Poisoned Peace by eris_of_imladris

Chapter 3

The morning dawns like any other for Maglor, but across the sea, thousands of people open their eyes to a brilliant light and never live to close them. Some people cheer for victory even as he thinks of the innocents, the ones he never used to think of in his own wars but now considers as he sits at his little kitchen table with his head in his hands.

Spread out across the smooth surface are a handful of rocks that shine with a pale green color. They were sand once, before the test changed them forever, bonded them together as a tangible symbol of loss.

Maglor has lost nothing today. He still sits in his little home, safe as he has ever been, indulging his curiosity about the strange rocks. Trinitite, some people call them, for the name of the test bomb, Trinity. It feels strange, almost like a thought his father would have, to name a bomb after a deity beloved by so many.

They aren’t pure green, like the emeralds of his youth. Instead, they are born of fire yet gleam with the color of the sea, ever-changing with an ethereal glow. He runs his fingers over the jagged edges, noting that they even burn a little, although no one could call them good. Some distant part of him wonders about the gem’s properties, if it would simply shatter upon striking it with a hammer, or if it is a true gemstone that could be molded and shaped and turned into something beautiful.

He’s never seen the creation of a gemstone from nothing, but he’s seen something built from destruction. His father destroyed everything when he made the silmarils. Their world, their peace, their home and family. Everything and everyone that he knew and loved was gone or irrevocably changed, all for the sake of three gems that glowed with a light beyond reckoning.

Maglor had to turn his head at this light too, and he already knew how it was going to end before it even truly began. He was helpless, for no one would believe his tale of the things he’d seen and done, and all he can do is wonder how no one else thought this was the worst way to end a war. This was even plainer than the silmarils that at least looked fair in the beginning. This bomb could be nothing but foul.

And yet, the bomb and its brother bring a surrender in eight days. One that still needs discussion, but it stops some deaths even as it creates so, so many others that are too easy for people here to dismiss.

The war will end soon. As for how, Maglor learns to be careful what he wishes for.