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englishlotusflower · 5 months ago

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Update with new generations:

Celebrimbor, funnily enough, looks more like his mum than his dad. He has her cool remove and a lot of her features (like a lot a lot of her features). However, he also has his grandfather's temper and colouring, and his father's mouth (which twists into sneers so easily even when he's trying not to), so the resemblance to the Curufinwë line kind of overpowers the rest. Like his father, whenever he's deep in Crafting Mode, he looks more like his mother than anyone else.

Glorfindel has his father's bone structure and the Vanyarin hair from both his parents, but his eyes are Finwë's, and he has the drama to back it up. His mannerisms mostly come from his mum (Findis) and from Varda (who Findis has dedicated her service to), and the combination pisses Fëanor off even more than Findis did. He's kinder to Glorfindel about it though, because Fëanor is weak to children, especially children looking up at him with his father's eyes.

Gil-Galad is about a hair taller than his father (Fingon), and absolutely delights in it. He has his father's black hair and grey eyes, making him very much a Finwëan to look at. However, his bone structure and his build very much comes from his quick, brash Huntress mother. Thankfully, he inherited his grandfather's diplomatic nature rather than either of his parent's...lack of diplomacy. Oh, and he inherited his grandmother's icy temper.

Idril is 100% Vanyarin until you get her into a temper and then you notice her grey eyes and realise she's actually very much a Noldo. She has Finwë's hot temper by the way, not Turgon's.

Eärendil looks more like the House of Hador than any of the elven houses. He's got his mother's bearing though, and her temper and the Finwëan drama. His dad is disappointed he didn't get the deep, intense grey eyes, but his mum is very happy he got the bright, clear blue of Hador's descendants.

Elros is like his dad if he had black hair and grey eyes. Oh, and even more drama and the Ainurin propensity to change a little bit according to his situation. It can get very weird if he's in the right mood.

Elrond is very, very, very tall. This is 100% a choice, but also 100% genetics seeing as the Finwëans and the Elwëans have a history of super tall kids (Elu, Turgon, Maedhros etc). He's more like Melian and Lúthien and Dior and Elwing than any of his Noldorin kin, but his manner is entirely Noldorin, as is his drama penchant. His share of the temper went entirely to Elros.

Elladan looks more like Turgon than like anyone else. He has Turgon's resting bitch face, icy temper, height, the list goes on. Weirdly enough, this means that he has the most resemblance to Indis out of Elrond's children. Which also means Elladan is the one who looks most like his mum. Genetics in this family are weird.

Elrohir is the one who looks most like Finwë out of his latest descendants. He is also the shortest of Elrond's children, by like two mm, which makes him very annoyed a lot of the time, and has the Vanyarin build (shorter and more slender than the Noldor or Sindar/Teleri). It comes out to looking weirdly like Fëanor (especially when he's in a temper) and everyone hates it. He thinks its hilarious.

Arwen is hailed as Lúthien reborn for her entire life, but really she looks like her dad. And by this I mean that she has all of the Nelyarin genes from both of her parents, except it comes with a dash of Finwëan drama and temper on top, so she's her dad but more dramatic. That kind of evens out to everyone thinking Lúthien but she would like them all to know that they are wrong and she is a mini-dad.

Maeglin did not inherit his mother's height, which he doesn't mind because it means he can still tuck under her chin for hugs. He has his father's black eyes and sly mouth, but in everything else he's a mini-Aredhel. This is perfectly fine with him, because he adores his mother.

Finduilas did get the Finwëan drama gene, much to her father's despair. She has a very Sindarin/Telerin look to her thanks to her Sindarin mother, in her features and her build and almost everything else. However, she has the grey eyes and the fire of Finwë's house, also known as the drama gene.

Celebrían has the height from both of her parents, so she's guaranteed to be taller than almost anyone she meets. She is very happy with this. She has her father's colouring, but her mother's beauty and build, and her temper (unfortunately). From both of her parents, she has the competence of the Nelyarin royal house. Oh, and she has the pride from...well, all of her forebears.

Inglor has his father's (Círdan) silver hair, and calm temperament and his sturdy (by elven standards) frame, though he is forever grateful that he did not inherit the beard. He got his mother's (Lalwen) charisma though, and her eyes and a lot of her bone structure. The drama mostly (mostly) passed him over.

Gildor gives thanks every day that he can pass for your average non-Finwëan elf. His colouring and build and mannerisms are all very much solid, sea-faring, respectable Falathrim. He's like a mini version of his grandfather. However, he did inherit the restlesness and a bit of the drama, and so he doesn't stay in the Havens much (to Círdan's dismay), but wanders all over Middle Earth, giving his poor grandfather a heart attack. So that probably makes him a stealth Noldo, but he's in denial because the Noldor are always waiting to put responsibility on the shoulders of poor, innocent elves who had no say in their ancestors.

Who Looks Like Who(for Plot and also Angst purposes in some cases, but mostly based off vibes)

Fëanor has Míriel's expressions, her short slight frame, and her elegant nimble hands, but his colouring, his charisma, everything else comes from Finwë

Maedhros looks like Nerdanel, but with a bit of Finwë in him. You can tell from a glance that he's Nerdanel's son, equally so that he's Finwë's grandson. It's much hard to tell that he's Fëanor's son (unless he's in a temper). He has Nerdanel's level head and pragmatism combined with the Finwëan charisma, intensity and general OP-ness, all of which he inherited in spades. It's very dangerous - to others.

Maglor has Nerdanel's nose and eyes, and her vibes of quiet serenity until the breaking point and then quiet pointed fury, but also he looks like Fëanor otherwise. Especially wrt his charisma.

Celegorm looks like Míriel. He has Nerdanel's more solid frame, but otherwise could pass for Míriel's twin. Everyone who knew Míriel is always commenting on how he has her hair, her eyes, her rebelliousness, her restlesness, her temper etc. Part of the reason he spends so much time in the woods is because no one there compares him to a woman who died before he was born.

Caranthir looks like Nerdanel with dark hair, and he has her pragmatism. He does have his father's temper, but he also has A Lot of Indis' mannerisms that he has no idea where they came from Atar. (Indis is a genius with maths, economics, trade - Caranthir learnt everything from her. She isn't proud of much that anyone does in Beleriand, but she is very proud of Caranthir's trade empire.)

Curufin looks exactly like Fëanor, except when he's deep in Crafting Mode - then he looks weirdly like Nerdanel. He has Nerdanel's clear head and her insight, and Fëanor's short temper. He's cruel when he's angry, unlike his dad who rampages indiscriminately, but very much like his mum who always knows how to make it hurt.

Ambarussa are identical, with Nerdanel's colouring and frame, but Fëanor's face. Lightly toasted (or crispy or whatever) has more Fëanor vibes and raw has more Nerdanel vibes. Can't explain it, its just Like That. And also the vibes of Fëanor accidentally toasting the twin more like himself. Delicious

Findis has her mother's golden hair, her father's eyes, and an uncanny likeness to Míriel in her mannerisms that can only come from copying Fëanor. (Does this piss Fëanor off? Absolutely. Will she ever stop? Absolutely not.)

Fingolfin has his mother's eyes and her height, but just like Fëanor his colouring, his charisma, everything comes from Finwë.

Fingon did not inherit his father's height and he will never not be sore about it. He looks more like Anairë than anyone else, but his eyes are indubitably Fingolfin's. His habit of braiding ribbons in his hair comes from Findis - she tends to use bright colours but he prefers only gold.

Turgon DID inherit Fingolfin's height, and just like Fingolfin he will never let his elder brother forget it. HE looks a lot like Indis, if she had Noldorin colouring, and everyone says his more...settled temperament comes from her. It doesn't - Indis is calm and controlled, Turgon has his mother's resting bitch face and icy temper. Everyone just thinks he doesn't because his temper is quiet rather than explosive.

Aredhel also inherited Fingolfin's height. She looks like Anairë if Anairë had the Finwëan dramatic tendencies and charisma. Her idols are Cousin Celegorm and Aunt Lalwen (in that order) and it shows.

Argon is taller than Aredhel. By like...a hair. When he discovers that, it becomes his entire personality for a good week. He is the only one who looks mostly like Fingolfin, but he has Anairë's quiet, deadly iciness rather than the Finwëan over the topness.

Finarfin has his mother's colouring and her calm facade, but in all else he is Finwë writ blond. He also hides a temper under the calm facade, but because he controls it better everyone assumes his dad's temper passed him by.

Finrod has the Telerin chill/friendly factor mixed with the Noldorin dramatic intensity, which leaves him aggressively and pointedly friendly. He looks like his mum if Eärwen were blonde and constantly wore as much jewellery as Fëanor made in a particularly inspired month.

Orodreth got Indis' calm facade, and the Finwëan drama gene skipped him for which he is eternally thankful. He has Eärwen's colouring, and Finwë's bone structure, but everything is softer with Orodreth. He's just very shy and quiet and adorable.

Angrod looks very much like his dad, if his dad had blue eyes. He also got Indis' calm facade, but the difference between him and Orodreth is that for Angrod it is just a facade. He's got stubborness in spades from Finwë, and a backbone of mithril from his mum. She also gave him a healthy dose of common sense. Oh and he got a bunch of mannerisms off Findis that really annoy his uncle Fëanor.

Aegnor...well. People make jokes that he's Fëanor but blond. He's got the charisma, the intensity, the impulsiveness, the propensity for bad life choices, the list goes on. Thankfully, he also has Angrod to keep him from anything too awful.

Galadriel has Indis' height, her strength, her colouring and beauty, and a temper that wouldn't look out of place on Fëanor himself. She also has her mother's competency (which comes from the same place as Lúthien's ability to take down the two biggest bads without breaking a sweat). It's a rather dangerous combination.

Lalwen is...herself. She's got her mother's height, her father's charisma and his colouring, but mostly she's just Lalwen. Bold and laughing and utterly done with her family's drama.

#updated with my head canons for the younger peoples #with my usual liberties taken with the family trees

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stanboromir · 2 years ago

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what is your wildest and yet most insignificant rings of power theory?? mine is that galadriel’s armor was actually a caranthir’s gift to haleth. yes it is just a wild theory bUT LET ME EXPLAIN

there is an insane amount of easter eggs in the room where the numenorian palantir is and some of them doesn’t really make a lot of sense in the narrative of the show. we are explicitly told that miriel was not familiar with elendil up until the events of the show, and yet, what do we see in the tower???

THE narsil!! if we take the books canon in consideration it was supposed to be in andúnië, and yet, here it is!!! in armenelos!!

oh but that’s not all. what can we also see in this scene??

my beloved she, gays and theys, let me present to you the one and only DRAMBORLEG!!! oh but do you expect more?? no worries darlings

here it is!! this is (presumably) tuor’s shield. it was explicitly said that his descendants took his axe to numenor, so why not take his shield as well? but in case you want a bit more of family heirlooms, not to worry. this is what we see in the last episode of the show:

no, not beautiful eärien, but behind her. that helm is none other than tHE DRAGON HELM OF DOR-LÓMIN. it is kind of weird that it got all the way to numenor, but hey, narsil was not supposed to be in this city in particular and yet here it is. also, it being a family heirloom of the house of hador, i’m willing to accept that it was taken among with tour’s possession. NOW THIS IS WHERE MY THEORY COMES IN. with the exeption of narsil, they are all easter eggs that can be traced back to the house of hador, and what happened to the men of the house of hador?? you guessed it. some of them married into the hOUSE OF HALLETH. and, eventually, of that union came who??????? TUOR AND TURIN. SO, since we established that their belongings made it all the way to numenor, is it far fetched to speculate that maybe haleth had an armory given to her by caranthir after the siege on the haladin??? (yes it is) because just LOOK and think about it. galadriel arrived in numenor with nothing except her robe and finrod’s dagger. an argument could be made that the smiths made an armor for her there, but look at the star!!!

very very very similar to the feanorian star. i understand if it’s just a very poor choice of the showrunners to design an armor with a star so similar to feanor’s sigil, bUT WHAT IF IT’S ALSO AN HEIRLOOM??? yes, it doesn’t make a lot of sense, but there is an argument to be made here, there are a significant amount of objects of the house of hador, some of which cannot be fully justified, and also THE narsil, which in theory was not meant to be there at all. so what if, hypothetically speaking, caranthir gave haleth an armor, that somehow got to Numenor, and was given to galadriel????

#i KNOW i’m being delusional #i KNOW it doesn’t make any sense #but i couldn’t care less #in my heart that is halleth’s armor #does the canon agree with me?#no #but i wouldn’t be a tolkien fan if i cared about what the canon thinks #trop #the rings of power #tolkien #the silmarillion #lotr

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outofangband · 2 years ago

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Expanded somewhat on the alternate scene I had for this fic here

Another snippet of Cut Your Hand As Willingly with gratuitous references to Morwen being accused of being a witch because I’m still fixated

This is very much a work in progress, feel free to ignore its mostly just me further exploring my fixations of Morwen in Hithlum post Nírnaeth and drafting for CYHAW

This will probably be rewritten to have somewhat less gratuitous references for my final draft :/

There is a silence broken only by the wind rattling the panes that she has no supplies to replace should they break. Morwen does not dare to move closer to the window, watching the silhouette of the horse and its rider in the shadows cast by the moon.

“Show yourself, witch!”

It is Is shouted suddenly into the darkness only paces from the house. It is shouted in the accented dialect of the House of Hador. that Morwen thinks is still clearer than her own. She cannot tell if his contempt is for her or for the language he doubts she speaks. Likely both. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Sador tighten his grip on the blade he works with.

All the lights had been put out and she could only wait in the cold by the unlit hearth until he had, apparently, lost his nerve and retreated. She did not move until hours after she heard the sound of retreating hoof beats and could only be grateful her child was not yet born, could not reveal their presence yet with a piercing cry too fragile to silence.

They did not return on that following morning though still she suspected they ventured near the house at times. But for now they merely watched her and so the lady of Dor-lómin watched them back. Witchwife they might have named her but with each day Morwen grew discouraged at the rations she could not increase by will alone, the dangers she could never banish.

