#the feanorians were probably known for that look

[kirishism]

Maitimo and Maedhros study that turned into art progression im very satisfied with

#silmarillion #maedhros feanorion #maitimo #russandol #hes MY sad wet kinslayer #ive also been thinking about the 'eyes of a killer' concept #and with the elves' whole thing about being able to see your soul through your eyes #the feanorians were probably known for that look #my art

[youareunbearable]

Thinking about the Nauglamir, as one does, and just, like I know I have a bias as an Indigenous woman who's historical artifacts are often stolen and who's peoples' treaties and promises are typically disregarded by other authority figures and whose ancestors were treated like animals and hunted for sport but God Thingol fucking sucks in that tale (and in general)

Like I've always kinda disliked Thingol, gives off major White Settler vibes but this whole tale is so tragic when you look at it through an Indigenous lens

We start off with a friendship. Good old Finrod Badger man himself, hears about his cousin Caranthir doing business with a new type of people that Love Gems just like the Noldor! Hes Thrilled!! He meets with the people, Dwarves, and while they are a lot shorter and got more hair than the Men he met, they become fast friends.

He talks about his travels and mentions that he fell in love with the art style of Thingol's domain. The Dwarves are uneasy, cause they have bad history with Thingol's people, but inform Finrod that Actually We Made That. Finrod is Over The Moon and commissions them to make one for him too. As a show of faith, they allow him to build it on a mountain that has history to them and Finrod, you know he would be, is respectful of this and pays them their due and more through Elf goods and more trade then they normally would have

Nargothrond is done and Finrod is super impressed with their skills and commissions them again. This time, to make a necklace of the gems he personally carried over from Valinor. The Dwarves would understand the importance of these gems, they're literally Family Jewels and one of the only things Finrod has left of his homeland

So the Nauglamir is made. From Noldor gems and Dwarvish skill and shared friendship and memories of both parties. Its an agreement, a contract, a visual showcase of the friendship and alliance between the Dwarves and the Noldor.

(My people did this to. We made visual agreements. Wampum belts. Each shell bead took 1 whole day of hard labour to make and these belts had hundreds of them. They're symbolic and important as well as a beautiful showcase of skill and craftsmanship. They are almost always made between friendly nations)

Then we have Azaghal. Who was saved by Maedhros and had a great friendship with him. They exchanged gifts, worked together on an alliance, and probably traded tales with each other. Azaghal and his people would have known why the Noldor are here in Beleriand. They would have known the importance of the Silmarils to the Noldor, to the Feanorians especially. They could avenge their fallen kings, stop the evil from spreading, complete their Oath, and go home. Azaghal was even willing to give up his life, and the lives of his men, to help Maedhros get a Silmarils back.

Finrod is dead. The Noldor are weak and scattered. Maedhros is displaced from his home in Himring, and all the gossip they hear about him is that he's a shell of the Elf he used to be before the Noldor High King died.

A group of Dwarves are ordered to come to Doriath on Thingol's behalf. "Add this gem to this necklace" theyre told. Its a beautiful necklace. Its a beautiful gem. They start to do as they are told but things aren't sitting right with the Dwarven smiths. An older one notices first.

On the necklace with the beautiful and feather light gems, they notice a little sigil on the clasp. Its a Dwarven Smith sigil. They know the only work that smith did with Elven gems was Finrod’s Nauglamir. The smiths whisper amongst themselves in a frantic hiss. Why would the king of the Sindar Elves, one who has vocally stated his dislike and distrust of the Noldor, have Finrod’s necklace that THEY made for him out of friendship?

They turn to the strange gem they've been told to set within the Nauglamir. Its brilliant, beautiful, and glows with an inner light that is so very Elvish. One smith mentions the tale of Finrod, how he died helping Beren and Luthien get a Silmaril. The same Silmaril that the Noldor, and the Feanorians, need. The one their kings died to help them get.

One of the Dwarves feels sick. These are stolen goods. Goods literally taken from a grave and from their allies enemy and given to another that literally wouldn't even spit on them when they burned. Thingol cannot have these goods, from the perspective of the Dwarves, they aren't his. The Silmaril, well, maybe you could make an argument, but the Nauglamir? No way, it was stolen from a literal graveyard of a Noldor city and the person who gave it to him had no right or claim to it ever.

So the Dwarves tell him this. And Thingol is furious. He says, and I quote: "How do ye of uncouth race dare to demand aught of me, Elu Thingol, Lord of Beleriand, whose life began by waters of Cuivienen years uncounted ere the fathers of the stunted people awoke?" And goes nuts. He's throwing out slurs, he's trying to pull a Karen, definitely claiming Manifest Destiny which is so wild and kicks them out without even paying for their labour. For their craft, their skill, their time. He doesn't acknowledge the unwritten treaty of friendship by completing this craft of unimaginable skill.

So they take it back. Sure Thingol died, but he is a thrice over thief at this point and no friend of the Dwarves or their allies.

Then Mr vegan "ill never harm or eat a living being" murders all the Dwarves that are trying to go back home with their rightful due. But what would Beren know about that anyways, he clearly has no head or mind about whats right or wrong as he himself finds it easy to cash in a favour from a king not to help resettle his displaced people, but to ask this king to sacrifice his own men and life to help him get married.

When Doriath is sacked by the Feanorians, oh I bet the Dwarves were pleased. I bet some of them even joined, what with being allies of the Noldor and all. The Dwarves hate the Elves, but not the Noldor who were loyal and trustworthy friends. Who paid and honored their skills and craft, who were cheated by the Sindar just as much as they were. Who fought and bled and died fighting evil while the Sindar stayed behind in their girdle

It was Silverfist Celebrimbor himself, a Noldor and a Feanorian who continued with their relationship. Who gave them rings of power to solidify that relationship. Shame he was betrayed, be he didn't mean harm.

By the third age its a shame the Noldor are the smaller group of Elves in middle earth. They would have helped Durin’s Folk more. The Elves and Dwarves might of had a better relationship. I'm sure Elrond tried, and some Dwarves were warmer to him on account of being adopted sons of Maedhros and Maglor. Buts hes also Thingol's blood, and that is a blood memory type of mistrust.

#Silmarillion #silm #amber rambles #thingol #Nauglamir #maedhros #Azaghal #Im a dirty Feanorian apologists solely cause i hate thingol #get his sir john a Mcdonald ass OUTTA HERE #hes got SUCH a colonizer mindset its shit #also beren and Luthien are sooooooooo white ppl romance coded #if u know u know

[annoyinglandmagazine]

Gil Galad heaved a sigh ‘and we were doing so well. I mean, apart from you stabbing Oropher last month-’ and Elrond cut him off ‘Oropher deserved it. I’ve made clear to him so many times that I do not intend to overthrow him yet he persists to-’ at this point Elrond was at a high risk of going off on a rant and, not wishing to get to sidetracked, Gil Galad interrupted.

‘Yes, yes, please save it for later. Our weekly bitching about Oropher meeting isn’t until Friday. I’m sure you were entirely justified in threatening to castrate the king of Greenwood.’ This reminded him this weeks session would probably need even more wine than normal. He better remember to stock up.

‘Oh believe me I was,’ in a tone that definitely was not at all terrifying. Yep, definitely a story there. ‘So back to the matter at hand,’ Gil Galad continued pacing back and forth, ‘what are we going to do about Galadriel?’ ‘Well if we’re lucky we won’t have to do anything at all.’

‘When has a high king of the Noldor ever been lucky Elrond? Please, I need realistic options.’ Elrond fell back into the bed, staring at the ceiling and reaching for Gil Galad’s secret stock of wine he shouldn’t have known about. ‘Well I don’t know, kill her? I really don’t know what sort of options you want here. Like, where is this on the solve at all costs scale?’

‘It is nowhere on that scale! That scale does not apply! We are not using that scale!’ Elrond rolled his eyes, loosening the braids that held his hair up, ‘it’s a helpful scale. It tells me whether you’ll excuse kinslaying or if I just have to make do with arson.’ ‘Neither! We are doing neither! Do you really think this being my herald’s first train of thought will convince Galadriel that we have your people under control?’

‘Why are they my people. They swore allegiance to you.’ ‘No they swore allegiance to you. Contrary to popular belief that is not the same thing. Do you know how bad it looks to Galadriel to have this many Feanorians in my city without even an oath of allegiance?’

‘I have them under control.’ ‘Yes that’s what I’m worried about.’ This was met with a pillow being thrown at his face. ‘You know I’d never risk actually becoming king. We can just- deny, deny ,deny.’

‘What like, no I’m afraid I can’t see the star of Feanor, Galadriel, I have no idea what you’re talking about?’ ‘I mean we’ve had worse plans.’ ‘I hate that you’re right.’

#Silmarillion #tolkien #elrond and gil galad #gil galad #elrond peredhel #feral elrond #galadriel #feanorians

[officialfeanorianblog]

So hear me out - but if the feanorians were in our time, they would absolutely have some form of mental health difficulties/things they struggle with, (putting aside whether or not they had smthing like adhd for the second) and this would be very easily shown through their actions, and you could see it in the way they responded to things.

For example, Over-Achieving Perfectionist Feanor- never fully satisfied, constantly needing to be better, best, in everything he did and having tunnel vision when it came to doing that (not in the sense that he can't focus on anything else, simply just that which would effect him reaching his goal).

Compartmentalizing Maedhros- as the eldest child, and one who spent a lot of time doing things for others/having to look out for other people throughout his life, I think that (especially after Angband, but even before) he would find it really difficult to focus on things negatively effecting him unless it would effect his brothers, and would rather just throw it in his mental box for later.

I think that Maglor probably had attatchment issues, I think that with Elrond and Elros a lot is said about potentially he and Mae trying to heal the gaping hole left by their brothers' death, but I also think that for him, as the second eldest, he spent a lot of time helping and looking after his younger brothers, (though not in the same way Mae did) but also spent almost his entire life (depending on what you think of the timeline) with Mae to lean on and depend on, to be the older brother, and with them all dying and the pain of the silmarils that he struggles not to get attached to others.

Celegorm I like to think not necessarily struggles with social interaction, but as he prefers to and does spend the majority of the time outside, with animals and with only his close family for company (i do think he had someone he hunted with but can't remember) and so when he did have to be in large groups with other people would find it awkward as he isn't in the woods anymore, and so he has to behave differently.

Caranthir I think, as the middle child, probably struggles with being surrounded by his wonderful sibilings, (not that he isn't also amazing, I love them all) with wonderfully diplomatic Mae, charismatic and creative Mags, Celegorm with his skill in nature and with animals, Curi of course has his smithing (and I'll speak on that in a sec, but it's time for Cara) and the twins are known as the funny tricksters, and he struggled to find a place for himself. He's normally described as either angry (but that also applies to Curi, Celegorm, and Feanor) and/or as very smart and scholarly (which can also apply to Feanor and Mae, at least in my understanding of these characters ofc) and so finding that space, similarly to Faenor's fears of being replaced by his dad (which I do think caused his perfectionism) was a very large part of his personality.

I think Curufin's issues are spoken about quite easily, but just to add my thoughts, I think that his fear of being like his dad his whole personality probably caused a lot of resentment, and feeling not good enough. I think he probably would have a lot of internalised anger at everyone, and although I do think he did genuinely believe in the Oath (probably the only one who actually did, at least for the majority of it) I think right before he died (and I did see another post though I can't remember who by, if I do I'll tag them but it was brilliant and based off this) and saw his brother's death, that was when he realised that his dad was wrong. I think that was mentally damaging and probably when in Mandos caused him to have slightly difficult trust issues, particularly with Feanor, as he saw it as a personal affront, after all, if he's just like Feanor, and Feanor messed everything up this badly, then what does that make him?

Ambarussa- honestly I think that their main concern would be an identity crisis, with being referred to as Ambarussa, or as the twins they'd feel that they had to be funny or memorable to get people to like them/see them as people, including their own family, and that would cause issues with their relationships later down the line as they would assume that nobody actually liked them, and that they had to work to be liked.

#house of feanor #sons of feanor #silmarillion #maedhros #feanor #maglor #celegorm #curufin #caranthir #ambarussa #amrod #amras #headcanon #mental health

[elerondo]

Sea Longing and the person of Elwing

[The Silmarillion, Of The Coming Of The Elves] At the last, therefore, the Valar summoned the Quendi to valinor, there to be gathered at the knees of the Powers in the light of the Trees for ever; and Mandos broke his silence, saying: ‘So it is doomed.’ From this summons came many woes that afterwards befell. But others of the Eldar there were who set out indeed upon the westward march, but became lost upon the long road, or turned aside, or lingered on the shores of Middle-earth; and these were for the most part of the kindred of the Teleri, as is told hereafter. They dwelt by the sea, or wandered in the woods and mountains of the world, yet their hearts were turned towards the West.

Due to the first summons of the Valar, all Eldar -whether or not they liked it- will have their hearts turned to the West. Not just the ones born on Cuivienen in the Elder Days, who were present at the speech of Ingwe, Finwe, and Elwe, but also any other elf who came much later. A prominent example is Legolas.

Sea-longing* is dangerous and it is not a choice. In order to go West, you either travel there by ship, or you die. Either way, the elves will remove themselves from Arda.

It is an unfortunate fate then, that out of a whole host of Doriathrim, it was Elwing who had the most association with the sea and the West.

How many people died before she was even 5 years old? Menegroth fell. Her parents died. Her brothers taken, thrown away, and probably also died. Should she count herself fortunate to be alive? Should she surrender the only thing that her parents left her?

If it were not for her husband and children, she would have faded into the West before the last stone of Doriath crumbled.

The same things that kept Legolas in Middle-Earth when the sea-longing found its dreaded way into his heart: Emotional connections.

Legolas stayed in Middle-Earth because of Aragorn and Gimli, no matter how much the cries of the gulls tore his heart. Elwing stayed in Sirion, despite all of the above tearing her young heart asunder, because she still had connections. Honestly, if she had no cares of Elrond and Elros, she could have gone after Earendil with the Silmaril, sparing her the agony of watching her sons taken before her very eyes.

She had the Silmaril (which bore the same Light of the Trees the Valar so wanted the elves to worship) and a husband (lost at sea for the longest time) whom she loved so much that when he loved the realm, so did she too, and found it in her heart to look over the great tragedies of the Teleri, in order to convince them to sail their ships for the host of the Valar, which in it was counted the Noldor.

The ability to forgive, her character progression from desperation to leader, then the belief in second chances: Elrond definitely has strong notes of Elwing in him.

Headcanon: Being an elf, would there have been people to console her? To tell her that everyone has passed into the Halls of Mandos, and there they will be comforted and in time, will meet again in the shores of Valinor? Doesn’t sound too bad to Elwing, right? It is a promise that she will meet all her beloved ones again.

Would Elwing have known that a Feanorian would be kind to her children? Like they had been “kind” to Elured and Elurin?

