's native tongue, as this epithet must be.

So much for avoiding talk of Angband!

"I think he didn't know where to turn," Salgant offered. Smoothing over Maeglin's rougher edges was second nature, even now.

"There are Powers for this, you know," Rog told him. "A garden's worth, I hear tell. Eh, go ahead and sit, Salgant, you don't usually need to be told. Someone finally put that leg of yours to rights?"

"And more," Salgant agreed, but sat anyway. It was true, but Rog wouldn't know of more than the oldest injury. That was gotten on the Ice a lifetime ago; the crush of it had not taken Salgant's foot, but sometimes, when the pain had been strongest, he'd wished it had. (Little enough had he known of pain then!)

Rog sat up and offered him the bottle, without a glass. Salgant took it without comment, but only looked at the wine. Strong, by the scent.

"You want to do this sober?" Rog asked, watching him.

"'There are Powers for this, you know,'" Salgant quoted.

"If you were going to see them, you would have," Rog said bluntly.

Salgant shrugged; that was true enough. “I could just leave,” he suggested without much hope.

“And waste this good wine?” Rog countered, and it was so much like something Salgant himself would have said in Gondolin that he was speechless for a moment. “Eh, I never understood how that trick worked,” Rog added, ruining the effect. “But the truth is, now that you’re here, it’ll fester ‘til we lance it. ”

It was slow going at first - they had never spent much time together, particularly in social settings. But the wine was there to ease the way, after all, and Salgant was well used to talking over wine.

And Rog was a fair listener, for all he kept insisting Salgant drink. Slowly, Salgant found himself relaxing, just the slightest bit. It was the same trick Maeglin had used, and he himself had in the past, but perhaps the results weren’t so unendurable as all that.

"I thought it implausible for you to have been afraid of orcs, as rumor had it," Rog said with some satisfaction.

"Ha! I would have given anything to face orcs," Salgant said bitterly. "I knew where I was eventually, but it was - I had forgotten them." He smiled, and lifted his glass briefly. "I am not sure what it says of me that I forgot Morgoth's army at our very gates. All I could think of was the fighting between the Mole and the Wing, and that it was my fault."

"Ambitious of you," said Rog. "I remember Morgoth's lieutenant having a hand in it."

"I didn't know that at the time," Salgant replied, stung. “It was I who sent them against each other; I was the one who failed.”

"Can't have failed worse than I did," Rog said shortly. "You did not get every single member of your House killed, and Turgon spoke no 'reprimands' to me."

"You didn't flee the battle, either," Salgant pointed out. "You made a mistake. A terrible one, but no cowardice."

"I had Ecthelion tell me about the whole thing, you know. Didn't sound like cowardice to me. A memory attack, we used to call it. It happens."

"It... happens?"

"Oh yes. Never had them myself, but no few of mine did. In the forges, not a good thing. We had to talk them down, sing them down sometimes. We got through them together. Eventually, more or less. Middle of a battle, alone? Your first? Eh, I wouldn't give a split coin for your chances."

"I fought," Salgant said, stung, "at the end, when I knew where I was. There were..." There had been orcs, he knew. Lacking a sword, he had tried to duel them in Song, as Finrod Felagund had dueled Sauron, but he had been easily overcome. Then one of them had the thought to bind and gag him, and deliver him thus to Sauron. Would that he had died instead!

"There, see? Not cowardice at all. Mm." Rog held up his bottle and inspected some minute flaw in the liquid. "No idea why some Maia healer didn't tell you this instead of me."

"There were... circumstances," Salgant said, vaguely. Este had been focused on the fragile connection between his fea and hroa, and had wanted him to remind himself of his body and its proper workings lest she unmoor him completely.

“More important things to heal than that? Ha, I think I know where you got such wounds. My story has been told, and I know that you know it. You can speak of that place here. I have been there.” Rog touched the back of his neck, where the brand was, in a meaningful fashion.

“I don’t have the words,” Salgant said, miserably. “Or rather, I do have them, but they aren’t to be spoken in Valinor.”

"The Eldar here say that the Black Speech is an evil language," Rog said meditatively, "for it hurts to listen to. But then, they also say that Valarin, spoken by one of the Powers, is not for elven ears. I've found they sound alike to me. Speak, then. Sing."

Salgant sat, and shook, and drank Rog's wine, and the Black Speech came tumbling out of his mouth. How Morgoth and his lieutenants had changed him, made him their plaything. How Morgoth had him sing paeans to his dark glory and write marching songs for the armies of Angband, how the Balrogs had commanded him to sing of Gondolin's fall and their triumph over Feanor. That Salgant had found true joy in that last, and how Morgoth's laughter had shaken the mountains. How he had glowed under the praise of the Enemy, when Salgant sang songs of the bitter ice and its power. Each of them, every melody and every verse, were among the best he had ever written - they had to be, for there was no room for failure in Angband. Sauron had taught him things no elf should know, and the only reason he had survived the lessons was to beg the aid of skinless Thuringwethil, whose teeth were agony and who delighted in the rarity of freely-given blood. Even the thralls had not recognized Salgant as one of their own.

"You had a long time of it, then," was Rog's only verdict. "I want to hear that one about Feanor sometime, they speak of him like one of the Masters here and I'm sick of it."

Salgant barked laughter. "I tried to translate it to Elf-tongues, but I could not. It did not sound so well as it had in the Orc-tongue! It did not sound so well!" he said again, dropping his face in his hands.

“Tell me, then. What else kept you alive?”

“Kept me alive?”

“Everyone I knew,” said Rog, “who lived. All of us had a reason. Craft was not enough, singing was not enough. I had to plan escape or die, but you, I think not so.”

"Not so, yes. There was nowhere I could have escaped, anyway. Me... I miss the wargs," Salgant admitted, not meeting Rog’s gaze as he did. Some of the scars the Avar carried were from teeth.

Rog blinked, surprised enough to switch back to Sindarin. "...That's a new one on me."

"I raised them from cubs," Salgant said. "Sauron had it from me that there were dogs up home that took the place of horses. My law-sister breeds and trains them. So he gave me warg cubs, and said he wanted to see what I would do with them. I raised them, and taught them commands, and they grew fell and fearsome and I loved them as my own children."

Rog had a strange look on his face. "And then they turned on you?"

Salgant glared. In service of evil they had been, but those had been his dogs and he wouldn’t suffer an insult to them. "No. I did well by them, and they by me. And when they were grown, and taught obedience, Sauron took them from me and gave them to the best of the orc captains. And I knew what they did in that service and I did not care, Rog, I did not care, because I loved those dogs. Those wargs,” he had to correct himself. “I had to, they were everything to me. No one would come near me, because the Dark Ones knew my face.”

"Well, whatever kept you going," Rog said, shrugging. "Knew a few people who made pets of the rats, and I suppose it's not that different."

"...You didn't eat them?" Salgant asked, diverted. He certainly had. Cooked at first, there was no shortage of lava for that, but then raw as his body changed around him.

"No, we still ate them."

"Ha, you should have sung the whale-hunt for them," Salgant told him, more amused than he truly should have been.

"Whale-hunt?" Rog was baffled.

"Oh, most of it's supplicating Osse and asking him not to drown us, but there's long parts about praising the whale's courage and thanking it and so forth."

"...I had no idea the Teleri were so interesting."

"It's really just the north," Salgant explained, "You don't hunt whale unless you must, and once you're south of Hanstovanen, there's no need for it."

“Why not?”

Salgant had never met anyone who didn’t already know this. But then, he’d never heard Rog’s own language before, either. “They’re beloved of Ulmo. And Osse is… not an easy Maia to have interested in your settlement. He thought we were all going to die,” he clarified. “Too cold.”

Rog pointed at him. “You’re contrary, is what you are, Salgant. Are you sure you don’t have any Noldor in you?”

“Now insults?” Salgant complained.

But even though they spoke of dark and dreadful things, a weight seemed to lift from Salgant's chest. And even when this conversation wore down - Rog saying that they needed more wine to deal with further talk, only to find the only bottle was empty - they continued to speak of Salgant's time in Angband, in fits and starts, over the next several days.

And soon, they did not even need the wine. Rog shared parts of his story that Salgant would not have understood before he, too, had been there. His wife shared, with a horrifying nonchalance, that she had been one of those women who had been unhoused from their bodies, and those bodies used to create orcs. She - she, whom Salgant would never have dared touch, knowing now what had befallen her - hugged him, and said that she thought he was kin to she and her sisters in some way, and that was how he spoke of the last. Rog had perhaps thought he toiled in the shape of an elf, but it was not so.