(Author’s note: I went back and forth for way too long about whether to have Morwen actually called Witchwife in the dialogue but though it probably makes more sense, it didn’t flow in writing. Oh well. I might change it again)

#the silmarillion #the children of húrin #morwen #word ran among them #cut your hand as willingly #short writings

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tanoraqui · 4 months ago

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...ok I just have to do a little Beleriand and Its Realms. you have to know. There IS also narrative here, to be clear. [breathes in deep, then speakssofastitslikeitsalloneword]

Mairon the Maia of Aulë was on his way out of the new Morgoth Danger Zone when he saw THE brightest little elf teen and did a full u-turn like "I AM going to train him to his full potential and I WILL shack up with these Doomed idiots if that's the only way", so Hithlum is girdled against the forces of Morgoth but open to all others who can prove themselves capable in at least one creative craft. Fëanorians come as a set and Mairon is very annoying so Fingolfin took Mount Rerir and northern Thargelion with Fingon guarding the Gap, Turgon and Aredhel in southern Thargelion until they weren't, Angrod and Aegnor jointly in Himlad and the fortress of Himring while Orodreth guarded Aglon Pass, and Finrod and Galadriel collected some Noldor and more Sindar, Laegrim, etc, their homes recently retaken but many orc-spoiled, and rebuilt the kingdom of Elmo in the Great Forest at the heart of Beleriand. Meanwhile Maedhros assigned Maglor to Barad Eithel as a key stronghold of the west, Caranthir to Tol Sirion and the lands southwest with Celegorm assisting (roaming, hunting), told Curufin to shut the fuck up and get along with his new in-law, let Amras loose in Nevrast and took himself to Dorthonion, mediocre for defense but perfect for personally flipping Morgoth off from across the plains. He later ceded some of its eastern lands to the House of Beor on Finrod's request, and Men of the House of Hador took up rule of southern Thargelion, Haladrim in Brethil.

Galadriel and her new husband had already journeyed east when the Sudden Flame came. The Gap burned, though Fingon survived. The Pass of Aglon fell and Himring went to the Lieutenant of Angband herself, and Angrod and Aegnor fell with them. Tol Sirion fell briefly but only briefly, as Maedhros led a calculated retreat directly to fortify it; Dorthonion burned in his wake, and dragons cut gleefully west to burn all of the Great Forest that wasn’t actively River-guarded. Fingolfin rode out like a shooting star.

Okay I'm done!

Naturally, Beren was promptly imprisoned—sympathetically, respectfully, with blankets and books and other such amenities as befit a man whose wits had clearly been stolen by the second most infamous enchantress in Beleriand—in the staunch mountainside fortress of Mount Rerir. The High King himself came and spoke with him at times, ever hopeful of breaking the enchantment.

“It’s not like I don’t get it,” said Fingon. The bright-eyed elf-king sat across from him at a nailed-down trestle table on which they were sharing lunch. “Sometimes you meet someone and they’re, you know, magnificent! Impossibly beautiful, unstoppably deadly—which shouldn’t be attractive but it is—and, oh, everything else you think is most desirable. Passionate, compassionate, mind-bogglingly stubborn, always acts confident and in-control and everyone else believes it, but you can see that they’re lonely and need help. They let you see it, and you feel so honored. And then one day they really do need help, so you rush in arrows first—sword first, in your case.

“And bam! Your own kin’s blood is on your hands. And it will never wash off. And you’ve abetted grand larceny. Blink again and your siblings are all dead or disappeared, your lands are all burnt, your father is dead practically at his own hand and it’s on you to save everyone, somehow, and everyone thinks you can because you’ve been a hero before! So you try to act confident and in-control, like you have even the hope of an idea how, but you can’t even save one Man—”

Fingon looked at him most beseechingly.

Beren, who had very little patience for other people’s mental breakdowns, and who did know some stories, said innocently, “So I should defy all the wisdom of my elders and sneak away to rescue Lúthien from the clutches of the enemy, thereby uniting our sundered peoples and earning the approbation of even the Powers Across the Sea?”

Fingon winced, and sighed, and rose from his seat.

“I shall return tomorrow,” he promised. “I’m not giving up on you yet, Barahir’s son!”

Meanwhile, Lúthien flew west, to the kingdom of Taur-Cîl. The Forest Renewed was wilting, for her mother had found the springs of both Rivers Aros and Esgalduin, and soon they would either choke to death on her poisons or bow to the throne of Melkor. For now, however, plants and animals were still abundant...but nary an elf was to be seen, not even when she breathed in her wings and walked beneath the trees.

It was little surprise. New thralls had long-since reported that Finrod Felagund had built a second kingdom below his first, guarded by tree roots, Song, and the rivers-bourne blessing of Ulmo himself. Well, they would see how long that held!

...that is, Lúthien corrected herself, she hoped the rivers and their protectorate would long endure. For Finrod was much beloved of Beren's people, and anyway she was here to ask him a favor.

She was very glad that Beren had given her his father's ring, and previously the story that accompanied it, and so a place to start her quest. As she'd flown away from him, she'd realized she really had no idea how to go about it, otherwise. To not just defy the Lord of Arda but to steal from him, and to not steal just anything but one of his most precious jewels, upon his very crown! She might as well turn into a Man herself and abandon Arda entirely.

So she walked to where she'd once seen on a map a suspected entrance to the hidden kingdom of Menegroth, held the golden snakes and emerald high, and proclaimed in a clear voice, "I bring the Ring of Barahir, in the name of Beren son of Barahir, and ask Finrod Edennil to redeem his word to that noble house and come speak to me."

She repeated it in the language of trees for her best witnesses, and in several speeches of birds which she knew as her mother's daughter. Then she set the ring in plain sight on a stone rising out of a burbling stream, and sat herself a ways downstream—not hiding. Just waiting.

swap which key First Age Maia is evil and you get Beren & Lúthien enemies to lovers au 👀

#beren and luthien #my fic #i know these are so short; but that's how they're getting written so...

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galadhremmin · 3 years ago

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I overlooked this earlier, but not only is Namo the one who utters the very precise prophecy that doesn’t just predict Earendil’s arrival but even announces his name several Ages in advance in LaCE;

And from them shall spring things so fair that no tears shall dim their beauty; in whose being the Valar, and the Kindreds both of Elves and of Men that are to come shall all have part, and in whose deeds they shall rejoice… When he that shall be called Earendil setteth foot upon the shores of Aman, ye shall remember my words

When Earendil, the person he predicted would arrive in fact does finally arrive he’s like. Technically he violated the rules though. Is it time to kill him? :)

It is told among the Elves that after Earendil had departed, seeking Elwing his wife, Mandos spoke concerning his fate; and he said: 'Shall mortal Man step living upon the undying lands, and yet live?'

ffshgf why is he like this. Ulmo has to remind him of his own prophecy, and the fact that Earendil was literally born to fulfill it (the angst of it all! Born to for this very specific purpose and named several ages in advance);

But Ulmo said: 'For this he was born into the world. And say unto me: whether is he Earendil Tuor's son of the line of Hador, or the son of Idril, Turgon's daughter, of the Elven-house of Finwe'

and even then Mandos responds with oh yes, thank you for reminding me --he is also a Noldo in a sense; i.e. can we kill him now? :)

And Mandos answered: 'Equally the Noldor, who went wilfully into exile, may not return hither.'

#scream he really did utter that prophecy HIMSELF #and then when largely Fate fueled events make it come true he's like #oh ok there he is. KILL KILL KILL #mandos #earendil

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redbootsindoriath · 4 years ago

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Tag Yourself: Silmarillion Fandom

Maiar chat room moderators // know all the answers (or at least know where to find them) // never seem to sleep // doneTM // met some relative of Tolkien’s once

Vanyar ignore the arguments online // a bit high and mighty but not mean about it // insistent about there being deeper spiritual meaning to everything in Tolkien // not going to stoop to your level

Teleri looooove the ships // no one may touch the ships // no one may say anything against the ships // ships > canon // make more ships all the time // ships are the only reason they’re here // make a lot of the fancontent

Fëanorians start fires in chat rooms // will fite anyone over anything // Fëanor did nothing wrong // Maedhros is bae // buy lots of Silm stuff // live and breathe cosplay

Fingolfinians gatekeepers // Tolkien scholars extraordinaire // probably speak both Quenya and Sindarin // canon purists // have scientifically backed theories about what armor and weapons and fighting styles the elves probably used

Finarfinians poets // a joy to have in any Tolkien community // so many emotions, oh my gosh // no one in the Silm is evil beyond hope // write AU redemption arc fanfictions // please why can’t we all get along

Sindar have a little Tolkien club in real life // RPGers // “No no no, you all are wrong because—” // thrive on headcanons and give no f***s // either get along with everyone or get along with no one // secretly judging everyone else

Avari sometimes aren’t even part of the internet side of the fandom // here before everyone else // sometimes really weird // usually over age 30 // “Oh so you like Tolkien? Have you read all 12 volumes of the Histories of Middle Earth? No? Then you don’t like Tolkien.” Halfelven read the Silm so they could talk about it with that one friend who recommended it // came from LOTR and kinda confused // “Which one was Fëanor again?” // “Why do all the names sound the same?” // “Where are the hobbits?”

House of Bëor chill // kinda forgettable // get along with everyone // favorites of the Finarfinians // eager to learn but gullible

House of Haleth don’t care about anyone else’s opinion // stubborn in their own views // don’t ask for feedback on fanart and fanfictions // don’t leave feedback on fanart and fanfictions

House of Hador relatively new to the fandom // loud // extremely eager to befriend the rest of the fandom // know how to fight really well IRL // mislabel themselves as one of the elf types

Númenoreans a little bit psychopathic // came in pure and optimistic but have ChAnGeD // obsessed with the bad guys and everyone else is lowkey concerned // possibly into dark magic IRL

Dwarves stubbornly refuse to leave the internet even though not compatible with most of the rest of the fandom // kinda rude but somehow they get a free pass because they’re dedicated to Tolkien // make a lot of cool stuff // no seriously, like a thousand projects going at once // you want a glowing voice-activated door? no problem bro, I’ll get around to it sometime this year, here are my rates...

Hobbits what’s the Silmarillion

~~~~~~~~~~

Anyway, yeah. Tag yourself. Tag your friends. I tried to make them all equally insulting (except the Finarfinians, because Finarfinians are pure beans that must be protected at all costs).

My mutual @intea originally posted this for me here before I had a blog of my own, but I decided to reupload it with higher resolution now that I can.

#the man the myth the legends #three shinies #my trash #is this actually funny or am i just tired #i'm sorry professor tolkien #past tarva speaks #/end classification tags #pretty sure i'm a sinda #a bit fingolfinian sometimes though #but mostly sinda #also yeah i know i left out some of the kinds of elves and humans #i couldn't do ALL of them #i just picked the ones that seem to have the most distinct traits #hence why i split the ñoldor up into three groups #and just grouped all the avari and teleri together #i know that there were lots of different telerin subcategories #but the ones everyone remembers are the swan boats ones #so yeah

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arofili · 3 years ago

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Three Houses of the Edain Edit Series: Appendix B

Continued from Appendix A. This section will contain information on the House of Hador.

~~~

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Appendix A: House of Bëor Appendix B: House of Hador (you are here!) Appendix C: House of Haleth, Drúedain

~~~

HOUSE OF HADOR

Note: With regard to name translations, I took inspiration from this article; specifically, I used some of the suggestions for name meanings of the early Hadorians and assigned them to elements in my Taliska glossary (see Appendix A).

~~~

Marach ft. Marach, Legen (OC), Malach Aradan, Imlach It is canon that while they were the third House to enter Beleriand, Marach’s people were originally in the lead; also canon is the attitude of the Green-elves toward them and Marach’s decision to remain in Estolad even though his son led many of his people further west. Since Imlach’s son Amlach is still in Estolad during the time of dissent, it is highly probable (though not explicitly stated afaik) that Imlach remained with his father. Everything else is headcanon. Also, Marach is trans because I said so <3

Imlach ft. Imlach, Amar (OC), Amlach The basic structure of this story is canon: Malach remained in Estolad; Amlach was a dissenter who was impersonated and became an elf-friend in his anger at the deception, entering into Maedhros’ service. I added a lot of details to flesh out the story, especially Amlach’s confusing night in the forest. I think Sauron (or one of his servants) stranded him in the woods and stole his likeness, though I doubt Amlach ever really figured out exactly what happened.

Malach Aradan ft. Malach Aradan, Zimrahin Meldis, Adanel, Magor Malach did enter Fingolfin’s service, and the basic details of his familial relationship are canon. Much of the rest of this is headcanon, however.

Magor ft. Magor, Amathal (OC), Hathol, Thevril (OC), Hador Lórindol We don’t know much about Magor or Hathol; the only canonical detail here is that Magor did move his people away from Hithlum and served no elf lord (though we don’t have details on why). Everything else is headcanon.

Hador Lórindol ft. Hador Lórindol, Gildis, Glóredhel, Galdor of Dor-lómin, Gundor This is mostly canon, though it has been embellished, and everything about Gildis other than her name is headcanon. Gundor’s life is also mostly headcanon, though the manner of his death is canon; I’ll go into his story soon.

Gundor ft. Gundor, Angreneth (OC), Indor, Padrion (OC), Aerin, Peleg We don’t know anything about Gundor other than the manner of his death; we also don’t know how Aerin is related to Húrin, so I decided to expand on both of those unknowns with the same story. Aerin’s father is said to be Indor, who is elsewhere said to be the father of Peleg (who was himself the father of Tuor in an early draft), so I made him the son of Gundor. Since Peleg obviously can’t be Tuor’s father anymore, I killed him off at the Nírnaeth...just like Huor, oops. I think Brodda took Aerin to wife before Morwen disappeared, but I couldn’t figure out how to word that concisely, so I left it kind of vague/misleading in the caption. Oh well.

Galdor of Dor-lómin ft. Galdor of Dor-lómin, Hareth, Húrin Thalion, Huor This is mostly canon, though it has been embellished to give Hareth a bit of personality. Ylmir is the Sindarin name for Ulmo, used by Tuor in his song “The Horns of Ylmir.”

