Maglor in the 1848 French Revolution by Aprilertuile

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22, 23 & 24 February 1848

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As days passed, Maglor played for Joséphine once or twice a day, making her stronger, though he couldn’t heal her from her illness. He could at least ensure that death wouldn’t happen too soon, mainly by influencing her spirit, nudging her toward a more hopeful and cheerful outlook on life. Her own spirit did the rest. 

He didn’t think he’d ever learn to like Joséphine. She had tried too hard to get Louis back, and had managed too well to find his weakness without knowing what she did for Maglor to be at ease around her.

However, she was careful of her words now around him now, and he could acknowledge and even appreciate that. So Maglor made an effort himself, curbing his tongue around her.

One thing that didn’t seem to change however was her detachment to her child. If she lacked the support she would step up and be a mother, albeit a very reluctant one, that Maglor could appreciate too, but now that he was back, she visibly enjoyed having a caretaker for her daughter.

However, despite his relative success managing Joséphine’s poor health, and their newfound tentative peace, Maglor found himself more and more on edge: Louis was being... shifty.

Oh he still was the same idealist, loving and lovable man Maglor knew but… He tended to come home later and later these days. Maglor had his doubts about the reason for this. He didn’t like it at all.

He’d heard about the failed petition, sent to the king, asking that the classes of one Jules Michelet would start again.

Anyone could have told them that something like a petition would never work on the current king and his government. They wanted the man silenced, just not enough for outright exile.

But the existence of the petition did mean that someone out there was charismatic enough to organise others and encourage them on a dangerous path…

There was always a leader.

Maglor was out working, helping Ismérie by bringing a message and the ordered bread to another shop, when he heard about the students of the Latin quarter gathering with the workers to protest in the streets.

Maglor barely managed his delivery before he ran out of the shop, going after the protest.

Louis was a fool and was going to get himself killed!

And oh, he found the protests, alright, and it was big. Bigger than he’s had the displeasure of meeting in a long, long while.

In front of him, there was a sea of people shouting their protests: “We want Guizot gone!”, “Work!”, “money to live!”, “Fire Guizot!” The people encouraged one another, pushing for a chance at a better life.

And in that crowd… He trusted his instinct and he found Louis. The young man was among other students, calling for the return of Pr Michelet, for a better chance at life, for work, for food. Everything.

Maglor caught him by the wrist and only then did the young man notice him:

“Come to join us finally?” Louis asked with a brilliant smile.

“You know I’m not.”

“Then leave.”

“Louis! Think of Louisa, of Joséphine!”

“I do! It’s precisely because I do think of them, of everyone, that I’m here!”

“Think of me!” Maglor’s voice turned begging on those last words.

Louis looked regretful just for a moment.

“Mag. Max, I’m sorry. I have to do this. For the future. For OUR future.”

“There’s no way, no how this can end well!” Maglor hissed.

“That’s… I’m sorry. Go back home. When it’s over and we’ve reached our goal, you can thank me.”

Louis looked a brief moment like he was going to kiss Maglor, but he just gripped his wrist briefly before leaving.

Leaving Maglor alone in the middle of a crowd that was out for blood.

Alone full of doubts, and dread in the middle of a people moved by a conviction that Maglor had learnt over time to both appreciate in individual people, and fear in a crowd.

Maglor went back home, looking pale. He had the house to himself and he sat at his harp, praying, hoping desperately his fool of a lover wouldn’t do something stupid.

Maglor cursed the fact he couldn’t have stayed.

Or… He could have technically, but...

Staying there was too dangerous for him. It was a stupid risk to take:

Every time his nature had been glimpsed by someone dangerous, it had been because, for some reason, people stopped letting him distract them from perceiving his nature, that he was just more than human.

It was a simple trick to elves, one he had learnt rather easily early on in Beleriand...

But going among such a crowd, with such a strong presence and dedication to a specific goal was an almost sure way for someone to start noticing him. The stubbornness of people in a crowd wouldn’t allow him to hide his nature from them for long. Not in this kind of setting.

Maglor tried to convince himself he didn’t need to return.

What would his freedom mean if he left Louis behind to die in the end?

But surely not.

Maglor opened the windows so he could hear the sound of the streets below.

