#eldritch numenoreans

[raointean]

Day 4 - High-men

“What do you suppose the catch is?” Valandil asked, looking out over the western coast of Númenor.

“What?” Ontamo was caught off guard. “Why should there be a catch?”

Valandil scoffed incredulously. “You cannot honestly believe that we are simply meant to sail around the island and camp for a night on the beach. That’s too easy!”

Ontamo rolled his eyes at his friend’s dramatics. “We are practicing going ashore without a dock, setting up a military standard camp, and taking watches. All skills we shall need on deployment.” Almost as an afterthought, he muttered, “Not everything has to be a challenge.”

Valandil shot him an annoyed glance, but got back to work. 

As they neared the shore, the sail master appeared behind them. “Cadets.”

Valandil and Ontamo straightened and saluted instantly, startled. “Sailmaster!” they chorused.

The sail master did not look particularly impressed, but neither did he correct them. “I have an additional task for the both of you tonight.” Valandil held his breath and he could sense Ontamo doing the same beside him. Additional tasks were usually assigned as discipline, but occasionally, the sail master would give out extra responsibilities as opportunities to prove oneself.

“Your friend, Cadet Isildur, I want you to watch him tonight.”

Valandil and Ontamo shared a glance. “Watch him, Sailmaster?” Valandil asked.

“Yes.” The sail master towered over them and they tried not to be intimidated. “I fear he will do something particularly foolish tonight. Prevent him.”

“Yes sir!” That was… a fair request, Valandil thought. As talented a sailor as Isildur was, he was not known for his common sense. The west side of Númenor was sparsely populated, rural at best. Who knew what sort of trouble would await the man who acted first and thought later?

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“Isildur…” Isildur shook his head in a vain attempt to rid himself of the voice. She was always louder the further west he went. Luckily, his regiment had no women, so all he had to do was ignore any female voices and pretend he wasn’t going mad. Or that the ghosts weren’t driving him mad.

“Isildur.” She plagued him all throughout evening drills, Her voice rang through his ears as he laid out his bedroll. No matter how hard he tried to block Her out, Her voice was there, beckoning.

“Isildur!” Isildur tossed and turned late into the night, oblivious to his friends’ worried glances. He couldn’t possibly sleep with someone shouting in his ear, but he could hardly tell someone about Her without his madness becoming known. He just had to wait until they sailed back east. He had to leave before…

“ISILDUR!” Her voice rang from the mountains like a fallen temple bell and Isildur could take it no longer. Like a man possessed, he leapt from his bedroll and took off towards the mountains, quick as an arrow from a longbow.

Valandil, who had been resting nearby, followed hot on his heels, pausing only to kick Ontamo to wakefulness. He didn’t even stop to salute the sail master as he tore past, just called over his shoulder, “I’m in pursuit!”

Isildur dashed up the slope and crashed through the underbrush, heedless of the scratches he was surely collecting. Up and up and up they climbed, Valandil always just a few steps behind his friend.

Just as Valandil thought his legs would give out from under him, they reached a clearing on top of one of the smaller hills and Isildur skidded to a stop. “Isildur?” Valandil tried. “Isildur, we need to get back to camp.”

Isildur didn’t respond. Instead, he entered the clearing as if in a trance and walked towards the shrine in its center. The shrine was clearly ancient; a cracked, moss-grown pillar with a statue of a woman on top. It was surrounded by deep blue, faintly glowing flowers.

“Isildur, this place is creepy. We are going. Come on.” Valandil made to grab him by the wrist, meaning to drag him back to camp, but was crashed into from behind by Ontamo. They fell to the ground in a heap and, before Valandil could stop him, Isildur reached out and took the statue-woman by the hand.

The very air seemed to freeze in its place. All of the night animals ceased their noise. All save the nightingales. Dozens of the birds gathered and began to swarm the clearing, screaming, clicking, and warbling.

Valandil recovered first, rushing into the swarm with Ontamo close behind. The birds repelled them at first, pecking their faces and clawing their hair, but they dispersed soon enough. There, at the center, Isildur lay crumpled at the foot of the statue, unharmed save for the blood streaming from his nose.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Isildur woke to a pounding headache the next morning back on the ship. Her warning still rang through his mind. “It is too late to turn back. They are going to destroy your people and you with them if you do not go soon. Flee to Middle Earth, you and all those who are still Faithful. Go!”

He pondered on Her warning. Its meaning was obvious: the Faithful needed to flee before it was too late. The rest was not so clear. Who were “they”? Why had She chosen to warn him of all people?

He sat up in his hammock and immediately regretted it as his head started spinning. “Good morning, Singollo,” came Valandil’s tired voice from the hammock next to his.

