#one peaceful day in valinor goes like this

[suchaflurryflurry]

i don’t want to be a party pooper and like also you can just ignore/change canon if you want, but when mortals go to valinor, they don’t become immortal. valinor is called the undying lands because its original inhabitants, the valar and the high elves are immortal. a mortal who goes to valinor will still die, but their final days will be ones of utmost peace.

bilbo goes because his too long years have finally caught up with him, with the destruction of the one ring, and he wishes to rest at last.

frodo goes because the quest of the ring weighs too heavily on his heart and mind, and he knows he cannot go back to the life he had before he set out on his journey.

gimli’s reasons for going are not explicitly stated, but it is clear that when he and legolas sail west, he is old, even for a dwarf. i think gimli knows his death is near, and he wishes to spend his final days at peace with legolas. he’d also want to see galadriel again.

and sam? i think sam goes to valinor simply because frodo did. i think sam would know that frodo had long since passed when he boards the ship, but it would not matter. where frodo baggins goes, samwise gamgee must follow.

[dutchkel]

I have been thinking on oaths/vows in LOTR and TROP. Galadriel makes a vow to find and destroy Sauron while she is holding Finrod's dagger in s1, ep 1. The dagger was then made into the Elven Rings. I wonder if that vow is how Sauron is able to bind those rings to the One Ring. He didn't corrupt them per se but used this loophole created by Galadriel's vow. The vow Galadriel made bound Sauron's fate to her and the dagger, which in turn, bound them to the One Ring. This is also why, I suspect, she really wasn't able to enter Valinor in the show (she had other reasons in the books). Her vow in reality prevented her. This is also why she cannot stop fighting, she made a vow not to and Sauron was still around. That is why she had no peace in her heart, her oath was forcing her to find him and destroy him. Also why King Gil Galad said they foresaw she might incidentally be responsible for Sauron's return.

I believe Elrond cautions against making vows regarding evil and maybe the writers got the idea from Elrond's very different choices in LOTR. In LOTR he gathers 9 for a Fellowship to match the 9 ringwraiths. The ringwraiths are bound to Sauron and the One Ring via their rings of power, but Elrond says to Fellowship in 'The Ring Goes South':

"You may tarry, or come back, or turn aside into other paths, as chance allows... Yet no oath or bond is laid on you to go further than you will. For you do not yet know the strength of your hearts, and cannot foresee what each may meet upon the road."

"Faithless is he that says farewell when the road darkens," says Gimli.

"Maybe," said Elrond, "but let him not vow to walk in the dark, who has not seen the nightfall."

"Yet sworn word may strengthen quaking heart," said Gimli.

"Or break it," said Elrond.

It seems this oath bound her to Sauron just like Finrod's oath bound him to Beren (Ring of Barahir a symbol of said oath) and Erol's oath bound Rohan to Gondor and so on and so forth. She took an oath carelessly when she didn't have the experience fighting her own or Sauron's darkness sufficiently to make such an oath, which is why Sauron said, "What do you know of darkness?"

Sauron may have been correct that Finrod only ever wanted peace and never made an oath to find or destroy Sauron. It may simply be how Galadriel interpreted Finrod's actions through her own lens of vengeance.

This oath created this whole situation and it will be interesting to see how this effects things going forward. Adar said to Galadriel in 2x6 when she was imprisoned, "In the end, your drive to prove your virtue will work right into Sauron's designs." And by 2x8, Sauron has all of the rings of power for men, and he has destroyed Eregion.

Finrod was known for his ability to see into the future. It seems to me in the prologue when he is trying to teach Galadriel about the darkness, he knows what her greatest struggle will be and he wants to give her his best knowledge because he knows already he will die. This is why he tells her one day he will no longer be around to help her. He tells her not to focus on darkness that is behaving like the light, but is only a mere reflection (Sauron), or on the temptation of darkness itself, but on the light above to guide her.

We know she is still learning these lessons. She is the type who just had to learn the hard way. She has to touch the darkness first. She must be tempted by reflections of light, that in fact are not light, before she can learn how to actually find the light. Galadriel has to go through her own darkness journey and also get her heart broken by evil first. She is Elrond's most recent cautionary tale.

"Their Oath shall drive them, and yet betray them, and ever snatch away the very treasure that they have sworn to pursue."

- Mandos (conerning the Feanorian oath concerning the Silmarils)

"For so sworn good or evil an oath may not be broken and it shall pursue oathkeeper and oathbreaker to the world's end."

- The Silmarillion

[annoyinglandmagazine]

Elrond and Celebrian’s wedding thoughts

I’ve had this really weird idea about how the brutality of the first and second age in which so many elves have lived could influence certain traditions, especially the Noldor exiles because I think they did a very sharp u turn from ‘all I’ve known is bliss’ to ‘the world is composed of fire and corpses’ and went well off the deep end a lot quicker than the Sindar did. Because the Sindar adjusted to the darkness a lot less violently and suddenly than the Noldor did and are just generally more stable seeming, less entirely batshit insane (because of course all the Noldor exiles present in First Age Beleriand are the batshit insane ones who either burnt the ships or crossed the Helcaraxe).

So the Noldor are so focused on war that it inserts itself into every aspect of their lives including ceremonies because how is anything meant to be binding without blood spilled? Bonds are forged by saving each other in battle, avenging a lost friend with a bloodthirsty rampage, how are words meant to hold weight or impact over the life and death situations that define them? So I think that in certain factions, at certain points, it becomes tradition for there always to be some form of blood involved in a wedding ceremony.

How varies, probably it originated from people just straight up getting married on the battlefield one time too many, seems like a very Noldor thing to do (no I’m not talking about the LACE kind of wedding before anyone’s mind goes there). Then it evolves to different things, scrapes along hands before linking them, cuts on knuckles before bringing them to lips, slicing a finger and leaving a bloody mark over the partners heart or on their forehead, or (my personal favourite) cutting the lips before kissing so the blood mingles.

This brings me to the main point of this ramble which is that Elrond and Celebrian by the start of the Third Age are some of the only people who still value this tradition. Despite their extremely different upbringings fundamentally, and this of course is up to personal interpretation as we know very little about Celebrian sadly, I’d say they were both born into the world at the point of apocalypse, desensitised to violence. Very used to the sense of impending doom and willing to take any hope or joy when they can. They are fundamentally children of the first age and it shows.

Mirkwood obviously doesn’t do this because they obviously aren’t Noldor and don’t have those kind of traditions (because they aren’t that mental) and Lothlorien probably wouldn’t because it’s predominantly Sindar (and also more chill) and since a good proportion of the First Age elves are either dead or in Valinor by the end of the second age suffice it to say everyone who is at their wedding thinks it’s concerning when they pull out their ‘good daggers’ and prick their lips before embracing, gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes and grinning wildly all the time as if there’s nothing messed up at all about the fact they brought daggers to their wedding.

Thranduil expected there to be at least one disturbing Noldor feature of the day, his father gave him enough vague warnings, not that he ever thought he’d end up at a Noldo’s wedding, and he’d certainly no hopes of Celebrian being a tempering influence on Elrond’s blatant Feanorian sympathies with how much she loved to wreak havoc but nothing could have prepared him for the sight of little droplets of blood smearing on their mouths as they pressed their lips together, otherwise perfectly romantically. He does not attend any more weddings in Rivendell after that.

Galadriel and Celeborn probably married in a Sindarin way but they find the gesture touching anyway, not unusual in the slightest but more quaint, a true symbolic end to the previous ages in the joining of the last descendants of Finwë in the wartime fashion before an age of peace.

Is there a possibility Arwen and Aragorn did it too? Absolutely and Legolas has thoughts on it which he will be bemoaning to Gimli the entire ceremony.

[tar-maitime]

initiate the heart within me

Rating: T Characters: Maedhros | Maitimo, Fingon | Findekano, Ereinion Gil-galad, OCs Relationships: Maedhros/Fingon, fem!Maedhros/Fingon Additional: Long Peace, Gil-galad son of plot hole, also Gil-galad Russingonion, Adoption WC: 3.2k

The others of the scouting party are still picking through the settlement, but Maedhros already knows it won’t avail them anything. Orcish destruction on this scale doesn’t leave survivors.

Once, this was a relatively happy and peaceful place, with a mix of Noldor and Sindar and a few Avari all mingled together. Maedhros last rode through it only a few months ago, and there was as little foreboding of trouble as if they’d all been in Valinor. It just goes to show that none of them are ever safe here, not really.

Her second approaches her, looking grim. “My lady,” he says, “what would you have us do?”

They’ve already dispatched the band of orcs that did this. There won’t be anything useful to salvage; such raiding parties destroy or befoul anything they don’t take. “Bury the dead,” she says shortly. “We should have time and safety enough for that, at least - to give these people some dignity.”

He nods, and goes to relay the order to the others. This business should not take long. Even in this long peace, they have grown skilled in making graves for large numbers of people quickly.

Maedhros moves to join them, falling into the rhythm of searching half-destroyed houses for bodies and bringing them out to be arranged. It’s not until the fourth such house that something breaks her out of it, something she almost doesn’t recognize at first because it’s so out of place here.

There’s a baby crying quietly.

She freezes, momentarily sure she’s imagining it - but no, there it is again.

It takes her agonizingly long to search, scrambling, for the source, pulling open cupboards and drawers, checking increasingly unlikely spots. At last - it can’t have been more than a few minutes, but feels longer - she traces the cry to the bedroom, and a heavy wooden chest shoved under the bed. Somehow, someone had managed to bundle an infant, only a handful of months old, into the chest and the orcs hadn’t found it. Perhaps the child had somehow slept through it all; perhaps the attack had been so riotous that it was impossible to hear one small cry in all the din. However it happened, the child’s survival is nothing short of a miracle, of the kind Maedhros scarcely believes in anymore. 

Carefully, she cradles the baby against her chest, all too aware of her armor and the black and scarlet blood smearing her. It - he, she discovers after a brief investigation - ceases wailing in her hold, blinking up at her uncertainly.

He’s so small, so fragile. Nothing in her life has been allowed to be fragile in so long, no since she ceased to be so herself. And yet, once upon a time, wasn’t she so sure she would have this? A child in her arms, one of her own, hers and --

The bond is usually quiet these days, not from any lack of love but simply for the need to avoid distraction, but now it opens up without her conscious decision, letting her banked fire flare in Fingon’s mind leagues away. He answers instantly in starlight. Russë? Is everything all right?

Maedhros struggles to master herself. This is nothing she needs to involve him in. It is not anything at all, not to her, not beyond her duty to see the child into safety and care the way she would for anyone under her protection.

I’m fine, Finno, she replies. Don’t worry.

He retreats, leaving the faintest trace of skepticism behind. Maedhros is left to stare at the slightly squirming baby, until at last she makes herself get up and go outside.

The revelation of the baby prompts a second, more thorough scouring of the village, but no other survivors are found. They make shift to bury the dead as best they can. At the last minute, Maedhros gathers a few things that look like they might have sentimental value someday from the house where she discovered the child. Through it all, she can’t quite bring herself to pass him along to anyone else. 

When they ride away, back to Himring, the baby is lashed to her chest in a sling.

- - -

Himring is neither designed nor supplied with the needs of an infant in mind. Most places in Beleriand, so far as Maedhros knows, aren’t; elves don’t pour themselves into bringing a new life into the world lightly, and few have felt safe enough to do so since the Darkening. The folk of that destroyed village must have believed themselves very secure indeed, right up until they didn’t.

But despite this and despite the eventful centuries since her brothers were this small, Maedhros has not forgotten the basics of care. As soon as she can amidst the chaos of the scouting party’s return, of getting cleaned up and jotting down notes for a later report on the attack, she makes arrangements. For an improvised cradle to be brought to her chambers, for rags to be donated to serve as catchcloths, for their softest blankets available to be rounded up as stand-ins until she can figure out proper clothes, for someone to inquire among the Edain of Himring if any women are nursing - Men cannot seem to stop having children, and when some of them joined Maedhros’ forces, they brought or started families, to general elven bewilderment.

It does occur to Maedhros, at one point, that she could hand the baby off to someone else, and make all this their responsibility. She is the commander of Himring; she has the authority, and arguably better things to do. But she doesn’t. The baby stays in her arms, or within her sight, or lashed to her chest, through all the rest of the day. It has never been her way to trust anyone but herself with the really important things, and there can be nothing more important than this.

