all you have to do, is listen by HannaGoldworthy

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Fanwork Notes

Heh-heh, whoops.  I came here to update one of my other fics, and saw that I'd forgotten to tag this in the challenge.

Fanwork Information

Summary:

Once, he had been more than a gracious listener in the Music.

 

That time was gone.

Major Characters: Maglor, Original Female Character(s)

Major Relationships:

Genre: Crossover, Experimental, Family, Fixed-Length Ficlet, General

Challenges: Soundtrack

Rating: General

Warnings:

Chapters: 1 Word Count: 1, 788
Posted on 20 March 2020 Updated on 20 March 2020

This fanwork is complete.

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Written to "August's Rhapsody" by Mark Mancina, from August Rush.  Incidentally, one of my favorite soundtracks, so I'm grateful for the excuse to listen to it.

Comments on all you have to do, is listen

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...There's a Maglor/Goldberry fic?  Good grief, I'm out of touch, that sounds like the perfect ship.  I'm going to go find that now and read the heck out of it.

I should have known Vanessa would be a popular "modern elf" name, though.  Oh well.  It's only, technically, one of her names, but she uses it more because her actual name is a little more...abstract than Vanessa.  The crossover is with a series of novels that has enjoyed an amount of infamy, for which I have a great many subversive headcanons that suit the Silmarillion 'verse quite well.  I'll have to write a longer fic about it when and if the inspiration strikes.

I love how you can pick up clues from the song throughout the narrative! The life you have built for Maglor in the present is compelling. The loss of his memories feels painful, but perhaps it is also a blessing - and remembering, in spite of the answers it would bring, would also be painful. Ylva is a Good Dog (loved the dig at Celegorm's dog-naming skills, incidentally!). And I really like Nessie, too. (At first, I thought it might be Nessa the Valië! XD) Can't say I have any idea what series she's from, but I love the idea that part of Mahtan's family stayed in Cuiviénen and that some of them are still around - and other Avari too, presumably?

Other Avari, some stubborn Noldor and Sindar, several tribes of shape-changers (not all of them Beorn's people), some secretive dwarf guilds, the odd Took in Yorkshire, Bombadil (somewhere, just because) and an unsettling number of Bad Things which dwell in the deeper places of the world.  Usually Maglor can hear if someone is Bad in the Music, but he's faded enough to lose track of language and forget his own name; one day, he might just wake up unable to hear the Music, and when that day comes...well.  Nessie has lost people she loved to creatures that exploited the weakness of a fading elf - there are some things in this world that not even an old Kinslayer deserves to encounter, so she's not taking any chances.  Perhaps there will be pain if he remembers, but that pain will keep him alive and, importantly, fighting, for a few years longer, maybe long enough to convince the stubborn old poet to sail.

(And of course Maglor'd still make a dig at Celegorm and Huan, even long after he's forgotten both of their names.  Some family memes are just funny enough to transcend memory.)

I smiled at the allusion to Nessa, though.  In my far too extensive world-building notes for this story, Nessie's Mom's tribe is greatly devoted to Nessa; the homage in her name was very much intended, and Nessie would blush at what is a massive compliment in her culture.