More in the AU where Elrond and Elros are 16 years old rather than 6 when Sirion is sacked. Tag is "older kidnap fam fic" for previous installments
Elrond wakes up draped over the rump of a horse.
Not, to be clear, his own warhorse. His faithful stallion is being ridden by one of the few remaining warriors of the Gap, the great cavalry of the Noldor, who will be able to keep her seat regardless of what the horse tries.
Elrond isn't initially sure who is riding the horse that he's been set over like a sack of baggage. His arms are stretched out past his head, tied wrists dangling toward the ground, and his ankles are tied as well, tighter than the hobble that he had while walking. He can't see anything but horse flank.
Elrond wriggles around to try and get a better view, and someone notices.
"Lord Maedhros, it seems your guest is awake."
Maedhros pushes down the middle of Elrond's lower back to pin him more surely to the horse. "Lie still. If you fall off while riding in formation you're liable to get stepped on by the next horse, even if the rider wished to avoid you."
"I know how to ride properly."
"Yes, I saw that you were quite skilled when you killed my soldiers, which is why you're staying right there."
"Could I at least sit upright, even if I have to ride behind someone else like an infant?"
"Maybe tomorrow, if you give your word not to escape."
"I'm not stupid enough to try and bargain with you again, after you broke your word about setting us free from the cellar."
"I never said I'd set you free, I said I'd leave the city and wouldn't kill you. Sirion crumbled in the first assault, but I did no more damage after taking you and your brother into custody. If they're smart enough to repair the castle first, everyone should be able to keep warm this winter."
"And if they focus instead on burying their dead, or rebuilding their houses, or rescuing their kidnapped princes?"
"Who knows? But I'm not king of even the Noldor anymore, and the people of Sirion are not my responsibility."
"You would just let them die?" Elrond wanted to glare at the Feanorian, and nearly slipped backwards off the horse as he tried to sit up.
Maedhros caught Elrond deftly by the bound wrists and pulled him back into place. "Next time you do that, I'll let you fall"
"So you don't actually intend to even spare my life."
"I agreed to spare you, not to save you . None here will harm you, but I won't rescue you from consequences of childish stupidity, no more than I will rescue Sirion from winter. If you would rather bash your head open rather than remain my captive, I am not so cruel as to deny you that escape."
Elrond had nothing to say to that topic, as his first retort about more palatable escapes seemed likely just to enrage his captor, as did any question about cutting off hands. "Where's Elros? Was he at least left back in Sirion?" Elrond wanted his brother to be safe, and his people to have a leader with his mother drowned. But he, selfishly, also did to want to be alone with the kinslayers.
"He's here as well, don't worry. Nornmalo has him, and I trust him not to torture a prisoner, despite what it may sound like."
"The moans of pain might be a headache, he drank rather a lot of beer while we were trapped."
Maedhros laughed. "Well, a hungover child soldier. He will at least bother Nornmalo less with questions."
"Could I give him something to soothe the headache? I know a bit of healing."
"No. A headache won't kill him, and he'll get water when we stop same as you."
They stopped only once that day, to water the horses at a stream. Elros was pulled down from the saddle - feet first, luckily, though he still landed in a heap - and his hands untied. Maedhros tossed him a canteen, and said "if you need to piss, now's the best time. You won't get piss all over the horse or your clothes, and we're downstream of the rest of the company."
"My legs are still tied."
"The ropes low enough you should be able to unfasten your belt."
"Are you going to watch me the whole time?"
"Until I find another guard, yes."
Elrond drinks little enough water to avoid the issue, for the moment.
When it's time to ride again, Elrond puts up a fight about having his arms tied again. That just gets Maedhros pinning his face in the dirt while a soldier ties the rope.
Elrond is slung back on the horse like a parcel.
They stop again just before sunset to make camp.
Elrond's hands are untied again for dinner.
The food is simple, waybread and water, and Elrond wonders if he should mention that Men need to eat more than once a day.
Far more exciting than the food though is the figure dropped on the grass next to him, clutching his own canteen and waybread.
"Elros!"
"Elrond! By Ulmo, you're alright!"
"I am, just a bit bruised from the horse. You?"
"Here's something for your healer's notes: do not put people with hangovers upside down for hours. I must have thrown up a dozen times."
"That's terrible! Maybe we can ask-"
At that point the guard tells them to hurry up, they'll be taken to where they're sleeping in ten minutes regardless of how much dinner they've had. Elrond and Elros focus on eating.
They are not, apparently, going to be sleeping near each other. "Too much chance to plot."
