#edhellos

[silmarillaure]

List of uncharacterized Silmarillion background blorbos I love because ✨headcanons✨ just because.

Argon - I think about him & Fingolfin so much it's ridiculous. It's just something about how he shares his name with his father, does it mean he's similar to Fingolfin the way Curufin is to Feanor? If so was he also riddled with insecurities of being unable to live up to his father? Did he idolize his father to begin with? Was he his father's favorite?

Eldalote/Edhellos - I have a soft spot for Angrod so by extension I think about his wife a lot (her granddaughter Finduilas is also my blorbo). Also it seems like she’s Noldo and you don’t see many Noldor marry into Fingolfin & Finarfin’s sides of the family as opposed to Vanyar, Teleri/Sindar, or Edain, so she kind of stands out. Her name is also one of the few originally Quenya names that sound better in Sindarin.

Tindomiel - Also her brothers but mainly her. In my head Elros’s children were the last generation in his side of the family to get the choice. I headcanon she was single & chose immortality while her brothers chose to pass on with their mortal families. They were kind of the reverse Elladan, Elrohir, & Arwen, speaking of who, she lived with before sailing to Valinor. Arwen liked that she sort of had a "twin" of her own with how similar she & Tindomiel looked. (I also think Vardamir is a whole vibe, his name is beautiful and he’s a nerd.)

Ingwion - I wonder if he’s around Feanor’s age. If not, well too bad because in my head he is! I see him & Feanor as childhood friends who's relationship was ruined by Finwe, Indis, & The Valar just like almost everything else in Feanor's life is.

Ecthelion - Not that much of a background character but still background enough. I just think he's really neat & little Earendil crying over him is so heartbreaking & touching. His last moments were iconic! My jaw dropped when he killed Gothmog who was able to take the lives of Feanor & Fingon who were both famously skilled and literal Noldorin Kings!

[elronds-library]

Shall I Teach Thee?

by Elves_Behaving_Badly

The grandchildren of Finwë seem to get up to an awful lot, even especially with one another.

Explicit, No Archive Warnings

Words: 44,546

[art-of-firefly]

Preview - The spouses and lovers of Finarfin's children

I'll post one every Saturday, starting with Finrod's betrothed, Amarië

House of Finwë

[silmkinkmeme]

Day 25 - Anthology of female friendship

Prompt: There are many examples of wonderful male friendship in the Silm but fewer female (there are fewer ladies in general, but we're not getting into that). I'd love to read more of it.

The way I see it, the fic can be a few short stories about friendship between different women of the Silm. For example: Anaire and Earwen and/or Nerdanel, Aredhel and Galadirel, Indis and Nerdanel, Indis and one or both of her daughters-in-law, Galadriel and Melian, Galadriel and Luthien, Morwen and Rian, Andreth and Beril, Andreth and Edhellos, etc. You can even deviate from canon and have two ladies who have never canonically interacted become friends.

Of course this is just an idea. It doesn't really have to be an anthology. You can choose one pair of friends and focus on them.

If you decide to write about different women, romantic/sexual relationships or QPR between some of the ladies are fine (your choice who but not everyone please). QPR are more than welcome even. But if you write just one story, please focus on friendship.

Additional tags: Friendship

Ao3 link | dreamwidth link

This prompt has a fill:

true companions by Anonymous

[polutrope]

Number 23 (Going from a hot tub/sauna into snow/cold water), Galadriel and Celeborn (romantic or pre-romance, up to you)

For the modern AU holiday prompts! Here you are, Anon: ~1100 words of Galadriel meeting a cute boy at her 19th birthday party. (I received this same prompt for another couple, so there will be a part 2 of this with more actual snow jumping😉). Warnings for several f-bombs, some other swear words, and a millennial writing Gen Z. Sorry, besties.

Knotting her plush white robe loosely around her waist, Galadriel led the parade of her girlfriends onto the flagstones of Nevrast Nordic Spa.

Her friends chattered behind her.

“Yo, this place fucks.”

“For real.”

“Ahhh! Gal, it’s snowing!”

“Ugh, this is so boujee. I can’t believe I’m here.”

“Hey, sis,” Galadriel whirled on the last speaker. “No bad vibes, remember?” The other girls laughed. “Yeah, my rules, cause it’s my b-day, bitches!” She threw her arms out in a V-shape and struck a pose.

