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the-elusive-soleil · 2 months

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let future historians wonder

For @maedhrosmaglorweek Day 4: Heroism/Villainy Prompt: With Elrond and Elros

Maglor is, at least by reputation, the greatest poet and bard of the Noldor, and the son of one of his people’s greatest linguists. His wordsmithing should be second to none. And yet he finds that he has no words for the softness, the peace, on Maedhros’ face when he is with the peredhil twins.

His elder brother forged himself into a blade after his captivity, and Maglor did not see anything resembling vulnerability from him since, good or bad. It had stung, at first, to be kept at a distance from the one he had once accounted himself closest to, but after a while he had convinced himself that there was no distance, after all. That this was simply who Maedhros was now, and there was no well of stronger emotion being hidden from Maglor or from the world at large.

But now he watches as Maedhros runs a brush through Elrond’s hair, then carefully instructs Elros in how to weave the braids that he can no longer manage himself, and thinks that perhaps this was only sleeping, not dead or gone. He would be angry at himself for not trying harder, not managing to thaw Maedhros out himself, but he rather suspects that this, like so many turns of their fortunes of late, is something that could only have happened in the strange bend that the world seems to make for these two children and their happiness.

Elrond spots him hovering in the doorway, and smiles and beckons. “Atya! Come sit with us!”

Maglor does, taking up a spot beside and just behind Elros to braid his hair. He keeps it shorter than Elrond’s lately, so Maglor suspects he’ll soon run out and end up playing with Maedhros’ hair instead.

He won’t put this into the songs and tales that he makes of this age, he thinks to himself--the soft hair between his fingers, Maedhros’ shoulder warm where it brushes his and the rasp of his voice with Elrond’s melodic answer. Let future historians wonder about the time that the twins spent with the feared Fëanorian kinslayers. They don’t have a right to these moments, to the love woven through them, to Maedhros’ shell cracking open.

These moments can be just for them.

#silmarillion #maglor #maedhros #elrond #elros #kidnap fam #maedhrosmaglorweek #some soft times again

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mynameisjessejk · 2 months

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Not A Hero

There were sails on the horizon.

Maedhros stared out to sea for a moment longer, the salt breeze keeping the smoke from his nose. It was quiet behind him. That was good thing, but it sat like lead in his stomach. In a moment, he would have to turn back, but he took one moment to look at the sea, the sunset, and the sails.

“Lord Maedhros,” Iorthomes said.

Maedhros nodded once to the ocean, and turned back.

Sirion burned, but the fires wouldn’t spread. When they were gone, the survivors would return, and the aid from Balar would find them. It was time to go.

“The pyres are finished,” Iorthomes said. “And the troops are marshaling on the east road.”

“Maglor?” Maedhros asked.

Iorthomes inclined her head.

Maedhros followed her gaze to his brother—now his only brother—already mounted up in Sirion’s main square. There was a child before him on Crabanil's withers. A second clung to his waist from behind.

Maglor set his jaw, chin lifting.

A thousand things passed between them in a glance, something deeper and more terrible than Osanwe, born of exposure, proximity, and love over long years of joy and pain. Maedhros let his brother see his snarl, but nodded once, sharply, and turned for his destrier.

“It’s all right,” Maglor murmured to the children.

Ahorse, Maedhros turned back to the three of them, and saw two small faces peering at him. Twins. The orc stabbing him had hurt less. To his brother, he snapped, “When you tell them you saved them, will you tell them what you saved them from?” Then he heeled his mount and headed for the east road.

Behind him, Maglor told the children, “It’s all right. He’s angry right now, but with me, not with you. And with Morgoth most of all, so probably he’ll find some orcs to hunt on the way home and feel better for it.”

Iorthomes said, “There’s no one alive who’s killed more monsters and fell creatures than Lord Maedhros.”

“Really?” one of the twins asked.

Maedhros’ teeth ground together, and he wheeled his horse to block his brother’s path. “Don’t paint me a hero, Kano,” he snarled in Quenya.

The twins both squeaked.

Maglor snorted. “No,” he agreed in the same tongue. “We’re both of us the villains in their story,” he acknowledged, nodding at the children he was still cradling gently. “But they’ve no one else, so if they deserve better, we shall just have to do the best we can.”

“What language is that?” one of them asked.

“It’s rude to talk about people when they can’t understand,” the other said.

