For the First Time in Forever by quillingmesoftly

---

Conversations with Maiar

Neniel is comforted, and Maglor is challenged.

---

Neniellë swam further into the bay, diving beneath the waves and studying the way the kelp danced in the currents. A romp of sea otters swam over towards her, and she smiled at them, shaking her head. 

Sorry, little ones. Not today.

The otters weren't terribly happy about it, but they swam away, and she returned to her study of the kelp, waiting patiently. 

She was not disappointed. 

Streamlet! 

The voice was joyful and deep, a low rumbling contralto, that called to mind the unfathomable depths of the sea-bed and the chasms beneath. 

Neniellë smiled, turning to face Uinen, and swam into her open arms. Uinen’s hair floated behind her, beginning as a cloud that stretched to her waist before it became indivisible from the water around them. Her body was bare, and below her waist, it became as a sleek seal’s tail.     

Uinen! she replied, sinking into the hug. 

Uinen laughed, a sound like the roar of a thousand sea-shells, and continued to hold her. What brings you to my halls? It's been a long time!

Neniellë swallowed around the lump in her throat at the truthful answer to the question, the reason that she had to come. She hadn’t thought it would actually hurt this much to discuss. But it did.

Uinen gazed at her, concern in her sea-eyes, and Neniellë sighed as she opened her mind to her kinswoman. There was no point delaying or dawdling. 

Her mother had been trying to teach her another song, one that was to freeze the water in a reed. Always it somewhat frustrated her mother, who, being an Ainu, found the concept of learning knowledge rather than being born with it quite strange to begin with. And there had been just another exasperated comment, her mother's temper surging to the fore, snapping the last of her patience, and she couldn’t take itanymore. 

She had left minutes later, running from the woods where they rested, pausing only to string her bow and sling it and her quiver onto her back. She hadn’t even thought to bring flint and steel, which was why she had had to ask Maglor to do it when she stopped running last night.

The concern deepened in Uinen’s gaze. You have eaten, though, have you not? You are Eruhína. You have to eat.

Neniellë resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the maternal shape of the inquiry. Yes, I ate, she replied, showing her the memory of Maglor roasting the rabbits over the fire last night. 

Uinen’s smile was wry. That Elf. Still, there could be worse people for you to meet.

He is strange, though, Neniellë replied. 

Indeed he is! You’ll have to be more specific. 

Neniellë set the next memory before her. Maglor closing his eyes and refusing to go into the surf with her. 

I do not understand why he would not come. Is he afraid of the waves? I tried telling him that if Ossë wanted him dead, he’d be dead already.

Uinen threw back her head and laughed, the tides surging a little higher in response. 

No, little one, that is not why, Uinen said. Such is the way of his people, that males and females do not swim unclothed together. Clothed, sometimes, perhaps. But certainly not unclothed. Nor do females go unclothed before males, unless they be mated. Or perhaps unless one is a healer, and the other one being healed of some great injury. Not even if they are close kin would they do such a thing. 

Neniellë’s eyes widened. But why would you swim clothed? They would just have to get the wet clothes off later and dry them. It’s not at all efficient.

Uinen shook her head, rolling her eyes. A question I have long asked the Eldar. They smile mysteriously and say next to naught, oft some platitude about it being an Elven matter. 

Uinen squeezed her hands. But why do you come here? It is not the first time you have made a mistake in a song. Why have you left your mother now? 

Neniellë blew out more bubbles as she tried to sort through the tangle of emotions, like a tangle of coral that interlaced until it was almost impossible to tell where one branch ended and another began, until a massive, interlaced reef grew. 

I am afraid, she said at last. I am afraid.

A wave of warmth and tenderness from Uinen. Of what?

Neniellë swallowed. That I am not enough. Not enough to live up to her. That, no matter what I do, I will never be able to make her proud. It seems like no matter what I do–

A wave of anger from Uinen, and Neniellë swam back a few feet, watching her warily. The Lady of the Deep would not intentionally harm her, she was sure of that, but nonetheless…

Do not give even a moment’s credence to such foolishness, Uinen said, green-grey eyes furious again, like a choppy surf. I was there. The day you were conceived, your mother wept and laughed for joy, so loud and strong that the echoes carried all the way across to Aman. Your mother delighted in you, for you brought her joy beyond measure.

