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thesummerestsolstice · 13 days

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Silm AU Concept that Won't Leave me Alone:

Earendil falls ill, not long after his marriage. None of the healers in Sirion– human or elven– can explain why. Maybe it's because Idril and Tuor left for Valinor recently, and no one really thinks they'll make it there alive. Maybe it's the plague that's been sweeping through war-torn Beleriand. Maybe his body is just giving up on him– it's not unheard of for half-elves to die that way.

And it's becoming clear that Earendil is dying. Nothing they do helps. Some of Elwing's advisors try to keep her away from his bedside– half out of fear his illness is contagious and half because she spends all her time there, refusing to eat or rest. They're trying to protect her from the horrible truth. It isn't working.

Elwing knows of two great sources of magic. One is her own– inherited from Melian, running far stronger in her blood than any had expected, far stronger than it had in her father. Strong enough that she's spent most of her life learning to hide it. Flowers bloom under her feet, birds flock to her side. Elwing is powerful, but she's young; untrained. She tries to help Earendil. She fails.

And then there is the Silmaril. The Silmaril's power is not like hers. It does not make things grow, or bring the birds and gentle beasts of the world to their doorstep. But it drives away the orcs, keeps the wolves at bay, cuts through the darkness, burns away evil. It is a much more violent kind of purification.

And Elwing thinks, is it not evil coursing through my husband's veins, choking his lungs, threatening to tear him away from me?

She takes the Silmaril and pries it open with a dagger, pouring it's divine light into the abalone-shell cup that Idril had given her before she sailed away. She gives it to Earendil, comforts him, climbs into bed beside him. They hold each other, whisper their marriage vows again in the darkness. When Elwing drifts into sleep, she doesn't know if he'll still be there when she wakes up.

And then Earendil wakes up with clear, bright eyes. It works. It works very well. It works so well that Elwing has to teach Earendil how to hide the new light in his eyes and the shimmer under his skin.

Elwing keeps the Silmaril hidden away after that. Some whisper that she's become obsessed with it, just as her father had. In truth, she's just trying to hide the fact that the gem has no light left. Somehow, she doubts her advisors would approve of her decision.

But she doesn't care, and neither does Earendil. They are happy, and in love. Not long after Earendil's recovery– a recovery most think was a miracle sent by the Valar– they have children. Two very strange children with sharp teeth and bright eyes who they love very much.

It looks like everything will work out for Elwing's little family, right until the day the first letter from Maedhros Feanorian arrives.

#silmarillion #silm au #silm headcanons #elwing #earendil #elrond #elrond peredhel #elros #maedhros #eldritch peredhel #sirion #crack treated seriously #what if someone drank a Silmaril?#I kind of want to write more of this is has *implications*#let the Peredhel fam be weird together!!#Elwing and Earendil are the couple of all time

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tanoraqui · 1 year

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#necromancy is about coping with grief and about NOT coping with grief#and about screaming ‘NO’ at the universe so hard that the universe shakes…temporarily

in light of these interesting tags of yours: any thoughts on Celebrimbor and necromancy? (thinking of your ficlet about this!)

Celebrimbor does necromancy exactly 2 (or maybe more) times, 2.5 if you count guiding someone else through it.

1. (Some time in the late Third Age)

Veryawendë thudded her head down on the worktable, jostling the scattered crystals, composition drafts (paper and fixed-light), and one full-sized, Song-automatable crystalline cat.

Automatable. Fifty years of work, including this latest/current effort in which she hadn't slept for ten days, and all they'd achieve was Song-automatable.

"It's no use," she said into the tabletop. "We just can't layer the Music so much it starts to achieve real sentience and we can't awaken it to behave like a real creature, not just a rock...and I love you like a brother, but I am not getting pregnant just to usher a new fëa into the world for this... That wouldn't work anyway, it'd just be stuck in its own body..."

Celebrimbor sat up abruptly, inverse to her head-to-table. "Not necessarily."

Veryawendë turned her head to look at him, but she spoke without energy. "What."

Celebrimbor's eyes were bright with more than his usual Light. He, too, hadn't slept for ten days.

"I said, not necessarily." He reactivated the dormant fixed-light crystals and began sketching Music in mid-air, unlike any Veryawendë had ever seem. "I know how—I theoretically know how—Do you think Mr. Sniffles would enjoy being crystalline?"

1.5. (Some time in the late Third Age, 1 day later)

The soft nearly-light, nearly-Song of Mr. Sniffles's soul snapped back into his body as Celebrimbor fell back with an exhausted cry of defeat. He lay panting on the floor as Mr. Sniffles shuddered back to himself and leapt off Celebrimbor’s now non-sittable lap with a pained, indignant cry.

Veryawendë caught him and Sang a soft song of healing and comfort, and assured him that he was a good cat, the best cat, absolutely superlative and patient and going to get so many treats (and she got a jump on that by feeding him a few more crumbs of lembas and catnip, to keep him comfortably dazed and heart-whole through this ordeal).

"It's no use," Celebrimbor panted. "He just won't...sink in. I think even if I pushed harder, he'd slip out—and if I push harder, he'll be forced out of his natural body entirely, and unhoused.”

"Alright," said Veryawendë. She set Mr. Sniffles, once more wide-pupiled and content, in his workshop bed, and looked around for her coat and a good prism. "Then I'm off to Eärendil. You stay here and recover your strength, I'll be back in a couple weeks."

"What?" Celebrimbor pushed himself up on his elbows. "Why?"

Veryawendë chose a small polyhedral and gestured with it. "We need a spiritual adhesive. Your grandfather put overmuch of himself in the Silmarils, right? And those hold Treelight. So if I borrow some of the Light and we can fix Mr. Sniffles into the model with that..."

"That's....brilliant." Celebrimbor sat up, wavered like he was going to fall back again, then instead drank some water and started fishing around for his notes on fëa transferral and worse. "Don't go to Eärendil, though—we'll lose all our momentum! Take it from me. I'll teach you the Song."

Veryawendë felt her momentum, and her certainty, stumble anyway.

"Is that even possible?"

"'How did you think newer orcs are made, my dear?'" Celebrimbor quoted absentmindedly. "'We didn't just stop with the Unasked and Refusing.' Don't worry, I've had worse—most agony is endurable if it's fast."

2. (Not long after Elves figure out how to [temporarily] physically leave Arda without getting lost in the spiritual Eternal Darkness that surrounds it)

Curufin was dying, and it was significantly more painful than the first time, not to mention more embarrassing. A cave-in, even while exploring a strange, brand-new world, was so much less elegant than a well-thrust sword from a wrathful young king. He wouldn’t have minded so much, however, were it not distressing his son so terribly.

“Just hold on, Atya, just stay with me.” Celebrimbor shoved away more of the rockfall frantically but carefully, so as to not cause more collapsing, then knelt and took Curufin’s head into his lap. “I set off the emergency beacon. Help will be here soon.”

His hands brushed anxiously down Curufin’s body, feeling out the many cuts and deep, deadly bruises, too caring not to want to help and too clever not to know that he couldn’t.

Celebrimbor was unhurt, at least. Shaking, knocked by pebbles, maybe lightly bruised from where Curufin had shoved him to the floor, out of the way of the sudden rockfall. He could be proud of that, this time.

“Not soon enough.”