And soon enough, he heard that some people had died. Had been killed, more specifically. No name was named, but Maglor could tell Louis wasn’t among the dead.

Louis spent the night, Maglor didn’t know where. In the morning, Maglor tried to leave the house to find some work, but after an hour walking with nothing to show for it was clear that he had failed.

Paris was covered in barricades, people were everywhere calling for reforms, national guards were clearly torn and some, more and more, joined the people, meaning that the people were supplied with weapons, if only in the presence of the guards.

And then later in the afternoon, long after Maglor had gone back home to avoid a stubborn crowd that might well end up seeing his nature accidentally, the news began to spread that Guizot had quit his post, giving in to the protestors.

And yet, Louis still didn’t come home.

Maglor left the house, unable not to, and went back toward the people still in the streets, only this time they were manifesting their joy at having been heard.

It didn’t escape his notice that they were going toward the foreign affair ministry where Guizot was currently staying. A street that was heavily guarded, hidden behind barricades, even as night was falling.

And there, in the crowd of the people still going strong in their protests, Louis was standing surrounded by his friends.

Maglor’s heart leaped in his throat and he wondered if, in their time, the Vanyar or even Finarfin or Cirdan had seen disasters coming just as he did now.

It wasn’t the first time that this idea had come to his mind.

Maglor forced himself to move, even as he saw one protester trying to get through the barricades.

The soldiers raised their weapons.

Maglor shouted in warning, startling people into moving…

The shots rang in the street like so many death bells… And Maglor just ran to Louis, managing barely to catch his body as he fell to a bullet in the back.

Maglor screamed in rage and anguish even as Louis smiled at him, and raised a hand toward him, seeing Maglor as he really was for the first time as death, cold, unfeeling, uncaring death, came for Louis, leaving his body a broken, soulless shell in Maglor’s frantic hands.

He knew it was too late.

He knew there was nothing left.

He could feel Louis’ blood seep through his clothing, and he froze, eyes wild, as he heard a weapon being armed again near him.

Maglor raised his head and saw a man in soldier’s uniform, young, about Louis’ age or so, shaking as he held his carbine up.

His eyes held the shocked disbelief of one who had killed for the first time.

He could have been Louis, had Louis been desperate enough to abandon his dreams and gone for the army for the sake of having enough money and food to live at least. Perhaps they could even have been friends. Or perhaps they were always destined to kill one another.

It didn’t matter.

No.

Nothing here mattered anymore.

They wanted to bring death? Fine by him.

Let death visit them, then.

The kid in soldier uniform was dead before he could point that weapon at Maglor.

Maglor was humming under his breath, his last thread of consciousness, of doubtful sanity, reminding him not to be too careless about it, but he discarded the thought and sang a bit louder, until he managed to bolster the courage of Louis’ people.

He knew they’d end up with somewhat muddled memories of what happened. He went in too strong.

He was pretty sure that the morality of his actions right now was particularly iffy. He was also pretty sure he didn’t care, and wouldn’t care much later either.

The situation was a mess, and the soldiers retreated enough that someone could come to pick up the bodies with a cart.

Those men wanted to parade the bodies through the streets, using them as martyrs to the cause to rally the people.

The men could take the other bodies, but Louis would come home one last time. He needed to. He needed to arrange his funerals. To say goodbye.

Maglor had no idea what stopped the men from even trying to take Louis’ body, but he ended up walking through the streets, with the oh-too light and lifeless body of the young man who stole his heart.

Joséphine was back home, with Ismérie. Both having decided that they didn’t want to risk being lone women outside right now.

When Maglor entered the house, clothing caked with dried blood, carrying Louis…

Ismérie looked about as torn up as Maglor felt, and Joséphine… grabbed her breast. And fainted.

Maglor left her in Ismérie’s careful hands, and went to lay Louis down on the bed one last time.

He was methodic in cleaning the blood from himself, and then Louis.

Only to come back to the living-room, finding Ismérie crying softly with a sobbing Joséphine in her arms.

Maglor didn’t cry. He was too far gone for that. Too tired. Too out of it.

Until he heard baby Louisa start to cry in her crib.

