#me bapping this fic with a stick: you! are! not! expanding! into a long fic worth of background context!!!!

[sweetearthandnorthernsky]

and i'm forced to deal with what i feel (forgive, morinel ft maglor)

morinel has. a lot of feelings about this actually (10 pages worth, actually). this whole situation is a goddamn mess help. also, your honor that is morinel's emotional support mithril thread spool and one day i will write a fic about how she Aquires it and Why it's her emotional support mithril thread spool.

Mithlond is somehow even emptier than Morinel remembers it being nearly a year ago, silent save for the song of the waves crashing against the shore.

She returns to the palace, standing in the deserted foyer, though she is too lost in thought to really realize who Elrond is talking to, tucked away in a corner.

She pays them no mind and goes to pass them so she can return to her room and start packing–

The hooded figure looks up – looks at her – and there is a moment of terrible realization that makes Morinel feel sick with conflicting feelings.

“Maglor.”  There’s ice in her voice, and she clenches her hands at her side so tightly that her fingernails dig crescents into her palm. 

Her uncle’s– Maglor’s eyes are foggy like sea-glass and there’s barely any Treelight left in them.  

“Isfin–”

“Don’t call me that,” Morinel snaps, sharp like iron, sharp like the crackle of lightning in her runes, or the sharp burn of her fire, sharper than she means. 

Elrond’s brows crinkle and she exhales, trying to calm herself – at least a little. 

“I haven’t gone by that name since…” Since before the War of Wrath, since before the breaking of Beleriand, since before everything changed, since before– 

“It doesn’t matter,” she says stiffly.

Morinel cannot help but glance to the stairway that leads to the hallway that leads to her room. For a few tantalizing seconds, she wonders if she could extricate herself from the conversation and make it up the stairs but–

“What ought I call you then?” There’s that faint bite of not-quite-sarcasm that she remembers all too well from Amon Ereb and Belegost and Taur-im-Duinath. 

“Morinel.”

Maglor says nothing at first but his brow quirks upward for a half-second, which she knows all too well for surprise (she'd disliked that name when she was little, after all) before it smoothly crosses into approval.

“It suits you.”

“Thank you.” 

(She nearly laughs at how bizarre this is – the two of them exchanging polite pleasantries as if they met by chance in the marketplace.)

The wind rustles outside, and raindrops splatter against the roof, and in the distance, lightning flashes. He pushes his hood away from his face and for a half-second, she sees his hand, burnt and blistered, and she wonders what could've made such a mark–

The Silmaril. 

So it did burn him.

(She remembers that night, after the Host of the West had wrested the Silmarilli from Morgoth’s crown, when they stole through the camp and cut down the guards, eyes burning like wild animals, not Eldar, blood on their sword even to the last–)

“I had thought you drowned in the wreck of Beleriand.” It’s with concentrated effort that she keeps her voice level and disinterested. “Were you here this whole time?”  

He nods and something twists within her like a coil that’s been wound far too tightly. 

She closes her eyes and bites her tongue and tries, for Elrond’s sake, to ground herself and keep from lashing out.   “Where?” 

Morinel’s pendant feels heavier than the entire weight of Arda at the moment and her cloak – meant to keep out the chill – feels like it’s made of lead. 

She hopes, desperately, that the answer isn't what she thinks it is.

He shrugs, palms upward, and the light catches on the angry-looking burn. “Here. East of Himring – mostly – as I always have been.” 

As if to emphasize his words, lightning strikes the sky and she can see the lonely island out in the distance.

Arinya flickers and shines in the candlelight and suddenly all she can see is hands dipped in silver and crowns of holly and she can only taste the burning char of stone that sticks in her throat and – 

“This whole time?”

His face twists with pain and his eyes are shadowed when he answers as lightning cracks in the distance. There is sorrow in his voice when he speaks. 

“If this is about Ty–”

Thunder rumbles. 

“Of course this is about Celebrimbor!”

Heat scalds her throat, as if she'd used one of her runes, and she takes a breath before she continues, focusing on the texture of the soft mithril thread between her fingers.  

“Do you know what Sauron did to him?” Her voice is dangerously low, and she knows that this is unfair, but she can’t be bothered caring. “He cast his hands in liquid silver, and made him into a banner, beaten and bloody and barely recognizable.”

Maglor winces and Elrond’s face twists into disapproval. 

She cannot stop now but, by all the Valar, she wants to, she does not want to have this outburst here, in front of Elrond, she does not want to have it at all, she does not want to be emotional when she is already stressed from travel, she does not want to be vulnerable. 

But it would be easier to stop the sun from shining, or to stop the ebbing of the tides, because the words are already bubbling up into her throat, and pouring from her mouth the way the Gelion flowed into the Helevorn.

“Where were you? Hiding on the coast when you could have helped.” Lightning cracks again, bright and throws the room into sharp relief. The words feel like they burn her, and Morinel exhales, and the ill-made pendant rises with her breathing. “We needed you too, you know, but you ran, like you always do.” 

She regrets the words the minute she says them.

Uneasy silence lies between them all, and she stops to listen – the rain has slowed, and the thunder stopped.

