Marta's Mathoms - BMEM 2011 by Marta

Seductions (Eol/Aredhel) (Teen)

Warnings for my muses' (and Aredhel's) rather screwed up head-space, and all the domestic bliss one would expect from this couple

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Later history will tell how Aredhel arrived in Nan Elmoth, weary and bruised from long years in the Wilds of Beleriand, and how the dark elf Eöl took her into his house gladly. He fed and clothed her when she had no claim on kinship, even instructing his healers to care for her wounds. The minstrels will leave unsaid how she came by those wounds, perhaps, and will dwell instead on their lord's later kindness. They will tell how he took her in and took her to wife and made her his queen and in due time gave her a son, and how Aredhel for her part was not wholly unwilling.

This is of course a lie.

It is a lie, yet it is a seductive lie, one that Aredhel has nearly convinced herself of. What you surrender willingly cannot be taken by force, and she clings to that truth. At times even Aredhel cannot remember – the wrist that Eöl's healers set in a splint as it healed, had she broken the bone in a tryst with Ungoliant's foul brethren or from rough questioning by Eöl's guards? Or even from Eöl himself? She had been proud when she first arrived at Nan Elmoth and had not shared her news willingly, of that much she was certain.

Now she gives her liege-lord as wide a berth as custom allows, often going weeks without seeing him. For this she is grateful. When she looks at the son that she loves, Aredhel accepts Morpheus's gifts gladly and tries to forget how she got him. Those memories of dark nights, where her pleasure was neither expected nor required, will not leave her easily. She paints the dark hair as Turgon's likeness rather than her liege-lord's, in her mind, and tries to forget all else.

The End of All Things (Maglor, Maedhros) (General)

Every skill and every inquiry, and similarly every action and rational choice, is thought to aim at some good; and so the good has been aptly described as that at which everything aims. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)

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Maglor looked up at the gloomy shadow in his tent's opening. Gloomy seemed an odd enough attribute to name a shadow with, but there it was. Shadows did not glower, either, but this one seemed to do precisely that. Perhaps he was letting his imagination run away with him, now that he was writing again. Or perhaps he simply knew his brother all too well.

 

"Did you write this?"

Maglor dared to look up at him, and though the sight might have cowed many of Eönwë's host gathered outside, Maglor had seen those eyes turned deadly-sharp with ire before today. And there was nothing for it, in any event. He had no intention of hiding from what he had done; indeed, that was the point of the whole thing.

Taking the paper from Maedhros, he motioned toward a barrel that served as a seat, and Maedhros sat down gruffly beside him. He did not need to read it, for he recognized the sheet at once. He had after all carried it folded in his pocket these last weeks and taken it out at every chance, including at every meal, and it carried the remnants of various sauces, tea, and any other number of things in the corner. He recognized, too, the crinkles from when he had balled it up in frustration.

Still, he read over the words with mock-care. Maedhros did not understand – perhaps could not, for who but a fellow artist could know this mad impulse? A thought struck him that in this of all things, he had more in common with his father than he ever would have thought possible. What was a craftsman but an artist working in a different medium? But Maglor had no doubt that Fëanor would have tolerated this creation. Would Maedhros?

"Aye, I wrote it," he said after a moment of long silence. "And Elrond will sing it on the morrow."

Maedhros blinked several times in quick succession, and Maglor was pleasantly surprised to see his expression softening. Had he succeeded in shocking his brother, the veteran of a thousand campaigns? When at last Maedhros spoke, his voice was softer, sadder, than Maglor could ever remember it. "He will betray us, too?"

Maglor laid the paper down and instead grasped his brother's hands in his own. "In this there is no us," he said softly. "Of the seven we alone are left, and Father is lost until the breaking of the world, as you heard Eönwë say. Mother is forever lost, too, or just as well; that damnable oath will keep us forever an ocean apart. And Elrond and Elros were never ours to lay claim on – for which I am grateful." He grasped Maedhros's hands with new purpose so that he looked up, their eyes meeting. "Would you kill me too, brother mine? Would you become the foulest of kin-slayers in truth?"

Maedhros started, leaning back on his seat. "I would never."

"But they" – he cocked his head toward the tent flap, meaning Eönwë's hosts, the great hordes of Thingol's folk, and all the rest – "they would not blanche at that thought."

"They do not know me," Maedhros said with a gentleness that surprised Maglor. "You do."

"I do," Maglor said, folding the paper and handing it back to Maedhros. "And you know me. You know that when my heart is set on something I cannot be gainsaid, any more than you can. We come by it honestly, I think." Maedhros opened his mouth to speak, but Maglor rushed on before Maedhros could interrupt him. "And I will not be gainsaid either, not in this. The host will not hear me sing of Alqualondë, but they will hear my words from a voice not yet tainted by our family's foul deeds."

Maedhros actually smiled at that. Wryly, bitterly, it was true, but a smile was still a smile. "Damned by your damnable oath."

"Mayhap the Valar have a sense of humor after all," he said. "But will they or no, this must be done. We both have blood on our hands – no, I know your arguments on this, but hear me out. Freely or otherwise, we unsheathed our swords beside Father's at Alqualondë, and too many of Olwë's folk fell by our actions. I would not make their death meaningless through my cowardice."

"You truly think you can atone for those deeds, to say nothing of all we have done since, with a song?"

Now it was Maglor's chance to smile as bitterly as Maedhros had. "I believe we are beyond atonement," he said. "I do not seek forgiveness. But purpose – that at least is still within my grasp. Growth. Completion." He looked down at his perennially ink-stained fingers and sighed to himself. "It is not enough, not nearly enough. But it is all I have to give."

Maedhros nodded at that and left the tent without another word. Maglor saw that he had left the parchment on the barrel where he had been sitting. Maglor would have written it again, if need be, but he was glad that he would not have to. Did Maedhros understood why this must be done? Perhaps, when Elrond sang the Noldolantë before Eönwë's host, Maedhros would stand at his side. Perhaps they would listen to that dark song together.

Vestiges (OC Easterlings) (General)

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Kiran knelt down beside the river, his fingers sinking into the muddy bank. That at least was a relief, for even here mud was still mud. The earth rose high on either side, nearly blocking out the sun, and the mist rising up from the river gave the gully a feel quite unlike anything Kiran had ever experienced before. Yet it was comfortable in its own way, this closeness of stone and mist. Behind him, he heard the faint roar of the sea or imagined he did. The water's sound had worked its way under his skin and set his thoughts to racing, though he couldn't say why.

He had to find his bearings. He was alone, far from all help and more likely to meet an elf-warrior than any people who would help one such as he. Dev had already died on one of their arrows, and Kiran did not know what had become of Vidya. They had been sent out from the Easterlings' encampment to scout the surrounding countryside when the elf-scouts had come upon them, and Kiran – he blushed at his own shame – Kiran had run as fast as his feet would carry him.

The elf attack had driven out all thought of the sea, but now, as he knelt so close to her quieter cousin, Kiran could not quite forget the song that had sprung up inside him as he had listened to the waves crashing against the rocks. He had never seen the ocean before these last few days, and it was a sight he would not soon forget for all that the water's song had unnerved him. Here he heard the song, too, though it was quieter than it had been. Gentler. The story that the water's sound called to mind seemed more his own tale, less foreign, and now he found that he quite liked it. The mud oozed between his fingers, and the water surged around his wrists, washing the grime of a week and more's hard travel away.

Must he leave this place?

In truth, Kiran knew where he was well enough. Following the gully toward the horizon he saw the ruins of what had once been the old elf-city, and the sun setting to his right told him he was south of the old city. The orcs held this part of the country around Vinyamar and if he found one of their scouts they would point him in the direction home. And he knew his duty. He knew he must leave, must tell what news he had learned and try to explain why he had run. They were his people, and it was a mad whim to stay here close to the sea. What if an elf came upon him while he slept and cut his throat, or a wild beast attacked and gutted him? And if he didn't return to the camp, if he played turncoat for good...

He sighed to himself. He did not want to return, but he was neither coward nor traitor and he would not shirk what needed to be done. A part of him longed to stay here, to listen to the river's song and see what secret paths it might lead him down; but that was a child's folly. He turned his thoughts toward home and the beer barrel waiting for him there. He remembered other things, too: his mother's embrace, the warmth of a campfire shared with his own kin, the way Rani smiled when her eyes met his.

Shouldering his pack, he made his way toward the heath surrounding the ruins. If his steps were heavier than before, and if his mind was pulled ever back to his memories of gulls whirling over the sea, well, some things could not be helped.

---

Chapter End Notes

It is said by the Eldar that in water there lives yet the echo of the Music of the Ainur more than in any substance else that is in this Earth; and many of the Children of Ilúvatar hearken still unsated to the voices of the Sea, and yet know not for what they listen. (Ainulindale, the Silmarillion)

Fealty (Fingon, Maedhros) (First Age)

Fear, confidence, appetite, anger, pity, and in general pleasure and pain can be experienced too much or too little, and in both ways not well. But to have them at the right time, about the right things, towards the right people, for the right end, and in the right way, is the mean and best; and this is the business of virtue. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)

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Maedhros stood at the ready, waiting for Fingon to make his move. His rival shifted his weight first to the left, then to the right before finally lunging forward. Maedhros parried the blow with ease and stepped forward, turning his shoulders as he brought his blade forward. Caranthir had taught him how to do that, a technique he had learned from the Dwarves who so often lost their limbs in battle.

Fingon almost laughed at that, for a week ago Maedhros would have scarcely held onto his sword, let alone deflected Fingon's attack. Maedhros, though, knew better than to let his guard fall, and he was ready for Fingon's riposte when it came. However close they might be when they shared tales around the camp fire, just now they were sparring, and that made Fingon his foe – and he Fingon's.

So began the slow dance they had done so many times before Thangorodrim. Before Alqualondë. On guard, lunge, parry, riposte, again and again, they made their way back and forth across the greensward to the music of clashing steel. Off to the side, Maedhros was vaguely aware of his brothers, watching the match with some interest. Caranthir would be pointing out the ways that Maedhros had learned his torso's new center of gravity, now that he fought one-handed, and Celegorm might listen well. (Amrod, still young enough to care more for sport than battle tactics, would pay him little mind, focusing instead on the finer points of the sparring match.)

Again and again their swords met until Maedhros's chest glistened with sweat in the late afternoon sun, and Fingon on occasion let his sword-arm drop as it grew tired. At last Fingon drew him into a feint, turning Maedhros's sword to the side and touching his own blunted tip to Maedhros's calf. Amrod proclaimed the point from his place on the sidelines, and Maedhros bowed respectfully toward his cousin.

Then, to everyone's surprise, Maedhros swung his sword over his head in a wide arc, driving it into the earth between them, and knelt in front of Fingon. He looked up at his cousin, his eyes earnest and for once unguarded, and saw Fingon's own eyes grow wide in surprise. He knew, then; Fingon always knew what Maedhros was going to say before he spoke, somehow, and now was no exception. He would offer his sword to Fingon's house, and his fealty as well – if Fingon would but accept it.