Elwing only cast herself into the sea after Elrond and Elros are kidnapped. Prior to this, we have no information if she loved her sons as much as she loved Earendil. But we do know that she loves, due to her actions after she was bore out of the sea by Ulmo. ELWING LIVED ON despite all conditions were fulfilled for her sea-longing to either take her or fade her.

Elwing's tenacity in the legendarium is quite literally every single headcanon related to "Thranduil didn't fade because of Legolas"

And consider this: she refused to surrender the Silmaril which remind her of her parents. Would she have surrendered her sons who remind her of Earendil whom she loved? It is difficult to say she did not love Elrond and Elros because we have no proof of this. But we do have canon proof of the extent of her love and power to forgive. Plus… her charisma to convince the Falmari? Elrond and Elros, both leaders of their races, definitely inherited that from her.

I will end off this post with an excerpt from this other post about similarities between Maedhros and Elwing*

Elwing would rather die than give up the silmaril, than let Maedhros reap the rewards of her father’s murder, her mother’s, her young brothers. I’ll die before you triumph over me - and she jumps. That’s something Maedhros can recognize - you won’t take me alive - that fear, that desperation. It is not just her possession of the silmaril for which he envies her. Neither of them would seem prone to half measures! Elwing’s intended suicide was Maedhros’s Nirnaeth: a last-ditch effort, far reaching and hopeless. Maedhros’s suicide was born from overwhelming despair as opposed to Elwing’s desperation. But they are still the only two of the Eldar to have actively chosen their own destruction. For a lost cause. For the family members they’ve lost, the family members they’ve failed. For their inability to protect, their inability to defeat the evil in their lives. For the lack of a solution to their pain.

The Feanorians killed everyone, they won’t kill me too. I will go West the only way I know how, and meet my family, there I will be reunited with my sons if the fate of the Eldar holds true.

Unfortunately, she will never see Elros again.

#elwing #elrond #elros #the silmarillion #tolkien's legendarium #maedhros #suicide mention #kidnapping tw #suicide tw

[transsexualhamlet]

for the sensory asks 1 and 14 for any feanorian

hehehehehe it is fëanorian week isnt it

ask game

1- Their most visually striking feature

I think all of them have quite 'severe' features, the sort of sharpness and hardness to the face that comes from descending from fëanor that translates so well into people's memories as frightening. That and their glowing eyes. All of the calaquendi have those of course and I think that's probably pretty wild to witness. I think the eyes of Fëanor himself were much brighter than is normal to the point that by the time he died you could not see his pupils, but this was not something inherited by his sons because that was just his own personal insanity.

Everyone knows about Maedhros. Everything about Maedhros is striking. I mean look at him. *gestures at my imagination*

For Maglor, I think it's the length of his hair. I imagine this man with shampoo commercial hair. This just stunning jet black slick mane that trails basically all the way to the floor, it's longer than Fëanor's, which was also Very Long. It's not as noticable or remarked upon in Valinor because it was usually braided and it's somewhat normal in Valinor to have the luxury to maintain ultralong hair. This is not the case in Beleriand. I think over time he loses the motivation to do anything with his hair and it just hangs loose and ridiculously long and kind of unkempt. Cue guy walking sadly along beach with 7 feet of windswept tangled hair. Also I think he has really deep eye bags. He looks like he hasn't slept in 20 years . He kind of looks like Míriel.

14- Their favorite type of music

Well I must admit there are only so many types of music in first age Beleriand, though I suppose Valinor could have gotten pretty weird with it. Wish I could say something crazy like "electrofunk" but well they dont know what an electricity is.

I think Maglor has probably played every instrument known to society and plenty more, (except percussion which he always wants one of the brothers to accompany him with) but despite it the same personal style seems to come through to it. Some of the brothers love it and some of them I think have gotten a little tired of it.

Maedhros certainly prefers it. He's one of those guys who will wholeheartedly be like 'no one understands music except this guy right here.' The two of them have the Oldest Siblings bond because I think it was just the two of them for quite a while before the others came along.

Something that stands out about them is that none of the Fëanorians are very passionate about the Beautiful Choirs Of Valinor which everyone is always talking about (those being made up of Maiar). Pretty much every other high elf is like yeah thats the peak of music. Not the Fëanorians! They're Special. Maglor loves to say his favorite music is 'The Sounds The World Makes.' He would have loved to sample ambient nature noises and remix them but sadly none of that in ye olde middle earth. Celegorm and Curufin love very fast and upbeat stuff that gets you Pumped Up. they would love going to the gym /neg

Caranthir is an "I just don't really like music" guy all the way until he realizes he just sort of doesn't like the way elves make music. And I think the twins are also Maglor stans but somehow in an entirely different way than Maedhros is and they actually have arguments about what makes Maglor's music so top of the line.

#rowan gets yelled at #ask game #love the feanorians big fans of the feanorians

[grey-gazania]

Six Sentence Not-Sunday

Tagged by the lovely @welcomingdisaster, who asked me to post a whole scene rather than 6 sentences!

From the Feanorian-child-observing-Elrond-and-Elros ficlet:

I didn’t know, when my father readied himself for battle and rode west with our lords, whether or not he would return. My mother, who was spared from going to the Havens of Sirion by her bad leg, tried to assure my brother and me that he would come home to us, but while Nelmir, only eight years old, was easily convinced, I was more skeptical. I was forty, not a small child anymore, and I was old enough to remember how many of our soldiers had been lost in the attack on Doriath.

Doriath was where my mother had been crippled.

Pretend, Ólloth, Nana had pleaded when I finally confronted her with my doubts. Pretend for your brother's sake. So I pretended, though my heart was sick with worry.

We were lucky; though the group that returned from the Havens of Sirion was much smaller than the group that had set out, my father was among them – wounded, yes, but blessedly alive. Nana didn’t let us see him right away – she left me in our rooms to mind Nelmir – but once Ada’s injuries had been treated, she brought him up, and my brother and I greeted him with enthusiasm.

I didn’t need to ask whether we had succeeded in reclaiming the Silmaril. The looks on Lord Maedhros and Lord Maglor’s faces when they had led the party back to Amon Ereb, missing over half their soldiers and Lords Amrod and Amras, had been confirmation in and of themselves. This attempt had ended in failure, just like Doriath.

I wondered if we even had the strength left to try again.

But I didn’t ask; my brother was in the room with me, and he knew little of our lords’ quest to regain Prince Fëanor’s most wondrous creations. He was too young, my parents said, to comprehend the full weight of the quest and the Oath that drove it. And they were probably right. I had been Nelmir’s age when my parents had gone to war against the thief Dior in Doriath, and at the time my own understanding of the event had been patchy and uncertain. Ada and Nana had explained things to me gradually as I’d grown older and become more capable of grasping subtleties.

I had always known that Morgoth and his monstrous servants were our enemies, but it had taken some time for me to understand that, though they were elves like us, the Iathrim, too, were our foes.

My brother clearly wanted to regale our father with everything that had happened while he had been away, but Ada was wounded and tired, and soon Nana was ushering my brother from the room.

“Why does Ólloth get to stay?” I heard Nelmir demand in a petulant whine just as Nana closed the door. But our mother’s response was too muffled to be understood.

“You didn’t get it, did you?” I asked quietly, once it sounded as though Nelmir was out of earshot.

Ada shook his head and tried to sit up a little straighter, wincing at the pain in his injured arm.

“No,” he said, and his exhaustion was audible. “Elwing cast herself into the sea with the jewel. It’s lost to us, for now.”

It seemed that the princess of the Iathrim was even more foolish than her father had been. Not only had she refused to negotiate with our lords, she hadn’t even sent the gem elsewhere the way Dior had. And she’d chosen to destroy herself rather than yield the Silmaril to its rightful owners. Though I had never met the woman, I couldn’t help viewing her with disdain.

“For now?” I asked. “You think it could be recovered some day?”

Ada glanced at the door and then lowered his voice, as though he was worried Nelmir might have his ear pressed against the keyhole. “We didn’t come back completely empty-handed,” he said. “Elwing left her sons behind, and Lord Maedhros and Lord Maglor took them as hostages. The hope is that if anyone near the Havens or on Balar finds the Silmaril, they’ll trade it for their princes’ safe return.”

“Elwing’s sons are here?” I said, feeling as though the world had just rocked beneath my feet. “How old are they?” I didn’t think they could be all that old, as Elwing had been a small child when our lords had gone to war with Doriath. 

“Six, apparently,” Ada said. “But they’re only half-elven, so who knows what that means. They act like they’re a little older than your brother.” He shifted against the pillows, clearly seeking a more comfortable position, and I reached out to help him. As I leaned closer, I caught a whiff of the healing herbs that Melloth must have used to cleanse his wound.

“You’ll meet them tomorrow,” Ada continued. “Lord Maglor is going to leave them in your care for part of the morning, while you watch Nelmir and Arthoron. Hopefully they’ll make friends. My lords don’t intend to mistreat the boys in any way. They only want to keep them here until the Silmaril is found. But you mustn’t tell your brother the details, do you understand, Ólloth? He’s too young to grasp what’s going on.”

“Of course, Ada,” I reassured him. “My lips are sealed.”

But I had to admit, I was curious about these half-elven princes of the Iathrim, and I wondered how quickly they would adapt to life at Amon Ereb. We were a single keep, and our people numbered less than two hundred now. We hunted, and fished, and farmed enough grain and herded enough sheep to keep us fed and clothed, but we had no city nor ocean fleet like the elves at the Havens of Sirion. We had no allies, either. I wondered if the boys would be able to adjust to our kind of life, a life lived in the margins.

Tagging @sallysavestheday, @thelordofgifs, @elfscribe, @polutrope, @leucisticpuffin, @emyn-arnens, @ermingarden, @hhimring, @eleneressea, @nelyoslegalteam, @zealouswerewolfcollector, and anyone else who wants to join in - @ me and say I tagged you!

#dash games

[polutrope]

Hey hey! For the Writer Ask:

7. Which character(s) do you find most difficult to write?

15. Have you ever daydreamed about side adventures/spin-offs from your fic? Tell us about them!

21. Copy and paste an excerpt you’re particularly fond of.

😁.

Thank you for the ask!

7. This may surprise some, but in terms of pov, it's Maglor. I have too many thoughts, he's a slippery guy as it is, and I am burdened by self-imposed pressure to do something original and nuanced. I find him so much easier to write from someone else's pov... probably because I experience him like a curious specimen preserved in glass... or some sexymysterious horriblebadnews man I'd never allow within 1km irl hahaha).

Which means I keep ending up writing Maedhros, the second most difficult character to write.

15. Off the top of my head, I'd like to write a one-shot sequel to Ungoliant's Bane where Elrond and Elros are adults watching their dad battle Ancalagon in the sky.

21. This one from Who By Fire. I'm proud of this fic overall, I tackled a lot of complex subjects and a complex relationship and I think I pulled it off.

Here, Fingolfin finds out the Feanorian who was found wounded near his camp is his nephew.

The resemblance would not have been obvious to one who had not spent a lifetime studying, envying every one of Fëanáro’s features. This elf was of slighter build, the line of his jaw softer, his brows less pronounced, and his hair not long and raven black but dull brown, cropped short. But the arching cheekbones, the slant of his nose, even the shape of his mouth—those were Fëanáro’s.

The bitterness of betrayal had corrupted Nolofinwë’s perception of his brother. Years of grinding resentment had erased all memory of Fëanáro’s faultless beauty and replaced it with a man whose visage was as ugly as his deeds. The image of Fëanáro that he held in his thoughts when at last he set foot in Endor was smeared with ash and cracked with frost. But looking upon this elf, that taint was washed clean. All at once he could recall his brother’s face as vividly as if it were him, and not his son, on the cot before him.

The elf’s lips quirked up at the corners; that, too, like his father. “Uncle Nolofinwë. Well met.” His smirk turned to a grimace as he dragged himself up to sit with his back against the wall.

Nolofinwë rushed to assist him, and his chest tightened again when his hand closed around the other’s arm, as if surprised to find that he was indeed present, and real.

He hesitated. How could he ask, Which one are you? The Little or the Last? The twins were near-strangers to him, born when the rift between him and Fëanáro was already too wide for Nolofinwë to have ever known them as children, and they had been mere shadows following behind their brothers on the march from Tirion.

Nolofinwë had never shared private words with either of them; never, in fact, looked into their eyes until now.

“Nephew,” said Nolofinwë, and seated himself on a stool opposite the cot. “I am glad to see you are recovering from your injuries.”

Fëanáro’s son scoffed. “Yes, fortunate for me that I am, apparently, to all but you, unrecognisable—I doubt I would be recovering so well if your healers knew who I was.”

Much as he did not wish to believe it, the same thought had crossed Nolofinwë’s mind. “I will ensure no one learns it.”

“That is probably wise. It would not look good if I died in your camp, would it? But don’t expect that saving my life will put them in your debt, either.”

“That is not why—”

“They will not even notice I am gone. Well—Pityo might, but he is used to my prolonged absences. And I do not plan to tell them I was here.”

He was Telufinwë, then. The Last Finwë, he’d been called, though he had been born when Anairë was carrying Arakáno. How like Fëanáro, Nolofinwë had thought, to use the naming of his own son to assert, as he had with his firstborn, that his lineage was the legitimate one. How like him to sacrifice his children on the altar of his pride.

But was Nolofinwë any better? That is what he had asked himself, when he held Arakáno’s limp body in his arms, already long emptied of life: Had it not been pride that had driven Nolofinwë to lead his child to his death?

He asked himself this again, watching Fëanáro’s youngest adjust himself on the bed, his bandages stained with blood. Telufinwë was not dead, but he was broken. A man who was whole did not set out alone in pursuit of a merciless predator. Only a man who held his life at naught would dare such a hunt.

#asks #fic writer asks #cuarthol #fingolfin #amrod

[imakemywings]

Fandom: The Silmarillion

Relationship: Maglor/Thranduil, Maedhros/Maglor

Summary: All is not as it seems when Thranduil enters the ancestral Feanorian estate, but he fails to fully comprehend the scale and nature of the risk. If he’s very lucky, one day he might even get to leave.

Response to this kink meme prompt.

AO3 | Pillowfort | SWG

Photo credit to Zach Lezniewicz on Unsplash.

Previous chapter | END

Maedhros found it amusing, to be in the attic once more, hiding their trysts as they once had when first they had begun this after their return to Formenos, as though the ghosts of Mother and Father might burst through the walls of the master bedroom and accuse them of doing exactly what they were doing (And somehow, this was not a risk in the attic? It was hard to say they had been thinking clearly in those days.) Maglor found it distasteful. But it had been weeks since he had gone to bed with Maedhros, and he knew he could not keep putting him off, and also he needed him to be in as relaxed and amiable a mood as possible for the next several days, with his paranoia resting quiet. Maglor had not told him that he had arranged a home visit with a doctor for Thranduil. It was possible, of course, that Thranduil’s physiology might reveal something incriminating, but Maglor hoped that a week since he had told Thranduil to stop drinking the tea (as it would be by the time the physician arrived) would be enough to flush most of it from his system. What he really needed to know was whether there was a chance Thranduil might still live, or whether Maglor had waited too long to act, and had doomed him already.

