Of Night and Light and The Half-light by oshun

Maedhros Alone Stood Aside

The prompt is for the card Sons of Fëanor: "Maedhros alone stood aside."

This is one of the most dramatic moments of the story of the earliest days of exile of the Noldor. Fëanor, who still had the wherewithal to unite the Noldor and lead them out of Tirion and onto this epic quest, seems to have lost his ability to reason somewhere between Tirion, Alqualondë and the shores of Middle-earth. But Maedhros standing aside when Fëanor seeks to burn the ships set the stage of the events that will shape all of the First Age.

Image from painting by Edward Moran (1829–1901) Burning of the Frigate Philadelphia in the Harbor of Tripoli. In the public domain.

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. So in that place which was called Losgar at the outlet of the Firth of Drengist ended the fairest vessels that ever sailed the sea, in a great burning, bright and terrible. --The Silmarillion, "Of the Flight of the Noldor."

 [Source paintings or drawings for the artwork to be credited later--not under copyright.]