"You would offer me this?" Fingon asked quietly. "You would offer it freely?" Maedhros nodded and opened his mouth to speak, but Fingon shook his head quickly, looking pointedly over at Maedhros's brothers. He helped Maedhros to his feet and pulled him into a tight embrace. "This talk is not for all ears," he whispered. "Will you walk with me?"

Maedhros nodded almost imperceptibly but did not take the sword. They stood facing each other for a long moment, engaged in a quiet battle of wills, until at least Fingon sheathed his own sword and took Maedhros's in his hand. The two walked away from the greensward, behind the cluster of tents that served Maedhros's household. "What do you mean by all this, Maedhros?" Fingon asked as soon as they were out of earshot of the others. "Submission does not come naturally to you."

"Naturally?" Maedhros mused. "No, not naturally. But with practice even the most obstinate man may be brought round to virtue. I have pledged myself to you a thousand times in my mind. This time, when I did it in truth, I acted as easily as a warm knife through butter."

Running his fingers over the stump where his other hand had once been, he added more quietly, "I have had much time for thought these last few years, Fingon. I have thought long about things I would have done differently, and submission seems to me the wiser course. I could not withstand my father's madness at Alqualondë, and even after I let him burn the ships, condemning your folk to the Helcaraxë. What kind of king would I make?"

"You are not afraid?" Fingon asked. "To have your fate chained to another's?"

At that Maedhros snorted, and any heavy mood that lingered between them melted away. "I have been chained to a rock face until the shackles tore at muscle and skin and I thought I would die from the pain. I understand well the meaning of chains. And I have been chained by oath and blood to a less fitting lord than your father. How much crueler can your own father be than all that? Yet I survived."

"You must make your pledge to him," Fingon said. Nodding toward the sword in his hand, "It is not my part to accept this, or any other gift due a king." He offered the sword back to Maedhros, and this time Maedhros accepted it. "I will hear your words when you offer them, though," he added. "I would hear your words now, were that my part. Neither ice nor fire nor even Morgoth's bonds can long keep us apart, cousin mine."

Maedhros closed his eyes at that, and stood there silently for a long while. When at last he opened them again, his eyes were strangely moist, as though Maedhros the Tall had been brought to the brink of tears. An impossible feat, to be sure, but Fingon could not doubt his own eyes. "No tears," Fingon said quickly. "And no more apologies. Let the past be as passed, between the two of us at least."

Maedhros nodded at that, and put away his sword.

---

Chapter End Notes

"But when they were landed, Maedhros the eldest of his sons, and on a time the friend of Fingon ere Morgoth's lies came between, spoke to Fëanor, saying: 'Now what ships and rowers will you spare to return, and whom shall they bear hither first? Fingon the valiant?

"Then Fëanor laughed as one fey, and he cried: 'None and none! What I have left behind I count now no loss; needless baggage on the road it has proved. Let those that cursed my name, curse me still, and whine their way back to the cages of the Valar! Let the ships burn!' Then Maedhros alone stood aside, but Fëanor caused fire to be set to the white ships of the Teleri. [...]And Fingolfin and his people saw the light afar off, red beneath the clouds; and they knew that they were 

("Of the Flight of the Noldor," the Silmarillion)

Girded (Galadriel, Melian) (General)

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Galadriel often sat in Melian's parlor, alone or in the company of others. Waiting on her ladyship, Galadriel once put it, though Melian was no more eager for courtly ministrations than was Galadriel herself. They busied their hands with the fine needlework required by Thingol's folk, and their minds with talk of Aman.

In truth Melian had little interest in her former home, but such small talk helped fill the hours. Courtesy demanded that Galadriel not go romping with the men of Doriath when Celeborn so obviously fancied her, and Melian knew her duty as host. Still, Galadriel seemed ill at ease with such talk, and Melian often wondered whether Galadriel would be happier if left to her own devices.

But Galadriel kept coming, and Melian had not the heart to turn her away. She deftly avoided all talk of Olwë's folk, which seemed to unnerve Galadriel more than any other, and as time went by they spoke more often of Menegroth's gossip and left Aman well enough alone. Melian was taken by surprise, then, when Galadriel brought up their old life, some years after she first came to Doriath.

"Do you not miss it?" Galadriel asked her quietly, her eyes fixed on the old tapestry she was repairing that afternoon.

Did she? Time had little meaning to one who had sung history into being, and Valinor in all its glory was not so distant in her mind as it seemed to be in Galadriel's. "No," she answered matter-of-factly after a moment. "The memory is dear to me, make no mistake, but Menegroth is as dear to my heart as Meneltarma ever was."

Galadriel nodded at that. "I came seeking my own realm, but have not yet found my heart's desire." She pursed her lips together as if debating whether to say more, then swallowed hard and shook her head to herself. "Sometimes I wonder at this land, my queen. At your dominion. 'Tis through your strength more than Thingol King's that Morgoth's shadow is held at bay, and I am glad of the shelter." She paused and Melian smiled encouragingly. "But... well, do you ever fear we are too set apart?"

A strange question, and stranger still that it had not occurred to Melian until just now. She had come to Middle-earth for love of the Children and out of a longing for adventure. Unlike Galadriel she had never sought a land to rule over. Yet here she was, ensnared by her love for her Thingol and all his folk, and by girding all Doriath she had bound herself in.

"Peace is a dear gift," she said at last. "I cannot protect all Beleriand from Morgoth's filth, but I would shelter those I can. Mayhap one day things will be different and I can explore the unsearched corners of this land yet again. But for now my place is here."

Galadriel looked at her then, her eyes taking on the hard piercing quality that could cut through bone down to your soul. Melian, queen though she was, met Galadriel's eyes evenly. Still, she could not quite push Galadriel's words from her mind. What had she purchased for her people when she'd hemmed this land in, and at what cost?

All the Good You Can (Caranthir) (Teen)

"Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you can." (John Wesley)

"Nor will [the truly generous person] neglect his own possessions, since he wants to use them to help others. And he will not give to just anybody, so that he might have something to give to the right people, at the right time, and where it is noble to do so. (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)

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Caranthir had not wanted to leave Formenos, not really. He had no desire for dominion of anything save metals and gems, and he could find that more easily at Aulë's work-bench than anywhere beyond the sea. He had gone, of course. He had no household of his own, he told himself in after-days, no great strength of men to guard his gate. What choice had there been?

 

He might have gone to Tirion or Valmar, he supposed, but would he have been welcomed? He remembered how his father had withheld the Silmarils, how even his own cousins had blamed the House of Fëanor for their ever-present darkness. It was the thought of the Silmarils that had won him over. The thought of finding them once again, of learning their secrets, had thrilled him. His brothers spoke too of hills yet unmined and of crafts yet unheard of by any of the Noldor. There was the rumor of the Dwarves he had heard from Aulë's folk: hardy folk, it was said, and full of a treasure-yearning to match their maker's.

He had confessed his secret ambitions to Celegorm one night on their passage across the sea. Not such a wise idea, looking back: Celegorm had jumped from his seat by the fire and called Caranthir a nasty treasure-gobbler, the phrase they'd adopted to talk about orcs when the Twins were still young. Amrod had taken up Celegorm's cause, too, saying that Caranthir had no sense of honor, and would he really fight a war for gold?

Caranthir thought honor a meaningless abstraction, given the circumstances. Was that why he had slit the old mariner's throat, back at Alqualondë? But he wisely kept that thought to himself. If his brothers' thoughts of justified vengeance let them sleep at night, well, let them have their rest. So he helped set flame to ship once their passage was complete, and had fought as fiercely as he could at the Battle Under the Stars and all that came after, and he spoke not a word of the Silmarils.

He was little skilled at diplomacy, though, as he proved time and again. The incident with Angrod was enough to send even patient Maglor over the edge, and Caranthir was not surprised when his brother urged him to settle east beyond the upper waters of Gelion, as far from their cousins as safety would allow.

He and his people (for the lonesome craftsman now found himself a lord, much to his chagrin) did well there, building forges to rival those of Formenos. The hills were rich with iron, and Caranthir himself devised new armor, hard as steel but more like woven mesh than the inflexible plates his father had once crafted.

The Dwarves – foul creatures, to be sure, scrawny and ill-formed, but clever at their crafts – had improved on his design and showed him how to cover the joints with copper melded with tin, and before long even Thingol's emissaries came to Thargelion to barter for it. He did not part with his armor easily, for it was not easily made and once he had discovered the secret of its making the labor of its manufacture bored him. But it kept his folk clothed in leathers and velvet, his herds rich with proud beasts.

He never took to being a lord, though, however much his advisors urged him to dress regally. Fine velvets made his skins itch and the circlet Silpion convinced him to wear at court only gave him a headache. Tol-Galion, as Silpion named his house, was more fitting for a coppersmith than a prince of the Noldor, and though he had built a strong wall around the place and had even fashioned a cunning bridge that could be raised to keep enemies away, the house itself was plain save for those rooms set aside for emissaries and merchants. That, of all things, had kindled the Dwarves' anger. He hoarded his plunder all for himself, so they said, and never enjoyed a brass ring of it.

His brothers, too, were ill-pleased with him. They came ever and again to Thargelion but never for pleasure; no, it was when they wrote begging arms and he refused them. He rode with his men when called, and he guarded the eastern flank of Beleriand against Morgoth, but as for his war-chest, that he kept locked tight unless they came bearing coin.

'Twas worth the price. He would sell them horses brave enough to stand their ground against any foe and mail that would turn aside the swiftest arrow. Still, they often grumbled that his coffers were full while theirs were near spent. When their patience wore thin they even used that name Celegorm had once flung at him. He had not smelt the foul stench of elf-flesh charred by a dragon's flame, they claimed, nor had he seen a man gasp for air when the poison from orc-arrows all but closed his throat.

Celegorm's eyes grew cold as steel at those charges – did they think he never left his forges, and that he let the men of his household beat back Gothmog's ilk while he cowered in safety? – but he would not answer them. So they bought what they needed and cursed his stiff neck and grumbled foul names under their breath.

Still, when Maglor's crops failed or when the dwarves' wells were poisoned by orc-craft, Celegorm came to their aid. He kept his pantries full against just such times as those. They might think him a greedy mongrel most of the time, a nasty treasure-gobbler, but no matter.

 

All the Good You Can - Notes

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There isn't much canon on Caranthir's life that I am aware of. His mother-name is Morifinwë, literally dark-Finwë. This is attributed in HoMe XII to his dark hair, but I find that explanation unconvincing since nearly all Noldor were dark-haired. I have always wondered whether the name came from having a darker temperament than most people.

"The incident with Angrod" is canonical, though I've left out the details for the purpose of space here.

