A Song for Change by polutropos

“Well, that went better than the wedding at Nero’s palace.” Maglor grinned at his husband and pressed a little kiss to his cheek. “Now we only have one giant secret to hide.”

“Yes…” Daeron’s dark eyes darted over Maglor’s shoulder. “About that. I need to talk to you.” He dragged him by the elbow and behind the trunk of an enormous cedar a few paces from the shoreline.

Maglor broke away, laughing. “Just because we don’t have to hide, I don’t think–”

“What?” Daeron wrinkled his brows. “No! The officiant—”

“She was good, wasn’t she?” Maglor said. “Better than the one we originally planned, I thought. Did you not like her?”

“No, no. She was good. But I think she’s…” he leaned in and whispered, “an Elf.”

“Oh. I did think there was something odd about her. I can’t believe I didn’t… what if… ?” Maglor drew an anxious breath between his teeth and peeked around the tree.

“Stop, don’t be obvious.” Daeron pulled him back out of sight. “She’s not here for you. I’ve told you: if the Valar wanted you to answer for your… whatever… they would have come long ago.” He grabbed hold of Maglor’s bandaged right hand and gave him the same sympathetic look — brows tilted up over the bridge of his nose, his dark eyes wide and gentle — that had made Maglor fall in love with him once, a very long time ago.

His hand had still not healed in nearly two hundred yéni. Maglor had gotten used to the reality that the Oath, and his Doom, would never be lifted. As far as the unceasing sting of his scars went, he figured it was less a punishment and more that Manwë and Varda had simply forgotten about him. But given how horribly wrong all of his efforts to help with humanity’s self-destructive tendencies over the years had gone, Mandos at least seemed not to have forgotten that there was still one Doomed Noldo wandering around Arda.

“Oh, Lindanya.” Daeron took Maglor’s face between his hands as he lost himself in thought. “Please don’t worry about that now. As long as we keep to ourselves, right? Don’t get involved? But I do think that Elf is up to something.”

“Hmm.” Maglor glanced around the tree again to get another look. The officiant was politely smiling and nodding as one of their witnesses, a city councillor in their town of a thousand, gabbed on about who-knows-what. (Probably his chickens or organic gardening. Or, Valar forbid, the rising cost of real estate.) The officiant was of slight but agile build, with deep, secretive eyes. “She looks Avar,” Maglor concluded. “She’s probably never heard of us. Just trying to blend in, like us. You’re being paranoid.”

“Oh, I’m being paranoid now?” Daeron huffed as Maglor led him back towards the little gathering currently enjoying cinnamon rolls and champagne on the sandbar. The cinnamon rolls had been Daeron’s idea. He still hadn’t gotten over the decadent pastries since they’d discovered them two centuries ago in Philadelphia.

The couple who lived on the farmstead next door waved.

“Congratulations to Mr. and Mr. Goldsmith!” Frank balanced a plate in one hand and awkwardly clapped his palms together.

“Ah, no,” said Maglor. “Devon isn’t taking my name. But thank you.”

“Oh.” Frank laughed nervously. “Is that not what, uh…?”

“Not what?” Daeron said in a clipped but light tone. “Not what gays do?”

Maglor squeezed his elbow and touched his thought reassuringly. 'I’ll never understand that naming custom.'

'I’ll never understand why it took them this long to let two men get married. And half of them still don’t get it!’ Daeron was chuckling softly to himself. ‘Anyway, you don’t want to be Maximillian Penumbra? You could start performing again, it’s a great stage name.'

'Are you really still using Penumbra? No wonder Frank assumes you’re taking my name.'

Frank had taken the opportunity provided by their silence to scurry off to the drink table. The officiant was staring at them as they silently conversed. Maglor caught sight of well-rounded ears beneath her mass of chestnut hair and second-guessed their conclusions about her. Of course, she could have altered them with Song, but if so she was even better than he and Daeron. Not likely.

'You’re so arrogant.' Daeron’s thought was prickly.

'Right, that’s enough. Get out of my head!'

They mingled with the guests for the duration of the afternoon. Maglor had to repeatedly cover for his husband’s obvious attempts to get rid of them. He couldn’t blame him, though. Their neighbours were lovely but they did seem like the kind of mortals who fell firmly on the extroverted side of one of many false binaries they so liked to invent.

But within twenty minutes of the champagne and food running out, they were alone with the officiant.

Daeron did not waste any time getting to the point. “How did you find us?”

Maglor sighed. “I think what he means to say––”

She said something in what sounded like Hwenti or Kindi but it had been far too long since Maglor had heard any Avarin languages.

Daeron nodded. “Mag– Max doesn’t understand.” He glanced sympathetically at Maglor. “She said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’”

“Thanks,” Maglor said flatly.

“Ah.” The Avar looked disappointed. “And I never learned your tongues. I suppose we’ll have to keep to English. A pity. My name is Hatidi. My people keep watch on this land. My mother is Hwenti, my father is a human.” She touched her ears, smiling. “If you were wondering. We are tree-keepers.”

“How many of you are there?” Daeron’s curious spark had ignited.

“Oh, not many left, I’m afraid. I was amazed to see you both here.” She stared at Maglor. “Especially one like you.”

Maglor blinked. He really needed to make a new pair of dimming contact lenses.

