NOLDOLANTË by bluehair

Chapter 1

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This is the real one, the real fall of the Noldor, the one Maglor never sung before, because there were always reasons.

First, because they were the princes with light in their eyes, so of course it was normal to sing about bringing light to Beleriand, about the jewels that had light itself trapped inside, so they were so coveted by the darkness. To sing about feats of valor, heroes using their swords and spears to kill the unclean, to make the dark blood flow.

And really, they did, those heroes existed and they did battle darkness, until they were stomped on and hacked and killed.

So they should be sung, everyone should know how bright they were, those stars turned into a bone paste on a cesspit of a battleground. Those turned to ashes. Drowned in nameless pools of mud.

And now, after all, now is the time to sing of others, too.

To sing of how it feels when the blood fountaining from a slashed neck is red, not black. Actually, it feels the same, in many ways - it is warm, and viscous and sticky, and it stinks. No, it's not about the stench of puke, piss, shit, although, to their surprise, Alqualonde taught them what happens when you kill another and another and another, how the miasma grows and envelops you, how every bit of dirt gets stuck on your face, in your hair, in your yelling mouth, on your clumping lashes, under the nails so many bloodied again, trying to scrub them clean, after.

The nails so many bit, on the ships, only to vomit after, because they were not clean enough. The clothes stained, smelling of iron, of copper, the hair smelling of iron, of copper, of shit. The eyes with too much white in, like those of a frightened horse. Teeth grinding, hands trembling when next they had to prepare a freshly killed deer, because its viscera are not so different, after all.

The sound of pulling a sword from a deep, abdominal wound is different from that of a dagger through the ribs, yes, there needs to be mention of each and every way an elf can kill another - how it feels to pass through muscle, how steel scratches on the bone, how a decapitated head just flops wetly on soft, wet sand, and resonates on marble floors; makes a thud on a wooden, shabby floor and almost no sound on a thick straw or reed mattress.

And yes, for each sound the weapon makes, each sound the torn apart tissue makes, there's also the accompanying scream and wail and keen and whimper and ragged moan of the one whose fëar is torn apart, too. Because each of their men reacted in their own way when they first made the sea at Alqualonde red, and then also different later, ever later. Sounds a wild beast would be proud of, some days, complete and utter silence, at Sirion. Because there was nothing more to say, after all.

All of them already knew all these sounds, so there was really no need for Maglor to sing them, after all. But now, here, the sand doesn't know of it, was never saturated with red, and these waves, too, haven't moved cut bodies to and fro.

The gulls, they can understand better, probably, their language so full of cries. Maybe they can learn it, share it, so each crag and pebble and drop in the sea can know it, how the fall of the Noldor feels - wet and salty and spraying, darkening and stinking. And loud.