The Feanorian soldiers have tents. Some of them share, some of them have their own. A few soldiers have tents obviously designed for two or three that they go into alone.
The horses stolen from Sirion are tied to a picket line. It's loped through the reins, but one person untying the end would let all the horses scatter.
The horses the Feanorians rode into town on are not tied at all. They are loyal old warhorses, and will not flee from orcs in the distance. If wolves do sneak past the guards into the camp, better for the horses to run, and come back at their masters' call when the danger is passed.
Elrond, by contrast, is tied to a tree trunk. His hands are tied in front of him rather than behind, and his legs are unbound. Maedhros's brother - and Elrond learned from a careless remark that their is only the one left - even tossed a blanket over Elrond's legs, to guard against the chill of the night air.
It is the most freedom of movement Elrond has had all day, but that's saying little.
He is stuck sitting up, feeling every root and rock underneath him, unable to reach his hands back to where the rope is tied behind the tree.
Elrond sleeps poorly, stirring at every noise, whether it's a guard on their rounds or an owl hooting its warning.
In the morning, Elrond is given a breakfast of water and waybread again.
Maedhros says "You know it would be suicidal to flee, alone in the wilderness, yes?" and lets Elrond ride behind him sitting up.
Elrond's hands are still bound, and a rope leads passed Maedhros to the saddle horn. If he fell off, he better hope he can keep pace with a cantering horse, or else be dragged on the ground.
Elrond stays on the horse. He figures out his balance well enough to turn, and sees Elros riding similarly.
Thing continue like this for over a week, until they reach Amon Ereb.
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No but something I love is how fucking loyal Miklan really is (in Hopes specifically since we don't have enough information in Houses).
At the camp, he takes his job seriously. Very seriously. He doesn't act begrudging or like he's just doing anything by force. As the chapters go on he not only goes from relatively aloof to a full fledged commander (which is great development in that span of chapters btw considering how fast the story has to progress) and one who fights for Faerghus because he wants to (why would he reassure the player that he's going to, literally, hold down the fort? Why doesn't he flee when his life is in immediate danger despite that Dimtiri prefers his allies to flee and save their lives over sacrificing themselves? Why does he like helping citizens who had their lands destroyed by the war, despite being a bandit who used to plunge towns just like those?).
At any time when the Empire was attacking, he could've surrendered and even joined their side because of not liking Faerghus and its people... if he didn't like Faerghus and its people. Also, someone brought this up to me once that Miklan likely has family in the Empire still, because his mother was from the Empire. He had a perfectly good out that wouldn't even necessarily be considered treason to Faerghus, i.e. surrendering and going to the Empire to protect that side of his family.
He doesn't. He dies for Faerghus. It was both a matter of honor due to the fact that he was finally living the life he always should've been and wanted to be respected for that, and also his loyalty that followed in the past's wrongs being righted. No matter what you think of Miklan post disinheritance, he was the heir who was removed because he didn't have a Crest. All over just that, despite that Sylvain having a Crest never meant they didn't still have someone capable of fighting off Sreng invasions.
They had someone able to wield the Lance of Ruin, so why did it matter if he was officially the heir? Miklan felt like his life was stolen from him (and I'm not saying what he did to Sylvain was okay either). Dimitri gave him all of that back and he started to become loyal to Faerghus and its king because Dimitri was giving the chance even the man's own father never gave him from the moment Sylvain was determined to have a Crest.
What happened in his life before Dimitri had him brought to him as soon as he became king is, in a way, almost like it never happened as far as Miklan's behavior. It was obviously there at first, but over time it's like it never happened. That is, if someone met him and didn't know about his past, by chapter 9 they'd never even know he'd had that history. He was the person he would've been years ago if he hadn't been disinherited, which led to the mess that led to him being disowned (and he says he just "left", but Matthias doesn't mince facts. At all. If that had been the case he wouldn't just say he disowned him. He would admit Miklan ran away. That means Miklan claims he left as a means of coping and trying to convince other people that it was his choice and not forced on him).
Miklan became a lot more loyal than he's ever given credit for, both in the game and in the fandom. Gwendal did recognize it, but that's about all we're given.
Gwendal corrected himself when Miklan died, referring to him instead as Sir Miklan instead of the insults he was spewing during their fight which were very clearly pissing Miklan off; but Miklan kept fighting and defending the fort, not just because he wanted to prove Gwendal wrong but because he was here because he was pulled out of his life as a bandit. The people he was defending the fort for were the people who effectively gave him his life back.
