A Long Time Falling by Himring

This is a devastingly moving account.

I created an account here primarily to review this remarkable piece. After discovering and reading it a couple weeks ago, I've come back and reread it several times since, and I keep trying to leave a review, but proper words do not come. I'm usually too busy trying not to cry.

I suppose that's a good place to start, though - the ending, especially that very, very last part just...  aaaugh. Every. Time.  Understand that - aside from when I'm extremely angry and/or frustrated (whereupon I always burst into tears, which is annoying) - I can count on one hand the number of things of the written word, movies and songs together that have ever brought me to tears. It takes something very special to do that - and to do it multiple times, no less!  And every time I read this piece, if nothing else, my eyes have not remained dry reading the last two sections of the last chapter.

That's another thing - every time I reread this, I discover something new - some detail I missed in previous rereadings, and every detail adds to this horrible tragedy, which you have so wonderfully captured. Maedhros' descent into madness is awful to behold, and I ache for him terribly - it's almost a relief, in a way, when he dies, because you know that maybe - as Maglor suggests - he is finally home. He can stop hurting for everyone who's died - and maybe he can be with their family and with Fingon, once more. Maybe he can finally have peace.

And Maglor, too, just hurts to think of... you can feel his heart-wrenching sorrow over what happened all the way through, and the way you write his relationship with Maedhros... This is really a story about Maedhros, and yet you can glean so much of the story of Maglor through the way he talks about things - what he chooses to tell and how he tells it.

I really like the way in which this is told, too - in fragments that aren't necessarily in chronological order. It's not the easiest read, but I think it's more effective this way and seems more... how Maglor might recall things, I think - how he might string together scenes by association more than by the chronology. And that's part of what makes rereading it over and over so worthwhile - each time, I get a better sense of the whole. And I could go through and pick out all the little details I really like and say why, except that then this review would go on forever, I think.

It's just... this story has moved me in many ways, I adore the way everything within it is depicted, and I'm not sure I've done it justice in my review, but I thought - instead of silently rereading it again - maybe I ought to try to put what it spoke to me into words.

Thank you for writing and for posting this work of art.

I loved this, Himring. I'm just home from work, and my brain is not fully functional at the moment, but I wanted you to know that I read it and how much I enjoyed it.

Himring- I have said you are the master. There is such tragedy in Maedhros' story and you show him unravelling through Maglor's loving eyes- the pathos, the tenderness and love underlines that terrible oath, the dreadful loss that they all endured but perhaps these two more than anyone in the whole of Tolkien's world. You write it so beautifully- every moment. The gradual reduction of images, of feeling, of narrative so it becomes merely dispogue as if that is all they can cope with- no longer even thinking, just planning to fulfil that damned oath. And the snippets of insight into Fingon and Maedhros- emphaisisng how little time they had together. I cant tell you how deeply this makes me feel, how terribly sad it has made me...

and the final scene just underlines it all beautifully. You konw you made me cry but the sense of tragic loss and waste goes so much deeper.

Golly this one is sad. Maedhros and Maglor are both such a mess, even if it's less obvious in Maglor's case than in Maedhros.

This is the very best of its kind- you are Queen of Maedhros fics!!

I've read this several times but never actually commented before, but now I'm sitting here in the dark rereading it on mobile and crying a little bit, so I think it' sa out time I told you how wonderful this is.