Anyway, to sate Maedhros, they had to be somewhere with privacy assured.

            No words passed between them as Maedhros mouthed as his neck, one hand palming between his legs. Some dull spark struggled to catch in Maglor’s body, as if some part of him remembered that Maedhros had once brought him pleasure and was trying to reach for the feeling he had known then. But his mind drifted downstairs, to where Thranduil was probably curled up in an armchair somewhere with his bloody handkerchief and rasping breath, garden plot sketches abandoned, hoping that Maglor might come by and engage him in conversation for a few minutes, or hold onto him while he napped. He imagined that if he went down now, and asked Thranduil to talk about what he was reading, or offered to push him around the yard, that Thranduil might even smile at him or let Maglor kiss his lovely cheek.

            Maedhros’ teeth scraped against the flesh of Maglor’s throat and he sighed: “Not too hard.” There was an entitlement with which Maedhros touched him, as if there were no chance Maglor would ever refuse him, that was absent with Thranduil, who touched him as if he had no right, and therefore must work to earn it.

            Maedhros cupped his hand around Maglor through his trousers and squeezed him a little and Maglor let out a slow breath, closing his eyes and remembering the night Thranduil had made love to him in the house with Maedhros sleeping above and at thismemory his body stirred at last with real interest.

            “Sing the song,” Maedhros murmured, his prosthetic pressed against Maglor’s lower back. With a soft sigh, Maglor began to sing low, slow, lilting—an old lullaby which Father had once sung to them, which Maedhros had sung to Maglor as a child, which Maglor had used to soothe Maedhros after their return to Formenos. Maedhros must have found it comforting, for he often requested Maglor sing it in moments like this.

            Thus distracted, they were unprepared to have the door flung open. Maglor scrambled to find some more decent position to be in that did not involve his brother’s hand on his crotch, but Maedhros did not twitch an eyelid, and when Maglor looked at him, he was smiling.

            “Caught on, have you?” he said.

            Thranduil’s breast was pumping as if he had run up the stairs, and his face was stricken. He threw something down hard on the floor between them, which Maglor did not recognize, but Maedhros did.

            “Tch. Now, didn’t I tell you to stay out of the cellar?” Maedhros said, rising to his feet, not troubling himself to draw his house robe closed and cover his arousal. “This was a bad choice, Maglor. You picked one who reads Cirth, didn’t you? Let me guess: this one was educated in Doriath. Found Elwing’s little book of notes, didn’t he?”

            “Youare despicable,” Thranduil spat. Maedhros laughed.

            “Oh, you’ll have to try harder than that.” He strode towards Thranduil, his unbound hair streaming behind him; Maglor couldn’t see what happened then, but Thranduil must have retreated, for Maedhros went further down the hall. Maglor jumped up and ran after them.

            “You want to run? This is what you married into!” Maedhros called. “This is what I am. What he is. This is our family. Did you think he was something soft, something tender? Did you think he cared for you? That he wanted you? What a good liar he is!” Maedhros followed Thranduil down the stairs. “You have always been a tool for us,” Maedhros said as he reached the landing of the second floor.

            “What happened to my father?” Thranduil demanded, coming to a halt, hands curled into fists at his sides.

            “He found us out,” said Maedhros, and Maglor felt queasy with the relish in his voice. Maedhros was enjoying this—enjoying telling Thranduil things that would make him hate Maglor forever. “So I took care of it, just like I take care of everything for dear little Maglor. You should have seen the look on his stupid old face when I smashed it into the sink after he thought he’d gotten the upper hand with me.”

            Thranduil did not care to have his emotions show, this Maglor knew, and his natural expression was such that they usually did not, but then they burst across his mien like the sunrise: the pain, followed by the flare of anger quickly and entirely eclipsed with grief.

            “He was going to the Beleriand Botanical Society’s convention in the spring,” he said, his voice tight with the effort at controlling it. Maglor remembered the conversation they’d had after Thranduil had been forced to identify Oropher’s mangled face. At the time, Maglor considered how awfully shaken he was to be a boon—it gave Maglor the chance to comfort him and so tie Thranduil closer to him. “He was to give a talk there. And you killed him.” But he was looking at Maglor.

            “He was pushing you away from Maglor,” said Maedhros. “And what if he had told someone about Maglor’s past marriages after we left? No, it couldn’t be helped. A necessary casualty.” At this, Thranduil’s jaw went so tight the muscles bulged. “Now—you have something that belongs to me.” Maedhros strode forward and grappled with Thranduil.  

            “No! Stop!” Maglor found his voice at last. His brother and his husband tussled for just a moment, which felt like years, and then Maedhros seized Thranduil’s right hand. With no small force, he jerked the ring Maglor had given him off of it.

“This is mine,” he snarled. “It’s mine. I earned it. I’m taking it back.” Then he shoved Thranduil back against the railing. The wood, weather-worn from the exposed hole in the ceiling, gave way, and Thranduil plummeted down to the main hall floor as Maglor screamed.

***

            He was rushing down the stairs then, towards Thranduil’s prone body.

            “Maedhros!” he cried. “What have you done?”

            “What does it matter?” Maedhros replied. “Dead now or in two weeks…what difference does it make?” In his mind, he knew Maedhros was right per their original plans—except that they still needed Thranduil’s signature on his bank papers—but not now! Not when he was so close to preventing this whole sad story from playing out a fourth time!

            As he came down the last few steps, Thranduil groaned, and Maglor’s heart leaped into his throat.

            “Thranduil,” he cried, falling to his knees beside the dazed man. “Shh, let me help you…” Wet snowflakes drifted down through the hole in the roof to melt against their skin.

            “Unhand me,” Thranduil snarled, jerking away from him, but he couldn’t hide the gasp of pain as he shifted his left foot.

            “Your ankle,” Maglor fretted. “You must let me help you.”

            “Unhand me! You killed Elwing,” he accused. “And Glorfindel, and Vanimiel.” He said no more, but the tightness of his jaw and the heat of his glare filled in what more words might have. “So that you could steal from them.”

            “Oh good, then we won’t have to resort to forgery,” said Maedhros before Maglor could formulate a reply.

            “Maedhros, don’t,” said Maglor, but Maedhros stooped down and scooped Thranduil off the ground in a bridal carry.

            “I’m taking dear brother-in-law to finish the last of his paperwork,” said Maedhros. Maedhros was bigger, but Maglor could see it was not easy for him to carry Thranduil that way; years tucked away in the house had weakened him. But Thranduil did not fight. He let Maedhros carry him upstairs to the attic, taken by a coughing fit before they reached the second floor.

            “Don’t hurt him,” Maglor called, and his voice sounded feeble even to himself.

***

            It would be useless to rage against Maedhros. Thranduil did not doubt that if pressed—and not terribly hard—he would simply bash Thranduil’s head in with a paperweight and forge his signature. If he was going to resist, it needed to be more calculated, particularly as he was now hobbled.

            “These came with Maglor’s last visit to the post office,” said Maedhros conversationally, digging into a desk drawer. The attic was freezing in spite of the brazier lit against one wall, and the air so musty it was hardly breathable.

            “How do you live with yourself?” Thranduil demanded as Maedhros smoothed the papers out in front of him. His ankle was pulsating with pain, and his elbow and ribs throbbed where they had hit the floor after he’d landed awkwardly on his foot. He was nearly certain Maedhros had sprained his finger jerking the ring off of it.

            “My entire life has been spent trying to salvage the legacy of this family,” said Maedhros. “A lifetime. I’ve seen more of my family put in the ground than you ever possessed. I have given my soul to this estate, to this family. A family which was once the greatest of the Noldor. And you ask me to weigh that less than your petty life? The choice to me is clear.” He uncapped a pen and set it down beside the forms. Then he fetched his usual dagger from where he had discarded the belt presumably for his encounter with Maglor, and replaced it around his waist.

            “Besides, Maglor needs me,” he said, taking a seat on a padded stool across the small table from Thranduil. “You don’t know him, although I imagine you realize that now. He may give you the impression he’s weak and sentimental and foolish. But I’ve seen him in his rages, in his viciousness. He’s a remarkably selfish person. Three others before you he threw into the maw of this house and he’d kick you in too if he thought it would save him. Maglor would toss an infant on the fire if he thought it would warm his toes a bit longer.

“Would it make you feel better to know he chose you? I wanted to look for another—I saw the way he fawned on you in Greenwood—but he insisted. He never paid so much attention to the others. Ah, but what does it matter to me if he wanted to bounce on your cock a few times before we secured your accounts? He is here, and soon you will be gone.”

Thranduil finally ceased his glowering to look down at the forms. There it was—one more signature and two initials from him and Maglor would be added to his account as a spouse with full access to everything Thranduil owned. This was it—the price Maglor had put on his life: the contents of his bank account, courtesy of Oropher’s murder. This was what he was worth, what his father had been worth.

Lowering his head, Thranduil put pen to paper, marking the two initials and signing his name at the bottom.

“Wonderful,” said Maedhros. He stood up to collect the papers, and as he scanned them to ensure there had been no tomfoolery, Thranduil took his chance and plunged the pen into Maedhros’ shoulder.

It succeeded in shocking him, that was one thing.

Thranduil had meant to aim for the heart though, and he was not convinced that had been a lethal strike. But it gave him a chance to run.

“You wretched little fuck,” Maedhros said, sounding more surprised and vaguely annoyed than angry. By then, and before Maedhros had time to go for his knife, Thranduil was out the door, and crashing into Maglor on his way up the stairs. Maglor caught his wrists and Thranduil’s heart sank.

***

            “Let me go!” Thranduil snarled at him, but he must know that in his current state, even Maglor could overpower him. “You miserable coward! You lied to me! Time and time again!”           

            Maglor cringed. “I did.”

            “You tried to kill me!”

            Maglor bit his lower lip and looked askance. “I did.”

            Thranduil drew in a sharp, stentorious breath and then burst out: “You said you loved me!”

            Maglor’s expression crumpled and his grasp on Thranduil’s wrists tightened. “I do!”

            This gave Thranduil pause, but not much, and Maglor could not blame him. Why should he believe a word out of Maglor’s mouth?

            “I know how wrong I have done you, I know,” Maglor babbled, at once desperate to keep talking in the hopes that as long as he continued, Thranduil would remain. “I should wish I never met you, after all the grief I have brought into your life, but I love you too terribly to wish it. Only that my part in it had been better. You make me feel…alive. I had forgotten what that felt like, and I hadn’t even realized it. I can’t change what I’ve done already, but I can try to fix what’s left. Let me deal with Maedhros.”

            Still Thranduil hesitated, weighing the risks of trusting Maglor again.

            “Can you get downstairs?” Maglor asked. “Wait for me there. I’ll send Nodien for your things.”

            “My things?” Thranduil echoed, and Maglor wondered how foggy his mind still was from the drug.

            “Yes. We can’t stay here anymore. I had called for a doctor later this week but…I think it best if we depart now. Get downstairs, alright? I’ll come down as soon as I can.” He made an aborted motion to kiss Thranduil’s cheek, but realized he was as likely to be rewarded with fingers in his eyes, and let go of him.

            It was time to have a conversation with Maedhros he should’ve had a long time ago.

***

            Maedhros was sitting on the day bed, pressing a handkerchief to what looked like an oddly-shaped stab wound just below his left shoulder in the attic.

            “Did you catch him?” he asked as soon as Maglor entered.

            “What happened?”

            “The great idiot stabbed me with the pen,” said Maedhros. “But not until after he signed the papers.” Maglor picked them up off the table, scanned them, and tossed them into the brazier.

            “What are you doing?” Maedhros demanded, staggering to his feet.

            “It’s over, Maedhros,” said Maglor. “Let it be done.”

            “So what? You’re leaving now?” That terrible wrath that came over him whenever he perceived, rightly or wrongly, that he was at risk of being left alone drew over his face then. “A few weeks with him and you would walk away from me? I have been with you since you were born, Maglor! I have done everything for you! You are killing us!”

            “We’re already dead!” Maglor screamed, trembling with the force of his voice which seemed to shake the rafters of the house. The brazier sparked and half-burned bits of paperwork slipped through the grate. “We are dead people living in a dead house clinging to dead traditions and a dead legacy…” His voice cracked and he swallowed a dry sob. “There is no life here, Maedhros! There is nothing here!”

            “Nothing?” Maedhros echoed softly, hurt flashing across his face before anger consumed it once more. “And what do you think you will find with him? You think he will love you after what you’ve done? You think he will want you after he knows how you’ve been defiled? You think he will ever stop hating you? That he will ever understand a single solitary thing about you? Only I know you! Who else your whole life has known you as I do?”

            Maglor swallowed hard.

            “I don’t know,” he whispered. But I can try. He took a step nearer. “It doesn’t need to be this way,” he urged. “I still love you. I will always love you. Don’t let’s stay here. This place is destroying us, has very nearly done it. Forget Father, forget the legacy…come with me, Maedhros. Let us leave this place behind for good. Let us have a new start. Come with us.”

            Maedhros had been listening, he was sure. He had stepped nearer, he had been receptive—until that one word left Maglor’s lips.

            Us.

            “Us? Us?” Maedhros echoed scornfully.

            “Yes,” Maglor said, talking feverishly, wringing his hands. “We can all leave, we can get away from here. We’ll find a new place to live, and there will be plenty of room for you too—”

            Maedhros laughed, hysteria edging in. Maglor remembered the wild gleam in Father’s eyes when he had leveled his blade at the Teleri standing between him and his goal. He remembered the sound of Maedhros’ voice when he ordered them to attack their own disobedient troops.

            “Oh room for me too! Isn’t that lovely! So I can hear you choking on some other man’s cock all night! So the pair of you can plan how to rid yourselves of me? Your sad, mad old brother? You said you would never leave me.” Something seemed to occur to him then, as if he were recalling his own words about what a deft liar Maglor was, and the blinding rage that came over Maedhros’ face then was awful. Maglor stepped back, but Maedhros kept pace with him. “You said you would never leave me. You betrayed me! You miserable jail-crow!” The knife in his hand flashed, but when it hit home once, twice, and then a third, final time, they both simply looked surprised. Maglor didn’t cry out, only let out a sharp intake of breath and then looked down at the knife handle protruding from his chest.

            “Maedhros?” Maglor looked up at him, and he saw the horror dawn over Maedhros’ face; he reached for the knife, but just as quickly pulled back. Maglor, unthinking, gripped the handle of the knife and pulled it out; blood spurted over his chest.

