677 words | AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80452041
(Transfem!Maglor this is just transfem Maglor in Tirion)
Maedhros was not on the pier when the ships from Middle-earth docked.
There would be no point in it. The docks were busy with overjoyed relatives and anxious friends, long friendships reunited or cut to an end; one could not go two feet without tripping over some embracing pair or knocking into reunion-sweets. The streets were filled with banners and ribbons hanging from every stall and standard, a riot of color and motion. The good people of Tirion could never permit themselves to be upstaged, of course, and so their garb shimmered like jewels and fires as they met their friends. It was not a place for Maedhros Feanorian. There was only one person he was waiting for, only one who could possibly come off that boat, and Maedhros wouldn't hold his breath for it. He had spent long enough suffocating in Beleriand. He would not start again now.
Instead, Maedhros waited a few streets down from the piers, just close enough to feel the salty breeze and hear the soft rustle of the waves. Market stalls lined every side of the street in ruby red and sapphire, and Maedhros bought a steamed bun from one of them to fill his wait. Like everything in Valinor, it was perfect, light and fluffy in his mouth. Maedhros didn't particularly care for it.
His street was one that led into the city like a vein pumping lifeblood. There were ways to avoid it, but not conveniently, and it would never be the first choice. Maedhros the tactician, the lord of Himring, thought it was a solid choice. So did Nelyafinwe Feanor's son, and that was enough for Maedhros.
The sky turned from azure to ripe orange and pink, and Maedhros waited under its Sunset until he found the shimmer of black-blue silk. Maedhros stepped before his brother and offered him half of the bun. "Hello, Maglor."
"Ah, Maedhros!" Maglor snatched it from his hand and took a bite with a dramatic curtsey. "I almost thought that you had forgotten me."
He looked better than Maedhros had expected. The sea had not worn him down entirely until there was nothing left but bone; his cheeks were thin but not skeletal, his hair shining with its braided shells. "Could I forget the Sun, laurë? Would I want to? Or would I rather not meet my brother among the cousins who don't like us very much?"
"Sister, now." Maglor's grin was both conspiracy and invitation, dimples stretching far enough to eclipse the sun. There had been some Sun upon her skin, it seemed, keeping her well and freckled, and for the first time Maedhros noted her hair was done in a woman's braid. "The years have been long for both of us. Would you deny me my change?"
Maedhros laughed. He knew too much about change and difference and living in the wrong skin, and very little of it had ever been pleasant for him. "You're alive, aren't you? And here. I'd be mad not to."
"Exactly," his sister agreed. "I'm here, aren't I? And, Maedhros, please do you count as alive? It's a very pressing question. Essential, even, because I have another verse planned out for the Noldantë and am trying to make it rhyme."
"In the loosest possible sense," Maedhros said. "But, sister dearest, you cannot tell me you are still continuing the Noldantë. It has been centaries since any of us has been relevant."
"Elrond counts," Maglor told him defensively, "and it is not only us, Maedhros, but whatever tragedy I find interesting. Arda has many of them! I resent the idea that it would only be us who got the spotlight. It seems like something father would say."
"I only thought the Noldor in the Noldantë might have a major role. Forgive my assumptions, please, they are terribly wrong and incorrect."
Maglor's face was deeply serious and contemplative as she nodded; her hair was fighting a brutal war to escape and gust around her freckles. "You understand, brother. If you even ask me nicely enough, I'll sing it."