“Yes, he changed me, too,” Salgant said to them - to her. “I went on hands and knees," Salgant said, staring at the wall. "My feet, he had... they became unnatural, I think they had been meant for some different creature, something that walked on four legs instead of two. He said he would finish the job once he'd worked out the locomotion of it, but I think it pleased him to see me crawl.”

“It would,” muttered Rog, and Ornait touched Salgant’s hand.

“There was more. He said - he gave, he said it was a gift. That he did not want anyone 'tampering' with me.” Salgant did not have to pause and explain what ‘tampering’ meant in Angband; it would likely have severed his soul from his body, but the things that lived there wouldn’t care about that. He plunged on. “Stinging hairs and quills, he grew them out of my spine. All from -" He gestured from his head down his back. "They hurt, ah, they hurt, but I... I was almost thankful anyway.”

Salgant had to finish it now. He had to show them what he had become, through words if nothing else. “He drew out a, a tail for me to cover myself: for protection, he said. My skin thickened, callused, then it cracked open. Scales, like scales, but it was too thick to feel the quills, and those hurt much worse. My hands... Moving them was… They would crack, and bleed, but I had to play, there were harps, lyres, pleasing instruments for Lord Melkor's amusement. He enjoyed that it hurt me, and S- Sauron enjoyed seeing what limits he could push my body to without destroying my mind."

That was the worst of it, the thing he had not spoken of to anyone but the Maiar of Este’s garden. He had no longer been Eldar, much as any orc was not, for all that Sauron had preserved his mind as an Elda’s. But maybe there had been something to Maeglin’s demands that Salgant speak of his experience. For this was painful, yes, but it was a pain unlike the one he was speaking of. It is a clean pain, a necessary one, like the setting of a bone or the lancing of an infection.

Rog only nodded, but his wife said, “Sauron was always disappointed that he couldn’t tether our souls, but being able to see what he did to us was bad enough. I wandered as far from my body as I could. I think that you would have, too.”

Salgant stayed for several days after that final confession, and they were perhaps the most pleasant days he’d ever had in Rog’s presence. His wife was magnificent, light-hearted for all that had happened to her, and wove with such skill, and in such silence, that Salgant ended up offering her some of Tacollien’s wool in exchange for her working of it. Toa would be thrilled, and Ornait seemed eager to strike up a friendship with her. Salgant foresaw many more messenger gulls in his future.

Chapter Text

Salgant took a long, thoughtful path home. He sent the horse back to its stables in Alqualondë, and then took himself to his aunt’s doorstep. Surillë’s door was not open to him, and her neighbors, most of whom Salgant still knew, stared at him as though he were a stranger. After what they had undoubtedly heard her shout after him, Salgant wasn’t surprised. To support and befriend a Kinslayer, a ship-thief, would be unthinkable, even obscene. The fact that Maeglin himself was only Aredhel’s son, born in Beleriand, was no defense, since Salgant had indeed befriended some of the actual Kinslayers and ship-thieves.

Words were not going to be sufficient to caulk this hull: Salgant would have to sing for his aunt and her lost ship. He took a breath, and began the lindimmo. It was a purely Telerin construct, the self-song that could be sung only by the singer, and was made throughout the singer’s life. It could be changed at any point, even in the middle of singing, but it could never be sung by anyone else. There was a small amount of Power in lindimmo, and Salgant had not shared his with more than a handful of people.

(One of those had been Morgoth, who had plucked knowledge of it from Salgant's unwilling thoughts. How he had laughed...)

But Salgant put that from his mind, and he sang his lament for Alqualondë. It left nothing out - Salgant's presence in Alqualondë, Surillë’s own death, his killing of Noldor, trying to go home and instead falling in with a small group of Teleri saboteurs planning a counterattack on the ship-thieves. When the ships were stolen from the thieves, the saboteurs resolved to cross the Helcaraxe in search of them because Salgant thought it could be done. He sang of the Doom and Fingolfin, and of finding their road crowded with betrayed Noldor who were attempting the same passage, but without any of the knowledge or resources that Salgant and his compatriots had.

He sang of Elenwë, Vanyarin, pregnant, and of her thin arms and sunken cheeks. The Noldor were not quick in learning how to hunt over the ice, something Salgant had known from his youth. How fiercely his fellow Teleri had argued! The madness of the Noldor, taking their spouses and children on such a journey!

His song grew ragged and hoarse as he put it into words, what his kindred had called his first betrayal. Salgant was a Kinslayer himself; the blood of the Noldor was on his hands and he did not regret it, but he could not let children starve. He fed them. The older children, he taught how to hunt on sea-ice, and he knew they told their murderous parents what they learned. Elenwë listened, as her cheeks filled out, and told her murderous husband.

Turgon had come to the Telerin camp on his knees to thank them for the lives of his wife and child, for the lives of their followers. Remembering, Salgant sang of his own shame, thanked thusly for the most meager pieces of his knowledge.

“Don't thank me for crumbs as you would a feast!” Salgant had cried, and seized the Noldo prince to pull him to his feet. “I am not made to endure such things!” He had dragged the tall Kinslayer after him, taken a spear and a knife, left his own people and the Noldor both behind them, and poured wisdom into Turgon's ears: here are seal-holes, this is thin ice, this is how to fish under the ice, this is how to build a warm shelter out of nothing but snow. Turgon had learned, and had taken his new knowledge back to his own people. Salgant had the formal thanks of their murderous king, and threw it back in his face, but Turgon… Turgon he remembered. On his knees, Turgon had come to them.

When at last they all had reached the final thaw and learned the last fate of the ships, his own kind had sunk into grief, almost to madness. Some died attacking the ship-killers; some chose Cirdan’s service. Salgant chose Turgon over a revenge that seemed pointless, and over an Elda he did not know. He chose Turgon, yes, and served him well, without regret.

The singing of the lindimmo took a full day and night. Salgant spared nothing, save when he came to the fall of Gondolin. There he stopped. That was no tale for public streets; if he would not tell the king and his fellow lords, he would certainly not tell all the gossip-mongers of Alqualondë.

Surillë was there when Salgant came back to himself from the song, and so was her family. “Well,” she said harshly, the tears wet on her face, “you couldn’t let them starve. The ships wouldn’t have wanted that.” She pulled Salgant to his feet and took him back inside her home, yelling imprecations at the onlookers who wanted to know what happened next.

He went home some days later, mostly forgiven. Now free to ask about his past, his nephews and Telecalepte bombarded him with questions about Beleriand, some naive and some insightful. Salgant found that he quite liked Ciuran, who had intelligent questions about merchants and trade. Telecalepte came and went as though it were her own home, and undoubtedly ferried tales along with her comings and goings, but Salgant did not mind.

He thought, once more and foolishly, that this would be the end of it. He had told his tale, had even done as Maeglin had demanded, and now he went home to set those things aside. Tacollien was just as pleased as he'd thought about getting a master weaver to look at her dogs' wool, and began a lively correspondence with Ornait, but that was the only change.

And then one day Salgant opened his family’s front door, and Turgon was there. Uncrowned, dressed plainly, and - yes, there was Maeglin behind him, looking smug and carrying food from Tirion, as a guest should.

Salgant ignored him, staring up at his king. He did not have time to stare long, because Turgon stooped down and embraced him fiercely. Into his ear, the king murmured, "You cannot imagine how angry I am, Salgant."

"You! Haven't you tormented my son enough?" Salgant's mother stepped around him, still in Turgon’s embrace, squeezing past Salgant’s king to round on Maeglin. "Who is this? What sort of friend are you, bringing only bad tidings?"

Maeglin had not anticipated an angry Mirewen, Salgant could tell. "I am not bringing bad tidings this time," he said defensively. "I am correcting a wrong! Look, they're fine, Uncle does not embrace those he's angry with."

"I do, actually," Turgon said, releasing Salgant and straightening, "When they've misled me in order to make things worse on themselves."

Salgant's mother looked up at him - Turgon was outrageously tall in comparison to anyone of Formendessë - and then back at her son. Then at Maeglin. "Your uncle, the king of Gondolindë?" She inspected Turgon with the air of someone searching for hull leaks. "That uncle?"

Turgon bowed, hair slipping over his shoulder. "Turukano Golofinuion," he said, in the Telerin inflection. Out of the corner of his eye, Salgant saw Maeglin mouth the name to himself. "Once king of Gondolindë."

"Mirewen, captain of Sealsong," Salgant's mother replied with just as much gravity. "You've not come to berate my son further?"

"I've come to berate him in the strongest possible terms," Turgon informed her, "For causing me to chide him when he deserved my embrace instead."

"Ah." Salgant's mother, horrifyingly, smiled. "That's fine, then."