The corollary to this, which had not occurred to her, comes early the next morning when the Edain wet nurse, a sweet-natured woman called Aelfwynn, stifles a cry as the baby nurses. Maedhros, alert to every detail occurring in that corner of the room, frowns and leans forward sharply. “Is something wrong?”

“No, my lady,” Aelfwynn says quickly. “It’s only - I could’ve sworn I felt something tug at me, here,” she rubs at her breastbone, “but...deeper inside, somehow. Like it was yanking at my soul.”

Of course. Maedhros should’ve thought. Elven children need nourishment of the fëa as well as the body, and in the normal course of things, would receive both at the same time from the mother. But with an adaneth...things are different, for them. there is no way of knowing whether such a thing would hurt both Aelfwynn and the baby, but Maedhros thinks it likely.

“Give him to me; I can amend it,” she says, reaching out her arms, and when Aelfwynn passes the baby over Maedhros holds him against her shoulder, stroking his back with her hand, and hums quietly, reaching out with her fëa to the child’s. As poor an offering as it is, he accepts it eagerly - clearly, the day or so since his parents were slain has left him desperate. Maedhros pours into his spirit until he is satisfied, then continues to hold him, swaying slightly back and forth.

A flare of starlight in her mind. Russë, what’s going on? I thought I felt...

Briefly, Maedhros curses whatever prevented her from foreseeing this. She and Fingon are bound soul to soul; of course he would feel it when she touched her soul to another. Nothing. There is no need to be concerned; don’t worry about it.

I’m not worried, but I am increasingly curious. Fingon’s thought turns almost hesitatnt. Russë...do you have a child there with you?

Lying to one’s bonded husband is impossible, and Maedhros has carried a distaste for untruths since Angband. Yes, she admits, an infant I found in the ruins of a village near here that was sacked. There is no need to make a fuss, though, she adds swiftly, for she can feel Fingon about to do just that. As soon as I can work out a better solution than this, he will go there posthaste.

And yet, Fingon says far too knowingly, it is you and not another appointed for the task who is nurturing his fëa.

Maedhros doesn’t know how to explain that she hadn’t thought of anyone else, had simply seen the trouble and moved to fix it herself, in a way that doesn’t undermine her side of the argument she can see on the horizon.

Not that I blame you, Fingon continues, he’s wonderful, I can already tell. I’m coming to you as soon as I can, love.

There’s no need -- Maedhros protests, but receives no acknowledgment. This is exactly why she wasn’t going to tell him until it was all over. She wants to see him, of course; she always does. But there’s no point in him acting like...like this is a child they’re adopting together.

She passes the baby back to Aelfwynn to finish nursing, and makes herself leave to find something to do - but not before giving instructions to come find her when the baby is done.

- - -

It doesn’t matter, she tells herself, that the child’s dark hair curls almost like Fingon’s, that his soft skin is just a few shades lighter, that he looks like the child they can never have. It doesn’t matter that he laughs like sunshine, that his soul nestles trustingly against her battered one, that he watches her with serious eyes as his tiny hands reach to brush curiously over the scars on her face. It doesn’t matter that she’s started to remember the old lullabies she used in Valinor, to soothe him when he fusses. It doesn’t matter that she almost thinks she hears him sleepily call her “ammë” one night as she puts him down - she probably imagined it anyway.

It doesn’t matter that he’s the first entirely soft, pure, innocent thing in her life in too long --

No. That does matter. It’s why she absolutely cannot keep him.

- - -

Fingon arrives withing another week, clearly having come at top speed, and as always his mere presence is enough to make Maedhros start half-believing in impossible dreams. He greets her warmly with a kiss - their marriage is an open secret at this point; after his behavior at Mithrim there is little point in pretending - and at first trades pleasantries and news with her as if this is an ordinary visit, but once they have more privacy, he looks around and asks, “Where is he?”

Maedhros can just catch the edge of his thought - I would have expected him to be with you. In truth, she has kept the child with her at almost all times these past days, some reason or another always seeming to arise why she cannot pass him off to someone else, but today she had given him over to Aelfwynn as soon as the sentries reported Fingon’s approach. She cannot let him think she is attached.

(She cannot be attached.)

“He is with the wet nurse, around here somewhere,” she says, trying to sound vague and not as thought she gave Aelfwynn specific instructions so she would know where they were at all times. “I can try and find them if you want to see him.”

Fingon’s arm goes around her waist as he leans against her. “Love, I don’t think you’re fooling anyone but yourself,” he says gently. “If even that.”

Maedhros does not allow herself to bend. “There is nothing to fool anyone about,” she says firmly, leading Fingon towards the room wehre she knows Aelfwynn and the baby will be. “I would, however, be endlessly grateful if you could take the child with you when you return west, if you think you can manage it. “Dor-lomin and Hithlum should have a better selection of possible adoptive families than the March.”

Before Fingon has the chance to answer, they’ve reached the door, and Maedhros strides inside, her eyes automatically scanning the room. Aelfwynn is not immediately visible, and neither is the baby, and for one brief moment instinctive panic rises in Maedhros’ throat --

-- and then Aelfwynn comes around a corner - the room is shaped like a knight’s move - and the baby in her arms babbles happily at the sight of them, and Maedhros breathes again.

She feels Fingon’s I-thought-so as clearly as if he said it in her ear, but that doesn’t stop her from crossing to take the baby in her own arms, balancing him on her hip so she can see him properly. “There you are,” she murmurs, and then, remembering herself, “The wet nurse I spoke of, Aelfwynn. Aelfwynn, my guest Crown Prince Fingon Fingolfinion.”

Aelfwynn executes a deep curtsy. “I’m honored, my lord.” She moves past them towards the door. “Let me know if you need me again, my lady.”

Only once she’s gone does Maedhros fully register the sheer love and joy on Fingon’s face and pouring over their bond. He can’t seem to take his eyes off her and the baby she’s holding.

“Russë, he’s perfect,” Fingon breathes, coming closer. “He’s wonderful. I see now --”

“There’s nothing to see,” Maedhros cuts him off. “He’s not mine, I’m not keeping him, I can’t. There’s no way around it and you’re not going to change my mind, so just...leave it.”

Sorrow and something uncomfortably close to pity flit across Fingon’s face. “Why can’t you, exactly?” he asks quietly. “Don’t try to tell me you don’t want to; I can see that you do - I can feel it.”

The words won’t come, for a moment. “I - there’s no way to take care of him here, not long-term,” she gets out. “It’s a wonder we’ve been able to manage at all for this long. If it weren’t for Aelfwynn, I don’t know what I’d have done. And the next time there’s an attack, or I need to ride out, what happens then? Or when Morgoth finally does break out and this place is on the front lines, where I wanted it to be? How am I supposed to keep him safe, give him any semblance of a normal childhood?”

The way Fingon is looking at her drags more words out of her, ones she hadn’t meant to let loose. “How - how would I be able to be a mother to him? I’m not gentle or nurturing anymore, Finno, you know that. I’m hard and dangerous, I’m not completely sane, I’m Oathbound and doomed, I wake up every morning and practically dare the Dark Vala to come at me. What part of that sounds like someone who should be keeping a child?”

Fingon just looks at her for a long moment, then carefully pulls her into a hug, baby and all. The baby takes advantage of this development to paw at Fingon’s braids.

“The part you left out, love,” he says, muffled against her shoulder. “The part where you clearly already love him and would do anything for him, where you would protect him from anything including yourself.”

“That isn’t enough,” Maedhros protests. “It can’t be.”

“It can,” Fingon promises. “You can let yourself love him, and I can help you and love him right alongside you, and he can have family and love and care from us. Everyone wins. Anything else is just logistical details.”

Maedhros almost, almost lets herself relax into the embrace. “How can you love him, though?” she protests. “You’ve known about him for a handful of days; you met him just now --”

Fingon pulls back, and carefully takes the baby from her. “For one thing,” he says, holding the child close and rubbing soothing circles on his bac, “he is manifestly lovable; it would be more surprising if I did not. For another - he is your child, Russë, that much is clear. If we were Edain and you surprised me with a baby in their fashion, I would love him at once if only for that, and I can do no less even if the child in question is not ours by blood.”

That, finally, makes Maedhros break down. She begins to weep, and they end up in each other’s arms again, the baby held carefully between them.

“Ssh, there, Russë,” Fingon murmurs, his thumb stroking across her spine as he holds her. “It’ll be all right. It will.”

- - -

In the plan they eventually end up working out, Fingon will take the child back with him to Barad Either - eventually. For now, they deem it best for the baby to continue with Aelfwynn as a wet nurse until such time as he can be weaned, and since it would be impossible and ridiculous to ask her to relocate to Barad Eithel, the baby has to remain at Himring as well, for the time being.

This, Fingon declares, means that he will be staying for a while, too.

“Won’t you be needed in Hithlum?” Maedhros asks, trying to be practical despite how much the idea raises a thrill in her.

“I can be spared away for some months, for something like this,” Fingon assures. “Since Dor-lomin was given to Men, there has been much less for me to do. And my father will understand if it is for the sake of a new grandchild.”

Particularly one that hasn’t vanished into wherever Nevrast’s people went.

Maedhros hums, thinking. “You could probably tell everyone that he’s our child by blood,” she points out. “Everyone who doesn’t already know better, I mean.” The news of Sauron leaving her unable to bear children had only been shared with a few, thought her brothers and Fingolfin were among them.

“Perhaps,” Fingon says noncommitally. “I can think on it. We have time to decide.”

He lifts his head. “And you know this means you must come west to visit more frequently, of course. A few months out of every year, at least. Maglor can hold Himring at need, and he will for this, you know it.”

Maedhros does know it. “I will work out a schedule with him,” she promises. “First I must work out how to tell him that I have acquired a child in the first place.” A thought occurs to her. “And he should have names. We can’t just keep calling him ‘the baby’; it’ll get ridiculous.” She had held off on any naming so far in an attempt to not get attached, but that’s not really a concern now.

Fingon hums, thinking. “Ereinion,” he says at last. “Scion of kings - and I do mean scion, not son, for I dearly hope there is never a circumstance where I must become king.”

“You would do well with it,” Maedhros says, because Fingon does well with everything.

“It would not be worth it, to have inherited it from my father,” Fingon says quietly. Then, “But Ereinion, I stand by it. Have you thought at all of an amilessë?”

Maedhros has, for all her trying not to. “Gil-galad,” she murmurs. “Starlight. He looks so much like you, and --” She can’t say it, but even when she was trying her hardest to keep her distance, some tiny corner of her had dreamed of Fingon taking him as his own, letting him be hers at least by proxy.

“A good name,” Fingon says, nestling closer against her side. “A beautiful name. Ereinion Gil-galad. Ours.”

They stay curled up there together with their son between them until evening is well on its way.

[melestasflight]

Fingon the Valiant is the dashing Prince of our hearts, and that role certainly befits him more than the one of a sorrowful king, sitting upon the cold trone Fingolfin left behind. We despair for King Fingon, as much as the narrative does.

But that nothing about him seems to suggest he’s a great leader? I’m sorry, I have to disagree, fiercly.

Fingon’s kingship is extremely different from Fingolfin’s, primarily due to the circumstances he inherits. Beleriand is ruined (think roads, agriculture, safety points, environmental pollution, and all kinds of other devastation!), Dorthonion is gone, the economy and military strength of the Noldor are frail, Celegorm and Curufin have committed treachery in Nargothrond, Finrod is dead, the house of Bëor is practically gone, and Sauron rules the Pass of Sirion (a crucial strategic point in Beleriand). 

Fingon's rule is defined by all the challenges that come with rebuilding a country in the wake of a devastating war (while war still goes on actively!), the assimilation of refugees, and a marked lack of cohesion between the realms of the Noldor. Despite it all, I would say, he holds on with remarkable strength.

For one, Fingon inspires community and allyship among the Noldor. This is clear even in the days of Valinor, for better or for worse, Fingon already has a following and these people stay beside him even during the Kinslaying. Then, upon the Ice, he is accounted among one of the leaders people follow still: “The fire of their hearts was young, and led by Fingolfin and his sons, and by Finrod and Galadriel, they dared to pass into the bitterest North”

In Beleriand, his rescue of Maedhros is driven precisely by the necessity to reconcile the hosts of Noldor, to prevent division and civil unrest: “Then Fingon the valiant, son of Fingolfin, resolved to heal the feud that divided the Noldor, before their Enemy should be ready for war; for the earth trembled in the Northlands with the thunder of the forges of Morgoth underground.”

