Survivors: A Pair of Drabbles by Himring

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Fanwork Notes

Warnings for themes of grief/mourning for both drabbles, in the case of the second drabble also reference to previous sufferings of a child (as implied in canon).

The first drabble was written for the prompt words decay, tunnel, dark, foresight, and the location prompt Mount Dolmed, with some further inspiration from that prompt.

The second drabble was written for the prompt words: keep, swallow, survival, camp, and the location prompt Mount Rerir, with some further inspiration from that prompt.

Both of these drabbles are 100 words in MS Word.

Fanwork Information

Summary:

Written for an Insta-drabbling challenge for Orctober prompts, but not horror (or fluff either): two drabbles about survivors, Maglor and Haleth.

Major Characters: Haleth, Maglor

Major Relationships:

Genre: Fixed-Length Ficlet

Challenges: Orctober

Rating: Teens

Warnings: Check Notes for Warnings

This fanwork belongs to the series

Instadrabbling
Chapters: 2 Word Count: 202
Posted on 15 November 2024 Updated on 15 November 2024

This fanwork is complete.

Same Place, Another Time.

Wandering Maglor returns to Mount Dolmed

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Maglor takes shelter from a storm in a tunnel under Mount Dolmed. The Dwarven mine farther in has fallen into decay. He remembers they were here after the Dagor Nirnaeth Arnoediad. How desperate they were—and yet lacking in foresight how much more might yet be lost, how much farther they had to fall! In the dark, he hears the thundering sound of breakers borne up from the coast below. He closes his eyes and pretends defiantly that what he hears is only the gale in the branches of the forest, that not far off Caranthir’s keep still stands unconquered…

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Aunt and Nephew

Haleth with her nephew Haldan.

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Haleth is still getting used to the fact of her survival. When she and Caranthir have finished barking at each other, as they do, she crosses the camp to find her orphaned nephew. Haldan immediately crawls into her lap, as soon as she sits down, like a much younger child. She shares the honeycomb with him that Caranthir brought with the rest of the supplies from his keep somewhere farther north, a small piece for herself, the larger for him. He needs feeding up, after all that. She finds herself swallowing tears down with the sweetness, although Haldan doesn’t see.

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A very evocative look at the time just after the sinking. How desperate and alone and devastated Maglor must fell at this point. (Actually he's probably been feeling desperate and devastated for a long while, but it's different in company.)

Thank you!

This was written as an insta-drabble, so I did not have much time to think about when exactly it is set. But I vaguely imagined this as not being immediately after the sinking although it is his first return to this particular area. He is still very desperate but I suspect he would not have managed to be defiant quite in this way right after Maedhros's death. (Also, immediately after the sinking, this area may have been quite dangerous to be in, given the changes on the map.)

Although they both receive literal sweetness, the contrast of her nephew's experience of the comfort he receives with her experience with Caranthir is stark.

This atmospheric drabble makes me think of the long life of Elves, and how they must have visited the same places in different times, hit by strong memories like Maglor here. They thought they were desperate on that day, when they had not yet reached the bottom of their despair. Angsty and good. I hope he’ll find shelter in Carathir’s keep.

Thank you very much, elennalore!

Yes, that would be similarly true of Celebrimbor as well, of course, if he ever returned to the Ered Luin!

I am afraid that Maglor won't find shelter in Caranthir's keep, at least not if this piece is in the same timeline as my story "The Sea Comes for Helevorn". I wrote there that "The remains of Caranthir’s house are obliterated, as well as anything else that still endured there."