Maglor’s mouth didn’t move, but he very clearly wanted to smile very badly.

Maedhros stared at the mouthy one hard for a moment. The child flinched, but didn’t look away. Maedhros let his smile crack his face. He knew the scar on his mouth, from the retreat from Himring, made the expression more ominous than friendly. “You’re right,” he said mildly in Sindarin. “But I wasn’t talking about you.”

“He was yelling at me about my poor life decisions,” Maglor agreed. “He does that sometimes.”

“Are you going to yell at us?” the mouthy one asked Maedhros.

Maedhros cocked an eyebrow, considering. “Probably,” he said, and then turned his horse to resume the march. “Not the least if you’re noisy in orc-territory, and get us caught by a raiding band.”

“Are we in orc territory?” the quieter one asked softly.

“Not yet,” Iorthomes said kindly. “You’ll know.”

“He’s a soft touch really,” Maglor said. “You’ll see.”

Secure in the knowledge his back was to them, Maedhros rolled his eyes skyward in despair. Despite himself, something about the younglings made his spirits lift a little.

#jessewrites #maedhrosmaglorweek #Maedhros #Maglor #gen #Elrond #Elros #tolkien #fanfic #day 4: Heroes and Villains

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fadedfrost · 2 months

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War of Wrath / weight of the decision to steal the Silmarils for @maedhrosmaglorweek, quote/concept suggestion from @mynameisjessejk

#fadedfrostmoodboards #tolkien #silm edit #silmarillion #maedhros #maglor #maedhrosmaglorweek

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searchingforserendipity25 · 2 months

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Trials By Fire (After).

Maglor afire post-Bragollach, for @maedhrosmaglorweek. Also on AO3.

Part 2 of this installment, with no need to read it first.

It does not seem possible that Maglor may survive the year.

So Maedhros wrote to the king - his new king, Fingon, along with his vows of fealty and the full promise to avenge Fingolfin, written and sealed in his own blood.

Maglor nearly followed his half-uncle. His flesh burned with a terrible fever. The whites of his eyes were fully red with smoke; he kept weeping, not with grief, but the poisonous grit that had become the fertile plains of the East.

He had refused to wash the last of the ash that had been his land; and barely permitted the healers to attend to him. He nearly went back to the Gap - would have gone without warning, if Maedhros had allowed it.

"Let go, release me," Maglor demanded.

Maedhros stood before him, between the landing and the gate. He had risen with a cold clarity of premonition, the sudden certainty - One whom you love is to die.

His voice broke and broke, until blood shone on his teeth. The power in it was a monstruous thing, filling the tall, tall stone halls of Himring.

He had been out of the healer's room and nearly down the staircases, enough beastly might in the ugly scrap of his throat to make ruthless warriors turn into peons, opening doors and gates for his passed.

Maedhros wielded in his hand his sheathed sword, the one he slept with like a lover beside him.

Release me, Maglor ordered with the fury of his mind, all his spirit warring against Maedhros; outraged, and betrayed truly to be held hostage.

Maedhros expelled his followers from the room - an effort of will, his dominion fighting against his brother's, and their own awareness flickering at the corner of his mind with animal terror.

And then he raised his blade from its sheath, without hesitation.

Maglor's best weapon had even been his voice - he had meant to make his way back to the Gap unaccompanied, none of his riders were about him.

He had ridden into safety for them, the lives bound to die with him if he had stood fast; he fled, now, as a thief in the night, dying of his wounds, alone, so that they might outlast him.

Maglor in his clear mind would not do such a thing. Maglor, Maglor as himself, took loyalty too solemnly; he would have given them the choice to follow him to the last, if he had been thinking clearly, and not wild with anguish. That was when Maedhros knew for certain what he must do.

Maedhros had his warriors close all the doors and all the windows, and leave them to their reckoning.

Maglor's face looked at him, repelled more than afraid at finding himself trapped. The worst of it was the bubbling foam at the corners of his mouth as he laughed, incredulous. Maedhros, he called. Nelyo, so you too are my enemy?

How could you allow this - how could you permit it! The East was yours to keep - look at what your keeping has made of us, O Lord of Himring!

Maedhros ignored his insults, his threats, his bragging and begging. He loved him too well not to press him back, back, back, down staircases and corridors.

