A WORLD WITHOUT GRANDPARENTS by bluehair

Chapter 1

It all started with Finwë, after all. Maybe it’s fitting that Maglor has to see it happening again and again these days?

No, these are not Eldar, and their lives are so fleeting that some days he could berate himself so thoroughly for finding this strange. After all, it’s just a blink of an eye since it became normal that so many of them live for seven or eight decades. Or even nine or ten, in some cases.

Yes, last time it was usual for Edain to live longer than that, it was literal ages ago. When there were so many more Eldar in the world, too. Especially… no, he can’t think of those loses, too.

Not when, with each tortured last breath one of the frail bodies in the overcrowded hospital hallway, all he can see is a very strong one, an immortal one. That still crumbled to the ground, struck down by malice and greed.

The same greed that turned Maglor’s hands red, again and again, with the life blood of his kin.

Yes, it’s been so long since that happened, way before what the Edain call history. But the burn scar in his right hand would not allow him to forget this, even if his perfect memory would.

He’s not of much use here, in this pinnacle of technology the Men were so proud of, until last year. It was one of their most famous hospitals, source of hope and life for so many, but now it’s just a charnel house. Very few medics are still alive, all over the world, so this is how he was able to get in – not that he could do much. Healing was never his strong suit, and no healer was ever able to deal with such a huge number of critical patients, in any case.

The same time last year, the world had almost a billion people over 60 – and now nobody knows if there are any healthy ones left. There were 3.5 billion males in it, too, of all ages. Over half of them are supposed to be dead now, after some mutations increased the initial virulence of the disease.

Yes, there was a time when he couldn’t have even imagined such numbers of people, of any kind, living or dead. It was so very strange how fast the population exploded, too. After all, plagues were not new, and he should have been used to them, or so he thought.

The old lady in the bed to the right now twitches her last, and the sounds are horrible, but he’s used to those sounds. He’s even used to being completely impotent against a bigger force.

What Maglor still didn’t get used to is the lack of grandparents. Something the rest of the world is learning, too. Or, not learning, maybe, who knows?

He can still see Finwë, on a brilliant morning, taking him out to get new strings for his harp. Explaining some fine piece of politics to Maitimo. Frowning when, once again, his father and his uncle are fighting. Congratulating him after a special concert. Welcoming them back, after one of their expeditions in the wilds.

That seems so much more real than this place, with it’s supposed sterile everything, which is no longer sterile for so long now. Yes, he can’t get sick, but he still feels like his skin wants to crawl off his body, just like he felt after each of the cursed battles they fought.

Why is he still inside, Maglor wonders now, what is it that he keeps doing here, knowing he can’t do anything to even soothe their passing to whichever place Edain go to? Just like he can’t go back to the place they all were so ready to leave.

Enough.

He is leaving, and not looking back, because maybe now he can roam some empty coastline again. With fewer people, he could... – and the callousness of the thought makes him choke. He could what? Wallow for another age?

No, but at least for a night.

Amazingly enough, liquor can still be had, even in the amount necessary to get himself pass out drunk. And the next day he does leave the city, suffocated by the numb desperation around.

*

He’s not sure how long he spent in the wild – some years, but how many? Who knows, and who cares.

Life is changed when he’s back, and it’s not hard to realize many more people perished in the meantime. There are way, way more women than men, everywhere, and the feel of life is different. He’s not sure, at first, what is so different, either – clearly there’s loss, and uncertainty, and he could almost think he’s back in an Elven city – everyone is young looking.

Yes, they probably are young, because this is what the disease did. But they are so much frailer than his brethren, and he could both laugh and cry when the woman serving food at a small pub he stops at tries so hard to take care of him.

It’s easy to find a place to stay, even if the conditions are no longer what the 21st century expected, and to also find something to do in exchange for housing and food.

But what finally opens his eyes happens a couple of weeks after – one brilliant, warm summer evening, with the perfect fiery sunset, balmy, clean air and the complaints of children of various ages, that they don’t want to get in and settle for the night yet.

Just like it happened so many times in Tirion, when he or any of his siblings didn’t yet want to settle down for the night, but readily accepted to gather around their kind grandfather, listening to some brilliant story, making them dream.

Yes, this he can do, he can help them with. After all, he could just be the grandfather of any of these young ones.