She invited them in - of course she did - and Salgant resigned himself to both his lives colliding.

The collision did not take long, either, and Salgant could only watch as the raiders boarded. His family observed only the barest of niceties - not that Turgon or Maeglin would notice being offered snacks instead of a meal - before starting to fish for the information that they knew Salgant would not offer them.

"Sallo won't tell us about Hecellubar," Mirewen said, leaning forward.

“Really?” Maeglin asked, looking at Salgant. “On our way through Alqualonde, there was much talk on the docks of a Singer’s exploits in Ossiriand… Nobody would tell us much about the song he sang, but it sounded like you.”

“A Singer, but they wouldn’t tell you the story? Sallo, you didn’t sing your lindimmo in Alqualondë, did you?” Talaganto asked, hurt. “You haven’t even sung it for us.”

Salgant winced. “Aunt Surillë wouldn’t let me in her house again unless I explained myself. It seemed… expedient.”

“Let Sallo tell us things in his own time,” advised Salgant’s father, which immediately made him Salgant’s favorite family member.

“Of course,” said his mother, and then fixed Turgon and Maeglin with a look. “So, since Sallo is not speaking about it, what say you of him and his deeds?”

Turgon and Maeglin exchanged a look. Maeglin made a you-first gesture, and Turgon said, "From the beginning? He saved our lives on the Ice. Each and every one of us. You may not applaud him for that, but I do. He was... It was like Oromë come to Cuivenien again." Turgon smiled mirthlessly. "If Oromë had hated us, of course. Well, and why wouldn't Salgant hate us? But he did it anyway, your son. He'd be offended if I compared him to my older brother, but I think I will. We have songs about Findekano's compassion and bravery, but I tell you that Salgant's deeds are no less."

"I am offended by that comparison, actually," Salgant said, jesting cautiously, and Talaganto kicked him for the interruption. Turgon, who had heard Salgant’s opinions about his brother’s recklessness before, only smiled, and Maeglin hid his mouth behind a hand.

It only got worse as Turgon began speaking about Gondolin, and how Salgant had taken not only musicians under his wing, but supplies for the whole city, and quartermastering, and a myriad other humble tasks that no one especially wanted. Maeglin began speaking there, and spoke of someone almost as much an outsider as himself, going to any length to ensure his comfort no matter how “brattish and spoiled” (Maeglin’s words) he behaved. Salgant thought very strongly about going outside to hide with the dogs.

Salgant’s family were good listeners, although he and Talaganto exchanged a few brotherly kicks under the table, and after they were done, Mirewen began setting them tomorrow’s tasks. Guests threw off what the family would normally have set out to accomplish, and it was clear that Mirewen took Turgon’s statement of sailing with skepticism. Turgon and Salgant were set to hunting, perhaps deer or even an elk if they could find one. Tacollien claimed Maeglin immediately as an assistant, to his clear surprise. Since her husband seemed to approve of this, Salgant wondered if she were setting Maeglin up to receive a puppy. It would serve him right, really.

Maeglin cornered Salgant before everyone went to bed, drawing him outside for a moment. “I need to ask a favor; it’s from Aunt Elenwë.”

Salgant gestured for him to continue, and Maeglin went on. “Can you… keep an eye on Uncle? She’s worried about him. She wouldn’t tell me why, but she made me swear to keep a watch on him. Not to let him remain by himself too long. It’s… I’m worried about him too, Salgant. Something’s wrong, but you know Uncle. He’ll never admit it. You’re two halves of a coin.”

“Three thirds, counting you,” Salgant responded automatically, but anything that worried Elenwë and Maeglin both like this was…

...probably something that should be lanced before it festered. Salgant mentally cast a benediction for Rog out to the sea, but a profane one.

Chapter Text

Salgant and his king went hunting the next morning. It was more than a full day’s journey to the closest of the best hunting grounds for deer, and so they had to make a cold camp that night. (Salgant loved his family all the more for never learning of his once-famous limp; there had been no question of his fitness to go so far on foot, as Turgon and Maeglin had ever followed his lead on the matter.) He and Turgon shared the task of cleansing their hunting gear of scent, but Turgon was clearly troubled. Salgant didn’t need a wife’s insight or a nephew’s sharp glance to determine that much. Still, Turgon could not be rushed; Salgant would have to wait until he was ready to speak.

“I chastised you before all the lords of Gondolin,” Turgon finally said over their meal, not looking at him. “You never said a word against it, or in your own defense. I should have had Maeglin speak to you before ever calling the council. I’ve done ill by you, Salgant.”

Turgon had ever been one for regrets.

“It’s best this way,” Salgant said firmly. “I would prefer not to be pitied by the likes of Glorfindel and Duilin. It took Maeglin’s coming for me to speak anything of Beleriand to my own family at all, much less...” Much less Angband. Salgant still could not quite bear to say the name aloud to Turgon.

“What is there to pity?” Turgon asked, and Salgant loved him for it. There was only acceptance from Turgon; no attempts to change or deny a truth, not so much as a breath of condescension or condemnation. “No one pitied Rog or his House, not to my knowledge.” Most importantly, Turgon himself had not, which was why the the Hammer of Wrath had followed him so ardently. Salgant sympathized.

“Oh, they pitied some of them,” Salgant told him. The king of Gondolin could not have had his ear to the city in quite the same way that Salgant had. Musicians were terrible gossips. “They pitied the ratcatcher and her rags, as well as those who still could not withstand daylight after their escape. And some pitied me even in Gondolin.” He was hard pressed not to roll his eyes, and did not bother keeping his expression still. Certainly he had limped back then; certainly he was short to Gondolindrim, and of no great beauty to the Sindar and Noldor. Only the first of those was something he would have changed, and he'd had no choice about the rest.

Turgon made a dismissive noise, but he was frowning in thought. “Still... I would not want to presume on our, our friendship, but to hide what happened so completely…”

"It was the shame, Turgon. Driven by shame, what would a man not do?" Salgant asked, smiling bitterly.

Turgon flinched. "Must you say such things? I had not thought I deserved your mockery."

"I mock myself, always," Salgant returned, puzzled. "How could I speak to you of shame?"

But now the fountain had been primed and the taps loosened. “You speak to the king whose entire city was destroyed, and still you ask me that?” Turgon said, the words bursting out of him like a flood. “Who was warned of impending disaster more clearly than any Elda in our history and still failed?” His voice cracked on the words, and that was when Salgant began to guess at the depths of his king’s torment. That even the mention of shame had brought this out...

“Did I fail too, then, when I counseled you to stay?” Salgant wondered.

“Of course not,” Turgon said at once, bristling. “I heard all of your arguments, and they were sound. We could never have outrun Morgoth’s army. I should have listened to Tuor earlier, though; he was sent expressly for the purpose.”

“And I counseled against it then, too,” Salgant said, very gently. “If I am blameless, how is it not so that you are also forgivable?”

Turgon could not have looked more shocked if Salgant had struck him. He truly must not have considered Salgant’s own role, or Maeglin’s for that matter, in his haste to take the guilt upon himself. “It was my word, Salgant, my decision. The blame lies with me, but no one has said even a harsh word to me."

“It's easier to forgive others than ourselves, isn't it? We could have chosen to disobey,” Salgant said with a shrug. “Or Maeglin and I could have given better counsel and brought you to a different choice. And perhaps things would have turned out badly even still! You and yours were doomed in your first life, Turgon, and I had not forgotten that when I followed you.”

Turgon put a hand to his mouth, but Salgant could see his face crumple, knew he must be fighting the urge to weep. Salgant leaned in and put his arms around him, and Turgon slowly folded into his embrace, crying as though his heart were broken.

“I killed myself,” Turgon mumbled into Salgant’s neck, clutching at him. “I wouldn’t leave the city, even when it had fallen beyond hope. And I tried to die again, in Valinor… Elenwë was so upset, even Ulmo spoke to me on it, but the shame… I just want it to stop, Sallo.”

“Let time make it so,” Salgant murmured, as comfortingly as he knew how. Before the time he had spent in the Iron Hells, he would not have expected such urges from Turgon, but that innocence had long since been lost. Salgant knew the urge toward self-annihilation now, and his king being left without a purpose and feeling such shame made it seem almost inevitable. Turgon’s mind consumed him when left unoccupied; Salgant had known as much for centuries. Left untended, of course it would consume itself to the point of destruction. Elenwë had died too soon in the morning of the world to learn how to help her husband manage such an affliction, so now the task was left to Salgant, and perhaps Maeglin, to help her.