Curufin’s lungs were too thoroughly crushed to speak clearly. He switched to thought instead, and spent his remaining energy taking Celebrimbor’s hand (with the arm that could still move) and holding it until it stopped shaking.

I will return from Mandos as soon as I can, Tyelpë, he promised, and I will see you again then.

“You don’t know that!” Celebrimbor cried. “Last time, it took nearly seven-thousand years, and Aunt Findis had to ransom you. What if this time Mandos won’t release you at all? Or what if you can’t reach Mandos in the first place? We are outside Arda, Atya! Who knows what happens if we die on out here!”

Once, Curufin might have retorted that his son might not mind either of those scenarios, and been right. Now, he just felt tears digging trails through the dust on his face, and saw the matching tracks on Celebrimbor’s cheeks.

He reached up to brush them away…he tried and didn’t have the strength. Celebrimbor carried his hand the rest of the way, and cupped it against his damp and dusty skin.

Oh, my son! I will see you then, Curufin repeated. You will be fine as well—your uncle will be here soon, and there is no lack of air. Just stay away from the rockfall…

“Do not say such things!” Do not speak like you are leaving me alone! You will not die here, Atya, not now, not here!

Celebrimbor was weeping fully. Curufin could do little more than let his hadmns be held.

The last time he’d died had been in a cave, too, come to think of it, glorified though Menegroth had been. And Nargothrond had been it’s own disaster… Maybe he should just avoid caves. Or maybe pain, muffled though it was with a growing sense of distance from his hröa, was making him delirious.

He thought the trumpet-call tug of the Doomsman’s summons was real, though. He remembered that.

See? he said, though the fully living couldn’t. Curufin was very barely connected to his hröa at all, anymore. But he wrapped his fëa around his son’s one last time (for now) and whispered, Weep not, my heart’s-jewel. All will be well.

“No,” Celebrimbor gasped, then, “Yes.” He gripped Curufin’s hand (so, so far away) in a fist, and returned the embrace to hold his flightful fëa just as tightly. “Yes, because you will not die today. I– I know well how to do this. I will not let you.”

He shifted his grip somehow to the last threads connecting Curufin’s fëa to his hröa, and began to Sing of chains.

3 Or More. Dagor Dagorath

All bets are off in Dagor Dagorath.

(No further details are available at this time, but I do like to think that at some point in the Battle of Battles, the full, assembled Line of Curufinwë—Fëanor, Curufin, Celebrimbor, Curufinwen, [Celebrimbor’s OC daughter], maybe more if Curufinwen ever had kids—gets to beat the shit out of Sauron together.)

#my fic #Celebrimbor #curufin #the silmarillion #aman ever after #random anon asks

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ceescedasticity · 2 years

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here is another story start written on a mobile device which may or may not be continued but is not the current top priority

Voronwë awoke to a wave in the face.

His last memory was of the island they'd finally run aground on, maybe weeks after they'd entered the strange archipelago and been trapped there, the enchantments immediately robbing Tuor of what awareness age had left him. They'd been doing the same to the elves, more slowly. Voronwë had found his vision constantly swimming, and several times had thought he was on his old ship, with his old crewmates, and almost blundered over the rail expecting a larger deck. Idril had forgotten how to render seawater drinkable, staring empty-eyed at the bucket for hours instead, and sometimes seemed to think she was on the Grinding Ice, huddling desperately in her cape and calling childlike for her mother. They'd had some idea of landing, to look for water and avoid sinking the ship in their growing madness, but all the islands seemed to slip away when approached. Running aground had been a relief, and given him a clearer head than he'd had in days.

It had been a strange island, little more than a sandbar with a strange tower on it -- dark wet stone that looked like it was regularly submerged. They'd carried Tuor inside for lack of any other obvious course, and found a stone table holding ewers of fresh water. They drank it, and found it even roused Tuor enough that he seemed to recognize them again.

Then the tide had come in -- or perhaps the sea rose -- and they found the tower was indeed regularly submerged, and their ship had vanished. They'd retreated up the slick stone stairs circling the interior side of the tower instead, finally reaching a room at the very top.

It had been empty except for two stone beds.

Or biers.

Without a word of discussion, Idril and Voronwë had laid out all their cloaks on top of each other on the floor between the biers, helped Tuor to lie down on them, and lain themselves down on either side of him, leaving the biers empty. They'd all three clasped hands, and gone to sleep.

As much as he'd had presence of mind to expect anything, he had expected never to wake.

But now he was awake, lying half in the cold surf on an unfamiliar pebbly beach, under the moon and also, in the other direction, under horrifying sheer mountains that looked like they might reach the moon. When he sat up and looked around, Tuor and Idril were there, too, looking equally mystified, and Tuor looking at least two decades younger. Possibly three.

Voronwë tried to say something, but could only manage, "What...?"

Tuor looked from Idril to Voronwë to his own hands, which he flexed several times -- hopefully because they hurt less. "I... I think Lord Ulmo did something...?"

Idril staggered to her feet, trying to wring water out of her hair, and started looking around. "I..."

"Idril?" someone called, and all three of them startled violently.

There was a small party of riders approaching them from the south, not orcs -- six, with five spare horses -- big horses, probably elves, probably Noldor, but there weren't enough horses left to be going anywhere with that many spares -- or not in Arvernien. --Fëanorians might take them hostage for Elwing's Silmaril, but were unlikely to hurt them immediately, so he didn't need to throw himself at them weaponless to try to let the others escape.

But the rider who'd jumped off his horse and jogged towards them, throwing his hood back, was as golden-haired as Idril, and she didn't look concerned as he approached her, only bewildered. "Idril, thank -- well, thank Ulmo you're safe."

"I -- are we dead?" Idril said.

The stranger shook his head. "About three days' ride south of the Calacirya. And I was released early. And -- and this must be Tuor, and Voronwë?"

"Yes, but how--" She stopped. "Tuor, Voronwë, this is my cousin Finrod, lately King of Nargothrond, currently -- High Prince of the Noldor in Aman?"

"Call it prince," said //Finrod Felagund\\. "And we knew to come here, now, because Ulmo sent a dream... though he didn't say why. We knew about your voyage because-- You've been missing for... twenty-five years, now. Eärendil and Elwing got here ten years ago."

Twenty-five //years\\. Before entering the enchanted islands they'd been at sea for -- months, maybe a year. Voronwë wondered how much time had been spent wandering, and how much in that tower.

"We were -- there was an island -- Eärendil--" Idril broke off. "Can we discuss this somewhere else? We're all soaking wet."

"Right, sorry, my apologies. We can get you some dry clothes -- will you be able to ride?"

"None of us are great riders, but we can manage," Tuor said. He sounded younger, too -- or stronger, at least.

"We'll take it slow," said a woman still on horseback.

"Princess Duimiwen of Alqualondë," Finrod said. "She kindly agreed to accompany us on this excursion."

Voronwë bowed, but looked at Idril for guidance. She also bowed, very politely, like -- exactly like she was dealing with an Iathrin lord. "Princess Duimiwen."

Princess Duimiwen dismounted and came to stand beside Finrod, and rumpled his hair. She was a head taller and looked like she juggled anchors as a hobby. "Mainly I'm here to keep my baby cousin from falling in the sea. Come on, let's get past the high tide line and get you three warmed up."

