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The ground squelches under Maglor's feet as he walks. Beleriand is drowning, he knows, and he will drown with it. Others are fleeing eastward, to places like Lindon that will be spared, but Beleriand is the only home Maglor has, barred as he is from Valinor, and he will not leave it. He will let the waters pass over his head, and he will join his brothers, and so the last nightmare of the First Age will pass into myth.
He walks, and he walks, and he walks to Himring.
There is nothing left of his own fortress at the Gap he once held. It was destroyed too thoroughly after the Dagor Bragollach, when he lost it to Morgoth's forces. And while there is something still left of Amon Ereb, he cannot go back there, not without Maedhros or the twins. He feels sometimes like nothing more than one more lonely ghost, but Amon Ereb is too haunted even for him. The ghosts of the dead are there, but also the ghosts of the living, the echoes of Elrond and Elros, and they are harder to escape. He will never see them again and he knows it, but that does not make it easier to think of going to the home they once shared and lying down there to die.
Himring is different. Himring is where he lived with all his brothers, before they split Beleriand amongst themselves and all went to guard their own regions. Himring is where he visited Maedhros for those centuries that they spent in something almost like peace. Himring is where he went when that peace went up in flames, where Maedhros nursed him back to health. Himring is where they planned and lived, up until the battle when everything went so horribly, irredeemably wrong.
Maglor has not been back since. He doesn't think Maedhros ever went back either, before-
His hand burns with the anger of the Silmaril, and he does not let himself think too long about Maedhros.
He has not been back to Himring for so long, but he still knows the way, and there is still something familiar in the path. Even with Beleriand rotting and dying around him, even as his feet sink into boggy peat instead of firm ground, he still knows this area. He rarely visited from this direction, but that does not make it any less familiar. He knew the whole region, knew how to keep it safe, knew where it was vulnerable and where it was strong. He and Maedhros protected it until they no longer could.
There is nothing Maglor can do about the coming flood. There is nothing Maedhros could have done either. Beleriand will drown, and Maglor with it, and perhaps then he will find some measure of peace.
He can see Himring in the distance now, tall and forbidding over the landscape. It will be cold, he knows, and he is not dressed for it, but his hand still burns hot enough to keep his whole body warm, and regardless, the cold will not bother him for long. He will drown far before he freezes. He simply needs to climb now, to hike his way up to his brother's fortress, and then he will be able to rest. Then, he may well find himself consigned to the Everlasting Darkness of their Oath, but he cannot think that can be much worse than Beleriand is now. At the very least, he hopes the Oath will leave him alone once he has unequivocally failed, once there is no hope at all that he could reclaim any of the Silmarilli. He thinks he could bear the Everlasting Darkness, if he were free of the Oath.
Himring looks, from the outside, much as it always did. They never fully lost it, only gave it up when they knew they didn't have the manpower to remain so close to Morgoth. The Nírnaeth Arnoediad took place far from Himring, and war did not reach its doors in the way it took the Gap or Himlad. It is still recognizable, and while Maglor is certain it is far from unchanged, he wonders what may still be inside. He wonders how his room looks, if it was ransacked by later invaders and squatters or if it will look as it did the morning he left it, before going off to a battle they did not know they were already doomed to loose. He wonders if his closet is still full of his clothes, his fine robes from Valinor and his more practical clothes they made in Beleriand. He wonders if his room still holds his instruments, the few he was able to gather after the burning of the Gap. He had a beautiful harp that he kept in Himring regardless, even before he moved there, just so he could have something to play when he visited his brother, and then he had other instruments he had gotten his hands on in the years between the Dagor Bragollach and the Nírnaeth Arnoediad.
Afterwards, he'd hardly had anything in Amon Ereb, nothing but a small harp he mostly used in combat, up until he had two young boys who were best soothed by music. It had taken time to remember how to play music like that, how to play lullabies and cheerful songs instead of simply endless war chants, but he'd eventually remembered well enough for the boys. He'd sang them to sleep, he'd soothed their hurts with a melody, he'd chased away nightmares with a tune. They'd deserved better than him, so he'd done his best to give them whatever they asked for. When they asked for music, he'd scraped up any bits he still had left and given it to them.