He picked her up, cradling her to his chest… And fell apart, tears escaping his eyes, his breathing coming sharp, tight, hard, until sobs blocked his throat and he felt his skin burn, feeling too tight and…

Soon, or perhaps later, Ismérie and Maglor pulled one another out of this. Neither of them was a stranger to grief, and they had things they needed to do, for the sake of the living. Ismérie helped Joséphine back to her room, promising her that she’d help with the funeral, and to live, and that she wasn’t alone. Then she came back to Maglor in the living-room.

They needed a doctor to validate the time of death, in order to organise the funeral. Louis’ funeral.

“I’ll get a doctor I trust. He won’t implicate Louis in the fighting, so Louisa won’t lose everything.”

“Louisa has already lost everything that mattered on her father’s side.”

Ismérie’s breath came as a sob, but she pulled herself together and left.

She left Maglor alone with a baby, a sleeping Joséphine and a house full of death.

She came back to Maglor who was trying to juggle goat milk, the sort that Joséphine used a time or two a day on her child when she was tired and didn’t feel like she could feed her properly, a baby bottle, and the baby.

Ismérie led the doctor to the body, and he examined him and gave them a death certificate. Organising the funeral would be on them. Joséphine would help with that.

Ismérie put a white sheet over Louis' body, though Maglor didn’t care whether or not he was covered. The sight had burnt itself in his mind already, and Louisa was too young to remember anything while Joséphine didn’t dare enter this room.

“What will we do now?”

“I’ll win that fight for Louis, and you’ll take care of Joséphine, who’ll take care of Louisa.”

“Don’t do something stupid, Max. And… And money will be harder now that Louis is gone.”

“Don’t worry about money. Someone owes Louisa already, and I intend to collect for her.”

“You’re a street rat, Max. You play music in the streets for money and… And you pick up random tasks to do. What power do you think you have to ensure anything at all as you claim?!” Ismérie asked sharply, trying desperately to believe she wasn’t about to lose him too for this stupid, helpless endeavour.

That pulled a sharp ugly laugh out of him.

“I can give Louisa and Joséphine a chance you never would be able to.”

“You were struggling more than us!”

Maglor looked more and more fey, making Ismérie fear him greatly for no reason she could comprehend. She could swear his eyes were lit with a strange light from within, and that madness lurked in them.

“I was, but the girls won’t. They’ll never have to again.”

“Don’t do something you’ll regret.”

“I already did something I’ll regret until the day I die, but I’ll never regret insuring Louisa’s future.”

Ismérie bit her lips at that.

“Do you really, honestly, intend to fight me for this? What will you have them do? Have Joséphine work for you until you grow too old to keep going with the tavern? Have Louisa grow up a tavern hand?”

Maglor snorted at that, dismissive.

“Let’s… Bury Louis first, and we’ll settle this question after.”

Maglor nodded at that, and he followed Ismérie’s lead on what to do to organise this.

Which was made particularly difficult due to the protests that were still going on, and Joséphine’s inability to react after seeing Louis’ body.

But Maglor forced Joséphine to react, putting Louisa in her hands, and giving her no choice in the matter. Her daughter needed her. The last thing of Louis that she had left needed her, and so help him, she’d act as a mother for once in her life!

Once he was sure she’d be here for her daughter and spend her grief by taking care of her living memory of Louis, Maglor left for the day and walked from street to street, making people bolder, more assertive, more aggressive, more loud by the moment.

He spent the morning doing that; walking, encouraging people without even being noticed, killing the occasional soldier who tried to go after him.

Soon enough, he’d go call in a debt.

Louisa and her mother would be set for life, but in the meantime… the king would pay dearly for what he drove his people to do.

By midday, the palace was attacked by the people. The king Louis-Philippe gave up the crown, leaving it to his 9 years old grand-son.

But no. Louis didn’t want royalty. He wanted a Republic didn’t he?

The song changed. Maglor didn’t care how it would end. But Louis’ dream would be given a chance, whatever happened.

And oh, that was beautiful. The people were receptive. The people didn’t want the crown. The people didn’t want another king. They rallied behind those who wanted a Republic, his songs speaking to their spirits. They wanted freedom from an unreliable monarchy.

Maglor kept going in the streets, touching people’s hearts, determination, giving them just the push they needed to stay strong.

And he laughed like a madman when words came to him that the royal family had fled under the pressure of the people, and that a Republic would be officially declared soon.

And who cared who saw him anyway…