#(sir not present but vr relevant)

[searchingforserendipity25]

'envy is unbecoming.'

'then you ought not to make bribes from the east so beautiful, or at least keep your brother's best steeds for yourself! you know not the treasure you have in maglor,' said fingon.

he ran his hands gently down the sides of the mare, to test her sleek muscles, see how her ears twitched fearlessly.

'maglor sent his excellent horseflesh from the gap into your stables - my stables and my kennels and all my halls are silent of brother and sister, and you sit in your great fortress gnawing at impatience because your brother wants more riders.'

'more riders, more supplies, and no armour at all -'

'you do not want to be covered in steel when against a dragon, be sensible -'

'orcs care not for these sensible precautions. and he is enjoying making battle on wyrms too dearly. he keeps challenging them to games of song and riddles - it's unbecoming.'

fingon laughed. not an excellent elder brother, fingon; fond in his great steadfast way, but it would not cross his mind to fret about the weapons and wear of his siblings - he was not enough their lord, and trusted them too well.

which was perhaps how he misplaced two of them in one mistake, and barely noticed before harvesting season.

maedhros would have gone quite mad in his position, but then he never would be in this position. he was wise enough to give his brothers realms of their own, right where he could see them.

'maglor would not bite the mastering hand and drift away into mist with an army.'

maedhros snorted. 'not for lack of wishing, i suspect. can i interest you in a binding oath sworn unto all the powers of arda? it tends to suit quite well as a bridle on wayward siblings.'

'they would not swear a thing i should believe,' fingon said.

his mouth was supple still, in the half-gloom of himring's great stables, but eyes were tight. slating amber light fell on him, gilded his ribbons and the paint on his lids, made him apiece with the dusty quiet, the straw-smells. 'not they that swore fealty to fingolfin, and broke it on a whim. perhaps i do envy you.'

maedhros had kept to fingon's back, a decorous half-step behind, making himself a warm barrier against the bitter draft. he laid a hand over his, where it was stroking the mare's mane.

in closeness, he could feel fingon's shifting thoughts, his spirits like a wind-rush, full of its own momentum always.

it had fascinated him, when he was younger - how forceful and shameless in thinking and speaking his half-cousin was, swift to laughter and tears and friendship.

it had seemed the greatest foolishness to him, to go shield-less and bold through life.

he showed it to fingon, the silver-lit memory of tirion's squares and tirion's gossip. 'then maglor would chide me,' maedhros said. 'and claim you had the greatest courage. still i think you are very foolish. you ought to stop playing favourites, o prince.'

fingon's cheek pressed against his chin, dimpling, and then growing damp. maedhros felt the sting of his grief as sharply as the cold wind seeping through his furs, for to fingon all grief as a desolation of the weather.

he came to himring only after returning to barad eithel empty handed. after scouring all the wild places he could find, singing to old oaks and firs with begging voice to betray the secrets of the lady aredhel, whom they loved - putting his ears to stone and dust, spying for his brother's tread.

he had not wept under his father's eye, kneeling in shame for his failure. harvest was finished, and vinyamar gathered sand-drifts on its high, spiraling flight of stairs, and stray lynxes came to mate and breed and fight in their rooms.

fingolfin did worry, and moreover fingolfin felt any touch of betrayal dreadfully.

fingon would not betray his father, not in anything. he did not need an oath to make it so. maedhros was not without some jealousy for his king, though not for crown and sceptre.

he could not be sorry, at least, to be himring the ever-cold, where fingon the valiant came when he was furious, wretched, and in need of some relief from the encompassing sense of cool mosaic under his knees and failure in his throat.

the mare wickered, nudging at fingon's hand. an intelligent, sensitive, as maglor's breeding tended to be - fingon smiled, and breathed deep before stepping away from him.

valiant, maglor had said, during those word-guessing games they played as youths, sharing insights on all they knew, preparing cunning songs and clever manoeuvres. do not discount him just yet! i have an ear for these things. see how he makes all the world fond of him, and gives generously, and lives as a prince ought; nolofinwë has made himself a champion. i daresay he is not apt to be anything else. i should think he must be very brave, not to flee for the wild, or go mad a little.

his eyes in the dark were all amber, glowing. maedhros could not imagine any walking away from him. were he mountain-stone and greening bush, he would have betrayed to him the secrets of any lost realm. he would have found it himself - if he were anything but himself.

'do not ask me to impartial,' fingon decreed. he touched the corner of maedhros's mouth to him, a brief warmth. he was moving already onwards, thinking new thoughts fresh and brimming over with the engine's work of his mind, making bright again the paltry sun of the stable's gloom. 'i am not king, merely the prince that remains! the lords of the east keeps paying the most outrageous weregild, and i need the horses. i am naming her for a spear or some such, i think - but my father the king will have the stallion.'