Neniellë blinked back tears as she put words to the doubts that had been nagging at her for the past day. But do I still bring her joy? When I can not even get a simple song right? I can carry Ataro's legacy, I've done it for long enough. But Mam's?

Uinen chuckled. Of course. She is impatient with you, for she knows just how capable you are. Look at the Númenorions. They start young, when they learn to sail the waters and fish from my realm. Very young. And the sheer number of misplaced hooks and capsized boats! Every child does it at least once, and many do three or four times, before they learn. She pressed a kiss to Neniel’s forehead. And yet, even when their parents scold them and yell, their spirits shine with pride. So does your mother think of you. She is proud of you, streamlet. 

Neniellë froze.

Really? she asked. Even in the confines of osanwë, her voice felt very small all of a sudden.

Uinen laughed. Sure as the tide, little one. Her voice was very firm. 

Neniellë’s tears broke free, and Uinen held her as she wept the storm out.

---

“It began when you started wandering the coasts,” Ossë explained. Maglor drummed his nails into a rapid rhythm against his knee, listening intently. “Uinen was – well, not happy with you, after everything. Nor was Ulmo, particularly, even after you gave him the Silmaril.”

“Understandable,” Maglor said dryly, the rhythm he drummed quickening even at the mention of the jewel. It had only been forty years since he’d returned to the original cove he’d thrown it into, and plunged into the waves to find it as the Oath reared its ugly head again. He remembered his adversary too well to relax now. 

“Yes. And yet, intentions matter too, as well as actions. You set out to defy the Darkness, and avenge your kin. To use your word, understandable. Yes, you were warned and proceeded anyway. You spilled the blood of your kin, four times. But over four hundred years, you held the Gap and fought the Darkness. No small task, that. And you continued to defy the evil, both outside yourself and in yourself, as much as you could. You lost the battle. But when you sang the Noldolantë, she heard it. The regrets. The remorse. You hated what you did. And Uinen and Ulmo saw that, eventually. So, Ulmo gave you into Uinen’s keeping.” 

Maglor raised his eyebrows. “Not yours?” 

Ossë’s grin, he decided after a moment, was probably the reason that the word ‘fey’ had been created, in the early world under the stars. He looked like gut-wrenchingly like a young Tyelko, when he was about to pull a particularly daring and stupid stunt. “Me? You must be mad. After all, everyone knows that I am restless Ossë of the waves, not the merciful Lady of the Deep.” 

“You are not the first to tell me that I am mad,” Maglor said, swallowing down the memories to focus on the issue at hand. “So. Uinen’s keeping, not Námo’s. I seem to recall something of the ones who didn’t die becoming a shadow of regret, though.” 

“Which will be harder than you think, with my niece having come across you,” Ossë said, a white eyebrow arching in amusement. “If one part of the Doom should prove fluid, I do not see why the rest will not in time. Which, you’ll notice, is why I asked if the Doom laid on you still, rather than make a statement.” He shrugged. 

Maglor bit back the first remark that came to mind. Now was absolutely not the right time to push his luck. 

“I thought your wife was the compassionate one,” he said, instead. “The songs do you an injustice.” 

Not that it erased the fact that Ossë was incredibly dangerous, of course. Still, it was kindness from the mercurial Maia, and it wouldn’t hurt to acknowledge it. 

…Ossë’s face turning a vivid dark pink that would have done Caranthir proud had not been in the list of expected responses.

Now, what might that mean? If he wasn’t an Ainu, and really was an Elf, Maglor would suspect that he was blushing. Yet–

“Uinen is not my wife.” 

Maglor’s eyebrows shot up, greatly startled. The Ainur blush. Wonders never cease.

“Are all the songs wrong?” It was the one thing that was consistent in every single song, whether Ossë was playful or fearsome in the lyrics, that Ossë loved Uinen, and that she could calm his temper. 