Maedhros had to lift him up - bearing against his teeth and clawing fingers, pressing him down on the cold springs at the secret base of Himring's thermal baths. Maglor only went limp at last when Maedhros dunked and dipped and half-drowned him back to sense, when at last the terrible blood-fever in his receded.

It took many days, for that. A fortnight and more; and the harm of that time never lifted from him, and left its deep marks.

And years of silence. The healers did what they could, sang the open sore that was his mouth whole; it broke apart, again, again.

He coughed blood at night, stained scraps of cloth scarlet - Maedhros remembered the sail-cloths of Alqualondë, red on white, whenever he saw him wiping his mouth.

White scars engraved his cheek, from the broken length of his spread as it broke in many parts a gnashing dragon's teeth; and he did not speak for years.

Maedhros knew too well this despair, and loved him too much. He kept his closed away, at first. A high tower, the highest, with not even an arrow-slit to escape from.

Maglor's voice, closed like a fist in his throat; Maglor's face terrible and worse than terrible, the flaring of him as he paced the battlements, when he was permitted to walk, under Maedhros's own guard.

He sought always to see if someone was riding towards Himring, or away from it. Few of his riders had survived the great conflagration; few survived their flight. They went off into the wilds to ride against bands of orcs, or the rumours of Balrods or wyrms, as King Fingolfin had.

They meant to die, as King Fingolfin had.

Maedhros took to sharing his brother's cot, arms holding close his trembling limbs, lest he rise again in the dark before dawn and make for the stables, the scorched plains, the long homeward path back to what remained of the Gap.

Maglor wished it. Maglor wanted it with such a burning desire it left Maedhros breathless, painted the mirage of leaping dragon-fire behind his lids.

He went quiet and cold, that winter, once the fire left his veins - too cold, coals turning to cinders. He shook with chills, until he was wan and exhausted, and then longer still, and made no sound, gave up on the making of sounds.

He looked at Maedhros with a face empty, one eye blind - but it was the loss of his voice that defeated him. That, and Maedhros's unrelenting determination to make him live.

Let me go, release me, he had howled, until he could not any longer. His voice overlaid itself over memories of Angband, when Maedhros slept. The chains of Thangorodrim, and Maglor riding barely in front of a wave of fire, Maglor behind the thick steel-and-stone of Himring's highest tower, sweating through his fever and his fury.

The look on his face, when Maedhros raised him up from the water. At times he woke with the bones of his arms reverberating with the force of pressing him down, certain as he woke that he had done it - drowned him dead. He had to turn and check, make certain he was not in bed with a corpse bloated blue and black.

It did not seem possible that Maglor may survive the year. Maedhros was a mad fool set on accomplishing the impossible - in this one instance, at least, he earned a bitter victory.

Fingon, he suspected, envied it terribly - his dearest person, saved from the aftermath of Morgoth's flames. Maglor, Maedhros knew for certain, did not forgive him. He had not wished to live.

("Let me go," he had screamed, with the last of his beautiful voice wrecked to disharmony. "Do you not know it was always meant to end in this? Let me at the flames, Nelyo, it is my land, mine, no good shall follow if I do not die in it. I know this, if you bear me in your heart with any love at all you must release me -"

He kept fighting for the words, even when he could not speak, choking on them. Maedhros dreamed of that, too).

"Not this year yet," he cautioned, when at last he judged his brother well enough to be able to leave the tower, and give him the freedom to pay his due respect to the king. "Call your standards, your vassals and all the forces at their disposal, and all shall answer in full faith. But wait only one year more; the time is not yet come."

Maglor's voice should be fully his own again, by then. The healers agreed; and Maedhros knew it.

He dueled in the grounds, and fought anyone who dared to try him. His body, forged anew from a terrible crucible, healed its shattered ribs, its splintered femur, the cracks in his skull, the fine, fine fractures in his long fingers. He trained as the healers dictated, drank the bitter tinctures, ate well, worked a sweat of pain for hours as he strengthened his body again, and readied himself for the harp again with plucking loose strings.

Even Maedhros lost against him when they crossed blades, not once, but time and time again. It was a sight of beauty and dread, watching the two lords of the fortress spar.

Down on the training grounds, hands and knees in the dirt, looking up at his brother standing taller than him, for once - taller, fiercer, the whites of his eyes alight - Maedhros was very aware of the picture they painted, and the road he meant to take to keep that fire kindled.