But Caranthir, who loved not the sons of Finarfin, and was the harshest of the brothers and most quick to anger, cried aloud: 'Yea more! Let not the sons of Finarfin run thither with their tales to this Dark Elf in his caves! Who made them our spokesmen to deal with him? And though they be come indeed to Beleriand, let them not so swiftly forget that their father is a lord of the Noldor, though their mother be of other kin.'

Then Angrod was wrathful and went forth from the council. Maedhros indeed rebuked Caranthir; but the greater part of the Noldor, of both followings, hearing his words were troubled in heart, fearing the fell spirit of the sons of Fëanor that it seemed would ever be like to burst forth in rash word or violence. ("Of the Return of the Noldor," the Silmarillion)

Caranthir's lack of diplomacy also shows up in his dealings with the Dwarves:

And thus it was that Caranthir's people came upon the Dwarves, who after the onslaught of Morgoth and the coming of the Noldor had ceased their traffic into Beleriand. But though either people loved skill and were eager to learn, no great love was there between them; for the Dwarves were secret and quick to resentment, and Caranthir was haughty and scarce concealed his scorn for the unloveliness of the Naugrim, and his people followed their lord. ("Of the Return of the Noldor," the Silmarillion)

Incidentally, this is the passage that gave me the idea that Caranthir was a craftsman. I know that in HoMe XII we're told that "[Curufin] alone showed in some degree the same temper and talents" as Fëanor. If you take HoMe as canon (I don't), this can be read as saying that Curufin had the temper and talents. I like to imagine others had a scientific skill set but just not his temper, and Caranthir seems to fit the bill. I think his accomplishments can be more attributed to diligence than genius, anyway.

Some of you may notice two allusions to the Hobbit: Caranthir's disbelief that anyone would really fight "a war for gold," and the dwarves' charge that Caranthir "horded his gold [...] and never spent a brass ring." That's not an accident. While I really enjoyed developing a craftsman Fëanorian and showing him as a bit of a geek, this story was as much inspired by the Hobbit as the Silmarillion. I always felt Thranduil was unfairly maligned by the dwarves and Bilbo, and that it was a really good thing that he had accumulated all that wealth. How much worse would things have been for the people of Laketown if he lived richly and didn't keep his treasures in reserve?

That Which Cannot Be Forgotten (Celeborn/Galadriel, Dwarves) (Teen)

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Looking down the table, Celeborn could barely keep himself from scowling. The whole place stank of dwarf, and he half expected to see shed beard-hairs floating in the gravy-boat. Not that the smell was unpleasant in itself. He actually rather liked the earthy scent, of sweat and ale and of the weed they liked to smoke. But the smell of dwarf brought dark memories to mind, and those thoughts had thoroughly soured his mood.

He remembered that scent from Doriath, from before the moon ever rose above Beleriand that was. He had gone diving for pearls in his youth with them, and he had considered them friends. And later, when all Menegroth had reeked of them... There was the rub. Under the table, Galadriel's fingers ghosted over his, reminding him of her presence by his side. He asked in a near-whisper, "What is his name again? The one with the scarlet hood?"

"Thrár," Galadriel answered. "A kinsman of their king Azaghâl. His... grandson? Great-grandson? Who can keep track." She took a sip of her wine, and then added almost as an afterthought, "It was not they who sacked Doriath."

"For which I am eternally grateful," Celeborn said. Under the table she grasped his wrist, and Celeborn sighed. "I know. Civility." Earlier, as they had been dressing for tonight's feast under the stars, she had reminded him that he was no longer one of many distant heirs for a king's throne, and that being Ost-in-Edhil's lord was not without its duties. As if he needed the reminding. "You need not be alarmed, my lady. Were one of the chieftains of Nogrod to seek hospitality at my table, I would offer him hospitality."

Her lips quirked at that. "You would kill him where he stood. You would place his head on a pike in Ost-in-Edhil's ramparts yourself."

"Perhaps," he replied, "but only after I'd given him a warm meal."

They both laughed at that, but much as he tried Celeborn could not quite turn his thoughts to happier things. He remembered a fair-fashioned necklace that had borne the Silmaril, once upon a time. He knew that it had been the dwarves of Nogrost who had hewn Thingol's head from shoulders, and who had ripped his cousin's doll in half just to see her cry. But hadn't Thrár's folk helped fashion the Nauglamír that had brought their kin down on Doriath?

He leaned his head toward Galadriel's. "I see it, sometimes," he whispered in a voice he hoped only she could hear. "I see that necklace, that cursed thing, as a shining helm around his neck. I know that Durin had little enough to do with it, and even Thrár's hands are clean. But I see it in my mind's eye, that jewel which should never have been lost across the Sea. I see him. And some things I can neither forgive nor forget."

"Nor can I," his wife answered, her voice as low as his. "I love Middle-earth and would scarce ask you to leave it" – not yet, neither quite had the heart to add – "but I had other reasons for staying, when Eönwë's hosts offered me passage back to Aman. When I think of a sea-crossing, when I think of my Telerin kin... I do not think I could bear weeks on a ship built by that folk. In my mind I see the dead at Alqualondë, killed by my hand, and the distant sight of ships burning in the night."

She laughed, suddenly, her breath fluttering against Celeborn's neck. "Do you know how long it took me to look at Thingol and not see Fëanor? 'Twas a trial indeed, I assure you!" Bending her head, she planted a soft kiss on the tip of his nose. "But forgiveness is not required, at least not tonight. Only..."

"I know." Celeborn sighed. Breathing in deeply, her scent filled his chest so he could smell little else. "I know," he repeated more lightly. "Civility."

That Which Cannot Be Forgotten - Notes

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Canon After-Note
[After the sack of Menegroth and the murder of Thingol, the Dwarves were at last driven out of Doriath. Many were killed, but some escaped.]

"There in Nogrod they told somewhat of all that had befallen, saying that the Dwarves were slain in Doriath by command of the Elvenking, who thus would cheat them of their reward. Then great was the wrath and lamentation of the Dwarves of Nogrod for the death of their kin and their great craftsmen, and they tore their beards, and wailed; and long they sat taking thought for vengeance. It is told that they asked aid from Belegost, but it was denied them, and the Dwarves of Belegost sought to dissuade them from their purpose; but their counsel was unavailing." ("Of the Ruin of Doriath," the Silmarillion)

On Galadriel and Alqualondë: Depending on the version you read, she either actively defends the Teleri against the Fëanorians or she sits on the sidelines. (I'm not aware of any account where she actively fights alongside the sons of Fëanor.) This puts her in a position to either do nothing and watch all those people die, or to get involved and become a kinslayer against her Noldorin family. Up until this point she has been pretty gung-ho about going to Middle-earth. So whatever her exact role, I can see her having some majorly mixed feelings about the event, especially given all that time she spent in Doriath.

Bones of the Earth (Azaghal) (Teen)

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Azaghâl never thought he would die beneath the stars.

He was no fool. He always knew he must die one day; he was a Son of Mahal and death was his kind's due. He should feel the chill of Belegost stone this day, draw strength from the bones of the earth that had ever succored him. Pawing at the earth now, he found only scorched grass and pebbles. A poor substitute.

Still, stone was stone. The soil here was gravelly, too much like rock face to grow anything more than weeds. And the skies above were inky-black. There were stars, aye, twinkling far overhead, but in its own way this sky could almost be a cave's ceiling. All around him the men of his guard sung the beginnings of a funeral dirge. Their booming voices, the beat of his heart, the memory of Gothmog's cry as Azaghâl had finally driven him back: a song like drums in the deep.

Azaghâl never thought he would die beneath the stars, but did that matter, truly? He swallowed hard against the blood and bile rising in his throat and let his eyes close. No; Dorthonion was not so foreign a place, after all.

---

Chapter End Notes

"Last of all the eastern force to stand firm were the dwarves of Belegost, and thus they won renown. [...] But for them Glaurung and his brood would have withered all that was left of the Noldor. But the Naugrim made a circle about him when he assailed them, and even his mighty armour was not full proof against the blows of their great axes; and when in his rage Glaurung turned and struck down Azaghâl, Lord of Belegost, and crawled over him, with his last stroke Azaghâl drove a knife into his belly, and so wounded him that he fled the field." ("Of the Fifth Battle: Nirnaeth Arnoediad," the Silmarillion)

Curse Us and Crush Us (Gorlim) (Teen)

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He squatted in the undergrowth. 'Twas his turn at watch and he would take it willingly. Gladly, even, in happier days. He had always welcomed this time alone beneath the forest's eaves, for the quiet hours had always been as dear as kin to him.

Now, though, the memories...

Gorlim was plagued by what he had seen on returning home from the wars, in his nightmares and waking dreams alike. The door hanging off its hinge and the door-jamb nearly broken in half. The rough-hewn chairs upended on the floor, the busted crockery all around the floor. Worst of all, the cradle turned on its side by the fire burning low. That last image was a lie, a horrible lie – he and Eiliniel had neither babe nor cradle when he'd left with Barahir – but his mind always insisted on adding it somehow. And always, always, the blood-streak on the table's corner.

Where was she now, his wife? Was she dead in the woods, these woods, or killed by orcs, or worse than that? What could be worse? Gorlim had seen too much, he knew that worse could be a chasm without bottom, and he wondered.

A few feet away, Barahir slept like the daughter Gorlim feared he would never have. Gorlim imagined Nargothrond's fell ring glistening in the moonlight: twin serpents beneath their golden crown, always upholding, always devouring. What madness had driven his captain to ally himself with that house? What had he doomed them to? For any man who had marched with Barahir knew Finrod's tales about the dark elves who came out of the west. Finrod had put Manwë's doom on Fëanor's line alone, but Gorlim was not so sure.

That doubt gnawed at him. What could be done, what could he do? And where was she?

Curse Us and Crush Us - Notes

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The story of Gorlim is one of the most tragic in the Silmarillion, and cannot be easily summarized. Barahir is the father of Beren, and Gorlim is one of his men. Essentially most of Barahir's people are killed by Morgoth until only one group of twelve is left. Gorlim had come home from the war and "found his house plundered and forsaken, and his wife gone; whether slain or taken he knew not." Gorlim joined Barahir's company but was later captured in a trap by Sauron. He betrays his companions because he believes his wife is still alive and Sauron promises to restore her to him. Eventually Barahir and everyone but Beren is killed. (Including Gorlim; he's killed by Sauron.)

For the full story see "Of Beren and Lúthien," the Silmarillion.

The title comes from Gollum. Completely unrelated to this story, I know, but it seemed strangely appropriate. Gorlim's description of the Ring of Barahir is adapted from the Lay of Leithian.

The Gift of Men (Ar-Zimraphel) (Teen)

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Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.
Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent. 
Is he both able and willing? Whence then is evil?
Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God? (Epicurus)

*********************

Zimraphel wondered, as she tried her best to climb Meneltarma, what had put the daft idea in her head. She could not hope to escape the coming storm – she had no delusion that the Powers would not wipe Númenor off the map – and yet she climbed.