“Come and stay with my family for a time,” Salgant offered eventually. “Away from Tirion and the lords. You and Elenwë both. My mother will like her. You know how to sail, and Elenwë likes to hunt; you wouldn’t be a burden. The memories crush you in Tirion, I think. Ride with Aredhel for a time, if that doesn’t suit you.” Salgant didn’t think Turgon would prefer Aredhel’s company, but he wanted to offer some sort of knowledgeable alternative. Idril knew her father well, and would be capable of helping him with this, but she also had her own family to look after.

“Not Aredhel,” Turgon muttered. Someone else might have made a joke of it, but Turgon just sounded miserable.

“Not Aredhel, then,” Salgant soothed. “Come to Formendessë.”

“It would not be an imposition? I am useless in Tirion, Salgant; it’s tiresome, but I could not stand to be a burden on you and yours.”

“You’ve met my mother, Turgon,” Salgant said, trying to inject a little dry humor. “You’d be put to work will-you, nil-you. Are we not hunting tomorrow at her say-so, after all?”

It worked, as he’d hoped; Turgon huffed out a faint breath of amusement. He hugged Salgant more tightly still for a moment, then began disentangling himself from their embrace. “Your mother is a captain of no small skill, I suspect. Do we set a watch?”

Salgant hesitated. “There should be no need, and yet...”

“As you will,” said Turgon, with some relief. “I can take first, if you’ll take second.”

“No sense waking up to a wolf or a bear joining us,” Salgant remarked, trying to justify the old habit, one they both had yet to overcome even here on these peaceful shores. “Or worse, one of Toa’s dogs trying to sleep with us.”

“I might sooner the bear,” Turgon said dryly, and Salgant went to sleep reassured.

There was not much to say of the hunt itself; Salgant’s people took care not to over-hunt the deer, much preferring to be on the water in any case, so the animals were more cautious of wolves and Tacollien’s dogs than elves. Venison was not a staple with the Teleri so much as a luxury; Salgant found himself reminded of his father apologizing to Maeglin for serving him lobster. Relaying that tidbit earned him a smile from Turgon, which Salgant took as a promising sign.

Cleaning their kill was somewhat less routine; neither had not forgotten how, but Salgant had not been hunting for red-blooded prey since he had been reborn, and so found himself in difficulties. They took the carcass to a stream downwind of the hunting grounds, where the taller Turgon hung it to clean. Salgant had to breathe slow and sure to get past the smell of blood, which inevitably reminded him of not only Thuringwethil, but also of what he had eaten raw in the Iron Hells. The combination left him somehow both hungry and yet nauseated. He had to ask Turgon to take care of the butchery, but volunteered for the unpleasant task of rinsing the intestines and other organs. It was better than seeing the skinless carcass hanging there - another reminder of Thuringwethil, who had only survived by her unholy nature after her skin had been stolen by Luthien .

The tasks involved in preparing the deer thoroughly lasted them half the day, and carrying it partway home took up the rest of the light. But by nightfall they were far enough away from the hunting grounds to have a fire, and roast some of the deer over it.

“Are you well?” Turgon asked. He’d held on to the question, Salgant could tell, as long as there had been work to be done and practicalities to attend to, but now that their tasks had ended, he would ask.

“Well enough,” Salgant told him, but drummed his fingers on his thigh all the same. “The blood only brought back… certain memories. Thuringwethil the messenger survived Luthien, did you know? They left her for dead, but she lived. I owed her my life some few times, but it was never a pleasant payment.”

Turgon blanched, either at the thought of Thuringwethil’s survival or Salgant’s bargaining with her. “No, I would suppose not. Is there... more that you would speak of?” He sounded uncertain, as though he may not truly want to know.

“I can’t bring myself to speak much of it, and all the songs I have are in the profane tongue,” Salgant said, slowly. “But I can show you Angband, as it was for me.” It seemed right, now, after Salgant’s poor performance with the deer, and Turgon’s own horrible confession. He was a poor speaker these days, he thought to himself, especially for a musician, and so he chose a piece of wood, saved from the pile for the fire. He carved, very carefully: a hunched figure on its hands and knees, its proportions unnatural. The stiff mane of quills and stinging hairs he left as splinters. The cracked, leathery skin he pored over, almost over-worked the surface entirely in his determination to convey the right texture. The minute fingers he came close to breaking off entirely.

He carved the figure’s face - his own face - screaming. As he worked, Salgant hummed one of the songs he had written in Black Speech. Hail to the fleshcrafter, to whom our bodies are as red wet clay. We beg the master, the giver of tooth and claw, to prepare us for the fight to come...

Turgon waited, silently, until Salgant was finished and handed him the piece. He did not even ask about the tune, which had the cadence of the Black Speech but was just as clearly Salgant’s own creation. His lips tightened - Salgant was not such a poor woodcarver that he couldn’t make his own face recognizable - and then he handed it back. “I… you are very strong, Salgant. I am sorry to have asked, now; all that I told you seems petty in comparison.”

“It’s not a competition,” Salgant said, reclaiming his work and examining it with a critical eye. It was easier, somehow, to look at himself as an artist would. He peeled off one of the splinters absently. “No one else, I think, could have gone through what we did. What other Singers of Power were there in Beleriand? What other Noldorin kings? You were right to say that the final decision was yours; little wonder that it burdens you more greatly than others.”

“No one has said a word of criticism, Salgant.” Turgon sighed, as though it pained him. “I would think surely someone would be angry with me; I wish they would.”

“What could anyone say to you that you haven’t spoken more harshly to yourself?” Salgant asked, prying off more splinters from his impromptu carving without bothering to look at it. It had a bad feeling in the hand. “You partook of Gondolin’s fall as deeply as any one of us; can that not be punishment enough?”

"I suppose it must be punishment I'm seeking," Turgon admitted slowly.

"What more punishment could there be, once you've died? Gondolin was more your city than anyone's," Salgant pointed out, flicking loose splinters from his lap. "Let that be the end of it, Turgon. We've paid the prices set to us."

"It doesn't feel like enough," Turgon said, frowning.

"Maybe it doesn't feel so yet, but it is enough," Salgant insisted. “It is over, by the grace of the Valar. We have scars, yes, but we outlasted the worst of it. Let that be enough, Turno.” Had Salgant ever used his king’s most familiar name before? It seemed right to do so now; Turgon did not seem to even register it, as though Salgant had long had the privilege.

“Can it be enough for you, also?” Turgon asked, an unexpected question that left Salgant blinking. But his king pointed at the carving in Salgant’s fidgeting hands. Salgant looked down at the piece of wood; the figure almost looked elven now without the splinters and sharp edges that he had unwittingly peeled away as they spoke. It was ruined as a representation of what he had been, but - it was not as if he had meant to share it with anyone else.

“Well,” said Salgant, as he put the carving into the fire. “Let’s set course for ‘enough,’ anyway.”

Chapter Text

In the end, Salgant did not have the chance to stretch his mother’s hospitality from two to three, for Tacollien had finally amassed enough dogs-wool roving that she deemed worth the time of a master weaver, and needed someone to take it to Rog’s wife. Salgant, knowing a hint when he heard one, volunteered himself and Turgon. He volunteered Maeglin as well, but Maeglin was still impressed into Tacollien’s service, learning her lore about the dogs, and she was not minded to let him go. Salgant abandoned him to this fate, utterly convinced now that a puppy was in Maeglin’s future.

They went overland, well-provisioned with venison and smoked fish. Turgon, thankfully, did not ask why they didn’t borrow Tilissë’s skimmer for the trip, as Salgant normally would have. The people of Formendessë, having had no swans to their name and being largely untouched by the Kinslaying, were willing to extend every courtesy to their Noldo visitors on the basis of Salgant’s good word - all except the privilege of their ships, humble as they were. Salgant didn’t push their tolerance. With only Maeglin, he might have tried, on the basis of Maeglin’s youth, but not Turgon.

Still, they reached Alqualondë in good time, overland or not, and Salgant had to once again navigate his aunt’s treacherous waters. On the one hand, she would be wroth to hear he had passed through with no word, but on the other, there was Turgon to think of, and Salgant was honestly not sure what he would do if she actually laid anchor to her curses against Turgon. Most curses of Alqualondë could be washed away by the tide and thus held no real power, but Salgant did not trust Surillë’s temper, well-remembering how she had described Turgon to him.

So he found his nephew instead, and sent a message.

"Tell Aunt Surillë that I won't put her in an awkward place; she may have given over her anger at me for now, but hospitality for…" Salgant tipped his head toward Turgon, "...is perhaps still out to sea. Send her my love."