This single act in the interest of the people is the basis of everything that later gets built in Beleriand. Without this reconciliation, there would be no Kingdoms of the Noldor, no Long Peace. 

Fingon's tact for building allyship (and therefore, diplomacy) does not stop with the Noldor. Significantly, Dor-lómin is not just “handed over” to the Hadorians. Fingon gives his lands willingly, otherwise, there would be no symbolic gifting of the dragon-helm of Dor-lómin. That helm, which becomes a significant heirloom for the Hadorians, is clearly part of a commendation ceremony, quite frequent in feudal times as a Lord and Vassal entered into a formal relationship of loyalty. 

This is a strategic move, not uncommon in feudal Europe, for example: lands in exchange for military service and I would suspect, economic support. I’ve tackled this mutual benefit among the Nolofinweans and Hadorians in Húrin’s biography here. And it pays off, the Hadorians stand loyal even after Fingolfin’s death. Galdor dies for Fingon while protecting his King's fortress, and Fingon trusts Húrin with the place of a right-hand commander at the Nirnaeth.

I mean, let’s take a closer look at Húrin’s last stand - undoubtedly one of the most epic scenes in the Silmarillion. Húrin, thinking he's about to die, screams Aurë entuluva! This is, of course, a response to Fingon’s earlier Utúlie'n aurë! Loyalty from Fingon’s mortal allies to the last and least. Certainly, not something Caranthir can claim, Uldor slipping right in front of everyone’s nose and almost killing Maedhros at the Nirnaeth.

On a side note, the moment of Húrin trying to hold the Noldor back at the Nirnaeth is an interesting one. In The Children of Húrin Tolkien decided to swap the dialogue. The order of events remains unchanged, but Fingon, not Húrin, advocates for patience among the ranks. Christopher Tolkien comments that this change was likely done to avoid character discrepancy: "such prudence and experience of Morgoth should lie rather with Fingon King of the Noldor than with Hurin, a Man of no more than thirty-one years."

More on allies, we also have Fingon’s friendship with Círdan (an extremely underrated relationship, imho!). After the Bragollach, when Morgoth reissues his attacks, Fingon is succored by his allies: “There Fingon was outnumbered; but the ships of Círdan sailed in great strength up the Firth of Drengist, and in the hour of need the Elves of the Falas came upon the host of Morgoth from the west. Then the Orcs broke and fled, and the Eldar had the victory, and their horsed archers pursued them even into the Iron Mountains.” Horsed archers, note, are Fingon's people.

If we follow the published Silmarillion, Círdan also fosters Gil-galad, son of Fingon, after the King's death. It speaks volumes to the intent of preserving Fingon's legacy.

During the Nirnaeth Fingon commands quite a diverse group: “For there all the Noldor of Hithlum were assembled, together with Elves of the Falas and Gwindor’s company from Nargothrond, and he had great strength of Men: upon the right were the host of Dor-lómin and all the valour of Húrin and Huor his brother, and to them had come Haldir of Brethil with many men of the woods,” along with Mablung and Beleg from Doriath who “joined themselves to the host of Fingon.”

This is quite significant. Círdan’s people remain in friendship, even after numerous battles. The people of Haleth, who had never come out to join in large battles before, are here. We have Gwindor, Mablung and Beleg, who yes, are small companies, but important ones. These people stand up against their Lords and choose to go to war. They join Fingon, not Maedhros.

There’s of course Turgon, who opens the leaguer of Gondolin after 356 years and risks everything he has built to aid Fingon. Even on the last day of the battle, when he probably knows that everything is lost, he “hewed his way to the side of his brother.”

Now Maedhros also has a hand in pulling people together, he has the Dwarves of Belegost on his side, along with the Easterlings. But he is not without flaws as a commander either. Indeed, his incapacity to control his own brothers leads to Nargothrond standing aside. It is not certain, but I would bet that if Maedhros was willing to put Curufin and Celegorm to trial (or at least offer some sort of recompense to Orodreth), relationships with Finrod’s people would be different. There is also the entire deal with Ulfang’s treachery. 

Let’s not forget that the Fëanorians are the first to flee the battlefield, their host falling apart, their allies turning against them (save Azaghâl’s people who stay to avenge their Lord). Quite a different picture from Fingon’s people who stand with him to the end: “At last Fingon stood alone with his guard dead about him.” Dead, because they stood protecting him.

I’m not sure if this is a controversial take or not, but I don’t think Fingon was a particularly good or capable king. The Silmarillion almost seems to damn him with faint praise, his bravery and selflessness are always singled out. But nothing about him seems to suggest he’s a great leader.

All of his best and most heroic actions are either individual or directly leading small numbers of troops, the rescue of Maedhros, routing Glaurung with his horse archers. Not much is said of his leadership during the battle in Hithlum, between the fourth and fifth battles.

I think it’s quite notable that his lands in Dor-lómin are just handed over to Hador. It suggests to me that Fingon either had very little following there or that he wasn’t doing a good job of ruling it and even Fingolfin saw this. After Fingolfin’s death he’s the only viable Nolofinwean heir, Turgon and Aredhel are missing, Argon is dead.

I also think it’s notable that everyone calls the alliance the Union of Maedhros, and Fingon is unable to leverage Orodreth and Nargothrond to back it. Maedhros is the power behind Fingon’s throne, and everyone knows it. Maedhros is the politician and the military strategist. Fingon has little skill or little interest in these I think. I also like the idea that despite the love between them, Maedhros is manipulating Fingon at least a bit. Maybe unintentionally, but Maedhros is a Machiavellian at heart, a determined and capable pragmatist. He will trample the hearts of those he loves to get what he wants.

I also think it’s notable that Fingon charges in after Gwindor while Turgon hangs back. Fingon has let the tail wag the dog, and been drawn into breaking his strategy by one of his subordinates. He’s passionate and emotional, Húrin has to restrain him from charging even before this! Turgon doesn’t get drawn in even when Fingon does, and I’m pretty sure that Fingolfin and Maedhros would not have done this either. That’s not to say Gwindor should have been abandoned to die, but providing some force to relieve them and cover their retreat when they inevitably get bogged down and have to pull back (like Turgon did for Fingon) is very different to committing the whole army to a gamble made with no prior thought.

I like Fingon! He has many good qualities, and up until the 5th battle was a major factor in the success of the Noldor. He’s brave and dashing, selfless, a good cavalry commander. He rescued Maedhros and stopped a civil war! He routed Glaurung! But I do not think he was ever a good king.

[starillion]

celegorm: I just thought he needed to listen to common sense and reasonable discourse.

curufin: please don't tell me those are the names of your fists.

celegorm: my feet. I'm actually more of a kicker.

[iminye]

I'm back with more Time Travel AUs because my brain won't stop having silly little ideas. There are some I really would like to read, others are just silly or self-indulgent.

Part One

After Merry and Pippin flee into Fangorn Forest from the Uruk-Hai they come across a couple in the woods. One of the two people is definitely an elf - taller than any other they had seen before - while the other looks not even closely like anything they had ever seen before. Unsure if it would be wise to approach the couple the two Hobbits have a little argument. In the end they agree on not going any closer and continue on their way. When they meet Treebeard not much later they tell him of their strange sighting. The ent then becomes very quiet and refuses to give them an answer. They never learn who exactly they saw.

Young Fëanor and Fingolfin stumble into Rivendell one fateful midsummer night while the entire household is in the hall of fire listening to songs and enjoying the evening. The two newcomers try to find their way around the valley, nearly fall off one of the definitely not childproof bridges while trying their best not to yell at eachother in the meantime. Eventually they make their way to the open doors of the Hall of Fire and enter it in the exact moment that one of the bards sings about Fingolfins fight against Morgoth and his heroic death - in Quenya for whatever reason - and while Fingolfin goes through several states of shock while Fëanor is just like: I knew Melkor was evil! Of ourse all hell breaks loose once the people of Rivendell realise who just crashed their party.

When Thorin and Co travel through Mirkwood there is one instance where Bilbo believes to sees a rider on a horse between the shadows under the trees. Too surprised to say anything Bilbo can do nothing but stare and when the rider - looking nothing like any men, elf or dwarf Bilbo has ever seen - looks directly at him, there is something like a higher presence feeling for him. "Who are you, little fellow? Not a creature of darkness, not an animal but not a child of the One either..." he hears an alien voice speak in his head but before Bilbo can answer the figure vanishes and he finds himself back amongst the dwarves who tell him that he just passed out. He forgets to about this instance but many years later when he arrives in Valinor and meets Oromë for the first time, both of them cannot help but stare at eachother in wonder and recognition.

When the gray company, Legolas and Gimli come out the path of the dead they find themselves not in Gondor but in front of the gates of Gondolin. Turgon is both very pleased to meet his great-great-grandchildren and very much concerned about everything else regarding the situation. Maeglin is happy to have found a new smithing buddy in Gimli and Tuor's excited to meet other Edain. Aragorn meanwhile is having a mental breakdown because he was supposed to go saving the people of Gondor and now he somehow ended up in Gondolin.

During his wanderings Túrin comes upon a small peaceful land, full of small happy people who invite him for dinner and a good night's sleep. He finds a good friend in a young woman called Belladonna, who is one of the three daughters of his host and is even allowed to watch her young son from time to time. But once he gets comfortable enough that he considers staying (given that he hasn't caused a death in like two months) he suddenly finds himself in the forest he wandered before, unable to find a way back.

The day Boromir dies he opens his eyes once again but finds staring at a sunny sky in the open and not the leaves of the forest he died in. He just lies there as in trance until someone leans over him and asks "Atanalcar are you okay?" With that he at once realises that he has somehow ended up as the second son of King Elros of Númenor and that the man leaning over him with a worried expression is most likely one of his (er Atanalcar's?) brothers. Manwendil on the other hand is convinced that the damage his brother took when he fell of his horse did something to his memory. Bonus points if Boromir and Atanalcar are somehow sharing the same body and Atanalcar has to deal with Boromir getting overly excited about anything Numenorean while trying not to have a mental breakdown over the fact that their kingdom somehow doesn't exist anymore, like 'Boromir, what was that about s great flood?!'

Isildur is in the Middle of the the last fight against Sauron when he is suddenly transported into the third age and stuck... Inside of a tree? He is very confused for a moment especially when he hears silly singing and the practically catapulted out of the tree again. Turns out he landed in the old forest during the same time the Hobbits are there. This has two consequences 1) Frodo and co have a new traveling companion and 2) Isildur adopted a bunch of tiny adult men and feels like this is his chance to destroy the enemies weapon. Bonus points for him meeting literally everyone.

[youareunbearable]

A fun little idea, what if Maedhros CANT die?

Hes captured by Melkor and Sauron for likem, 30 years, hanging by his hand on a cliffside which by all accounts he should have died from exposure, his wounds, or neglect like that. Sauron is also literally called The Necromancer, what if he DID something to Maedhros, to make it so he couldn't die, as a way to torment him more?

Maedhros gets stabbed in the heart, his throat slit, chained naked to a cliffside in the frigid north for years. Nothing can kill him, Mandos' horn never rings in his ears. But after he was rescued, he thinks that curse was left behind in that prison with his right hand. But over and over he hears "you were very lucky, you should have died" and the doubt seeps in.

You can read this on A03 if you'd like

Maedhros gets stabbed in the heart, his throat slit, chained naked to a cliffside in the frigid north for years. Nothing can kill him, Mandos' horn never rings in his ears. But after he was rescued, he thinks that curse was left behind in that prison with his right hand. But over and over he hears "you were very lucky, you should have died" and the doubt seeps in.

One by one everyone he loves dies around him yet Maedhros knows he can never follow them. He should have died in the Nirnaeth Arnoediad with Fingon, yet here he still stands-- haunted, broken, defeated. He goes through two more Kinslayings, watching with apathy as his foes look at him with dawning horror as they realize no matter what wounds they give him, he keeps walking towards them. Dior's eyes filled with terror as Maedhros, pulling the sword out from his chest, swings that same sword in a great arc that kills two of his guards in one blow. Elwing spits curses and, without giving her children a second glance, throws herself out of the tower balcony to escape the monster riddled with arrows that reaches a hairbreadth too late for her.