She continued, “I didn’t approach because… well, you know how it is. We have to be careful. There is not much tolerance for strangeness. My mother says it’s better than it was.” She sighed sadly.“Anyway, I have been watching your walks on the beach, and when I heard you talk about a wedding, I obtained a licence for––”

“Wait, what?” Daeron interrupted. “What did you do with the woman who was going to marry us?”

“Oh,” Hatidi laughed and her eyes sparkled, “she’s having a wonderful afternoon nap.”

“Nevermind that!” Maglor sputtered. Half-elven or not, this woman had no business spying on them. “What about our privacy?”

“Forgive me,” she said. “But my reasons were rather important. My people have made a most remarkable discovery.” She looked nervously between them. “A child. Washed up on the shore.”

The baby stared up at Daeron with enormous gold eyes, kicking her chubby legs. She giggled and babbled along to his song.

“We cannot keep her.” Maglor paced their kitchen floor. He’d avoided looking at the child since they’d brought her home. “I am not doing this again.”

Daeron tickled her feet. It wasn’t just Elrond and Elros his husband meant, though of course that shadow would always be there. They’d raised several human foundlings over the centuries. Losing them was as painful for Daeron as it was for him — but this baby was unmistakably elven.

“Why can’t she stay with the Hwenti?” Maglor appeared in the doorframe, a guilty look on his face.

“Lindanya,” Daeron said. “Hatidi was right. This is not their task. They have the forests to look after. Look at her.” He lifted the baby and cradled her in his arms. “She looks like you. She was meant to come to us.”

“She doesn’t look like me.” Maglor frowned.

“She does,” Daeron said. “It’s almost as if…” He bit his lip. It wasn’t possible, that Road was shut forever nearly three Ages ago. And yet there was a light in her face that wasn’t possible for an Elf born anywhere else.

Maglor was beside him. He tentatively extended his right hand and the baby latched onto a finger. She fell silent, staring at his bandage and then back to his face. Her mouth was a tiny ‘o’ and she squirmed as she struggled to shape the syllables. “Atto,” she said at last, peddling her legs with glee at her achievement.

Maglor heaved a long sigh. “I guess that settles it then.”

Ivárë hated gym class. It’s not that she hated running and jumping and throwing and all that. In fact, she needed that because she often felt like she was about to explode if she didn't keep moving. Her dads made her sleep eight hours every single night because they said it’s what ‘normal humans’ do and fully adopting the human lifestyle would help her to blend in (that’s also why they made her go to ‘normal’ school). But they were not normal, and they were not humans.

So she spent most the night coming up with stories, or silently composing on the piano keys she’d drawn on a long roll of paper. Sometimes she’d even climb out the window and up the trees in their little orchard, where she had built a whole network of treehouses. She knew her dads didn’t sleep nearly eight hours either because she had seen them from the treetops out gardening in the middle of the night. She’d even seen Atto come back from the beach with wet hair in the middle of the night, and Ada had almost caught her in the tree once as he was climbing up holding a flute between his teeth. No matter what her dads told themselves, they did not blend in.

She hated gym class because it made people fight. It made people shout at each other, it made the bigger and louder kids get mean, and it made the smaller and quieter kids sad. She hated it because the teacher forced everyone to do the same things no matter who they were and punished kids who couldn’t by making them sit and watch instead of letting them go read, or go for a walk, or have a snack.

“Hey, Kamran, watch out!” It was Hunter shouting from across the field. A red ball came hurtling through the air and smacked Kamran square in the face as he turned. He burst into tears.

Selena, who supposedly had a ‘crush’ on Kamran, screamed at the top of her lungs and kicked the dirt. “Hunter, you are an ugly poo-face!”

“Shut up, slime-face!” Nelson, who was the biggest of all the big kids, shoved Selena’s shoulder and she stumbled to the ground. She screamed again.

The music was starting. Ivárë stuffed her fingers in her ears and took deep breaths. This always happened when people fought, or disagreed, or got sad. When she had told her dads about it, Atto had looked worried and Ada had gathered her up in his lap and said they were very, very sorry. She wasn’t sure for what, but they were teaching her how to stop it with her own music. She wasn’t very good at that yet because she always forgot all of her own music as soon as it started happening.

Mrs. K – their teacher’s name was actually Mrs. Kowalski but she thought they were too stupid to pronounce it – was now shouting, too, judging by all the teeth showing when her mouth flapped open and closed, and waving her arms like scissors. She stuffed her whistle between her teeth and the sound ripped through Ivárë’s finger barrier. She winced. The music was getting uglier and louder and now it pulled the whistle sound into itself, over and over and over. She thought ‘discordant’ and ‘cacophonous’ were the words Atto would have used for it.

By the third whistle blast all the kids stopped shouting and froze. Ivárë tentatively pulled her fingers from her ears. The music hadn’t stopped. That’s how she knew there was still a problem. Her classmates were reassembling on either side of the field, arms crossed, pouting, and kicking at the ground.

Mrs. K was looming over her. “Ivy!” That’s what humans called her. “Ivy! Join your classmates, now! We don’t have time for your attitude, get back with your team.”

The music still ringing in her skull, Ivárë sulked over to her ‘team’ and slotted herself into the line of children. They started to play the ‘game’ again, but she could barely keep track of where anyone was with the ugly song swelling in her mind. She began running around in circles in the middle of the field, hoping this would make it seem like she was participating, while she tried desperately to remember her music, to fight off the bad song.