The party consisted of Finrod, Duimiwen, two excruciatingly young Noldor called Márahaimë and Hiswë, and two Teleri called Neter and Tolot. (Voronwë was mostly sure those were just numbers, in Lindarin, but didn't want to ask.) Between them they came up with clothing that would more or less fit Idril, Tuor, and Voronwë (Tuor's shoulders demanded one of Duimiwen's tunics). There were no tents, but the party held up blankets as a windbreak so they could change. Voronwë would have waited until Idril and Tuor were done, for propriety's sake, but Idril jerked her head at him and he joined them. (It would be -- have been -- unremarkable in the Falas, less so in Gondolin. Here, if not unremarkable it was at least unremarked-on.)

One of the sailors built a small driftwood fire, and Finrod fetched miruvor and waybread from his saddlebags. The waybread was filling and invigorating but surprisingly astringent. "It's Aunt Findis's," Prince Finrod said ruefully. "Made with love and well-wishes and frustration with more or less everyone on Arda."

As they ate, Finrod explained Eärendil's appeal and the Valar's decision to go to war -- then backed up to explain Elwing's involvement, and the Silmaril's -- and the destruction of the Havens of Sirion.

Idril closed her eyes. "Are you telling me that if we'd just taken Eärendil and Elwing and the damned Silmaril //with us\\-- No, the Iathrim would never have agreed."

"I'm not sure the Valar would have agreed, if there'd been an actual Exile involved," Finrod said softly. "It was obvious -- to most of them -- Eärendil shouldn't count as one, and all his crew were Beleriand-born. When he found out you weren't here Eärendil hoped you were somewhere in the Enchanted Islands, but most of us thought you lost."

"We were in the islands," Idril said. "I'm not sure how we got from there to here, besides... presumably Ulmo."

"Yes," Finrod said. "I'm not sure why now and not earlier, though -- the islands have been gone for most of a decade. And the host has been gone for half that! Including Aunt Anairë and both your maternal grandparents, as well as my father."

"Not you?" Idril asked.

"Pardon enough for early release from the Halls is not the same as pardon enough to allow a rebel back to war," Finrod said. "I think."

His expression looked untroubled to Voronwë, but Duimiwen patted his shoulder. "And everyone would've been heartbroken if we lost you //again\\, gannet. //I\\ was not allowed to go because I couldn't convince anyone I would definitely stay on the ships the way we're supposed to. I'm still disappointed. I'm sure Ulmo had his reasons for the timing."

"...Maybe he waited to get Tuor into the Blessed Realm until the other Holy Ones were too busy to notice," Voronwë said.

"I wouldn't put it past him," said Duimiwen.

"...Considering the Judge's initial reaction to Eärendil, you may be on to something."

#other fic #tolkien #Arda etc

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sunflowersupremes · 4 years

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Thief

After years of solitude, Maglor is starving and hallucinating.

Characters: Maglor, Celeborn

Read on AO3

Look at you, Kanafinwe, said his father’s harsh voice in his mind, the last son of Feanor, reduced to petty thievery.

No better than Melkoro, agreed Curufin, ever the parrot of their father’s words.

Maglor pulled his hands through his dark hair in frustration, whining aloud, “Shut up! I have not eaten this week, and I see none of you doing anything to help it.”

You’re too noisy to be a thief, scolded Celegorm. Thieves must be like hunters, silent and blending in with their surroundings. You’re making enough noise to wake an orc pack.

“Shut up!”

Go on. There’s no shame if you must, came a quiet voice, his least favorite one to hear. Maedhros always sounded the most disappointed, never angry, never raising his voice. Not even when Maglor raged at him for abandoning his last brother. Somehow, Maedhros’ permission made it far worse.

But despite all that, he needed to eat.

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, but he knew it had been far too long. When the small group had set up camp beside the cave he called home, Maglor had seen it as a gift.

But sneaking into the camp proved to be more difficult than he’d thought. He sat in the entrance to his cave, watching them for hours and debating with himself on the best way to get inside. His brothers had offered no help, leaving him to devise a plan all by himself.

So when he’d seen the wagon at the edge of the camp, well out of the ring of firelight, he’d headed toward it.

As Celegorm had so helpfully pointed out, he was hardly quiet, but thankfully the elves in the camp hadn’t been expecting trouble, and their security was lax at best. It was far too easy to merely walk up to the wagon and dig through one of the crates.

He didn’t even notice the person walk up behind him.

-----------

He’d been aware that someone had been prowling around in the woods, but he hadn’t expected this.

Celeborn recognized him the moment he saw Maglor Feanorian. Even with ragged clothes and a too-thin frame, he was still every bit the prince he had once been.

But Maglor didn’t seem to recognize him.

He’d considered leaving the other, letting him steal whatever it was he wanted and then disappear off into the night. But curiosity had drawn him closer. Close enough that Maglor should have noticed, but he didn’t.

The Feanorian remained unaware of Celeborn until the other was right beside him, and then he just glanced at him out of the corner of his eye and muttered, “Not now Celegorm.”

For a long moment, he was almost able to convince himself that the other had said Celeborn, not Celegorm, but no, he knew he hadn’t misheard the other.

“Maglor-”

“I am not listening to you anymore.” Maglor’s face was flushed red, but his eyes were unfocused. Fever? Dehydration? Celeborn wasn’t sure (and he wasn’t sure why he cared). Even if Maglor was barely able to open the buckles on the bag he was attempting to rob, he was still a killer, Celeborn reminded himself sternly.

He also raised your son in law, said another voice in his head. It sounded far too much like his daughter for comfort, and although he knew she wasn’t communicating across distances as she occasionally did, it still left him with a pang of guilt.

“Let me help you.” He opened the bag, unhooking the buckles, and offered Maglor a piece of dried meat. The starving elf thanked his deceased brother and gulped it down.

Celeborn sighed, placing a hand on Maglor’s forehead. The other swatted him away, but not before he was able to confirm that he wasn’t feverish. A small victory.

Still unsure why he was doing what he was doing, Celeborn lifted himself into the wagon, rummaging through the boxes until he’d procured a fresh change of clothing for Maglor.

He threw them out of the wagon where they landed on Maglor’s head, then Celeborn swung himself out.

“I’m not stealing clothes,” Maglor said, shaking his head firmly. “I’ve stolen enough already.”

“It’s not stealing if they’re mine to give-”

“Your’s to-” Maglor trailed off, his confused mind seeming to have difficulty following Celeborn’s statements. Then he seemed to create a narrative he was content with and murmured, “Yes, yours. We- where are we?”

“Traveling to visit relatives.” It was true enough. Celeborn had been on the road, visiting with Cirdan in Lindon, and was currently on his way back to Lothlorien where Galadriel had elected to remain with their daughter.

Maglor seemed to buy the lie, nodding and pulling at his shirt, no doubt deciding to change into the far cleaner and warmer clothes Celeborn had offered him. “Yes, Timo. Timo was just-” he turned, looking behind him at the woods, as though expecting his elder brother to appear at any moment.

“He’ll be here soon,” he said, reasoning that it wasn’t exactly a lie. If Maglor wasn’t careful, he was going to be reuniting with all his brothers very soon.

As the other’s shirt fell away, Celeborn winced at what he saw. He’d been expecting scars - Maglor hadn’t led an easy or peaceful life, even before his self imposed exile - but he still found himself startled by how thin the other was. His mind was made up, he wasn’t going to let Maglor just wander off again in that state.

Helping Maglor into the shirt, not trusting the minstrel to manage it himself, he leaned farther into his lie. “You were separated from us, I stayed to look for you. The others are just ahead.”