Edhellos lifted the phone dangling from her hand by a gold finger-loop and snapped a photo. “Ahh queen! You look so cute!” she said, looking at it, and hurried over to Galadriel to show her. Then she gestured to the others. “Come on, come on, babes, let’s get one of all of us.”

All four of Galadriel’s best friends huddled around her while Edhellos held her phone out as far as possible for a selfie.

“Okay, okay,” Galadriel said, and they all hushed. “So the way it works is you go hot, then cold, then relax. Hot pool or sauna, then cold pool or cold shower, then chill for fifteen minutes. And we're supposed to be quiet.”

They all nodded, except Nellas, who was a little removed from the group with her arms crossed over her chest. “I think I’ll just sit and read.”

“Oh come on, Nelly!” Edhellos whined. Evranin shushed her.

“No, it’s fine, Nel,” said Galadriel, and smiled. “Join us whenever.”

*

“I can’t believe we’re all nineteen now,” Lindis said a loud whisper as they lounged in the largest of the hot pools. “We’re so old.”

“Oh, please, spare me. You have no idea what old is,” said Evranin, who was all of twenty-one.

“Hey, I’m still eighteen for two weeks!” Edhellos protested. This time, Lindis shushed her.

Galadriel examined her pruny fingertips. “I don’t know. I’m kind of excited to get older. Maybe my dumbass family will stop treating me like a baby.”

At the mention of her family, Edhellos’ eyes lit up. “Oh hey, how’s Angrod?”

“Oh my god, Los,” said Lindis, “stop thirsting for her brothers!”

“Brother,” Edhellos corrected.

“I dunno.” Galadriel shrugged. “Maybe just ask him out already.”

Edhellos sputtered. The other girls giggled.

“I think Finrod is hotter,” Evranin said casually.

“He is way too old for you!”

“Isn’t he gay?”

“What? No! Galadriel said he had a girlfriend in Valin, remember?”

“The one he dumped?”

“No, she dumped him.”

While her friends debated the relative attractiveness and past relationships of her older brothers, Galadriel sank lower, rolling her shoulder blades back and forth over a water jet. She hummed contentedly and let her eyes fall shut. She’d been all nerves the last month with final exams and papers, but she was finally able to relax.

Just that morning her grades had come in: four A+ and one A (at least she was well above class average the last one). She’d also been taken off the waitlist for a seat in The Paranormal Mind. Thank fuck.

Everyone at Ondolindë University wanted to take that course, but Galadriel needed it if she was going to have any chance of doing her honours thesis with Melian Goel. Evranin, who was President of the Psychology Student Association, said that that Dr. Goel was planning to retire soon and might not be taking new students. Oh pleasepleaseplease, Galadriel thought, please take me.

She exhaled slowly and intentionally released the tension building in her neck. This wasn’t the time for worrying.

Then her eyes flew open and she bolted upright as a surge of water splashed over her.

“What the fuck!” she shouted, swiping the backs of her hands over her eyes.

“Celeborn, you dumb shit!” a male voice cried from behind her before breaking up into laughter.

“Oh god, I’m so sorry.” The person who’d narrowly missed tumbling on top of her rose from the water with an expression of sheer terror. “I’m so, so sorry. Are you okay? Oh god, I’m sorry. I slipped, we were racing from the…" Catching the look on Galadriel's face, his nose crinkled sweetly. "I guess that’s a pretty dumb excuse, huh?"

“Yeah, it is.” Galadriel smirked and bit her lip. He was her type: tall, slender but well-toned, and a little timid. Which was far preferable to the blustering arrogance that most guys her age — no, scratch that: all ages — liked to use to hide their emotional incompetence.

“That’s a sick tattoo,” she said, gesturing with her chin to the elegant tree climbing its way up one bicep.

“Oh, really?” he said. “Thanks. It’s a beech. There are a lot of them where I grew up, and— never mind, doesn’t matter. Thanks. Hey, by the way," he held out a hand, “my name’s Celeborn.”

“Galadriel.” His handshake was firm, but not too firm. Long fingers, too. A little spark of excitement shot down her arm as she pulled back. “So, you were racing—?”

She was cut off by a whoop from his friend still standing on the flagstones behind them, which prompted Galadriel’s friends, who’d huddled by the small waterfall at the opposite end of the pool, to finally take notice of the interaction.

