But Maybe That Was The Light Of The Trees by Nekomitsu

Erebor

In response to the March 22 entry at the B2MeM 2011 challenge.  Refugee issues are our issues; their plight is our plight. Write a story or poem or create artwork that illustrates the situation of some displaced group in Middle-earth.

Makalaurë had somehow become Maglor over the long years since Valinor.

The change had been swift outside his circle, but it had taken three Kinslayings and a much diminished host to reach him.  Makalaurë had held with Noldor pride while his people became the last true bastion for their old mothertongue.  They were proud of their mastery of quenya in a land of sibilant consonants and wheezing sounds, and its banishment didn't affect their daily life but granted them a grim satisfaction at contradicting a long-death King's edict.  "Lord Makalaurë," called the captains during patrols, and "My Lord Makalaurë," called the remaining lords amongst the fëanorians, and "Brother," called Nelyafinwë and Nelyafinwë alone.

Somewhen along the way, as Makalaurë became Maglor, Nelyafinwë of the many names had turned into Maedhros of the one hand.

While their pride held Makalaurë had remained thus.  After Sirion, however, pride had all but forsaken the remainders of their folk; they only remembered when their dispossessed king walked by with his burning eyes and his changed name.  Poor and harried, they became a displaced community with more women than men, a handful of warriors, and two half-bred children to gloss over the lack of elflings.  Survival forced them to forget their once-beloved tongue, and sindarin words crept into their minds until their names turned irrevocably from their original forms into those used by outsiders for centuries.

"Maglor," Elros Half-bred said, grasping Makalaurë's hand in his smaller one and tugging at it.  "Maglor.  Maglor!"

"Father," Elrond Half-bred said as he took his other hand, and Makalaurë – no; Maglor, Maglor, Maglor, Father – sighed, and smiled sadly and slowly.

"Yes," he said.

Chapter End Notes

A/N: While I realise Maglor and Maedhros answered to those names for most part of the First Age, I get the feeling that inside their tight pro-fëanorian community everybody would have held to their noldorin roots no matter what.  Hence... this.