“Yes. I did, didn’t I?”

“Hmm. You need to drink.” Celeborn lifted the waterskin from his belt and offered it to Maglor, who took it willingly.

As much as he was determined to help him, he also wasn’t about to take the elf back into his camp. He didn’t have an exact count off the top of his head, but he knew for a fact he wasn’t the only survivor of a kinslaying that was present.

Instead, he wrapped an arm around Maglor, grabbed a bag of supplies, and followed the elf’s footsteps back to where he’d come from.

He wasn’t surprised to find that Maglor’s tracks led back to a cave, but the fact that he’d clearly been there for a long time did. The last they’d heard, Maglor had been living on the shore, not in a dank cave in the woods. But he pushed his questions aside and helped Maglor to sit down.

“I hope I didn’t worry anyone,” Maglor said after a moment, tapping his foot against the ground. Celeborn sat a pair of boots in front of him, waiting for the other to put them on.

“We knew you could handle yourself.”

“But I didn’t,” Maglor said suddenly, thrusting his hand in front of Celeborn’s nose. “I- I burned myself on- I don’t remember what I burned myself on.”

He wasn’t prepared for that. Maglor’s hand, burned by the Silmaril, caused Celeborn to pull back in alarm. The other had wrapped bandages around it, but they did little to hide the smell of charred flesh. Fingers shaking, Celeborn couldn’t help but unwrap the bandages, baring the wound.

It could have been burned yesterday. There no no hint in his wound that it was several thousand years old, and he had no doubt that Maglor must be in great pain.

“A fire,” Celeborn lied, feeling slightly ill. “You burned your hand in a fire.” Maglor seemed to believe him.

A part of him wanted to treat it - seeing anyone in that much pain was horrific - but he had no doubt it wouldn’t make any difference. Instead, Celeborn pulled out fresh bandages and rewrapped the wound. “It will be better soon,” he said. Another lie, but it seemed kinder than the truth.

He offered Maglor more water which the other drank greedily and without comment. “This is for you,” Celeborn said, pushing the bag toward Maglor. “It has food and water.”

Maglor blinked at him. “I- I have to ride ahead,” Celeborn lied. “You’ll have to catch up with us.”

His men would be looking for him soon anyway. They hadn’t been stopping for the night, only for a short rest. He’d been gone far too long already. If he kept telling himself that Maglor would be fine, perhaps he’d believe it.

Maglor watched him walk away, then he softly said, “I’m not going with you.”

He turned, looking back over his shoulder at Maglor, one eyebrow raised.

Maglor met his gaze with far clearer eyes than when he’d found him. “You’re not Celegorm,” he said after a moment. “I know that. I don’t know who you are. But you’re not my brother.” His face twisted. “My brothers are dead. I’m not going with you.”

“I wasn’t going to suggest it,” he lied.

#tolkien one shot #celeborn #my writing #silmarillion #silmfic #maglor

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thewarriorandtheking · 4 years

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Valentine’s Day

The Warrior and The King MasterList

Thought I would post this one again...for the holiday

*****************************************

“What’s the occasion?”

Kaylea Wolf looked at the slim black box with a sense of apprehension. Today must be another special date that she had completely forgotten about. Thorin was so much better at remembering these things than she was. Kaylea knew it was the day men of Gondor celebrated their beloved, but Thorin had never bothered himself with the holidays of Men. This had to be something else.

The King of Erebor smiled at her. He knew she would forget which meant he got to surprise her, he always enjoyed that. “This is the day we first met, one hundred years ago.”

Kaylea looked up at him, calculating the dates in her head. “So it is. I honestly do not know how you remember these things. Has it really been a hundred years? It seems like just yesterday.”

“I remember some very long years,” Thorin replied. “But it is hard to believe how much has happened since then.”

A hundred years, that did explain his choice of venue. Kaylea looked out at the view from their table, the city of Minas Tirith falling steeply away beneath them to the plains. The mountains of the Ephel Duath sharp against the evening sky, the peaks just catching the last rays of the setting sun. The White Fox was one of the most luxurious inns in the city, located in the sixth circle it often hosted visiting royalty and its fare was famous far beyond Gondor. The tables were full this evening as many noble couples were celebrating the holiday. Every head had turned when Kaylea Wolf and Thorin Oakenshield had walked across the room to their table in an alcove near the windows. Kaylea tall and beautiful as an Elven lord in her long red dress, the King of Erebor resplendent in blue and silver. The first course had just been cleared when Thorin slid the box across the table.

“Are you not going to open it?” Thorin asked. Kaylea looked at it, her hands in her lap.

“Each thing that you give me is more spectacular than the last. They never seem fitting for an old warrior like me.”

“Nonsense,” Thorin said. He got up from his chair and walked around behind her, reaching over her shoulder to press the latch of the box. “There is a reason I asked you to wear your red dress.”

Kaylea gasped despite herself. It was a necklace made of three strands of tiny rubies interspersed with the occasional diamond, the chain between them fine as a strand of silk. Stones hanging from the lowest chain gave the effect the gems were dripping off. As everyone in the inn watched Thorin lifted the necklace out and fastened it around her neck, it fit perfectly in the low, heart-shaped neckline of her dress. Thorin kissed her lightly beneath her ear and walked back to take his seat.

“Now you look like my wife,” he was smiling widely, obviously pleased. Kaylea ran a hand over the necklace, the stones cold against her skin. She felt a bit self-conscious wearing so many jewels in public. She normally only wore jewelry for Thorin in Erebor, and perhaps that was his point.

“This is amazing. Must have taken you forever to set so many stones.”

Thorin chuckled. “One hundred. And yes, it took me some time but I always enjoy making these things. Though I do admit, I wish you would wear them more.”

Kaylea looked at him mischievously. “I hate to tell you this, but you married a soldier.”

Thorin laughed. “And you married a Dwarf. What a pair we are!”

Kaylea laughed with him, reaching to pour them more wine. “Thank you, my king. I will wear it for you often,” Kaylea raised her glass, smiling slyly at him. Later that night everything would come off except the necklace.

“See that you do,” Thorin said, clicking his glass to hers.

As they drank Kaylea could feel the eyes of many in the room on her. She felt a bit sorry for any man giving out jewelry tonight, everything would look pale beside Thorin’s work. The waiters had just served their second course when the man at the next table kneeled beside his lady, taking her hand. Those around them applauded as she said yes and the man slid a ring on her finger. Thorin was watching closely.

“That is a good stone,” he said, nodding approvingly at the ring.

Kaylea shook her head, remembering the time Thorin had done the same to her, so many years ago. “How did you know I would say yes when you did that to me?” She asked.

Thorin shrugged. “I did not know for sure, I only thought you would find it harder to say no in front of those Elves,” he grinned at her over his wineglass. “I thought it was worth the risk.”

“Every time you asked I found it harder to refuse you,” Kaylea said.

“I know,” Thorin smiled knowingly at her. “Why do you think I kept asking?” He looked out the window thoughtfully. “I resented you so much at first. You, and Dain, and Balin, and everyone who kept telling me to marry someone else.”

Kaylea studied her husband, turning her wine glass between her fingers. “You did surprise me, when I came back and found you married. I did not think you would do it.”

“It was the right thing to do, in my heart I knew that. My people accept you now, I do not think they would have if not for Shurri, and the heirs she bore me.” He looked back at her with a smile. “And it did work out in the end, I got to marry you not once, but three times!”