Húrin Thalion ft. Húrin Thalion, Morwen Eledhwen, Túrin Turambar, Beleg Cúthalion, Urwen Lalaith, Niënor Níniel Boy howdy this is a long one! It’s almost entirely canon, though I’ve added some embellishments here and there. Beleg is included because he and Túrin were definitely married (at least by elven standards); I’ll go more into that, and the details of Túrin’s time with the Gaurwaith, in a future edit, but for now I settled just using the gayest possible language. Same deal for his time in Nargothrond.

Huor ft. Huor, Rían, Tuor Eladar We don’t know that Galdor took an arrow specifically to the eye, but I thought it would be poetic if both he and Huor died in the same manner so I added that detail to the canon that Galdor was killed by an arrow. The rest of this is pretty much all canon, with some embellishments. Tuor’s story will continue in another edit.

Tuor Eladar ft. Tuor Eladar, Idril Celebrindal, Eärendil Ardamírë The meat of this story is canon, but I’ve added in some of my headcanons as well. I definitely embellished Annael’s departure from Mithrim to show my perspective on his decision to leave Tuor behind (I really do think he thought Tuor was dead or as good as it, and that as a leader he had the responsibility to keep the rest of his people safe). I’m a little foggy on why Tuor was already so obsessed with Gondolin when he met Gelmir and Arminas, because why would the Sindar of Mithrim be so excited about a Noldorin city? I guess maybe they had friends from way back when who went with Turgon? Or maybe they just wished they could be “safe” like the Gondolindrim were, idk. I was kind of vague there. Ylmir is the Sindarin name for Ulmo; Yssion is a Sindarin name for Ossë (the other one is Gaerys, which I think sounds cooler but isn’t as close to a literal Sindarization as Yssion). The bit about Voronwë teaching Tuor Quenya on the road is headcanon, but I think it makes a lot of sense. Telpevontál is my Quenya translation of Celebrindal. I skimmed and skipped a lot of Tuor’s time in Gondolin, since I went over that in another edit. “The Horns of Ylmir” is a real song that Tolkien wrote (Adele McAllister has a cover of it); I added the bit about it triggering Idril’s foresight, though the song is absolutely foreshadowing no matter how you look at it. Eärendil did canonically get married the same year that Tuor and Idril left for Valinor; we don’t have much info on that otherwise, so I made it as bittersweet as possible. The bit about the Elessar is a lot of convoluted headcanon in my attempt to make sense of its 3 bajillion different origin stories. The name Ardamírë is prophetic because, you know, the whole Silmaril thing, but I liked the idea that Idril made the connection with the Elessar before the Silmaril came into the picture. All we know about Idril and Tuor’s fates in canon is that people ~believe~ they made it to Aman and that Tuor was counted as an elf, but that last bit never sat right with me since elsewhere it’s very clearly stated that the Gift of Men is not something that can be refused or taken away. The alternate legend is my own headcanon for what happened to them (I also think they had more peredhil kiddos); in my mind, the Valar let Tuor live the rest of his days in Valinor (all 500 years of them, I just think it’s poetic and connected to his grandson Elros’ fate) before he died peacefully and willingly, able to get closure with Idril before he went.

Storytellers ft. Eltas, Dírhaval Eltas is a character from the Book of Lost Tales, who tells Eriol the “Tale of Turambar.” Supposedly, he once lived in Hísilómë (Hithlum) and came to Tol Eressëa and the Cottage of Lost Play by the Straight Road. That story does not add up at all when you look at it through the lens of Tolkien’s later Legendarium, so I took the name and his origins in Hithlum and crafted an entirely different story for him. Dírhaval is canonically the poet who wrote the Narn i Chîn Húrin; he only wrote that one poem because he was killed at the Third Kinslaying before he could finish any of the other Great Tales like Narn i Leithian (The Lay of Leithian; from his Tolkien Gateway article I think that’s what he was working on after CoH? but I’m not totally sure. But Tolkien never finished the Leithian either, so I think it’s poetic to have Dírhaval do the same). Andvír was one of his sources in canon, I added in the others (Eltas, Nellas, Celebrimbor, Glírhuin), though it was conceivable (and canon, in Nellas’ case) that they knew Túrin enough to report his story (though we don’t know anything in canon about Nellas’ fate). These name translations are my own; I thought “sitting man” worked as a meaning for Dírhaval since I imagine that storytellers like him were known as folk who sat around a lot writing or telling tales.

Servants of Morwen ft. Morwen Eledhwen, Gethron, Grithnir, Ragnir the Blind, Sador Labadal Morwen sending her servants to talk to the elves is headcanon, and so is Gethron knowing some Sindarin, though I think that makes sense considering he did canonically travel across Beleriand and was the one who spoke to Thingol when they arrived in Doriath. We don’t know anything in canon about Ragnir except that he was blind. Sador’s story is canon, though I have added some embellishments here and there. Aside from Sador and Morwen, these name translations are all my own and extremely dubious, but I did my best.

Companions of Húrin ft. Húrin Thalion, Asgon, Ragnir the Outlaw, Dringoth (OC), Dimaethor (OC), Negenor (OC), Tondir (OC), Haedirn (OC), Orthelron (OC) This edit tells the beginning part of “The Wanderings of Húrin,” an unfinished manuscript that was cut from the final published Silmarillion. Húrin’s role in this tale is canon up through his departure from Brethil (that was where Tolkien left off); the way that he left his companions a final time is my headcanon. Asgon and Ragnir are the only names of his companions we know from canon; Asgon’s role as a former outlaw who had known Túrin when he returned to Dor-lómin and started a rebellion is canon, and Ragnir’s pessimism (asking to go home) and his relative youth is also from canon. Everything else about these outlaws is my headcanon, including my reasons for why they weren’t present at the Nírnaeth where literally all the able-bodied men of the House of Hador had perished (except for Húrin). Húrin did go to Nargothrond after Brethil, but I made up everything past that point. We know that there were some Edain at the Havens of Sirion (and presumably there were Men present in the War of Wrath that Elros mingled with before becoming their King), so I thought this could be a way for the remnant of the Haladin (and some of the House of Hador) to get there. I’ll go over the rest of “The Wanderings of Húrin” in future edits, when we get to the relevant Haladin characters.