For Maedhros had been brought to life himself with his brother's insistence, by the shores of Mithrim, knew to be patient. Ruthless, and patient, for the times when their blades crossed, and Maglor's face shone with a new passion, a flare of mirth.

It made no difference that Maglor grew dire, afterwards, and evaded all company, and would not look at him. Maedhros might lose the duel, but those brief smiles were his prize, and those he stole more and more often.

Maglor was nearly whole. Kept court once more with his own warriors, and kept some from their fateful rides, and blessed the ones who took their leave in honour.

Slowly, with his customary discipline, he learned his voice-box anew; carefully, inevitably. The face he turned always eastwards looked at Maedhros without resentment, now.

When he won, Maglor held out his hand to help him rise. Maedhros started to wait, to hope almost.

And when at last, at last, Maglor pressed close in his arms, weeping trails of salt against his neck, that was when Maedhros knew it was time to go to war; for together had never been as strong, or more certain to succeed.

#maglor #maedhros #maedhrosmaglorweek #silm fic #my fics #tolkien fanfiction #sons of feanor #feanorians

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leucisticpuffin · 2 months

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@maedhrosmaglorweek, Day 3: Himring and the Gap

Maglor rides west.

#maedhrosmaglorweek #maglor #himring #maglor's gap #landscape art #silmarillion art #silm art #tolkien art

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meadowlarkx · 2 months

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Maglor's Gap for @maedhrosmaglorweek day 3 🌾

#maglor #silmarillion #maedhrosmaglorweek #maglor's gap #makalaure #my art #this is my header <3--that's how long since i did the background and i've been too scared to color him in :')#as always photos are a problem but i got natural light today at least to help #also you can zoom in on it... if you want

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thelordofgifs · 2 months

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Congrats on the milestone! How about Maglor or Maedhros and jewellery, from the worldbuilding prompt list?

Digging up this old prompt for @maedhrosmaglorweek day 3! Have both of them.

"You will jingle as you walk," says Maedhros, "they will hear you coming for miles."

Maglor laughs, and tosses his head so that the dangling silver earrings chime. "A poor minstrel I will make, if my jewellery plays more music than I! No, Nelyo, these will not do." He removes them carefully, and lays them aside in the growing pile of precious metal heaped upon the side-table.

Maedhros, sitting cross-legged on the stone floor of his chambers in Himring, watches him with a faint little frown. "You must choose something," he says; "you cannot go to the feast dressed as plainly as a Vanya monk."

"My songbird's voice is adornment enough," Maglor says blithely, "and anyhow I did not come here to pick out my own gems. We must make some progress on deciding what to bring as gifts."

From the chest Maedhros draws out a long string of pearls, meant to be draped three times around the neck for the full effect. A souvenir from a summer Maglor spent in Alqualondë, long before the light of the Trees went out, or indeed before their father took it into his mind to preserve it. Maglor chose the pearls himself, going up and down a hundred beachside stalls to pick out those most perfectly round and white, and had Finrod his cousin teach him how to string them on a thread of silk before presenting them to Maedhros. How lovely they had looked set against his brother's fair skin; they had seemed almost to glow.

"These – these stones," Maedhros says, hesitant, "we could gift them to the envoys of the Sindar, perhaps."

Maglor swallows. "They are pearls, Nelyo," he says, keeping his voice light. Maedhros blinks at him, and he explains, "They come from the sea, from oysters. We used to get them from the Teleri." He pauses, and then, when Maedhros still looks bewildered, adds, "I do not think it good politics to gift them to the kin of those we slaughtered, whether or not they know of it."

Maedhros' face darkens. "You are right – Nolofinwë's host will murmur to see them, besides." He gives the pearls another troubled look and then sets them aside.

No use, Maglor has learned, in dwelling on these missing spaces in his brother's memory. They frustrate Maedhros enough as it is: and it is nothing personal, Maglor knows, that he has forgotten the pearls were a gift from Maglor. Their Enemy has taken from Maedhros things far more precious than the recollection of a trinket. It does not sting, that Maedhros does not remember.

Maedhros has turned his attention back to the chest before him. These are all his personal jewels, salvaged from their father's house in Tirion in the brief hours they had to pack before setting out on their ill-fated march. In the years of his captivity Maglor would indulge himself, sometimes, and open the chest, and admire the treasure within as though he were yet a fanciful child trying on his brother's baubles; and he would tell himself that he would hear Maedhros' laughing voice at the door any moment now, saying, Are you going through my things again, little magpie?