She takes advantage of the moment to flee, taking the stairs nearly two at a time, and shutting her door behind her.

Morinel tosses her sketchbook none too gently onto her well-worn chest of drawers, and locks the door behind her. 

She takes a seat at her desk and pushes The Coming Into Eldamar away, and pulls out her letterbox again, carefully paging through each one – half-heartedly, she knows she doesn’t have the heart to throw any of them away. 

When she’s done, she places it on her bed, and turns to her bookshelf.

Her thoughts spiral and twist as she works, mostly to the tune of that was uncalled for, even if you were angry or how are you going to fix that or dark hair isn’t the only thing you inherited from your father –

An hour goes by, and the anger has passed — or, more accurately: turned to a dull simmering — when someone knocks, softly, at her door when she is nearly through organizing her books.

Morinel freezes, then unfreezes to pick the last book off the shelf. More likely than not, it’s probably Elrond and she sighs.

She is not looking forward to her talking to, but it must be gotten over with sooner or later, mustn't it?

Morinel unlocks the door but waits until she’s back to the books before she calls over her shoulder: “It’s unlocked.”

The door creaks on its hinges. 

“May I?”

Blood drains from her face.

Not Elrond. 

“If you wish.” Morinel’s voice is icily polite. 

(She hides the strain very well, if she must say so herself.)

Contrary to his request, Maglor stays on the threshold and she spreads the books out on her bed and begins to sort them into piles: keep, unsure, and give away. 

Ainulindale: A Translation – illustrated by Lorindol of Gondolin – is placed into the Keep Forever pile, while A Treatise On Stone by Arelleth is placed in the Give Away pile – after all, why would she need a book to help with the planning of cities and great buildings when they must be a mirian a dozen in Aman?

Moments tick past.

Morinel cannot stand silence.

(She never has, and she never will be able to. Maglor knows this, and she knows Maglor knows this, and Maglor knows she knows he knows this.)

She exhales.

“Are you going to stand there or come in?” She still is not facing him as she sorts through her books, though in truth, she is barely even really looking at them. “This room gets cold, and I would like the door shut before I freeze, either way.”

There is the shuffle of fabric and the door creaks again. Then the floorboards creak too, as footsteps come closer – though they stop a few feet away from her.

Maglor is still not just yet in her peripheral.

“You were never so affected by the cold before,” Maglor’s voice holds a hint of something… she doesn’t quite know what it is. “That sounds like something that would affect those who crossed the Ice.” 

Morinel feels she’s allowed to be a little petty about the whole thing.

“Yes,” she says succinctly, stacking the books with a little more force than necessary, “But being in a coma due to the dark arts of Sauron for three thousand and twenty-five years causes many changes in one’s hröa, most of which I am still coming to terms with.” 

Her shoulder throbs as if agreeing with her as she watches her words land with a sort of sickening pleasure, and she hates herself for taking satisfaction in the way discomfort flickers across Maglor's face.

“I suppose so. I might've known."

Morinel laughs, but there is no humor in it, only bitterness. “How could you? You weren't here.”

She glances up then, to see how his lips purse into a thin line, like how it did in Belegost or Amon Ereb before telling her and the twins something he knew they wouldn’t like. 

Her eyes narrow, and her hands still.

“That is–” Maglor pauses, taking a step toward her. When he seems convinced that she isn’t going to commit violence to preserve her personal space, he continues, “– not entirely true.”

Morinel goes very, very still.

“What do you mean?” Her voice is low, and her hands have stilled, clutching the spine of one of her older books. 

“I was not as good at hiding as I thought,” he says, with a rueful shrug, and her fingernails dig crescents into her palm. “Elrond found me, not long after Tyelperinquar…”

His voice fades into a soft silence, and the sound of the waves shushing through the windows fills the room. 

At this moment, Morinel doesn't know whether she is more angry at Elrond, for keeping Maglor’s existence a secret from her — of all people! — or at Maglor, for staying away so long. 

But Maglor is not finished speaking. 

“After that… I was in Imladris,” he says, softly, so softly she almost can’t hear him, but she can, if only just barely, and that’s almost worse.  “Occasionally. And I was there when…” He pauses, no doubt trying to figure out how to phrase his next words diplomatically. “...you came back.”

Morinel blinks very slowly. 

The knot of emotions in her chest gets tangled even more, like when she was first learning embroidery and left herself too much thread.  Suddenly, she remembers first waking from the coma, the harp song in the background when she mumbled to Harthalín and—

“That was you, wasn’t it?” The words are accusing, even if the tone isn’t. 

He blinks.

“When I woke up,” she says, frowning. “You were the one at the harp, weren’t you?”

He bows his head – whether from shame or acknowledgement, she cannot tell.

“So–” Heat scalds at her throat again. “So…” She hates this, she hates stammering, she hates not being able to articulate her point. “Why? Why did it take you two ages?”

“The Silmarils burned us,” Maglor says, as if that were the only explanation needed. 