            “Maglor,” Maedhros said, his tone oddly flat. “I. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

            “It’s okay,” said Maglor.

            “I…I’m so sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking.” Maglor simply nodded and began to sink to the floor. “That was a mistake.” Maedhros knelt down alongside Maglor and pulled him into his arms.

            “Thranduil,” Maglor whispered. “He has to get out of here. Please. Help him.”

            “Of course,” said Maedhros.

            “He’s not responsible for this.”

            “No.”

            Maglor’s breathing had grown horribly shallow and painful; there was white around the edges of his vision and he had the most curious sense he could feel his spirit slipping from his body. He could no longer feel Maedhros touching him, or the floor beneath him.

            “Goodbye, Maedhros,” he murmured, closing his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

            “I’m sorry, Maglor. I’m sorry. I love you. I’m sorry. I’m sorry for everything. I’m sorry.”

***

            Thranduil supposed he waited for Maglor because he didn’t have much choice. Nodien would likely keep him here on the Feanorions’ orders even if he tried to leave, and he’d get nowhere on foot. He had no real option but to hope that this time, Maglor was genuine.

            The truth of Maedhros and Maglor’s relationship had come as a shock, and yet with that knowledge much else fell into place: Maedhros had been showing him not merely the bitterness of a displaced patriarch, but the rage of a jealous lover, who saw Maglor getting close to one with whom he was never meant to be close. Maglor’s many nights away from their bed, the uneasy way he engaged with Thranduil and Maedhros together, the way he had avoided physical intimacy between them while still seeming eager for it when it came…yes, most else of Maglor’s behavior made sense now, and what was not explained with the incestuous love affair was explained by the marriage for murder plot.

            At another time, Thranduil would have more room to turn over in his mind how it felt to be so lied to, how it felt to know Maglor had been unfaithful from the start, that he had never intended to love Thranduil, that anything true they had shared had been an accident, an aberration from his plans. For now, the bigger part of his concern needed to be focused on the fact that Maedhros and Maglor had intended to murder him from the first time he’d met them, and were more than capable of doing it.

            He thought of the others—he thought of Elwing, feeling the same things he felt now, furiously scribbling in her journal perhaps in the hopes that it might spare another her miserable end, her words protected by the alphabet of her birth which Maedhros and Maglor could not read.

            The thought returned to him again and again no matter how he tried to focus on the practical matters at hand: that Maglor had meant to kill him. Crush the life out of him with Maedhros’ poison and bury him with the others, even as he spoke sweetly and ran his comb through Thranduil’s hair. I love you so terribly, he’d said, with the bewildered intensity of one who had never intended it.

            What did love even mean to men such as these?   

            Love burns, it consumes, Maedhros had said.

            With fire is the only way my family knows how to love, Maglor had said.

            Even with these considerations in mind, though, Thranduil could not avoid coming to the same conclusion as before: he was still reliant, to some degree, on Maglor to help him get out of Formenos. Maedhros had ensured that.

            But it wasn’t Maglor who whirled down the stairs like a wraith, ablaze with wrath and wielding a three-inch knife already painted in blood, with more spattered across his face: it was Maedhros.

            “You killed him!” he bellowed at Thranduil. “You destroyed us!”

            “I didn’t touch him!” Thranduil cried, jumping too quickly to his feet, making pain shoot through his left leg. “Where is Maglor?”

            Maedhros didn’t answer; he simply charged with the knife, leaving Thranduil to throw himself out of the way and then scramble for the nearest exit, which was into the dining room, and from there into the kitchen, his ankle screaming in protest.

            “You killed him!” Maedhros howled again, diving after him. For a terrifying moment, Thranduil’s feet were on the small rug near the table where they seemed to catch no purchase, and he nearly coughed up his stomach with panic flinging himself towards the table. He seized a serrated knife that had been left there and spun to face Maedhros.

            There might have been a time when Thranduil could have held his own in a fight against Maedhros Feanorion (might). This was not it. He was badly weakened from months of drinking poison, and his injured ankle made him an easy target. But he also wasn’t convinced he’d have a better chance running.

            “I haven’t touched Maglor,” he said. “But I think you have!” Maedhros’ lips stood out red against his bloodless face, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull; he looked not a step away from the specters that haunted the mansion.

            “I took care of him,” Maedhros snarled. “I have cared for Maglor his entire fucking life and then you…you come here and you take him away from me!” Maedhros swiped at him and Thranduil sprang backwards, his body’s desperation to survive starting to weigh against the pain of moving on his feet. “He was all I had left and you took him from me!”

            “You would have let him die here!” Thranduil shouted. “You made sure he never saw a future beyond this…this fetid graveyard! You trapped him here and kept him away from anything else that might have given him joy or purpose! All so you didn’t have to be alone!”

            Maedhros bellowed incoherently and lunged again; Thranduil dodged slightly to the side and took a swing at Maedhros himself, but Maedhros simply caught the blade with his prosthetic hand and quicker than Thranduil could get it free, dropped his knife to grab Thranduil’s blade with his good hand, using dexterity the prosthetic lacked. He jerked it out of Thranduil’s grasp, hissing at the blade cut deep into his fingers. He threw it aside, behind him, and then seized from the knife block on the counter one of the cleavers they used for preparing food. He advanced again, fingers bloody around the cleaver handle. Thranduil, running out of room to back up, realized they had circled the table and he was not convinced he could now reach the kitchen door without Maedhros catching him.

When Maedhros swung at him again, Thranduil tried to dodge, but in the limited quarters he was tripped up by a chair, and the tip of the knife tore through his eyebrow and cut down across his left eye; it took a moment to register his own screaming as blood filled the left side of his vision. He fought the urge to grab at the injury as blood wept down the side of his face. While Maedhros drew back to strike again, Thranduil stumbled from the kitchen and sprinted for the front door through the foyer. He hurled his weight against it as Maedhros’ footsteps sounded behind him; his heart was crawling out his throat when he finally managed to shove it open and stumble out into the dim, frosty evening light. Snow blanketed the ground and burned his bare feet as he ran for the stables, blood gushing down his cheek.

            Maedhros was no fool though; he flanked Thranduil and tried to cut him off from a ride, his only means of escape. He chased Thranduil across the yard, past the one gnarled tree which survived on the barren hilltop, and against which Nodien had left an axe, perhaps intending to finally fell the old tree for wood. Thranduil seized it. Adrenaline surging through his body ensured he was only dimly aware of the pain in his leg or the way the cold cut through his nightdress. There was no possible way he could outrun Maedhros for long; already his muscles were trembling with exertion.

            “Approach me not!” he shouted. “What have you done with Maglor?”

            “As if you care!” Maedhros returned. The cold daylight reflected off the ornament at his forehead, that great jewel he had pried out of Elwing’s necklace. “You don’t know him; only I know him. Only we know each other. There is no one else in our world.”

            “This is true only by your insistence! What did you do?”

            But Maglor answered for him, appearing in shimmering transparent form not a few feet from Thranduil. The axe slipped in his hands, and Maedhros halted cold.

            “Maglor?” Maedhros’ voice sounded so very small and weak, as if he were once again a little boy worried for his baby brother.

            Maglor did not look like the other ghosts. He was not the pestilent visage of Thranduil’s dead mother, nor the tormented apparitions of Maedhros and Maglor’s past victims, howling their woes into the uncaring rafters of Formenos. He looked as he must have only moments ago, with spectral blood floating from the wounds in his chest where Maedhros had stabbed him.

            Speaking did not seem to come naturally to ghosts, in Thranduil’s experience. So it did not surprise him that Maglor was silent. It did surprise him that Maglor approached him, and reached out a white hand as if to touch his cheek, though he kept a respectful distance. 

            “Goodbye,” said Thranduil, around the tightness in his throat. Maglor touched his own chest and then gestured out to Thranduil. Maglor gave him a wordless nod, and then he dissipated like morning mist.

            Maedhros cried out as if he himself had been stabbed, and he charged at Thranduil again, who only just dodged, pain shooting through his injured ankle. He wobbled; his sense of balance felt off with half his sight gone and he no longer trusted himself to judge the trajectory of Maedhros’ weapon.

            “This will not end until I kill you, or you kill me,” Maedhros seethed, and Thranduil believed him. So when Maedhros came at him again, he swung the axe.

            Thranduil had grown up in a forest, and wielding an axe, unlike a writing utensil as a makeshift weapon, was second nature to him. He cleaved off the crown of Maedhros’ skull and dropped him to the ground well before he got within range to fatally strike Thranduil with that knife.  

            “So be it,” Thranduil said, letting the axe fall to the ground. Suddenly dizzier than he could stand, he sank down into the snow beside Maedhros, though he turned away from the house, so he would not have to look at the gruesome corpse.

            “What now?” he asked himself quietly, looking out at the desolate landscape. Overheard, an upland buzzard circled. He supposed he would still have to get to the stables, convince Nodien to saddle a horse for him (Maybe she had not yet noticed the chaos in the house?) or try to steal one (He was not sure how well he could ride with only half his sight.) But as he was contemplating the effort required for this, a single rider came around the hill at the edge of the property, and then it was traveling up the path towards the house at full gallop. When the rider saw him, the horse swerved off the path and came towards the tree. Thranduil could not bring himself to rise or reach for the axe.

            “Thranduil!” The rider threw themselves down and flung back their scarf from their face, and of all people, it was Elrond. Thranduil blinked at his familiar face, and then started laughing, which really fucking hurt.

            “Elrond!” he cried amidst his laughter. “Welcome to Formenos! Naturally you are come! Why should you not be!”

            “Elbereth, I was too late,” Elrond muttered. At that moment he seemed to notice the butchered body behind Thranduil, and bloom of blood seeping through the snow around him, and the mess of the left side of his face. “Blessed stars, what’s—?”

            “I had no wish to kill him,” said Thranduil, and he sounded so very vulnerable that Elrond dropped down to the ground before him.

            “They’re terrible,” said Elrond. “I was researching this family after you left…Thranduil…”

            “I know,” Thranduil said wearily. “I know about the spouses before me, and the incest, and all the rest.”

            “The—?” Elrond shook his head. “Never mind. We need to get away from here.”

            “How are you here?” Thranduil asked hoarsely.

            “I thought you might be in danger!” Elrond exclaimed. “I couldn’t get through to the house by telegram and when I didn’t get any letters from you, I feared the worst. I’m only sorry I didn’t get here sooner. I admit I spent some time thinking my suspicions were ill-founded.” No letters—then Maglor had never sent the ones Thranduil had given him. Somehow, he still managed to register disappointment at this.

            “But you came.” Thranduil was not much of an overtly affectionate person, but he reached out then, and Elrond allowed himself to be pulled into an embrace so that Thranduil could bury his throbbing, blood-spattered face in Elrond’s shoulder, careful to keep the left side from touching anything. He did not want to think about the potential extent of damage to his left eye. “You came.”

            “Of course I did,” Elrond murmured, hugging Thranduil’s thin, trembling body in return. He loosened the cloak around his throat and flung it over Thranduil’s shoulders. “There. You shouldn’t be out in this cold without cover. Now, let us get you out of this place.”

#rocky writes

[moonwalker750]

Sometimes back, I was flipping through Tolkein's fic, focusing on Elrond(He's my favorite character). They were varied and interesting. However, after finishing them, a consistency (there were exceptions) was present in the description of the twins' backstory.

Elwing had not much interaction with her children, the twins were largely left to their own devices and ignored by other people. She was a horrible mother obsessed with Silmaril. Earnedil was pretty much a deadbeat father, by the way, the authors sound, went on a cruising vacation.

Maedhros and Maglor were perfect parents for twins. The twins loved them and considered them their actual parents. Elrond (even in the middle of the 3rd age) and Elors were very critical of their biological parents and viewed them in a bad light. Elrond was a raging Feanorian (the very same person who recited his ancestry on his mother's side in LoTR) and indifferent to his Sindarin ancestry and that side of the family. When he goes to Valinor, he didn't even want to see his biological parents, he considers Nerdanel as his grandmother. And, in some, Feanor is the grandfather. (no problem, but stop hating on Idril and Tuor.)

While reading, I had no particular thoughts on this subject. I was much more interested in 'what happens next?

Afterward, my stupid brain kicked a gear and was like, WAIT A FUCKING MINUTE! THEY WERE PRINCES! (Often I forget, since 'Lord' is pretty much attached to Elrond's name, in my head).

Dude, how can you sell this shit? Moreover, Have we not any critical? To accept it (Well, I did, so I'm an idiot, too).

The twins were princes on both sides by their parents. Heirs. Are you telling me that the people of Sirion, refugees of two fallen kingdoms, would not have loved these two little children to bits and pieces?

They were descendants of Turgon (King of Gondolin and later the fucking High King of Noldors) and were of the line of Melian and Elwe, Luthien and Beren, then Dior and Nimloth. How is this believable? Granted the elves would be busy with their lives. But you cannot tell me, the twins had no line of Uncles and Aunties to look after them.

Those who were close to Turgon (lord or captains, a few did make it to Sirion) had supported Idril and Tuor on their journey to safety and had watched Earendil growing up. Would they truly not have cared enough about the sons of their golden-haired prince? (Idril and Tuor, by all accounts, journeyed alone. Whereas Earendil has a small crew to man Vingilot.) What about Doriathians? Those Doriathians that knew the royal family and served their Kings and Queens. Friends and servants who knew Nimloth and thought these are her grandsons, who remembered another pair of twins-now dead, who raised their baby Queen and looked after her. Are you telling me they wouldn't help Elwing to teach her, raise them, and look after them?

We don't know their age when the Sack of Sirion happened, but they were probably children at that time. As children, then as young adults, they have every right to be angry at their biological parents. Reach their conclusion. And, it is fine. Because emotions at that age are a ball of twisted yarn. Emotions rarely followed logic. But these emotions grew from hurt. But do we think Elrond would beholden to the similar reasoning in the middle of the Third Age (after the alliance)? His epithet is 'Wise'. He had seen the wars and seen the world. He had faced choices and made them. Known the helplessness and hope. He had been a victim of wars and a general in the war. He had been free and carried the burden of lives in his hand.

A disquiet would always be there, but that inferno of anger and betrayal? No, he would understand, he would accept and make peace with it.

Their life among Fenaorians was not sunshine. They were held hostages, at the start, by people who are referred to as vile, as kin slayers. The Feanorians were as much of the monster to them as Melkor. They were terrified, alone, and abandoned in an enemy's land. And Feanorians? Maedhros and Maglor had lost the last of their brother(s). Thrice, they had slain elves. They were empty-handed of their salvation, again. They had lost their chance to retrieve that Silamaril. The Enemy was growing powerful by second, and the clutch of Oath was a noose around their neck. Do you think the loss of Ambaruss would not affect them? That they would not be affected by kin slaying, as fruitless as the last one? That it had not pushed Maedhros's metal stability down? That they and their warriors could love unconditionally, to forget their hardship? (People of Sirion had hope. However, the hope of salvation and a voidless death was slipping past Fenorians). That there aren't more people like the servants of Celegorm who left a pair of children in a forest to die? Lost, broken, and filled with rage at Dior and Elwing and their damnation? Willing to harm children when they had killed children before? That Maedhros and Maglor aren't weighed down by the death of their family and that the twins are the grandsons of the elf(man? half-Maiar?) who killed their three brothers? (Not consciously, but subconsciously yes.)