He's tired. He doesn't feel alive. How can a hroa keep going when the fea screams for release?

Once he gets the Silmaril, he throws himself into a lava pit because surely this will work. If he completely destroys the hroa, maybe he can finally go visit Mandos Halls and repent and be reborn like his siblings and kin.

But instead, he opens his eyes and he's nothing more than a shade, a flicker of his white fiery fea without a hroa. A desperate look around shows that he's stuck on what is left of his fortress on Tol Himring, a lone abandoned castle surrounded by ocean on all sides. He screams and rages and weeps because not even the complete destruction of his body will free him and it's Not Fair all he wants is Peace. He tries his best to will himself into Mandos Halls, at first just as his grandmother had done and then using his ghostly hands to tear himself apart, but no horn call ever comes. All he can hear are seagulls and the waves along the shore.

Once he tires himself out, he discovers that his fea isn't houseless, but instead its tied to a ring, one that was left behind when the fortress was abandoned after the Nirnaeth Arnoediad. The ring was simple, gold, had a small red gem in the middle, and had a clumsy eight pointed star engraved into the inside of the band. The first and only ring Maedhros ever made with his father back in Valinor, when his father was trying to teach him the importance of putting bits of one's fea into their work. He messed up the ring, pouring a bit too much of his fea into the gem, making the red stone shine with an unnatural white light. His father was proud of it anyways and carried it until the day he died. That lesson was the only thing that allowed him to wake up in his abandoned fortress then in the earth's depths with the lava or wandering unbound and houseless in the world.

(Later, when he heard of Sauron's fate, he laughed and laughed. It felt poetic.)

So he spends the next couple years alone, watching the remains of his fortress crumble around him to the sands of time. Then one day, a small boat comes to his island, and a mortal Man comes out. He snoops around, pocketing a couple of lingering trinkets that look like they could be worth something once cleaned up. He wasn't the first Man to come to the island, but most could feel Maedhros' anger and fled shortly after and all those that came after talked about the island being haunted. This was the first Man to visit after Maedhros calmed, doing nothing but following the clueless mortal as he scavenged his former home. The Man discovered Maedhros' ring in the remains of his personal office, the rotten oak desk drawers easy to open. He let out a low whistle and slipped Maedhros' ring onto his finger, eyebrows raising in surprise when the ring adjusts itself to fit his slimmer finger. He takes the ring back with him, unknowingly taking Maedhros along with him.

All of the trinkets get sold except for Maedhros' ring. The former Elven lord just watches and talks to the Man as he grows, gets married, becomes a fisherman, and starts a family. No matter what, Maedhros is never heard or seen, he has no way of letting this Man know that he's there and something breaks a little more within what's left of him.

He's broken and old and tired, yet watching over the Man and his growing family makes him feel something again. He has always felt better when near children, something about their chubby little cheeks and pudgy little fingers and toes makes something warm and happy and domestic rise up and heal some wounds in his heart. He sings and tells stories to mortal children as they sleep, and is pleasantly surprised when their youngest daughter, a babe basically, can see and babble at him and laughs when he makes silly faces at her or tells a funny tale. She grows up and her ability to see Maedhros fades with age, which is sad. She ends up taking his ring with her when she starts her own family.

The woman is surprised when she learns that her children have the same imaginary friend that she had growing up: the tall, scarred elf; whos red hair licks and twists like fire at the ends; whos dressed in big fluffy furs and crimson robes that smoke and smolder like a dying fire at the hems; whos only sporting one hand, the right one ending at the wrist. As scary as he looked, he always had the warmest smiles, his low growly voice always sang the best lullabies, and he was promised that he was scarier than any nightmare or boogeyman, so she always felt safe to fall asleep under his protective gaze.

She thinks and looks down at the ring her father said he had taken from an old Elven fortress, which sparkled with a strange type of white magic as her imaginary Elf did. She swallowed, staring into the little gold gem that fit snugly on her right ring finger. Her ghostly Elven protector doesn't seem bad, and has never shown her or her children any ill will, so she keeps it.

She makes sure to tell her children this theory when they grow up, as its the only reason why all of her children saw and played with the same imaginary red haired Elf growing up. One day, when the children ask his name, for they learned about manners and it would be rude to call him Elf all the time, he was silent for a long time before they could hear a whisper in their ears: "Russo"

It goes on like this, Maedhros becoming a family heirloom, a ghostly nanny of human children and a comfort to their parents. Generations pass like this until one day, one of the sons marries a Númenórean woman. When they are given Maedhros' ring as a wedding gift, she gasps in shock once the ring slips onto her right ring finger and she suddenly sees a tall, foreboding, Elven warrior made of smoke and fire. Everyone, including Maedhros, is surprised that the woman can see him, but soon everyone agrees that it must be because she has Elven blood in her ancestry.

She grows to love Maedhros just as the children do, teasingly calling him "uncle" and it makes something in heel. It isn't until now that he realizes that he has made a family with these mortals. That if he looks down at himself he doesn't seem so faded, he feels solid and as whole as he felt in a while.

The Númenórean woman has a son, and he can see Maedhros just as all the children do, but this time he never stops seeing the Elven lord. He becomes the newest holder of his ring ater he declares he wishes to travel the world beyond their little northern fishing village. Maedhros goes with him to keep him company and to keep him safe. The boy reminds him of Elros, so sure of himself and always ready to stick his nose in where it doesn't belong.

This is evident when he passes by a trope of Elves heading away from the Misty Mountains towards the Western Sea. Maedhros makes himself vanish into the ring when he sees who's exactly in the party, his fea trembling with shame. The boy invites himself up to their stately party and asks if they can tell him anything about this ring that has been in his family for generations. All he knows is that it's Elven and everyone who grew up with the ring always had seen an Elf with red hair and scars and fire as a child. He's at least smart enough not to mention the name Maedhros gave the mortals, as surely these Elves would know who owns the name Russo.

At their shocked and horrified faces he tries to backpedal and explains that the ghostly Elf was always very kind, singing songs and comforting them when they woke from nightmares, he just wondered why Elves would make a magic ring like that. It seems very lonely to make a ring with a caretaker that can only be seen by those with Elf blood, then not keep the ring with Elvenkind.

Celebrimbor, who was on his way to meet with this Annatar in Lindon after hearing about him from Elrond and Gil-Galad's letters (they hope to use him to know if this Annatar is what he says he is, as neither of them were old enough to be born in Valinor, and Galadriel never spent time in Alue's forge to recognize his Maiar) throws all his plans out the window.

Erestor, who was sent by Elrond to make sure that Celebrimbor actually read the letters and didn't leave them untouched in the disaster that is his office, grips his cousin's arm and sways slightly on his feet.

Both remember the last time they saw their uncle alive, how haunted and broken he looked, and they both heard how he cast himself into the fire of the earth. Neither expected to hear anything about their uncle Maedhros lingering in the world, as he should have surely been in Mandos Halls after that stunt.

Erestor swallows and asks the Man if he could hum one of those bedtime songs his magic ring sings to him. After hearing the first couple of notes that his own uncle Maedhros used to sing to him as a child back in Valinor, Celebrimbor sobs openly as he looks at a simple gold ring that hums with his uncle's brilliant white fea in time with the tune.

Celebrimbor, as the eldest of the two cousins, is given that ring. The Man says that if it belonged to his uncle then he surely should have it, since it was his ancestor that stole it from the Elf's family home to begin with. When Celebrimbor wears Maedhros' ring he can feel his uncle and see a flicker of his image, he can hear his strong, and almost forgotten, voice whisper in his ear. He learns about the curse Sauron has put on the eldest of Feanor's sons, and vows to undo it. Erestor travels with the mortal Man back to his village, horse laden with gifts of gold, silver, and gems of every colour to gift the family as a thanks for keeping their wayward uncle safe. Then he rides as fast as possible back to Lindon and whispers urgently in Elrond and Gil-Galad's ears, out of earshot of their Maiar guest. Uneasy and hopeful eyes turn to Eregion, and no matter what one might think about the Feanorians and their crimes, all agree that being barred from hearing Mandos Call is a punishment enough.

This is the real reason he designs the Elf Stone, not for Galadriel and her weary of a world that passes by too fast, but as a way to turn back time to fix his uncle. Because of this, he is too busy to visit Lindon and see Annatar, or to entertain him when he visits, heeding Maedhros warning whispers about how similar he feels to Sauron to be trustworthy. Suddenly, when Eregion's gates very firmly shut behind an exiled Annatar, suddenly all the other Elven strongholds have barred their doors as well, and arrows become notched when he comes into view.

(Sauron steams in fury once again over Maedhros, for of course he saw the flicker of fea tied to a golden ring on the finger of the Lord of Eregion. He keeps that idea into the back of his mind for later as he retreats back to his stronghold to devise another strategy)

Eregion never falls and stays as one of the last Elven cities that linger into the Third Age, except instead of hidden and secluded as the others, this city is a melting pot of cultures and peoples. "The Free City" as some have called it and Maedhros weeps as his nephew accomplishes something that was once his dream.

Celebrimbor gifts Maedhros’ ring to Elrond after the Last Alliance of Elves and Men, claiming that Maedhros will be a better comfort for him after the death of Gil-Galad. He also winks and informs the Half-Elf that when he came upon Maedhros ring, he originally was helping a mortal family as a ghostly nanny. He laughed at Elrond's red face and frantic glance at Celebrian, who snuggled up at her fiancé. With the little gold ring on his right ring finger, Elrond is also able to hear Maedhros' gravelly chortle to echo Celebrimbor.

His foster father smiles down at Elrond, his scars pulling his lips to make that smile a little crooked, something that as a child, Elrond desperately tried to see aimed at him whenever he could get it.

So the Lord of the Hidden Valley can speak with his father once more. Time has done a toll on both foster son and foster father, but they have each other now when neither thought it was possible before. Elrond has someone to walk him down the aisle at his wedding, has a parent to ask advice from about raising his three rambunctious children. He has an experienced lord and advisor to turn to when it comes to diplomatic meetings with mortal kings or the other Elven realms.

When Celebrian gets taken, Maedhros is on the finger of one of Elrond's twin sons, and his fea burns as bright and hot as his father's which sends all of Sauron's fell creatures screaming and their eyes fried within their skulls. After that, it is Celebrian that wears Maedhros' ring constantly, even when she visits her mother and father in their realm. Galadriel and Celeborn grit their teeth knowing that a Son of Feanor is within their borders, but neither can so anything, as he is the best there is to help their only daughter heal from the trauma of being captured by the Enemy and tortured.

In the end, she didn't sail West, but it was a near thing. It was only thanks to Maedhros' brilliant and warm comfort, and the songs he taught Elrond, ones that Maglor invented and used to sing for him after he was freed from Thangorodrim. Celebrian was changed, more distant, but she was there for her daughter and sons and husband, and that was enough.

When Celebrimbor comes knocking at Elrond's door while the Lord is away on a patrol with his sons, laughing with a trope of thirteen Dwarves, one Hobbit, and a Wizard behind him, Maedhros himself can't help but laugh with Celebrian at the tight and annoyed expression on Erestor's face. Their laughter becomes louder as Erestor tries to scold his cousin in Quenya, who only responds in a petulant Westron which only rallies up the Dwarves in defend of their favoured Elvish Lord, one who not only opened his gates to the refugees of Moria, but also to those of Erebor centuries later.

(Maedhros was loaned back to Celebrimbor when his nephew foolishly joined in when the Dwarves tried to retake Moria in the Battle of Nanduhirion. He gladly burned his fea brightly to scald the Enemy as his nephew cut them down in a flurry. They managed to chase the Goblins back into the dark from whence they came, but at too high a cost as there were many bodies of loyal Dwarves and Elves scattered on the battleground. They couldn't even recapture the fallen city properly, as Maedhros recoiled in dread as he felt the lingering fowl magic of a Balrog in the depths of the mountain. He shuttered and urged his nephew and the remaining Dwarven lords to leave, as they would need more than two exhausted and lessened armies to take down one of Morgoth's foul creations. He refused to see another one of his loved ones fall to those fiery beasts. Moria still remains sealed, but Celebrimbor, Maedhros, Glorfindel and Thrain II meet every once in a while to see what can be done about the foul beast.)