A bird tweeted in a tree along the edge of the field. That was it! That was how her song started. She repeated the notes. The bird repeated his. Then came the next notes, and the next, and she spread her arms out and she was singing! The kids running by stopped and stared at her. Hunter dropped the ball on the ground, dumbstruck. She kept singing and laughing and running. Then the most interesting thing happened. Hunter started to sing, too. And Nelson, and Serenity, and Kamran. They were passing the ball around and smiling and laughing with her.

“What are you doing?!” Mrs. K barked, scissoring her arms again. “Kids! This is not what you were told to do! This is not the game!”

The kids didn’t notice. They were having so much fun! And Ivárë had done it with her Song!

“Is this Mr. Goldsmith?” The voice at the other end of the phone was unmistakably exasperated.

“Yes?” Maglor replied. “Who am I speaking to?”

“It’s Principal Phuong.”

Covering the receiver, Maglor pulled the phone away from his face and mouthed, “It’s the school,” at Daeron, who was stringing a violin across the room. He just glared.

“You will have to come pick up your daughter. Ivy has refused to participate in gym class, again. And this time she somehow convinced the whole class to go along with her.”

Maglor massaged his temples. He knew they should have taught Ivárë how to handle Music and use Songs of Power responsibly earlier, but they’d had no idea she’d have had such a gift for it. They had half-hoped she wouldn’t have been able to hear it at all.

“Alright, Principal Huang. Sorry about that. I’ll be there right away.”

He returned the phone to its cradle and sighed.

“We shouldn’t have sent her to that school,” Daeron mumbled around the string pinched between his lips.

“It’s not right for her to grow up in isolation,” Maglor countered. “And you shouldn’t put that in your mouth! That’s a Stradivarius you’re making!”

Daeron glared again. “Oh relax, Maeweg. It’s just a string. I’m not putting the whole instrument in my mouth.”

Despite his efforts not to laugh, Maglor’s throat betrayed him with a muffled snort.

“Grow up,” Daeron said with a smile. “You’re over twenty-five thousand years old.”

Maglor leaned back against the counter. “Well, regardless, you should be careful with that. If people figure out it’s not real–”

“How can it not be real if you are Stradivarius?”

“Oh, I am sure that explanation would go over well. Anyway just—be attentive. We have a very discerning buyer for that one.” He slipped on his flip-flops. “I’m going to get our daughter. I think I’ll take her to the beach, if you want to meet us when you’re done with that.”

Daeron shrugged his brows and carried on stringing the violin.

The sun was scorching on Maglor’s bare arms. He’d gotten more sensitive to the heat and cold as the millennia wore on, but the heats and colds had also gotten more extreme, no matter what part of the world they planted themselves in for a decade or two. He and Daeron had both noticed it long before the Atani started talking about it. Daeron (while he was teaching physics, of all things — he claimed the science was little different from music) had pushed for the publication of Eunice Foote’s paper on the warming effects of atmospheric carbon dioxide on the climate. When was that? Over a yén ago, at least. Well, surely these Atani would figure it out soon. It was strange, though, how they seemed to be operating on Eldarin timelines with regard to this one thing.

He knelt down and fit a straw hat on Ivárë’s head.

She tried to shove it off. “No! This hat is so old.”

Maglor sighed and tied it under her chin. “It’s fine. It was handmade, you know, by a good friend of ours.”

“And how long ago did they die?” She pouted.

Taken aback, Maglor’s mouth fell open. When had Giselle died? At least fifty years ago. He supposed that was quite a while ago.

“Lirulinda,” he said, cupping her chin. “You should be more sensitive about dying.”

“Hmph.” She stomped and spun on her heels, kicking her shoes off on her way into the surf.

Maglor sat down on the seawall and watched her splashing in the water. He hadn’t talked to her about the incident at the school yet. Based on the Principal’s report, he could guess what she’d been up to and it was difficult to fault her for it. Using a Song of Power to help her classmates get along. He would never understand how such pure-hearted, kind children kept ending up in his care.

Someone groaned behind him. “Are you being hard on yourself again?” Daeron plopped himself down beside him and handed him an enormous take-out container of french fries. He slurped on what looked like a milkshake.

“Are you intruding on my thoughts again?” Maglor grabbed the drink and sucked, then grimaced. “What is this?”

“Weird isn’t it? It’s supposed to be banana-flavoured.”

Maglor considered this, rolling his tongue around his mouth. “It tastes like the old bananas.”

“Oh, that’s what it is!” Daeron exclaimed. “I forgot they changed the flavour of bananas. I mean they changed the bananas. This is the flavour of the old bananas. That went extinct. You remember? Because they only grew that one type.” He leaned on the seawall railing. “Humans are idiots.”

Maglor hummed, finding himself unable to disagree, and took another sip of old-banana-flavoured drink.

Ivárë was happily kneeling on the sandbar, dribbling wet sand over her castle to create a spire. She had yet to notice Daeron had even arrived.

“I haven’t talked to her yet,” Maglor said. “It sounds like she got all her classmates in gym class to start singing and ignoring the rules of whatever conflict-inspired waste of time – sorry, ‘sport’ – they were playing.”