Despite everything, there was still humanity (elvenity?). The Feanorians had committed atrocities, but they were not atrocious people. Not most of them. Their choices and actions imprisoned them. Still they tried to raise the twins. Elrond could remember a dozen warm memories with Faenorians. They were young and at a formative age, so they latched on to the brothers (On Maglor mostly. Maedhros was more of a silent shadow in the back). Maglor did try. He taught them what he could. Activities that befitted their ranks and being kind to the twins. But he was a Lord with duties that took him away from children.

Would being a raging Feanorian stan would be in Elrond's character? With age, our opinions change, even toward our closest. Would he not remember Sirion? (even if it is screaming and blurred dreams) Would his feelings be so black and white?

What I am trying to say is, that it cheapens their (the twins) backstory and their character. To paint one in gold and another a dull brown.

Okay phew my rant has ended. Please be polite if you wish to comment!

#Elrond #Elros #elrond peredhel #Elros peredhel #Peredhel #Elwing #Earendil #Silm #silmarillion #Silmaril #Maedhros #Tolkein #Tolkien #Middle earth #Arda #Maglor #feanorians #Sack of sirion #third kinslaying #Sirion #Abduction #War of wrath #Sindar #Noldor #The twins #Lotr #Lotr elves #Lord elrond #Imladris #Elves

[5678thegirlalmighty]

Fingolfin: A Figurehead, Father, and Person

A Figurehead 

If Feanor presents a compelling, albeit deeply flawed character, then it perhaps shouldn’t be surprising that his eldest half brother, Fingolfin shares many of the desirable and undesirable traits of Feanor making him equally interesting. In many ways Fingolfin exists to represent an alternative, what could have been for Feanor had his mother lived, had his fire been tamed and his iron will tempered from his youth onward. Fingolfin had the perfect childhood, with Indis who one could only imagine to be a doting mother, and Finwe, distant as he could be, ever trying to please Feanor first, gave more to his second son than his looks. Finwe imparted upon Fingolfin the same strength of character that once compelled him to leave Cuiviénen and bring his people over the sea to a new home. But also a deep and abiding nobility in bearing and mind that all Finwe’s sons had, but Fingolfin matched it with his own fortitude, stalwartness, and sheer recalcitrance in the face of opposition leading to an incredible leader. Though he shared some of the same flaws of his older brother and his people- being stubborn, restless, impulsive, and haughty. He can be faulted for these, but ultimately they led to his own demise. Such characteristics, good, bad, and otherwise are not just Noldorin mainstays, but also outgrowths of their uniquely privileged positions as princes. All that being said it’s clear from the limited writings on him, that Fingolfin was a good king, who power by force of will along (and personal wounds inflicted by Feanor) led the remnants of the Noldor host over the Helcaraxe, only to come and find Beleriand in abject chaos with Morgoth terrorizing the Feanorians, having even captures his nephew Maedhros. After coming into a bad situation, he took up the role expected of him, moving into position for continued battle even after such a hellish exit from Valinor at the behest of his fiery and murderous brother, who had long since perished. To then accept the penance of Maedhros and gracefully take up kingship is nothing but a testament to his character, and showed a maturity and confidence that Feanor wouldn’t have been able to muster himself. He then upheld the Siege of Angband for as long as possible, allowing his people to settle finally more woes than could have been foreseen. The end of it would only come due to his self sacrifice by challenging Morgoth to single combat, in the hopes (false as they may have been) that his life could be laid down and ransom some of the Noldor soldier who otherwise would perish at the hands of the hosts of Angband. An act worth all the praise it receives, fighting till the moment his life was crushed out of his body, fighting for the people he served, loved, and believed in- allowing them to live on and continue the fight themselves. 

A Father 

Having sacrificed himself, he left behind three children who would have missed him dearly, and a fourth had he lived to see the amazing heroics of his father. Beyond what is known it is hard to nail down the true personality of Fingolfin, and how he would have been in a depressurized environment like at home with family. Going off my own conjecture, it would seem that he did best with his two eldest and struggled with the younger pair. Fingon was just an amiable person, and you’d be hard pressed to find a being other than Morgoth himself that he did not like. Turgon must have shared the same seriousness and haughtiness of Fingolfin, giving them a similar way of going about things, added to that Turgon was clearly an able leader and administrator himself and would have shown great interest in Fingolfin’s official capacities. Aredhel and Argon were the free spirits of the family, not content to stay in any one place, doing any one thing, and certainly not at the behest or worse yet requirement of others. Fingolfin, who was so ruled by duty probably misunderstood them and struggled to relate their desires. Aredhel was “strong-willed and stubborn, doing what she wanted rather than listening to other peoples' advice”- strong willed like her father, but in an unrestrained way, putting her further away from him. (Silmarillion, Of Maeglin) While we would have to imagine that the four children were close and cared deeply for each other, they were probably often at odds just by dint of their personalities, and Fingolfin must have had trouble mediating such disputes, himself having a complicated sibling relationship with Feanor. 

A Person 

All of which leads to me to say that he must of have a good person, far beyond the kingly duties or strenuous familial relations, he was someone that despite his own myriad of flaws, tried his best to do good where possible by stepping into whatever breech opened up and needed him. In a word, he did what was needed. Feanor gets exiled and takes Finwe with him, he steps up and becomes regent back in Tirion. Feanor abandons him on the outer shores of Aman, he continues onward to achieve the purpose they set out for, which was vanquishing Melkor. Maedhros hands over kingship in apology, he accepts it kindly. War needed to be waged, he waged it. And when at the last moment he saw that only further destruction lay ahead, he took it upon himself to challenge a god to single combat. In death doing what needed to be done, and returning to Valinor where he could find some peace by reuniting with his wife and children, and as fate would have it, continue to lead the Noldor. Putting his own wants and needs behind him, he is not mentioned as having any particular passions outside of his service to the public, and that is his defining action- doing what’s needed publicly and privately. 

What do you think of my appraisal of Fingolfin? I would love to see your thoughts down in the comments, and who should I consider next? 

(Art credit: Kaprriss)

If you liked this analysis of Fingolfin, then you’d enjoy my other character analyses, which are all saved on my master list- you can check them out here!

#fingolfin #fingon #turgon #aredhel #Argon #House of Fingolfin #finwe #Feanor #maedhros #noldor

[sunflowersupremes]

The Trade

All is not well in Gil-Galad’s war camp.

Characters: Elrond, Eönwë’

Background Eönwë/Maglor because I love them.

Read on AO3

They’d been traded.

He knew - he truly knew - deep down that it hadn’t been a fair trade. Maglor had given his sons away in return for being left alone by Gil-Galad, which Gil-Galad was already doing. It was a trade on paper, and nothing else.

If the Feanorians had also been given a few wagons of supplies, it was mostly because their camp was starving (that had been added to the agreement only after Cirdan - Gil-Galad’s messenger - had seen the condition of the Feanorians and their followers).

No, in truth it had been the easiest way to ensure everyone stayed alive. The longer the war raged the fewer supplies the Feanorians were able to find. Crops would not grow and game was scarce.

Maglor had given them up because he would not let them go hungry, and he had cut his own rations to feed them until Maedhros had ordered him to stop.

That didn’t make it sting less.

He was glad to be in the army, to be making a stand against Morgoth, but every time Eönwë - the leader of the Valar’s forces - would compliment him, Elrond would have to bite his lip. He was forbidden from asking why the Valar had not come to their aid sooner (he had done it once, in front of the entire court, and Eönwë had been spared having to answer by Gil-Galad swooping in to drag his herald off).

Even his position as Herald - which again, he did enjoy to an extent - was given to him to keep him under the king’s eye, because they did not seem to trust him.

Elros was spending more and more time with the Edain, who seemed to have elected him as some sort of leader. No one was watching him to see what he would do (probably because he had not yet stirred trouble by asking King Finarfin if he thought it was fair that Beren was returned and not Andreth. He hadn’t meant to upset the king, he just thought it was a fair question).

At least that incident had finally gotten a reaction out of Gil-Galad. He was tired of being simply sent away like an errant child, with nothing more than a plea to behave himself next time or to think before he spoke.

He did think before he spoke.

That was why he spoke.

But after he’d nearly reduced the king of Tirion to tears, prompting Finrod to shoo Elrond away, Gil-Galad had finally shouted at him, telling him to stop acting like a child and sending him to help reinforce the walls around their camp.

Eönwë stopped by to see him again, studying him with large, owlish eyes that mirrored the night sky behind him. Then he pointed to the bag on Elrond’s hip, where the Peredhel had taken to hoarding food, instinct telling him that the next meal might not come. “You will not go hungry here, half-elven,” the Maia said gently. “We have supplies aplenty.”

He gripped the leather strap more tightly, narrowing his eyes. “Then why can you not share with the others outside your camp? The Sindar, the Dwarves, the Feanorians, the Mortals of the south? Are they nothing to the Valar?”

Eönwë had, once again, been spared needing to reply by Gil-Galad. The king had come from no where to grab Elrond’s arm, sinking nails through his cotton shirt, and promised that Elrond would not trouble him anymore. As soon as Eönwë was out of sight, the scolding had begun.

It had devolved into a screaming match fairly quickly. Elrond accused Gil-Galad of trading in slaves; Gil-Galad had said he was no more a slave to him than he had been to the Feanorians.

The half-elf had said that the king didn’t understand; the king had accused Maglor of abusing the twins.

Elrond had threatened to join Elros and the Edain; Gil-Galad had replied that Elrond wasn’t forced to remain.

At that, Elrond had snapped that he was going to find his family. Gil-Galad had shouted that he was more than welcome to, in fact, he was ordering Elrond to do that.

Of course, Gil-Galad thought he meant Elros, but it wasn’t his fault the king was an idiot.

Elrond practically gloated as he packed and slipped away, heading not for the Edain’s camp, but into the woods. He’d gathered up as much food as he could fit in his saddle bags, and simply walked out of camp, heading to the east where he had last seen the Feanorians.

Back in camp, all hell had broken loose. It was Finrod who had realized he wasn’t with the Edain, when he had gone to visit them. A few people had suggested leaving Elrond to die on his own, but Elros had threatened to disband the Edain army if his brother wasn’t found (no one was certain if he had the authority to do that, but they really didn’t want to find out).

Finally a blue jay had swooped into the camp and chirped at Manwë’s herald. Eönwë had announced that Elrond was merely following the king’s order to return to his family, and Gil-Galad had shouted that Elrond had known exactly what he meant and that he was going to find the half-elf himself and tan his hide (Manwë’s herald had seemed strangely amused by the fight).

No one thought it was a great idea to send the king out on his own, so Cirdan had simply said that he would go and set off before he could be stopped.

But it wasn’t Cirdan that found him.

He felt the Maia before he heard him, but he kept going, his eyes glued stubbornly on the path in front of him. He’d filled his horse’s back with supplies, so he walked instead, leading the horse by her reins.

After a few moments, a voice echoed from around him, asking, “Where are you going, half-elf?”

“Should you not be leading an army, my lord Eönwë?”

The Maia materialized beside him, falling in step easily. “You will not find them where you are going.”

“Then I will keep looking.”

“Their camp has been disbanded. Their followers have joined the Edain army.”

Elrond tightened his grip on the horse’s reins. “Where are they?”

“I know not. Something to the southeast, I believe.”

Elrond turned his feet southeast. Eönwë followed him. “Your king is distressed.”

“My king ordered me to go to my family.”

“You knew what he meant, did you not? Your brother is to the west, by the sea, and yet you travel southeast.”

“My family is there,” Elrond replied.

“They are not your family.”

“They raised me.” He swallowed. “I love them.”

Eönwë seemed to consider. “They would not want you to do this, I should think. They sent you away for your own-“

“Why do you care!?” Elrond turned sharply, narrowing his eyes at the bird-like Maiar.

Tilting his head, Eönwë raised a feathered eyebrow. “Why should I not?”

Elrond snapped his head back to the path in front of them. “I’m not allowed to ask you why no one protected us from Morgoth sooner, if you care so much.”

Eönwë chirped, almost sounding amused. “It was not my decision, young lord Peredhel.”

He snorted. Then - with a bit more caution than he usually spoke with - he looked sideways and asked, “What if it had been your decision?”

“It was my Lord Manwë-“

“But what if it wasn’t?”

Eönwë blinked at him. A cloud drifted by in his large blue eyes. “I do not enjoy war.”

“Neither do we,” Elrond pointed out, breaking their eye contact.

For a while, they traveled in silence. Birds called out to them from the trees, and occasionally Eönwë would twitter back at them.

Finally, Elrond broke the silence, “Ever since the Nirnaeth, there’s been no food,” Elrond said quietly. “Kanafinwë said it wasn’t so bad at first, but as the years passed everyone began to see the damage.”

He blinked, feeling tears in his eyes but refusing to let the Maia see him cry. “Kana would go hungry to make sure we ate.”

“The land is poisoned.”

“Why?” Elrond stopped, turning to look up at Eönwë. “I know the Exiles brought the Doom upon themselves, but it was not just the Exiles who suffered.”

Eönwë sighed, expelling enough air to send up little clouds of dust at their feet. “I cannot give you an answer you will find satisfactory, Elrond.”

He looked off into the woods, at the gnarled and twisted trees, dead leaves drifting by even though it ought to have been the height of summer. “I can tell you that the Valar are much bereaved, that they find no joy in the suffering of anyone, even those who have forsaken them, and that Melkor has long been on their minds.”

Elrond sighed. “Am I going to find them?” he asked quietly.

“I do not think so,” said Eönwë. “And even if you did, I imagine you would be sent back.”

He swallowed and nodded slowly. His feet had begun to ache, and he had no idea how long it had been since he had last slept. It certainly felt as though he’d been traveling for hours, perhaps all night, but under the twisted trees of Beleriand it was difficult to tell the time.

“How far back to camp?” he asked wearily.

Eönwë’s eyes glittered with stars, his lips almost quirking up in a smile. “No so far as you might think. I have been leading us in circles.” He looked remarkably pleased with himself.

Elrond glared at him.

The Maia whistled loudly - Elrond winced and covered his ears - and a large hawk swooped down to land on a branch above them. “Leave the bags,” said Eönwë quietly. “He will take them to your family. I can… make an exception for this, I think.”

Elrond didn’t ask what he meant by exception. It wasn’t hard to understand he wouldn’t be able to help his family again.