Ossë bared his teeth. “In that respect, yes. I am sure she does not – we have never spoken of–”

Maglor felt like he was back in Tirion, watching Curufinwë protest that he most certainly did not like Maglor’s friend, Lindonís. Curufinwë had been equally unconvincing, and almost as incomprehensible in his denials. He resisted the urge to rub his forehead, as he had then. It wouldn’t help. 

“Have you considered telling her?” he asked. 

Ossë’s white eyebrows rose, and, miracle of miracles, he managed a complete sentence. “I can’t say I find it an appealing thought.” Pause. “I’m certain she’d reject me.” Two complete sentences. A triumph. 

“You’ve spent the past ten minutes encouraging me to think that the Doom of the Noldor, spoken by Mandos himself, is fluid,” Maglor pointed out, wondering if it was just Ossë and, according to the stories, the Moon Maia, or if all male Maiar tended to be hopeless when lovesick. “I really don’t think you should turn fatalistic now. Besides, I’m sure she knows. If nothing else, she must have heard all the songs by now.” 

Ossë threw up his hands in exasperation. They were webbed, Maglor realised, with a start. The one thing that marked him as distinctly not the Teler whose guise he otherwise mimicked. “I am receiving romantic advice from a son of Fëanáro. I knew it would be a strange day this morning, but I did not think it would be this strange.” 

“Believe me, I find it stranger still,” Maglor said. 

“The songs probably don’t reach the Deep,” Ossë said. 

“Still. She’s bound to notice eventually. The songs say a lot of things about you, but prone to deception isn’t among them.”

Ossë’s smile was wry. “Perhaps.” He did not appear inclined to contest the point, and they were both silent for a minute, before Ossë stood. “In any case, I’ll take my leave of you for now, Maglor. Stay here, for my niece will return shortly.” 

Maglor frowned. “I said that I would come with her here. I did not say that I would stay.” 

Ossë gave him another exasperated look, and walked into the waves. “Do as you will, but I do not counsel attempting to leave. She will simply follow you.” 

…Well, that was out of the question then. He couldn’t have Neniellë following him around, not even in a painfully literally sense, lest the hope that the Doom was fluid be void.

Maglor let out a long sigh, and got to his feet. He could at least start finding the wood for a fire. If Neniellë was to return, there was no reason that she should not return to a camp-site. 

He’d built a suitable fire and was singing the opening notes for Tyelkormo’s lament when Neniel walked out of the waves. He closed his eyes, letting the images of his little brother as he had been flash across his mind. The silver hair, the wild, fierce smile, the skilled broad hands nocking and releasing arrow after arrow into targets at archery practise.

A hand squeezed his good one. Cautiously, he cracked open an eye. 

Neniellë was clothed again, sitting beside him, her gold hair plastered to her brown vest. Her eyes were rimmed with red. Hopefully, from the sea salt. 

“Are you well?” he asked her. 

She frowned, and he sighed.

“You,” he said, pointing at her, and then pantomimed tears tracing down his face. “Crying?” 

She repeated the gesture. “Cry-ing?” 

He nodded. “Yes, you! Crying? Why?” 

She threw up her hands in frustration. Not because she didn’t understand the question, he realised, but simply because she lacked the vocabulary to express the answer. 

Well. It appeared he’d have to revoke that prohibition on osanwë, if they were to have any hope of clear communication. There’d have to be boundaries, of course.

He reached out in thought to her. He was nowhere near as mighty as any of Finarfin's house in the mental arts, particularly Finrod or Galadriel, but Fëanáro had not settled for his sons being less than at least competent in anything – well, at least in the early years. 

Why are you crying? he asked again, setting his twinge of concern over the image of reddened eyes like Curvo might set a pane of glass over a valued painting. He offered the thought gingerly and carefully. 

Hesitation, from her. Well, who could blame her? No sane woman bared her concerns to a Kinslayer. 

He felt a wave of exasperation from her. That’s not why!

Why, then?

