Mythmoot Mathoms by Dawn Felagund

Answered Swiftly

Baranduin asked for the Eagles ... the birds, not the band! This weirdish ficlet series gives a different perspective on Maedhros's rescue.

His prayer was answered swiftly. For Manwë to whom all birds are dear, and to whom they bring news upon Taniquetil from Middle-earth, had sent forth the race of Eagles, commanding them to dwell in the crags of the North, and to keep watch upon Morgoth; for Manwë still had pity for the exiled Elves. And the Eagles brought news of much that passed in those days to the sad ears of Manwë.

Lucidity I

a tremor in the grass, not the wind, the blades parting just slightly in a progression across the meadow by something that wishes to stay hidden but he saw—and yes yes there it is again—he saw

wind buoys broad wings, he shoulders into it and plunges, the wind it roars as it parts to make way but what creeps through the grass doesn't hear doesn't know until

talons delve fur and flesh, muscles rent and enervated and useless, all it can do is scream at death that comes as sudden sunlight and an unblinking blue sky, he lifts his prey against it and blood beats faster and frantic and then slows and then stops in time to be eaten

Lucidity II

The bones are picked clean and beginning to dry in the fierce light of the northern sun when the lucidity comes upon him. He feels his memories blinking through the mind of another. Thorondor, the mind calls him. Mostly it sees but sometimes in the barest contact needed for that perception comes colored with something more than the play of light and shadow: a flash of joy, a brief twist of grief. The ever-present hunger that drives him leaves no room for such sentiment, save in these moments. The body of Thorondor—made perfectly, made for the task of finding and killing and feeding—bows low with the weight of the windlord's pain.

Memory I

the fog had parted and there it was, this thing upon the rock gone ash-gray with cold, a smear of blood and shit on the rock beneath it, a scrap of blood-darkened hair beating against the rock, feet scrabbling against the rock, feet wounded on the soles by the rock and adding to the blood there, slipping, falling, arrested with a clang of steel, the wrenching of bone that usually sounded of life ending

but this time didn't

he thought to feed but why, the effort to grasp the rock, sheer Thangorodrim, would not have been repaid by what life remained within that feeble body

so he flew on

Memory II

The mind paused upon a memory and, in a rare unguarded moment, Thorondor glimpsed inside the thoughts that touched his. The firstborn son of a prince turned away from the throne of Manwë to face his people for the first time as a man. The gold was bright, entwined in his night-dark hair. He was frightened by what this moment meant and whether he had the courage and the wisdom and the strength to heal the sundering of his family.

Beside him was another eldest son of another prince, crimson-haired, body full and flushed and graceful with health. The people whispered at his presence there. When the dark-haired boy had fully turned, when the sight of the crowd mottled crimson and blue arrested his voice in his throat, a hand unseen by all save Manwë and Varda pressed his back. The boy began to speak.

Prayer

The fog tore enough to see. From the thoughts of the windlord, Thorondor knew the man with the night-dark hair though now bereft of gold. He screamed into the wind that whipped from the north and the wind tore it to shreds and scattered it like snow. He clung to the rock. Tears were frozen upon his face. The fog roiled closed again.

The hunger, it came so fast. One hundred wingbeats to the south, the shadows would be rippling and announcing to keen eyes what wished to remain unseen. Flesh still hot with life, enough to hold the hunger at bay.

The wind shifted for just a moment, coming from the West, just long enough to rip open the fog. The man nocked an arrow. His voice was not lost this time. He began to speak. Thorondor shouldered into the wind and plunged.