New and Updated Fiction

From their flight from Himlad to their flight from Nargothrond, Celegorm and Curufin have to face the abyss of their defeat, the bitterness of their broken pride, and the tempting shadows of greed. Through envy, frustration, pain and resentment, they have to choose which path to follow, not yet aware that their choices will affect all the people of Beleriand.

Curufin's pov.

Canon based, more like a personal combination between the different versions given in HoME and the Silmarillion. 

It's the Fifth Age. Tirion has developed suburban sprawl, and psychotherapists are in high demand. An unkinged Finarfin experiments with political radicalism and has turned the palace into a memorial of the kinslaying. Amarië composes beat poetry. And Finrod has been reembodied into a world and among people he barely recognizes. Dark humor, for Kenaz for the Around the Fire challenge.

In Fifth Age Tirion, Caranthir has been reembodied into a changed world: his uncle has unkinged himself and turned Tirion into a republic, Elves live in suburbs and seek psychotherapy, and the Noldor born after his exile have invented all kinds of wondrous things. One day, Caranthir receives a letter that he is being entrusted to mentor his newly reembodied cousin Orodreth. They must not only resolve their old enmity but achieve a tenuous friendship--maybe even more?--as both seek the peace and acceptance they never found in their prior lives. Written for TRSB 2019, based on the artwork by NelyafinweFeanorion.

Against Maedhros's wishes, Fingon is off to a summer retreat in the mountains, a retreat designed by the Valar for newly reembodied Elves. Amid games of kickball and group therapy, Fingon makes a friend, discovers the Noldor haven't actually invented everything, and begins to grasp the complexities of his post-reembodiment relationship with Maedhros. Maedhros/Fingon, set in my Republic of Tirion verse.

In Himring, Maedhros and Maglor hold the fortress, when they finally receive a message.

The children of elves die easily, for their souls are thinly bound to their bodies and their fate is to endure but not survive. So when faced with a young hostage he really can't afford to let fade away, Sauron is very careful not to do anything too traumatizing.

(Mostly.)

Luckily Feanor's grandson is an interesting child to babysit.

“You are the forest, Nimrodel. The light that filters through the leaves, the starlight in the pools, the flowers. I look at you and I see the earth, black and red and white. I see the flowers, elanor and niphredil. The strength of stone and the transparent delicacy of the spring tadpoles. I did not think much of being a prince of this place before you taught me how to love it.”

Alone on the shore, after Sauron's defeat, Maglor watches a ship leave Middle Earth and writes in a notebook a letter that he would never send.

"Cytise knows exactly what the elf is."

Balan-who-will-be-Bëor comes to some conclusions about his new friend after said new friend demonstrates a terrifying knowledge of venomous snakes.

In conclusion, Finarfin was a reptile hoarder and also elves might be poisonous.

“... The brave Goldilocks didn’t cower before the Great Slug! He took up his sword once more and held the vicious beast at bay as Princess Silverfoot led all the people out of the Flower Kingdom."

Bilbo updates and localizes the Fall of Gondolin for a small and hobbitish audience.

Hopefully Glorfindel, a good chap if there ever was one, won't mind the tactful translation.

They're important, the myths people tell about themselves, about their histories. You can learn a lot from a tale or seven.

Eärendil
(Embracing the SILMARIL OF AIR)

Let followers of the patroneʃs of stars
Wear the mantles of their mighty host
Whilʃt I, a sailor of beaches and bars,
Tremble before beauty that makes all else toaʃt
Princes of elves have slavered o'er light
And jealous women caʃt away their frame
But it’s I, a man of little might
Who sits in jewellight, triumphs over flame

“Yikes,” said Gil-Galad, High King of the Noldor.

"The only concrete information the old woman has, from an elven friend of the woods, is that Thingol’s daughter has taken up with a man of Bëor‘s line. Beren, son of Barahir, a lost child of Dorthonion found in Doriath’s winding embrace."

Morwen and Húrin must deal with the rumor mill in a professional capacity. Unfortunately this latest tale comes with familial entanglements.

Two drabbles from the Ribbon-Cutting Instadrabbling Session.

No. 1: Spring Elanor, a drabble about spring, and flowers, and new beginnings.

No. 2: The Ants, in which a young Celegorm listens to some ants.

Alone, lost on the shore of the sea, Maglor remembers...

On their last day in Aman, Findekáno and Maitimo disappear into the Garden of Lorien for a moment of private devotion before the trials ahead. A handfasting is had, in private. 

A young woman who is more than she seems joins Starfleet. (Silmarillion - ST:TNG crossover.)

"Hail Earendel, brightest of angels
Sent over Middle-earth to men."

Eönwë plays messenger as Elwing and Eärendil begin to adjust to their new lives as a lighthouse keeper and a star respectively.

"“Children?” Felagund sounded uncharacteristically distressed."

Bëor strongly discourages his friend from adopting.

Barad-dûr has fallen. Celebrimbor does some light metalworking for the sake of sentiment (and maybe something more)

"Few stories were told of Nienna, not because she was not loved, but because she was loved too much. Those elves who dwelled in Valinor knew her sorrows and did not pry at them. Her part in the stories of others was glossed over, her name whispered gently, her tale left unspoken and unrecorded. Such was the respect given to her, for all people might need pity some day.

If an exile from over the sea needed to learn, or a new child asked, they were shared only snippets of thought, memories, echoes of what was told perhaps only once long ago.

These were the things that were not said."

An Avarin elf accidentally gets lost at sea and gets stuck halfway onto the Straight Road. Uinen helps out.

In which Celegorm receives a strange message from his brother and talks to Aredhel.

Maglor writes to Thranduil and Celeborn in their castle in Transylvania, asking for help when an early archaeologist tries to dig up The Shire.

(Thranduil and Celeborn canonically 'meet up' in the middle of Mirkwood after Sauron is defeated.)