A feeling of oddly childlike shyness from her, that he’d last sensed from Tyelpë in Aman, when he would poke his head into a room to sure that he really was allowed in before actually entering to show his latest work. Shyness, and self-consciousness, and an utter horror that the other person might laugh at him, might deem the thing he held in his hands inconsequential.  

The corner of Maglor’s mouth was tugged into a smile. What is it? he asked gently. 

My mother's proud of me, she said.

Maglor felt a lump rise in his throat, even as his smile vanished. No, that was certainly not inconsequential. 

Well, of course she is, he said. 

Neniellë shook her head fiercely. You don’t understand. Part of me always – always wondered. 

Maglor met her eyes. I understand perfectly, he said, letting her catch a glimpse of how much he had desired his father’s approval and affection, before slamming the old wound behind a wall. 

Her eyes had sobered now, and she nodded, apparently satisfied. You do. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip. And yet – I do not want to go home. Not to stay, not yet. Though I should at least visit and tell them that I am leaving. 

Maglor raised his eyebrows. Where would you go? 

She frowned. Where could I go?

Perhaps that was the wrong question to ask. What do you want to do?

She pursed her lips, and then, a few moments later, smiled. She showed him the memory of noticing that his hand was in pain, and the determination that had filled her as she reached for wholeness, for healing. 

That, she said. I want to do that. 

You want to learn to heal? Then you should seek out Elrond, Gil-Galad’s herald, Maglor replied. He is a very skilled healer.

She smiled. He is your friend?

He couldn’t stop the thought in time. Son whom I never sired slipped out between two crystal clear memories of small hands in his, and of the trust in bright grey eyes as he showed the boys how to sing.

Neniellë’s smile warmed to an impossibly bright degree. I'd like to meet him! When will we go?

You may go whenever you please, Maglor returned dryly. I will take my ill-fortune nowhere near Elrond.

Neniellë’s brow crinkled, but she shrugged. Well, I’ll need to learn more Thindarin before I can do that. Can I stay with you for a while? 

Maglor snorted. Who am I to say what the water daughter will do? I have it on good authority that you’ll follow me if I try and leave.

Only if you left without saying anything, Neniellë said. Or if I had a question. 

Maglor sighed. Precisely.

Neniellë smiled, and stood up. I’ll go hunting. I’ll be back in a few hours. 

Maglor stood too, and she frowned, tilting her head to the side in curiosity. He rolled his eyes. 

I might not have a bow, but I can at least forage for mussels, he replied with some asperity. 

Neniellë chuckled, and the sound was entrancing. As you please. 

A thought occurred to him, and he turned back. If you talk to anyone else, you should say it ‘Sindarin’, not ‘Thindarin.’ And you might want to get used to a Thindarin version of your name. Neniel, rather than Neniellë. 

Her brows furrowed again. Why? Not the name, I understand that. Although it will take getting used to. But why must it be pronounced 'Sindarin'?

Maglor sighed. Well, it started with my Grandmother, my first grandmother, Míriel Therindë – Serindë, to you, mind…

 

---

Chapter End Notes

Mam: Mother, Gnomish.

Suilad: Greetings! 

Eruhína: Quenya, 'sons of Eru.' 

Númenorions: sons of Númenor.

Osanwë: mind-speech. 

Tyelko, Tyelkormo: Celegorm

Fëanáro: Quenya, Fëanor. 

Curvo: Curufinwë Atarinkë, aka Curufin. 

Lauro: Makalaurë. Originally I was going to keep it Laurë, but then I thought it was a bit weird, considering that seemingly every Quenya nickname for every boy ends in 'o.' Well, with the exception of Ambarussa's shared nickname, but that doesn't count. 

Alassë: Caranthir's daughter, who is probably not canonical. But who cares? 

Ainur: Holy Ones, a term encompassing both the Maiar (lesser powers) and the Valar (greater Powers.) 

The 'Thindarin' is a reference to the Shibboleth of Fëanor. Aka, the one where Fëanor single-handedly turns a difference of pronunciation into a political dispute. FËANOR WHY.