As Celeborn’s friends — the first now joined by two more — slid into the pool, Galadriel’s group drifted over like a train of ducklings lured by breadcrumbs.

“Hey, I’m Galathil,” the loud one said, “and this is Mablung, and Beleg. Celeborn here is my little brother.”

Galathil attempted to ruffle Celeborn's silver-blond hair, but it clung wetly to his head.

“Hi,” Galadriel waved coolly, then dragged her eyes from Celeborn to the empty space beside her, beckoning him to sit before someone else did.

He picked up on the cue, seating himself at a respectable distance; but to his right, Edhellos slyly shuffled over so that he too was forced to scoot closer to Galadriel.

“Yeah,” he said, in answer to her interrupted question. “We thought it would be fun to, you know, go from the sauna into the snow,” he pointed to the snow banks around the spa area, “and then from the snow to the hot tub.”

“Oh really?” Galadriel’s eyebrows shot up, and Celeborn looked sheepish. “You know you’re supposed to ‘relax’ in between the cold and going back to the hot?”

Several of Galadriel’s friends giggled.

“Huh?” said Celeborn.

“You’re supposed to go hot, cold, then relax for fifteen minutes.”

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Galadriel smiled and smacked his arm lightly. “But the snow thing sounds fun.”

His face split into a dashingly handsome smile that dimpled his cheeks. “Yeah,” he said. “It is.”

“Hey fam,” she called to her friends. “Wanna jump in the snow?”

“What!” shrieked Lindis.

“Hell no,” said Evranin.

“Ahh so fun, yes please!” Edhellos squealed, and levered herself out of the hot tub. “I’ve always wanted to do that.”

“Lit,” said Galathil to no one in particular, and followed her.

“Come on,” Galadriel said to Celeborn as the others squirmed and scurried out of the pool in various states of enthusiasm. “I’ll hold your hand so you don’t slip this time.”

[hhimring]

Eldalote, snippet

@finweanladiesweek, for Ladies Who Married In

A snippet on Edhellos or Eldalote after Angrod's death (not, I think, posted publicly before).

In Himring 'verse, she escapes and chooses to become the guardian of Barad Nimras, the watchtower on the coast.

Edhellos stands on the top of the white tower of Barad Nimras, looking out to Sea. It is her task to scan the coast and the horizon northwards in case Morgoth attempts an invasion by that route. They have gradually begun to suspect, during the time since the tower was built, that no attack will come that way, that Ulmo will continue to bar the way over the waves. However, that is no reason for Edhellos to relax her watch. Morgoth has surprised them before—and death and devastation followed. As far as it is in her, he will not be allowed to catch them out again. This is a task she has taken on by choice, pleased to find that she was relieving others from an irksome duty who are more usefully employed elsewhere.

Unlike her husband, lost to her in the destruction of Dorthonion, Edhellos does not have much of an early affinity with the sea. She has no Telerin heritage. Kinder memories of visits to in-laws in Alqualonde are overshadowed by later events: the long, weary, lightless trek along the coast of Araman, the terror and grief of Alqualonde behind, the terror of the Helcaraxe ahead, constantly conscious of the wrath of Uinen on the seaward side, like moisture and salt on her skin. Others might take comfort from the view westward, towards Aman beyond the horizon, but to her it mainly underlines how unreachable the past is.

Looking out, keeping watch—it is these tasks that have become somehow almost reassuring and familiar. Strictly speaking, Nargothrond might, in fact, have been safer but it did not feel so to her—more like the maw of a giant beast whose jaws might one day, unexpectedly, close. Of course, she would never have said so to her brother-in-law Finrod.

She also has some skill in handling the naltalma apparatus that is installed on top of the tower and that can be used to send light signals to Brithombar and Eglarest.

[tanoraqui]

Curufinwë Spite Gifts, and Other Welcomes

The extended experience of being welcomed (more or less) to the House of Fëanor…once they belatedly find out about your secret threeway marriage.

404 FA – 0.

Celechwes was choosing tiny sandwiches from the eastern buffet table when Edhellos caught her by the elbow. Edhellos bent her blond head as though eyeing Celechwes’s sandwich choices and whispered in her ear, “Is it true that you’re already pregnant?”

“Wha?” said Celechwes. She hastily swallowed the cucumber-and-cheese sandwich in her mouth and said, “How did you hear that? That’d be so fast—”

“Thought so,” Edhellos said with satisfaction.

