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I saw this when checking the site this morning and, as soon as I was rid of my students, treated myself to it! :D But I'm going to say what you always say about ficlets: I want more! I would love to see this go on. But don't mind me ... I very much enjoyed it as it is too. :)

"He sniffed at Maedhros ..." This is so intimate and still sweet somehow.

Interesting how, post-Thangorodrim, consideration of the what-might-have-beens are more frightening to Maedhros than what he has already endured. But I can understand how, in the inevitable slide into eventual defeat (which they must surely, on some level, understand is coming), the idea of going back and changing a single choice to undo all they have and will suffer ... and how out-of-reach that must feel. The path to madness indeed.

Thanks, Dawn! You really understood what I was trying to say in the snippet! That is gratifying. Whenever I write something short I am always wondering if I can actually say anything in a few words! I do feel much more comfortable in a longer form.

I think in one of my earlier collections of drabbles and ficlets, I called these kinds of drabbles or ficlets "seeds of stories". Sometimes a seed sprouted a more developed story sooner rather than later. Others took years and some are still frozen in deep soil, but not forgotten! So, I probably will get back to these concepts another day but it might not be soon!

Thanks again so much for reading.

I have a lot of empathy with Fingon and Maedhros--my attitude about my own life choices is kind of a "sorry! not sorry!" Others might think I have made some terrible mistakes but I still, even now, feel like I made the best, most informed, choices I could have at the time.

Thank you so much, Oshun! How unexpected--and how very kind of you!

I like that ending with Maedhros straightening out the bed so much! The very best kind of antidote to scary nightmares and what-ifs!

Although I make them suffer more, I guess my version of Maedhros might agree that those kinds of dreams are the path to madness...

Dedicated to you because I was inspired when I ran across an older story you wrote for me on AO3 ("Bindweed") and one of the commenters on it on AO3 said, "I'm curious to see someone writing a fic in which Maedhros never took that oath." I thought about it and wondered if I could write such a "What if?"/AU. I decided it would be difficult but not impossible for me to read one and enjoy it, but virtually impossible to write it. This was my articulated failure.