A Song for Change by polutropos

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Chapter 2

“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. 

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