Himring. That was it. Elendil had once told her about another wave that had near wiped out Middle-earth, long years ago, and how its lord Maedhros who had thrown himself off some cliff. Was that into fire or water? Zimraphel remembered a great fall when a hero tried to carry a treasure away from danger, and a miraculous rescue, and a transformation beyond all hope into a great white bird. Had that been Maedhros or someone else? Zimraphel had never had much of a head for history.

She had thought it a good plan at the time, climbing Meneltarma, but now Zimraphel knew she was too late. Horribly, horribly late, and in more ways than one. The child growing within her seemed anchored to the valley below; it strove to anchor her to the valley below. Three times since Pharazôn had taken her to wife her moon-cycle had come late, and three times the apothecary had given her the herbs to cast the child from her womb. He had been a friend of Elendil's, once upon a time, and so he had helped her at no small risk to himself because of the conviction they had shared. Ar-Pharazôn should not, could not, produce an heir.

This time, though, she had been taken with child just as Númenor's fleet had sailed west to make war on Valinor. At that time none of the old places seemed safe, and she knew well how Annatar longed to spill her blood on Morgoth's altar. Murdering the king's heir would give him just the pretext he needed. Ai, how her heart had raced in her chest! So she had put it off too long and then after, when she could have perhaps fallen from her horse and lost the babe by chance, by then she'd felt him kicking inside her and she had not the heart to destroy him.

Now, she climbed as best she could, first by foot and then as the slope steepened on hands and knees. She had ridden like the wind from Armenelos, ridden until her horse could no longer find a sure path and then had continued on her own as best she could in her condition. How far might she hope to get? She had wanted to live, for her child and for herself. She had hoped against hope. She had managed that much, at least.

Whatever the minstrels might say – she laughed at that thought; minstrels! – whatever they might say of her motives, Zimraphel had not flown from Armenelos thinking she might escape all Númenor's fate. Meneltarma was no cliff that she might jump from and cast her fate into the hands of the Powers. It was a mountain like any other and if she threw herself down she would but land on the rock. But it was also a holy place, where her forefathers went to offer their first fruits and thanksgiving gifts. She had squandered the first-fruits of her youth, and she did not know what she could be thankful for, all things considered. This, though, was all she could think to do. It seemed fitting, somehow, that Tar-Palantír's child should strive for this place at last.

As the Wave roared behind her Zimraphel knew she would not reach the holies. She had hoped for salvation against all odds, for her and all those within and below, but she knew now no help would be forthcoming. That was the trouble with miracles; they could hardly be counted on, by their very nature. And Death was a gift, the Powers had once told her folk all those years ago. 

This was a gift? 

Yet Zimraphel was a queen through and through, and she would never be named niggard. She had no thanksgiving to give to ones such as those Powers, nor to the One who looked down over all and saw the children and goodwives cowering before His Wave. But if this was her due, so be it. She would not hold herself back. Ar-Zimraphel, Tar-Míriel who was, mustered her courage and laid flat against the mountain to face what came.

---

Chapter End Notes

"And last of all the mounting wave, green and cold and plumed with foam, climbing over the land, took to its bosom Tar-Míriel the Queen, fairer than silver or ivory or pearls. Too late she strove to ascend the steep ways of the Meneltarma to the holy place; for the waters overtook her, and her cry was lost in the roaring of the wind." ("Akallabêth," the Silmarillion)

[Most of the canon is taken from my own unique twisting of the Akallabêth, though it also draws fromUnfinished Tales for the details of the religious rites that occurred on Meneltarma. The mangling of Elwing's and Maedhros's story is taken from the Quenta Silmarillion.] 

Dedicated to all of those suffering (and who are now beyond suffering) in Japan and the surrounding region. While I had thought of this idea before hearing about that horrible event, they were very much on my mind as I wrote this.

Chapter 14

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"Best of times, worst of times, my foot," Tuor grumbled, glaring gloomily into his ale. 

"Oh, come now," Pengolodh said, "it's not that bad..."

Tuor took a long draw from his mug and then set it down on the table with a loud thud. "It is that bad. Salgant was right about the 'worst of times' part at least."

"Salgant is only trying to help our people find hope," Pengolodh said. "That times are dark now but there's still good and all that." Then he added, "Do you really think this is the worst of times? A falling-out with a girl? After all those years as a slave among the Easterlings?"

"I did not have hope then," Tuor said. "Your Salgant's cursed optimism... if not for folks like him I'd have guarded my heart more closely."

"What's he going on about?" Elemmakil asked.

Tuor banged his head against the table with a thud to rival his mug's. Pengolodh looked at him nervously and bit his lips, for it was all he could do to keep from laughing. "Let us just hope love is blind," he said and took a sip of his own wine for fortification. "Three days ago Tuor gave Idril some scented oil for her hair, as a begetting-day gift."

"A bit of a gag," Tuor added, looking up toward the others. "I have a bronze charm-bracelet all wrapped and ready for gifting."

"Are you telling this story or am I?" Pengolodh asked. Tuor said nothing so Pengolodh continued, "He thought it would be funny to turn Idril's hair green. Just for a day, you know, to embarrass her a bit and maybe make her laugh. The trouble is, I know art and history well enough, but science is a mystery to me. I knew a professional apothecary would laugh us out of his shop, but I had heard one of the scribes praising Maeglin's skill as a chemist. Going to him seemed a good idea at the time."

Tuor sat upright at that, his eyes blazing. "He did it on purpose, I am sure of it. By the Flame, I should slit his throat for this."

"Why?" Elemmakil asked. "If he but helped you...?"

Tuor looked over at Pengolodh and sighed heavily. "No, you tell it," he said. "I haven't the heart."

By now Pengolodh's lips were twitching into a smirk, though at least he had the good grace to keep his voice level. "Idril would have perhaps overlooked a day's embarrassment, and Maeglin assured us that the dye would wash out with her next bath. But something went wrong – "

"No mistake," Tuor interjected. "Bastard. He knows his craft."

" – and her hair fell out," Pengolodh pressed on without responding. "She's not left her house since she used it, and just wrote him this morning. She'll be bald as a babe for a month and more."

Elemmakil was howling at this, and even Pengolodh was smiling openly. "I always thought the whole prank was a bit daft," Pengolodh said, "even if it had worked."

"Serves you right for going to Maeglin, anyway," Elemmakil added. "I'd not trust him further than I could toss a balrog."

"Fine friends you are," Tuor said glumly. Looking down at his mug he saw it was empty and motioned for the innkeeper.

"It's not so bad as all that," Pengolodh said, clapping Tuor on the shoulder. "It is the upside of long lives: the luxury of time to forget. Idril's hair will grow back and she will remember why she loves you." He winked at Tuor and added, "Whatever her reason. I never could sort it out."

"True enough for Idril," Elemmakil said, "but Tuor here has not that luxury. By the time Idril forgets all this he'll be a crusty old man, and Maeglin won't look like such a bad mate after all." Tuor shoved Elemmakil playfully at that, and the elf stumbled off his chair.

"She'll think no such thing," Pengolodh assured Tuor. "She loves you, and she'll come around soon enough."

"So you say," Tuor said skeptically. Still, Pengolodh guessed Tuor was glad to rely on his someone else's faith in the future. 

Reaching down, Tuor helped pull Elemmakil to his feet and they both took their seats. Looking at his own drained mug, he frowned. "Where is that innkeeper? I am entirely too sober for this." 

Elemmakil placed his own drink in front of his friend. "That you are."

Oath-Bound (Maedhros, Maglor) (Mature)

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***********************
"We deliberate about what is in our power, that is, what we can do; this is what remains. For nature, necessity and chance do seem to be causes, but so also do intellect and everything that occurs through human agency. Each group of people deliberates about what they themselves can do." (Aristotle, Nicomachean Ethics)
***********************

They had expected this, a beach strewn with bodies in a tableau eerily reminiscent of Alqualondë: the sands slick with vomit, the broken bones piercing through skin, the pools of entrails. Maglor found his hands shaking quite against his will and he clenched his trousers to still them. 'Twas gruesome, no doubt, but he and Maedhros had a duty to see to, an oath yet unfulfilled. Stepping forward, the beach under his boot crackled in a sound of sand once caked with blood breaking apart. Another all too familiar sensation. He felt his own stomach churn and breathed deeply, trying to calm it.

Out of the corner of his eye, Maglor saw his brother frozen in mid-step. The muscles all along Maedhros's neck worked against themselves as he tried to swallow, his eyes half-closed as if in pain. Maglor was astonished at how close his brother was to tears. He who had hung from Thangorodrim and never (if Fingon were to be trusted) shed a tear when his own wrist was hacked through; he who had stood dry-eyed beside the young corpses of Dior's sons, grasping at each other and half-buried in snow. Would this beach be his undoing?

"We had to come," Maglor said, his tone wavering despite his conviction in the truth of his words.

"Truly?" Maedhros's voice was heavy, and secretly Maglor wondered whether his brother would hear any words spoken to him. Maedhros sighed heavily and looked over at his brother, and then down at the sight that had shaken him to the core.

"Truly," Maglor answered. "The dead would still be dead, whether we looked on them or no."

"And what of us?" Maedhros asked, his eyes flashing with a sudden rage. "Would my dreams still be my dreams tonight, if I had not strayed here?" He walked down the beach and knelt beside the first of the women laying there. Some had broken necks while others lay in pools of their own blood; all were beyond aid. As Maglor looked more closely he saw what had once been a child under each body, bound in a sling to its mother's chests. "And what of you, Maglor Fëanorion? Would you speak such platitudes if it was your own son here?" Maedhros demanded.

Maglor said nothing at that, for now that he saw what had so horrified Maedhros he hardly trusted himself to speak aloud. Instead he walked over and stood beside his brother, laying a hand on Maedhros's shoulder and squeezing it to remind his brother that he was not alone.

"How did this come to be?" Maedhros asked, his voice almost pleading. "Do you know? How came they to lie here?"

Maglor looked up at the cliff, at the great palace of Sirion overhead. He saw, too, the steep stairs cut into the rock and the scrap of cloth snagged in a crevice that matched the third mother's headscarf. 

"I do not know, but I can guess." Laughing bitterly to himself at the irony, he said, "The same sight that brought us down here brought them up – and then down again, by a road less safe than ours. I guess they saw Elwing leap to certain death only to be saved, and they thought to take her path." 

He knelt beside the woman and tenderly closed her eyes. "I have heard tell from Círdan's folk – many of the Telerin poor had heard fearsome stories about us. That we would ravish the women while their husbands watched, and slaughter their children in the slowest way possible. In Elwing they may have seen their way out – in the death she sought or the saving she found." 

Maedhros spat at the ground in disgust. "And the Valar could not have saved them, too?" 

