Instadrabbling Sessions for April, May, and June
The first Saturday of each month, we will be hosting instadrabbling on our Discord server.
Maeglin writes to Idril.
Sketches inspired by the 2025 Birthday Bash challenge prompts!
In the wake of his ravishing by Morgoth, Mairon, who was Arien, falls.
Five tents, he counts. Two dead guards. The fire within him burns so white, he wonders if it will leave anything of himself behind. Wonders if he can bring himself to care. Wonders, too, if this is what his father had felt like when he found the innards of their grandfather’s head spilt over his well-wrought front steps.
If so, perhaps Maedhros finally understands.
Maglor is taken. Maedhros handles it as well as can be expected, which is not at all.
They speak as if they have not been sending messengers to keep each other informed of what was necessary. As if this—war, strategy, cold facts—is not all they have exchanged ever since Maedhros had removed them East.
He wonders if Maglor has forgiven him yet—for giving away the crown, for not asking him first, for coming back someone other than himself. He wonders if he has forgiven Maglor yet—for leaving him to Morgoth, for looking at him returned only with horror and guilt. For not forgiving him yet.
They have not spoken in twenty years. Maedhros doubts that this is the kind of reuniting that their uncle had in mind.
He used to be able to read his brother better than his own mind. He used to think that he would do anything, would bear anything, to have him back.
Maglor’s worst crime to date, he thinks, is that in this, too, he has proven himself a liar.
Maedhros abdicates the throne. Maglor copes, more or less (it's definitely less).
Celebrimbor smiles into the dark, and wonders if this is what Nelyafinwë meant when he spoke of the satisfaction of resistance, no matter its price.
Sauron does not kill him in Eregion. This is his first mistake.
After an attempt on the High King's life, Celebrimbor realizes his priorities.
Netyalindë was walking home slowly, after the Valar announced the horror that had taken place in Alqualondë, promising it would be the last time such a deed is seen in their lands.
Her eyes had gotten used to the darkness around her she thought. Or perhaps it was that she knew those streets like the back of her hand-stitched pocket that currently held in secret the brooch that Fëanáro had made for her for her wedding to his second-born son.
In the wake of the fall of Eregion in the Second Age, the loremaster Pengolodh comes to the newly-founded refuge of Rivendell. Although Elrond has never seen eye to eye with the reserved loremaster, can they work through the pain of their pasts and come to a common understanding?
Tears unnumbered ye shall shed; Finarfin needs no doom, no treasonous brothers, no Middle-earth to believe it true.
The House of Arafinwë before, during, and after its Exile. A history told in an assortment of loosely connected drabbles.
After the attack on the Havens of Sirion, a figure from Maedhros' past comes face-to-face with him one last time.
These are the first fanfics I ever read, and they are all truly fabulous and absolutely timeless and 100% recommended!
And he would not fool either of them, clearly, claiming that it did not settle something within him that has been in uproar ever since they set foot on Beleriand’s shores.
“Go on,” Maedhros says, his voice gentle now. “Will you not do this for me, Káno?”
Maglor knows what Maedhros is doing, allowing him to pretend. And yet—
And yet. Maglor would not deny him anything, not any longer. He cannot.
Maglor struggles to give up control. Maedhros makes sure that he learns.
“Do you think,” Aredhel starts, her tone idle as she wraps the last strip of fabric around his shoulder and ties it tight, “that killing your husband weighs lighter or heavier than slaying your kin?”
Celegorm freezes, his throat going dry. She does not move away, her dark eyes unforgiving upon him.
“That depends,” he finally says, catching her wrist before she can snatch her hand away. “Did you love him?”
Aredhel had visited Himlad. Celegorm decides to find out why.
This is a history that has never been told. Those whom it concerns most deeply are dead now, even those who chose or otherwise received the lifespans of Elves. It is a story that has been kept hidden for more than six thousand years. Now, I believe it is past time it should be revealed.
There is shame in it, scathing-hot and heavy. If Makalaurë is honest, that only makes it more of a delight.
Everything in Tirion is holy perfection, white-pure and immaculate. This is just the latest desire of breaking something open, of getting to watch how it bleeds over untainted marble.
Maitimo has been avoiding him. Makalaurë deduces why.
Second Age 3261: Sauron prepares to respond to Ar-Pharazon’s heralds. Maglor doesn’t know how he fits into Sauron's plans.
A young Orc on a spirit quest walks through the memories of her people.
Arvedui is gone, and Firiel reflects.
"Would it help,” Maedhros starts, his tone pensive and his fingers pressing more firmly against Maglor’s jaw. “Would it help if I did not forgive you as easily? If I punished you for what you did not, could not do?”
It takes a moment for Maglor to understand, Maedhros pushing images into his mind—of rope and chains and bruised skin, of pain and pleasure mingling without release.
It makes him shiver, the thrill quickly followed by shame hot enough that he wants to flinch from it.
Maglor is unable to let go of his guilt. Maedhros gets inventive about it.
Maglor had expected it to give him an edge. He had not expected to level the battlefield and the forest, everything but Maedhros who remains, untouched and staring at Maglor as if he has been awoken from a long and terrible sleep.
Even their horses are gone. Maglor’s throat feels as if he has swallowed glass.
The first time they are attacked after Maedhros' rescue, Maglor handles it very well.
His gaze, inevitably, is drawn back to Finrod, the marred beauty of him. It has not been Curufin who ruined him so—had not been Curufin who had dragged him out of Nargothrond and into the wolf’s den, who had let Finrod protect him with his life. And yet.
And yet it feels oddly fitting, that such a ruined thing should be Curufin’s.
Through careful manoeuvring and a few lucky coincidences, Curufin saves Finrod's life without having to admit to anything so humiliating as having emotions. Contrary to what one would expect, this does not make things all that much easier.
Alternatively: Curufin lies, Finrod lives, and somehow they do still manage to figure it out, for better or for worse.
Maglor comes alive beneath it all the same; is not proud of the noise that makes it out of his throat and cannot bring himself to care, not even a little. He pushes closer, greedy suddenly, so greedy.
They used to do this often, in a time long past; back when the Trees still washed Aman in hallowed light, when their family had been its own world, without running brothers and mad fathers. Back when there were not yet cousins and mountains of guilt between them.
After Maglor loses the Gap, Maedhros offers comfort in the only way he still knows to.