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*shivers* I'm cold now.

This is fantastic. An entirely new and fascinating perspective on the Helcaraxë. Beautiful (if chilling) imagery and very intriguing ideas! And as you can probably imagine, my favourite line is this:
Helcaraxë begins to sing, and they learn to listen to its language, for are they not Quendi? b29;

Just wow.

Thank you! :) The Noldor never quite struck me as timid either (how, if even the arguably most gentle of them killed a werewolf with his teeth?), and I definitely agree with your assessment of Fingon, even if it's packed into slightly different terms in the story. That recklessness undoubtedly caused some of young Gil-galad's resentment here.

That plan didn't quite work out, did it? Although Gil-galad did rule for longer. But in the end, he was more like his father than he had planned to be: valiant, steadfast, defiant until the last. Did he remember his father that day, I wonder?

That cloven helm on the sea floor is a very striking image!

I like this very much. I completely understand and sympathize with Maglor's logic and also feel his pain. He also knows his older brother well. Curufin seems in character also and I understand his frustration. Very nice characterization throughout. Hard to do so much in so few words. Like the concept of Curufin crafting a crown for Maglor. I related to your interpretation here beginning to end. So many people write about the same subject matter and choices and my reaction is "no way that is happened like that!" Thanks for sharing,

Thank you for the review, I'm glad you enjoyed the fic. It's never easy to offer a fresh (and own!) spin on an often-written story, especially with characters that fandom tends to interpret in as many diverse ways as the Feanorians, so it's easy to find characterizations or ideas that may not fit into the personal view. Which (please forgive me the preening ;)) makes me doubly glad that my take on this particular chapter convinced you. 

Very vivid! Any situation less like Bilbo's birthday party is difficult to imagine, but the story manages to capture the basic reassuring quality of food that would have been felt by Elf and hobbit alike--I think your adaptation of the bread and salt ritual works well. One of the many details here that I like is the bit about Maedhros's braid. (Did Maglor's Sindarin wife die in the Dagor Bragollach?)

Thank you for the review, and I'm glad one of the messages I was trying to convey came through. All four of them, I think, were strongly in need of reassurance in this story. (Yes, that was a good guess; she died when Glaurung destroyed Maglor's lands in the Bragollach. I expect it will come up in a story sooner or later, too.)

I think this is the first time that I learn more about Lasbaneth! I like her already.
I also like the difficult diplomacy Fingon and Lasbaneth get to attempt here. Good thing they're both reasonable people. As usual, I am tempted to take your Maglor and shake him a little... but I guess he could use it. I suspect there's more truth to Noldóranis than Fingon realises...

First of all, sorry for the late reply, I thought I'd caught up on responding to reviews when that wasn't the case. I'm glad Lasbaneth invited a favourable response... I'm quite fond of her as a character, she's fun to write and has an interesting story to tell. Plus, more importantly, she's going to feature in an upcoming story, so that support is good to know about (you know what they say about OFCs...). She certainly deserves the title, at any rate, and is trying to do it justice. 

Maglor could, without a doubt, benefit from that shaking, for the reasons outlined in this story and many others. Thank you for the review.

Hi Elleth, thought I'd repost my Mefa review here:

Thought I'd repost my Mefa review here:

This is an absolutely gorgeous ficlet with a very creative approach to a Back to Middle-earth month writing prompt in which seduction had to play a central role. Elleth has rendered the power of the treacherous landscape of the Helcaraxë in such a way that it becomes a character unto itself, one that bewitches with its cruel beauty requiring the elves attempting to cross to listen to its song and learn its ways and to change fundamentally who they are. [“Helcaraxë begins to sing, and they learn to listen to its language, for are they not Quendi?”] I admire the wisdom in this piece – the idea that treachery requires the occasional kindness to work; the idea that the elves must learn the secrets of the terrible terrain to survive; that some become so beguiled that they purposefully become lost; and that the others who find their way, they lose some part of who they are too; and the inspired description of how they learn to talk in the bitter cold, yes with a rise of eyebrows, and no with a frown. And then there is Elleth's poetic language that sings and soars, and we hear the groan and grind and creak of the wind and the ice, and every word carries meaning and weight. When I tried to pick one line to quote, I ended up wanting to quote the entire piece. And finally there is the ending that catches one’s breath. Fabulous work!