Maglor looked over at him but said nothing, for truly, he had nothing to say. Suddenly a mad thought occurred to him. Might Maedhros try to copy these mothers, and so sever the two of them from their cursed oath? Maglor sprang forward and knocked his brother's sword from his hand. 

Maedhros looked over at him, a bit dazed. "If I thought we could find freedom so simply, I would be a fool. Do not worry yourself on that count." Then, looking back down at the bodies laid out before him, he added, "What did we do to make them hate us so much? Are we not their kindred, born from those same elves that awoke around Cuivienen?"

This time it was Maglor's turn to look sharply at his brother. "Need you ask? Alqualondë. The Helcaraxë. Doriath. Now Sirion. We are kin-slayers at our core. Why not kin-rapists and the rest?"

"Yet we are still elves." Though he had spoken those words as a statement Maedhros's eyes shone with a cautious hope, and Maglor guessed that Maedhros had meant them as a question.

"We are still elves," Maglor repeated as much for himself as for Maedhros. "And so we shall act like elves, whatever the others may say. We shall see these elves buried among the honored dead. We shall set them interred in graves apart, when we can. And we shall see that this city's children at least do not die in the snow. But first..."

"I know." Maedhros rose to his feet. "The Silmaril." Maglor picked Maedhros's sword up and handed it to his brother. "It is gone," Maedhros said. "I saw a white gull carrying it over the sea. Did you not?"

"I did," Maglor said, "but I have dreamed such phantoms a thousand times. Carried off by gulls, and dolphins, and the waves themselves to distant lands. Speared on the tusk of a giant boar and taken far beyond our reach. Swallowed up by the very earth. I no longer trust my eyes in such things. For my own mind's ease, I must know beyond all doubt that Elwing has not left the Silmaril behind."

Maedhros nodded at that, and Maglor guessed his brother understood better than anyone this side of the sea. Girding themselves against what they might see, they continued on down the beach.

Three for the Elven-Lords II

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Círdan sat on the beach, twisting Gil-Galad's ring in his hand. His ring, he corrected himself, for it was now his to hold. That responsibility sat heavily on him, and a part of him longed to set this care aside, to lock it in a chest, put it out of his mind. But no; he still remembered the squalor of the refugee-camps on Balar, and the kinslayings borne of a dark oath. They all traced back to Finwë's squirrelling away his craftsman-son's treasures in the vaults of Formenos, and Círdan would not chance bringing any such curse down on later ages.

Ai, how he wished his king would find another ringbearer! Why not Celeborn, perhaps, or even Thranduil? Anyone save him. It struck him that, in another's hand, Narya might be a help rather than an encumbrance. Fire could warm a world-worn heart, after all, and in a silversmith's care it could burn away any impurities. Círdan, though, had always cleaved to water, to the ocean's ability to wash away all weariness. Narya's fire seemed ill-suited to him.

Still, what could not be helped must be endured. Círdan knew that, and he would bear this burden as best he could. 

Things Unseen (Elendil + Pharazon) (General)

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Elendil hurried up the stairs, taking them two and three at a time. For once the long legs he'd grown this last year seemed to be working to his advantage. "Hurry up," Pharazôn called from overhead, leaning over the railing a half-flight above him. "I hear the bugles! The procession will begin soon."

Chuckling to himself, Elendil bounded up the final flight. It had been years since Elendil had seen his kinsman so enthusiastic about anything; usually Pharazôn was too sullen and removed to let his feelings show this plainly. But Elendil guessed that if <i>his</i> uncle had just returned from adventuring in Middle-earth with jewels and slaves and all manner of wild beasts for the king's menagerie, well, he would have been bubbling with excitement, too.

At last he reached the final landing and strode across it after Pharazôn, but he paused at the entryway. A white tree was painted onto the doorway, with seven silver stars fashioned all around it. Much of the paint had worn away but the device carved into the wood was unmistakable: 'twas Tar-Palantír's, and it marked this chamber out of bounds to all but the King's personal household.

"Are you certain we're allowed here?" Elendil asked.

Poking his head back through the doorway, Pharazôn beckoned at Elendil impatiently. "Coward," he said. "But don't worry; Father got us leave, just for today," Pharazôn said. "This way we'll have a better view of the procession than if we were down on the street." Grasping Elendil's hand, Pharazôn pulled him over the threshold and into the chamber beyond.

Pharazôn hurried over toward the balcony on the far side of the chamber, but Elendil found himself mesmerized by the room. When Pharazôn had spoken of an aviary, he had imagined a noisy room full of squawking carrier-pigeons and other birds that the king used as messengers. This room, though, was different. Quiet and near empty, any straw matting on the floor had long since been swept away. The rafters and other supports designed to give the birds a resting place were sturdier than he would have imagined, placed further apart.

Could this be...? Elendil pulled a cord, retracting the roof so that the sun shone through great gaping holes. These were larger than the windows he had often seen in aviaries, openings designed so the birds could fly away on their errands. In his mind's eye Elendil saw one of the great eagles that Manwë had sent once upon a time, wheeling around so its massive wingspan could fit through the gap and into the aviary. How huge must they have been, to fly all the way to Númenor from across the sea?

"Pharazôn, come see!" Elendil cried excitedly. "Is this what I think it is?"

Pharazôn came back in from the balcony and looked first at Elendil's animated face, and then up to the ceiling he had opened up. "What?" he asked impatiently.

"The Eagles," Elendil said. "I think this is where they rested, when they still came to Númenor."

"What?" Pharazôn asked, truly baffled.

"The King's Eagles!" Elendil said. "Think how massive they must have been, to fly all that way."

Pharazôn rolled his eyes. "Don't say you still believe those outlandish elf-stories," he said irritably. "You're keeping me from watching the procession for this?" Pharazôn sighed exasperatedly. "You say there were once great birds all over Númenor. Eagles. Fine; that I'll grant you. But the eyes and ears of a great snoop listening in on everything we say! Why believe in your Manwë at all?"

"You shouldn't say such things," Elendil said, suddenly more serious.

Pharazôn waved his hand dismissively. "Your precious Valar seem just the sort of tale a parent might use to scare a misbehaving child. Beautiful maidens who sing trees into being and hang the stars in the sky. Warriors who make the whole world shake when they stamp around in their battles. The perfect scapegoat for shipwrecked mariners and failed crops. Tell me you don't really believe in such things!"

Elendil pursed his lips together and looked around nervously. This room struck him as a hallowed place, but it was also abandoned save the two of them, and Elendil guessed it was safer to speak here than most other places. "You really should watch your tongue, Pharazôn. Your father too. King's brother or no, Father has noticed how your family rarely comes to Meneltarma at the holy days. My father will not press yours on such matters, but he cannot speak for all the king's councilors. Would you have your father accused of corrupting the youth and not believing in the gods of the state, because of your own careless words? Men have been called traitors for less."

"That's just it," Pharazôn argued back. "I don't see cause to believe in <i>any</i> god; why should we pay homage to something we have little enough evidence even exists? Because it is prudent? Is that the worship your Valar would demand of me?" Elendil frowned at him but could not find any words to say. Pharazôn sighed in exasperation. "I might as well bow down to the Great Spider, like the Easterlings do. <i>They</i> at least can tell a myth from history."

He took a step back toward the balcony but then turned around again on the balls of his feet, offering Elendil a half-smile. "I'm sorry for snapping at you, cousin," he said. "It just gets a bit old, always having to say the right words so no one will think the less of you. If you would know the truth, sometimes the stories my cousins bring back from Middle-earth make more sense than the ones our own people tell. I wish I could just choose what beliefs seem most true to me."

Elendil smiled sympathetically and clapped Pharazôn on the shoulder. "Few men can claim such a right, be they Elf-friend or no." Pharazôn embraced Elendil, and the two of them walked back onto the balcony, eager to see what they'd missed.

Still, Elendil thought he should not let the matter drop, for mere speech was often not enough when you lived your life in the shadow of the king. He feared what might happen in a year or two, when Pharazôn joined his cousins on their journeys to Middle-earth. Would he come back believing foreign heresies? Armenelos could be a powder-keg at times, it sometimes seemed, and a stray word might set things off. To say nothing of the importance of belief for belief's sake; there was myth, and then there was truth, and Pharazôn seemed too disposed to change one for the other.

Yet there would be time enough for that tomorrow. Leaning over the railing, Elendil marveled at the mûmakil wending their way around the square below.

---

Chapter End Notes

There are hints in the Akallabêth that Pharazôn was not always estranged from the Faithful. Tar-Palantír, the king when Pharazôn was young, "gave peace for a while to the Faithful; and he went once more at due seasons to the Hallow of Eru." What's more, Pharazôn seemed to have a soft spot for Elendil's father: "In the days of their youth together Amandil had been dear to Pharazôn, and though he was of the Elf-friends he remained in his council until the coming of Sauron." Amandil and Pharazôn are actually a generation apart, but Elendil and Pharazôn were born within a year or two of each other.

While they are genealogically quite distant kin, I have described them as cousins. Given the king's attitude toward the Faithful and Pharazôn's fondness toward Amandil, I can easily see the two of them palling around together, even thinking of each other as cousins after a while. Here I am using "cousin" in a sort of generalized closeness + kin-relation sense, rather than the son-of-my-mum's-brother sense.

There is of course another side to Pharazôn's story. While Pharazôn seems pretty impressed with Amandil, his father Gimilkhâd is so not one of the Elf-friends. He was Tar-Palantír's younger brother and Tolkien says that he took after their father, "the greatest enemy of the Faithful." Of Gimilkhâd Tolkien writes that "he took the leadership of those that had been called the King's Men and opposed the will of his brother as openly as he dared, and yet more in secret." It's debatable whether this went so far as open war, but even if it didn't, I think it would make for a rather conflicted childhood for young Pharazôn. Ultimately Gimilkhâd seems to have won the battle for his son's character, for by Gimilkhâd's death Pharazôn "had become a man yet more restless and eager for wealth and power than his father." I like imagining, though, that Pharazôn had more in common with Elendil in his youth.

Like Toy Soldiers (General) (Ohtar, OC Dunedain)

Step by step, heart to heart,
Left right left, we all fall down
Like toy soldiers

Bit by bit, torn apart, we never win
But the battle wages on
For toy soldiers.

("Like Toy Soldiers" by Eminem)

Read Like Toy Soldiers (General) (Ohtar, OC Dunedain)

 

Ohtar had ridden hard, as hard and as fast as his horse could bear him, and trusted his friends to keep pace. His lord had bade him flee, even at the cost of being thought a coward, and so Ohtar had fled. Elendil was long dead and with the orcs teeming all around, Isildur seemed fated to die ere long. But Valandil, Isildur's heir, still lived in Rivendell and might yet grow into the kingship. If the Dúnedain survived so must Narsil, so Ohtar rode like the wind, hoping against hope that he might somehow escape the battle.