Basically, he would've been there in that fort defending it anyway if he had lived the life he should have to begin with. If his value was acknowledged all along, he would've been defending the most important fort in Faerghus all along (if this exact scenario occurred and everything was the same except him being disowned in the first place). He would be there being the commander and fighter he was supposed to be.
Mind you, it was the king himself who gave him that chance, meaning the person who reigns over Faerghus and has the most power to change whatever the hell he wants - including how people with Crests and without are treated. Miklan was part of a fight to better their society and be part of the new generation taking over. Nobody could truly change things unless the king - the top power - had the thought to change them (not saying Lambert thought the political climate was good the way it was, but he clearly had other priorities and it didn't seem to be something weighing on his mind. He may not have even truly noticed the problems and power discrepancies because he was so focused on other things).
However, the moment the king thought to change all that old stuff, Miklan was one of the first people who came to mind, and one of the first people he took action regarding, to integrate into his new army (and he even mentioned completely rearranging his army and whatnot, and then we find out he had Miklan located basically right after becoming king. We had a two year timeskip and Miklan had been there for those two years because of how soon after Dimitri was crowned that he had decided to bring Miklan back and give him another chance).
If the king sought to change things and was taking active action to prove it, that was something Miklan could see and realize was actually going to happen. It wasn't a blind trust - he could see Dimitri was actually doing it. He had a reason to be able to trust him with this.
He was also able to trust the people who were watching over him, i.e. the people Dimitri had making sure he didn't revert back to any sort of banditry. Those people could have easily faked it, made up that he did something and that they had killed him on the spot. Dimitri trusted those people not to do that of course, but those people were not told to bring him to Dimitri if he did anything. They were told to apprehend him and kill him immediately (which is reasonable, given what he'd done in the past, and they wouldn't want to try to wait to get Dimitri over to wherever they were. If Miklan escaped in that time, they'd just have a big problem on their hands).
So that is to say, those people could've just faked it at any point and killed him. They didn't. They, like Dimitri, were willing to give him another chance provided he didn't do anything bad.
The same goes for Felix and everyone else who had qualms about him being allowed into their army. Dimitri explicitly stated if anyone had issues with his appointment as a commander to "by all means" kill him themselves. He literally made it an open option for his friends to just up and kill him if they truly couldn't forgive him (which at that point was more reasonable of a time because the war was still new and people didn't know if they could trust him with this specific appointment yet. By later in the story I don't think it would have been as reasonable for someone to try to kill him after he'd already been proving himself).
In other words, nobody did it. Everyone, literally everyone, backed off and respected Dimitri's decision (and technically Sylvain and Matthias' as well). None of those people, even when given open opportunity, turned a weapon on him. Not one. These people all gave him a chance. These are the same people he died fighting for, and for himself to be able to feel like he was fighting and dying for what he would have to begin with if he hadn't been disinherited - Faerghus and its people.
In the end Miklan was in both rank and heart a top ranking commander of Faerghus and he both appreciated it and knew he appreciated it. He was looking forward to the future Dimitri would bring, basically saying that he thinks Dimitri is a fool ("weak-willed") for it but that he now believes in it too. If anyone wants to try arguing those points, I have receipts as the young folk call them, fresh from Miklan himself about his feelings about it as spoken to Catherine and Shamir!
Miklan fought for the future he was hoping to see, and he died protecting that future. Again, not something he by any means whatsoever had to do. He was tasked with guarding the fortress, but was never told to lay down his life defending it. After years and years of being hateful and angry, he finally had some peace of mind and hope for what he could be. He was loyal to Dimitri in the end because Dimitri was loyal to him - that is, he kept his word and Miklan was able to thrive in Dimitri's society without being a bandit or having to worry about his future because of his status.
Like Dimitri said, the only thing holding him down by that point were his past mistakes. It was up to Miklan to do something about that for himself with the opportunity he was given to fix it. Dimitri said here, fix it, and Miklan said okay, and worked to fix it. For me the saddest part is that he didn't even get enough time to properly fix it and be able to be free of his past. He died for Faerghus though, with his dying words being that he was able to buy them time (to arrive and fight back against the attacking Empire). That's not something someone who holds a resentful grudge would say in their last moments. He was grateful he managed to buy the other fighters time, even though it cost him his life.
hopes was a dumpster fire a whole lot of times but its incorporation of miklan into the plot was not one of them. miklan fire emblem my love you will live on in my heart and in my fics. i am also deeply grateful to hopes for uh i guess hopes-canonizing (hopesonizing???) basically every one of my headcanons about him before the game came out.
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