Kaylea smiled back at him, remembering each wedding. The first private ceremony, then the huge coronation in Erebor, the fall wedding her brothers had insisted on at Tor Graham. She reached into the hidden pocket in her dress and brought out a small metal case. “It happens that I also have something for you,” she said. “When you said we were dining here tonight I suspected you might be up to something so I brought it along.”

Thorin’s eyes went wide when he saw the markings on the box. He looked up at her in astonishment. “You never!”

“This was given to me many years ago,” Kaylea said. “Repayment for a favor. I have never felt the wish to do anything with it, but now I know I was saving it for you.”

Thorin picked up the box, the markings were the language of Khyr, source of the rarest jewels in the Empire. Fabulous gems that glowed with inner fire, shifting colors as they were turned. Formed in the pressure of Khyr’s deepest oceans, to find one required many years of careful searching. This tiny box was worth as much as a small planet.

The King looked at her seriously. “You say I give you extravagant gifts! All the worth of Erebor could not buy this.”

“You are more than all that gold to me, husband. And what better gift could I give than one that even the Fair Folk would envy?”

Thorin glanced up at her, still amazed. In all his travels with her he had only ever seen one Khyrstone, in the tiara of the Emperor’s daughter. He slid the box open to reveal not one of the multicolored gems, but two. Now it was the King’s turn to gasp. He did not want to lift them out of the case in the crowded inn, but moved them in their holders with his finger. They were nearly flawless, cut by a master. Thorin was stunned. The only gems that could compete with the fabled silmarils of the Elves, and now his wife had given him two!

“After all these years you can still surprise me,” Thorin shook his head. “I will set these one in each of our crowns. As a testament to our love.” He reached across the table and took her hand, bringing it to his lips. “I cannot live without my warrior Queen.”

“And I cannot face life without my handsome King,” Kaylea replied with a soft smile.

Thorin looked across the table at his beautiful wife, her eyes shining over the sparkling necklace. He was very much looking forward to the next hundred years.

******************************************

Read the complete adventures of The Warrior and The King on AO3 & FanFiction, links in my bio.

#thorin oakenshield #thorin and oc #fanfiction #thorin fanfiction #fantic #valentines #true love #writers on tumblr

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gurguliare · 7 years

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I can't tell if ".________." means you'd *like* an ask for it, so no pressure, but if it DOES I'd give an eyetooth to see a DVD commentary for "a double dream." Or the second section of "all they had to lend," if you'd rather a more recent one. *baits breath*

I’LL DO the second section of “all they had to lend” just because “a double dream” is kind of long—if you want to pick an excerpt though? .___. does indeed mean i want asks for this, I’m just. ashamed.

Vingilot’s oars worked stiffly in air. Vingilot’s sails were not savaged by the winds that worked on Elwing; Vingilot seemed rather to feel that changeless wind which fills the moon’s trim crescent.

blah blah blah I like ALL of Tolkien’s ridiculous [x celestial body is actually a boat] suggestions. Did he ever actually mention Tilion with a sail? doesn’t matter. I’m unstoppable.

By a miscalculation she shot past the railing and had to alight, from above, on the bow.

…I love writing flying. I’m bad at it, but I love it: 3D maneuvers! Wind texture! I should do a fic where she takes Elrond on an aerial tour and Elrond is like, half-dead with terror but VERY EXCITED

“I don’t remember commissioning a figurehead,” said her husband. He planted a hand on her foot, but made no other move to steady her. “Who carved you?”

dirtbag Eärendil. I don’t think I planned this before I started writing he just. Came to me.

“I—I was a birch tree, in Doriath’s woods, and I have greatly fallen in station,” she said, trying not to laugh. Her wings beat time to the hiccups she suppressed.

“Elwing obsessively namechecking Doriath,” check. “Elwing managing to do it frivolously and casually”: a first for my fic??

Her husband frowned. His hand crept to her ankle. “You’ll have redress. This is the West. Yet whoever he was, he must have been a fair craftsman: and so, your legs… ah!” He fell away from the kick, coughing his laughter. Incensed, she hopped down to give chase.

A lot of the flirting here was weirdly utilitarian, in that I felt like I was ticking these boxes of… you know…

– “Eärendil and Elwing both subsurface uneasy about the success of their errand, it comes out most when they’re comfortable + happy + joking around”

– “Elwing assumes the discomfort is her fault! Eärendil is passive-aggressive”

They were busy while the ship, of her own genius, laid anchor like Arien in the sea; busy when fishermen came to fling sweet wreaths and shout, because without Eärendil to pilot it, the ship made port near a Teleri settlement, north of her tower. At last a pounding on the cabin door roused Eärendil, who woke her carefully, with a touch on the wrist—as though it mattered now if they made noise.

“because they were having horrendously noisy sex before” SEEMS to be what I was implying?? I can’t remember. I’m not sure I picture them as a loud sex couple. On the other hand, it’s funny.

In their hurry she ended up in his tunic, while he went shirtless to the door. She had time to lace her sandals. Eärendil adjusted the Nauglamír from where it had slipped over one eye, and slid back the latch.

I do remember being set on “Elwing makes Eärendil wear the Silmaril during sex.” Look, small pleasures. Is that weird if it’s alive?

The fishermen carried her out and carried Eärendil out on their shoulders. They tossed him after her into the stinking dinghy, then jumped down themselves, with very little discussion. It was night faster than night had ever come in Sirion. The Silmaril paved the water with silver and gold.

I like the blocking here, I wish I’d spent a little more time on it; I was pleased with the image of them rowing away from this half-submerged spaceship (technically!)

Then on the pier they must all drink to the departed fleet, and weep for those who would come home from the Halls and not the sea. Someone lent Eärendil their black cloak, saying, wisely, that he must be chilled. Elwing ate shrimp, and piled up shells in a glassy heap, and drank sparingly. The headache from the feast was not quite cured, and it came and went with bright evenness, like it took what it was owed—just half of time. Eärendil, noticing her silence, offered her the Nauglamír. After a minimum of protest she let him transfer it to her neck; its weight sharpened the pain to a cruel point, then plucked it out, leaving a fuzzier, enduring warmth.

Again I feel like I was kind of rushing to finish here because I really liked the first half, which I wrote in one sitting, and I wanted to show it off—I mean, uh, you know, artistic motives, something something something. But I like the quick setup strokes, I think I just didn’t do enough food description. I should write more about food, that’s the only thing I really enjoy reading about so it’s pointless for me to devote time to the other senses.

The Silmaril plastered the pier with fine snow. In the alcove of its light, smoke from the brazier hung as rags, and the coals glowed almost pink.

But I like this anyway.

“I have a brother,” said the man opposite Elwing, “who has a wife. She goes to fight. He promised me he would not leave the ship. Do I believe him?”

“No,” said Eärendil, sounding apologetic. He had an arm over Elwing’s shoulder. “Your brother will wait till the horn is sounded and leap over the side. He’ll run through the foam and say to his lady, ‘I fell overboard!’“

I think Eärendil only learned about passive-aggression recently, but what he lacks in experience he makes up for in eager vigor. etc.

“Do you get along with his wife?” Elwing asked.