Páne nodded obediently, eyes fixed on Turgon as a novelty, but a potentially venomous one. Maeglin had been exotic to Alqualondë's eyes, but Turgon was all Noldo. “Tell me, though,” he said, as though he couldn’t stand it any more. “Are all the Golodoi so tall?”

“Not all, no. I am the tallest of my family,” Turgon said gravely.

“That’s reassuring,” Páne sighed. “I was worried about Uncle’s neck for a moment there, living so long among you.”

“Brat,” Salgant said mildly, to his nephew’s grin. A Noldo on the docks was apparently not so frightening as all that, to the young. Salgant was thankful for it. Páne had come a long way in a short time, from recoiling from Maeglin to teasing a strange Noldo. But then, there was Maeglin's reputation to think of as well, and Salgant had not introduced Turgon.

“I’ll let Aunt Surillë know you couldn’t come by,” Páne said, “But I’ve got to get back to the house before Leppe misses me.”

"We can't have that," Salgant said dryly, and sent him off.

“I’ve created trouble for you,” Turgon said regretfully, once Páne was out of earshot.

“It’s trouble of my own making,” Salgant countered. “The parts of my life were never going to come together cleanly.” He didn’t think Turgon fully believed him, but there was nothing he could do about it. It was true enough, though, and one reason why Salgant had tried to keep the pieces of his life apart from each other.

They overnighted at the same inn Maeglin had found, run by one of the Falathrim, and took horses the rest of the way. There was time enough for a gull to have reached the halls of Aulë and let Rog and his wife know of their coming, though not enough for Rog to find some reason to avoid their visit. It was a calculated maneuver; certainly Salgant knew that Rog would have preferred to stay distant from Turgon. Would have preferred, in fact, to hide from the pain of failure, as Salgant had done. Salgant considered it an act of friendship to lance the wound, as Rog had lanced so many of his own.

So it was that Rog looked disgruntled to see the pair of them on his doorstep, but his wife had no such reservations, reaching out to embrace Salgant and take Turgon’s hands. “You are Turgon, then. I am Ornait; I won’t introduce you to my husband, but he’s spoken of you.”

“An honor to meet you,” Turgon murmured. “He kept you close to his heart.” It was a very tactful way of saying that Rog had never so much as mentioned a wife to anyone.

“Eh, he would,” she sniffed, not displeased. “Come in, be welcome! Don’t mind Caued, he’s in a snit.”

“Be welcome,” Rog repeated to Turgon. “Though you, Salued,” he muttered as they went inside, “You, I am tempted to make you sleep in the stable with the horses. Not even Ecthelion was so bold with me as to bring Turgon here!”

“I shall count it a point in my favor,” Salgant said, knowing perfectly well that Rog was not truly angry if he was still using such a familiar form of Salgant’s name.

“Best of all,” said Ornait, “you have both brought me wool. Come, bring it in and let me get a feel of it.”

So they brought in the bags that Tacollien sent, full of washed and carded dogs-wool. Ornait exclaimed over it, fingering it carefully, asking questions that Salgant struggled to answer before laughing and saying that she would simply ask Tacollien by gull. She spent the evening engrossed in her craft and in penning a fulsome note to Salgant's law-sister. They did not disturb her at her work, though Salgant offered that the entire family looked forward to her letters.

That left the former king and lords of Gondolin at liberty, provided they kept their voices low. Rog worked on something with wire and a few tools; Salgant stole a piece of wood from the fireplace to whittle at; Turgon seemed engrossed in a book.

“Rog,” Turgon said eventually. “Forgive the question, but is there a reason you refused to come to Tirion? I would have welcomed your counsel.”

“I would not have welcomed giving it,” Rog said honestly. “I find that with the leisure to choose, I do not desire to be beholden to either liege or vassal.”

“I would not have asked that of you,” Turgon replied. “I am at leisure myself, but I find myself at a loss instead of having such clear preferences.” Salgant could see that admitting as much to Rog cost Turgon, however oblique the statement was. Between himself and Turgon, they had shared enough that such personal revelations were possible, if not precisely easy, but Rog was a more distant figure. Salgant thought for a moment about wine, but had not brought any to offer and guessed that Rog did not normally carry such vintages in his household.

“There is freedom in death,” Rog said, as though it were that simple. “If the shape of a king no longer fits you, cast it aside. Become a fisherman like Salgant or a crafter like me for all it matters! The shape of a Lord never fit me well anyway.”

“It fit you excellently,” Turgon said, a touch sharply. “Don’t let what happened at the last taint the whole of it.”

“Surely Rog is not the only one here who does such a thing,” Salgant murmured to his carving.

“You are a wretch, Salgant,” Turgon said, but without heat.

“That shape fits me very well,” Salgant replied, unruffled.

“I see that Ecthelion was mistaken when he said the two of you were at odds?” Rog asked, almost casually.

Turgon winced, just a fraction. “I acted in haste and ignorance. I will make that plain when I return to Tirion.”

“I was not as truthful as I could have been,” Salgant interjected. “I did not tell Turgon that I had been held in Angband.” He was proud of the fact that his voice was steady; even though it was not news to either man, he still did not like to state it so baldly.

“I know; Ecthelion would have told me otherwise. But you did tell them that you had a memory attack.” Rog’s voice was neutral, but he gave the wire in his hands a sharp twist.

“I did not know what they were,” Turgon admitted.

Salgant made a noise in his throat. “Neither did I,” he reminded Rog. “You had to tell me.”

"It ought to be common knowledge," Rog said darkly.

"Spoken like a lord," said Salgant. Turgon, meanwhile, looked thoughtful.

“Say not such things,” Rog ordered. “A lord does not command his men to slaughter.”

“Nor does a king lead his people to folly,” Turgon said quietly. “You died with them, and no one could ask more than that.”

“That can be said of more than one in this room,” Salgant pointed out, though he was not among them. Perhaps it was strange that he felt no guilt over surviving his House, but that had not been in his hands.

“Your wisdom becomes tiresome, Salgant,” Rog growled, and Salgant shrugged.

“It is tiresome to have so many dark thoughts,” Salgant retorted, “and yet be unable to be rid of them. Each blames only himself, and we cannot be rid of it.”

“We could blame the Dark One for a change,” Rog suggested dryly. Salgant huffed a laugh, and even Turgon smiled.

Chapter Text

“I spoke to my sisters,” Ornait told Salgant. “We agreed that you might come to one of our meetings.”

"It would not go poorly with them?" Salgant asked, worried.

"No, you have a place among us. We have a few brothers as well, you know. Dusâmhai, like you.” ‘The marred people’ - yes, even the orcs would have considered them marred. Of course Salgant could not have been the only one, as he had thought. Of course not, why should he have been the only one?

He agreed to go.

The gathering, some ten strong, was more jovial than Salgant would have thought, and his impromptu offerings from the marketplace were greeted with approbation. (He had been shocked at Ornait’s thought that he simply attend without a gift of food, and refused to countenance something so unmannered.) There seemed to be an even mix of peoples, from Noldo to Avari. Most were women, but there were a pair of men as well. Someone had brought a harp, which Salgant winced away from. After so long in the Iron Hells, all the melodies he had in him were tainted and he still could not stand to pluck the strings.

Ornait steered Salgant toward a taller woman, with chestnut-brown hair and a Sinda look about her. “This is Salmaganto from... what’s the name of your town again, Salued?”

“Formendessë,” Salgant supplied, and bowed.

“From Formendessë. Salued, this is Cýreth, our leader.”

“Be welcome, Salmaganto,” said Cýreth, nodding. “Ornait spoke of you, and said that you are brethren to us, but little more. You’ll find that we don’t discuss what we say here to others unless there is great need, for we speak here of things that others would not understand. Do you ken?”

“I understand,” said Salgant, who did.

“Eh, Nurdued came!” Ornait exclaimed, and tugged Salgant toward a tattooed Avari man. “Salmaganto, Nurdued. Nurdued is from our people, mine and Caued’s. Nurdued, Salmaganto knows my husband from his new name. We have another guest, and Caued chose to stay with him instead of coming this time,” she explained, as they nodded to each other.

Then the gathering coalesced into the meeting proper. Cýreth had them introduce each other to Salgant formally, and he to them. The one who had brought the harp was Asmalindê, who did not give her people. Next to her was Tuyma, who only laughed and said she and Asmalindê were very old; the age of their names did not belie it. Colindë and Alarcion were Noldo; Mediel and Achathlin were Sinda, but there was no tension between them and the Noldo pair. Quiet Dunspenna, with her cloudlike black hair, was the only Green-elf but seemed unbothered by it. Salgant already knew Ornait, of course, and had met her friend Nurdued.