“Do you think that matters to me?” She snaps, finally able to look Maglor in the eyes, to see pain reflected there. “Maybe that line worked on… on the Morinel in your head– but–”  

She takes a deep breath and rises from her bed to pluck half-heartedly at her loom – carefully avoiding Maglor's eyes as she fidgets with her shuttle. 

“Oh, Morinel,” Maglor says, his voice soft and tired and despairing. “You didn’t want me around, not really. You say that now but you don’t understand.”

“Do not tell me how I felt then,” she says, more fiercely than she meant to. The spool of mithril thread grounds her as she reminds herself to breathe.

“I didn’t want people whispering about you,” Maglor says quietly, “Or Celebrimbor. I know they would have, if you had received visits from your kinslaying-uncle.”

She laughs despairingly, turning to face him again. 

“They already did whisper about us! A Fëanorian who works with thread –” and she lifts the basket full of spools as if to demonstrate her point, “– in weaving and embroidery both…” 

Morinel smiles bitterly then, tucking a braid out of her face. 

“You can imagine, I’m sure, the rumors that started and Celebrimbor always had it worse – as a smith, as the eldest of the two of us, for his resemblance to his father and to Grandfather.”

She takes a breath.

“We looked. I looked.” 

The words come out like she is carving them into marble, torturously slow but the tangle of knots in her chest unravels the tiniest bit. He makes a sound of surprise, and she smiles, though it comes out like a grimace. 

“Those first decades after the war were hard,” she says. “I had questions, and I’m sure he did too.”

She feels very young again, a child amidst the days of the War of Wrath. 

“I– We– thought you were dead.”  Then, so quiet, she’s not sure if he even hears: “And we thought that if you were not dead that you must have been angry with us.”

Silence again. 

Maglor isn’t looking at her this time, and she tightens her grip on the mithril spool in her hand for reassurance.

“I was—I was trying to protect you both.” 

The words sound as difficult to say as Morinel’s own admission. “I know how difficult it was to love Feanorians in those days.”

“Not as difficult as it was to be one.”  

(This time her response is easy, because it is true.)

They stand in an impasse, in silence. 

Finally, she manages to say what she’d been wondering (and fearing) the response to. “Why… Why did you show yourself to Elrond, and not us, then?”

A pause, and she watches the tossing waves in the harbor. 

“There was very little choice in the matter.”

Maglor’s lips quirk.

“It happened by chance. He saw the smoke of my campfire.” The words sting a little, and she knows that they should not. “And I think, part of it, is I was scared of your reactions.” He shrugs. “I was running.”

She winces as she takes a seat at her loom, and gestures for Maglor to sit at her desk. 

“I am sorry,” she says, after a long, long moment of anxiously passing her shuttle from hand to hand. “About what I said.”

Maglor gives her a crooked half-smile. 

“I deserved most of it, if it makes you feel better.”

She shakes her head and rises – almost as soon as she sits down, because she had never been one for sitting still – to start taking down the tapestry she’d finished on her last visit to Mithlond. 

“It doesn’t,” she says, digging through her basket before finding her favorite tapestry needle. 

With deft and skilled movement – she’s done this often enough it’s almost second nature – she weaves the loose threads at the top back into the weave.

“I hold myself to higher standards than that, and what I said was…” she pauses, frowning as she paused, looking for words. “Not kind. I am very sorry.”

She bends to do the same for the lower part of the frame before deciding to just sit cross-legged on the floor. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees that Maglor looks like he is going to say something, but decides otherwise at the last moment. 

She looks up to meet his eyes, halfway through the bottom half of the tapestry. “If you have something to say, I would prefer you say it, you know. I have been a little too honest, and it is only fair that you are offered the same.”

Another crooked smile. 

“I was only going to say that thinking before you spoke has never been your strong suit, but I was not sure if that would be too familiar of a thing to say after… everything.”

To Morinel’s surprise, she actually laughs as she goes back to weaving her loose ends back into the tapestry. 

“You aren’t wrong,” she says, shaking her head. “Though, I like to imagine that over the years as a councilor that I learned to be a little diplomatic. Clearly, I was too hopeful.”

She cuts through the looped warp threads holding the tapestry at the bottom and she stands to cut the loops at the top. 

The tapestry comes loose once she pulls it free, and she’d forgotten how heavy they could get as she staggers backward before she regains her balance, and drops it onto her bed. 

Morinel comes back to the loom and with the tapestry gone it looks forlornly empty – throughout the years she has always been working on something, though she could go months or years taking breaks from her current project. 

The only time she can truly remember it being empty was in the first few weeks after she’d commissioned it – those weeks were her trying to bring herself to actually use without feeling like she was tempting fate. 

This loom has been her companion throughout the ages and she knows its quirks and oddities better than any other she’d practiced on, and Cirdan had said, when she asked, that she could bring it with her if she wished. 

She’d been uncertain before, but her mind is made up now.

“Would you like some help, or would you prefer to handle it yourself?”

The request is made casually, making Morinel free to accept or decline, and she appreciates the choice.

“I think help would be nice,” she says softly, and her uncle rises to come stand by the loom.

Things may not be entirely mended between them yet, but they were getting there.