Celebrian delights at their short guests, and it is so amusing to see the shocked looks on the Dwarven leader's face as Celebrian sweeps into a low curtsy at him as she gives thanks to the heir of Durin, as it was his ancestor that allowed her mother to seek refuge in Moria as she fled from Sauron's attack on Eregion in the Second Age, and it was his ancestor that worked with Celebrimbor and Galadriel towards recapturing their lands and fortifying their two kingdoms.

It was fun to watch their guests drive Erestor up the wall, until he looked just like his father, Caranthir, when Angrod entered his field of vision. When the Dwarves and their little Hobbit were gone it was quite once again, but not for long. If there was one thing that Maedhros knew, it was that great periods of peace never lasted.

When, once again, Hobbits and Dwarves graced Elrond's halls, Men also joined in the gathering. A fellowship was made and a war was fought and suddenly, there is a collection of ring bearers and his remaining family on a dock and Maedhros, whose ring is still sitting snug on Celebrian's right ring finger, is nervous. He has never heard Mandos Call, and Sauron was thoroughly defeated, yet his curse remained. He might not even be allowed onto Valinor's shores again. He refused to be the reason why his family couldn't sail home.

Erestor didn't think that the Valar would sink their ship, one son of Feanor surely didn't outweigh those who wore the three Elven Rings of Power and saved Middle Earth. Elrond quite agreed with him, Galadriel promised him sweetly that she was more than willing to toss his ring into the ocean if it looked like their way was being blocked. Celebrian just rubbed the warm metal with her thumb and said that he has done much to repent for his sins, surely the Valar can see this and will allow him to return. Celebrimbor and Elrond's children hugged their family goodbye, as they wanted to linger longer in the world with those they loved and cared for that couldn't or didn't want to sail. Celebrimbor offered to house his Uncle in Eregion if he didn't feel like sailing yet.

Maedhros refused; he would take this chance to sail. He has been ready to return to Valinor and Mandos Halls since the First Age. He longs for the peace he was denied all those Ages ago. He takes the chance.

When Celebrian steps off the boat after her husband, the moment her feet touch the sand Maedhros' ring burns with a brilliant white light. The light grows and brightens until all have to shade their eyes from the glare. When the light dims and it's safe to open their eyes again, there, standing on the beaches of Valinor is Maedhros, fully reborn.

His hair is the same fiery red it had been as a ghostly fea, and the breeze played with his wavy locks which made them look like they were flickering with flames. His scars were still present on his face, pulling at his lips and cheeks with each facial movement. His right hand was still missing, and his robes were still singed with ash but the ever present smoke was dying out for the first time in Ages.

Elves gasped, Maedhros gasped, and there was a tense moment where those gathered on the shores remembered the last time a Son of Feanor was on it's beaches. Everyone was still.

Then a cry rang up in the crowd, and suddenly Maedhros found himself bowled over by a sobbing Amrod. Apparently, Amrod was the only of the Brothers to be reborn, the others still repenting from their sins or refusing to leave as they were all told that Maedhros could never join them. Amrod was reborn before Maedhros had died, during the War of Wrath though he never took part. He was only informed of Maedhros fate when a Maiar from Mandos visited him and their mother, telling her that her eldest son would never hear Mandos Call, that even though his hroa was destroyed he would never be able to come home without help. They had both despaired, for who on those shores would be able to find him, and who would be willing to sail West with him? They all thought he was lost forever.

But that wasn't the case anymore, as Maedhros hugged his younger brother and wept, hugged the brother he first lost all those Ages ago, and knew that things would be better. His family was here, scattered but here and one day after a lot of healing, they can all come together again.

Finally, Maedhros would be able to get his peace.

[fanficlibrary-world]

Rings of Power: 5 Reasons It’s Not a Good Show and the 1 Good Thing About It

*Sigh*  I had such high hopes when it was first announced that we were getting an LoTR series.  Was so excited when the speculation was that it was going to be a story in the First or Second Age.  Thrilled at the idea of Galadriel being the lead character.  Expectations were quickly tempered with the first preview.  And now I can say all of my fears of what that first peak hinted have came to pass.  

First things first, I’m nowhere near a Tolkien scholar.  I know only a small bit, but I know enough of cannon for me to have expectations of certain characters.  And, I know that’s partially a me problem, but seriously, if you’re going to say that you’re doing Galadriel in the Second Age, I don’t think it’s completely my fault that I’m disappointed that I didn’t get anything like what I expected.  You chose to make your main character Galadriel as opposed to making up an OC.  And I get that was for name recognition, but that also means you’re setting expectations, which the writers definitely did not fulfill.  Regardless of expectations, though, RoP just isn’t a good show.  I spoken to a friend a lot about this and I’ve said as an LotR show, it’s bad, but even if it were just a run of the mill fantasy show, it would be mediocre, at best.  And here’s why - and, yes, here be spoilers! 

5. …because plot 

What I mean by this is too much in this series happens because they’re just looking to move the plot along.  Arondir gets captured but we need him back with Bronwyn and in the fight, so just have Adar let him go.  We want Galadriel to return to Middle Earth in glory so let’s have Mirel do a complete 180 because the leaves are falling from the tree.  Galadriel’s only hope to keep Mirel and Numenor in the fight is for Halbrand to agree to return as a king so does, even though, two episodes ago he was begging Galadriel to let him live in peace.  Oh, and Halbrand is Sauron, so, why the hell did he save Galadriel from drowning in the first place?  There’s no rational reason for these decisions.  And really, it cheapens things.   Nothing seems earned.  Everything just goes the way it needs to because plot. 

4. You know they live forever, right? 

From (almost) the moment they introduced Celebrimbor, I was mystified at how they had him act.  All of his bluster about wanting to do something great, to create something great.  He sounds like mortal man who’s realizing that his days are numbered and wants to ensure he leaves a legacy.  (And, I’m going to speculate, he’s likely to cause a lot of trouble in the pursuit of this.)  It was the most nonsensical

thing.  Not only because, as the title says, elves live forever so I can’t really see legacy being something they worry about, but also this guy is Feanor’s grandson.  If there’s anyone that should know better about the danger and price of chasing greatness, it should be that guy!  

Also, this guy is apparently the greatest smith of his time and he doesn’t even know how to combine alloys…

3. 2 + 2 = 5? 

Okay, I know that at times we have to suspend belief and that movie physics, movie time and space don’t always correspond to the real world, but RoP took that to the extreme.  Right from episode one, Galadriel tries to swim back to Middle Earth from Valinor?!?  (Also, that little boat that they shoved the elves in to go to Valinor seemed rather small and uncomfortable for a journey of that length.)  Then, of course, you have the Numenorians arriving in the village just on time.  Forget suspending belief because heroes always arrive in the nick of time, how did they even know where to go?  Also, horses cannot continually gallop.  And they can only travel like 35 miles in a day, tops.  And considering they were carrying fully armoured soldiers, I’m gonna say that those horses aren’t going to manage even that.  And, of course, all of that came over on 3 boat

2. That’s not how Valinor works!

Okay, this is a cannon thing, but I really can’t get over this whole Valinor is like Heaven.  A reward for elves who’ve done enough good.  Just no.  Elves we’re never meant to stay in Middle Earth.  Middle Earth is for men.  And no elf, no matter how powerful can declare who returns to Valinor and who stays.  The call of the gulls, the pull of the sea, this is what calls elves home into the west.  Well, that and the Valar.

Strong Female Character TM

And, yes, Galadriel, or this character that they’ve named Galadriel, is the absolute worst part of this show.  Note, this has nothing to do with the actress.  She works with what she gets, which unfortunately is all the worst traits of a stereotypical “strong female character”.  Angry, entitled, self absorbed, and always convinced that she is right.  Throws a tantrum every time she doesn’t get her way.  This is who the writers decided the Galadriel of this verse would be.  What a travesty!  

They took a character who should be wise, powerful, well respected, with over two millennia of life experience and an understanding that the past cannot be changed and the future will be what it will be, the character described as “the greatest of all elven women”, and slapped her name on a whiny brat.  And the worst part is, none of her flaws are actually presented as flaws.  She’s rarely gets called out on her terrible and hypocritical behaviour, and worse, she gets rewarded for it.  

Her behaviour and the way she gets away with everything means that I don’t have one ounce of sympathy for her.  I don’t care about her loss.  I don’t care about her grief.  Because she hasn’t shown that she actually cares about anybody else’s.  Instead, I spent most of my time yelling at her character, “Not everything is about you!”  

Honestly, at this point, I’m almost Team Sauron, because at least his character has the potential to be fun.  

The One Plus

I’ve written off RoP and will not be tuning into season 2, but there is one thing I will miss and that’s Elrond and Durin and their friendship.  Maybe that’s three things, but seriously, this plot line is everything that I wish the rest of the series was.  Two mature characters who aren’t perfect but have good hearts and put their ppl and their friendship first.  Naturally, conflict comes out of these competing interests, but they deal with them with honesty, and it’s refreshing.  No self-righteousness, no presenting them lying (even if inadvertently) to each other as right or doing the wrong thing but it’s for the right reasons.  Just truth, understanding, and faith in their friendship.  

These are the two I root for, that I feel for, that I worry for.  I know Elrond has to survive but I worry for him because I care.  And I don’t even want to think about what happens to Durin.  I’d take a whole series dedicated to just these two, and Disa!  And, honestly, it’s frustrating because I consider this plot line, these characters, these relationships to be amazing, and if the show were even mediocre I might consider tuning into S2 just for them.  But it doesn’t even reach that bar.  So I wish you Namárië, Rings of Power.  Though I don’t have much hope of you being good, if I did would have stuck around.

[warrioreowynofrohan]

What do you think the defining differences in mannish and elvish cultures from each other?

I think a big one for me is mannish communities is that they have generational shifts, which like means they don’t stay the same for years. Stuff changes all the time, sometimes old stuff comes back but it will always fall out favor eventually. Like I think about how gondorian sindarin probably in practice could be considered a different dialect than normal sindarin because like human language changes over time when alive people speak it. Like I think change is a very big difference between the two

And it’s not a bad thing either. Men change because it’s in their nature and elves don’t bc its theres yknow. (I guess I’m prickly about the idea because it’s a mannish thing in tolkien it’s bad when humans aren’t bad on like sight)

Thank you - this is a fascinating question to examine! I think you’re absolutely right that generational shifts are one major element: they make Men more apt to rapid change, as you say, and they also introduce an element of forgetting that isn’t present in the same way for Elves. Knowledge and memory can be lost in mannish cultures much more easily than in elven ones.

Another aspect is the impatience of Men, and a greater willingness to take risks. As Túrin observes, Elves can wait around hundreds of years for an opportune moment to come; they’ve got more space for estel within the walls of the world. Men, with their briefer lives, naturally want to act and risk and venture to make the world better within the short time span that they have; that’s why the ‘eventually the Valar will bail us out’ perspective, true as it may be, doesn’t connect with Túrin. Elves are naturally more risk-averse: if you act now, you could die (particularly impactful during the years if the Doom when the Noldor expect their deaths to be permanent), whereas if you wait things might get better; for a Man, you’re going to die in a relatively short time one way or another, so why not take some enemies down with you?

This also connects with the previous concept of remembrance and forgetting. Most elves will have experience both of times of good and of evil, of growth and of beauty and of loss, which gives them a longer-term perspective. It’s not the same with Men. A Man who lived during the Long Peace might never be aware of the war at all. A Man who lived during the dark years between the Nirnaeth and the War of Wrath might have no experience of peace. This contributes to greater generational change.

Additionally, there’s an element mentioned in the Athrabeth:

“And we find that [the Eldar] do not understand the saying that goes among men: too often seen is seen no longer. And they wonder much that in the tongues of Men the same word may mean both ‘long-known’ and ‘stale’. ”

Elves don’t ‘get tired’ of things in the way that humans do. Thus may give them greater joy in the world (“there is no weariness in the eyes of the elves”) but I think it would also make them less afaptable and resilient. In the same way that your eyes adjust to more or less light; in the same way that if you hear a steady noise for a long time, or a bad smell, your senses will filter it out, humans can acclimatize to bad conditions; they can put their brains on autopilot and endure. Elves can’t. An elf who is miserable or tormented experiences that intensely, for every moment. Many of the elves who live in evil times retreat to a few secure and beautiful places - in the First Age, Doriath, Gondolin, Nargothrond, Ossiriand; in the Third Age, Rivendell, Lothlorien, or across the Sea to Valinor. They don’t dig in and hang on like Barahir’s group in Taur-nu-Fuin or the House of Hador as thralls in Hithlum. (The Silvan and Sindar elves hanging on in Third Age Mirkwood as it’s slowly overwhelmed by giant spiders and other evil creatures is a striking and impressive exception.) Men can grow calluses, and elves cannot.