She tugged Celechwes to the side, away from the buffet table crowd (resurging as the sun set and dinner plates came out). As they walked, she murmured, “As far as I know, Maedhros told Amras, who told Fingolfin, who told Lalwen, who told Finrod. Now Finrod is telling…”

“Everyone,” Celechwes finished, rolling her eyes. Though she wasn’t actually annoyed at Finrod’s incurable gossip habit—it was impossible to be annoyed at anything today, with the elation of her new union and the new life budding within her own. And as long as he didn’t—

She added quickly, though not too quickly, “Fingon must’ve told Maedhros—”

“Of course.” Edhellos rolled her own eyes, with the fond resignation that characterized much of the Fingolfinian–Arfinian faction’s view of Fingon’s ceaselessly loyal friendship with Maedhros Fëanorion.

Celechwes silently doubled down on her determination to make these people work together. She leaned unconsciously into her new marriage bond, and Fingon and Maedhros’s bright spirits both leapt to hold her.

[keep reading on AO3]

[silmarillaure]

Doing the deed IS marriage to the elves so they were definitely married even if on a whim, but I can see the vision of Angrod & Edhellos being scandalously young parents and Finarfin & Earwen offering to take care of Orodreth.

I would love to read a fic about Orodreth finding out he’s his brother’s secret baby though, that would be fun. I imagine Edhellos doting on Orodreth a lot & him being confused to why his “sister in law” is so attached to him.

headcanons to add more unnecessary drama to the house of finwe, #1/??:

Angrod and Eldalote were neither married nor of age when Orodreth was conceived. To avoid a scandal, Finarfin and Earwen hushed the whole thing up and claimed him as their fifth child. He doesn't find out about this until the Darkening.

[silmarillion-stats-polls]

The height order of Finwë’s house

listed below. There is unfortunately no visual representation (you draw thirty distinct people all in a line).

Argon

Turgon

Maedhros

Celegorm

Fingolfin

Caranthir

Finwë and Finarfin 

Angrod

Celebrimbor

Aegnor

Indis and Galadriel

Findis

Orodreth

Finrod

Anaire

Amrod

Idril

Feanor

Amras

Curufin

Aredhel

Celeborn

Maeglin

Eärwen

Fingon

Maglor

Edhellos

Elenwë

Lalwen

Eöl

Nerdanel

Celebrían

Míriel

[dalliansss]

Egg&finrod!!

"It feels like there's a hole in my heart because I never got to say goodbye."

Never Got to Say Goodbye starters

Re-embodiment has always been a tricky thing. The songs say, the loremasters say -- that the Elf who Returns is expected to pick up where he might have left off, that they resume their old life without further trouble and incident, that continuity settles normally in place. But the singers who first song about Re-embodiment, and the loremasters who wrote about Returning have never died themselves, and so in the end, what do they know of the great (or small) lapse of time in between lives, in between existence, spent disembodied in the Halls of the Awaiting?

There is no picking up exactly where one left-off. There is no pain-free Return, nor Re-embodiment.

And this isn't even taking into account a Return, which is a thoroughly different thing from Re-embodiment, where an Elf is reborn and lives an entirely new life, before the old life catches up, presumably when the new hröa is strong enough to handle the melding of all the memories prior into the memories incumbent.

It sounds easy in the perspective of an outsider. One who has never had to suffer the terror or pain, or both, of a demise, both timely and not.

==

Aegnor, Egg, has Re-embodied somewhere by the Sixth Age of Arda Marred. He'd had to deal with it all: the sickening debility of years, in his case, because his hröa had been destroyed by flames during the Bragollach, and he had long drifted in Mandos, seeking out Finrod, whom he never found in the fathomless halls. Angrod had Re-embodied ahead, and so did Edhellos, Orodreth and Finduilas, but Aegnor lingered overlong, looking for his older brother. He'd found everyone he had ever known, even Fëanor and Finwë, but never Finrod.

And then he got kicked out of Mandos, because his time of healing was done, and Námo's maiar will not let a fëa linger overlong. So Aegnor was Re-embodied, and though his new hröa was that of an adult elf, he had to go through infantile weakness all over again: unable to walk, feed himself, the world too noisy and full of sensation, as if he had never had a physical existence before. Like Angrod, it took him eight years to recover -- a mere blink to an Elf, but still a considerable length of time for someone who had not been a squalling infant for a very, very, very long time.