Elwing on the other hand is an untaught natural. (and concerned with these issues of permeable identity borders and inescapable Noldor kinship, etc., etc., but mostly these asides just COME to her)

She was drowsy and leaden, plagued by untouchable hunger. The absence of pain clasped her throat, scratching her with gold links. She wasn’t drunk. But she had Eärendil by her, and the Silmaril on her breast. When the fishermen had had enough of their own clear liquor to make requests, she sang a canto of the Lay. Lúthien before Morgoth.

In retrospect I should have done more Lay summary/recap here, and telepathic blossoming song-images, since it’s what the genre is for. Though I wonder if those effects apply less to the singer, especially if she’s one of the peredhil.

In eagerness she misplaced a verse, and told how Fingolfin rode over Dor-nu-Fauglith. “In overmastering wrath and hate…” but no, no, it was her grandmother, Lúthien, who wore the demon’s skin and flew. She could salvage that. She went from Fingolfin’s challenge to Lúthien’s lie, binding together two broken couplets.

Elwing loves Lúthien’s story; temperament-wise I would say she’s more Beren’s granddaughter than Lúthien’s, which is of course one reason Lúthien’s story is so important to her; as duelists facing Morgoth go she has more in common with the Noldor’s most famous berserker. One difference: her cause was better and more just than Fingolfin’s (LOVE YOU FIN)???

At midnight the fishers went singing and rowing away to the cluster of huts on the headland. Elwing heard the enchantments of Lúthien fitted, first with caution, and then with increasing creativity, to a drinking song—though the words were archaic, to her ear. A tumbled version of Eärendil’s mother tongue.

She was listening with interest; and then she had jumped to her feet. Why did she have to go? She ran up the length of the pier to the beach, heard her footsteps, and ran faster. She would have taken flight if it had occurred to her, but the stars were out, and Eärendil ran behind her, so she had no wings. Her hair swung over her face. Ticklish, dyed muddy red by the jewel; suppose she lay hidden in a deep brake of reeds, while hunters made old music.

This transition doesn’t make a ton of sense, I think, but it’s meant to be the like, Telerin Quenya triggering a flashback to the sons of Fëanor and their followers in Doriath; I feel like I had a chain of reasoning about why people in Aman would generally speak Sindarin to Elwing and Eärendil rather than Quenya, but I can’t remember what it was. Maybe that by this point victims of the Second Kinslaying would already have been released from the Halls of Mandos, so Sindarin would have spread to settlements in Aman? idk.

She fumbled at the Nauglamír’s chain.

Eärendil came and stopped her, and helped her. Throughout she could not tell him why she had to have it off: she could not be found, could not be caught with the light. She was its protector. Eärendil kept one hand on the side of her neck while she spoke. He gathered the Nauglamír idly in the other, like a torn scrap of mail.

This part was very painful in my head and I don’t think I really got down what I meant, which is, Elwing thinks she has to lose anything she wants to save. She’s wrong, at least!

“We should go back to the tower,” she said, losing the thread of her long explanation. “Olwë gave me a stone—you should see it. We can speak with the host. Not—Finarfin, right now, perhaps—but someone must stand watch.”

He said, “Would you like to fight?”

She tried to understand. Her panic had almost subsided, though it rose and fell with the hissing from the waves. Eärendil seemed sorry not to have made himself comprehensible; he took the corner of his mantle and draped it over the Silmaril, and the Silmaril, obedient, drew half its light out of the air. What was left had a shape. It flamed in pieces on her face. It made a prism of her lashes, radiant and alive. Eärendil put his other arm around her shoulders. He pressed his cheek to her cheek, and rubbed between her shoulderblades, away from where her wings would sprout. His fist with the stone he laid over her heart, as a friend seeking entry.

“knock knock” “who’s there” “your extremely troubled heritage”

Finally he pulled away. He smiled at her in a way that meant he had solved his trouble, and yet doubted himself. But he looked at her longer and the smile disappeared, it became just the forgetful pleasure in a smile—pleasure graven deeply on flat calm. He said, “What I do, you do. So do you want to fight?”

It was as though they had a secret language, which she had neglected to learn. It was like nothing he had ever said to her. Not when he left, or returned from his voyages, and not when he asked her to stay aboard the ship, lest she be killed.

Then she remembered. It was used by the twins. When they were separated by sickness, or a parent’s unreasonable whim: what I do, you do.

She and Eärendil were not clear of the tide. A wave crashed down, spray raining onto their heads. She could not think how to tell him he was ridiculous. (”Yes. Of course we will fight.”) She saw for the first time that in the future their lives would be better; she would have peace, or have it longer, and he would be less patiently afraid. She covered his hand with hers and tugged aside the mantle.

The darkness, with the roar of the sea all around them. The Silmaril whitened her chest from inside a ring of red. Red for a warning—she liked that the Silmaril still flashed its warnings. Any word to steer by, in this unending storm.

…I still like this fic a lot. I like Elwing and Eärendil taking solace in their kids, with nothing else left to do for said kids—though at some point I do plan to write it the other way around. They don’t get the chance to raise the twins, but there’s also no wrenching the amazement and sense of privilege away from them? SIMILAR TO their relationship to changing the world

#chestnut-podfic #no one expects the fannish inquisition #silmarillion #earendil #elwing

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thesummerestsolstice · 11 days

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Continuation of the "Earendil drank the Silmaril AU"–

TW for the Sirion kinslaying and Elwing's attemped suicide

Elwing's advisors encourage her to be strong, not to give the Silmaril to the Feanorian murderers. Of course, none of them know that she couldn't hand it over, even if she wanted to. She tries not to think about what would happen if the Feanorians saw the empty shell of the Silmaril, drained of light. She tries not to think about what they might do to Earendil, if they found out the light lives within him now.

She doesn't really have any options. She cannot give them the Silmaril; she will not yield her husband to the monsters who killed her parents. She encourages Earendil to go on another of his voyages. She tells him that she's confident the Feanorians won't have the guts to actually attack them. She's lying. The day after he leaves, she makes plans to evacuate all those in Sirion who aren't ready and willing to die there.

Not long after, she receives another letter, one that practically radiates anger. That night, she holds her children– her wonderful, sweet children who have feathers behind their ears and starlight at their fingertips. The next day, she plans to have them sent away from Sirion. She knows it won't be long now.

She's still not ready, when the Feanorians come. There aren't many people left in Sirion. There aren't many Feanorians left either. But the fighting is fierce, all old hatred and festering pain. She'd hoped to have another day– just one more, to hide the remnants of the Silmaril. When Maedhros sees her carrying the cracked orb, wrapped in fabric, she knows it's over.

Maybe he can tell, even through the fabric, that something is wrong with the Silmaril, maybe he can't. Either way, he runs after her with burning eyes and a his oath on his lips. She's not quite sure where her feet are taking her until she finds herself at the cliff's edge. She turns, stares out at the stormy sea. When she looks back, there is something almost like horror on Maedhros's face, but all she feels in an eerie calm.

She thinks about her children. She hopes they made it out alright. She hopes they'll find someone else to look after them, when she's gone.

#silmarillion #silm headcanons #silm au #elwing #earendil #maedhros #elrond #elrond peredhel #elros #eldritch peredhel #sirion

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thewarriorandtheking · 5 years

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I certainly believe in celebrating love, but Valentine’s has always struck me as such a manufactured holiday...these days it seems to exist mostly to sell cards and chocolate. I had this idea for a scene with the Warrior and The King, I decided to turn it into a Valentine’s anniversary.

........