Gaurwaith ft. Neithan, Beleg Cúthalion, Forweg, Andróg, Andvír, Algund, Ulrad, Orleg, Blodren This is largely a canon-compliant overview of Túrin’s life among the outlaws. The stories of Forweg and Andróg (and Beleg and Túrin/Neithan) are canon (though I did take that extra step and marry off Túrin and Beleg). Orleg’s story is canon, though it’s one that I had overlooked on my various readthroughs of Túrin’s Silm chapter & CoH. Algund and Ulrad’s stories are presented in a slightly tweaked/condensed form; Andvír’s origins as the son of Andróg (??? when did he have a son and why is it never mentioned in the main story???) are canon but (as expressed in parentheses) rather baffling, so I didn’t really emphasize him. Blodren is a character who isn’t in the later drafts of this story; he was an Easterling who was tortured by Morgoth because he “withstood Uldor the Accursed,” and eventually turned into a spy for Morgoth. (As with all Easterling names, his etymology is entirely made up.) He “served Túrin faithfully for two years” before fulfilling the role later taken up by Mîm and betraying the Gaurwaith to the orcs. He was killed by a “chance arrow in the dark” during the battle. I altered his story so that he wasn’t personally tortured by Morgoth and thus did not turn; since he was an Easterling and the rest of the Gaurwaith were Edain, I decided they probably treated him poorly, and threw in a bit of a friendship with Mîm as a nod to how Mîm took over his role. Also, I think Easterlings having pre-existing relationships with dwarves is a cool concept—especially since Bór’s people and Azaghâl’s people both served under Maedhros at the Nírnaeth, and could possibly have had the chance to interact!

~~~

CONTINUED IN APPENDIX C

#three houses of the edain #peoples of arda #house of hador #house of marach #estolad #ered wethrin #dor lomin #my meta #tefain nin #thote appendices

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thelordofgifs · 2 years ago

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Part 23! Five conversations between cousins.

In Dor-lómin:

Morwen has been running the estate with her usual quiet sternness.

Beren tries at first to stay out of her way, occupying himself by playing with the children or working in the outhouses with old Sador, who does not regard his maimed right arm with the curious pity that drove Beren insane during his brief second sojourn in Thingol's court.

This is stupid. Many of those who dwell in Dor-lómin are Beren's own people. They were the reason he convinced Lúthien to come here! Why is he now too shy to meet them?

He has not, he realises with a shock, spoken with Men since his father and the last of their company were slain.

(Elven-kings and a talking dog and the lieutenant of Morgoth, but no mortal Men.)

A hard thing, perhaps, to walk out of a fairy-tale and return to ordinary life once more.

But after a day or two, Morwen's patience for his shyness seems to run out. "Will you help me with the books?" she asks Beren one morning. "I could use a scribe."

To Beren's relief he is still literate. He has not held a pen for many years, but he notes down the names and numbers that Morwen dictates without trouble.

"Is this really work you need me for, little cousin?" he ventures to ask after an hour. "I know that—"

Morwen purses her lips. "Know what?" she asks. "I very much doubt you can fathom all of what I am thinking."

Beren stares at the papers spread out before him. "I know that I could not save your father's life," he said, "and – there are so many names written in blood beneath mine – and I am sorry."

Morwen sighs. "I don't blame you," she says, more firmly than she believes. "Your own father was slain at the same time, was he not?"

Beren nods miserably.

"It is not just that," says Morwen, and then she sighs. But she is no coward. "I have been – well, as happy as I could hope for, in Dor-lómin. But seeing you – it reminds me of the lands of my girlhood. Of everything that is lost."

Beren's hand has stilled. He stares down at the accounts. "I could not hold it," he says quietly. "I tried. Oh, Valar forgive me, Morwen, I tried—"

"I know," Morwen says hastily. "I know."

"Dorthonion is lost," Beren says. "We cannot go back."

"Do you wish to?" Morwen asks. She hopes the children are not listening at the door.

"How can I," says Beren, "knowing what it has become? How can I not – knowing how fiercely my father fought for it, how long I too was pursued through the woods I loved before I abandoned them—"

"It would have served you nothing to stay and die there," Morwen says firmly.

"Tinúviel names herself the lady of Dorthonion!" says Beren. "And I, who have brought her from danger to doom, cannot even give her a realm to call her own – she who lived uncounted years in the Thousand Caves of Elu Thingol—" He breaks off, distressed.

"She loves you enough to give up immortality for you," Morwen points out. "I find it hard to believe she cares for what realms and titles you can provide her."

"It is not only that," Beren says. "Dorthonion is my birthright." He sighs. "Well, there is nothing to be gained by dwelling on it. Tell me about yourself, little cousin. You have built a life for yourself here."

"Indeed," says Morwen. "The men of Hador's house are kind. We refugees wanted for nothing long before Húrin and I wed."

"And you are happy with him?" Beren ventures.

"Yes," Morwen says, and her smile is true and open. "Yes, I am."

Beren is glad. Although elves find the concept horrifying, he has been plagued for years by the thought of his kinswomen pressured into marriages of necessity, bound to men they did not love solely because they needed food and shelter.

"You should meet some of the others," Morwen says. "Rían will be pleased to see you again."

"Little Rían!" says Beren. He blinks, trying to reconcile the image of the toddler he dandled on his knee with the young woman his cousin must be now. "She was the sweetest child."

"And she is the sweetest girl," Morwen says; "I deem her as dear to me as a sister." She looks Beren in the eye and says, very firmly, "It would be good for her to speak with you. But she has few memories of Dorthonion-that-was – you need not speak to her of what horrors you have seen."

"But I may speak to you?" Beren asks quietly. "You were only a girl yourself when the Sudden Flame came."

"I was thirteen," says Morwen, "and old enough to remember." She turns away from Beren and adds, voice low, "There is nothing more sacred than innocence. I would preserve Rían's as long as I can."

There is a lump in Beren's throat. He reaches out to squeeze Morwen's hand, and after a moment she squeezes back.

In Gondolin:

Turgon watches Thorondor’s approach with no small amount of dread.

The last time the Eagle came to Tumladen, the broken body of Turgon's father was dangling from his claws.

But this time Thorondor’s news is better, though not much.

In his matter-of-fact way he passes Fingon’s message on and then flies away, leaving the fallout to Turgon.

Maybe that isn’t fair. None of this is Thorondor’s fault.

Turgon calls a council of his lords, explains the situation, and asks them, “Should we open the gates, and march to war?”

Rog is all for it. “Gondolin will not stand forever if the rest of the world is lost,” he argues.

Glorfindel is more cautious, Ecthelion enthusiastic, Egalmoth entirely unwilling; but it is the two seated at either side of him that Turgon looks to now.

“We should go,” Maeglin says decisively. “If what we have heard is true – if Himring is fallen, and Finrod Felagund is dead—”

Turgon draws in a sharp breath.

“They were friends,” Salgant whispers in Maeglin’s ear, “the best of friends.”

Maeglin glances at his uncle and tries to backtrack. “It is terrible news,” he says hastily, “and yet – if we were to come to Hithlum’s aid, might we not raise Gondolin’s star in the world beyond? Think of the glory we could gain!”

“Gondolin was founded,” says Turgon, “as a refuge for the Noldor, a haven should all else be lost. Not as a hidden force to conquer all Beleriand.”

"Nor was it founded to hide away so many of our greatest warriors when they could be most useful," Maeglin counters. "Uncle, think of how glad your brother the High King would be to see you come to his aid—"

Turgon does not want to think of Fingon.

(Turgon is always thinking of Fingon.)

"And you?" he asks, glancing to his right.

Idril speaks last, as she always does. "I have my doubts," she says carefully. "Lord Ulmo's message was clear – Gondolin's secrecy must not be compromised."

"So we'll leave secretly," says Maeglin.

Idril ignores him. "But Rog speaks truly, too," she says. "How long will our city last if the rest of Hithlum falls to the Enemy? And yet – my heart misgives me." She fixes Turgon with a wide-eyed, pleading look. "I would not see you pass through the gates, Father."

"Itaril," Turgon says, gently, "it is the duty of a King to lead his people to war."

"But we do not yet know there will be war," Idril says. "Fingon may fear it: but that is not proof of anything. And is not the duty of a King to govern his people, too?"

"So you would have me forsake my brother?" Turgon asks, troubled.

Idril turns a pen thoughtfully between her fingers. "No," she says. "But you need not go yourself." She looks at Maeglin at last. "My cousin seems keen to prove himself in battle – understandable, for one too young to have won glory in the Dagor Aglareb. Let Maeglin go! He can lead our forces as he pleases."

The council all accede to this with varying degrees of enthusiasm, although Turgon asks Rog and Glorfindel to lead their Houses into battle beside Maeglin's.

Once the meeting is over Maeglin catches up with Idril in the courtyard. "What was that?" he demands.

Idril is taller than he. She fixes him with a look of disdain. "Was it not to your satisfaction?" she asks. "I thought you wished for battle."

"Yes," says Maeglin, "but—"

"But," Idril says scornfully, "you wished my father to be there to witness all your great feats of courage, and accord you even higher honour upon your return! Well, the tales of your heroic deeds will have to be carried to his ears some other way."

"You're jealous," Maeglin says accusingly, "because I am so much younger than you and yet he favours me, because they say he will name me—"

Idril stops walking and directs an icy look towards him. "You will never be his heir," she says.

"So you admit it!" Maeglin says. "You're just trying to get me out of the way because you feel threatened by me—" And as Idril makes to walk away again he grabs her wrist.

Idril makes a low, furious sound and snatches her hand away. "Don't touch me," she hisses.

"Idril," Maeglin says, his tone instantly wheedling, conciliatory. "I'm sorry – you know I mean you no harm—"

That's the thing, after all. How can Idril say, His looks follow me everywhere, he gives me gifts I do not want, he grabbed my hand – and immediately let it go? People would laugh at her.

If Aredhel had lived – if her mother had lived—

"I know what you want," she says, trying not to let her voice shake. "Do you see me as a person, Maeglin, or am I just a thing to you, another piece in your plot to become my father's heir?"

"Plot!" cries Maeglin. "Is that what you think of me? Is it not enough that I care for you, that I think you the fairest thing in this city, that—" He pauses for breath, seeming not to notice that his denial has only confirmed what she said. "You were never like this," he says, "until those damned mortal boys showed up. You used to like me before they came."

"Will you shut up about the mortal boys!" Idril exclaims. "They were children even by their own standards."

"And yet you showed them favour," says Maeglin, "which you will not show me."

"That," Idril says coldly, "is naught to do with your youth." And when Maeglin splutters, "Go and win your glory, Maeglin. And leave me alone."

Before Maeglin can respond, she turns on her heel in a flurry of bright hair and stalks away.

Meanwhile:

In another hidden city, another golden-haired princess storms down a corridor.

"Finduilas – Finduilas, wait!"

Finduilas swings around, putting her hands on her hips. "What do you want to tell me, Celebrimbor?" she demands. "Do you not think my father has enough sorrow and stress without you adding to it?"

"Your father has my loyalty," Celebrimbor says quietly. "You know that."

Finduilas sighs and deflates. (She is not very good at being angry.)

"I know it," she says, "and it is not your loyalty in question."

Celebrimbor snorts.

"It isn't!" Finduilas insists. "Your people are the problem."

"My people!" says Celebrimbor. "I never wanted them, I don't want to deal with them, I have no idea how to control them—"

"You have to," Finduilas says quietly, "or else the city will be rent by division again."

"I have no wish to rule Nargothrond," says Celebrimbor.

"I know that," says Finduilas. "But so Celegorm spoke when first he came here."

"Celegorm is dead," says Celebrimbor, and he doesn't care, he doesn't care, he doesn't care.

"And yet his poison lingers," Finduilas points out. "Tyelpë, if you would only stop opposing my father in every council meeting..."

"If he would only stop being so cautious!" says Celebrimbor. "Beren and Lúthien did not cut two Silmarils from Morgoth's crown by being afraid to strike when needed."

"Nor did they do it with any help from Nargothrond," says Finduilas. "Oh, Tyelpë, my father will trust you in time – it is only that—"

"It is only that I look like my father," Celebrimbor says, bitterly; "and while the memory of his deeds lives on I will always be suspected of treachery. Oh, damn him! I wish he had died too!"

"You don't mean that," says Finduilas, shocked.

"I do," says Celebrimbor, "or I don't." He sighs and then manages to give Finduilas a strained smile. "I am sorry, little coz. I will try to do better."

Finduilas puts her arms around him. "It will pass in time," she says. "The memories of the Eldar may be long, but eventually all will be forgiven."

"But not by me," Celebrimbor says against the top of her head. "Not by me."

Across the Western Sea:

"You're an idiot," says Celegorm. "You're such an idiot. Why are you doing this? What's wrong with you?"

"I don't know, Tyelko," says Finrod, trying to maintain his serene, unruffled air, "I suppose I still believe some part of you is redeemable. Or something."

"You always had a taste for hopeless quests," Celegorm sneers. "Well, I wish you luck."

"You keep saying that," observes Finrod, "and then you keep coming back to yell at me anyway."

"Mandos agreed to let you go," says Celegorm. "He agreed to lift the Doom for you! Why are you still here?"

"Why, indeed, would anyone ever throw away a blessing from the very gods themselves?" asks Finrod. "Or did you not fight Huan, when he forsook you for Lúthien's sake?"

"I died for Huan," Celegorm says tersely. "Are you going anywhere with this? Or will it be yet another tiresome speech filled with clumsily-drawn parallels and a pointed moral at the end?"

"Don't you want to be redeemed?" Finrod asks, frustrated.

"Firstly," says Celegorm, "no. I am bound to evil forever by my Oath and there is nothing that can be done about it. Secondly, I don't see why you get to decide when I'm redeemed. And thirdly, none of this even matters, because Mandos is never going to lift the Doom for another Exile – especially not a Kinslayer."

"Why are you so attached to the idea of your own evil?" Finrod asks. "Nobody is past saving, Tyelko."

"I don't want to be saved!" Celegorm says angrily. "I have told you already, I don't want your pity! When will you get that through your pretty golden head?"

Finrod's spirit does something that loosely translates to flinging his metaphorical hands in the air.

"Give up, do you?" Celegorm asks, as viciously as he can. He's relieved, after all. He's so relieved.

"No," says Finrod, "but this is a bit harder than I thought it would be."

Celegorm snorts derisively.

“Wait here,” says Finrod; “I know someone you should speak to.”

Before Celegorm can protest – he doesn’t want to speak to anyone, he wants to glare at the tapestries in silence, and he doesn’t want Finrod to leave him alone – Finrod has vanished.

This is fine.

Back in Barad Eithel:

“Will you spar with me?” asks Maglor. “I need to practise.”

“Of course,” says Fingon, who needs no further encouragement to abandon his paperwork.

It is only when they are nearly at the practice yard that he thinks to ask, “Should you be exerting yourself?”

Maglor gives him a Look. “I get enough of that from Nelyo,” he says. “I don’t need it from you too.”

“Not another word from me!” says Fingon, amused. But he hands Maglor a lighter sword than he usually bears anyway.

Maglor raises an eyebrow at him, but doesn't protest.

The practice yard is busy at this time in the afternoon, although a space clears quickly for the High King. Still, it is far from private.

Well, Maglor is used to performing.

Fingon goes easy on him at first: although Maglor is as healed as he ever will be, he still tires easily. He can't always put all his weight on his left leg, and the scarring on his right side makes him less flexible than he was.

But he keeps up with Fingon well enough; after a while Fingon realises that Maglor is humming at a barely perceptible frequency, making Fingon's blade stutter away before it can touch him.

"You're good at that," says Fingon, impressed.

Maglor makes a face. "It doesn't work so well against orcs," he says. "Good elvish steel, on the other hand—"