“Why would you talk to her about that?” Daeron munched on a fry. “That’s our girl!”

“She can’t just go around wielding Song whenever she feels like it. Perhaps it was harmless this time – though not if you ask Principal Phuong – but who's to say she won't start using it to, I don’t know, force her will?”

“Like forcing the ice cream truck driver to give her ice cream?” Daeron laughed.

“Lindanya, it’s not funny. Not only does she not know how to use it, she is going to draw attention to herself and to us and you remember what happened the last time.”

Daeron’s eyes darkened and he frowned. “Right. Well, we’ll talk to her. Later.”

The moat around Ivárë’s sandcastle was going to be useless against a dragon. Her people ran about the ramparts shouting, firing arrows towards the sky, but it did nothing to deter the winged beast. As a river of fire shot from his mouth, a shrill grinding sound startled Ivárë from her. Her eyes shot up. There were men around a tree with a chainsaw! The tree was old and gnarled and hardly had any leaves. He’d been marked with a big orange dot. She listened for the tree’s voice — he was crying out for help! Ivárë leapt to her feet and started running as fast as she could in the direction of the attack.

“Stop!” she shouted. “Stop!” The tree groaned and waved his branches in tiny motions.

Ivárë felt hands on her shoulders and heard the voice of her Ada trying to break through the noise, but she struggled free and kept running.

One of the men standing by caught sight of her. He held out a hand. “Sorry, little girl, I’m going to need you to stay back.”

Little girl? Ivárë’s blood was boiling now. She set her feet apart wide and balled her hands into fists and she screamed. The man with the chainsaw turned it off. Everyone on the beach stopped and stared. The tree was singing to her. She didn’t know his language but she could feel his music. He was sick. He needed healing, but they were going to cut him down because of it.

“Please let me help the tree,” she begged the man with the chainsaw. “He just needs to have the sickness taken out of him.”

“I’m sorry.” It was her Atto behind her. “She’s had a stressful day. Ivy,” he reached for her hand and knelt down in front of her, “come on, let’s get ice cream.”

“No!” Ivárë yanked her hand back. “I need to help that tree!”

Atto’s eyes were enormous. Ada was behind him, staring at the tree. She could tell he was talking to Atto in his mind but they weren’t letting her hear them.

“All right.” Atto stood slowly. “Wait here.”

He walked up the men with the trees and whispered with them. They were laughing like he’d told some kind of joke. It made Ivárë so mad she almost shouted again. This was not funny. Atto agreed. He was very serious.

“Okay, Ivy,” Atto said as he walked back. “They will let you say goodbye to the tree.”

“Goodbye!?” Ivárë said, indignant. This would not be goodbye.

'Lirulinda, please,' he said to her mind. 'This is your chance to show them he can be healed.'

Ivárë nodded. He had used half-speak to make the humans understand — when you tell only half the truth. Humans were not good about hearing the whole truth all at once. She made her way towards the tree.

“Excuse me,” she said to the men in bright yellow vests. They stepped aside, though they still had stupid smiles on their faces. She scowled at them both, driving her eyes into them until their smiles slipped off. Good.

She placed a hand against the tree’s trunk. He murmured his thanks. She could feel the sickness in him. Insects, there were millions of insects laying eggs in his leaves and boring holes in his bark and he was too weak to fight them off. He would break soon. That’s why they were going to cut him up. 'I can help you.' she told the tree, letting her eyes fall shut. She sang.

Oh by the beach, there is a tree
An ancient tree
Who spoke to me
And the winds blow free all around, all around, and the winds blow free all around

But sick is he, this ancient tree
He is not free
He said to me
For the bugs they crawl all around, all around, for the bugs they crawl all around

Oh bugs hear me, and leave this tree
I beg of thee
Let him be free
Let him drink his fill from the ground, from the ground, let him drink his fill from the ground

The insects were dying, but it was better that way. There were too many of them. A few thousand scurried off and she apologised and begged them to leave this tree alone for a time, while he recovered his strength. Then a rush of life coursed up the tree’s trunk. He was singing, too, and laughing, and stretching his leaves wide open to the sun. 'Thank you', he said.

Ivárë’s lip started to tremble and she was crying, her tears dripping onto the tree’s bark as she wrapped her arms around him. “I love you,” she said aloud.

“Okay, time to go, little girl.” The man wasn’t smiling anymore. She thought his eyes even looked a little shiny, like he was going to cry.

“Why don’t you test it, one more time?” the other yellow-vested man, the one holding the chainsaw, asked his friend, brushing a finger under his safety glasses.

“I, uh, I guess we could,” said the one looking at Ivárë.

“I think you should.” Ada’s voice. “You never know.”

The men looked at each other and shrugged. One of them pulled a leaf off the tree and carefully examined its underside. Then he pulled down a whole branch, scrunching up his face as he scrutinised all the leaves.

“Huh,” he said. “Hard to believe, but I don’t see any signs of infestation.” He jotted something down on a clipboard. “Maybe it wasn’t assessed properly.”

The other man grinned down at Ivárë. “Hah, well thanks kid! Guess we’re getting off work early today.”

Ivárë eyed them suspiciously as they strode off, laughing a little uncomfortably. She didn’t trust them not to come back with the chainsaw another day, but at least for now the tree was okay. 'Try your best to show them you can make it,' she told him. The tree shook his leaves. They looked a little greener already.