Somehow, by luck or by fate, he made it through the orcs' lines. And not just him: in the madness of that battle he had somehow found Celendil and Meneldir, his friends from childhood, and they had all escaped together. Once they had broken through and put some distance between them and the orcs, Ohtar knew he could go more slowly. That he should – the horses now faced a long journey, if their good fortune held, and he should spare their strength while he could. Yet he heard the battle-din on the wind, mocking him. Isildur had warned him that some might think him a coward, and Ohtar had been ready for others' ridicule, but what of his own heart? He had been sent away with a noble errand, but that had been a timely boon; Ohtar knew how close he had come to failing. The cries of the men he had left behind grated on him, and so he dug his calf into his horse's flank, hurrying her on.

Once they had broken free of the storm-cloud the orcs had brought with them, Ohtar saw the sun low in the sky. He cursed at that, for even he would not risk the horses against wild countryside after dark.

Celendil had looked over at him, questioning. "Is aught amiss?"

Ohtar craned his head toward the sun. "We have perhaps three hours of daylight left before we must make camp for the night," he said. "And what then? We are alone in the wilds, with little enough store of food and no clear idea of our path home. Do you remember how we came from Eriador, all those years ago?"

Celendil and Meneldir looked at each other uneasily. He saw in their eyes that they expected him to puzzle out answers to questions like these, a thought that unnerved him. In truth, he should have guessed it sooner. In his own mind, Ohtar was no more than a king's squire; he had never made a decision that affected anyone save himself since he had been a lad, and his purpose all his life had been to see to his lord's needs. But he saw that by unvoiced assent he was now their captain. It had been he who had kissed Isildur's ring. He who was charged with Narsil's care. Where could he turn, and where should he go?

"I know the Greenwood is north," Meneldir suggested helpfully. "The Old Forest Road is two, maybe three days that way."

Ohtar shook his head at that suggestion.  "We would not get far. The orcs may yet keep watch, and they will expect Isildur to send someone that way, to seek after allies."

"Well, I can see the mountains even from here," Celendil said. "I was little more than a lad when we rode to Mordor, and I've not looked at the lords' maps as you have, Ohtar. But surely if we ride west in that way, we could then strike north or south until we found some pass.

Ohtar bit his lip, deep in thought. He had overheard Elrond's warning in Rivendell, for even then he had stood beside Isildur at the great councils. He knew that it was dangerous to try to pass the mountains by the wrong road, and he was not over-keen to stumble into a troll's den. Nor could they afford much delay in these lands; winter would soon be upon them, and if they could not be on the other side of the mountains within the next few weeks, they would need to at least find some shelter.

But Celendil's suggestion of or south struck him. He remembered the dwarves he had met during the war. They had seemed a good enough folk. Thoroughly devoted to their own ends, aye, but that at last could be relied on. Could he entice them, somehow? He doubted they would see a broken sword as a treasure to be grasped at, and that of all his gear was his most valuable treasure. He had brought no coin with him, and being but squires he and his fellows had no rich gear to offer in trade. Perhaps he might barter their horses or, failing that, appeal to their recent alliance and a promise of future reward? Dwarves knew mountains through and through, and if there was a safe road back to Rivendell, he knew he could trust them to find it.

He had, in any event, few other choices.

"It's no use wandering aimlessly," he said. He was glad to hear some conviction in his voice, and so he continued on: "But Durin's folk are decent enough; they will help us. We'll strike south when we reach the mountains, and entreat them to guide us home."

Entreat sounded nobler than beg, and though Ohtar was prepared to do either, it struck him that he might have stumbled on a secret of governance: the power of words. With the inklings of a plan in his heart, he remembered how Isildur had carried himself before his men. Cocking his head confidently, he smiled at the others. "And the country is rich with game, so we shan't starve. As for now, the sun waits for no man."  With a last glance to the battle behind them, Ohtar led the others west.

 

---

Chapter End Notes

 

The account of Ohtar's escape is another one of those implausible details of canon. As Christopher Tolkien notes, in Unfinished TalesJRRT has Ohtar escape with a companion who happens to be near at hand but in The Lord of the Rings Elrond reports that there were three survivors. Christopher explains that the third survivor was Estelmo, the squire of Isildur's oldest son Elendur, and that he "was one of the last to fall, but was stunned by a club, and not slain, and was found alive under Elendur's body."

Unlike Ohtar, Estelmo doesn't have any particular reason to go to Rivendell, other than perhaps a vague sense of loyalty to Isildur's sole surviving son, Valandil. How likely is it that a badly injured man would go all the way to Rivendell rather than to Gondor, Greenwood, Lórien, or any of the other settlements that he wasn't separated from by a huge mountain range? That he would have gone there immediately (so that Elrond would mention him as part of the same group as Ohtar)? The other option is that he happens upon Ohtar and his companion (here my Celendil), or that in defiance of Isildur's last order Ohtar doubles back on the battle and finds Estelmo there. Neither possibility seems very likely to me. Instead, I have opted for Tolkien's earlier idea that Ohtar initially escaped with two companions.

Also, Christopher Tolkien suggests that Ohtar is a title for soldiers who aren't knighted, but Elrond uses "Ohtar" as a personal name for a specific individual. I have continued that tradition. :-)

 

Like Toy Soldiers (General) (Ohtar, OC Dunedain)

Step by step, heart to heart,
Left right left, we all fall down
Like toy soldiers

Bit by bit, torn apart, we never win
But the battle wages on
For toy soldiers.

("Like Toy Soldiers" by Eminem)

Read Like Toy Soldiers (General) (Ohtar, OC Dunedain)

 

Ohtar had ridden hard, as hard and as fast as his horse could bear him, and trusted his friends to keep pace. His lord had bade him flee, even at the cost of being thought a coward, and so Ohtar had fled. Elendil was long dead and with the orcs teeming all around, Isildur seemed fated to die ere long. But Valandil, Isildur's heir, still lived in Rivendell and might yet grow into the kingship. If the Dúnedain survived so must Narsil, so Ohtar rode like the wind, hoping against hope that he might somehow escape the battle.

Somehow, by luck or by fate, he made it through the orcs' lines. And not just him: in the madness of that battle he had somehow found Celendil and Meneldir, his friends from childhood, and they had all escaped together. Once they had broken through and put some distance between them and the orcs, Ohtar knew he could go more slowly. That he should – the horses now faced a long journey, if their good fortune held, and he should spare their strength while he could. Yet he heard the battle-din on the wind, mocking him. Isildur had warned him that some might think him a coward, and Ohtar had been ready for others' ridicule, but what of his own heart? He had been sent away with a noble errand, but that had been a timely boon; Ohtar knew how close he had come to failing. The cries of the men he had left behind grated on him, and so he dug his calf into his horse's flank, hurrying her on.

Once they had broken free of the storm-cloud the orcs had brought with them, Ohtar saw the sun low in the sky. He cursed at that, for even he would not risk the horses against wild countryside after dark.

Celendil had looked over at him, questioning. "Is aught amiss?"

Ohtar craned his head toward the sun. "We have perhaps three hours of daylight left before we must make camp for the night," he said. "And what then? We are alone in the wilds, with little enough store of food and no clear idea of our path home. Do you remember how we came from Eriador, all those years ago?"

Celendil and Meneldir looked at each other uneasily. He saw in their eyes that they expected him to puzzle out answers to questions like these, a thought that unnerved him. In truth, he should have guessed it sooner. In his own mind, Ohtar was no more than a king's squire; he had never made a decision that affected anyone save himself since he had been a lad, and his purpose all his life had been to see to his lord's needs. But he saw that by unvoiced assent he was now their captain. It had been he who had kissed Isildur's ring. He who was charged with Narsil's care. Where could he turn, and where should he go?

"I know the Greenwood is north," Meneldir suggested helpfully. "The Old Forest Road is two, maybe three days that way."

Ohtar shook his head at that suggestion.  "We would not get far. The orcs may yet keep watch, and they will expect Isildur to send someone that way, to seek after allies."

"Well, I can see the mountains even from here," Celendil said. "I was little more than a lad when we rode to Mordor, and I've not looked at the lords' maps as you have, Ohtar. But surely if we ride west in that way, we could then strike north or south until we found some pass.

Ohtar bit his lip, deep in thought. He had overheard Elrond's warning in Rivendell, for even then he had stood beside Isildur at the great councils. He knew that it was dangerous to try to pass the mountains by the wrong road, and he was not over-keen to stumble into a troll's den. Nor could they afford much delay in these lands; winter would soon be upon them, and if they could not be on the other side of the mountains within the next few weeks, they would need to at least find some shelter.

But Celendil's suggestion of or south struck him. He remembered the dwarves he had met during the war. They had seemed a good enough folk. Thoroughly devoted to their own ends, aye, but that at last could be relied on. Could he entice them, somehow? He doubted they would see a broken sword as a treasure to be grasped at, and that of all his gear was his most valuable treasure. He had brought no coin with him, and being but squires he and his fellows had no rich gear to offer in trade. Perhaps he might barter their horses or, failing that, appeal to their recent alliance and a promise of future reward? Dwarves knew mountains through and through, and if there was a safe road back to Rivendell, he knew he could trust them to find it.

He had, in any event, few other choices.

"It's no use wandering aimlessly," he said. He was glad to hear some conviction in his voice, and so he continued on: "But Durin's folk are decent enough; they will help us. We'll strike south when we reach the mountains, and entreat them to guide us home."

Entreat sounded nobler than beg, and though Ohtar was prepared to do either, it struck him that he might have stumbled on a secret of governance: the power of words. With the inklings of a plan in his heart, he remembered how Isildur had carried himself before his men. Cocking his head confidently, he smiled at the others. "And the country is rich with game, so we shan't starve. As for now, the sun waits for no man."  With a last glance to the battle behind them, Ohtar led the others west.

 

---

Chapter End Notes

 

The account of Ohtar's escape is another one of those implausible details of canon. As Christopher Tolkien notes, in Unfinished TalesJRRT has Ohtar escape with a companion who happens to be near at hand but in The Lord of the Rings Elrond reports that there were three survivors. Christopher explains that the third survivor was Estelmo, the squire of Isildur's oldest son Elendur, and that he "was one of the last to fall, but was stunned by a club, and not slain, and was found alive under Elendur's body."

Unlike Ohtar, Estelmo doesn't have any particular reason to go to Rivendell, other than perhaps a vague sense of loyalty to Isildur's sole surviving son, Valandil. How likely is it that a badly injured man would go all the way to Rivendell rather than to Gondor, Greenwood, Lórien, or any of the other settlements that he wasn't separated from by a huge mountain range? That he would have gone there immediately (so that Elrond would mention him as part of the same group as Ohtar)? The other option is that he happens upon Ohtar and his companion (here my Celendil), or that in defiance of Isildur's last order Ohtar doubles back on the battle and finds Estelmo there. Neither possibility seems very likely to me. Instead, I have opted for Tolkien's earlier idea that Ohtar initially escaped with two companions.