"You did it at Alqualondë," Fingon recalls.

Maglor's mouth twists unhappily. "It can't happen again," he says in a low voice, parrying one of Fingon's blows. "But I'm afraid..."

"It's very easy not to kill people, you know," Fingon says, twisting his blade and disarming Maglor. "I do it all the time."

Maglor laughs despite himself. "Touché. You are wasted on the High Kingship – ethical treatises are your true calling, clearly."

Fingon snorts. "What are you afraid of?" he asks, lowering his own voice as they start the next round.

Maglor meets his eyes. "Being turned into the worst version of myself," he says, "and losing the best thing I have left." He sighs and adds, "We have one Silmaril. But the Oath will not be content with that forever."

"And you do not wish to repeat Alqualondë," says Fingon. "Does Russo?"

Maglor tilts his head. "What do you think?"

"I think," says Fingon, "that he is..." He flounders for words for a little while and then says, "Well, I'm worried."

This is safer ground, the sort of conversation they had near-daily by the shores of Mithrim. "So am I," says Maglor, "but we're both here, and—" He bites his lip, troubled. "You could stop him, could you not, Finno? If – oh, if only he were happier!"

Fingon quickens the pace of the duel, forcing Maglor to be faster and lighter on his own feet. "Stop him from what?" he presses. "What are you afraid you will do?"

Maglor, pale-faced, shakes his head.

Fingon's sword clangs against his. "At some point," he says, very seriously, "you will have to ask yourself – what will you not do for him?"

Maglor has stopped humming; but he dodges Fingon's blade and disarms him with a quick flick of the wrist. "What will not you?" he counters, as the blade clatters to the ground.

Fingon does not have anything to say to that.

"The Oath is the problem," Maglor says conversationally, as they start their third bout. "It will not sleep now until it is sated."

"And if you cannot sate it," asks Fingon, "save with blood? Then what?"

"I don't know," Maglor says, pensive. "I used to think... but then..." He trails off.

"Very informative," says Fingon, "thank you, Makalaurë."

Maglor grins at him. "Let's see," he says. "Let's see! Thorondor came for you when you asked, did he not? There is yet hope while we remember that." He glances around, recalls the crowd of curious eyes upon them, and deliberately loses the bout.

Fingon raises an eyebrow at him.

Maglor shrugs. Politics is all performance, in the end.

Maedhros comes out to find them just as they are coming off the practice yard. He directs an appreciative look at Fingon, whose muscles ripple most attractively beneath his dark skin, and a concerned one at Maglor. "Is it not too soon for that, Káno?"

"Perhaps a little," Maglor says, cheerfully, "but I am well enough." He allows Maedhros to guide him to a nearby bench overlooking the practice yard and fetch him a drink.

The frailty is a performance, too: to be sufficiently delicate to let Maedhros fret over him, and not sickly enough to actually alarm him.

"We had a good few rounds," Fingon says amiably, coming to sit at the other end of the bench, a perfectly appropriate distance from Maedhros. "I won, of course."

"I let you win," says Maglor.

"Don't bicker, children," Maedhros says automatically – which is exactly the response Maglor was aiming to elicit. "What did you find to talk about?"

"You," Fingon says, "for a start."

Maedhros smiles. "Should I be worried?"

"No," says Fingon, his voice suddenly rough, "I think not."

He and Maedhros stare at each other from each end of the bench for rather longer than they should, considering the number of people around.

Maglor keeps himself from rolling his eyes. They used to do this back in Tirion.

Pointedly, he nestles against Maedhros, tucking his head into the space between Maedhros' head and his shoulder.

(This is politics too, in a way. The rumours persist, and it is good for Maglor to show publicly that he is not afraid of his brother.)

Instantly Maedhros' attention is entirely on him. "Are you tired, my Káno?" he asks, putting his arm around Maglor.

"A little," Maglor says drowsily. "Not overmuch."

Maedhros presses his lips to Maglor's temple. The sunshine scent of his hair, the steady, even sound of his breathing, his warm body leaning against Maedhros – alive, alive, alive.

Fingon shuts his eyes and doesn't think of Turgon and isn't jealous.

(to be continued)

the fairest stars: post iv

Beren and Lúthien steal two Silmarils, more sons of Fëanor than anyone ever needed or wanted get involved, things go extremely sideways: you know the drill. You can find the first 18 parts of this bullet point fic on AO3 here, and parts 16-20 on tumblr here.

We're starting out part 21 with a timeskip!

One year after the fall of Himring, north Beleriand remains bitterly contested.

The East is overrun. In Barad Eithel's great war-room the map of Estolad is covered in black arrows stretching from Lothlann down to the Andram Wall.

Caranthir and Amras maintain a last stronghold on Amon Ereb, with the people of Himring who fled there after its fall; but Ossiriand, they fear, will only remain undefiled so long as Morgoth's attention does not turn towards it.

Their Eastern allies, too, are unimpressed. Bór and his young sons were all slain not long after Himring burned; the few of their people who escaped the orc-raids have joined themselves to Ulfang in Thargelion, but they are none too friendly to the Fëanorians these days.

"And Nelyo says I'm bad at making allies," Caranthir remarks.

[yeah he's in this now. damn it why will they not stay in their place.]

"I wouldn't say this is Nelyo's fault," Amras says quietly.

It is a debate held, in one form or the other, in every free kingdom in Beleriand.

But anyway, the East does not seem to be Morgoth's main concern for now.

It is Hithlum, Fingon is sure, where the next assault will come.

Hithlum, the realm of the High King of the Noldor; Hithlum, where he reigns who once humilated Morgoth so thoroughly; Hithlum, where Maedhros holds a Silmaril yet.

If the last true stronghold of the Noldor falls—

And he is facing plenty of internal pressure, too.

His lords – many of them survivors of the Grinding Ice, and arch-loyal followers of the House of Fingolfin – are less than impressed by the rumours that have reached them of the fall of Himring, and Maedhros' actions there.

Fingon has tried to quell the whispers as best as he can. But it is impossible to deny the fact that the attack took Himring by surprise because its patrols were cancelled on Maedhros' orders, or that Maedhros left the field as their position worsened.

The healers who treated Maglor's stab wound have not been quiet, either, about the fact that it was an elvish blade that caused the injury.

And some of those who were at Himring have heard that Maglor was found in a pool of his own blood with Maedhros, subdued too late, unconscious beside him—

If only they knew, Fingon thinks furiously, they would not cast sly aspersions on his judgement and his taste in friends. They would not stop talking of anything consequential when Maedhros drew near, as if he is not to be trusted with the secrets of the war.

Of course when he dares to suggest to Maedhros that this might bother him, Maedhros laughs and says, "Finno, do you think this the worst humiliation I have ever endured?"

So. There's not much Fingon can say to that.

His father was a diplomat, a politician, a builder of alliances. Fingon is not doing a very good job of living up to that legacy.

Thingol returned no response to the letter Fingon sent him, informing him of Curufin's disappearance.

In fact, Thingol is kind of just Done.

So the Noldor turned out to be faithless. What else is new?

Also he didn't really want Curufin's head anyway. Where would he even put it?

Fingon cannot give him what he truly wishes for: his daughter.

In Lúthien's absence old age has fallen upon him, who has lived unwithered for long Ages of the Stars since his birth at distant Cuiviénen.

Melian sings no longer. The people of Doriath, who have known little but peace and splendour since the Girdle was first raised, begin to wonder if their blessings have been withdrawn.

So it is a Menegroth much changed into which Beren and Lúthien walk, hand in hand, one afternoon.

Their return is met with both joy and some consternation. Youth comes back to Thingol at the touch of his daughter's hand; but Melian knows that she will never smile again.

Lúthien bears it all, the feasts of celebration at which none can look her in the eye, her father's overwhelming gladness and her mother's sorrow, the halls that ring yet with the memory of her grief, for exactly two weeks; then she announces that she and Beren are leaving.

"Daughter," Thingol protests, "you have only just returned to us – and soon—"

(Thingol does not know how he will ever handle the parting that is to come.)

"Will you not stay?" he asks. "This is your home."

Lúthien is not sure she knows what home means any more.

"I am sorry," she says, regretful but firm.

The next day finds her and Beren walking through Brethil, debating their next course of action – just as they did not so very long ago, when Celegorm and Curufin attacked them in the woods.

It is of that little skirmish that Beren is thinking now.

"They say Curufin is still out there somewhere," he argues. "It mightn't be safe—"

"I sang Morgoth himself to sleep," Lúthien cries, "and you think I can't take Curufin Fëanorion?"

"Tinúviel," Beren says, with a laugh, "I do not think there is anyone you can't take."

Lúthien allows herself to be placated.

"I am not suggesting we dwell alone in the wilderness," she says; "you made your earlier thoughts on that very clear. But I – I cannot go back to being Doriath's Princess, Beren, as if every part of me is not changed irretrievably since first you called my name, as if – as if you didn't die there, and—"

"Sweetheart," says Beren, kissing her forehead. "It wasn't permanent." And when she chokes out a little laugh through her tears, he goes on, "I know you do not wish to stay in Doriath. But we must choose somewhere – and somewhere safe. It seems as though the Enemy's reach has lengthened in the time we were, um, gone."

"I thought to go to Ossiriand," Lúthien says. "My kin the Green-elves still guard those lands."

"But only those lands," says Beren. "Estolad and Thargelion are overrun. The sons of Fëanor keep no watch upon the Eastmarch. If Morgoth were to learn that you dwelled there—"

"I'm not afraid," Lúthien says. "And even if I were – am I never to venture beyond the Girdle again, for fear of him? Is all my father's kingdom to be naught to me but a prison, as Hírilorn was? I cannot stand it – I will not."

Beren takes both her hands in his one and looks at her. "Tinúviel," he says, very seriously, "I will never cage you."

Oh, he knows her. What a wondrous, terrifying thing, to be understood so completely.

Perhaps Lúthien is still a little delirious with the rush of living once more, for she dips her head to capture Beren's mouth in a delighted kiss, and for a time they both forget all other matters.

Plucking strands of grass from her hair some time later, Beren says, "I have another idea."

"What! I thought I argued my case quite passionately," Lúthien teases.

"You said you thought of dwelling among your kin," says Beren. "What of going to mine, instead?" And, when Lúthien shoots him a puzzled look, "The House of Bëor is mostly ruined, but there are still remnants of my people who escaped Dorthonion ere its fall. Some of them dwell nearby, with the Haladin. And others went north to Dor-lómin – my little cousin Morwen is the lady of that land now."

"I do not wish to stay in Brethil," says Lúthien; "it is rather too close to Menegroth for my tastes. But the Land of Echoes, on the other hand..."

Her eyes are alight with that same fanciful gleam they used to get when Beren told her stories of the world outside the Girdle, of holy Tarn Aeluin and the dread Ered Gorgoroth alike.

You would think, Beren muses, that she would have had enough of adventure by now.

"I have," says Lúthien, catching his thought. "We are to live a very peaceful and retiring life. I insist on it! That is what I told Mandos we deserved. None shall dare assail us, in Dor-lómin." She rolls the name on her tongue as if trying to taste it.

"They call it so because of the terrible cry of Morgoth when Ungoliant assailed him," Beren tells her, "not for any sweeter music."

Lúthien laughs and flings her arms around him. Oh, his living body warm and solid against hers! It is a gift she does not intend to waste.

"Luckily," she says, "I am good at changing the melody."

Another conversation between lovers:

"Do you think it could be done?"

“I have already told you what I think.”

"But you haven't explained," Fingon persists, "you have only looked at me dolefully and proclaimed that it is not possible."

"Well, it is not," says Maedhros. He is lying curled in Fingon's arms, their ankles hooked together, and he is loath to disturb their contentment with arguing. Keeping his voice measured, he says, "If our strength were doubled I do not think it would be enough, Finno."

"The attack will come either way," Fingon says, also without much vigour. They have had this debate so many times now that it is become well-worn. "Why not meet it head on?"

"Because you have a defensible position here," Maedhros says patiently, "and a greater chance of holding than you do of storming the gates of Angband."

"My father did it," Fingon mutters.

"Your father died," Maedhros says, voice suddenly sharp.

Fingon looks at him. "Don't look so worried, beloved! I am quite turned off the idea of wasteful heroics these days."

"Then look to strengthening your defences," Maedhros says, "and drop this fool notion."

"But if we did try," says Fingon, "if we united all the Free Peoples under one banner, and marched on Angband together – think what we could achieve!"

His eyes are bright with hope. Maedhros hates to crush it, but crush it he must.

"Finno," he says, "the East is lost. My brothers do not have so strong a position in Amon Ereb that they can afford to march north to join in a war that could prove ruinous. Bór and his people are dead almost to a man. Belegost will no doubt have heard the rumours—"

Fingon glances at him sharply, but he speaks without bitterness. Which is concerning in itself, but Fingon decides to let it slide for now.

"—and there is little help to be expected from other corners," Maedhros continues. "Doriath has strength to spare, but Thingol hates you."

Fingon shifts uncomfortably. He never actually told Maedhros why Thingol hates him now.

"Nargothrond," he says, to change the subject. "Orodreth will answer to his High King."

"Orodreth!" says Maedhros, dismissively. “A king too ruled by the whims of his people. If he had any spine he would have turned my brothers out of Nargothrond immediately, and Finrod might have lived.”

If Fingon were crueller he might say, You didn't manage to control your brothers that well yourself. Instead he says, "But the people of Nargothrond are many and valiant. We should not discount them."

"If Nargothrond wishes to stay out of the wars of the north," says Maedhros, "I think it would be prudent to allow them to do so." There is a thoughtful, uneasy look in his grey eyes.

Fingon gauges it correctly and says, "Are you worried for your nephew?"

Maedhros looks at him unhappily. "Everyone in Beleriand knows what a mess – Curvo – made of – everything," he says.

(A year might have passed, but Maedhros still does not much like to speak of Curufin.)

"Tyelpë is safe in Nargothrond, where his father's deeds cannot taint him," Maedhros says. "I would keep him so." Then he shrugs. "But my opinion carries no weight now, beloved. Do as you will, and I will support you, for all that is worth."

"It carries weight with me," Fingon says fiercely. "And I am not ashamed to say so. But you have not yet heard the key element in my plan."

Maedhros smiles despite himself, propping himself up on his elbows so that he can keep his eyes focused on Fingon's face. The mass of his silken hair is pooled on Fingon's bare chest. "Go on, then," he says, indulgent.

"Gondolin," Fingon says triumphantly. "My brother took a third of our host with him when he disappeared, and yet more of the Sindar went with him. They have lived in peace for more than three hundred years; their numbers must be great."

Maedhros does not seem as delighted with this idea as Fingon is. "Finno, you don't know where Gondolin is."

"The Eagles bring them tidings, clearly," Fingon points out; "else they would have opened the leaguer and come to our aid when they saw the fires of the Dagor Bragollach on the horizon."

Maedhros frowns, attempting to parse this extremely backwards logic. Eventually, he says, "If Hithlum falls, Gondolin will be the last stronghold of the Noldor in the north. I do not know if its position should be risked."

"All war is risk, beloved," says Fingon, "and if I were to call upon my brother, Hithlum will not fall."

Maedhros says, as if he has been saving this blow for last, "Finno, if you call upon Turgon, will he even answer?"

It has been more than three hundred years, since Fingon last saw his brother.

“Do you think he won’t?” he asks, more sharply than he means to.

(Turgon didn’t tell him he was going. He didn’t tell anyone. He just – vanished.)