“Does anyone have a pressing need to speak?” Cýreth asked, and Colindë nodded. She stood and walked to Asmalindê, and after a brief word changed places with her to sit at the harp. She spoke over it, plucking aimlessly. It was tuneless, but clearly more something for her hands to do than anything else. “I flinched from my son the other day,” she said abruptly. There were murmurs of sorrow, but none of surprise or shock. Salgant, who had not considered the plight of someone with children, winced.

“What happened that it came about?” Cýreth asked gently.

“He was nursing,” Colindë said, drawing her hands across the strings in an unmelodic jangle, “and suddenly I was outside my body, and all I saw was my hroa nursing young orcs, and I... I almost dropped him. It was all I could do to hand him to his father before I ran outside and vomited.”

“You made it outside, anyway,” said Tuyma practically. “Better than on the baby, no?”

“Tuyma!” Asmalindê exclaimed, getting only a shrug in response.

“Colindë, you know we all think you very strong for having children in our new life,” Cýreth said, leaning forward.

“That’s true!” Ornait put in, to nods all around. Salgant joined them. The courage of it!

“You’ve come such a long way to be able to have children,” Cýreth continued, nodding herself. “It’s only natural that sometimes memories catch back up to you. You did nothing wrong. Your son is well, your husband is well, no one was hurt but you.”

Colindë nodded, biting her lip as she plucked another harpstring. “Will he remember, do you think? Vinyáro, I mean.”

“I wouldn’t think so,” said Cýreth. “And if he does, well, you were ill and had to vomit. He won’t think he’s any less loved for that.” Colindë sighed, a deep sound of relief, and nodded as she changed seats with Asmalindê again.

“You might try soaking a rag in milk, if you’d rather not nurse,” Tuyma suggested in an aside, and Colindë made a noise of agreement.

“Did anyone else have a memory attack like Colindë?” Cýreth asked.

“Something like,” said Ornait, surprising Salgant. She had never seemed to suffer from them that he had seen. “There was a moment when, eh, Caued and I were in bed. I panicked and we had to stop, but he and I did just as we’d practiced here, with the breathing and talking. We haven’t tried it again, but I think I may be able to.”

“That sounds very well indeed!” Cýreth said, as though this were something normal to relate, and it seemed that here it was. Clearly, Salgant had only thought he’d understood what Cýreth had meant when she said the proceedings were to be kept secret. He’d sooner die again than betray this confidence. “It gladdens me that our methods worked.”

“I can’t wait to be able to lie with my wife again,” Achathlin sighed, running her hands through her hair. “I’m glad it went well for you, Ornait!”

“You’ll get there,” Ornait soothed. “It took years for me and Colindë; why should it not take so long for you?”

“I’m just impatient,” Achathlin said. “I’m thankful that she is so patient because I am not!”

“Don’t try to rush yourself,” Cýreth counseled. “It will come in its own time. Alarcion, you seem restless; are you also impatient about something?”

“I want to be able to hunt again,” said the Noldo man, “There’s no need, I don’t even eat red meat anymore, but I always feel like prey in the forest instead of hunter.”

“I recently had a bad time hunting as well,” Salgant offered hesitantly, remembering the disastrous cleaning of the deer. “Though mine was afterward, when we were cleaning our catch.”

“How did you handle it?” asked Alarcion.

“I was with a friend,” Salgant admitted, “and he was the one who had to butcher the deer. He offered his counsel as well, and that was a great aid.”

“Perhaps you might try hunting with a friend as well, Alarcion?” Cýreth offered. “I think you’ve mostly been by yourself, is it not so?”

“It’s so,” Alarcion agreed. “I know someone who might go with me. I’ll ask her.”

“Let us know how it goes, the next time that we meet,” Cýreth requested. “Does anyone else have anything to share? Salmaganto, I know it’s your first time here, so don’t feel obliged.”

“May I?” Salgant asked the harp-player Asmalindê, who smiled and relinquished the instrument to sit beside Tuyma. Bracing himself for a memory attack or worse, Salgant took her chair. If he had one, here was likely the best place for it. If the melody in his heart was tainted... here, it would be well-understood anyway.

It wasn’t the same, Salgant was relieved to find. It didn’t feel the same as the Iron Hells at all, where he had knelt or crouched to play. This was a chair, this was a harp that had not been looted, that would play clean notes for him. But it still took more courage than he thought, to stroke his fingers across the strings. No claws caught. That gave him the strength to pluck one wavering string, then another. “I was Lord Melkor’s harper,” he said to the instrument, knowing the onlookers could hear him. “I haven’t touched a harp since...”

“I thought that was just a rumor,” one of the Sinda women - Mediel - near-whispered. Salgant probably wasn’t supposed to hear her.

“I thought it was some Man,” Alarcion replied, just as quietly. “Who didn’t know what he played for. You know how Men are.”

“I don’t know how Men are,” Cýreth said, a little louder. “But I do know it’s rude to gossip. The playing sounds well, Salmaganto. Thank you for sharing it with us.”

That seemed to be that. Salgant concentrated on the harp, a sweet little instrument, wholly untainted, less mellow than he would normally prefer but well-suited to its task. He had no particular melody in mind, and the meandering notes were hardly his best work, but no one seemed to mind, or to care if he played some of the same chords and intonations he had invented in the Hells. He had learned them too well otherwise. “They are right,” he told the harp, “In that it was no elf that played for Morgoth, for I had been changed beyond an elven shape. Well, we all were, but at the time, I knew no others, for I was alone with the serpents.”

“That is an evil in itself,” said Nurdued. “I could but crawl before I fled my body, but at least I knew there were others like me when I did.” Alarcion murmured agreement, and several of the women nodded.

“When did you lose your spirit, Salmaganto?” asked Cýreth. “The fae cannot be held past a certain point.”

“I never did,” he said, to soft hisses of dismay. “That was my true marring, I think, to see how far the elven body could be pushed without separating the two. My spirit never left me, and I died an unholy thing.”

“It wasn’t you that was unholy,” said Colindë firmly. “It was what was done to us that was unholy. We are becoming whole now.”

“We are becoming whole now,” several voices repeated after her.

“We are becoming whole now,” Salgant echoed them, and wept. Ornait silently offered a soft cloth to wipe his eyes with, gesturing that he keep it when he offered it back.

It had been good to come.

The meeting did not end at Salgant’s confession or harp-playing, but he was still shaken enough that most of it passed him by. Nurdued spoke of screaming in the night; Cýreth herself of waking and thinking she was back in the Hells. Salgant was entranced by the harp, touching the strings silently, so as to avoid interrupting the speakers.

After the meeting, when Salgant had relinquished the harp and complimented Asmalindê on it, and after the group had been dismissed, Cýreth drew him aside. “I know that you live far to the north,” she said, “but I would not have you go without any aid we could provide you. I dwell nigh the Halls of Nienna, and this is what I do with my time. Write to me if it gives you comfort.”

“I will,” Salgant promised. “Though I hope your dovecote can tolerate gulls, for those are our messengers.” He felt newly-hatched himself, but Ornait had told him that was not unusual for one of these meetings. He could not stop rubbing his fingertips together, where he had played the harp. Nothing dreadful had happened. He thought he could do it again if he chose.

“My dovecote has had hawks in it,” said Cýreth, smiling. “I think it can tolerate a gull or two.”

Chapter Text

“Rog and I spoke while you were meeting with Ornait and her sisters,” Turgon said the next morning. “I think that I must travel to the Halls of Nienna for a time. Perhaps also Lorien, for there are lessons that I would learn there.”

“What brought this to pass?” Salgant asked. He had thought perhaps Turgon would return to Formendessë with him, or even to Tirion.

“It is upon me to clear your good name,” said Turgon steadily, “and it is my thought to do this as comprehensively as possible.”

“There is no need to rush,” Salgant objected. “You gave thirty years before I was to be seen in your halls again.”

“And I will be thankful if I have learned enough in those thirty years for what I intend to do!” said Turgon. A new light seemed to come into him, and Salgant thought that the light was purpose. It suited him well. “I asked Rog about Ornait’s sisters, and learned that there were many such gatherings for the survivors of Angband who yet had wounds of the spirit. But you had not known of them, and there are surely - surely others wounded in their spirit in different ways. I am not too proud to deny being among their number.” Though it was a near thing; Salgant could sympathize.

“I would learn all that I may of these gatherings, and ways the spirit may be healed, and what the wounds of mind look like, and I would set that into the annals as well, and let it be known to as many as I may. Does it please you?”

“How could it not?” Salgant asked, and found that he was smiling. A new purpose suited Turgon very well indeed, and this one might bring more healing than anything Salgant could accomplish alone.

