Many Journeys by Elleth

The Best He Still Could Hope For

A sort of Maglor-in-History fic, written for Indy for fandom_stocking 2012 and not posted here before. (Mentions of war and injuries, but nothing graphic.)

When bitterness overwhelmed him again, he thought that singing of his misdeeds ought to have been enough. He had sung all the evils of the Sons of Fëanor to the waves and the surf that evaded his footfall when they heard, and to the wind that quieted around him he had yelled the names of those whose blood they had spilled in pursuit of the Silmaril.

Clearly, the world held no more interest in his suffering. Humans may have looked at the singer of the street corner by the pier, children may have stopped and studied him with inscrutable eyes and the wisdom of the very young, before being tugged along on a guardian's hand, and there may have been legends of an undying, wandering singer always on the bleakest stretch of shore that branched as legends did; a guide of the dying, a herald of death, a seeker of lost things, a saviour from rats and abductor of children with a magic flute.

But that was all. No anger at him, no remembrance, no rejection, no forgiveness. Some undeserved, impotent, useless pity, and more than anything, indifference.

It was not until he understood that the world was slipping him by, that he failed to grasp humanity as it had become, that an idea began to grow in him. He was recovering from an unfortunate collision with one of the newfangled automobiles, and lay under the care of an astonished country nurse who marvelled at old scars – this from the Nirnaeth Arnoediad, that from the Sack of Troy, and another yet from the Hundred Years' War (although he never used those names) – and at his ears, and inquisitive as she was would not be content with his explanation that he had been born so, as had his father, and his father's father. That had been less of a lie than others he told.

She let it go eventually. "Mr. Harper," she said a few days after his arrival, tutting and fussing and wringing her hands as she laid a newspaper in his lap, spelling out the ramifications of an Archduke's assassination, the blustering and threats of mortal nations. "I have a bad feeling about all this."

He did not deny that her instincts had been correct, but all the same he thanked whatever powers had led him, two years later, to a field of mud and war-mad men with their minds wide open (for they only, he thought, could understand some of his own life), pouring stories and tales and hopes and fears at every step, and one especially, struck with grief to part with a young wife, and a mind awash with faeries, quaint notions to please her, with love of languages, and to Maglor's astonishment, some shreds he recognized. Perhaps his songs had, though distorted, spread far wider than he had ever dared hope.

If they were distorted. Some of them he no longer recalled quite as they must have been, instead shifting and confused, this name and that concept overlaying one another, counting tales, old myths, and sudden shreds of clarity at other times while he sang --- but they were no longer his concern. The young man's mind was eager, and he would have a lifetime to tease the truth from all those songs and recollections. He, as the vessel of these stories now, could hope to relate them to the world in a way that humans understood. Maglor and his family's plight would not be forgotten now. It was the best he still could hope for these days: In keeping the tale alive, the Silmarils were no longer entirely lost. A glimpse of Venus through the clouds one night blazed, suddenly, far brighter than the planet had any right to. The young man looked up, astonished, murmuring in a tongue he did not yet understand.

Maglor turned his back on the war and wandered downriver to the sea. Perhaps he could rest now. Perhaps sail at last.

Chapter End Notes

I don't really need to spell out whom Maglor met, do I? ;)