Sometimes Maedhros thinks things were easier during Maglor’s long convalescence, when his only concern was his brother, when every sleepless night was because Maglor needed someone to sit up with him and every meal was whatever invalid's food Maglor could be persuaded to choke down – when Fingon was his strength and steadiness, and Maedhros could yet wrap his blue cloak around him like armour.

Selfish – selfish. Maglor is better now, and Maedhros is so, so glad; and Fingon cannot always be his strength. Sometimes Maedhros must be his.

"I am sure he will," he says, contrite. He presses a kiss to Fingon's tense jawline. "I just don't think it wise to ask him."

Fingon sighs and puts his arms around Maedhros. "Fine," he concedes. "Perhaps you are right."

But later, when they have extricated themselves from their warm tangle of limbs and risen for the day, he sits down to write a letter.

A few days later the High King's messenger, having ridden swiftly along the Ered Wethrin and into Dor-lómin, nearly collides with a small child playing near the road.

"Be careful!" cries Lúthien, dropping Beren's hand and rushing forward to snatch the child up.

The messenger gapes at her, for it seems to him as though she has materialised out of the shadows themselves. Then, when he gets better look at her beauty, he gapes even more.

Lúthien is not paying attention. All her focus is on the little golden-haired creature in her arms. "That was nearly very dangerous for you, wasn't it, sweetheart?" she coos. "But you don't seem frightened at all. What's your name, dear one?"

The little girl giggles and hides her face in Lúthien's sleeve without answering.

Beren feels a little dizzy, looking at the picture that they make, and at the bright tender look on his wife's face. Someday, he tells himself, someday.

He looks around. The messenger has dismounted; it seems the great house up ahead is his destination. A house of lords, clearly, surrounded by gardens as lovely as any in the chilly northlands, and with a bubbling stream running just past its walls.

Well, here they are.

He is pondering what the etiquette is here – should they knock? wait here until someone spots them? – when he catches sight of a second child, a little older, dark-haired, watching them intently from around a tree-trunk.

"Good day, lad," Beren says gravely. "Might I ask your name, and those of your parents?"

The boy regards him with suspicion for a while, before he finally says, "I am Túrin son of Húrin, and that is my sister Lalaith."

(One little-appreciated consequence of the fall of Himring: for the last year, Morgoth's attention has been on the final desecration of the March of Maedhros. He did not have time to send the Evil Breath to Dor-lómin.)

"Lalaith!" Lúthien says, delighted. "What a fitting name."

"Then, son of Húrin," says Beren, "we have reached our destination indeed. Might you do me the honour of introducing us to your parents?"

Túrin looks unimpressed. "Who are you?" he asks.

"My name is Beren son of Barahir," says Beren, "and we are kinsmen, son of Morwen."

Túrin frowns even more. "How do you know my mother's name?" he demands. "And Beren is dead."

Kind of hard to argue with that.

Before Beren can come up with a suitable response there is a small noise from the direction of the house: the children's mother has come out to call them in for the evening meal. She stands so still she might be made of stone, were it not for the wind whipping up her dark hair behind her.

Beren finds his own mouth is very dry.

He buried Baragund his cousin, and avenged him; and he has not thought of his slaughtered companions for a long time.

(There's only so much survivor's guilt one person can have, and it is usually the screams of Finrod and his Ten that haunt Beren's nightmares.)

Morwen is not now the thirteen-year-old he remembers, her face sterner and more sorrowful, but somehow she is the image of her dead father.

"Hello, little cousin," he croaks out.

Morwen stares at him.

Lúthien comes to the rescue. "You must be the lady Morwen," she says warmly, setting Lalaith down so that she can drop into a graceful curtsey. Her Taliska is hesitant, but beautiful. (Everything about Lúthien is beautiful.) "Beren has told me so much of you. And your children are charming."

"Beren's dead," Morwen says at last, shakily. "And – you—"

"I was dead," says Beren, "but now I'm not. I don't know how to explain it, cousin, but—" He holds his hand out to her, letting the Ring of Barahir gleam green upon his finger in the setting sun. "It really is me."

Morwen makes another small sound, swaying where she stands. Her hand rests on her son's dark head as though he is the only thing keeping her upright.

"Mother?" Túrin says nervously.

Before things can get any more awkward the lord of the house comes out to seek his family, perhaps wondering what is taking them so long. "Morwen," he says quietly, seeing her stiff posture.

But Morwen takes a breath. "We have guests, Húrin," she says, composed again. "This is my kinsman Beren Erchamion, and his – and his wife, the Princess of Doriath."

Lúthien turns her dazzling smile on Húrin. "A pleasure to meet you," she says gaily. "But call me rather the Lady of Dorthonion."

(to be continued)

#silmarillion #my fic #bullet point fic #the fairest stars #beren #morwen #idril #maeglin #celebrimbor #finduilas #celegorm #finrod #maglor #fingon #(and sundry others who don't get tagged)#all about the parallels in this one #and the denial. lots of denial going on

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warrioreowynofrohan · 3 years ago

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SILMARILLION- 10, 12, 14, 20

I’ve done 20, so I’ll do the other three!

10) What region of Middle-earth would you like to explore?

Oh, there’s a lot of choices! I think Khazad-dûm and Lothlórien in the Second Age - Lothlórien has always been at the top of my list of LOTR locations I’d want to visit, and this would be a chance to see it at its height rather than its fading. And the same for Khazad-dûm, the only great realm from the First Sge that did not fall then but oniy grew more beautiful and glorious. It would be amazing to see!

12) You can save one kingdom from destruction, which do you choose?

I thought about this for a long time, and almost picked Doriath, but in the end I settled on Hithlum - or, more specifically, the House of Hador. I’m not quite sure of the precise mechanics for how it would happen - maybe Angband’s counterattack during the Nirnaeth aplits apart the Edain from the Elves rather than the eastern from the western forces, and the Fëanorians end up covering Turgon’s retreat. But Húrin and a reasonable portion of his people make it home, and, with the benefit of natural geographical defences and the assisstance of the grey-elves of Hithlum, and anyone else in Beleriand who wants to take a more active role in the war, they manage to hold out against the Easterlings. What happens when you have an entire society of warriors with Túrin’s Fuck Destiny attitude, but with a defensible land and older people with more experience and understanding of tactics than Túrin ever displays? What happens if Húrin and hus family are all together and fighting?

It risks messing with Ulmo’s plans since Tuor would have mych less reason to leave Hithlum for Nevrast, but I’m willing to trust Ulmo’s ability to improvise.

Who knows how it would go, but if it works out, then this could save Nargothrond and Doriath in the bargain - Nargothrond doesn’t fall, or doesn’t fall in the same way, and the Nauglamír never comes to Doriath. Angband continues its attacks toward the south, but some of the people of Brethil retreat into Hithlum. There’s a substantially larger intact Mannish culture by the time of the War of Wrath than there is in canon.

If Doriath survives, then maybe the survivors of Gondolin go there, and that’s how Eärendil and Elwing meet.

14) Saddest moment in the Silmarillion?

I’ve long thought it was a toss-up between the Nirnaeth and the Thurd Kinslaying, but I’ve pretty much settled on the Third Kinslaying. The active choice to do evil is more tragic and horrifying than losing a battle, however terribly. It’s just gutting in every way. The fact that the last remnant of Elves in mainland Beleriand, protected from Morgoth by Ulmo’s power, are being destroyed by other elves; that every person involved it, even the aggressors, are completely aware of how horrific it is, to the point where you have people who participated in the destruction of Doriath turning on their friends and comrades and fighting against them in horror at what they’re doing; the fact that the Fëanorians are attacking Eärendil’s people while he’s away devoting himself to the last slim hope of saving any of them; Elrond and Elros losing their parents and the people of Doriath losing, with the twins, a major part of their culture and heritage. The fact that Morgoth destroys the Fëanorian base on Amon Ereb immediately after, making it gruesomely clear that he was only holding back before in the expectation that the Fëanorians would do exactly what they did do. The fact that these people who came to Beleriand on a vengeance quest against Morgoth are now doing his work.

I think there’s a lot of elves who died there, especially on the attacking side, who didn’t go to the Halls, because they couldn’t bear to face what they’d done. And given what Tolkien says in LaCE (even some of the Eldar who had become corrupted refused the summons [of Mandos], and then had little power to resist the counter-summons of Morgoth), their spirits would probably have ended up in Angband.

#the silmarillion #tolkien #húrin #túrin #house of hador #khazad dum #lothlorien #sons of fëanor #third kinslaying #doriath #asks

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hildorien · 5 years ago

Text

A Rom-Com in Dom-Lomin.

Ataniweek Day Two: Edain.

I wrote this because Morwen and Hurin deserve a whole lot of love. They aren’t a fairy tale romance, they don’t get a happy ending, but they were deeply in love and deserved a happy ending. Only the best for the true Gomez and Morticia of Arda.

@ataniweek

A03 LINK (X)

It was no secret who Hurin, son of Galdor, loved more than any jewel in a noldor's private coffers. She was black as night and a true beauty. Sadly, she was colder than ice and had a tongue sharper than the best sword but Hurin only saw his whole universe in her. Even from the age of six, he met her dark brown eyes and that sealed his fate. He had always tried to impress her.

He climbed trees he shouldn’t have, to impress her.

He picked fights he couldn’t win, for her.

He wrote a love letter after love letter, each one more dramatic and bad as the last.

Morwen, for her part, had adored him too then and until the end of her days. It was said she regarded him as her first friend in a new and scary land she had to flee to in rags. She did not see pity in his eyes, only the shine of the sun and a mischievous tint and that meant everything to her. After that small act of kindness, it was like God, himself, granted them his blessing to go and be in love.

They had been together for years, not once did one’s heart wander away from each other. Not even the flowers found during his entrapment in Gondolin could make Hurin wander. When he returned from that place, his brother at his side, the cold rain of north east Beleriand bearing on him, he saw her on the battlement like a spirit of war with only a lantern and a cloak. He made his way through the gate, leaving his brother in the dust and ran to where she stood.

He smiled, “you waited for me.”

“You are late.”

“I’ve always been late, my lady,” he laughed stalking closer to her to cup her cold cheek in one hand. “But I hope you can forgive me.”

In her grey eyes was a fire as she spoke, “make it up to me then, Hurin.”

He smiled and kissed her, dipping her slightly despite the rain, he felt so warm as her arms wrapped around his neck. Pulling away and gazing on her soft, smug smirk, Hurin realized something.

He wanted to marry her.

Now.

But the words didn’t escape his lips before Morwen started pulling them down the stairs towards her house.

It had been a month since he returned from Gondolin and he still couldn’t find the words. He stalked around his house, his brother giving him tired look.

“I think if you just asked, she’d say yes.”

“I can’t, everytime I see her, I just freeze.”

“Fearsome Hurin, son of Glador, taken down by the steely gaze of his true love,” Huor mocked as he bit into his apple. “What a horrible things to have bard write about you, utterly pathetic.”

Hurin smacked him, “I’m being serious and don’t mock me when you can’t even talk with Rian.”

“She’s just too nice!” He whined out, his words slurred by pieces of apple that flung out of his mouth onto the table.

“Whatever,” Hurin snorted and sat down, his head in his hands. It was then that a tired Galdor came walking through the door; despite his disposition, he looked amused at his two young sons.

“I heard your hennish squawking from outside boys. What are you fighting about now?” He asked.

It was noted that Huor resembled his father more than Hurin did. He was tall like Galdor. Huor often spoke like Galdor, respectful and metaphorically. It was something among the Edain that was labeled as very Elvish; as to hide your feelings behind words and riddles rather than giving a straight answer. Even sometimes as they grew older and older, people mistook Huor for Galdor if he was looked at from the back. Most days this minded Hurin not, he did not mind being smaller than most (even smaller than Morwen), or that he was loud on the border of being too loud, or that he was blessed with his mother’s Haladin features but there were others were he wondered if his father wished the two brothers had been born with Huor as eldest (therefore heir to his legacy ) and him as youngest (the spare).

“It’s nothing important father, just,” Huor gave him a smug look. “Hurin’s just being a ninny about asking Elfsheen to marry him.”

He picked up an apple and lobbed it at him. “Don’t call her that she hates it.”

Galdor laughed, “it’s a complement to her beauty.”

“She hates it, so I hate it.”

“Devotion is a good trait to have,” his father said absentmindedly, “but please stop lobbying apples at your brother.”

“I will when he stops being an ass.”

Huor stuck out his tongue like a child.

“Then that will be like waiting for the sun to rise in the west.”

Hurin’s face broke out into a smile while Huor's turned to horror. “Father!”

Hurin imitated his words in a whiny tone, “One-Almighty! Sometimes you're so pretentious. You never called him father before Gondolin, just say Da, like a normal person.”

“The Elves in Gondolin call their Da’s ‘father,’” the younger boy mumbled munching on his apple.

“You aren’t an Elf, Huor,” Hurin rolled his eyes.

“Okay, enough boys,” Galdor put his foot down. “So you are serious about Morwen?”

“I’ve been serious since I was a babe, Da.”

Galdor smiled, “that may be true. But have‘ye asked Emeldir yet?”

“Emeldir?”

“She is Morwen’s keeper, is she not? That bear of a women,” he said with a roll of his eyes almost out of habit, though a friendly and loving lent never left his voice. Galdor and Emeldir butted heads, but it was like Hurin and Huor, a sibling relationship. The strong chieftess of the Beorians had enamoured the settlement of Dom-lomin with her striking inability not to die, not from illness, or grief. She watched over every child she brought with her as if they were her own. No one was more enamoured by her than Hurin’s own mother Hereth. The two were thick as thieves. Hurin imagined it was because Emeldor reminded his mother of the women from her youth in Brethil, who she missed dearly.

“I have not,” he gulped.

“I think it would be best if you asked her before you did anything impulsive. You wouldn’t want to upset the bear women of the Beorians by asking the hand of one of her favorite wee ones without even so much as a notice?”

Hurin could see his body very clearly thrown in a ditch somewhere where no one would find it if he did that. Nodding to his father, he made plans to visit Emeldir in the coming days.

Emeldir’s house was uttermost east of the main village of Dom-Lomin. It was located near the land designated for holy sights where festivals would happen, the highest vantage point of the whole main village. Now it was called the Grey Corner, or the Beorian Quarter since that's where the refugees located themselves. His father had given them full range to live wherever they wished, but they wished to remain almost separate from the rest of them all. Some found it odd, other a little insulting, but Hurin somewhat understood, the best he could. They had lost so much. All they wanted was a place to rebuild and remain Beorians rather than just another section of the people of Marach or Hador. He grew to see as a very Edain way of doing things; coming into a new land and making it yours despite someone else threatening to overcome you and make you them. It was early that morning when he went, the sun had barely came over the peaks of the mountains when he reached the steps of the Beorian’s chieftess' house. It was given the name “white-den” by him and some other children back in Hurin and Morwen’s youth because it was made of white wood and some children had been sure Emeldir had been one of those Bear shape changers. Hurin wasn’t one of them, but if he was going to find out if he was wrong, it would be now.