“You had said that you would rather Duilin and Glorfindel not pity you,” Turgon reminded him, and Salgant shrugged.

“It’s not so unbearable as that. They already know the worst of it; should I quail now at their being told of the reason?” Even if he did, Salgant would certainly sacrifice more than his long-disused dignity just to see Turgon so animated again. Even Glorfindel could understand that much. Besides, after meeting with Ornait’s sisters, it did not seem quite so bad a fate as before. It almost gave purpose to the matter, if Salgant’s shame could be used to benefit others.

“With your good will, then,” said Turgon, sounding a little relieved that Salgant had assented. “Nor would I have you wait unnecessarily. If you had rather I make my statement about your situation now...”

“Not at all,” said Salgant. “It is enough to know that I have your regard, and I have hardly had cause to use a title anyway.” That was true; it was not as though he needed it with family, or with Rog, and those were the only places he had traveled - or intended to, for that matter. Salgant had never been a wanderer save by necessity.

“I regret putting that into rede,” Turgon said. “There are no Lords of Gondolin any more, but I spoke in that fashion to hurt you.”

“You did,” Salgant admitted, remembering his long walk to Alqualondë after that council meeting, “but you thought that I wanted, or needed, that sort of hurt. Besides, the charge was very great, and needed a serious response."

“You are very forgiving, Salgant.”

“No more than is deserved. Do you know who else I believe might aid you?” Salgant wondered aloud. “The leader of Ornait’s sisters has a great deal of wisdom to share, and dwells near Nienna’s halls. Her name is Cýreth, and I think she would be pleased to share her knowledge.”

“Excellent,” said Turgon. “I am well-begun indeed!”

They spoke more of Turgon’s plans before they parted; Salgant was not minded to abandon Maeglin forever to Tacollien’s mercy, but Turgon was keen to begin this new project, and reluctant to return all the way to Formendessë without need.

This again left Salgant alone to navigate Surillë’s temper in Alqualondë, but that suited him well. Nor was she terribly unkind about his choice in companions - an act of tact that Salgant knew better than to thank her for.

“You’re going to do this the rest of your life,” she prophesied. “Run here and there after your Golodoi friends, trying to put together broken things.”

“It seems likely,” Salgant agreed.

“Well, spare a thought for your poor old aunt every so often,” she commanded him, and suffered him to embrace her.

So Salgant returned to Formendessë. It was well that he had, too, for Hyalmeche's child was due only months later. Mirewen, as great-grandmother, presided over all of the preparations and the ceremonies. They renovated the home set aside for laboring women, and the only ones permitted to remain there with Hyalmeche during the last few weeks of pregnancy were her mother, her husband, and the midwife. Salgant, the rest of his family, and a nonplussed Maeglin were all set to errands and taking turns singing outside the house to strengthen her in her eventual labor.

Hacliriellë, then, was born in high winter, and named for it. After intense competition among the family, Talaganto won the right to carve the tiny boat, loaded with symbols and miniature goods, that would be sent to the depths and thus announce to Ossë that Formendessë prospered enough to sustain another child. Mirewen was the one to sing the announcing songs when they took the boat to be submerged. This was to Maeglin’s puzzlement, when Salgant was by far the most musical of the family, but of course it wasn’t about the quality or strength of singing; it was about the head of the household making it known that there was another member within it.

The rituals for welcoming new puppies into the world were rather different in that they were exactly what Tacollien said they were, no more and no less. Maeglin was enlisted for this task as well, and ended up with a brown and white pup that he named Frostfeather. Salgant was amused to note that Maeglin’s chosen colors changed a third time, to cream and brown, so that the inevitable fur on his clothing would go less recognized. It was a futile gesture, as Salgant knew well.

Maeglin, indeed, never quite left, even after he’d been given a puppy. He claimed that young Hacliriellë would miss Frostfeather (he might as well have said Tacollien would), but Salgant thought that it was truer to say that Maeglin would miss Hacliriellë and her growth. Maeglin had never been close to Earendil, for Idril had not allowed it, and being in such close contact with children was new to him. It was well enough; Maeglin was quick to volunteer for work, and that was highly valued in Formendessë, whereas the history of distant Beleriand was not. He hunted and fished, learned to ice-fish, and even worked in the smithy, though Formendessë’s needs there were humbler than his skill deserved. (A new belt-knife ended up enchanted to glow in the presence of orcs, much to its owner's amusement. Maeglin claimed habit.) Anything they would let him turn his hand to, he did. Without Salgant’s even asking for it, in spring Maeglin was granted the privilege of the ships, and learned to sail.

Surillë, Ciuran, Páne and Telecalepte visited to meet the new child in spring as well, but did not stay. Páne and Telecalepte wed some years later, staying in Alqualondë. Salgant enjoyed the wedding celebration, and even composed music for them, but shuddered to think of any offspring from Páne’s tongue and Leppe’s fingers. Fortunately, they had spoken of no children as yet, so it seemed the city would remain standing.

The increased visits to Alqualondë were not entirely without issue.

"You're not very much like a Noldo," Surillë told Maeglin once, on a trip down. It was possibly the greatest compliment she could give him, but Salgant winced.

"I will not decry my mother's people to you," Maeglin warned her.

"They're nothing to be proud of, after what the Kinslayers did."

"But you are alive again," Maeglin pointed out. "Surely you can release your enmity with your new life. We are taught how, in the Gardens."

"You did not speak to him of the Swanships?" Surillë demanded of Salgant.

"To what end?" Salgant replied, spreading his hands. There was no point in speaking about the Swanships; they were gone, and in front of his aunt, who had lost hers, he would not presume.

"Well, I will! I would not have them fade into memory silently. Mere death, I could have forgiven the Kinslayers for," she said to Maeglin. "But what they did to the Swans of Alpalondë... Never. The Kinslayers may as well have slain my child. Would that they had! An elven child might yet come out of Mandos, but the ships are gone for ever."

Maeglin tipped his head to the side, waiting.

"We crafted them living, you see. Your father knew the art of speaking swords? Ours were ships that sang, each to each. Each to us, and us to them. Foamrider was the work of many hands and many songs. I myself wove her sails; how she loved to play with the wind! She nearly capsized us once, playing on a windy morning. She sang apologies the rest of that day, but it was no hardship to forgive her. We never set lobster pots, for she disliked seeing them in their cages, but she loved to fight the deep-sea fish, the tuna and marlin and the big groupers. She thought sailfish were funny things, with their sails like hers..."

Maeglin listened with his customary solemnitude as Surillë told them about the high-hearted Foamrider. Salgant himself well-remembered her multi-toned voice, a chorus in its own right. He offered to Maeglin that she would cheerfully sing even his earliest, roughest compositions as beautifully as the full Morning Chorus. The Morning Chorus could no longer be sung, of course, it was a lindimmo and all the singers were now ashes under the sea. Mere elven voices could never hope to imitate it, anyway.

"She must have been so frightened when they came for her," Surillë said eventually. "And then to be killed like that... I was glad to hear that one of the seven sons was burned alive at Losgar. I was glad to hear they didn't die alone."

"She knew that you died defending her," Salgant murmured in the face of Maeglin's silence.

Surillë huffed. "I'd've died a hundred times over to save her."

"You loved her very much," Maeglin said carefully. "I see more clearly now what you have lost. Still, I must be what I am, nor would I change it."

"Still, I will not praise the Noldor to you."

"I don't ask it."

That appeared to suffice between them.

Chapter Text

Salgant corresponded regularly with Cýreth, learning through her that Turgon and Elenwë both were both well-occupied in learning their new healing lore. Every so often, he and Maeglin, or even Tacollien herself, ferried wool to Ornait and Rog, in return receiving exquisite clothing, yarns and enchanted fabric, or the funds from their sale. Much of the funds went to flour and baking goods for Tilissë, whose skimmer they borrowed; others to supplies that could not be found in Formendessë. Hacliriellë had a tremendous weakness for honey, and she was as indulged as a child could be.

It was astonishing how easily those trips could be made to coincide with Cýreth's meetings, too; Salgant attended more of those gatherings than he would have otherwise thought possible. Once, he even met with Turgon and Elenwë; Turgon admitted the work they did was sometimes difficult, but seemed to thrive on it nonetheless. Noldor were like that when it came to lore. Elenwë just seemed pleased with their progress.

When Turgon’s request for audience finally came, then, Maeglin and his great dog went with Salgant once more. This time, when Salgant knelt before Turgon, he did not bow his head to the floor, or extend open hands in supplication. He knew what would happen, in the essentials if not the particulars, and was not there to be condemned. The resemblance to other audiences, with greater and more terrible rulers, was not so profound. There were not quite so many folk in attendance, but this time Rog and Ornait were among them, and Rog nodded at Salgant companionably.

