Súlimëo Quentar: March Stories by Elleth

With the Sight of Eagles

On Midsummer 3019 TA, Maglor lets his gaze roam from Amon Hen.

The Seat easily affords him the Long Sight.

From Amon Hen across Rauros, to spot the water fowl a hundred miles downriver. A farmer's daughter comes running to Anduin, hitches her skirt, wades into the shallows - her ducks have escaped! He does not hear her cry, or the river's mud squelching between her toes, but he sees it all, to the glints of water on her skin. It does not do to pry - onward.

Something like summer is coming even to Mordor, where the creatures of that dark land have perished so utterly that not even flies remain to breed in the myriad dead orcs. The unveiled morning sun glints on young leaves with knife-sharp edges. It will be long until life there will normalize, until the war machines rust into nothing, but there is time. The foundations of Barad-dûr are broken, unlike an age ago, when vainglory and foolishness allowed them to persist even in victory. The Dark Lord will not return again.

South beyond, in the deserts of Far Harad, a grandmother sits clustered by the village children, turning a spit of meagre lamb for tonight's poor midsummer feast, and tells them tales of absent fathers. The war has gutted their coffers and stolen the men from this village. There will be few until these children grow. But already he can see two thumbs beyond the grandmother's notice, engaged in playful battle - a girl's, stained with henna; a boy's, stained with earth. Hope is not lost there.

Onward. The expanse of sand dips suddenly, sharply, into Belegaer. He knows those shores, even though the Northlands are his favoured abode. There is, nowhere, the reason that drove him to wander here, and make use of the longest day. Seeking the light out of deep water that his Silmaril must shine, he goes on until the air grows thick and humid, mist swathes out of the dark forests and blocks his sight. There is nothing there, and he is weary from roaming so far, sweat beading on his skin.

The Sight grows dark. Trees swim before his eyes – he never transitions smoothly into normal seeing. He sways down the stairs, and to the forest floor. Maglor sleeps.

The shadows have barely lengthened when he wakes and climbs the stairs again, easing back into the Seat. It has never merely been the Silmaril he sought, though he had come here the first time in a fit of despair of ever finding it. Thanks to a Númenorean sailor drunk out of his wits in an Umbari tavern, who had proclaimed the First Age a child's tale, and bragged about the glory of Númenor expanding beyond the Misty Mountains, Maglor had all but run to find the Seats of Hearing and Seeing. Now it is the other side of the mountains he seeks, passing Hithaeglir with the sight of eagles, and, descending over the high moor further north, down the steep cliffs of Imladris.

The Last Homely House, which he has never dared approach save this way, stands empty. But it is not misery that has befallen them, it cannot be. Maglor knows what signs battle will leave, and there are none. Nonetheless his Sight swims, wavers –

– and steadies, upon recalling the day.

It is Midsummer, and there will be feasting in the White City, if Elrond and the new king recall their customs, ancient and out of Aman. Turning his eyes to Minas Tirith at dusk, he sees that they do recall indeed, and his granddaughter is laughing at the high table. The Hobbits shuffle their feet, Olórin is enjoying a pipe, puffing great white swathes of smoke from his mouth, and Maglor almost he believes he can smell the wizard's pipeweed. Perhaps. Perhaps the Seat is augmenting more than his eyes, perhaps wishful thinking is toying with Maglor's mind. He should have been there. Among the Gondorians, yet another dark-haired, grey-eyed onlooker would attract little notice, but no – Elrond and Galadriel will surely recognize him, and there is not the time to cross so many miles.

Watching from afar must do. Unlike an age ago, when he had sat here and laughed as a madman would at the purported triumph of the Last Alliance, this time he smiles at new beginnings – for Men, at least. Elros' sceptre may have perished, but there always is a substitute, and more important than symbols of office is the hand in Aragorn's as Arwen, Queen of the Reunited Kingdom, leads her husband to the dancing.

It is evening when he is content with looking, and night until he has found the Seat on Amon Lhaw. And sitting there, with music and laughter in his ear, he himself joins in, whether or not the revellers will hear.

Chapter End Notes

Written for the following prompts:

O68: Economy: War, Second Age: Destruction of Barad-dûr, Weather: Humid, Smells: Pipeweed, Artifact: Sceptre of Elros,

O67: Landscape: Canyon