They made quick work of removing the bags from the horse’s back, and the hawk simply gathered them up in his talons and took off with a powerful flap of his wings, throwing up a blinding cloud of dirt.

Elrond was practically shaking from exhaustion by the time the bird was out of sight, and he barely noticed Eönwë grabbing him and lifting him onto the horse’s back. He let the Maia take the horse’s reins and leading them back the way they had come.

Elrond was nearly asleep before he heard the Maia quietly say, “Kanafinwë was a friend of mine. If you have need of an ear, mine will always be open.”

He nodded, leaning forward against the horse’s neck with his eyes closed. “He only allowed the trade because he heard you were leading the army,” Elrond confessed. He yawned. “Maitimo nearly called it off when he heard about you.”

Eönwë laughed and the Maia’s hand came up to rest on Elrond’s shoulder. “Rest little Peredhel,” he cooed. “I shall handle your king.”

How many dads does Elrond have at this point? Because somehow Elrond’s dad is, all at once, a star, two mass murderers, a shipwright, a king, and one (1) bird boy.

Also Eönwë totally thinks he can teach Elrond to fly (since Elrond is part Maia AND the son of Elwing) and there’s a 50% chance that someone (probably Gandalf) had to convince him that “throwing Elrond off a cliff to see if he sprouts wings” is a really bad idea.

1

Okay but AU where Elrond befriends Eönwë and after the War of the Wraith Eönwë is like “you know who should guard the Silmarils? Elrond. Because Elrond would absolutely not hand them over to the Feanorians when they come looking for them, because that would be against the will of the Valar and he should be very careful not to accidentally fall asleep on account of his mortal blood. No. Elrond would never do those things. Elrond is a good child, very reliable, and his brother is the king so even if some accident happens he would have diplomatic immunity.

Manwë strikes me as the type of guy that you could absolutely lie to his face and he would believe you just because he wants to think the best of everyone. So if Eönwë was like “oh no, I don’t think Elrond meant for the Feanorians to just… walk out with the jewels… thereby avoiding any more bloodshed… and fulfilling their oath…” Manwë would probably believe him. (also by the end of the War of the Wraith Manwë is just 100% done and even if he did figure out the lie he’d be like ‘FUCK IT. FINE. PROBABLY BEST THAT NO ONE HAS THOSE DAMN ROCKS ANYWAY.’

2

Another great idea is imagining Eönwë just periodically showing up in Middle Earth to check on an increasingly exasperated Elrond who just wants to live his own life, but Eönwë keeps patting him on the head and calling him “little Peredhel” and offering certified ‘Terrible Advice’ because Eönwë doesn’t understand anything about how people actually work.

Eönwë couldn’t be one of the Istari because Manwë knew if they sent him he would just move into Rivendell and possibly never leave and also drive Elrond insane. (Okay, that might be AU #3 because its cracking me up)

Look, I’m not saying that the Counsel of Elrond had to be held outside because Eönwë was sitting in a tree, watching, but I’m totally saying it.

#eonwe #elrond #Gil galad #Finarfin #arafinwe #finrod #finrod Felagund #maglor #Maedhros #my writing #story: bird dad #tolkien #tolkien one shot

[tilions]

A life saved

A Feanor lives AU... more or less. No he's not a ghost in this one. English is not my first language and a large portion of this text was translated from my mother tongue German into English so if some things like metaphors seem weird to you that might be why. I also aplogise for any errors.

There was nobody welcoming them when Nolofinwe and his followers arrived on the northern side of Lake Mithrim. Not that they should have expected this much from Feanáro to begin with. Instead of wasting time waiting for those too proud to come they started setting up their camp and began restocking their food and water supplies as best as they could with their limited resources.

But when the third and fourth day had come to pass without a single word from the camp on the other side of the lake it was not only Nolofinwe who grew tense. When he made his rounds through the rows of tents to look after the injured or to speak with the few scouts they could spare he could hear the people mutter the same things that were going through his own head.

Shouldn’t the Feanorians have noticed them by now? Was it not enough that they had abandoned them in the first place? Left them to fend for themselves? To take on the risk of crossing the grinding ice? Did they have to ignore them even now? Or was the king perhaps absent, so that it was unclear whether they should be approached at all? But even then, Maitimo was not the sort of person who would act like this.

The fifth day had to begin before there was any change to their situation and it was Irisse who brought it upon them in her usual stubborn manner. Nolofinwe watched her drag Tyelkormo of all people from the west side of their camp all the way to where he was standing, watching Isil rise. Huan was trotting after them leisurely, a stark contrast to his master who was complaining loudly about the way he was being treated.

Irisse ignored him and only pulled harder in his arm, her face very much like her mothers when she was angry. For all the noise he was making Tyelkomro was surprisingly tame and went with his cousin rather willingly. He did not even try to bolt when they stopped in front of Nolofinwe and Irisse let go of his arm.

‘Now talk,’ she said and left them to their own devices. Both Tyelkomo and Nolofinwe watched her as she vanished between the tents, her white dress stained with grass and dirt. As Nolofinwe turned his head to look at Tyelkomo he noticed that his nephew's clothes were similarly looking. He did not even need to ask how Irisse had gotten him here.

When it became very clear that she would not return, Tyelkormo turned his head and looked up into his half uncle's face with a look of great discomfort.

‘And?’ he asked, less sharp than normal, ‘What is it that you want to know?’

'Answers for a start,' Nolofinwe found himself replying. Upon closer observation of his nephew’s face he noticed a faint scar above his left eye that had not been there when they had last seen each other.

‘Well they were too frail,’ was all that Tyelkormo said as if the answer was enough in his mind. It was not for Nolofinwe, a fact that the other one quickly realised. He seemed even more uncomfortable than before and only when Huan laid his head on Tyelkormo’s shoulder and nuzzled the right side of his face he replied reculantly: ‘The boats. They were too frail to cross the sea, technically. It’s a miracle we made it work but they wouldn’t have survived another journey. You don’t have to believe me but I can tell you from what I have seen that you would have been lucky to catch a glimpse of them on the far horizon before they would have fallen apart.’

‘The Teleri are… were very well known to keep their ships in good shape. why then should they let boats like this rest in their havens?’

He was aware that Tylekormo, who never had been overly fond of boating, was the last person who could know the answer to this question. Yet Nolofinwe felt the need to ask anyway. Arafinwe would have known surely but Arafinwe was not here with him but on the other side, in Tirion. Instead of an answer all Tylekormo was able to do was flinch when his uncle mentioned the Teleri and bite his lower lip.

Then after they had stood in silence for a while and that silence became uncomfortable he lifted his shoulders and with a defeated tone in his voice he said: ‘What do I know? All I can tell you is what I already have said. They were too frail. One of them nearly sank to the bottom of the ocean during the journey here because it started falling apart. If Aiwë.. Curvo's wife hadn't been there, we wouldn't have been able to fix it in time.'

Ñolofinwë refrained from asking why Curufinwës Telerin wife had decided to accompany her husband even though he had been part of the slaughtering of her kin. He could see that Tyelkormo's patience was running thin. A question like this could end their conversation in a very short amount of time.

'And how did your father expect us to follow him?' he asked instead.

'Not at all,’ Tyelkormo said. ‘Father mentioned something like this but I wasn’t really paying attention.’

It was very much like Tyelkormo to not pay attention and that was not what surprised Nolofinwe. It was the fact that Feanáro had expected him to turn back. Had he not told his brother that he would follow him?

"He wanted us to turn back?"

"Turn back, return home, well whatever. You hardly had any part in... what happened. They probably would have forgiven you."

We didn’t participate. They will forgive us, Nolo.

Arafinwe's voice rang clear in his head and Nolofinwe could barely hold back a flinch on his own. For once his brothers seemed to have thought alike and he could not disagree more with their notions. He was here for a reason and because of a promise he made. He could not just turn back.

It was then that Huan, who had been quiet the entire time and had been resting his chin on Tyelkormo’s shoulder, made a small noise, which Nolofinwe could not quite identify. Tyelkormo petted his head and nodded as if he had understood what his companion wanted to tell him. The uncomfortable look on his face vanished for a moment.

‘I know, Káno wanted us to be back yesterday…,’ he said, then he smiled a little. ‘You just want to see Tyelpe again, don’t you?’

Once again Huan made a noise and this time it sounded like agreement to Nolofinwe.

'You could come with me,' Tyelkormo then addressed Nolofinwe again and he looked like he thought this was a very good idea, 'if you want to talk to someone who is more informed than me.'

Preferably he would have liked the Feanorians to come, for then it would not have looked as if Nolofinwe would give in, but it seemed to him that this would take days perhaps even weeks and he simply did not have the time for this.

'I want to inform Findekáno before we leave.'

'Mhm,' was all his nephew replied and proceeded to scratch Huan behind the ear.

Soon enough they were on their way around the lake to the Feanorian camp. Neither Findekáno nor Turukáno had been particularly happy about Nolofinwe’s announcement but for different reasons as it seemed. Findekáno most certainly had hoped to accompany his father so that he could have a word with Maitimo but Nolofinwe had been clear that he needed his eldest son here to aid his aunt. Turukáno on the other hand had looked like somebody had served him a cup of sour milk as soon as the name Tyelkormo had left his fathers mouth. He was still grieving and full of hatred.

It was Findaráto who made them agree in the end as he promised to go along with Nolofinwe as a representative of the House Arafinwe. If he would have been able to have things his way Nolofinwe would have told this one of his nephews to remain behind but alas Findaráto could be just as stubborn as any of their family when he wanted to. Besides he also had inherited his mothers ability to become menacingly scary when he really wanted to bring a point across in an argument. Nolofinwe did not want this to happen.

‘I did know that grandfather was reluctant to use the ships,’ Findaráto remarked once Tyelkormo was done telling him what he had told Nolofinwe before. ‘They were treated like holy artifacts by many of the older generation, so it would make sense to have them on display and not use them. They fell apart, yes? I guess the wood here on these shores is not made to last forever like it did at home…’

Nolofinwe remained silent. He was vibrating with tension. The anger at his brother, though somewhat mitigated by Tyelkormo's words, was still boiling under his skin and he had to prepare himself not to explode the moment he saw him. He could just be as fiery as his brother if the occasion arose. Many would have doubted this because he put a lot of effort in his calm and put-together appearance. It was a trait both of them had inherited from their father although Finwe had been very good at turning his temperament into passion.

Nolofinwe bit his lower lip. No, it was still too early to think about father.

Carnistir was the one waiting for them once they reached the outskirts of the Feanorian camp. Nolofinwe noticed almost immediately that many of the buildings were in fact made from wood or stone. There were only a few tents left standing. The pathway they set foot onto was also made with stone. His brother’s people had not been idle in the last years.

‘You’re late,’ Carnistir greeted Tyelkomo unimpressed and with his arms folded in front of his chest.

His trademark frown was not missing either, yet there was something off about him but it took Nolofinwe a few seconds to realise that Carnistir had cut off a large chunk of his hair. Automatically he looked over to Tyelkormo and noticed the same thing. Both men's hair barely reached their shoulders now. He wondered what had caused this drastic decision, for it was very un-Noldorin to cut off one's own hair unless it got burned or otherwise stained in an accident. Neither Tyelkomo nor Carnistir looked like they had been in an accident recently but Nolofinwe did not know what had happened in the past years.

‘I would have been back earlier if Irisse hadn’t found me and decided to drag me all the way back to her father, so that I could have the conversation with him all of you are refusing to have,’ Tyelkomo replied.

Carnistir only sighed.

‘Discuss this with Káno if you wish to complain.’

This made Tyelkormo go silent within a split second. Findaráto and Nolofinwe exchanged confused glances. Neither of them could make anything of the conversation that was happening in front of them.

‘I see, well if you don’t have anything more to say,’ Carnistir turned to them and bowed formally. ‘Uncle, cousin, please follow me. He would like to speak with you in person.’

He started moving almost immediately and at a fast pace at that. They followed him as best as they could with Tyelkormo and Huan behind them. The way they were led through the settlement - because upon further inspection and observation Nolofinwe opted that it was in fact more a settlement than a camp - made them visible and unable to ignore for many eyes. Their presence was not met with hostility or any form of annoyance but rather with curiosity and calm acceptance. Nolofinwe did not know whether he prefered their rather passive behaviour.

‘Where are you bringing us?” Findaráto asked and caught up to Carnistir.

‘The community hall… well it is supposed to be the community hall but these days it serves as an infirmary.’

‘Neither of us is wounded…’ Findaráto said and Nolofinwe could hear the irritation in his voice.

‘Well that’s good for you,’ Carnistir acknowledged. ‘But this is also where he wants to meet you. His study is in one of the spare rooms.’

They were led through a side entrance of one of the larger buildings near the town centre. It was nowhere near as impressive as the buildings Nolofinwe had seen and grown up in all his life but it was rather admirable what had been accomplished with the recousers given to them. He should have expected nothing else from his brother. The room they entered was some sort of dining space with a large wooden table right in the middle surrounded by what looked like ten chairs. One for each member of the house Feanor, including Curufinwes wife and child.

‘Where is he?’, Carnister asked one of the guards hiding in the shadows next to the door. The man made a step forwards into the light and Nolofinwe recognised him as Makalaures confidant Erestor.

‘His study,’ the man replied in his usual stoic manner. ‘A report came in this morning regarding enemy movements in the north-west. He wanted to look into what he can do to keep the residents safe.’

The residents, Nolofinwe realised, were his people. They were the only ones living in the north-west - as far as he was aware. If there was enemy movement he should probably also keep his people prepared no matter what his brother planned to do to keep them safe. It seemed like a miracle to him that Feanáro was even considering this given that he had wanted Nolofinwe and his people to turn back and had ignored them for the better part of the past week.

Carbistir just nodded.

'I see,' he noted the news and turned to the others, 'Come. And Tyelko if you want to tag along, you'll have to leave the fleabag here.'

'You know Huan doesn't like it when you call him that, Moryo.'

'He's just a dog. He doesn't care about what I call him. He cares about what I feed him.'

'Say that when he starts chewing on your shoes again.'

Nonetheless he told Huan to go and lay down on a large rug on the north side of the hall where a small fire burned in a chimney, while Carnistir led them through a door on the opposite side of the hall.

The study they entered then was… a mess if Nolofinwe was completely honest. It was a battlefield of papers, documents, books and various other objects buried underneath them. There was not one empty chair, not one empty spot of floor aside from a small area by the door. The dark wooden desk in the centre of the room was no exception to this. Nolofinw had seen massive amounts of paperwork in his fathers study all the time but Finwe despite his faults had been a very tidy person and had kept them all neatly organised. Feanáro on the other hand had never seemed like someone who would keep things tidy - not the Nolofinwe would know this, he had not been allowed to set his foot into his older brother's study ever in his life.