“What’s the time?” Isildur grunted, ignoring the jab.

“I do not know, nor do I particularly care. The sailmaster sent me down here to rest since I didn’t get much sleep last night. Too busy chasing you through the jungle.” He slung his arm over his face dramatically. “He wants to speak to you, by the way. About what happened last night.”

“About what happened la- oh no…” The details were fuzzy in Isildur’s mind, save Her warning, but he did remember leaving the camp without the leave of the sail master. He flipped out of his hammock, landing semi-gracefully on the floor. “I don’t care what kind of flowers they use in my funeral, just make sure they are blue?”

Valandil huffed a laugh, ignoring Isildur’s struggle to get his boots on. As he dashed out of the room, he paused in the doorway. “I really am sorry about last night. I do not know what came over me, but I am sorry for leading you on a wild goose chase.”

“It is not the end of the world,” Valandil sighed. “Although I may use it as an anecdote in your eulogy if you do not hurry up and get to the Sailmaster. He will have your head if you are late on top of everything else.”

Isildur’s eyes widened comically and he all but ran from the room.

—--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Isildur knocked on the door of the captain’s quarters, willing his hands not to shake. He entered as soon as he was bid and stood at attention. “Sailmaster, I am deeply sorry for what happened last night. I do not know what came ov-”

“Peace, cadet,” the sail master interrupted him. “You are not in any trouble. Temporary madness is not an uncommon reaction to the West for the descendants of Elros.”

Isildur blinked. “It is not?”

The sail master shook his head. “No, although I admit yours was a stronger reaction than I’ve seen. The entire point of this exercise is to identify cadets such as yourself. Studying family trees is not always useful, as some of the Tar-Minyatur’s line are entirely unaffected and there have been many affected cadets who were not… related to him on paper, if you take my meaning.”

Isildur nodded. “I understand, Sailmaster. But, what is to be done about…this?”

“The solution is simple. You will only ever be deployed on the east side of the island, never the west. Now go,” he waved his hand dismissively. “Back to your post, cadet. You have slept long enough.”

Isildur saluted, a bubble of relief bursting in his chest. “Yes, Sailmaster. Thank you, Sailmaster.”

[rarepairnation]

elrond and elros and earendil [hamilton voice] and faramir! i must know about this!!!!!

oh man a concept that puts my brain cells in a claw machine… (@sweetshire asked about this one too so ria this is 4 u as well<3) i knew i was gonna be building to this scene the whole time from the moment faramir crossed the borders of rivendell and i hope i executed it well. i locked onto eldritch numenoreans as a concept so intensely and it’s just so important to me that not only are they obviously strange but they LOOK weird as fuck. like no that isn’t quite an elf but they’re DEFINITELY not some normal guy. so faramir sees elrond for the first time and he sees elros, preserved through time. and elrond sees faramir and he sees elros in his face and it breaks his fucking heart! :). and also faramir has dreamt of numenor all his life right. and elros was the first king of numenor...who followed the light of gil-estel the north star to find his promised land...and who carries that star...earendil his father.......YOU KNOW??? it makes me feel crazy. like that is a literal real connection that they all have.

the air seems to shimmer about him as he turns, the light radiating from his very skin, star-like even in the bright sunlight. faramir raises his head, prepares to meet the lord with all the reverence he knows. and then he sees his face, and all his breath leaves him in an instant. he knows this face. has known it all his life, as close to his as any kin. its carven gaze stares down from a hundred statues in minas tirith, and chief of them all the face of the steward, as it had been in faramir’s youth, now so distant of a memory. dark-haired, grey-eyed, noble and kind and true. the echo of a choice made thousands of years ago. elros tar-minyatur brought to life. “my lord elrond,” he says, through a mouth dry as the desert. drops to a knee, overcome. ever since he had stepped past the borders of this land he has walked through his most beloved legends, and yet his mind now cannot believe what he sees. here now is the scion of gil-estel, the one son of that star who will endure past the breaking of the world. and faramir is only the most distant of relations but in this moment he is as númenórean as he has ever been. time and space and the changing of the world separate him from the sons of eärendil, yet all this time he has followed in the footsteps of his greatest forebear, seeking starwards.

this is also very like…dont worry professor tolkien i saw that everyone you think is hot looks exactly like your wife. dont worry i ALSO think they’re hot. u can rest now.gif.