'Water,' he said. 'Please'.

Ivárë looked between her dads who were now standing to either side of her. “We have to come back here. He doesn’t have enough water to stay strong.”

“All right, Lirulinda,” Atto said, taking her hand. “We’ll bring him water.”

Her dads were using mindspeak again. She strained to listen.

‘See,’ Ada was saying, ‘it can be a good thing.’

'Yes, I know.' Atto said, then his mind shifted to her. 'Hi, Várië. We know you’re there. You did a good thing.'

As her dads led her off with one of her hands in each of theirs, she turned back and smiled at the tree.

“So what are you going to call yourself in Paris?” Maglor asked, sealing off a box of their favourite trinkets that they had collected over the ages. They were the only things they really had trouble parting with.

It was time for an intercontinental relocation, once again. One too many acquaintances had said, “My, you must have an exceptional skincare routine!” or something similar for them to keep brushing it off with a polite ‘thank you’.

“Hm.” Daeron paused and gathered his brows. “Perhaps Dior.”

Maglor angrily chucked a rumpled t-shirt into his suitcase. “You know I don’t like it when you do that.”

“Do what?” Daeron asked innocently. “You don’t think it’s a nice name?”

“Make jokes about the past. Treat it lightly.”

“Maeweg. It was a very, very long time ago. I have forgiven you.”

“Well, apparently Manwë and Varda can hold a grudge a lot longer than you.” He waved his still-injured hand in Daeron’s direction. “And that’s saying something.” He looked up, glaring emphatically — for a moment longer than strictly necessary to make his point, Daeron thought.

Daeron stood up straight and glared back. “What is that supposed to mean?”

“Oh, I don’t know, the time that one thing went a way you didn’t expect and you disappeared for several thousand years?”

“Don’t bring her into this.” Daeron sighed loudly, exasperated. “How is that even holding a grudge? I saw a situation I couldn’t handle well and I removed myself – something you should have done long before.”

Daeron clamped his mouth shut, knowing he’d gone too far but too agitated to admit it. He wondered if there was any elven couple in history who had spent this long continuously cohabiting. Probably not, and with good reason.

Maglor’s eyes were fixed on his hands, which were very deliberately re-folding the t-shirt he’d just discarded. “I don’t like it when you call me Maeweg,” he muttered. “Gulls make horrible sounds.”

“Stop bickering!” Ivárë shouted at full volume from the living room. A picture frame clattered against the bedroom wall. “You sound like such old people?”

Daeron and his husband exchanged amused looks. Then burst out laughing.

Brushing away joyful tears from under his eyes, Maglor shouted back, “Are you done packing, Lirulinda?”

Ivárë groaned. “Don’t call me that, Atar! I’m not your little lark anymore, I’m fourteen.”

Heavy footsteps crossed the living room and retreated down the stairs. For all the trouble her experiments with her elven abilities had caused over the years, Daeron had the fleeting thought that he wouldn’t mind having a teenager with a slightly less human temperament.

“Trust me,” Maglor said aloud. “Elf teenagers are just as bad.”

“I’m sorry.” Ivárë slumped down onto a cement garden wall and let her head fall into her hands. “I really thought she would listen this time!”

“It’s nothing new.” Hatidi sat down beside her. “Politicians can’t really do anything. The systems don’t work. The député knew something needs to be done, I could tell that much, at least.” She heaved a long sigh. “If only… we just don’t have enough power, on our own.”

Ivárë looked up at the Elf who had brought her to her dads long ago. Atar and Adar didn’t even know she and a group of her people — both of the Hwenti and of her father’s tribe — were in Paris. They’d come to join the activists ahead of the international climate summit. The democratic charade, as Hatidi derisively called it. But she still had hope, and she inspired Ivárë to hope. They had plans to raise the stakes with peaceful disruptions if the meetings didn’t work, which they weren’t. Ivárë didn’t dare tell her dads that the Avari were here or they might prod and figure out what she was up to when she should have been at school. They wouldn’t understand.

Hatidi put a hand on Ivárë’s back. It was warm and sent comforting vibrations through her tight chest. “Are you sure you won’t let me talk to your fathers about it? They could help us move the spirits of these people and give them courage. There have never been others so skilled in Songs of Power. There must be a reason they are both still here. I hate to admit it, but they are greater than all of us.”

“Were.” Ivárë pouted. “They were great. They’ve forgotten who they are. They’re no better than the humans now.”

“Now, now,” Hatidi scolded gently. “Many humans are very remarkable. They just need courage to face their fears for the future generations.” She had a far-off look. “My father is getting old now,” she mused. “He says it is very difficult for him to imagine a world so unlike the one we have now when he will not live to see it. But knowing that my mother and I will still be here gives him the strength — the fire to be willing to make sacrifices and to change. The other humans have that fire, too, a small blue flame in their hearts. In some it’s buried much deeper than in others, but it’s there. Song could ignite it.”

“Where have you been?” Maglor leapt up from the fold-out couch in their too-cramped apartment. Ivárë stood in the doorway with a signboard tucked under one arm.

“At the protest,” she stated bluntly and brushed past, setting the signboard down and beginning to ascend to her loft. IL N’Y A PAS DE PLANÈTE B was written in large letters around a drawing of the earth.

