Who You Were, Maybe by Himring

Chapter 1

In the end, Nellas followed the wind, and the wind was all she followed as it blew her north, south, west and east across Middle-earth, singing the wind song in her ears until she forgot elven speech.

One day it blew her to Anfalas, sweeping over the long strands, and it was there she met Maglor. She recognized him, although there was little about the ragged vagabond with his crippled hand and clumsy harp that looked princely or Feanorian. She had seen his cousins in Menegroth in better days; maybe it was that.

She did recognize him but she was not interested, felt nothing at all. However, he broke his bannock into two pieces and offered her the larger half, and she allowed herself to be coaxed to his small campfire. They sat in silence for hours, while the breakers roared and the wind wailed among the seaward rocks.

Then Maglor looked up and said to her: ‘You were once of Doriath.’

She did not answer and went on watching him warily, uncaring, a windswept silent creature, her hair a mass of dreadlocks that the gulls might have chosen for their nest.

But Maglor took his clumsy harp and began to sing with his cracked voice about Doriath, about Thingol, Melian and Luthien.

Nellas listened, puzzled, and began to tremble.

Maglor sang about Beleg and Mablung, about Dior and Nimloth.

Nellas felt a howl rise in her throat like a wolf’s. She jumped up, tore the clumsy harp from his grasp and stamped on it until its frame cracked and its strings broke. Seizing Maglor, she pushed him backwards onto the ground, stood above him and raised her foot, intending to smash his teeth in with her heel.

His eyes met hers, steady, steady.

She set her foot down on the ground beside his head and said to him: ‘I am Nellas.’

‘I am honoured to meet you, Nellas’, said Maglor.

‘Teach me the words.’

‘The words?’

‘What you sang. The words of that song.’

For the first time, Maglor showed disquiet.

‘It is you who were there, Nellas, you who saw Menegroth in its glory. I never even met Thingol or Melian.’

‘That did not stop you from singing about them earlier.’

She stayed with him by the campfire that night, learning songs about the glory and loss of Doriath. In the morning she left and wandered along the shore until she came to Dol Amroth and then on to Lorien and stayed there.

Chapter End Notes

I'm not sure what the date of this meeting is. "Dol Amroth" is meant to refer, anachronistically, to the elvish settlement in the area, not the later princely realm.