On top of these differences in nature, there are the differences in treatment. The Elves are invited to Valinor and learn the origins and nature of the world from the people who shaped it and who existed before it began. Men’s first, and for the most part only, experience of the Valar is the War of Wrath; they aren’t invited, aren’t taught, aren’t protected. They don’t understand the Valar, being far more different from them in experience and kind than the elves are, and the Valar don’t understand them. They need to take things on faith much more than the elves do; and it’s not a great surprise that many of them don’t. At the same time, perhaps because of the lack of such intermediation, Men can have much closer connection to Eru than Elves typicall do. Elves pray to Varda; Men (including the Númenoreans, in their better days) pray directly to Eru, a concept that is - as we seen from the final conversation of Maedhros and Maglor in the Silmarillion - so alien to elves as to be literally unthinkable.

[writing-hazard]

The Place Beyond The Sky (prologue)

Masterlist

Words: 747

Warnings: Blood, implied violence

Pairing: Haldir x OC

When a strange human speaking a foreign tongue appears outside Imladris one day, it changes the fate of Arda forever. More than that, it changes the fate of Haldir, who finds his path hopelessly intertwined with hers.

Strap in folks, it’s gonna be a RIDE. Also, expect some Serious Sci-fi Nonsense. Also also, I am more than happy to tag people :)

IT’S A GORGEOUS DAY IN RIVENDELL WHEN SHE COMES. All days are gorgeous there, of course— but this one in particular carries a light breeze and a pleasant temperature that commands enjoyment.

And for once, no disaster or unfinished work is twisting the atmosphere into something bittersweet.

Lord Elrond, for what certainly feels like the first time in a century, is taking a day off. A relaxing stroll in the gardens settles him a little, and for once he can just enjoy himself.

And then there’s a commotion; someone shouts.

The sound drops heavy on his shoulders, and he’s quick to follow it, both alarmed and weary; can he not have even a moment of peace?

“What is happening?” He questions Lindir as he frees himself from a crowd of elves who are watching the sky in fear.

“My lord; something is falling from the sky,” he explains, sounding alarmed himself. Elrond blinks once, then twice, astonished.

“Falling from the sky?” he echoes with disbelief. Lindir nods gravely, pointing above the horizon.

Turning, Elrond sees that yes, there is indeed some large, indistinguishable object falling from the sky. It leaves a trail of smoke in its wake as it falls straight for the forests edging the valley. He watches as it finally sinks below the horizon, crashing through the treeline.

The trees shake, and one goes tumbling down as the birds flee. He could almost swear he hears the crash, faintly. The smokestack remains, a beacon to the strange object’s location.

“Gather the scouting party,” Elrond commands urgently, “and quickly. We need to know what it is that falls upon our lands.” Lindir nods, rushing off to do as he’s told.

“I fear this may be an omen of ill things to come,” Elrond mutters gravely, mostly to himself. This, only a precious year after Sauron’s defeat.

Is there truly to be no rest until he reaches the shores of Valinor?

***

When Elrond and his scouting party reach the fallen object in the woods, he is exceptionally surprised to find that it’s… well, he doesn’t know what it is exactly.

It looks somewhat like a large metal bathtub, large enough for two people, with a top that seems to close. For now, it’s open, revealing what looks like a flashing table within. On the ground-facing side, he recognizes a window; but that makes no sense.

A violent cough pulls his attention to the trees to his right, and the elves all draw their weapons. He drops off of his horse to approach slowly, his blade ready to strike at any enemy that may await him.

But what he finds awaiting him is not an enemy at all, but a human woman. She wears strange clothes, and an odd arm brace like nothing he’s ever seen before. She’s collapsed against the tree, her hand bloody. Thanks to her hair, pulled up into a tight bun, he can see an injury on the back of her neck. It looks like someone has crudely jabbed at it with a knife.

She’s gasping desperately for air, her face very flush while the rest of her takes on a sickly pale. His sword drops, and he kneels beside her at once.

“What happened here?” he questions hurriedly. “Who are you? How did you get hurt?” She looks tremendously dizzy, and her brows furrow. She pushes away from him a little, but has to steady herself just to keep from falling over.

She groans something in a language he’s never heard before, pressing her bloody hand to her chest.

“What?” he wonders, blinking as he regards her with a stunned expression. He didn’t think there was any tongue on the whole of Arda that he had yet to hear.

She speaks again, her face contorting in pain as she attempts to sit further up. Her entire body shakes with violent coughs, and she slumps back to glare at the sky.

“She needs help,” he decides. “Come, one of you, take her back to the healers! The rest of us will search a while longer.” Some murmurs pass between the scouting party, and one of them drops off his own horse to take the injured woman.

She glares at him like she expects violence, but Elrond does his best to sound soothing despite the language barrier. Her eyes flicker between the two ellyn as she heaves for breath, but her shoulders inevitably drop in resignation.

And so, the stranger finds her way to Imladris.

Taglist: Empty for now :)

[feanorianethicsdepartment]

more of tauriel’s hellfamily adventures! there’s still a couple of gaps in my conception of this au, which is why these are bullet points and not an actual fic, but i think i’ve got enough to progress the plot, such as it is. certainly got a bunch of anecdotes i think are funny

i’m not even going to bother explaining how tauriel ended up in one of the fëanorians’ boltholes being treated for mild injuries

nothing super serious, but enough that she’s out of action for the rest of the night. the palace is on fire

the bolthole opens, and celegorm (who’s doing first aid) turns his head. his preemptive scowl melts away instantly. ‘hi elrond!’

the former lord of imladris just sighs. ‘please tell me you idiots haven’t abducted tauriel’

legolas has concerns, apparently. he saw celegorm vanish into an alleyway with her slung over his shoulder and immediately started panicking

‘i've talked him into delaying his rescue mission until i had the chance to check that she was safe’ elrond finishes, sounding absolutely exhausted

tauriel confirms that she is doing fine, as much as she can through the concussion. celegorm’s like ‘if he’s so worried about her why doesn’t he just come up here’

elrond disappears, and a few minutes later legolas scrambles inside

he’s glaring at celegorm. celegorm tells him where the first aid kit is, punches him on the arm, compliments his tracking skills in a vaguely threatening manner, and jumps back out to assist with the chaos

legolas collapses by tauriel’s bedside, still clutching his bow. tauriel pats him on the thigh reassuringly

neither of them are surprised elrond knows the fëanorians - they stayed in his place in tol eressëa for a while, dude knows literally everyone - but they don’t really know why

closer to dawn, elrond’s voice drifts up into the hideout. he’s going on this long irritated rant that climaxes in an extremely exasperated ‘valardamnit dad!’

maglor cackles. tauriel’s like ‘huh didn’t know that.’ legolas makes a face like he accidentally swallowed a spider

by this point, tauriel’s known the brothers hellspawn for long enough legolas has been unnervingly close to a kinslayer way more times than he’d like

this is the longest he’s spent in proximity to them by far, but it’s not the only time he’s interacted with them. they seem to like tauriel, and he knows she can take care of herself

but like still

it keeps happening, though. as tauriel further ingratiates herself with these awful awful elves, her two separate social circles keep bleeding into each other

take the time legolas and co visited the aulendili

before they left middle-earth, gimli whipped round every dwarf they knew and assembled several volumes of complaints. they refuse to confirm or deny whether aulë is the maker, but they are determined someone’s gonna hear their grievances

and thus a small wagon train of wood elves head up into the mountains. including tauriel

tauriel offhandedly mentioned the upcoming trip to the twins, and amras was like ‘hey we’ve got family up there!’ a few messages went up and down the funicular, and now gimli and crew have a place to crash up there

they’re put up by some of the fëanorians’ less murderous (if equally loud) relatives. it’s a pretty interesting trip

half the town is redheads. several people still mistake tauriel for a fëanorian. it’s been happening a lot in the wider noldorin territory lately, it’s weird

caranthir stumbles up into town about halfway through their visit. he gets into an extremely long philosophical argument with gimli that somehow ends with a mutual dwarven nod of respect

he also ends up fighting back-to-back with tauriel in one of those debatebrawls so common among the noldor. neither of them is quite sure how it happens

that’s the way it goes, isn’t it. there’s no big official moment when tauriel becomes part of the family

she just grows closer to them over her time in valinor, as they do to her

she merges into their social world. she develops a rapport with maglor’s wife - a first age mountain sinda and a third age forest avar don’t have that much in common, but they are both looking at noldorin culture from the outside. they have so many injokes about ridiculous bling

(it goes the other way too. this childhood friend oc of hers i’m developing - pretty sweet guy, the token sane man in the legolas-tauriel-him trinity - gets along really well with celebrimbor)

this one time tauriel punches a guy out for calling elrond a traitor. it doesn’t matter that he’s like three times her age, he is babey

she gets chewed out by maedhros and tests out new devices for curufin and drops in on nerdanel for tea. even though she doesn’t permanently live in the definitely-not-fëanorian quarter, she has her own personal space in its innermost warren

she’s one of them long before anyone consciously realises it

what causes that realisation is, admittedly, partially the conspiracy theories. if you say something often enough, you’ll start to believe it, and while the tauriel origin stories circulating through the noldorin rumour mill vary a lot in the details they all agree she is a fëanorian

but that’s a gradual long-term thing. it’s one more thread that leads to the moment

because there has to be an inflection point, i think. the fëanorians have plenty of family friends within the ranks of their definitely-not-minions. some are even as close to them as tauriel’s become

something has to happen to show she’s something more. fortunately, as demonstrated by the darkening and the númenorian invasion, no matter how peaceful it seems, history never stops

shit goes down. the exact details i’ll admit i don’t know yet, but at some point some sort of massive crisis rocks all of valinor. it’s during that crisis that tauriel does stuff that makes it blindingly obvious she’s not just on her side, but one of them

what stuff? again, i don’t know yet. i have this mental image of her leading a strike team that’s half definitely-not-minions and half legolas’ people through a burning city to do... something badass, but that’s as specific as i can get atm

what i am certain about, is that throughout the unfolding of the crisis, tauriel is permanently on the fëanorians’ side, just like they’re on hers

it’s one thing to be someone’s friend in bright happy days. it’s another thing to stick by them when everything’s falling to pieces and the whole world is against them. it’s in the depths of this crisis that both parties have the chance to fully prove their worth to each other

that probably wouldn’t be enough on its own, but combined with the friendship and the conspiracy theories and just the general way she is, once the dust settles it’s blazingly clear that tauriel is a daughter of the house of fëanor

there’s a little debate about where exactly she fits on the family tree, but not much. our sample size is admittedly small, but third generation fëanorians tend to have the slightest modicum of common sense? elrond and celebrimbor both have a fair degree of self-awareness and at least a few brain cells

tauriel does not. tauriel is mad, bad, and dangerous to know, just smart enough to understand that her sheer chaoticness is something she can channel but not nearly close to regularly thinking through the consequences of her actions. she’s loud and violent and does whatever she wants whenever she wants without a single thought towards what people will think of her

and more than that, she doesn’t relate to the second generation fëanorians the way the third generation does. she’s their friend and partner-in-crime, not one of their precious perfect must-protect children. she gets jerked around and bullied and does all that stuff right back, and while she doesn’t have a solid place in the second generation’s internal hierarchy yet she would easily slot in

no, tauriel’s a second generation fëanorian, one of fëanor and nerdanel’s horrible children. the fact that fëanor is currently indisposed and unable to provide an opinion on the matter doesn’t seem to bother anyone

she gets inducted into the family in a massive group hug, and from then on out the brothers hellspawn are the siblings hellspawn

her new family doesn’t replace her old one, of course, she has a long talk with elrond wherein she hashes this out. she’s still a silvan of the greenwood

she’s just also the little sister of the most bloodthirsty elves in history

(that sound in the background is legolas screaming)

[riding-with-the-wild-hunt]

Shattered: the Importance of Finarfin

From what I've seen, the Silm fandom as a whole doesn't pay a lot of attention to Finarfin. In most of the content I've seen about him, he's reduced to "the calm one," or even "the boring one." Fëanor gets attention (a lot of attention), Fingolfin gets attention too but Finarfin often just gets shunted to the side. The sedate one. The useless one.