“we remember the first king of númenor, in gondor,” says faramir softly. “there are fewer, now, who know the old tales. but elros tar-minyatur will be last to be forgotten, ere the white city fall and the world end.” a gentle smile blooms across the lord elrond’s face. he does not weep, but in the lines of his face lies a sorrow so large and ancient that faramir can hardly conceive of it. “i do you no more honour than you deserve. i did not think to look to the stewards of gondor, to steward my brother’s memory. now i see that i have long been mistaken. the memory of númenor yet lives on in the men of the south.” “my lord,” is all faramir can think to say. he had not thought he would find so many reminders of home, so far from it, in this land where there truly are none like him. or so he had believed. he will never know tar-minyatur and yet something of that lord of legend lives on in him. when he looks far enough into the grey horizon, into times and futures that have not yet come to pass, there is a part of him that looks through those ancient eyes. the first king of númenor lives on in the streets of gondor, in the quiet of the standing silence, in the tales of the West passed first from his father to himself, and then from him to his men, weaving stories late into the night in the glow of the fire. yet of his brother he knows little, and he is nothing like he had imagined. he had expected distant, remote lordship, not untouchable like a statue but untouchable like a star. gil-estel, after all, shines cold and bright each night over ithilien. to be the immortal scion of the north star - it is a burden that could freeze any heart. yet in the scant time they have stood here, around the lord elrond’s feet, flowers have begun to grow.

its also like an Elrond Learning Moment. the blood of numenor is spent situation at the council in the book versus what i, PERSONALLY, know about the blood of numenor being alive and fucking well is always soooo....elrond i Love You but that was a pretty crazy thing to say. and now here he is realizing and acknowledging and reevaluating his biases. yeah this is my i am fixing something about canon moment. i just think elrond and faramir should Understand Each Other.

[anghraine]

kei-yuki replied to this post:

Do you think this can be related with his reaction to Aragorn / Thorongil?

Oh, for sure. Denethor was never going to, uh, appreciate Aragorn's plans to displace him, but I think it might be all the more bitter because Aragorn would be the first person he's ever met who is really like him or could get what it's like, but the circumstances make him a threat and Ecthelion's preference makes him more of one.

I mean, of course Aragorn is even "stranger" than the Stewards but... His "royalty", his charisma, the fact that he was rised by Elves... I don't know but perhaps he learned to navigate all these weird Numenorean gifts in a right way when others can only learn by trial an error.

I don't 100% agree that Aragorn is stranger than they are as a rule. He has a capacity for an even more remote strangeness—on the level of a Valinorean Noldo iirc—but he can also pass himself off as a normal guy in a way I don't think they can. Even when he's not concealing his identity, he tends to blend in with the norms of the people around him, and he doesn't generally use his most 'eldritch' abilities or his force of will as obtrusively as Denethor and Faramir do, except in very critical situations.

Denethor and Faramir are neither as strange as Aragorn can be nor as normal as Aragorn can be—just about any time they show up, we discover some new weird thing about them or they say something that's just kind of bizarre. They can exercise their wills to do especially remarkable things, or they can dial it down to their sort of baseline, but they don't seem to have the off switch that Aragorn does.

But I think that actually fits really well with the idea that they and especially Denethor have had to figure out a lot on their own. Aragorn was raised and educated by the immortal twin of the person responsible for all of their abilities. Elrond knew what was coming and I'm sure prepared Aragorn as well as anyone could have. Then Aragorn spent years as a Ranger and hunter, he lived among lots of different people under different identities, he had to be able to come across as a normal (if tall!) guy. So it makes a lot of sense to me that he would have both more capacity to conceal his abilities and his basic strangeness, and more inclination to do so.

(I think it's also possible that Aragorn's abilities overlap heavily with Denethor's but are not quite identical. Denethor, of course, can't heal, and whatever Aragorn's mental powers, he didn't manage to conceal his true identity from Denethor. So maybe that's also at play in how thoroughly unimpressed Denethor is by Thorongil.)

[ao3feed-tolkien]

Races of Rings of Power Week

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/7QPJVxC

by Raointean

Day 1: Dwarves-Disa investigates rumors of singing voices deep in the mountain. Day 2: Elves-The sun comes up for the first time, taking Arondir and his family by surprise. Day 4: High Men-Isildur leads his friends on a wild goose chase and receives a warning from Melian. Day 6: Maia-Elrond faces off against Durin's Bane. Day 7: Free Day (Peredhil)-An elderly peredhel gets lost in Ost-in-Edhil and meets someone he did not expect to.