Knocking on the large door, he heard a soft “come in!”

He opened the door, he saw Rian coming down out from the kitchen area. The house was rather dark still, silent. He hoped Morwen wasn’t home.

“Oh! Rin-rin,” she cooed, her clothes were covered in dirt and she held a hoe in her hand. Hurin gave her a small smile and gave her a small hug. She refused to call him anything less than the name she gave as a babe. “Morwen isn’t home.”

“Ah,” Hurin smiled, “I am actually here to talk to Elemdir?”

Rian blinked, and cocked her head to the side, “why?”

“I needed to ask her a question.”

“Ah, I see,” Rian smiled, her smile was soft and shiny; utterly polite and coy. It was a ‘princess’ smile, Morwen called it. Sometimes it was hard for Hurin to understand that she came from the same family that produced Morwen and Elemdir. She was more of a flower than the cold rock the rest of her family was. She was somehow still soft, sweet on the eyes and the ears, more interested in singing and dancing than politics. She was a folk tale princess come to life, that is what his brother always said about her. He had always fancied her, respectfully from a distance. The two of them dancing around each other, constructing their perfect folk tale romance. It all seemed like too much work for Hurin’s take rather than to be not subtle about his feelings and have a constant bedmate. For that reason, she was never Hurin’s type.

“She’s in the barn. You can go around and see her.”

“Thanks Rian.” He turned.

“Oh and Hurin,” she called after him as he walked off.

“Yes?”

“Don’t let her scare you,” she winked. “She’s all bark and no bite.”

Hurin laughed. She may have been more a flower than a rock, but she was still a Beorian.

If there was ever a moment that defined who Elemdir was as a women, it was right now, Hurin thought to himself. She was wearing her typical black dress (that she either wore for mourning or she wore to be even more terrifying than she was), her hair was outfitted with beautiful beads and clips, her face was lined with wrinkles and her hair was looking more silver each day and yet she looked like a chieftess, no, a true Queen worthy of the throne. However, it was juxtaposed against the fact that her hands were stuck in the guts of a deer as if she was common hunter. She barely looked at him when she grunted welcome at him at him.

“Hello Hurin.”

“Hello Chieftess.” He bowed, still, respectfully as his mother had taught him.

“Why are you here?”

“I have a question for you,” Hurin squirmed.

She ripped the heart out of the animal, “and that would be?”

“I would like to ask Morwen’s hand in marriage.”

She threw the heart into a bowl, the blood splattered onto Hurin’s face. There seemed to be a chill in the air the moment the words left him. She looked at him as if examining his very soul, not a single emotion on her face. Hurin frowned.

“Is you're silence a no ma’am?”

She raised up a bloody gloved hand. “I have a question for you before I give you my answer.”

“Yes ma’am?”

“Do you love her?”

“More than the sun, moon, and stars. She’s my best friend.” Hurin spoke his cliche words with sincerity. It was the truth, and for that, he was not ashamed.

Softly a smile appeared on her weathered face, “then the answer from me is yes.”

Hurin knew he wanted to cry but he kept his face stoney as to not embarrass himself. “Thank you, Chieftess.”

“I cannot say she will say yes, though,” Emeldir said evenly.

“Even if she does not,” he smiled. “I will have her know she is the only woman who will have my heart.”

With that he turned to leave, before Emeldir called out for him, so he turned back to her.

“Your a good man, Hurin. You remind so much of my husband and my son, both of whom are lost to us all now, please,” she pleaded. “Don’t gamble away your life away for stupid reasons and leave my little one heartbroken and weathered like I am.”

“I will try not to, Chieftess.” That was all he could offer her in these times.

“That is all I ask you to do.”

It was a rush of happiness since that moment. He tried to ask Morwen to wed him so many times it was almost a joke by now but each and every time they fell short. Every time something was wrong. They were either failures on his part put to get the words out or nature ruined the moment. It just had to be the rainy season when he got his okay from Elemdir. Though sometimes much worse ruined any goodwill and happiness in Hurin. The pyre he stood in front of said it all.

“The smell of burning flesh is horrible,” Hurin said to himself as he watched his father’s body become ash with the rest of the fallen. He was chief now, and yet he still felt like a child. Too much like a child to lead his people, too much of a child to have lost his father. He felt as if someone had extinguished his flame with ice water and left him to languish in the bitterest winter blizzard. He couldn’t even comfort his mother or brother, he could barely comfort himself. He was being hailed as a hero, but what kind of hero couldn’t save his own family?

He cursed everything when he lifted his father’s body to the wise women and men to clean his body. He wondered why the One Almighty would take good men like his father away them but keep Morgoth and his monsters around to kill those good men.

In his anguish, he felt something touch his shoulders. It was fur.

“Standing here in the cold doesn’t bring them back,” Morwen was stoic as always as she stood next to him. She had left the mob of wailing women still singing funeral songs that had long had the Edain sung when they lost someone too early. Her grey eyes staring into his soul.

“Fighting didn’t do anything either. Nothing does.”

“You did what you could.”

“Then why do I feel so cold?” Hurin asked, his voice was rough and mean and he practically barked at her. She didn’t seem very impressed.

“Because you love so strongly, and you care, and you hate to lose. But loss is a part of our life, Hurin, that’s the fate of mortals like we are. We cannot linger with what we did, what could have been done, the what ifs, we can only keep going. Let the dead be dead, but do not die with them. That is what I have learned.” She it all like it made sense.

“But I, too, have lost my father, my mother, cousins, aunts, and uncles. I know loss, Hurin. This is a new experience for you, but the pain will always be fresh no matter how many times it happens. He was your father, you are allowed to feel pain, allowed to feel cold, allowed to cry. I never allowed myself to cry, and it only brought more pain. I was in so much pain before I met you Hurin, but you taught me that crying and that the pain I was feeling wasn’t weakness and neither is yours now.”

“Chiefs shouldn’t cry.” Hurin said weakly, his eyes shadowed and glossy.

She looked at him, a soft and warm hand went to his cheek. “But Hurin, son of Galdor, should.”

With only a few words, she had unravel him. He broke down; ugly wet streaks came down his face, he scooped her up in his arms and sobbed. Her arms tangled around him like wisteria on a wall. He slept with her that night, nothing happened, it rarely did these days. They weren’t kids anymore and he was increasingly more busy. Eventually being Chief got easier after a year, the pain dulled, and then after two he was finally starting to get the gist of this thing he was groomed his whole life for. It helped that Morwen was at his side constantly, a beorian through and through her mind was made for this kind of work. She could neogate and organize with the best of them. She was often the logic to his emotions, his blue to his red, often just smarter than him.

One night, they sat together late into the night piecing together Taliska and Sindarin documents and talking about crop rotation under candle light when Morwen paused and stared at Hurin.

He laughed, “was it something I said about the peas?”

“I’m tired of waiting, Hurin.”

“What do you mean?”

“Hurin, will you marry me?” She reached inside her cleavage to pull out a ring.

His jaw fell open.

#morwen #hurin thalion #the children of hurin #children of hurin #turin turambar #silm #silmarillion #ataniweek #edain #house of hador #house of beor #rian #hour #atani week #fanfic #tea with milk

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thegatesfamilyfiles · 5 years ago

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1910s-1920s Children Of Hurin (Part 8/8)

Eyyy it’s the final installment and, as promised, it’s a fic this time!

(a really sad fic. Look, you knew what you were getting into)

Niniel stumbled into the clearing, her gaze immediately fixing on the tall, bony man who lay on the riverbank. Glaurung was badly hurt, that much was clear; blood flowed steadily from a bullet wound in his chest, and he made no effort to stop it.

“Nienor van Hador,” he said softly. “Well, I never.”

Niniel took a step back, her heart thudding heavily in her chest. “It’s Niniel Smith. Not Nienor.”

Glaurung smiled broadly, showing bloodstained teeth. “Sure about that, darlin’? Well, I reckon you wouldn’t remember after that little bump you got on the noggin after our last conversation. Though I suppose this story does have a happy ending: after all, you found your brother.”

“No,” said Niniel, shaking her head. “I haven’t got a brother.”

“Oh, but you do, my girl.” Glaurung cocked his head to the side and let out a harsh, hacking cough. “Let me ask you something. You remember anything about your life before you came to Tennessee? Nothing? Well, then, let me fill you in a bit, seeing as how we’re such good pals. Your name is Nienor van Hador, daughter of Morwen and Hurin van Hador. You were born in 1900 in Dor-Lomin, West Virginia. Your daddy went missing after getting mixed up with the wrong folks and your mama ran off when you had your little head injury. And your husband might go around calling himself Turambar Smith, but his real name is Turin van Hador, and he’s as much of a criminal as I am. And, of course, your brother.”

“I don’t believe you,” Niniel whispered. “You’re a liar, a damned liar.”

“Oh, sweetheart. I may be a bootlegger, a murderer, and a thief, but one thing I certainly am not is a liar,” Glaurung said. His breath was getting more raspy, his lungs clearly on the verge of giving out. “Now you think real, real hard, and I’ll give you a clue. Nargothrond, California. 1923.” His grin was bestial, inhuman. “The bridge.”

Glaurung collapsed onto the riverbank, saying no more. But Niniel barely noticed him breathing his last. For somehow, just barely—she remembered. Flashes of images, nothing more, but enough.

The bridge. The fight. Her injury.

A farm in West Virginia, and a mother who was always tired, and a father who was never there.

And a brother she had never met.

Niniel looked at the fast-flowing waters of the river, and then down at the unconscious form of her husband, who she loved dearly, and whose strangeness and secrecy she had never been upset by, never questioned.

“Goodbye, brother,” she said quietly. “Goodbye, my love.”

She was Nienor van Hador, and she knew what she had to do.

It took some time for Turin to regain consciousness. When he did, and found his way back to where the rest of the Brethil folk were hiding, his welcome was less warm than he would have predicted.

“You told them I was dead?”

“I thought you were,” Brandir said faintly, gripping his cane so tightly his knuckles turned white. “I couldn’t feel your pulse.”

Turin snorted. “Call yourself a doctor, Harmon? Good Lord, I think you might need a refresher course on how to tell if a fellow’s gone to meet his maker. Now, while we’re all in the same place, I may as well ask: what in the heck are you all doing here, and where is my wife?”

To his annoyance, there was absolute silence.

“Niniel isn’t here,” Brandir said at last.

“Well, I don’t need spectacles to see that. Headed back to town, did she? Probably for the best. You folks stay here for now, I’ll see if she’s all right.”

“You won’t find her at your house,” said Brandir. “You won’t find her anywhere. She’s dead.”

Turin’s blood seemed to turn to ice in his veins. “Dead?”

“Don’t you listen to him, Turambar,” called a woman from the assembled crowd—Dorlas Miller’s widow, Turin thought. “He’s gone loony, telling us you were dead, calling it good news. Why should we believe him now?”

“Good news, eh?” Turin strode forward in fury and seized the collar of Brandir’s coat. “Good news, if I’m dead and you can move in on my wife? You’ve got some nerve, son. We’ve had just about enough of your lying.”

“It’s you who’s the liar, Turambar,” Brandir hissed. “Or, hell, I may as well use your real name, if we’re laying everything on the table. Because I just happened to overhear Niniel’s last conversation with that Glaurung fellow, Turin van Hador. And she wasn’t who we thought she was, any more than you are.”

“Niniel didn’t know who she was,” Turin said, his heart pounding. “I don’t see what you or Glaurung could know about it.”

“Oh, your old friend knew enough. Enough to tell poor Niniel that her real name is Nienor van Hador. And enough to make her throw herself into the river.”

What happened next depends entirely on who one asks. Mrs. Miller insisted that Brandir threw the first punch, forcing Turin to defend himself. Others were of the opinion that Turin pulled out his pistol completely unprompted, leaving Brandir without a hope of fighting back. But regardless of the precise facts of the situation, within less than a minute, Brandir was dead and Turin was gone, vanished into the woods.

Beside the waters of the Teiglin river, Turin gazed numbly at the pistol that he gripped in his fist.

“Cursed,” he muttered. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a better explanation, do you?”

Unsurprisingly, the gun remained silent.

“No, I didn’t think you would. We’re cursed, all our kin. If you can give me one good reason why any damn member of my family deserves to remain on God’s green earth, I would speak up now.” His voice rose until it was nearly a wail. “Tell me now, dammit, because I have nothing. Nothing at all.”

Once again, silence.

Turin let out a deep, shuddering breath, lifting the pistol. “Well. I can take a hint, I reckon.”

One last shot rang out in the Brethil Woods that afternoon, and those who heard it never forgot it, as long as they lived.

There were three new graves in the Brethil cemetery, the autumn of 1924.

One for Sheriff Dorlas Miller, killed in the line of duty.

One for Dr. Brandir Harmon, tragically slain in a gunfight.

And one with two names, though half empty, in a far corner of the graveyard where few people bothered to go, upon which had been carefully carved:

Turin van Hador, 1895-1924

Nienor “Niniel” van Hador, 1900-1924

Lord Have Mercy

#turin #nienor #niniel #children of hurin #silmarillion #tw suicide #fics

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ncfan-1 · 6 years ago

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Little Secrets

Celepharn had learned much during her fosterage in Imladris, and yet, somehow, she had learned absolutely nothing of Hobbits. [Written for the Legendarium Ladies April 3rd general prompt, ‘Secrets.’]

[Also on AO3 | Dreamwidth | Pillowfort]

Continuing my yearly tradition of doing a fic for one of the royal line of Arnor that I head canon (based on the gender-neutral names) as a woman. This time it’s Celepharn, one of the rulers of Arthedain.

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Celepharn had learned much during her fosterage in Imladris. That was hardly unusual; Master Elrond was a diligent teacher, and he and his family strove to ensure that their royal wards left their care more enlightened than they had entered it. What would have been very strange would be if Celepharn had not left Imladris more learned than she had entered it. It would have signaled a highly uncharacteristic laxity on the part of the teacher—or, more likely, signaled serious inattention on the part of the student.

Celepharn had learned much during her time in Imladris, and yet, somehow, she had never heard even the softest whisper regarding the Periannath.

“Ah, Mistress Gildis,” called the woman so small that if Celepharn hadn’t known her to have a good forty years to her name, she would have thought her a young child. “Good. I was hoping you’d be back soon. Did you find what I asked for?”

Right to the point, was Rosemary. Ah, well. So was Celepharn. Neither of them had much, if any, use for small talk that didn’t achieve some end greater than itself. Celepharn hopped down from the wagon she had been driving and walked round to the back. “I did indeed. She patted one of the sacks piled in the back of the wagon. “Seeds for planting. Wheat, turnip, carrot, tomato, pumpkin, potato. I also—“ Celepharn took a sturdy woolen pouch from her belt, wherein there were several, smaller pouches “—have seeds for fruit trees and bushes. Apple and blackberry, mostly, but I was able to get some mulberry and chestnut as well.”

Rosemary’s brown eyes lit up. “Fantastic! Thank you, Mistress Gildis.” She laughed ruefully, wringing her apron with her reddened, slightly sweaty hands. “We had seeds of our own, but I’m afraid the animals got into them, and we would’ve been in a tight spot without something to replace it all with.”

“I can imagine.”