Like all who Returned and Re-embodied, he waited. In restlessness, in uncertainty. He'd found, in his own way, that he could not just seamlessly reintegrate into his old life at Tirion-upon-Túna and at Alqualondë. Like Findekáno, he too left Tirion when the expectant gazes of his father and mother got too much to bear, coupled with th expectations of the Amanyar who never went anywhere at all, and attributed his 'eccentricities' and restlessness to an incomplete healing in Mandos.

So, Aegnor left. And like those who Returned before him, he too, found a place for himself in the city called Entulessë, where all of the strangers from the other side of Belegaer found a place for themselves.

And in Entulessë, Aegnor waited, and waited, and waited -- through the Ages, until Dagor Dagorath took place, and Arda Marred made way for Arda Healed, and Melkor was freed from the burden of the Great Task, and resumed his place among the Valar.

==

Aegnor had been drinking with his cousins Ereinion Gil-galad and Curufinwë Telperinquar when the Maia of Námo arrived, looking for him. He dropped his goblet of wine, and he knew what the maia came for even without the Ainu saying what it was.

Finrod, who refused to Re-embody for the entire lifetime of Arda Marred, was to return soon.

==

Aegnor only saw the tapestries as they unfolded on the endless walls of Mandos. Of how his brother tried to come to his and Angrod's rescue during the Bragollach, and failing, and spiralling down into grief, losing control of Nargothrond, which rendered it ripe for the taking by Curufin and Celegorm. He saw how the subjects of Nargothrond rose up against Finrod, kicking him out, as if his brother hadn't given them all a chance for peace in Beleriand, however short. As if Finrod didn't lead them to a new height of glory and splendor during the Long Peace.

And he saw on the walls of Mandos how the Quest for the Silmaril unfolded; he saw Finrod's legendary contest of Song against Gorthaur, and how, in the end, Finrod wrestled with the werewolf, only for Gorthaur to refuse to let his fëa go into Mandos when his hröa perished, and sank claws into him instead.

And he saw how Finrod irrevocably fell into the Dark.

==

Yet Aegnor took care of his incapacitated brother. Covered him in enchanted cloaks, fed him, bathed him, as Finrod's spirit slowly got used to being housed in a body again. There is no room for judgment, only care and help. Like how Finrod plucked him from his parents' callous upbringing, so he too plucked Finrod from the dregs of discomfort of his Re-embodiment, tirelessly caring for him, nourishing him, teaching him again how to walk, how to hold a quill, how to write.

Where Aegnor took eight years, FInrod took two decades before he could stand on his own, and be a resemblance of how he had been -- golden radiant beauty -- before Sauron took him into the shadows.

==

And the most difficult part of a Return or Re-embodiment, is, of course, the painful conversations that can only be delayed, but never avoided.

==

"I feel like there's a hole in my heart because I never got to say goodbye," says Finrod.

It is nighttime, and they are sitting by the roofdeck of Aegnor's three-floor townhouse in the heart of Entulessë. Beyond them, this hodge-podge city that answers to nobody but its citizens, is lit in the myriad colors of the spectrum. Somewhere down Market Street there's a night market still sprawling with people. Entulessë is a city that. never sleeps.

Egg lowers the bottle from which he had been drinking. "For what it's worth," he says. "Me and Anga fought viciously until the end."

There is a ghost of a smile on Finrod's lips. Under the golden night lights of Entulessë, Egg imagines he can still see a glint of red among those summer blue irises of his brother.

"And I know you too, fought with all your strength, hanno, but just Gorthaur---. Gorthaur was a lot stronger. He's a maia, and you are only Elda."

"Mairon. His name is Mairon."

Egg grits his teeth and lowers his gaze. Even now, an entirely new world in place, Finrod refuses to call that maia his true, deserved names. He insists on calling him Mairon, Mairon, Mairon. An blot upon Finrod's soul that not even the Vala Námo could heal. Sauron's claw marks. Indelible. Forever there. Forever marring his perfect brother.

And all the wrongs will never be forgot.

Egg thinks of the justice system now in place in Aman. Will it reach for his beloved brother, now that he's back?

@skaelds

Context: [Blood in the Mouth]

[ceescedasticity]

fic: not titled yet but it's another absence of evidence thing, part 1 out of probably 3?

At Narvi's usual greeting question at their monthly meetings — "And what are you working on today, my friend?" — Celebrimbor made a face.

