A Song for Change by polutropos

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Chapter 1

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“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.