She had never heard of the Periannath, not so much as a whisper, before they had come to the attention of Arthedain’s border guards. None of her people knew just where they had come from, and the Periannath themselves had been decidedly vague on that point. They had scattered upon reaching Arthedain and being accepted there by Celepharn’s father, most of them integrating into Dúnedain communities. But there were some communities, such as the one Rosemary here had established near Amon Sûl, that was entirely Periannath in makeup, no Men to be seen anywhere within the confines of the new, slowly growing village.

Next was to get the sacks to what served as the village’s storehouse. For this, Celepharn’s help was needed, for though the Periannath were a hardy people, they were a little people, and the sacks were rather too large for them to maneuver over long distances. Someone came running up with a wheelbarrow, and that expedited the process considerably.

Once the storehouse was reached, Celepharn was obliged to wait outside, watching as the Periannath either wheeled the sacks inside, or struggled to carry them in themselves. For one thing, the buildings had been built to accommodate people of the Periannath’s size; Celepharn would have had to crawl on her hands and her knees to get through the door. What was more, the Periannath had excavated their homes and shops and official buildings directly into the heather-carpeted hillsides, and Celepharn would have been obliged also to remain on her hands and knees once within. And there was the matter of keeping from breaking any of the belongings found therein; that would not be conducive to building or maintaining friendly relations.

So Celepharn took a seat with her back pressed to the side of the hill, the soft heather tickling the back of her neck. After a few minutes, Rosemary came and joined her, sighing gustily and clicking her feet, bare of shoes and covered on the top by an odd carpeting of thick, curly brown hair, together, over and over again.

“You know, Mistress Gildis,” Rosemary said, very casually, “I do wonder about you, sometimes.”

“Oh?” The sky was very blue this day, though there was a tint of gray towards the south.

“Yes. You always seem to have what I ask you to bring me, no matter what it is.”

“You haven’t asked me for anything that would be prohibitive,” Celepharn pointed out easily.

“You have a funny definition of ‘prohibitive’; I don’t know anyone who could have brought us as many seeds as you have, so quickly.” Rosemary raised an eyebrow, looked Celepharn up and down. Almost teasingly, “You’re not some kind of robber queen, are you?”

A spate of startled laughter escaped Celepharn’s mouth, high-pitched and bubbling in her throat. “No, Rosemary, no robber queen am I.” She tried to imagine what her parents would have thought of her being a robber queen, or what Master Elrond and Lady Celebrían would have thought about it, and she laughed again. “I am simply a Dúnadan who knows how to get ahold of needed supplies.”

Being a princess whose father approved of her efforts to care for the vulnerable in their kingdom certainly helped. Rosemary didn’t need to know that. It would make things rather awkward if the Periannath of this village knew just who their benefactor was; Celepharn didn’t want that.

She could imagine, though, coming here again when she was queen. Rosemary, by then old and gray, would come out of her home in the side of the hill and exclaim, “Aha! I knew you for a robber queen the moment I saw you! Where else could you have gotten that finery from?”

Or gray, maybe, but not old. Not old the way the Men of Rhovanion grew old. Not even old the way the Dúnedain grew old. The Periannath were intriguing, in this. Celepharn saw many in this village alone with gray hair and faces carved deep with wrinkles. Their eyes were still bright, though. Not the starry brightness of the Dúnedain, but the energetic brightness of a child who had yet to grow weary of the world. No matter how old the Perian, they did not, to Celepharn’s eyes, ever appear weary. Tired after a long day’s work, but never weary.

“If you have questions,” Celepharn remarked, “I have questions, too.”

“Oh? And what are they?”

“Where did you all come from?” That seemed, to Celepharn, a perfectly innocent question. “I’ve never heard a satisfactory answer to the question, and no one in Arthedain had ever heard of the Periannath before you came over the Hithaeglir.”

Rosemary’s face froze, but only for a moment, before she was back to her genial self. “We don’t really come from much of anywhere.” She waved her hand lazily. “We’re wanderers.” Never mind how quickly this village’s people had taken to sedentary life. “Wanderers who decided at last to settle down. And you may find yourself dealing with more of us before long.”

“Will we?” Her father would want to know about that.

“Oh, yes.” Rosemary’s eyes lit up as they did whenever she had a tale to tell. “My people are the Harfoots—“ she grimaced suddenly “—or Harfeet; Viola keeps harping on about it’s really ‘Harfeet.’ But there are two other kinds of Hobbits out there, and I think they meant to follow us.

“The Fallohides are taller than us, and rather more adventurous, to boot. You’ll know them when you see them, for they’ve all got golden hair. The Stoors…” Rosemary tapped her chin with her forefinger “…now, the Stoors are a little odd. They like water much more than a Hobbit should, and they wear boots when the ground’s all down with mud, if you can believe it.” Rosemary wrinkled her nose in disgust. “I certainly can’t. The men even grow beards sometimes.”

“Dúnedain men don’t grow beards until they’re very old,” Celepharn offered.

“Well, that makes them a little like us, though the similarities die off pretty quick. Anyways—“ Rosemary clapped Celepharn’s knee “—you can expect a lot more Hobbits showing up and requesting your, ahem, ‘expertise.’”

Celepharn smiled. “I look forward to it.”

The Bëorians had come over the Ered Luin first. Then, the Hadorians, tall and golden-haired. Then, the Haladin, who had always been rather different from the other two. A well-trodden story was primed to play out again, and as far as Celepharn was concerned, the least the Dúnedain could do was endeavor to be as good a steward to the Periannath as the Elves had been to the Edain.

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Edain—Men of the three houses (the Houses of Bëor, Hador and Haleth) who were faithful to the Elves throughout the First Age; after the War of Wrath they were gifted with the land of Númenor and became known as the Dúnedain; after the Akallabêth they established Arnor and Gondor (singular: Adan) (Sindarin) Ered Luin—“The Blue Mountains” (Sindarin); the mountain range at the far western border of Eriador, that in the Years of the Trees and the First Age served as the border between Eriador and Beleriand. It was also known as the Ered Lindon, the Mountains of the Land of the Singers, Lindon being a name given to the region of the Ossiriand by the Ñoldor, derived from the Nandorin Lindānā. Fallohide—the least numerous of the three kindreds of the Hobbits. Fallohides tended to be taller and slimmer than other Hobbits; they tended (though weren’t always) to be fair-haired and fair-skinned. Fallohides were regarded as being bolder and more curious than Harfoots or Stoors, and tended to be better hunters than they were farmers. Of the three kindreds, they were the friendliest with the Elves. Harfoot—the most numerous of the three kindreds of the Hobbits. Harfoots were shorter than Fallohides or Stoors, and it was they who first instituted the custom of living in smials, specially fashioned Hobbit-holes tunneled into the earth. Of the three kindreds, they were the friendliest with the Dwarves. Hithaeglir—the Misty Mountains (Sindarin); the mountain range separating Eriador and Rhovanion, the largest mountain range in Middle-Earth; first raised by Morgoth to hinder Oromë in his hunting of Morgoth’s creatures Periannath—‘Halflings’; the class plural form of ‘Perian,’ the Sindarin name for the Hobbits (singular: Perian) (plural: Periain) (Sindarin) Stoor—one of the three kindreds of the Hobbits. The Stoors tended towards being heavier and broader than Harfoots or Fallohides, and were in possession of large hands and feet. Uniquely among Hobbits, Stoors normally grew facial hair. The Stoors traditionally lived in flatlands and near rivers, and were the only kindred of Hobbits who had much to do with the water. Of the three kindreds, they were the friendliest with Men.

#Tolkien #The Silmarillion #The Lord of the Rings #Fanfic #Legendarium Ladies April #LLA 2019 #Celepharn #Original character

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tolkienrsb · 6 years ago

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Final Roundup!

Over the last week and a bit we’ve brought you fics spanning the Years of the Trees through to modern day, tales of Elves and Men and Dwarves and Hobbits and Ents and Valar and Maiar, sweet romances, epic sagas, myths, fairy tales, humour, horror, magic, grief and so much more. Thank you, again, to our fabulous authors and artists, to everyone who has cheered us on, who has liked, followed and reblogged on Tumblr, and who has read, left kudos and commented on AO3. This fandom is a truly wonderful place.

I’m sure you’ve all got thoughts on what worked this year, what didn’t, and what we could change, so make sure to send us your feedback on this handy form!

Now without further ado, here, for the final time, is a link and a brief summary for every story in the TRSB18 AO3 collection, whether we have a Tumblr masterpost for them or not. Dig in, kick back, and enjoy...

In The Houses of Healing by @grundyscribbling (writer) and @essenceofarda (artist) // A modern take on Eowyn and Faramir in the Houses of Healing.

Beneath a Young Sun and in the Eagle’s Shadow by @strigimorphaes (writer) and @magictodestroy (artist) // Mablung and Beleg are sent together on a diplomatic mission.

The Small and Secret Things by @the-wavesinger (writer) / @sirinstree (artist) // A story of Arien (and, tangentially, of her lover): how she came to be bound to Arda, and how she became the Sun.

Scattering of Shadows by @hennethgalad (writer) / @feanorus-rex (artist) // A tale of the Sun and the Moon…

A Nameless Fear by @gabriel-seven (writer) / @griseldajane (artist) // Thranduil must come to terms with his heritage in this tale of family and the fight against the dark.

City of Swans and Pearls by @hhimring (writer) / @hennethgalad (artist) // A happy moment in childhood, and glimpses of the less happy aftermath. One of our gorgeous treats!

Eka and the Quen by @dawnfelagund (writer) / @youngman-willow (artist) // In the mood for something different? Try this beautiful post-apocalyptic treat fic.

Out of the Woods by @maedhrosrussandol (writer) / dahmumu (artist) // Another of our lovely treat fics!

Fire on the Harbour by @maglor-still-lives (writer) / @hennethgalad (artist) // A look at Alqualondë from both sides.

The Staff Dancer by Kalendeer (writer) / Inspired by the Art “Lalwen charging into battle” (coming soon!) // From Dancing with a Staff to Dancing with a Weapon: The Lalwen Tales!

The Wedding of Hador and Gildis by @hennethgalad (writer) / @cycas (artist) // One of the longest tales spawned by the TRSB, the Saga of Hador comes to a conclusion in this sweet fic.

Cradle of Stars by @dawnfelagund (writer) / @vefanyar (artist) // You need the dark to see the stars…

Run, Esteemed Woman, And Remember by @lunarymagic (writer) / @dahmumu (artist) // The botanical fate of the mother of the Leaf.

The Art of Speech through Smithcraft by @Idrils_Scribe (writer) / @stripedroseandsketchpads (artist) // Celebrimbor’s first battle, told from his own perspective looking back.

Found Love by @mywoesaregranular (writer) / @em-cu (artist) // Fluffy daddy!DaeMags!

Arrows, Spiders and a Ring by @themirkyking (writer) / @homeiswheretheheartsare (artist) // Spiders cause nothing but problems.

Because My Land Is Fair by @naryaflame (writer) / @cycas (artist) // Bombadil, Hobbits and Ents, oh my!

There, Not Back Again by @erisofimladris (writer) / @rainglazed (artist) // Maglor, hobbits and a bento box - what’s not to love?

stare death in the face (and never back down) by @oopsbirdficced (writer) / @lidoshka (artist) // Canon-divergent shenanigans involving an anti-Silmaril gauntlet and a defiant, unbroken Maeglin.

Sunrise by @saviobriion (writer) / @peasantswhy // Erestor helps Glorfindel to heal after his rebirth.

Preoccupation by @jane-ways (writer) / @dahmumu (artist) // Thranduil has a bad feling about…well, everything. One of our fabulous treats.

Room Enough by @senalishia (writer) / @aphrodites-bloody-rose (artist) // Celebrían finds a way for both she and Gil-Galad to be in a relationship with Elrond… in Valinor.

On Wings of Storm by @starspray (writer) / @avoyagetoarcturus // Badass Eärendil (and Elwing!) to the rescue!

The End of All Things by Ancalimë (Cymbidia) (writer) / @nimium-amatrix-ingenii-sui (artist) // Exploring Ithilien in search of a giant Oliphaunt? Sign me up!

The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face by @keiliss (writer) / @peasantswhy (artist) // Two people finding each other against all odds and falling in love.

First Under the Mountain by @awayandlaughing (writer) / @asparklethatisblue (artist) // Durin I will return when the world needs her - every time it needs her.

As the New World Demanded by @strigimorphaes (writer) / @youngman-willow (artist) // One of the beautiful treats!

No Admittance Except on Official Wedding Business by @z-h-i-e (writer) // Nelyasun (artist) // Welcome to the Miss Bilbo and Thorin Oakenshield Marriage Misadventure!

Tracking by @thraaaaanduuuuuiiiiil (writer) // @dahmumu (artist) // Trying to be a good father and a good king all at once is not easy.

Are You Not Cold? by @thraaaaanduuuuuiiiiil (writer) // Satu Kai (artist) // Boromir discovers that there’s plenty to learn about the mysterious Elves.

A Trail of Things Lost by @anneway-nitheliniel (writer) // @pelinel (artist) // Things we Lost on the Ice.

Learning to Make Fire by @levade (writer) // @usuallysublimepenguin (artist) // A dance of politics and love among horselords.

Through Fields of Green by @maedhrosrussandol (writer) // @master-of-the-lackadaisical (artist) // Rohan Roadtrip!(Run-trip?)

Beautiful (like diamonds in the sky)by @stand-up-and-fight-daleks (writer) // @lidoshka (artist) // Wanting to outshine the stars, Melkor starts to wear diamonds in his hair.

The Forest Does Not Weep by @lurea (writer) // @zelvuska (artist) // Side-Effects of Entish Drinks.

Tall Talesby @z-h-i-e (writer) // @pidraws (artist) // Rawr! (Dinosaurs at Cuivienen, probably?)

Scattered Pearlsby @grundyscribbling (writer) // @hennethgalad (artist) // A look at Olwë’s perspective on the events of the Years of the Trees.

Beren and Finrod in the Great Outdoors by @ohlurr (artist) // @themissgrace (author) // Mad Modern Age Road Trip!

Dust in Desert Winds by @glorfindel-of-imladris (artist) // @joyfullynervouscreator (author) // Desert Diplomacy and Exploring the East!

Beyond the Sunset Leads My Way by @mainecoon76 (writer) // @maglor-still-lives (artist) // The notes of Amras Fëanorion spark a debate between Elrond and Gandalf

Silver Dawn by @aowyn (writer) // @struckinarda (artist) // Celebrimbor, coming of age, and the Fall of Nargothrond

Strangers to Ourselves by @alia-andreth (writer) // @lidoshka // Moryo is awkward in love… awkward.

The Battle of Aglon Pass by @cycas (artist) / @edgeoflight (author) // Beren I, grandfather of Beren Erchamion and father of Emeldir, tells the story of how he met and won his future bride. Oh, and also there was a battle.

Híni Ilúvataro by @nimium-amatrix-ingenii-sui (artist) / @wonderwafles (author) // On the eve of the War of Wrath, Eönwë, herald of Manwë, is sent to the Hither Lands to deliver a message to the Noldor and Edain who yet remain.

Flowers of Middle Summer by @glorfindel-of-imladris (artist) / Jellyfax (author) // Counsellor Erestor had loved Glorfindel unrequited for millennia, and had resigned himself to an eternity of heartache before fading into the West. Until unfortunate circumstances bring a young Lord of Rohan to the gates of Imladris…

Discord and Harmony by @hennethgalad (artist) / @independence1776 (author) // Young and in love, Nerdanel and Fëanor investigate the reality behind the Ainulindalë.

Dragon, Ghost, King & Bowman by @homeiswheretheheartsare (artist) / @cycas (author) // Bard discovers that looking into a dragon’s eyes is never a great idea, but occasionally you can get away with it.

A Good Dragon by @pidraws (artist) / TreasureHunter (author) // The life and times of Beleriand's greatest dragon, Ancalagon the Black!

do not hold to the earth by @silverworks4furs (artist) / @dark-siren (author) // All Kili had wanted to do was talk to a pretty girl. Fili rather wishes he hadn’t. Dis doesn’t know anything about it - which is probably a good thing. Or: Viking!Durins!

We Know Some Things (But Not All) by @ladybrooke (writer) / Nelyasun (artist) // Celebrimbor is seeking something, though Maeglin does not know what. Celebrimbor sees too much of his family's mistakes in Maeglin. Together, they dig a tunnel.

What changes, and what reminds by Rogercat (writer) / Isilloth-Mane (artist) // As the current heir to Nargothrond, Finduilas is facing a major issue in her life when both her betrothed Gwindor returns after several years in enslavement, and with him a mysterious mortal she does not really trust...

Come and browse the collection on AO3!

#round up #fic rec #TRSB18

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