But this was not Feanáro’s study. On the floor in front of them, bent over an especially important looking paper sat not Nolofinwe’s brother but his second eldest nephew instead. Makalure was dressed in heavy looking robes of red and gold but they fitted him ill for they seemed like they had originally belonged to his father and Feanáro was not only taller than Makalaure but also broader. Loosley they hang from his shoulders and Nolofinwe could not get out of his way to notice that his nephew was thin and boney underneath.

‘You own a table, Káno,’ Tyelkomo commented on his older brother’s app and waved his hand in the general direction of said object. Makalure looked up then with an unimpressed expression on his face.

‘Well in theory you are correct but as you may be able to see, it is not in a state where I could use it.’

‘You could if you would keep things tidy and organised,’ Carnistir then said and started picking up some of the papers close to them. ‘Didn’t the Ambarussar volunteer to craft you some shelves from the wood that was left from building the watchtower in the south?’

Makalaure nodded.

‘Yes they did such a splendid job that I thought it a shame to waste such craftsmanship on me. I ordered Narendil to make sure that they’re brought to the infirmary so that the healers would have a safe place to store their medicine. I think Curvo got one as well for his tools. You know that he leaves them lying around everywhere otherwise,’ Makalure said and then he turned towards Nolofinwe and Findaráto who had listened to their exchange in silence. ‘Uncle, Findaráto, if you’d like to sit down I can only offer you the chairs by the window. You might want to remove the papers from them though…’

They did no such thing.

Makalaure looked back and forth between them and his brothers for a moment. Carnistir had proceeded to pick up some more papers from the floor, quietly fussing over how such important documents were left to fly around. Tyelkormo had stepped up to one of the windows and pulled open the curtains, allowing natural light to reach the small room.

When they had all not spoken for a while and the silence was beginning to get a little uncomfortable, Findaráto spoke for the first time:

‘Káno... where is...?’

‘Father?’ Makalaure interrupted him instantly, ‘you were expecting him here, weren't you?’

‘To be honest, yes…’, Nolofinwe pressed out. Carnistir and Tyelkormo paused in their work, exchanging meaningful glances. Makalaure sighed.

‘Well..’ he said, looking him in the eye, ‘then I'm sorry to disappoint you. Father is not available at the moment.’

‘Is he absent?’ asked Nolofinwe with a little more emphasis. Didn't they say they were going to take them to the king? Was he being made a fool of?

‘You could say that, yes.’

‘And Maitimo?’

This time Makalure remained silent for a long while. He had closed his eyes and Nolofinwe could see how the hand holding onto the papers was slightly shaking. When Findaráto looked questioningly at Carnistir and Tyelkormo both of them avoided his gaze. In the end Makalure slowly came to his feet. He handed his papers to Carnistir and then proceeded to fix his clothing so that it looked less ill-fit but still a little big on him.

As he then stood face to face with his uncle Nolofinwe could not help but notice that Makalaure was not only thinner than before but he looked tired, too tired. Whatever had happened had drained Makalaure to a point where it seemed like a miracle that he was still able to stand upright.

'Maitimo is also not available at the moment…’

‘Is he dead?’ Nolofinwe came straight to the point.

Makalaure swallowed but then he shook his head avoiding his uncle's eyes.

‘We don’t know. It… it was shortly after our arrival that we received a message from the enemy which said that he would be open to negotiate. I do not know the details, Maitimo kept them for himself but he rode out to meet with an envoy… and did not return. It was many days later that a messenger came telling us that everyone is dead and he brought a bloodied strand of Maitomos hair as evidence. I would have gone after him but he made me swear to remain behind and take care of our people.’

‘So you do not believe him dead?’

‘I would have felt it, uncle,’ Makalure answered. ‘Just like with grandfather… I didn’t feel anything like this this time around. It must mean that he still lives.’

And I am unable to help him.

He did not say this out loud but Nolofinwe could see it in his eyes. The oath Makalaure had to swear seemed to only increase the guilt he must have been feeling.

‘Káno… perhaps you should,’ Carnistir said as he balanced another stack of papers on the desk.

‘No self-pity I know,’ Makalaure answered but it did not seem like this was what Carnistr had wanted to say. Yet he straightened his back and put on a brave face. He even smiled a bit at his uncle and Findaráto, ‘If there is anything you need please tell me, I will make sure that we will spare what we can and have it delivered to your side of the lake. In the same manner I wish to apologise for not reaching out earlier. The last few days were rather troublesome…’

‘I would have to look at Turukáno's lists of supplies…’ Findaráto said and looked past Tylekormo out of the window.

‘Medicines,’ Nolofinwe said, thinking of Lalwende, who desperately needed something for her leg if she didn't want to lose it, ‘and bandages.’

Makalaure looked at Carnistir.

‘Come, cousin,’ he said to Findaráto without being prompted any further, ‘I am in charge of our supplies. We will see how best to manage the matter. Tyelko can help too. He knows about the best hunting grounds in the area and will surely be able to give you some advice.’

Makalaure watched them silently as they departed from the room and when the door closed behind Tyelkormo he turned to Nolofinwe.

'Do not apologise for your father's deeds,' Nolofinwe said before his nephew even had the opportunity to open his mouth. 'I have heard why you didn't send back the ships. I wish to hear what your father has to say in his defense and whether he feels sorry for it or not.'

'Then you will probably never get an answer,' Makalaure said gravely. He pressed his lips into a thin line and turned to the second door in this room, left to where he was standing 'Come, uncle I will show you something. Maybe then you will hear my apology.'

Nolofinw was not sure what he should expect when he followed his nephew through the door and into a barely lit hallway. The voices of Carnisti, Tyelkormo and Findaráto could be heard from down the hall, where somebody had left a door slightly ajar. Makalaure did not lead him in that direction but the opposite one and up to the next floor. Like the one downstairs this one was only sparsely lit but at least there was a window on the far end of the hallway from where silver light shone onto dark wooden planks. They made creaking noises even under the light elven footsteps. Nolofinwe flinched the first time he heard that noise.

Makalaure walked down the corridor at a quick pace, unmoved by the creaking wooden floorboards. He seemed determined to waste no time to get to their destination. Nolofinwe followed him in a similar manner once he had gotten used to the unsettling noise from below his feet.

Once they reached the window Makalaure halted and looked outside. Nolofinwe glanced over his shoulder and saw Curufinwe training with his son in the courtyard. Tyelperinquar had grown quite a bit since Nolofinwe had last seen him but even though he and Itarille were around the same age the boy looked less mature than Nolofinwe’s granddaughter. It seemed as if his childhood innocence had somehow been preserved in these wild lands.

It made jealousy boil inside him but he was quick to suppress it. Tyelperinquar had no fault in what had happened. It was a good thing that at least one child of their family was still child enough to smile and fool around. Maybe one day Itarille would find the strength and happiness to smile once more.

‘You did not bring me here only to watch your nephew train,’ it was not a question or at least it did not sound like one as the words left Nolofinwe’s mouth. He was not quite sure himself whether he had wanted the words to sound as impatient and stern as they did but they seemed to bring Makalaure out of some kind of trance he had drifted into.

‘No… of course not, uncle,’ he answered and stepped past Nolofinwe in front of the last door in this hallway.

He turned the door knob around and pushed the door open. Nolofinwe followed him inside what seemed like a private sleeping chamber. It was better lit than any other room he had seen so far in this house including Makalaure’s study, which was mostly because the curtains had been drawn back and the windows opened to let fresh air inside. Aside from a wardrobe on the left side of the door the room contained a cupboard underneath the windows, an unused desk to Nolofinwe’s right and a bed, half hidden behind a set of curtains, which Makalaure was pulling back.

Nolofinwe did not need to ask why his nephew had brought him here. He could not make out the patients face but the way Makalure sat down on their bedside and took one of the heavily bandaged hands into his with utmost care and started to stroke it gently with index and middle finger was enough to tell Nolofinwe that this was not just somebody.

‘I’m here…’ Makalaure said quietly, almost in a whisper. ‘Please forgive that I could not make it this morning. I heard that Ambarussar came to spend time with you.’

Nolofinwe carefully stepped closer to the bed until he was half behind Makalaure and could look over his nephew’s shoulder at the patient. It took him longer than it should have to realise whom he was looking at. The man's entire body, save for a few bits here and there, seemed to be wrapped in bandages and what little skin was left visible was burned and bruised and scarred. Half his face was hidden underneath some kind of paste and his eyes closed.

‘Feanáro…’ Nolofinwe whispered in shock once his voice had returned to him. Makalaure turned his head with a sad smile.

‘Father is unavailable at the moment, uncle,’ his nephew told him quietly. ‘It’s not as bad as it was at the beginning and he is slowly, ever so slowly getting better but it will take some time until he will open his eyes again. But even if he does there is no guarantee he will ever fully recover.’

Feanáro’s hand twitched in Makalaure’s hold. Makalaure turned to his father again and lowered his head ever so slightly.

‘It was only a few days ago, when you and your people arrived that he moved… it was just a twitch of his fingers no stronger than now but he moved. There… There was finally some sign of progress.’

‘How? When? Did the enemy?’

Makalaure gave him no answer but continued to absently stroke Feanáro’s hand. Nolofinwe did not press him. It seemed like this was not an easy talk to have and given the circumstances Nolofinwe was willing to accept this.

‘It was the enemy…’ Makalaure said after a while, his voice void of any emotion. ‘They had planned an ambush and even though we were able to fight them back there were many losses and many more who were gravely injured. Father had been at the front fighting against so many of them at the same time. He slew a large number of the Valaraukar - as Maitimo called them - but their commander was too strong for him. He landed a fatal blow mere minutes before we chased them off for good. At first it seemed like that monster had killed father but he kept fighting and breathing long enough for us to bring him to safety. He has been in this state ever since.’

Nolofinwe had to look away at that. He had no words, he who always knew what to say, who was known for his way with words, had none. All the anger, all the hatred that had been driving him the entire time was gone. The words he had prepared years ago, that he had memorized like a mantra, felt hollow now that there was essentially no one to address them at. He could tell them Feanáro but what use would they have? His brother could not hear him. He could not answer him or give him one of the awfully arrogant smiles.

As a child Nolofinwe had done everything to earn one of these. As a young adult he had learned to despise them. But now? Now, he would be lucky to receive a slight twitch of Feanaŕos hand. That was much more cruel than anything his brother could have said to him. It didn't compare to what his brother had done, of course, but it was pretty close.

'Do… Do you want me to pity him?'

Makalaure shock his head

'Believe me uncle I do not. He wouldn't want your pity and you know that. I wanted you to understand that the only apology you will probably ever get is my own. Will you accept it?'

'Your father wouldn't have wanted you to apologise,' Nolofinwe replied. Makalure made a low chuckling noise.

'But I want to apologise. It will not bring back the dead, it will not heal the wounded, it will not rewind the years you and your people spend on the grinding ice and it will not undo what has been done but maybe an apology can help to bring our people back together ever so slightly. We're all strangers in a strange land and as such we have no choice but to stick together. You don't have to accept me as prince regent and I will not demand to lead your people, all I want is a basis on which we can work on the way forward.'

'Very well,' Nolofinwe replied. 'I shall accept your apology… for now.'

'This is more than I would have asked for, uncle.'

They both remained at Feanáro's bedside for a while longer in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Nolofinwe avoided looking at his brother or his nephew and held his gaze fixed on the window.

A basis to work on the way forward. Makalaure had not specified what this way would look like and Nolofinwe was not sure himself. His people were bitter. They felt betrayed and abandoned and he could not blame them. He felt very much the same even after learning this truth.

All he could hope for was that his nephew's words had not been all empty. Makalaure was an excellent talker and sometimes it was hard to differentiate between honest words and acting. He did not believe that his nephew had acted but he knew that he should remain observant.

'Don't tell anyone of what I have shown you today, uncle,' Makalure asked him when they finally left the room.

'For what reason?'

'Father is in a bad state and I feel it would only worsen if he was confronted with the anger of all your people. I will bear this burden until the day of his awakening. Besides… I have reason to believe that the enemy thinks him dead and I would like for it to remain that way for as long as possible.'

'I see," Nolofinwe remarked. 'I will do as you ask but only if you inform me immediately should he wake.'

Makalure nodded seriously.

When Nolofinwe returned to his camp late in the evening to eat and maybe get some rest, still very much thinking about his brother's fate and his nephew's wish for cooperation, he was greeted with even more unsettling news.

Apparently Findekáno had vanished without a trace and only his harp in tow after being told about Maitimo's fate from Finderáto. All he had left them was a note telling them not to worry and that he would be back soon.

Nolofinwe thought of what had happened to Arakáno and prayed that his eldest son would return safely to him.

#fingolfin #celegorm #caranthir #maglor #finrod #finrod felagund #aredhel #feanor #tolkien #silmarillion #feanorians #nolofinweans #first age #lake mithrim #feanor lives #my writing #silm fic #apparently I misspelled finrods quenya name the entire time #it's finarato not finderato #:/ #it's the matimo maitimo situation all over again

[lendmyboyfriendahand]

There’s a lot of argument about how binding Oaths are in the Silmarillion. One interesting theory is that Elves are literally incapable of breaking their word, but Men are just as capable of swearing falsely as in our world.

I don’t want to debate that theory right now, I just want to look at the implications if it were true.

Specifically, why Dior decided to play chicken with a hurricane. If the Oath of Feanor is unbreakable, then the Feanorians had literally no choice but to obtain the Silmarils or die trying. They might go after Morgoth first, but still would come eventually to Doriath. So why did Dior refuse? Sure, he was angry, but the Feanorians were literally incapable of leaving him alone, so why didn’t he negotiate a solution to the Oath?

What if he didn’t know the the Oath was unbreakable?

Dior’‘s parents were human at the time they raised him. He himself aged like a human, and may have been a human in terms of afterlife. They lived on an island in the woods, with little outside contact besides rare messengers from Doriath. So any oaths Dior swore were just words, as were any sworn by his parents who were 90% of his social contact. Elves who came by for matters on the level of “your grandfather the king is dead” probably didn’t stop to explain the metaphysics of verbal contracts.

Dior would have known that Oaths were important. Beren risked both Luthien’s life and his own in order to fulfill his oath to Thingol. If he hadn’t, they would have been shunned by everyone who knew them.

But it would have been possible for Beren to back off. Luthien suggested it, when he was reluctant to lead her into danger.  “You must choose, Beren, between these two: to relinquish the quest and your oath and seek a life of wandering upon the face of the earth; or to hold to your word and challenge the power of darkness upon its throne. But on either road I shall go with you, and our doom shall be alike.” That is the context Dior has on Oaths.

Dior knows that breaking your word is dishonorable. But attacking innocents is even more so. If the Sons of Feanor are truly motivated by their honor rather than bloodthirstiness, they will leave Doriath alone even if it means renouncing their authority. And if they are just looking for an excuse, handing over the Silmaril won’t stop them.