Also, Christopher Tolkien suggests that Ohtar is a title for soldiers who aren't knighted, but Elrond uses "Ohtar" as a personal name for a specific individual. I have continued that tradition. :-)

 

Go East, Young Man

Read Go East, Young Man

Oropher looked around the room, taking in the sight. It looked so forelorn! They would leave the bed behind, and the table and other odd pieces, for he knew that wherever they went there would be no shortage of wood and they could fashion other pieces once they arrived. But the blanket full of goose feathers was already packed away, and all the odds and ends that had made this room a home.

His son had lived here, once upon a time. This windowsill had borne jars full of frog-spawn, rocks and pinecones and other interesting specimens found on walks through the forest. Oropher also knew for a fact (though he didn't quite dare tell his wife) that the packed-away blanket had hid a box where spiders lived, and that Thranduil's dearest hope had been to catch a snake for a pet.

Such remnants of childhood would not be carried east with them, for Thranduil was long since grown. But still, in his mind's eye, Oropher saw this room as it had been: blankets bunched into a pile at the bed's foot, the books assigned by his tutor stacked precariously on the table's edge, the previous day's clothes strewn here and there.

Was he ready to leave rooms like this behind, truly? The irony was not lost on him. Fëanor's kin had abandoned their homes in the furthest West for a dream of adventure and conquest. He had bristled at Fingon's words, back in Doriath: his home was to them the furthest frontier! And now he was packing up his family's lives into crates and heading east himself. He told himself that he was neither kinslayer nor conqueror, and that he would not set himself up as king by the sword.

Was that enough? Why should he move yet again? A glint in the floorboard caught his eye, and he kneeled to examine it more closely. There, carved by a yet-unsteady hand, he saw his son's initials: TuO. Thranduil of Oropher, yes, but Thranduil of the trees as well. He knew, then, that it was not dominion but freedom he sought. Freedom from foreign domination, from the lure of hands grown cold through too much contact with harsh stone.

Lothlórien had been such a land, once upon a time, but no more. He had journeyed east in his own youth, seeking a land untouched by those who had known the Furthest West. It was unnatural, to preserve and control and remake the world in their own image. Their hands had grown cold through too much handling of stone, and when they looked at the stars they saw only lights that might yet be harnessed. That drive twisted their soul, and the trees felt it; those Noldor turned the whole world on end by their very being.

His cousins had understood. They had all spoken in quiet whispers of a land beyond the mountains, a land shielded by the very stone those Noldor thought to turn to their advantage. So they had ridden west and found a virgin wood yet unsullied. They had made a home for themselves, a life, and Oropher had made a son. He smiled at that thought.  'Twas a more natural craftsmanship than any practiced west of the sea.

But then Celeborn had joined them, he and his stone-cleaving wife. She wore stone on her very hand now, a white stone that made the very streams quake in her presence. Must he go to the ends of the earth to find a land free of them?

If need be. He loved Celeborn like a brother, and he would not make war to drive him back to Beleriand, not while all the wilds of Wilderland were still open to him. He would leave come morning, and he would not look back. Thranduil deserved a land where he might raise his own son to hear the trees' songs. They would find a green wood yet untouched by Noldor hands, and there they would start again.

---

Chapter End Notes

In The Hobbit, Thranduil seems reluctant to go to war lightly. While he has no qualms about defending his people, he also won't start a war over gold. I like to think he came by this honestly. Perhaps dear old dad wouldn't rush into battle if he had another choice?

Several Tolkien sites list the etymology of "Oropher" as "great beach tree." While no source is given, the consensus makes me think this is a reasonable interpretation. Thranduil uin-Oropher could therefore be taken to mean "Thranduil of the great trees" or something along those lines.

Things as May Yet Be - Part 1 (Arwen, Galadriel, Celeborn, Aragorn) (Teen)

Read Things as May Yet Be - Part 1 (Arwen, Galadriel, Celeborn, Aragorn) (Teen)

She knelt on the floor, carefully picking up the shards of glass. Why did it have to be this one that had broken? A sliver of glass cut into her forefinger, drawing blood, and she winced at the pain.

"Milady." The servingmaid's firm hands held Galadriel's steady. "I shall see to it," the maid said, smiling kindly at her. "Sit you quiet, if you please."

Galadriel nodded mutely and took her seat again at the table, pressing a linen cloth against her finger to stop the bleeding. She thought it odd that she had thought to clean up the broken remains of her wine-glass, or that she had worried over a loss of one goblet over another. True, this set had been gifted to them by Elrond on their five-thousandth anniversary, and so the few remaining pieces held a sort of sentimental meaning for her and Celeborn.

But that did not explain it. Whatever others might say, Galadriel was not overly tied to things. She rather guessed that her mind was still reeling from Arwen's words, so much so that she'd been grubbing around on the floor like a servant.

Celeborn looked over at her worriedly before asking the thought they both were thinking. "You dreamt, Arwen?" he said tentatively. "Do you remember anything of it, save the crebain?"

Arwen nodded. "I do," she said, "though, honestly, I don't see why my dream has you so worried." Wrinkling her brow pensively, she continued, "I was riding home from here. Haldir was riding beside me, and all about there was a mighty guard of Lothlórien elves. We had ridden south through Rohan and Isengard and were coming up through Eriador. We were just passing the west-gates of Khazad-dûm – I know because of the holly-trees – when I saw a long line of crebain flying overhead." She frowned. "No, not flying; they had no destination that I could see. They were wheeling all about like a vanguard and looking down on us, waiting to see which way we would go."

Celeborn closed his eyes for a moment as if mustering his strength. "It is an ill omen," he said. "The worst." Then, opening his eyes, he looked sympathetically at his wife before turning to Arwen. "It is a portent, Arwen. Thingol told us how the Valar often sent dreams to warn us of dangers to come, dreams that would take a form that spoke most easily to the dreamer. In Doriath, the crebain were a sign of death. My folk were not that given to superstition, but even Thingol ordered more than one journey delayed because he had dreamt of them."

"I didn't know," Arwen said, frowning. "But I don't see what that has to do with me, really. Crebain hold no such connection in my mind, and I never knew the meaning your folk put on them until just now. Surely it is a coincidence?"

But Galadriel shook her head at that suggestion. "If I dreamed of crebain, well, I might attribute that to too much rich food late at night. But not so with you. Celeborn's people are your people as well, and their omens are as imprinted on your soul as they are on his." She looked at Celeborn, unsure of whether she should say aught else, but then decided that she must. Steeling herself, Galadriel said, "Your mother had just a dream before... before that last ride across the Misty Mountains. Before she sailed West. Her dream included Haldir and a route much like yours. And crebain."

Celeborn reached out and grasped Arwen's hand in his. "We had thought to send Celebrían home by the southern road. Saruman still seemed a friend in those days, and you could never tell what foul folk might lurk along the mountain passes. We changed our plans because of her dream."

"I won't go home," Arwen insisted steadfastly. "Father can send for me all he likes, but I would not risk that fate for all the jewels in Formenos."

"It is hardly that simple," Galadriel said. "We tried to turn aside five hundred years ago, and that was your mother's undoing. For all I know, it will be our keeping you here that will drive you to ruin."

Celeborn looked across the table, his face suddenly the very picture of severity. "You must show her," he said, and Galadriel understood. They had tools in their keeping that might offer counsel – Noldorin tools that Celeborn was often reluctant to use, but useful aids nonetheless.

She nodded to her husband. Then, turning to Arwen: "Meet me in the gardens south of Caras Galadhon, three hours hence." With that, Galadriel set down her fork and left the table without another word. She found she had quite lost her appetite.

Things as May Yet Be - Part 2

Read Things as May Yet Be - Part 2

Arwen stood beside the silver basin, peering down at it. "It looks so... ordinary," she said almost in a whisper. "Like what my mother used to wash my hair when I was a girl."

Galadriel smiled at her granddaughter, though the mention of Celebrían pained her as much now as it had at dinner. "It was designed to look unremarkable, to the uninitiated," she said. "My maid thought it odd when I sent for it, for she thought it one more possession gathering dust in the store-rooms." She stepped toward the basin so she stood beside Arwen. "But in truth it is no such thing. Fëanor crafted it in the furthest West, and Maedhros gave it to me  after our kin was reconciled."

"What is it?" Arwen asked.

"You might call it a mirror," she said. "Though such a name is not wholly accurate. A mirror shows only what is, but this device shows things that were, and things that are, and things that yet may be. It is not unlike the palantíri, in its way, for it can reflect our wishes, or the lies we want others to take as truth. But even that is too simple. It does not tell what we wish would be, but what might be. It reflects, perhaps, the pure potential of the world unfolding, and it presents it to us in whatever way our minds can best grasp it."

Arwen bent down, peering at the cold metal more closely. "What would you have me do?" she asked.

"I would not have you do anything," Galadriel said. "Not for my sake." She set the ewer she was carrying down on the pedestal's foot and laid her hand on Arwen's shoulder. "I cannot tell you how to act in this matter," she said. "Fëanor always thought the wisdom derived from it could be useful indeed. I have seen battles far-off and have sent aid in time; Gondor now owes her very being to just such foresight. But as for you, I do not dare advise you yay or nay. You must do what seems best to you."

Arwen pursed her lips together and stared down at the basin for a long moment. At last she said, "I will look, if you think it wise. But I will not swear to follow whatever path I see laid out here."

"That is good," Galadriel said. Picking up the ewer, she poured its water into the basin and spoke the ancient words that Fëanor had once taught her. For a long moment Galadriel saw nothing but the branches hanging overhead and the moon peeking through their leaves. But then the vision began to change. Those same trees yet stood, but now they were leafless, like the trees she had seen in mannish realms in the depths of winter.

Yet they were doubtless mallorn, and the hill in the background with its solitary flet was doubtless Cerin Amroth. Galadriel saw Arwen reach out and run her fingers along a naked branch. Was that Arwen? She had thought so, but this elf looked so old! The woman looked over her shoulder, and Galadriel recognized those eyes with a certainty. The vision of Arwen smiled wanly, looking about her; but no one was there. At the last she lay down upon the mound and then moved no more.

Arwen, the Arwen standing beside her, stumbled backward, nearly falling over a root. Galadriel reached out and steadied her, and she saw that Arwen's eyes had grown wide with fright. "What foul witchcraft is this?" Arwen asked. "Why have you brought me here?"

"I am not a witch," Galadriel said calmly. "As for its craft, I cannot speak to that more than I already have."

Arwen opened her mouth as if to speak, but then thought better of it. Instead, she reached over, knocking the basin off its pedestal so it fell to the ground. Galadriel let it be for the moment. It had survived the world's reshaping – twice – to say nothing of long centuries in ignoble storage; it would last a few minutes on the ground with little enough harm. "I felt my skin grow cold," Arwen said, her voice little more than a whisper. "I felt my heart slow and my breath ease out of me. I thought that I had died. That I had died all alone beneath the leafless trees." She blanched. "Elbereth above, I cannot stay here."