Himring, Maglor thinks, had once been more difficult to reach. It still isn't necessarily easy, but he thinks perhaps it is easier. It may be that he is less burdened than he used to be, with no possessions and nothing but the clothes on his back. It may be that he is hardly paying attention to where he walks, certainly not enough to notice any real difficulty. It may be that he is so close to the end that nothing feels hard anymore.
He approaches his brother's gates, and he knows his brother will not be there to greet him.
Himring is still Maedhros's, even if it has been decades since he has lived there. Maglor is certain he'll see his brother's ghost haunting every corner. He will haunt it too, both living and dead. He will wander the halls of Himring, and in the end, he thinks he will lie down on his bed and hope he is afforded enough mercy to allow him to die in his sleep. Perhaps, he'll lie in Maedhros's bed instead, if his brother's scent lingers; perhaps, the lingering scent will drive him away in grief. He will discover it once he steps into the fortress, and that cannot happen until he opens the gates.
But the gates, he realizes as he gets closer, are already open. They were left ajar, and they haven't been closed since. Maedhros would never have left his gates open like that, but Maedhros is gone. Maglor pushes the gate open, and he steps into the courtyard where he arrived on a million visits. It looks surprisingly similar to how it used to, especially given that the fortress is at a high enough altitude that the effects of the sinking have not yet reached it. The ground is still firm, and the courtyard doesn't smell faintly of saltwater the way the rest of Beleriand now does. If Maglor closed his eyes, he thinks he could almost imagine that he's just dismounted his horse and handed the reins to a stableboy, and Maedhros is standing in front of him with one eyebrow cocked, and Maglor is grinning and about to tell his brother what news he brings. Once, that sort of joy and brotherhood had warmed Himring's cold halls.
Maglor does not close his eyes, and he enters Himring's darkened, haunted, empty halls.
The fortress looks surprisingly untouched. Maglor peeks into rooms as he passes them, and many of them look just as he remembers. He wonders why no one came after it was abandoned, if Maedhros's name alone was enough to keep the fortress untouched for years. The only thing that has ravaged it seems to be time; nothing is quite as bright or clean as it used to be. He wonders how out of tune his harp will be, if it remains upstairs. He wonders if his clothes will all be moth-eaten.
It doesn't matter, of course. Himring will drown, all of its contents with it, and Maglor will stay here until he drowns as well. There will be no more playing of his harp, or wearing of his clothes. There is nothing for him to do with either of them anyway. He does not need the robes he used to wear in Valinor, hasn't for a long time, and his hand is far too damaged for the precision a harp requires. His palm aches with every thrum of his pulse, but at least that is not a problem he will have for much longer.
The fortress is quiet, but Maglor can almost hear its ghosts. He can hear the sound of soldiers, can hear the bustle of life, can hear the voice of his brother as he commanded it all. Maedhros thrived here, as much as he thrived anywhere in Beleriand, as much as he could thrive after Thangorodrim. He led Himring so well, and they came so close to peace and happiness there. Maglor and his Gap were never half so well-run as Maedhros and Himring.
It is not fair, Maglor thinks, that he is still here, and Maedhros is gone.
He's thought that before. He thought it unfair when he survived Doriath and Celegorm, Caranthir, and Curufin did not. He thought it unfair when he survived Sirion and Amrod and Amras did not. But then, at least, he was not the only one left. He survived, but he did not survive alone. He had Maedhros, even if he had no one else.
Now, he has no one at all.
He won't have to worry about it much longer, at least. The ground feels solid here, in the fortress, but it was swamp-like outside, before he climbed up to Himring's gate. Beleriand will drown, and Maglor will drown, and finally, the curse of Mandos will come true and they will all be slain. Maglor will drown, and it will all be over.
He comes across his room eventually, and he goes to the bed and lies down. His sheets are dusty but still whole, and he can practically hear his mother scolding him for lying on the bed in his filthy clothes, but Nerdanel is not here, and there is no point in worrying about cleanliness now. Perhaps he will go to Maedhros's room later, but for now, he thinks he will stay in his own, with his familiar sheets and his familiar curtains and his familiar harp. He will stay, and he will sleep, and if he is lucky, if he sleeps long enough, the waves will close over his head before he ever wakes.