And early this morning, I just started thinking about that. And I realized that, like, there's a whole lot of interesting stuff about Finarfin. So I thought I'd talk a bit about that here. :)

(TW for some violence and death/suicide mentions)

For the purposes of this post, I'm just going to be focusing on Finarfin's adult life. Maybe I'll do one on his childhood later if I have the spoons/people are interested.

But anyways. On to the writing.

I'm going to start our timeline when Fëanor threatens Fingolfin in Tirion. Chances are, since it was very public, Finarfin was there. He was aware, of course, that his brothers didn't get along, but watching one of your brothers take action to hurt the other? That's got to be really upsetting, especially for Finarfin, who seems to be much less volatile than either of his brothers, and much more interested in keeping the peace.

And after that? Well, we all know what happens. Fëanor's exile to Formenos. But not just Fëanor, because all his children, plus Nerdanel, go with him. Oh, and Finwë. He goes too.

Finwë who is also Finarfin's father. What do you do when your father so publicly shows that he, essentially, likes your half-brother better than you? You can't help but have a suspicion that if it had been you who'd been exiled, your father wouldn't have gone with you.

But, because you're Finarfin and you've got to be there for Fingolfin, you don't say anything. You say goodbye to your sister-in-law, and your nephews, and your father and then you set about trying to pick up the pieces. Because that's what you always do, isn't it?

And then the debacle with the Trees happens. Your home is in a blackout. This is your first time experiencing real darkness, because you were born in Valinor and have pretty much seen only light or twilight. You're confused and frightened already, and then you find out that your father is dead.

You haven't seen him for years. And now he's gone.

But you've got to be there for your wife, and your children, and your brother, so you deal with it (like you always do).

And then, suddenly, Fëanor's a Valar-hating revolutionary and you're trying to calm him down, but does he even recognize you at this point?

And then he's leaving, and Fingolfin and your other set of sibkids are packing up too, because apparently he has to go to make sure Fëanor will be all right, and Fingon needs to follow his cousin, and the others want to see Middle Earth. You try to persuade them not too, but it it doesn't work. Well, at least you have your children, you think.

And then they come to you and tell you that they're leaving too. And what can you do but follow them? Eärwen says she won't, and someone has to be with them. So you pack your things and you tell your wife you are sorry and you go.

It couldn't possibly get worse, could it? And then, of course, it does, because when you reach the Swanhavens, the beautiful, pearly harbor city where your in-laws live, Fëanor doesn't take no for an answer and decides to just take what he wants.

And there's blood in the sea and the white paving stones turn red, and you and your children are just trying to stop it all but then you look down and you see Eärwen's parents lying on the pier with their throats cut and you know you have to go back.

So you do. Alone. You throw yourself on the mercy of the Valar and they grant it. You go home to your wife and neither of you speak for days because what is there to say when everything has fallen apart?

But, because you are Finarfin and it's what you do, you and Eärwen start organizing relief for the surviving Teleri, and you help the Valar as much as you can. You light lamps in the darkness until the moon rises. You wonder if your children are looking at it too.

From some stragglers of Fëanor's pack, coming back to Tirion, you learn that Fingolfin was betrayed. That Fëanor burned the ships.

And you learn that your children, and your brother, and your niece and nephews, and everyone else, are all on the Helcaraxë. You try not to imagine them freezing to death, or drowning in a black ocean, or buried in the snow, or all the other things that keep you up at night.

Things go back to normal, essentially. Tirion stops being quite as much of a ghost city, and you and Eärwen learn to live in your silent, silent house.

And years pass. You learn from one of the Returned that Fëanor is dead, has been dead for a long time, and you feel a numb sort of grief but it doesn’t really touch you anymore. Your nephew comes home, serious and dull-eyed. You embrace him and you weep. 

It would be a lie to say that you weren’t expecting it someday, but when you open the door to a soft knocking and see Angrod standing outside, you and Eärwen cry and cry. He tells you that Aegnor will not be coming back, that he fell in love with a mortal woman and waits for her with Mandos. You learn to accept this, because there is no alternative. You are Finarfin. You should be used to this by now.

And the years pass, and the years pass, and its a Maia of Námo knocking at your door this time, telling you that Fingolfin is dead, killed by Morgoth, and that he will not be returning from Mandos anytime soon. You ask if you can see him. You hear that he will see no one. You write him a letter for every day anyways.

And there are many more. Five of your nephews from Fëanor’s side are dead, but who knows where they are. Finrod comes home, smiling a smile that doesn’t touch his haunted eyes. Fingon comes too, and sits in your garden for hours, staring at Nerdanel’s statue of Maitimo. Aredhel appears and stands at the seashore, waiting for her son to join her. He does, with Turgon and thousands of others behind him. Aredhel weeps. You rub her back and feel just as helpless as you did at the beginning of it all. 

And the years pass, and the years pass, and Tyelpë comes home, wary and weary, and tells Finarfin that Galadriel has gotten married. 

But she is a child, you almost say, and then you realize that she is not. Not anymore.

And the years pass, and the years pass, and suddenly your are going to Middle Earth again, with a divine army behind you, and you are standing at the gates of Angband and listening to Morgoth’s screams. You stand beside Eönwë and you feel nothing but revulsion. You do not touch the Silmarils when they are taken down.

You had hoped to see Galadriel, but she is not there. Someone tells you that she is expecting a child.

And then there are your two remaining nephews, desperate and wracked with pain, and they beg for the Silmarils, and you would’ve given them, but Eönwë shakes his regal, feathered head.

So they steal them in the night. It isn’t surprising. Why are you surprised? Why are you crying?

Later, you hear that Maitimo--Maedhros, now--killed himself. You begin steeling yourself to tell Fingon when you get home. 

And the years pass, and the years pass, and you wait for your daughter, but it is her daughter that comes first, barely able to stand, her hand shaking like leaves in the wind. She looks up at you and then buries her head in your chest. You stroke her hacked-off hair and this time you do not cry. 

You wait, with Eärwen, with Finrod and Angrod, and now Celebrían, who is waiting thrice over, for her parents, for her children, for her husband. You wait.

And finally, finally she comes home, flickering like a candle in the wind. Her husband, Celeborn, comes first, tells you that she will soon arrive, embraces you and calls you ada.

And then Celebrían’s husband comes, breaks the news that their daughter is not coming, will never come. Finarfin rests his hands on their shoulders as their tears fall into the sea. 

His great-grandsons come later, and bearing a bedraggled someone between them, and it is first Finarfin and then Elrond who recognizes those grey eyes, that once-melodious voice. 

Uncle, says your one surviving nephew. I am sorry.

And, because you are Finarfin, you take his burned, bloody hands and lead him up the beach and towards the city, because if this can happen, perhaps there’s hope for all the others too. 

[armenelols]

I'm properly bored as well lol. Bored enough and unable to find excitement in anything else, so I started making aesthetics.

Anyways. Hope your day's going well.

Here's my ask: what are your headcanons about the dynamic & relationship between Maglor and Maedhros?

Oh boy this is going to be long

When I got this ask I actually started writing a one-shot about them but my attention span is short so it ended up once again unfinished in my drafts :D it kinda shows through this post because I kept falling into my weird storytelling mode

Thus the reason it took me so long to answer lol

SO

The short version: out of the feanorian bunch, Maedhros and Maglor have always been the closest to each other. It doesn't change with time, even when they do.

The longer version has gotten very much out of hand, I strayed off topic several times, forgot to mention half of the things I wanted to but here go:

Maedhros is the oldest of Finwë's grandchildren, so I imagine him being very close to Maglor, as I headcanon them close in age (with Fingon being only slightly younger). Even after the rest of Maedhros's siblings are born, I still see him being closest to Maglor - two oldest of the brothers, of the cousins. Maedhros is the mom friend, and he tries to get along with everyone, take care of everyone. Maglor is too busy perfecting his music skill and occasionally acting snobbish to help (yes, I headcanon younger Maglor as a bit of a snob, sue me :D), but Maedhros doesn't mind because he loves his brother even if he sometimes makes him wish to bang his head against the wall. Repeatedly.

When their lives begin to crumble under their feet, Maglor lets go of his snobbish attitude and tries to help. Fëanor isn't himself anymore, and Finwë is too blind with his love to see what his son is turning into. Maedhros is trying to keep everyone together, Maglor as well, and Fingon and Finrod do their best to help. Fëanor is banished, and all his sons go with him. Nerdanel doesn't. Maedhros start breaking under the pressure put on his shoulders, but he prevails. With Fingon in Tirion, Maglor is now his biggest support.

Everything escalates.

After Finwë's death, I don't think they were given much time to grieve - not with all that happened afterward, and especially not with Fëanor being... Well, you know what I mean. Oath happens, and the first kinslaying, and Losgar. Fëanor is dead, Maedhros is captured and rescued. (in some versions, Amrod is dead, but I am following mostly Silm in this, so take that into consideration further on)

During my latest Silmarillion reread, I noticed a pattern - pretty much every time it mentioned feanorians wanting to do something stupid, being angry, or something similar, it only excluded Maedhros - never Maglor. So while I think Maglor was one of the more gentle brothers, I don't think he was an innocent dude just following his brothers around or something similar. I think that Maedhros's brothers didn't try to resist the oath much in general - at first, they did to an extent, but after some time, they stopped trying. Thus Celegorm's and Curufin's misadventures in Nargothrond (made stronger by the silmaril part) :D Caranthir, Maglor and Ambarussar would be somehow better off, but still not resisting that hard. In the later first age, I think, all of them were pretty much unrecognizable from their past, happier selves. Maedhros would keep his mortals, but the rest would be more looser with them.

Doriath changed that, I think: with the three Cs death, and Eluréd and Elurín lost, I think Maedhros finally snapped. He was tired, and he stopped caring - and I think that was also the breaking for Maglor (though in a different way), when he finally realized how far they have fallen.

When the third kinslaying came, Maedhros just wanted it to be over. Ambarussar were dead, and he and Maglor were alone again, the oldest ones. Silmaril was out of his reach, after being so close. And then he was presented with another pair of twins, as if Elurín and Eluréd come again, but this time... This time he didn't care for their lives. He was tired.

Maglor was tired also, but this time, he was full of regret from the past. He wanted to fix his mistakes. He didn't think anything could excuse his past actions, but maybe he could do at least one more good deed in his life.

He convinces Maedhros and they gain a whole shiny new pair of twins.

Maedhros, I think, grows to like them (not sure if I would go as far as to say love, depends on how long exactly they spend together), and for a time, Elrond and Elros make him see what he used to fight for. For better future, for better life. Maglor is doing his best, but he isn't sure how. Maedhros was the one used to keeping his family in check. For Maglor, this was a new field, and he didn't dare to go against Maedhros often.

War of Wrath happens.

Maedhros wants to steal the silmarils, Maglor doesn't. But Maglor is tired and goes along with Maedhros's wish.

Silmarils burn them, and Maedhros is dead - too tired, he has given up years ago. There was nothing for him left.

Maglor, for the first time in his life, is alone. He doesn't know what to do. And so grieves, and grieves, and grieves.

*but since we all love a proper happy end, Maglor is either going to end up hanging around in modern times, much more in peace with himself than he was at the end of the First Age. Or he crashes at Valinor, where his family is reborn because Mandos doesn't want to be anywhere near them. Maedhros is happy again, and has a new purpose in life. Maglor heals. They are together again, and happy*

[feathersandblue]

Dean Winchester, Character Death, and Frodo’s Return to the Shire

This will be a LOOONG post that has been stuck in my head for a while in bits and pieces - about Dean’s death, what it was and what it wasn’t, and incidentally, the Lord of the Rings has found its way in here too.

It’s pretty clear that Dabb always meant for Dean to die.

