Sandcastles by Elisif

Thank you! I’m very honoured, and I absolutely agree on the music/elemental ability link, though this piece had more prosaic origins than that- it started life as a not-very-serious Avatar: The Last Airbender crossover, and then somewhere along the way became depressing, (as writing about Maglor always seems apt to do). I do find it odd that with both the logical association of music equating with elemental/supernatural power in First Age Arda (not to mention the actual example of it in the Duel of Song) that we don’t hear more about it; I’m fond of the theory that lots of magical abilities came to be used as novelties in Aman (as is the case in this piece) owing to the lack of need for them, and once in Middle Earth their application were not considered until dire necessity called for it, or perceived as frivolous or even blatantly associated with Morgoth. It adds a bittersweet question of whether or not more could have been done and whether or not things could ever have been any different to the text, something I was aiming for in the final segment of the piece, with such intense power only being mastered and taken seriously long after the time where it could have been vital had passed.