Maedhros does not much like to wear jewellery, these days. He says that it chafes against his skin, and on darker days that it puts him in mind of chains; occasionally he will consent to Maglor pinning back his hair with a bejewelled clip, or to an unobtrusive pair of earrings, but all his fine gold necklaces and ornate jewel-encrusted bracelets are useless now.

"Too few gemstones," he says now with a frown; "they were more marvellous than the metalwork, and would be better received."

Maglor thinks with some regret of a fine set of rubies his father had made him for his two hundredth begetting-day. Like all the house of Fëanor's best jewels, they were locked in the vault at Formenos, and stolen by Morgoth when he ransacked it.

"I know not how things are done in Doriath," he says, "but in any case the Mithrim Sindar are not over-fond of jewels, much like their Falmari kin. I do not think we need worry that our gifts will seem poor to them; in truth they will know not what to do with them. They wear flowers in their hair oftener than gems."

"It may be different in Doriath," Maedhros argues. "Findaráto says of Menegroth that the very walls are studded with jewels. Perhaps a gift of our own best would go some way towards earning Elwë's favour."

Maglor frowns. "Think you he will come himself, then?"

"Perhaps," says Maedhros, "but even if he does not we must not seem to be ungenerous. Many of those in Nolofinwë's host will be searching for any excuse to name us so." He passes his hand over his eyes, looking tired. Maglor only arrived yesterday, but he has his suspicions about how long his brother had gone without sleep before that. "We must choose presents for them too—"

"You gave Nolofinwë a crown," says Maglor; "surely he will be sated with that!"

The jest makes Maedhros laugh, as it would not coming from any of their other brothers, edged as it would be with resentment or mockery. Maglor is awfully, selfishly glad of that.

"Come here," says Maedhros, "you are distracting me. Help me choose what to give our own kin, at least."

Maglor settles on the floor beside him. "This for Findaráto," he says, picking out a necklace of sapphires that Maedhros never much liked in the first place, "it will go well with his eyes."

Maedhros favours him with a smile. "Well chosen," he says. Then he finds a very fine emerald, set into the front of a copper circlet but easily prised free, and examines it thoughtfully. This, Maglor remembers, is a relic of their father's first experiments with the art of capturing light; it does not shine with a light of its own as do the Silmarils, but catches and magnifies all the daylight coming through the window in a most pleasing manner, reflecting them back in every shade of green imaginable. Maedhros sets it aside, and when Maglor casts him a questioning look blushes and says only, "For Finno."

The next piece Maedhros draws out of the chest is a golden bangle, from Fëanor's filigree phase: the metal worked into the shapes of trees and flowers and leaping horses, studded all over with tiny gems in a multitude of colours. Their father was in a good mood, when he made this, Maglor recalls. The precision of the work appealed to him. Perhaps it was that more than the loveliness of the finished product that made Maedhros fond of it.

"You always liked this one," says Maedhros, his eyes warm now with recollection. "The number of times it turned up on your dressing-table, after I had spent hours searching for it! Here." And he slips the bangle onto Maglor's wrist.

Maglor tenses, forces himself to relax, and takes it off again. "I do not want it," he says, "thank you, Nelyo."

Maedhros blinks at him. "I cannot wear it," he says, "not a bangle, it will be – too tight." He shudders briefly and then masters himself. "You might as well take it, and then someone can have use of it."

You do not want him back, Celegorm spat once; all your mourning is performance only. You are quite content to sit here wearing his crown and playing dress-up with his jewels, in truth.

"I do not want it," Maglor says again.

"Káno," Maedhros says, very gently. He tilts Maglor's chin up to examine his face. "What troubles you?"

But how can Maglor tell him, I am not now the child you knew in Valinor, the little magpie who so loved to be adorned? How can he say, I too was sated with a crown? He cannot unburden himself to Maedhros, who so depends on him to be merry and bright and unruffled. He has lost the right to do so.

"It will get in the way," he says, "when I play my harp." Then he summons up a smile and says, cheerfully, "Five cousins yet to choose gifts for, and then you promised you would let me practice my new Sindarin songs after we dine! We had better hurry." And he turns back to the chest before Maedhros can object.

#asks #silmarillion #my fic #maedhros #maglor #echo-bleu #maedhrosmaglorweek #maglor is fine he's fine he's SO FINE ok

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