"Something that does not agree with me at all," he said. "I have been writing."

"But you draw runes so beautifully!" Narvi replied, mock-shocked.

"Very funny." Celebrimbor slumped back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. "It has occurred to me that if I am going to put my grandfather's star on my city, I should make sure our history has a better account of his descendants than Loremaster Pengolodh has thus far written. Perhaps my father and uncles do not deserve it, but my cousins and my sister do."

Narvi blinked. "I… did not know you had a sister?"

"It seems most people do not. You would think they would deduce I had a mother, but for some reason people seem surprised when I mention her, too. Never mind— Actually, would you mind reading some of my drafts?"

"Not at all."

"I mean to show the finished work to Lady Galadriel, but not… this." Celebrimbor opened a desk drawer — one of the ones with a puzzle-lock — and drew out a sheaf of messy papers. "Here, here's what I have for my mother and sister—"

Curufin wed the jeweler Maltarainë Maltataniel Maltraen Maltheniel Maltwegiel.

"I forgot for a moment that that grandfather did live long enough to take a Sindarin name… We did see him occasionally in Beleriand, but he fell out with Atya — I think Atya made some insensitive remarks about my maternal uncles — and went to follow my uncle Caranthir instead, so we were not close."

Narvi raised his eyebrows. "If I recall the history correctly, the Lord of Thargelion was, ah, not particularly known for sensitivity himself…"

"No. I can only assume my maternal uncles never came up in Caranthir's presence."

As one might expect of the woman Curufin wed, she was a skilled artisan and entirely loyal to Fëanor, as were all her nearest family. Maltraen carried the feud where Nerdanel was unwilling to, among the noblewomen of Tirion. She was as disrespectful to Indis and Anairë as she could get away with, and actively pursued rivalries with Edhellos and Elenwë. Even when there was friendship between Curufin and Angrod, Maltraen and Edhellos remained at odds, though some said there was a kinship buried under the rivalry. And when distance grew between Fëanor and Nerdanel, Maltraen turned against Nerdanel as well.

The paragraph had been written out and struck through twice. "I gather you're not sure about this part?"

"It seems… sordid, I suppose. Like something that would be included to make people think worse of her. It's just so… foundational to how I remember Amil that I don't want to cut it out completely." Celebrimbor sighed. "I don't think Atya even knew how she got about Grandmother in Formenos. She never did it in hearing of him or my uncles — or my grandfather. That would have gone over poorly. Grandfather didn't always speak well of Grandmother, either, but he was the only one permitted to do that."

Narvi would have liked to attribute all this to elvish dysfunctionality, but it strict honesty there were dwarven houses nearly as bad. (Nearly.) Instead of trying to unpack any of it, he asked, "Were Angrod and Edhellos married? I'm not recalling those names."

"What? Oh, yes. Angrod was one of Lady Galadriel's brothers — not Felagund, she had two others — and Edhellos was his wife. They were also Gil-galad's grandparents." Celebrimbor reached for a pen. "I'll at least put in the rivalry with Edhellos. And I should mention Indis and Anairë."

Maltraen carried the feud where Nerdanel was unwilling to, among the noblewomen of Tirion. Her rivalry with Edhellos wife of Angrod was a regular fixture of Finwe's court. Even when there was friendship between Curufin and Angrod, Maltraen and Edhellos remained at odds, though some said there was a kinship buried under the rivalry. Nor was Maltraen a friend to Indis or to the wives of the house of Fingolfin.

"How's that?"

"Easier to understand," Narvi agreed. "Only the wives?"

"She wasn't trying to pick fights with Lady Galadriel or Aredhel Ar-Feiniel, no."

Curufin and Maltraen had a son Celebrimbor; much has already been written of him and he dwells yet in Middle-earth. But they also had a daughter, Heledhwen. She was the delight of everyone in Formenos.

"Not a position I envied her."

All who knew Maltraen wife of Curufin would have predicted she would be among the first to follow Fëanor on his quest, but she was not. Like many of Fëanor's followers, Maltraen was in Formenos when Morgoth came; like all others in Formenos save Finwë himself, she fled from Morgoth's approach. After Morgoth left with the Silmarils, those who had fled dispersed in various ways. Some went to inform Fëanor; some went to seek help; some set up temporary camp. Maltraen was one of those who ventured into the holdfast to see what had happened there. They confirmed Finwë's death and the ransacking of the treasury.

