#I do not necessarily believe that Maedhros ever really understood many of Elrond's actions

[thesummerestsolstice]

By the time Elrond leaves for Gil-Galad's camp, he's also been handling most of the healing at Amon Ereb for years. Few of the Feanorians can heal any more, bloodstained as they are, and even as a youth, it's clear that Elrond is remarkably talented at it.

Many of the Feanorians use sleeping draughts. Some of them, especially the former thralls, are plagued by nightmares. Maglor and Maedhros are so burnt out by the oath at this point that they can barely sleep at all.

Elrond is the one who mixes the medicine, quietly in the little room they've started calling the apothecary. No one watches. He gathers most of his own herbs too, from the gardens inside the fortress or the decaying land around it– no one goes with him, because the elves will be noticed by Morgoth's forces and attacked, but somehow, Elrond always slips by unnoticed.

Elrond leaves to get supplies. Elrond comes back. Elrond makes the sleeping draught, every afternoon. Maglor and Maedhros– and plenty of others– drink it without question every evening. They wake up the next morning, and there Elrond is, smiling and asking how they slept.

To most of the Feanorians, who've already started whispering about Elrond's kindness, this doesn't seem strange.

But Maedhros wonders. Maedhros knows that it would be near impossible to tell if the herbal draught had been tampered with. Maedhros knows that many of the herbs around Amon Ereb are poisonous, even lethal. Maedhros knows that the forested lands around Amon Ereb, sick as they are, would gladly shelter Elrond and Elros all the way to Gil-Galad's camp.

Maedhros knows all these things. What he doesn't know is why. Why Elrond stays, why Elrond helps them. And part of him– the part worn down by everything that's already happened to him– is suspicious of that. But he still takes the sleeping draught every night. And Elrond is still there every morning. And Maedhros never quite works up the courage to ask.