Words: 955, Chapters: 1/5, Language: English

Fandoms: The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power (TV 2022) RPF, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen

Characters: Disa (The Rings of Power), Durin IV (Tolkien), Daniel (OFC), Arondir (The Rings of Power), Theo (The Rings of Power), Arondir's family - Character, Isildur (Tolkien), Valandil (The Rings of Power), Ontamo (The Rings of Power), Sail Master (The Rings of Power), Melian (Tolkien), Elrond Peredhel, Durin's Bane | Balrog of Moria

Relationships: Disa (The Rings of Power)/Durin IV (Tolkien), Arondir & Theo (The Rings of Power), Isildur & Ontamo & Valandil (The Rings of Power), Isildur & Melian, Durin IV & Elrond Peredhel

Additional Tags: Diplomacy, Disa is a princess and she acts like it, nomads, Eldritch Peredhel (Tolkien), Peredhil - Freeform, first sunrise, that must have been so freaky for the sylvan elves, young arondir, all the names are from elfdict, eldritch numenoreans, i wish that was a more common tag, isildur is a dumbass and we love him, heavy handed use of nightingales, Balrogs (Tolkien), Moria | Khazad-dûm, BAMF Elrond, Ost-in-Edhil, discussion of aging and life, bioluminescent sheep, numenor worldbuilding

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/7QPJVxC

[aureentuluva70]

Eonwe headcanons:

1. In one version of the story, Eonwe and Ilmare were the children of Manwe and Varda. While I am sticking with the version of the Valar bring unable to have children, I really do like the idea of Eonwe and Ilmare being brother and sister. Eonwe is fiercely protective of his twin, and trust me when I say you do NOT want to see Eonwe angry.

2. He and Mairon were like brothers. They considered eachother Melotorni so you can imagine just how much it hurt Eonwe when Mairon joined Melkor. It was an experience that helped him forge a stronger bond with Manwe.

3. Eonwe can be absolutely TERRIFYING in battle. Usually he just uses his normal form(a more elven form)when he's fighting, but if he gets especially ticked off he can be an absolute NIGHTMARE. You know those quote on quote "biblically accurate angels" from Revelations where they're depicted as having a heck ton of heads and wings and dozens of eyes and just overall being an eldritch abomination? Yeah that's angry Eonwe for you. His voice sounds like hundreds of demons shrieking at once and most of the time he doesn't even notice. It scares everyone so bad the hosts of Valinor can't blame even the BALROGS for shaking in pure terror from this absolute ABOMINATION.

4. The eye insignia used by Sauron was actually originally Eonwe's before Sauron shamelessly stole and parasitized it.

5. Eonwe was especially close to the Numenoreans. Afterall it was Eonwe who taught the Numenoreans and gave them long lifespans and great knowledge. Unfortunately however, Sauron knew this too, and was all too happy to shamelessly destroy Numenor from the inside out. Manwe had to nearly order Tulkas to wrestle Eonwe to the ground to stop him from flying off to Numenor and ripping Sauron to shreds(and accidentally destroying an entire continent again in the process)

6. Eonwe has angels wings(when he wants to) that look identical to those of the great eagles. So yes he can fly.

7. (This one is from @sunflowerssupremes) "The reason Eönwë is NOT mentioned during the War of the Powers is because Melkor ripped him apart to taunt Manwë. He was so badly wounded it took him years to fully reform a physical body (Manwë helped him, and ever since had viewed Eönwë as a sort of child, nicknaming him Fionwë Urion, or Child of the Sun)"

8. The helmets worn by the Numenoreans were actually inspired by the Helm Eonwe wore in battle.

[herenortherenearnorfar]

The Thousand Stories by HerenorThereNearnorFar

Fandoms: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien, TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms

Tags: Major Character Death, Original Female Character(s)/Original Female Character(s), Idril Celebrindal/Tuor/Voronwë, (mentioned) - Relationship, Original Character(s) - Character, Arien (Tolkien), (mentioned), Sauron | Mairon, (also only tangentially), Original Orc Character(s), Sun Myths, Easterlings, Númenorean Diaspora, Second Age, Atani Week, Exclusively Ladies, Warning For Sauron, Mordor: A Terrible Place To Live, Unconventional Part Orcs, Three Houses With A Twist, Numenorean Hate, Internalized Propaganda and General Issues, Bad Dinner Party Behavior, War of the Elves and Sauron, Eldritch Elves Redux, Moon Myths, Ocean Myths, An Only Slightly Uplifting Ending

Summary: They're important, the myths people tell about themselves, about their histories. You can learn a lot from a tale or seven.

The massive Second Age Easterling comparative mythology experiment is done. It was lots of fun for fleshing out some elements of the east and south, less fun because the timelines ended up a bit too scrunched (darned human lifespans). If I had to do it over again I might make it a generational saga, but frankly defining out just one central character (who i plan to use in the future! i know who she is) was pretty rough. In conclusion: Tolkien’s humans deserve better than Sauron, the worst self-proclaimed babysitter.