“You could at least tell us where you are going,” Daeron said. “We don’t disagree with you, Várië. It’s just the last time your Atar and I tried to do something about the… issues… of mortals—”

“Yes, I know.” Ivárë sighed. “But things are different now. They don’t just sentence people to death for being odd.” She stepped off the ladder to her loft and perched on a stool beside it.

Daeron shifted uneasily on the couch. “No, but these people you’re protesting with, they are being arrested, aren’t they?”

“On purpose!” Maglor could not believe his fourteen-year-old was out blocking bridges. And that he had let it happen.

Ivárë bowed her head, looking utterly dejected. Maglor huffed and crossed his arms over his chest. How had this rift come between them? He just wanted her to be safe.

“If you want me to be safe—” Ivárë said, and two sets of eyes shot up at once. They’d both been listening in. “If you wanted me to be safe, you would do something about the future.”

“What are we supposed to do?” Maglor asked. “The Atani have lost their minds! They seem determined to bring about Dagor Dagorath as quickly as possible!”

Daeron rubbed his hands down his face. “One can only hope. Dagor Dagorath sounds like a relaxing retreat compared to the mess we’re going to have to deal with in a hundred years.”

“You could help.” Ivárë leapt up from the stool. “With Songs, I mean. The people, they sing already when they march. They know the power of songs. And the politicians, the executives… they know what’s right. I can hear their Songs and the Discord inside them.”

Their daughter straightened, her eyes bright and eager, her voice clear and resonant. For a moment, Maglor saw his father, his brothers, even himself as he had been a very long time ago. But the words they had spoken to set hearts aflame were only to urge people towards destruction. She was nothing like him. He was nothing like her.

“They are just so lost,” she said, “and our Songs aren’t enough, we can’t do it alone—”

“We?” Daeron asked.

“Yes, the Hwenti, the Kindi, even some of the Hisildi. They have come here.” Her voice started to tremble. “They are worried about this, too. They have lived through so many disasters not of their own making. If you don’t care about the humans, at least do it for them.”

Maglor’s chest tightened and he sank back down onto the couch, resting his chin on his palm. Daeron took his right hand in his and brushed his thumb over it reassuringly.

“Lirulinda,” Maglor said. “I haven’t told you this before because I’m, well… I don’t want you to be worried about me being your father. I wouldn’t have even considered it if I didn’t have proof that, for whatever reason, I’m able to raise kids who are much better than I am.”

Ivárë smirked at that and made a little grunting sound. Daeron glared at her.

Maglor continued, “But it’s not because we’re worried about what will happen to us that we don’t get involved. It’s because it doesn’t matter what I do to try and help, it’s not going to work out. You don’t know how many times we’ve just made things worse—”

“Atto,” Ivárë interrupted. “I know the stories. I have known since I was 10-years-old. ‘To evil end shall all things turn.’”

“You read that book?!” Maglor and Daeron both exclaimed at once.

“Well, no, not all of it. Only the beginning. I couldn’t get through that chapter with all the names of your family.”

Maglor considered taking offence but he had to concede that ‘Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalië’ was a bit dense.

“But, unlike you,” Ivárë continued, “I’m perfectly capable of using the internet. All I have to do is type in your names and scroll through a few blog posts to get the idea.”

It was definitely past time Maglor learned how to use a computer. There were just so many other things to learn, and time had passed so incredibly quickly this past yén. He gripped his temples, imagining what his daughter had read about him.

“I don’t suggest you look,” she said. “There’s some pretty, er, strange stuff on there about you both.”

Daeron’s lips were pressed together and he was barely holding back a laugh.

“What is funny?” Maglor shook his hand off. “You have seen this stuff, too? How bad is it?”

“Oh,” Daeron said, “it’s mostly quite harmless. Just people expressing their creativity. Taking some liberties.”

“Well, regardless.” Maglor gestured lamely. “You know, then, why I can’t help.”

With a heavy sigh, Ivárë crossed the room and squeezed herself onto the end of the couch to his other side. Daeron shuffled down. “Atto,” she said, “I’m sorry that it went so wrong before, but why are you convinced it’s because of some ancient curse? Things go wrong sometimes, by chance, it doesn’t mean we should give up on trying.”

“Lirulinda.” Maglor held his right hand towards her. “Do you know how long I’ve had this injury? And you know how I got it, I assume, from the internet.”

“Have you tried to heal it?” She leaned over him to look at Daeron. “Have you, Ada? Tried to heal him?”

Daeron rubbed his palms together and pursed his lips. “Not for a long time. It’s just… it’s difficult, when you keep trying and nothing happens.”

“Ugh!” Ivárë sprung up. “So it’s easier to just ignore it?” She wheeled around and her eyes shot daggers at them both, as terrifying as his cousin Galadriel’s had been when they had turned up shame-faced on the borders of Lothlórien after several millennia of avoiding… everything. Then the fire fizzled out and she transformed again into a petulant teenager. “You two have to be the oldest boomers in the world!”

“The oldest what?” Daeron scrunched his face. “I don’t know what that is but it sounds like a bad thing.”

Ivárë rolled her eyes. “Alright, well if you two have just given up, let me try.”

“Try what?” Maglor asked.

“Try to heal you.”