“We have come to review the claim of Salmaganto Halatirnion of wrongdoing and treason to the city of Ondolindë. Thirty years we have spent investigating this claim, and we find no treason. Nor do we find wrongdoing.” Turgon’s voice was resolute and definitive, brooking no disagreement.

“We find instead that Salmaganto Halatirnion was suffering from an injury of the spirit, called a memory attack, during the fall of the city, and that this was brought about by the fighting between the Wing and the Mole. This memory attack, and not weakness of will or lack of valor, caused him to be unable to perform his duty as a Lord. Just as an injury of the body cannot be considered treason, neither should an injury of the spirit.”

Turgon stood, and went to raise Salgant to his feet, saying, “Salmaganto of the Harp may inherit what is left of Ondolindë, should he so choose. A lord he may call himself, should he so choose, and no penitent to anyone.”

Turgon began to pace as he went on to describe injuries of the spirit like Salgant’s, where one did not know where they were or anyone around them. He had Rog describe that these were injuries known to the House of the Hammer even in Gondolin, and then he himself went on to speak of the Halls of Nienna, and of the Gardens of Lorien, where such wounds and others were known and treated. He spoke at length and eloquently, gesturing with his hands and occasionally consulting Elenwë for particular aspects of the lore.

“Many even in Aman still have these wounds of the spirit, re-created though we are. I, once king of Ondolindë, am among them, and am speaking to the healers of Nienna’s Halls and of Lorien not only as student, but also as patient.” Salgant was close enough to see Turgon’s hands move at that admittance. Kings did not admit weakness easily; Salgant had not expected him to say it so plainly - or indeed at all. Turgon must have some purpose behind it, but Salgant nonetheless admired the courage it took to admit such a thing openly. Had Salgant the choice, he never would have done the same, but here was Turgon! Yes. This was his king.

“Let it be known that there is hope for healing from these wounds, and that there is no shame in them.”

There was no escape from the council meeting afterward, unfortunately. Salgant, now reinstated, knew better than to try. Rog did try, but was neatly blocked off in a coordinated effort by Ecthelion and Egalmoth. “I was fetching my wife,” Rog claimed, with dignity.

“A wife? Excellent, I’d love to meet her,” Egalmoth announced cheerily, and accompanied him with Ecthelion. This left Salgant and Maeglin alone to be gawked at by Glorfindel, Tuor, and Duilin, as Penlod cornered the king, queen, and Idril with his customary notebook. New lore always excited Penlod; Salgant was sure that he had detailed questions about the king's lecture. Maeglin bore the looks stoically, as was his wont, but Salgant was somewhat less unaffected. No one, it seemed, wanted to comment on Salgant's exile, or even reinstatement.

"Welcome back, Salgant," Tuor said at last, coming up to grasp his arm warmly.

Salgant smiled at him, saying, "It's good to see you, Tuor! You look well." He did; age rested lightly upon him, and he seemed nowhere near choosing the blessing of Men, despite how long it had been.

“Yes, welcome back, Salgant! This explains where Lomion has been, at least,” Glorfindel said, with his usual good humor. It was obvious that Maeglin and Salgant had accompanied each other.

Duilin only huffed. Unable to make a comment about Salgant's cowardice in the face of the king's decision that it was no such thing, he clearly needed to find some other outlet. “Actually, it doesn’t. Where have the two of you been? I don’t recognize that style of clothing.” Both were dressed in Ornait’s finest weaves, more than suitable for court but cut in the Formendessë style, rather than anything from Tirion, Valmar, or even Alqualondë.

“What, am I unbegotten now?” Salgant retorted. “I’ve been with my family, in my home. Where else?”

“Where is that?” If it existed at all, Duilin implied. Perhaps he thought Salgant and Maeglin had been living under other names in some anonymous village. Well, he was half-right; Formendessë was quite anonymous, and preferred it that way.

“Angling for a visit? North of Alqualondë, on the coast.” Salgant was admittedly a trifle imprecise. It would be more accurate to say that Formendessë was north of Hanstovanen, itself significantly north of Alqualondë. Maeglin raised a brow at him, but did not offer any more accurate information. The thought of Duilin wandering lost between Hanstovanen and Alqualondë was not entirely displeasing to Salgant, as unlikely as the actual possibility was. Duilin had no intention of visiting, and they both knew it.

“And they welcomed Maeglin?” Duilin asked skeptically.

Maeglin himself sighed, as one mildly vexed by an inconvenience, and did not answer. Salgant had not given up defending Maeglin, though, and probably never would. “Is there a reason they wouldn’t?” With a pardon for Maeglin from Turgon and the king in that very room, Duilin would not dare to bring up any captivity or treason.

“Is that where you got the dog, Lomion?” Tuor asked Maeglin in a bid to change the subject. He had not brought the dog to the council meeting itself, but it was difficult to miss Frostfeather even from a distance.

“Salgant’s sister-by-law breeds them,” Maeglin returned. “He’s trained to ride as well as to hunt.” This was with some amount of pride, as Maeglin had been the one to train him thusly.

“That's convenient! I imagine he takes a lot of brushing, though,” Tuor mused.

Maeglin actually cracked a smile. “Yes. You could say that.”

“Rog has a wife, everyone,” Egalmoth announced, returning with that worthy and her husband. “May I introduce you to Lady Ornait of Aulë’s Halls!”

Ornait accepted the admiration of the Lords in turn, laughing at them as they tried to avoid saying that Rog had never told them about any spouse with varying success. Salgant she embraced, and lightly pressed Maeglin’s hand, for Maeglin still did not favor being touched. She did bow to Turgon and Elenwë before greeting them, but took their hands in hers as well. Neither king nor queen objected to the informality.

“How did you two know her?” Glorfindel murmured to Salgant as Idril promptly abandoned Penlod to speak to Ornait. “Are there secret meetings I don’t know about?”

“Certainly there are,” Salgant said calmly. “Didn’t you hear the king?" After just long enough for Glorfindel to look panicked about having made such a tactless remark, Salgant added, "Maeglin introduced us. We have an arrangement over my law-sister's wool." This was, of course, the truth, but not a strictly honest truth, since she and Salgant had become close as a result of those ‘secret meetings.' Still, it would be cruel to torment Glorfindel over it.

“She seems a lovely woman, and a good match to Rog,” Glorfindel said, with some relief at dodging the more difficult subject.

“She is, and is,” Salgant agreed, letting him.

Penlod finally detached himself from the king and queen, as Turgon cleared his throat for attention. Everyone turned to him. “As you know, I cannot demand action from you,” Turgon said to them. “Nevertheless, I would make a request of you all. The lords of Gondolin are held to have great wisdom, and I know that this is true. I would ask that you extend your wisdom to those who would give heed to it, and actively spread the knowledge that I spoke of, wheresoever you dwell. I see a great need for this among the people of Valinor, and not all know that this healing is there for them. I have barely begun to learn the arts of healing, but I have some knowledge of where it may be found. Now, so do you. I ask you to use this knowledge as best you may.”

They agreed, even Duilin and Glorfindel; how could they not? But Turgon had not asked them to leave their homes, and so Salgant went back again. Perhaps his feet would grow restless, or perhaps he would merely spread his store of knowledge in Alqualondë. Maeglin stayed to frighten Tirion with his dog's enormity, and also to catch up with his family. Surillë even relaxed her unkind opinion of Turgon after Salgant told her of what he had done, if not enough to praise him outright. It seemed like progress to Salgant, though. Perhaps there was use for Turgon's knowledge even on the docks of his youth.

When he came home, Salgant finally sang his lindimmo, the self-song, the life-song, for his family and those of Formendessë. He felt strong enough to do it, and Hacliriellë was finally old enough to know her great-uncle’s history. It was easy at first; he had already sung some of it in Alqualondë, and it did not need much alteration from there. He brought them across the ice, across the despair over the loss of the ships. He brought them to the soaring heights of Gondolin, the depths of the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. This time he did not stop at the fall of Gondolin, though.

For Angband, he would be brief: a wordless, guttural scream, something that nonetheless conveyed oppressive heat and the feeling of scales and darkness and the sound of tortured music. But he did he not stop at his death there either, for his life went on anew. He changed key, and sang of the sea-foam, gulls and ships and family he had newly met - his brother’s children, the young Hacliriellë. He sang also of steadied Maeglin, of Rog and Ornait and Cýreth’s wisdom, of Turgon's forgiveness.

And he accompanied himself on the harp as he sang.