Maglor closes his eyes, and he thinks about how he will soon see his family again.
Maglor wakes, some unknown amount of time later, to the sound of water lapping outside the window. He did not sleep long enough, he thinks, and he rises and goes to the window to see how far the water has risen.
Himring has become something like an island. Maglor looks out and sees nothing but oceans around him, save a smudge across the horizon to the east that could be Lindon. To the west is Valinor, but he cannot see it. He doesn't want to see it anyway; he cannot return, and it would only hurt.
He sits by the window and looks out, letting his head fall against the cool glass. He will watch the water rise, and when it gets close enough to reach him, he will go back to bed and hopefully sleep. Perhaps he deserves to be fully conscious when he drowns, but he is a coward, and he will sleep through it. He will not face his death head-on like his brothers and father; he will hide from it, even as it reaches him anyway. He will cower away, even though he knows it will do nothing to save him. He is a coward, and he will sleep.
He sits at the window and watches, and watches, and watches the waves, and he realizes that they are not rising.
It has been hours. With how quickly the water was rising before, the waves should at least be licking the edge of the gates, but they are not. The waves are gentle and steady, lapping at the stone of the hill that is now no longer a hill, but an island. Himring is an island, and Maglor thinks it may have been spared from Beleriand's drowning.
Maglor looks out the water, and even though the waves are not high enough to close over his head, he feels despair do so instead. Himring is an island, Himring will not drown, and so neither will Maglor. Not passively, at least; he could still throw himself into the water if he wished, but that would be an active death, and he's not sure if he has the strength for that. Maedhros did, Maedhros threw himself into the flames, and Maglor should try to copy his brother's resolve and throw himself into the waves. He could climb to the roof and hurl himself off it, and between the fall and the water, he doesn't think he would survive it. But that would require him to throw himself off, to choose that with his eyes open and his steps full of purpose, and he doesn't know if he has any purpose left in him.
He should have gone somewhere else. He should have gone to Amon Ereb, or to the Gap, or maybe he should have just stayed on the beach where he threw the Silmaril into the waves and curled up on the sand to die. Instead, he came to Himring, and now that easy death has been stolen from him.
He wonders how it was even possible, that he and Himring could survive. Is it not a hallmark of exactly what the Valar wished to destroy, as the war fortress of a son of Fëanor? Is he not fated for death, as a kinslayer so many times over? What sort of mistake did they make, what sort of detail did they overlook, to leave Maglor and Himring standing when everything else is gone?
Perhaps, he thinks, this is part of his Doom. Perhaps that easy death is too good for him. Perhaps this is a test, to see if he has the strength to die if given the choice. But he is not. He knows he is not. He could climb to the roof and fling himself off, but he will not.
He knows, because when he realized the waters were not rising, his first feeling was a tiny little wave of relief.
He does not deserve relief. He does not deserve to live. But if the Valar want him to die, they will have to kill him themselves, because Maglor will not do their work for them. Maglor will live. He will stay at Himring for now, haunting the island fortress, and then he will find a way to get to Lindon and the shore, and he will stay there. He will not live among his fellow elves, but he will live. He has not drowned, and he will not drown. He will live.
He does not deserve to. He's not even fully certain he wants to. But while he is a coward, he is also stubborn, and he will not back down from a decision. He will live, regardless of what the Valar may want. He will live, just like Himring has lived, and like the fortress, he will be a monument to the sons of Fëanor and the Ñoldor who came to Beleriand for freedom and revenge. He is the last son of Fëanor, and he will not break that line. He will hold it fast.
Briefly, very briefly, he lets himself think of Maedhros. Your fortress did not fall, Maglor would say to his brother if he were there, and neither will I. We will be strong. Neither of us could be strong enough to support you when you needed it, but we will be strong now. We will live as a monument to you, and you will not be forgotten.
Maedhros was stronger than Maglor, but Maglor has always been the more stubborn of the two. He has outlived him, and he has outlived Celegorm and Caranthir and Curufin and Amrod and Amras, and he has outlived their father, but he will do what he can to let them all live on through him. He and Himring will be the last monuments of a fallen line and a fallen land.
Maglor sits at the window, and he watches the sun sink below the new waves, and softly, he begins to sing.