“Ivárë,” Maglor protested, “it’s been twenty-five thousand years. An Ainu herself taught your Adar healing Songs, I don’t think—”

“Just let me try.” She stood over them, looking again every bit like a queen of the Eldar. “And if it works, will you help?”

Maglor met her eyes and exhaled slowly, slotting his fingers together and kneading at his wrapped palm with a thumb. It smarted under the pressure. The way his daughter held herself so proudly, the stubborn set of her jaw, the gentle sincerity in her gaze made him believe that she might actually be able to do what Daeron couldn’t, what even Elrond could not.

“Alright, Lirulinda.” He held out his hand and glanced at Daeron, who also seemed to have been touched by a spark of hope.

Ivárë crossed back to them and knelt before Maglor, taking his hand in between both of hers. She closed her eyes and began to sing. The song coursed through Maglor’s veins before touching his spirit, winding its way through dark, polluted strands tangled among his gold and blue. He could hear the roar of the ocean and feel the tingle of salt spray on his cheeks. His hand was burning and he struggled not to flinch. Ivárë was singing louder now, her head bowed deeply over him as she swayed slowly back and forth. Panic began to swell as he thought she might exhaust herself in the effort and he started to pull away, but Daeron held him down with a hand on his arm, his eyes fixed on Ivárë.

“It’s okay,” he was saying, “she will be okay.”

Then it was over. Ivárë looked up at him with a sheen of sweat on her face that made her glow.

She smiled, weakly but with an enveloping warmth, before she let his hand go and sat back. “Now take the bandage off.”

Nearly trembling with fear that he’d find nothing changed, Maglor nonetheless unwrapped it slowly and let the dressing drop to the floor. He stared at his palm. Not only did the skin no longer sting when exposed to the air, the scars were gone.

“See?” Ivárë said casually, as if she had not just performed a miracle. “You’re good. Now, goodnight.” She climbed up to her loft. “I’ll talk to Hatidi and brief you in the morning on what you’re going to do for the future of the planet!”

Maglor turned to Daeron in shock, sending his thought towards his husband. ‘How did she…?’

Daeron ran his fingertips over the healed skin, as soft and perfect as if Maglor had been reborn. ‘Maybe you’re finally free.’ A pause before Daeron lifted his head and asked, ‘What have we signed up for?’

‘I don’t know,’ Maglor replied. ‘But I think we’d better refresh ourselves on Songs of Power.’

It turned out that practising Songs of Power was great fun. The sang their toast to golden-brown perfection; they used the shower to create eddies of water in midair (until their water bill arrived for that month, after which they stopped doing that particular trick); Daeron had even had a bit of fun in public, inconspicuously busking on a street corner and watching passers-by chuckle as the memory of a joke appeared in their mind.

They had attended a couple demonstrations with Ivárë and helped the protestors to ease the exhaustion that comes from long hours standing on hot pavement. The people were some of the kindest, most compassionate that Daeron had met in a very long time. They seemed to have learned from the mistakes of past uprisings. But this problem was just so big and they were hitting a wall with the effectiveness of their actions.

He was also happy to reconnect with Hatidi and the other Avari, but when they finally came to him and Maglor with their plans for the climate summit, it seemed a bit much.

“You want us to what?” Daeron lurched forward in his chair in the basement of the abandoned apartment building that Hatidi had led them to.

Hatidi sighed and shook her head, her quiet disappointment nonetheless throbbing through the stark, dank room.

“Come on!” Ivárë said. “You promised to help!”

“And we will, Várië.” Daeron collected himself. “But we cannot just barge into a meeting of world leaders and start singing! How would we even get in?”

“We can.” Ivárë set those blazing eyes on him. “Atar has done that and more.” She gestured to Maglor who was sitting with his arms folded over his knees.

“It’s true,” said Maglor, somewhat uncomfortably. The context for his skill in this was not exactly admirable. “We could, fairly easily. It wouldn’t be entirely honest, but it would get us where we need to be.”

“Why can’t we just sing from outside?” Daeron said with more agitation and desperation than he’d intended.

“It won’t work,” Hatidi replied in her measured and calm way. She was unshakeable, even for such a young Elf. “The Discord runs so deep in these people, we need to be as near to them as possible to draw it out.”

All three of them were staring at Daeron expectantly. His heart was fluttering rapidly and he was struggling to focus. He hated this cowardice that always took hold of him when things got difficult. He believed wholeheartedly in the cause, he knew it was urgent, but now that it came to it, facing the very real risk that they would fail, the possibility that they were wrong, he wanted only to run away into the wilderness with those he loved and ride out whatever may come, selfish but content.

“I won’t do it,” he announced. “I never made a promise,” he added as if that made a difference and didn’t just discredit him even more. He shifted his gaze between them and squeezed his clasped hands between his knees.

Ivárë was seething but silent. She stood sharply, causing her chair legs to clatter against the cement floor and walked out of the room with clenched fists.

Hatidi looked at Daeron, her eyes gentle but resigned, and gave a weak smile. “Well, we can only hope that you’ll change your mind.”

When they’d both left, he and Maglor sat in silence for a while. The few feet between their chairs might as well have been as wide as an ocean.

“I don’t think we can do it without you,” Maglor finally said. “You’re better at this than all of us combined, you know that?”

He wasn’t, though. Daeron’s power had only ever been in beauty and in healing – he wasn’t a fighter.