“What’s the occasion?”

The King of Erebor smiled at her. He knew she would forget which meant he got to surprise her, he always enjoyed that. “This is the day we first met, one hundred years ago.”

Kaylea looked up at him, calculating the dates in her head. “So it is. I honestly do not know how you remember these things. Has it really been a hundred years? It seems like just yesterday.”

“I remember some very long years,” Thorin replied. “But it is hard to believe how much has happened since then.”

A hundred years, that did explain his choice of venue. Kaylea looked out at the view from their table, the city of Minas Tirith falling steeply away beneath them to the plains. The mountains of the Ephel Duath sharp against the evening sky, the peaks just catching the last rays of the setting sun. The White Fox was one of the most luxurious inns in the city, located in the sixth circle it often hosted visiting royalty and its fare was famous far beyond Gondor. The tables were full this evening as many noble couples were celebrating the holiday. Every head had turned when Kaylea Wolf and Thorin Oakenshield had walked across the room to one of the best tables, set apart against the windows and a step up from the main floor. Kaylea was widely regarded as one of the most beautiful women in Middle Earth and tonight she was not wearing her usual black traveling clothes, but a long red dress, mithril beads shining in her elaborately braided golden hair. The King was resplendent in midnight blue, a wide jeweled belt around his fur-trimmed silver vest. The first course had just been cleared when Thorin slid the box across the table.

“Are you not going to open it?” Thorin asked. Kaylea looked at it, her hands in her lap.

“Each thing that you give me is more spectacular than the last. They never seem fitting for an old warrior like me.”

“Now you look like my wife,” he was smiling widely, obviously pleased. Kaylea ran a hand over the necklace, the stones cold against her skin. She felt a bit self-conscious wearing so many jewels. She normally only wore jewelry for Thorin in Erebor and perhaps that was his point.

“This is amazing. Must have taken you forever to set so many stones.”

Thorin chuckled. “One hundred. And yes, it took me some time but I always enjoy making these things. Though I do admit, I wish you would wear them more.”

Kaylea looked at him mischievously. “I hate to tell you this, but you married a soldier.”

Thorin laughed. “And you married a Dwarf. What a pair we are!”

Kaylea laughed with him, reaching to pour them more wine. “Thank you, my king. I will try to wear it for you often,” Kaylea raised her glass, clicking it against Thorin’s.

“See that you do,” Thorin said, in mock seriousness.

“That is a good stone,” he said, nodding approvingly at the ring.

Kaylea shook her head, remembering the time Thorin had done the same to her, so many years ago. “How did you know I would say yes when you did that to me?” She asked.

Thorin shrugged. “I did not know for sure, I only thought you would find it harder to say no in front of those Elves,” he grinned at her over his wineglass. “I thought it was worth the risk.”

“Every time you asked I found it harder to refuse you,” Kaylea said.

Kaylea studied her husband, turning her wine glass between her fingers. “You did surprise me, when I came back and found you married. I did not think you would do it.”

“It was the right thing to do, in my heart I knew that. My people accept you now, I do not think they would had it not been for Shurri, and the heirs she bore me.” He looked back at her with a smile. “And it did work out in the end, I got to marry you not once, but three times!”

Kaylea smiled back at him, remembering each wedding. The first private ceremony, then the huge coronation in Erebor, the spring wedding her brothers had insisted on at Tor Graham. She reached into the hidden pocket in her dress and brought out a small metal case. “It happens that I also have something for you,” she said. “When you said we were dining here tonight I suspected you might be up to something so I brought it along.”

Thorin’s eyes went wide when he saw the markings on the box. He looked up at her in astonishment. “You never!”

“I have had this for many years,” Kaylea said. “It was given in gratitude for services rendered. I had been saving it, and now I know I was saving it for you.”

Thorin picked up the box, the markings were the language of Mhyr, source of the rarest jewels in the Empire. Fabulous gems that glowed with inner fire, shifting colors as they were turned. To find even one required many years of careful searching. This tiny box was worth as much as a small planet.

The King looked at her seriously. “You say I give you extravagant gifts! All the worth of Erebor could not buy this.”

“You are more than all that gold to me, husband. And what better gift could I give than one that even the Fair Folk would envy?”

Thorin glanced up at her, still amazed. In all his travels with her he had only ever seen one Mhyrstone, in the tiara of the Emperor’s daughter. He slid the box open to reveal not one of the multicolored gems, but two. Now it was the King’s turn to gasp. He did not want to lift them out of the case in the crowded inn, but moved them in their holders with his finger. They were nearly flawless, cut by a master. Thorin was stunned. The only gem that could outshine the fabled Silmarils of the Elves, and now his wife had given him two!

“After all these years you can still surprise me,”Thorin shook his head. “I will set these one in each of our crowns. As a testament to our love.” He reached across the table and took her hand, bringing it to his lips. “I cannot live without my warrior Queen.”

“And I cannot face life without my handsome King,” Kaylea replied with a soft smile.

Thorin looked across the table at his beautiful wife, her eyes shining over the sparkling necklace. He was very much looking forward to the next hundred years.

#fanfic #fanfiction #short reads #wrtiting #thorin oakenshield #thorin #king under the mountain #thorin oakenshield x oc #romance #true love #middle earth #jrr tolkien #tolkien fanfic #keep on writing #the hobbit #lotr

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gurguliare · 7 years

Text

From a few hundred feet up, the swan-ships could be seen to hesitate. They darted and lagged, fanning out on separate roads to harvest Manwë’s wind. If the wind changed then they wheeled together, without a breath in which for word to fly from ship to ship. The coordination was too smooth to feel surprise at; but Elwing thought that Círdan’s fleet had not looked so to the gulls. Nor had it gleamed like frost in the field, small mariners rolling as black motes from bow to stern. Hard to credit motes with the driving forth of ships, though in the harbor they had been her own height, cheerful and brave; they clotted the rigging, arguing with each other as an inventor to himself. Everywhere the world had a second face. Rising, she had not seen it turn over, but this must be its underside. Elves were ash, the bay was wrinkled rock, and foam sprouted to mark where ships had wetted the dry sea.

Círdan’s fleet, too, had never been escorted by armored giants. But Elwing paid no attention to the marching Valar, in case one looked back.

Before the fleet set sail, at the farewell feast, Olwë the king had given her a round black crystal, rather ugly. “It will get you news of the war. Sight or sound of the Outer Lands is not forbidden you.” He said it with such certainty, she thought he had not asked, to learn if it were true. “This speaks to other palantírs. Finarfin my son will gladly share his tidings.” Later in the course of the meal, and without acknowledging a lull in their conversation, Olwë said, “When speaking to him you may find that the image is strange, the color good but the image warped. The palantírs took time to perfect. Finarfin’s stone... Fëanor made him a present of it when Finarfin was young.”

She tried not to show discomfort, or much pity, when Olwë spoke of Fëanor and his sons. The sting was not in the names. She had grown accustomed to having her father’s murderers for kin: people who might yet die, who might be reasoned with and escaped---never forgiven. It was in his manner, thoughtless, dry, moderated by care for her but small care for himself, and yet not numb---as though five hundred years of the Sun had served just to hem in the pain with calm, and as though pain had neither destroyed nor restored the old, impatient, worn-out love; as though time could add and add without receiving back its treasures, and in that way run faster, having unburdened itself.