So Dior refused to hand over the Silmaril, and the Feanorians were compelled to retrieve it.

#glowfic #casteth afar #The Silmarillion #silmarillion #silm #dior eluchil #second kinslaying #tehhumi october

[thepinkseat-askthemoonbunny]

Okay, so here's my version of Maglor's mystery spouse FINALLY come out from hiding. His name is Ringwë Ilyannon, or Ringo for short. He's one of Valinor's most prolific actors and playwrights, and has five well-known plays he's written and several more known roles he's starred in. More facts under the cut (will be expanded):

His father-name, Ringwë means "rime, frost" in Quenya because he was born on a snowy afternoon. Because the Noldor don't have a creative bone in their body when it comes to naming their kids. His mother name, Ilyannon means "all-gifted" because his mom just KNEW that her kid was going to be this amazingly all-talented being (or at least she hoped).

He's an only child and as such, his parents dote on him. He's especially close to his father, who can be kind of overprotective (think Turgon levels of overprotective)

His parents were supporters of the House of Fingolfin, and as such they were NOT Feanor's number one fans (the feeling was mutual). They thought he was a little off his rocker and they were absolutely completely correct. His mother worked as a lady-in-waiting to Anaire and Aredhel and his father was a horse trainer who also had a reputation for breeding fine horses.

Ringo's a pretty nice guy, he's outgoing and loves being around people but he's vain as fuck. He's a snack and he knows it, and he makes especial sure to take care of his looks because "that's my money maker. That and my talent."

Unlike most of his peers, he didn't find his calling right away. He had to try on a ton of different hats before realizing he had a knack for acting. It all started when little Ringo and some other kids put on one of those cutesy little school plays and he was cast as a footman.

Ringo took to acting like a fish to water, he got a lot more roles in drama club after that and then began work on writing one of his first plays. This is actually how he meets the husband.

Over the years as Ringo's acting and writing career took off and he grew up, he had several well-known roles and three published plays under his belt, but he wanted to try something a little more ambitious...a musical. And to do that, he needed a musician.

Ringo and Maglor had heard of each other before, of course. They'd see each other when their two houses were forced to be in the same place for gatherings and when Maedhros would swing by the main house to hang out with Fingon. Of course they were wary, remembering the stories told by their fathers but after seeing Maedhros around the house for a while, Ringo determined that not all the Feanorians could be that bad. He and Maglor weren't friends, they'd probably say hi in passing but that was about it. However when he approached Mags with the offer of helping him write his musical, they weren't going to turn down the chance of working with a well-known artist.

So their relationship starts out as strictly professional, pretty distant, but they realize that they work quite well together. Ringo has a thing for Maglor's unique brand of music and you know Mags loves anything to do with drama. They went from being awkward not-friends to theater kids nerding it out together, and as they worked on this project together they became friends. They started to spend time together secretly because they knew their dads would flip the fuck out if they were caught.

The attraction built up over time, but neither of these idiots realized it until it beat them over the head with a club. During dress rehearsal, Ringo was saying his lines and caught Maglor staring at him while playing the intro music. Like, staring like he was enraptured. And so Ringo started staring back, they were both thinking "how did I not realize how hot he was" and poor Ringo was so distracted that he totally butchered his lines in front of everybody.

Their flirting consisted of theatre debates, banter battles that could be described as Shakespeare if he smoked too much weed, and trying to one-up each other with increasingly weird poetry. "Damn, I didn't know there were that many creative euphemisms for butts." They're trying to get this project done and dancing around each other until one day they have a bit too much wine during break and push comes to shove. In other words, somebody pushed somebody against a wall and a make out session happened. After it was over, Mags was like: "so...coffee?" And Ringo said. "Sure. Sounds great."

#oc #silm oc #original character #maglor's spouse #maglor's wife #makalaure #kanafinwe #maglor #silmarillion #tolkien #jrr tolkien #art #my art #bunny tracks

[gffa]

I was talking with @himboskywalker​ about Tolkien and fandom and fic, because I’m always curious where people’s “area” of the wider Legendarium are at, whether they’re a fan of the Dwarves or the Humans or the Elves or the Valar or what!  (As a surprise to absolutely no one, the Elves are where my heart is at, where I very much love the Noldor, but if you give me a choice I’m going to run over to that Sindar-centric fic every time.) Which got us onto the topic of fic recs, where, yes, I’ve done a LOT of Tolkien fic recs but I tend to read something of a wide variety and this is a list specifically aimed at those who are familiar with the wider Tolkien world, but haven’t really read much fic and want to know where to start! Other Recs First: - If you haven’t gotten further into Tolkien’s work (like say beyond the movies), I’ve done something of a primer here, which includes fic recs and brief explanations and links to videos that help explain some things.  It’s not as hard as it seems to get involved, honest! - Some other fic recs here, as an addition to the above. - My Tolkien blog (which I haven’t been on in awhile, though, I haven’t let it go in my heart yet) has, I’m not kidding, A LOT of fic recs, I did recs regularly for about three years, so it’s almost as massive as my collection of SW recs. If I Could Only Pick Three To Start You With: ✦ And What Happened After by thearrogantemu - This is the fic that took me from enjoying the Silm characters to diving face-first into really loving them, because it wove such an engaging story about the characters sailing to Aman at the end of LOTR, where various characters you wouldn’t think interacting would be as meaningful as they are, but the fic absolutely sells them on it.  Frodo and Feanor having a conversation about language?  Sam and Maglor sharing a boat to the West?  These things are amazing, as this is a fic about healing and what it means to sail into the Undying Lands.  Also, it has a Feanor and Fingolfin reunion that literally put tears in my eyes. ✦ Interrupted Journeys by ellisk - I’m generally not someone who does a lot of rereading of fic just because I have so many new ones to get to, but I’ve read my favorites in this series (parts 3 to 5 are my sweet spot especially) probably four times through now because “Elfling Legolas growing up in Greenwod with a whole cast of characters around him, as the Shadow so very, very slowly creeps towards them” may sound somewhat simple, but the worldbuilding here is off the scale.  The weaving in of how much the First Age and various Elven politics influenced Thranduil’s ruling of a Silvan people is a major theme, but it’s also good parents raising that precious Elfling right and he and his cousins+friends getting into all sorts of mischief, so it’s balanced between humor and drama in the exact amounts I want.  You can skip the first two fics and jump into the third if you like, which is when Legolas is introduced, but I enjoy the whole thing. ✦ Return to Aman OR Quenta Narquelion by bunn - I can’t pick between these two, they’re both incredible.  Return to Aman is basically “Elrond grabs Maglor and drags him to Aman with them” and it breaths such incredible lift into all the characters of Aman, it doesn’t negate the terrible things the Feanorians did, but neither does it negate Elrond’s love for them and his biological family, too.  It’s another fic that’s about healing and forgiveness and it made me glow to read it.  Quenta Narquelion is basically “Feanor refused the call of Mandos after he died and everything started to snowball from there” and it’s an absolutely heartbreaking look at all our Problematic Fave Feanorians and how they were once good people trying to do the best they could, but bit by bit they slipped into the dark.  It’s especially amazing for capturing the complexities of Feanor, as he hovers over his children as a spirit and it really brought me around on his character. The Silmarillion and other First Age Batshit Faves: ✦ The Starlit Sky by Cirth is the fic that really made me get the potential of reading about Maedhros and Maglor raising Elrond and Elros, where it does such a fantastic job of showing that there was genuine affection there, even the midst of all the angst and trauma and pain.  You really get why Elrond could never give up on them, after reading this fic. ✦ In Courts of Living Stone by ncfan - “What if Maeglin never left Nan Elmoth and instead, several decades later, found himself on an errand to Menegroth and developed a relationship with Finduilas instead?” isn’t a fic I expected to capture my heart, but boy did it ever.  Beautiful characterization and beautiful writing, it really captured my imagination, but also gave me ALLLLLL the Maeglin feelings, as well as made me pine that this Finduilas couldn’t have been more common in fandom. ✦ naught but the shores and the sea by ncfan is more of Elrond and Maglor, where it’s an AU that has Elrond finding Maglor after the disastrous attempt to recover the Silmarils and I loved it a lot. ✦ The Crane Wife by Trebia is one that takes an underused character from Tolkien (Lalwen, in this case) and breathes this incredible life into her, gives her personality and joy and sorrow and meaning and, look, any fic that can convince me that Thranduil would marry a Noldo and utterly believe it, you know it’s well-written! The Second Age Is Kind of Quiet in Fandom But I Love It Regardless: ✦ The Art of Long-Distance Grandparenting by Kazaera is a lovely and bittersweet (but mostly lighter in tone) fic about the separation of the Sea between family members and does a wonderful job with Idril’s character, as she tries to stay connected to her grandchildren while being so distant from them and unable to see them, unless they choose to come to Aman.  There’s joy to be found here and it’s a lovely read. ✦ Relativity by French Pony is a lovely look at the final meeting between Elrond and Elros and strikes the right amount of bittersweetness, where it’s awkward and difficult and heartbreaking, but also feels natural and like this was how it was meant to be.  I had many, many Elven Twin feelings during the whole thing.  (I like all their fic, they’re worth checking out their other stuff for, too!) ✦ A Thing or Two About Elrond by Crookneck is a series of fics about Elrond and the various relationships he has--with Celebrian, with his children, with Gil-Galad, etc.--and I remember being really charmed by all of them and how much shit Elrond has seen over the course of his life. The Third Age, Lord of the Rings Version: ✦ Boromir's Return by Osheen Nevoy - This one is sort hard to summarize, but it’s basically “Boromir lives, makes a friend, and slowly changes everything about the LOTR plot”, but it’s so much more than that, where the worldbuilding is phenomenal, the pacing is incredible, it made me fall in love with Boromir as a character all over again, it contains probably the best portrayal of Denethor I’ve ever read in fandom, and I really loved the OC and so on.  It’s utterly engrossing and honestly I cannot recommend it highly enough, even if you’re not usually into this sort of thing. ✦ The River by Indigo Bunting is a fic where Legolas and Sam get separated from the others for a brief time and I love fics that take two characters who don’t interact much, throw them into an intense situation, and sees what happens.  It’s not precisely a light-hearted fic, it’s very intense, but it’ll make you fall in love with the sheer good in both characters and the friendship they develop.  It’s brilliantly written and I cannot recommend it enough. ✦ A Bit of Rope by Aiwendiel is a fic where Gandalf doesn’t fall at Moria and it changes everything--not necessarily for the better.  The slow, creeping sense of things changing, things going just a little bit worse here and there, until you realize how much darker the Fellowship’s journey could have been, was brilliantly done, and one I thought did justice to the idea, it’s not grimdark, there’s still light and hope here, but it makes you feel like, oh, maybe things happened as they did for a reason, even as hard as that seemed sometimes.  Gorgeously plotted and utterly engrossing. The Third Age, Mirkwood Version: ✦ daw the minstrel has an entire series of fics about Legolas growing up in Mirkwood and there’s absolutely a reason why she was one of the most well-known authors in that corner of fandom.  Her ability to create new characters (including two brothers for Legolas) was incredible, I cared so much about the family dynamics and got swept up in the drama (which was in a very loving family, but Legolas was definitely a mischief-seeker) and they’re fantastic.  If you find yourself in something of a stretch with too many OCs and your attention wavers, you can always skip around, they don’t have to be read in order and a lot of the non-canon characters can be skimmed over, imo. ✦ In a Field of Blood and Stone by ScribeofArda is so much better than what The Hobbit movies gave us of the Battle of Five Armies, it does such beautiful justice to the complicated character of Thranduil and Legolas, not sacrificing the warmth there for how difficult these times are and the war they find themselves in the middle of.  This Bard is also really engaging and fun to read--I read pretty much the entire novel’s worth in, like, a day or two because I could not put this one down. ✦ Swordplay and Swimming by cliodna_bright has an incredible meeting where Thranduil comes to visit Rivendell, runs into Elladan and Elrohir, who are young enough that they speak without thinking, and it’s not precisely a humor fic, but I was screaming the entire time because it’s so sharply written and so absolutely delightful, I LOVE IT. ✦ Deep and Crisp and Even by rivlee made me fall in love with how Elves and humans may look very similar, but there’s this sense of otherworldliness to the Elves, as shown through Bard’s eyes when he has a meeting with Thranduil.  Beautifully written and just the right amount of atmospheric. The Fourth Age Where Everything Actually Does Mostly Work Out: ✦ Far Horizons by Bodkin is the Fourth Age fic of my heart, where the various Elves that we came to know in Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are all in Aman and decide to build their own realm there.  Which is difficult because Elven Politics even just amongst themselves, much less clashing with all the established politics of the other Elven realms in Aman!  But it’s a light-hearted fic (for the most part) that’s about healing and moving forward, balancing their ties to their history versus that Middle-Earth changed them, and I love it for soothing my soul.  (Thranduil sailed, you can’t tell me otherwise!!!)(Bonus moments of Glorfindel being pretty hilarious.)  I like all of bodkin’s work, but this one has a special place with me. ✦ Age of Healing by trollmela is one where Maedhros and Legolas have a conversation in Aman and it’s about the bittersweetness of healing and how difficult it is, taking two characters who would never have met in canon and weaving something entirely engaging and poignant out of it. Collections That Span The Ages: ✦ This Taste of Shadow by Mira_Jade - This is a collection of dozens of various shorter stories (or sometimes 10k “ficlets”) that you can largely skip around in if you have specific characters you like or you can just start at the beginning and read through.  It contains looks at pretty much everyone, from Maedhros to Galadriel to Thranduil to Elrond to Caranthir to Glorfindel to the Valar, etc.  I’ve enjoyed pretty much everything I’ve read in this collection! ✦ Fiondil's Tapestry and Tales from Vairë's Loom by Fiondil are in the same vein and I have really enjoyed everything I’ve read from both of them!  I especially remember that there was one chapter that had a scene between Thranduil and Cirdan and thinking, ahhhh, why has no one ever written that before!? as an example of the neat things it does.  But also lots about Elrond and Glorfindel and the Valar and so on! This probably doesn’t feel like a super extensive list, but those collection series will give you an excellent spanning of Elves, Humans, Dwarves, Hobbits, etc., not just the same central characters, but giving time to a lot of lesser focused ones as well.  Like, I feel I’ve read a fair chunk of Elwing fic, but I couldn’t point you to a specific one in my list of recs, which means I’m pretty sure it was in the collections ones or else she got some good scenes in one of the Aman-based fics, so I swear the above is at least a solid place to start for dipping one’s toe into Tolkien fic. AS ALWAYS, OTHER PEOPLE’S RECS ARE WELCOME, god knows I haven’t read anything in the last two years (and will have missed a lot even before that) and so I always need more recs, too!

#tolkien stuff #the silmarillion #fic recs #tolkien fic recs