"Then you will return to Imladris?" Galadriel asked.

"Yes," Arwen said. Then she shook her head. "No. Oh, but I wish I knew what to do!"

"You might go somewhere else entirely," Galadriel said. "Go to Thranduil's folk, if you feel so driven. Go to Rhosgobel, even; you have never met Radagast, and he can be a merry friend."

"And what then?" Arwen asked. She breathed deeply, trying to calm her racing heart. More calmly, she repeated: "What then? Must I ever live on this side of the mountains? Lothlórien will always be my home, when distance keeps me away from Imladris. I will always be pulled back here."

Galadriel had expected that answer. "Then you should return to Elrond," she said. She realized that she was breaking her own promise not to advise, but the distraught look on Arwen's face compelled her. "The mountain passes have grown safer since Smaug was vanquished," she added. "And Celeborn will provide a retinue fit for a king's protection. He would go himself, if his duties allowed it."

"Yes," Arwen said, nodding to herself. "Yes. I will return home, as quickly as you can arrange it."

Things As May Yet Be - Coda

Read Things As May Yet Be - Coda

Arwen had felt a song rising in her chest since she had crossed the Bruinen several hours earlier. Much though she loved Lothlórien, Imladris was home. She had dismounted some time ago and let Haldir lead her horse back to her father's house. For her part, she longed to walk along the familiar paths of her youth. She knew these trees, and among them she could not help but feel safe. That was no small thing after her experience with her grandmother's mirror.

Behind her, Arwen heard a high-pitched voice call out to her. "Tinúviel! Tinúviel!"

She turned around to him and smiled broadly. The song that had been building within her, combined now with the absurdity of that greeting, nearly made her giggle like a child. "Who are you?" she asked. "And why do you call me by that name?"

His grey eyes grew strangely solemn. "Because I believed you to be indeed Lúthien Tinúviel, of whom I was singing. But if you are not she, then you walk in her likeness."

Had that line come from Glorfindel or her brothers, she might have rolled her eyes. It had been their favorite torment growing up. But this boy was a stranger to her and so she hid her irritation behind a mask of courtesy. "So many have said," she answered gravely. "Yet her name is not mine. Though maybe my doom will be not unlike hers. But who are you?"

His shoulders straightened and he held his hands behind his back, as if he were a schoolboy making a recitation. "Estel I was called," he said; "but I am Aragorn, Arathorn's son, Isildur's Heir, Lord of the Dúnedain." He smiled impishly. "I welcome you to Imladris."

Things as Yet May Be - Notes

Read Things as Yet May Be - Notes

The dialogue from the third section comes from the Lord of the Rings appendices. Much of Galadriel's description of the mirror (including the titular phrase) is taken from "The Mirror of Galadriel."

The plot bunny is taken from my friend Larry. He once pointed out that Galadriel warns against using the Mirror as a guide because "the Mirror shows many things, and not all have yet come to pass. Some never come to be, unless those that beheld the visions turn aside from their path to prevent them. The Mirror is dangerous as a guide of deeds." It sounds like Galadriel has had bad experiences with using the Mirror "as a guide of deeds." But when?

I have a vague memory that the Mirror was crafted by Fëanor in canon, though I can't find a reference in either the Lord of the Rings, the Silmarillion, or Unfinished Tales. So perhaps that is my own invention. In any event he seems as likely a creator as any.

Re: Galadriel's past involvement in Gondor's history. Unfinished Tales says that Eorl's riders were aided by a white mist that helped them reach the Fields of Celebrant in time to help Gondor in battle. Some of Eorl's men attribute this to Galadriel's intervention.

Jus Ad Bellum (Teen) (Elrond, Isildur + Maglor)

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Elrond sat in the Hall of Fire, his harp resting on his lap. The irony of the moment was not lost on him, for he had built this great hall as an indulgence to his musician's heart: a place where he might indulge his craft and hear from other masters. In the aftermath of Sauron's assault on Eregion it had seemed an impossible dream, but a dream worth striving for nonetheless.

When they had at last beaten Sauron back beyond the Anduin, Elrond had breathed a sigh of relief and turned his eye to his personal sanctum, filling it with loving depictions of Middle-earths most renowned artists, by its most renowned artists of every craft. Here hung tapestries of Fëanor, shirtless, pounding steel over the anvil in front of his forge; and Pengolodh stooped over his manuscripts; and Lúthien dancing in the moonlight; and Daeron singing to all the people. Behind his own chair stood a series of bronze statues which might be any musician with his pupil; to Elrond's mind the scene was himself sitting by Maglor's knee as he mastered his first chord-progressions.

Even now, Elrond smiled at the memory. At first he had hated Maglor as one of the despised kinslayers who had stolen his parents from him and near-razed the city of his childhood. But as the days lengthened into decades he had seen that Maglor was no monster. Both he and Maedhros had proved themselves to be the normal mix of vice and virtue that marked all Middle-earth.

Elrond found that it was quite against his nature to cling to old hatred. Much though he might want to, Elrond found that such efforts wore on him, so that he could not hold on to them long. He had cleaved to the Elf who had taken him in, and though he was wise enough never to fully trust the Sons of Fëanor, they became a family of sorts, after a time. Elrond knew he would never go hungry under their care, and Maglor had taught him to give shape to the songs swelling within him much as Elros had learned the swordsman's dance from Maedhros.

But Maglor was dead now, or close enough. Eärendil, his erstwhile father, was also forever separated from him. And Gil-Galad was dead, too – that loss tore at him worst of all.

Elrond remembered the sound of Gil-Galad's great spear falling to the battle-scorched earth, he remembered the smell of Gil-Galad's scorched flesh, and he wondered just then how he had not let the standard fall. A minor miracle, that! He had been so dismayed at his king's – his friend's – fall that for a moment he could see nothing but Gil-Galad's charred corpse. When at last he came back to himself he found that Gil-Galad's standard was still in his hands. He'd done that much right at least.

That evening so long ago, as he sat in his tent thinking of all that day had brought, he had thrummed his hand across his lap just as he did now. He had not had a harp at hand, for they had passed far into the heart of Mordor beyond all such small comforts, but Maglor had taught him long ago to practice his craft with or without an instrument. He had clung to the old habit, then, letting his fingers walk through the scales he had learned as a child. And he had longed to create something beautiful, as if that would push back the tide of ugliness clamoring all around him.

He remembered, too, the stories Maglor had told him in the days after the sack of Sirion. How Maglor had sat in the bowels of the Telerin ships as his family crossed the seas, his own harp sitting silently on his lap. Maglor had not taken up an instrument for long years after his Oath, he had once told Elrond. No, in the wake of Alqualondë Maglor had found himself unable to reduce his heart's turmoil to a pretty song. Elrond had never understood why, as a child. Now, he ran his fingers experimentally across the strings but found their sound struck him with a discordant twang. He winced at that sound. The instrument was perfectly tuned, he knew. The fault must be within him.

Small wonder, that. Deep within himself something felt off-kilter. Elrond knew that he had seen horrors on a par with Maglor's, and he might have been witness to the breaking of history's patterns. That knowledge grated on him. War had plagued Arda nigh since its making, ever since Tulkas had rushed into Time's circles and made battle while he laughed for the joy of it. Sitting comfortably in Imladris, Elrond thought how close he had come to breaking that cycle, and he felt ill at the thought. He had stood by in Mordor, he had begged Isildur to throw Sauron's ring into the fires of Orodruin, but ultimately he had stood by as Isildur claimed it as weregild. He had felt a great lament burst forth, a song that demanded to be sung.

He knew that he could not take the ring away from Isildur, not without making himself a murderer. Yet even then he had longed to seize the ring, to cast it away so that nothing of Sauron should survive to plague the new age. Maglor was dead, and Eärendil and Gil-galad even, and for all that Sauron still lived. He knew it in his heart, somehow, and he knew, too, the truth: things might have been otherwise. They could have been changed. He could have changed them. He might have talked him round to the right course, or pushed him into the flames so Orodruin devoured them both together.  So easily! The malice of those lands had worked against them, and so Elrond had stood by, not sure what to do until it was too late.

Behind him, Elrond heard footsteps coming down the hall. Looking out the window, he saw that the sun hung low as the day faded away toward dusk. That would be Valandil. Isildur's youngest son often came to him at this hour, for the lad showed no small promise as a musician. Turning to face him, Elrond cocked his head back and beckoned Valandil to come sit with him beside the fire.

Once Valandil was situated beside him, his own small harp resting on his lap in a mimic of Elrond's, the boy looked up at Elrond. The peredhil was struck, then, by the gray eyes framed in dark locks that so reminded him of Elros's features in their youth. Of his own. He wondered, then, what Maglor had seen so long ago whenElrond had come to him for his lessons. Elrond had willed himself not to be reminded of Elendil who had died beside Gil-Galad, or of Isildur whose foolishness had made that death and all the others forfeit.

Had Maglor seen Elwing when he had looked on his own young charges, Elrond wondered? Had he thought first and most often of her fell dive from Sirion's cliffs, and how she had flown into the sunset with a Silmaril bound to her forehead, leaving her young sons to the Valar alone knew what fate? But no. Elrond would not think such things, and Valandil was more than his father's son.

"I find I am in no mood to play this afternoon," he said gently. "Or to hear your own song." Valandil's  face fell, and Elrond smiled gently to him. "Oh, I am sure it is quite good! But I have sat for too long in the dark, alone, this afternoon. Any music would seem as clashing cymbals to me just now, no matter its quality."

Valandil nodded. "Should I go?" he asked.

"No," Elrond replied. "Not unless you wish to. This hall is made for story-telling. If you would stay, I would share a tale or two with you." Valandil nodded eagerly, laying his harp on the floor.

Elrond turned so he faced the statues behind him. Looking first at the student and then at its teacher, he found himself unsure where to begin. For he thought to tell the boy of Maglor's trip to Middle-earth and why his own harp had laid mute for so long; but how could he share such a story with a son of the Third Age? Yet if Middle-earth seemed doomed to repeat the circle of war, if peace was once again beyond his grasp, Elrond knew he must at least see that other circles repeated themselves as well. He must see that Maglor's legacy not only survived but was remembered into a new age.

"Tell me," he said after a moment. "When you look upon these statues, what do you see? Do they represent any musician in particular, to your eye?" 

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Chapter End Notes

According to the just war theory, jus ad bellum is the appropriate way to end a war. While I personally don't think just war theory goes far enough in limiting war, I definitely think that a war ended in such a way that it undercuts its goals is only adds to a rotten situation. That said, I also identified with Elrond's frustration at war without end. What to do when war seems to drag on forever, but when a particular war ends too soon?

No real answers, unfortunately, but in the absence of wisdom empathy seemed appropriate. The questions posed by jus ad bellum seemed particularly appropriate to Elrond's situation.