The feast had lasted the night and at dawn, after Eärendil’s departure, she lay awake. If she thought for a moment of Sirion, the pain stabbed deep into her belly; she would then spend hours or the day surrendering. But that at least was all. To her no stranger would come, saying, Here is my pain, which gives me a claim on you.

Unless her sons returned. At that she laughed and fell asleep. Unless my son, my son---

Now she resolved to fly lower. She spread her wings very far, shoulder-bones almost knocking, the wind baled under her arms. The skin there felt a cool touch worst, spring like winter, winter like the sea.

She didn’t have the courage to dive when she spied her tower. She came down flapping, doubled up, and touched one foot to sand and knelt, wings thrown over herself like a cloak. The grass-furred dunes were safe enough to walk on, winged. She staggered a little under added weight; her long gray primaries traced furrows in the sand---but she could think. She did not want to fly further, only because blood had made her head and legs so heavy. The useless stammer of her pulse was like when birds had come to her, on these sacred shores, speaking with the old urgency, shouting as they had shouted when she fell.

So she had learned their tongue a second time. And if I forget, she said to herself, grimly, I will learn again.

Olwë’s people had built her tower of unfaced marble. The door had five bolts, because she had asked for a bolt. She had to have hands to work the door.

Up to her chamber. Vingilot! she cried, nearly aloud, on the stair. Vingilot! I will wait till he appears. Then when she had reached the top she thought she could not bear to wait so long. The deep blue in her window, and the white sun her only visitor. Well, and she had forgotten to set out bread. She did that. Then she spoke to gulls for an hour about the Valar’s preparations, the departing host, and especially their friends the Teleri, who had so unexpectedly and so graciously consented to captain the ships that would carry those fools, the fair-elves and the Noldor---some of whom had even been present for, or else had narrowly avoided fighting at, the Battle at Alqualondë!

“It is strange,” agreed Elwing, tearing out and eating a chunk of coarse bread herself. The rooms in the tower were made for sunset or the light of the Silmaril, that on every white surface laid the boughs of the two Trees; also they were made for music, and gulls’ talk fought the vaulted roof in a flat cacophony. Yet she loved the tower at other times. Cold at noon, the black shadows were a balm to her, much as were the wide sky and the shore. She was safe and safe. Sometimes she woke without sleeping, and sweat bound her dress to her back. A bandage that wanted changing---mortal wounds she could not feel. On this afternoon she did not dream but, banishing the gulls, sat on the floor to resume work on a pennant for Vingilot, since the army had carried off their banners. The palantír she took from its pedestal and set down on the end of the pennant, to anchor her work.

Then somehow, though she checked the sky often, dusk was underway. The design bloomed, unfinished. Elwing left her needle in the silk.

Vingilot‘s oars worked stiffly in air. Vingilot’s sails were not harried by winds that worked on her, savage and gay. They seemed rather to hold that wind which fills the moon’s trim crescent.

By a miscalculation Elwing shot past the railing and had to alight, from above, on the bow.

“I don’t remember commissioning a figurehead,” said her husband. He planted a hand on her foot, but made no other move to steady her. “Who carved you?”

“I---I was a birch tree, in Doriath’s woods, and I have greatly fallen in station,” she said, trying not to laugh. Her wings beat time to the hiccups she suppressed.

Her husband frowned. His hand crept to her ankle. “You’ll have redress. This is the West. Yet whoever he was, he must have been a fair craftsman: and so, your legs... ah!” He fell away from the kick, coughing his laughter. Incensed, she hopped down to give chase.

Then on the pier they must all drink to the departed fleet, and weep for those who would come home from the Halls and not the sea. Someone lent Eärendil their black cloak, saying, wisely, that he must be chilled. Elwing ate shrimp, and piled up shells in a glassy heap, and drank sparingly. The headache from the feast was not quite cured, and it came and went with bright evenness, like it took just what was owed---just half of time. Eärendil, noticing her silence, offered her the Nauglamír. After a minimum of protest she let him transfer it to her neck; its weight sharpened the pain to a cruel point, and then removed it.

The Silmaril covered the pier with fine snow. In its light, smoke from the brazier hung as rags, and the coals glowed almost pink.

“I have a brother,” said the man opposite Elwing, “who has a wife. She goes to fight. He promised me he would not leave the ship. Do I believe him?”

“Do you get along with his wife?” Elwing asked.

She was drowsy and leaden, plagued by untouchable hunger. The absence of pain clasped her throat very lightly, and scratched her with gold links. She was not drunk. But she had Eärendil by her, and the Silmaril on her breast. When the fishermen had had enough of their own clear liquor to make requests, she sang a canto of the Lay. Lúthien before Morgoth, a supplicant.

In eagerness she misplaced a verse, and told how Fingolfin rode over Dor-nu-Fauglith. “In overmastering wrath and hate...” but no, no, it was her grandmother, Lúthien who wore the demon’s skin and flew. She could salvage that. She went from Fingolfin’s challenge to Lúthien’s lie, binding together two broken couplets.

At midnight the fishers went singing and rowing away to the cluster of huts on the headland. Elwing heard the enchantments of Lúthien fitted, first with caution, and then with increasing creativity, to a drinking song---though the words were archaic, to her ear. A tumbled version of Eärendil’s mother tongue.

She was listening with interest; and then she had jumped to her feet. Why did she have to go? She ran up the length of the pier to the beach, heard steps pursuing, and ran faster. Her hair got in her face, ticklish, muddy, dyed red by the jewel, as if she lay hidden in a deep brake of reeds. She fumbled at the Nauglamír’s catch.

Eärendil came and stopped Elwing, and helped her. Throughout she could not tell him why she had to have it off: except she could not be found, she could not be caught with the jewel, though she loved it. She was its protector. Eärendil kept one hand on the side of her neck while she spoke. He gathered the Nauglamír idly in the other, like a torn scrap of mail.

“We should go back to the tower,” she said, losing the thread of her explanation. “Olwë gave me a stone---you should see it. We can speak with the host. Not---Finarfin, right now, perhaps---but someone must stand watch.”

He said, “Would you like to fight?”

Finally he smiled. A forceful smile, as though he had solved his trouble and yet doubted himself. But he looked at her and the smile disappeared, it became just the forgetful pleasure behind smiles, graven very deeply on flat calm. “What I do, you do. So do you want to fight?”

It was as though they had a secret language that she had neglected to learn. It was like nothing he had ever said to her. Not when he left, or returned from his voyages, and not when he asked her to stay aboard the ship, lest she be killed.

Then she remembered. It was used by the twins. When they were separated by sickness, or a parent’s unreasonable whim: what I do, you do.

She and Eärendil were not well clear of the tide. A wave crashed down, spray raining on their heads. She could not think how to tell him he was ridiculous. (”Yes. Of course we will fight.”) She saw for the first time that in the future their lives would be better; she would have peace, or have it longer, and he would be less patiently afraid. She took his hand, still wrapped in the mantle, and held it to her chest.

The dark and the sound of the sea all around them. The Silmaril whitened her chest, in a ring of red. Red for a warning---she liked that the Silmaril still flashed its warnings. Any word to steer by, in this unending storm.

#silmarillion #elwing #earendil #olwe #spitefic what spitefic #jk the spitefic is maglor + the twins where they all care about each other and also it's super emotionally abusive #because parenting is hard! it turns out!#especially if you're cursed!#THIS is just bc i wanted elwing to take a long walk on the beach

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