Maglor was putting his coat on. “That’s what this is about, Lindanya. Beauty. Helping people see that it’s worth saving.”

The delegates and executives politely applauded the young activist. Some even had the audacity to whoop. Ivárë was practically shaking with frustration behind the projection screen. Didn’t they get it? The girl had just ripped into them!

Atar’s hand brushed against hers. She clasped it. ‘There’s still hope, Lirulinda. They are starting to understand. I can feel it.’

She hoped Atar was right. She could only feel the Discord winding itself tighter and tighter around their hearts. The agreement was already written. They had drawn it up behind closed doors. Ivárë had looked into their minds and seen it – it wasn’t enough. Full of compromises, ignoring decades of scientific research in its conclusions. How was a handful of years of sacrificing comfort worth all the coral reefs in the world, entire continents of forests, the homes of millions of people? Hatidi told her that it was difficult to understand for an immortal like her, but surely the humans cared about their children? And what about their descendants for many thousands of years to come? In a way, didn’t humans, too, live forever through them?

Hatidi and the other members of the Avari tribes were crouching behind the last row of benches. She reached out to her friend for encouragement and was met with a cooling touch against her boiling mind. She took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and together they all began the Song. Almost immediately she could feel the Discord swelling in her soul and she squeezed Atar’s hand. These were only the first of them — the hearts most willing to be healed.

The droning, officious speaker at the podium trailed off. Those in attendance started to murmur amongst themselves. Ivárë sensed someone’s grief spilling over. She could see into his mind: the sea rushing over a strand of golden sand, filling the cracks in between buildings, flooding fields of corn and poisoning the roots in an orchard of mango trees. His small but beloved nation was already sinking. Another heart cracked, a woman whose home was far in the north. In her memories Ivárë saw an expanse of sodden tundra, ancient trees unmoored from the earth and slumping towards the ground.

Someone else’s mind was struggling, a vision of the faces of suited men twisted in anger, waving accusing fingers; of a shameful and crushing defeat in the next election. Long line-ups at the grocery store, deserted airports, children bundled in sweaters and scarves in an unheated classroom. Ivárë cast a strain of hope in his direction: the children rose from their seats and ran outside to a winter garden behind the school, harvesting cabbages and turnips from the rich soil. The teacher and parents were there with them, filling wheelbarrows with the bounty. They were laughing and sharing stories and planning the meal they would share later.

A sudden flare of pain snapped Ivárë from her Song. Hatidi! She was hurting! Breaking free from Atar’s hand, she ran from their hiding spot and tore onto the stage. There were police officers – hundreds of them! – pouring in through every entrance of the auditorium, and they had surrounded the Avari and had them in handcuffs. The swarm of black uniforms shot Ivárë’s memories back to the time she had expelled the insects from a tree at the beach. But there were too many of them, they were too strong, this was so much bigger.

Ivárë’s pulse was racing, her eyes roaming everywhere. She gripped her temples, dizzy. It wasn’t working! Atar was behind her now, singing with everything he had. Her own lungs were close to bursting in her chest but she joined him. A few of the officers seemed to pause and waver, a rush of conflicted emotions flashing over their expressions. A couple of them even ran from the building, but it wasn’t enough. They were taking the Avari away. The Discord was swallowing their Songs. She and Atar could never do it alone.

Then, as if the air had been sucked from the auditorium, everyone froze. There was a long moment of complete silence before a soft voice drifted up from… where? Beneath the stage? Were there other Avari hidden there? A rush of images and sounds filled her thoughts: a lush jungle teeming with life; a rushing river swollen with the salmon run; mountain peaks crowned with glittering snow; a flock of seabirds sailing across the sky, the clouds tinted pink and purple by the setting sun behind them; a majestic breaching humpback; people dancing and celebrating among a grove of fruit trees.

There were tears in her eyes as she looked around the room. Many of the delegates and executives and officers were brushing tears from their eyes, also. There was only one voice that could conjure beauty and make tears of joy spring forth that way. Adar. At that moment, he appeared from underneath the stage. He looked ridiculous: his hair a mess, covered in dust, still in his pyjamas. She laughed and ran to throw her arms around him.

But they were not done. The Discord was still looming over them, seeping through the cracks in Adar’s Song. All together, then, they took up their Song. The harmony that had been missing before was there now that Adar had joined them. Ivárë could have sworn that a warm wind swept through the auditorium, carrying the doubt and fear and pain away with it.

Soon everyone there had succumbed to grief and then wonder and joy at the splendour of the vision that the Elves were rousing in their minds.

In the streets afterwards, everyone had danced and sung together. Maglor had been breathless, still in disbelief that they had done it. Several days passed before the new action plan was released. This time they were making a binding pledge to uphold it. No more ceremonial handshakes and empty words – this was a promise. An oath, even, he thought with a shake of his head as he sipped his coffee.

“It’s not over, you know.” Daeron looked at him across the table and took his hands in his. “Even if they did promise, the conviction and hope and love will fade if it’s not renewed. If they — we — are not continually reminded of what we’re fighting for.”

Maglor sighed. “Of course. I know.” He sat back and admired the tall trees that lined the old streets. “Good thing we’ll be around for a long time.”

Chapter End Notes

Thanks to cuarthol for the beta.