"Where were you, if you don't mind my asking?"

"Not at all. I was wasting everyone's time trying to convince my uncle Amras that I was old enough to be part of the perimeter they were setting up."

"How old were you?"

"Old enough, but Amras was the baby of the family and took being older than me very seriously, so he would never admit that. Hence it being a waste of time."

While more messengers went forth, Maltraen remained inside Formenos, to tend to Finwë's body. She was aided by others, some of whom had dealt with bodies before in Cuiviénen or in the aftermath of accidents, but she was there the entire time until Fëanor returned, in near-darkness, in the wreckage.

"I'm not sure I'm… conveying properly, the bravery it took to do that, under those circumstances. The Darkening— Well, I'm not the only one who struggles with that."

Fëanor arrived and screamed wailed howled keened already in the deepest grief and the heights of rage. All heard his cries, but his words He spoke It has not been reported what he said then, to his sons or his law-daughter or the Valar to anyone else.

"…Another difficult paragraph here?"

"Everyone knows he was — very, very affected. I don't want to go on about it unnecessarily, but it was significant… I'm not sure I should use that exact wording, either, because I'm not certain it was never reported. I haven't seen any record of it and no one would report it to me. There were arguments among my uncles over whether he had meant whatever it is that he said, but no one ever told me what that was."

…Ominous.

What is known is that when the Noldor were regrouping in Tirion, Maltraen was overcome with horror: of Morgoth, of the Darkness, and of Fëanor. She could not bring herself to go nearer to any of them.

Celebrimbor's eyes were haunted. "What I was most struck by even then was that my father did not try to argue with or reproach her. I think he knew that if something had happened sufficient to rattle her faith, there would be no mending it with words. Her brothers tried. It went badly."

"These would be the same brothers who your father made insensitive remarks about later?"

"Oh yes."

Maltraen proposed that Heledhwen should remain with her. Curufin might have agreed, save that he felt that darkened, near-abandoned Tirion under the dubious protection of the Valar was surely no safer than the heart of the Noldorin host.

"She didn't ask about you?" Narvi asked. "I suppose being older, and a man…"

"I think she would have wanted me to stay if I had been as young as my sister. As it is… I do not believe anyone ever questioned whether I would go, not even I."

So Curufin brought both his children as the host marched, and after the fighting died down they were called forward to ride through the charnel-house made of Alqualondë's piers to the bloodied swan-ships. Celebrimbor bade Heledhwen close her eyes, but she saw enough to be frightened.

"This leaves out the part where my uncles Amras and Amrod continued to treat me like a child, so I sat with Heledhwen outside the city the whole night instead of finding out whether I had it in me to slay kin."

Narvi didn't think there was anything to say to that, so he patted Celebrimbor's hand and read on.

Maltraen's brothers Maltaparmo and Maltayondo were slain by the defenders of Alqualondë, and their father Maltweg was very wroth.

"The brothers, I see."

"Maltatan was angry about them dying, angry that neither they nor Atya had gotten Amil to leave Tirion, and very angry that Atya said they were asses who'd had one job and botched it."

"What did they do?"

"I never had the nerve to ask."

[elronds-library]

Threads

by Adlanth (@slightnettles)

A ficlet on foresight & Finduilas.

General, No Archive Warnings

Words: 1,012

[art-of-firefly]

Eldalótë, the beautiful teleri lady.

Angrod's love and maybe Orodreth's mother (she is in my heart)

House of Finwë

[gwaedhannen]

🦜 and 🦉 ?

🦜 a pretty quote (you like the prose, or symbolism, or it's poetic, or you just like how it feels/the word choice!)

From the Edhellos and perpetually-unnamed mother chapter of Shall we look at the moon, my little loon?:

If Nienna, who knows the despair of every failed quest that shall ever be undertaken, holds her a little tighter, the girl does not notice. She slips back into dreamless sleep. The halls are as quiet as needed.

🦉 a clever quote (something you're proud of!)

From Can't stop the rain, can't stop the snow / Almost at home:

Many years later, a lost and lonely daughter of war will find bone-dust dunes with rust at the roots hiding the jewels of old, the Noldor’s second gift atop their first.

[polutrope]

Various Beleria residents: Beren Escarra, Edhellos, Andreth, Celeborn, Mablung, Beleg