And while I strongly disagree with that, on so many levels, I think it might have been more palatable if framed in a different way, and so I’ve been trying to figure out what the ending might have looked like in a world that wasn’t quite as shitty as ours. Still shitty, but marginally less so.

Dean is notoriously bad at letting bad things happen if he can prevent them. I find it difficult to believe that Dean would ever quit hunting entirely, and for as long as he kept hunting, the danger of dying would always be present. It’s not unrealistic at all for him to die on a routine hunt. Life is unpredictable; life as a hunter, even more so. I understand that the writers might want to make that point. And it might have been valid if – and that’s the real problem – Dean’s death hadn’t otherwise been devoid of meaning.

The thing about character death – any sort of character death – is that it needs to have purpose.

And there are different ways that it can have purpose, but it depends on what sort of character we’re talking about.

Minor, often unnamed characters – the redshirts in every narrative – die to illustrate injustice or to highlight evil. Their death is a catalyst or a consequence of the events as they unfold, part of the conflict the heros have to solve. An army led into battle by a tyrant. Refugees in a camp dying of malnutrition. Murder victims of a serial killer. In all these cases, death fuels the plot but has little meaning beyond that.

There are minor characters whose death both fuels the plot and gives the hero a more personal motive to act. Supernatural is full of these. Mary and Jessica burning at the ceiling; Charlie dumped in a bathtub. Minor characters can have their own arcs, but ultimately their deaths are only important for the impact they have on the main characters.

The death of a protagonist is markedly different. Protagonists need to have agency even in death to maintain their status.

Their death has to be the reflection of their character development up to that point but it also has to tell us something about them that we did not already know – show us how they make a final decision or draw a final conclusion that marks the end of an inner conflict – which is what all storytelling is about. Character death has to serve a purpose to have meaning, and for a protagonist, the purpose must be personal.

And If it fails to do that, then that’s either a sign that we’re no longer dealing with a protagonist, or that something weng very, very wrong in the writers’ room. There is no inherent value in tragedy. In storytelling, tragedy is justified when it achieves something, otherwise, it’s just capriciousness.

Buffy’s death at the end of season 5 of BTVS is a classic example for the death of a protagonist. Harry’s decision to go and face Voldemort in the forbidden forest, even though it doesn’t ultimately kill him, is another. When Sam jumps into the abyss in Swan Song, that is his heroic sacrifice, but if he’d permanently died in season 2, that would have been bizarre and nonsensical because it was entirely beyond his control – it did not reflect his decisions, gave him no agency, and reduced him from a protagonist to a side character. In that moment, his death was something that happened to Dean. It worked because his death didn’t stick – he regained his agency after resurrection. But as an ending to his hero’s journey, it would have been singularly unsatisfying.

Dean is our protagonist, and he has been for 15 seasons. What does his death tell us about him that we didn’t know – what decisions did he make, what inner struggle got resolved, what meaning did his death have for him, personally, and then, in extension, for us?

The problem is that the finale, as is so often the case in Supernatural, tells two stories at once.

Whe the episode starts, it appears that Dean moves on with his life just fine, a well-adjusted model citizen. He’s ready to get a job, seems to be moderately happy. He even has dog. The decision to keep hunting is his, and death just accidentally happens, which of course is not unrealistic in his line of work. On the forefront, his death is brought about by the fact that he exercises free will. It tells us that he is a hunter and will always be one, that he keeps protecting people because that’s just who he is.

None of that, however, is new. It is just more of the same. All of Dean’s decisions in the finale tell us nothing about him that we did not already know. He’s trying to move on from the death of the people closest to him, as he’s always done. He chooses the hamster wheel, as he has always done. He follows in his father’s footsteps, as he has always done.

As he gets impaled, he has no choices left to make. There is no agency in his death, no inner struggle. His death furthers neither his character development nor the plot. That Dean simply accepts his death is as unsurprising as the fact that his final moments are spent reassuring Sam and telling him that he has to keep fighting.

The conclusion? Dean ceases to be a protagonist.

He dies not as the hero of his story. His death just happens to him.

After Sam and Dean had presumably freed themselves from the constraints of Chuck’s narrative, the final episode should have emphasized their agency, their freedom of choice, through change. But in the end, it only led them both to making the same choices as always, the unsurprising ones. And even the choices that did indicate a change (like Dean’s job application) were not shown to bear fruits.

What meaning does free will have when it doesn’t change the outcome? All the finale does is tell a bleak story about humanity and how we are incapable of making meaningful, consequential changes in our lives.

It’s almost like Lucifer is talking to us all the way from the Endverse of 5.04: “Whatever you do, you will always end up here. Whatever choices you make, whatever details you alter, we will always end up – here.”

Devastating as that is, there is another interpretation of the finale that is arguably worse, a different reading strongly suggested by both text and subtext.

Dean, as mentioned before, is trying to move on with his life but ultimately fails. The situation is different from the way he behaved when he lost Cas and Mary in season 13 where he was outright suicidal – his desperation is more quiet but also more profound. He seems determined to honor Cas’ and Jack’s sacrifice. But determination is not enough. Dean only goes through the motions, and it shows. He clings to the dog in the morning; the dog sticks to him closely throughout the day as dogs tend to do when they feel that their owner is in distress, almost like a therapy dog. His room looks messy, he makes an attempt to fix it but then abandons it as it requires too muh effort. Ultimately, he can’t be bothered. There are alcohol bottles standing around, a sign that he’s drinking, though not as heavily as in the past. All the while, he sems very laid-back, presumably relaxed and at peace and coping well with the loss but also weirdly detached.

When Sam mentions Cas and Jack at the pie festival, he says, “Yeah, I’m thinking about them too. You know that pain’s not going to go away. Right? But if we don’t keep living, then all that … sacrifice is gonna be for nothing.”

He feels an obligation. And he’s trying. It’s just not working very well.

He barely reacts when Sams pies him in the face.

When impaled on the rebar, Dean actively prevents Sam from calling for help. He tells Sam not to bring him back. And in the end, he asks Sam to tell him it’s okay to go. Which isn’t something he would do if he was simply dying – it strongly indicates that he wants to be allowed to die.

Prompting the conclusion that Dean is giving up on life the first opportunity he gets, not even knowing whether he’ll end up in heaven.

In this reading, Dean does have a little bit of agency. He makes a decision, sort of. His death marks the resolution of an inner struggle: He gives up.

He dies as a protagonist.

In the worst way possible.

In all honesty, I can’t decide which interpretation I hate more.

But what could the writers have done differently, if Dean was meant to die all along?

Back when the SPN finale had freshly aired, I was describing it like this:

Imagine that the One Ring is destroyed. But Merry died in the battle and Pippin went missing and was never found again. Frodo and Sam return to the Shire; Pippin and Merry are mentioned once in passing. Upon their arrival, Frodo is attacked by Wormtongue and slowly bleeds out over the span of thirty pages. Sam marries someone else than Rosie; Rosie is never mentioned again. Somehow, both Frodo and Sam are teleported to Valinor, where we are told that the real fun begins.

At the time, I only used this as an example to illustrate what a mess the finale had been. But in the weeks that have passed since, then, I’ve started thinking about the LOTR comparison some more, and it got me thinking about Dean’s death in a different way.

And it has everything to do with the difference between running from and walking toward.

As mentioned before, it’s not unrealistic that Dean would die on a random hunt. Would the Dean Winchester we know ever stop hunting? Maybe. We might want him to. Then again, would be still be Dean Winchester if he did? We know that Dean can’t help but feel responsible. He is someone who is incapable of staying hands-off.

Dean, as we see him in the finale, is trying to honor Cas’s and Jack’s memory by living, although he’s not very good at it – not outright suicidal but worn-out. Exhausted. And still he makes the decisions to keep hunting because he can do nothing else.

When Frodo and Sam returned to the Shire in LOTR, they had earned their happy ending. But Frodo, who had carried such a heavy burden that he was permanently altered by it, could no longer find happiness in Middleearth, and ultimately decided to depart for Valinor along with Gandalf and Bilbo with the promise of later being reunited with Sam. The journey had changed both of them, but it had changed Frodo to a greater degree, his responsibility had been greater, the weight on his shoulders heavier.

And I started to wonder whether the intention had initially been to show Dean in much the same state – and to frame his death as a decision to move on, the same way that LOTR has Frodo move on to the West.

Imagine the following: Cas is pulled into the Empty. His happiness and love change the Empty; he merges with it or otherwise changes it so that it’s now a more demon-friendly environment. Everyone there is at peace. Cas, in whatever form, moves on to Heaven – or maybe his soul does as it’s now mostly human.

Dean goes on a hunt and dies. Jack, or some other entity, shows up where you would expect the curiously absent reaper in order to give him a choice. Learning that Cas is in Heaven, and knowing that he will never be able to stop hunting if he remains on earth, Dean makes the conscious decision to move on. For the first time, Dean prioritizes his own happiness over his perceived duty. His death is no longer suicide by proxy, and neither is its sole purpose to illustrate the inherent meaningless of free will by turning him into a hamster-by-choice. Instead, it becomes a decision because he’s given back agency. He resolves an inner conflict and there’s even a final bit of character development as he breaks the chain of mutual co-dependency that ties him to Sam and allows himself to be with Cas. He remains a protagonist throughout the end.

And because he acknowledges his love for Cas and decides to be with him, he no longer just runs from, he walks toward.

The parallels to The Lord of the Rings get even more obvious when you take Sam into the equation because much like Samwise, Sam remains on earth in order to have a life that, for him, still holds meaning and the chance of happiness – whereas Dean can no longer be happy on earth as long as Cas isn’t there.

To be completely clear: I’d still think that such an ending would suck because it puts too much emphasis on an afterlife, and it would still send the message that characters like Dean could only find peace in death, and unless some adjustments were made to Sam’s arc as well, the ending would still suck for him.

But seeing as SPN plays in a universe where an afterlife exists, I could probably learn to live with Dean’s death if it had any sort of meaning, for him, besides dying and waiting for Sam to arrive, if it allowed for that final bit of character development. If he got to choose.

While I’ll never be able to see the finale that we actually got as anything but a complete atrocity.

[amethysttribble]

If Amras (or any of her uncles) one day left the Halls, what do you think Russanis would do? Would she want to talk to him? What would she say?

First of all, oh my goodness, it’s so sweet of you to ask after my really silly ocs, THANK YOU! Secondly, this got long again, my shame is eternal. If you still want to bear with me, though...

It would really depend on the uncle, and Amras is another matter entirely. I’ll go in order from easiest to least, so dear old dad is at the end.

I honestly feel like Russanis would have an easier time dealing with the uncles who weren’t at Sirion. Celegorm, Curufin, and Caranthir’s poor actions are... more removed from her. She knows what happened at Doriath was wrong, but if Mandos has forgiven them, who is she to judge? Those aren’t her grudges to bear.

That’s being said, it think she’d have a hard time wanting them around her children- no matter how grown, she’s a helicopter mom, lol- and she WOULD NOT appreciate them approaching her first. Any future relationships she would want to forge on her own terms, but provided Celebrimbor, Merilissel, Dulindir, and Hal are already in Valinor, I think Russanis would make a real effort for their sakes. She’d probably go full Big Sister mode (even tho Tyelpe’s older, it’s just who she is) and be equal parts wary and encouraging about reforging those relationships, depending on who needs what.

Before all that though, Maglor likely sails back and gets the worst of her negative feelings. I think it takes a little while for Russanis to want to see him. She likely goes to visit him at Nerdanel’s house after a little while, and her only greeting is, “Did you know I was there?” It’s haunted her for years, after all.

The answer is, “We didn’t know, but we were also too afraid to ask. We didn’t want to know the answer.” Lest it dissuade us. Lest it didn’t dissuade us, goes unsaid.

Which she... expected, more or less, but it hurts. I think she needs to take some time to work that all out, to come to grips and make as much peace as she can and move on. Moving forward and forgiving are not mutually exclusive for Russanis in this, but she does forgive somewhere along the way.

It actually helps that Vorion does not forget or forgive, that was his fucking home they burned, his friends’s parents they killed, his friends they stole! Russanis accidentally finds herself playing devil’s advocate against Vorion, and keeping peace between him and Maglor. It helps her realize and work through that she actually does want a relationship with her favorite uncle. Once they hash this all out, Vorion tries to chill for her sake and she never visits her family on him of course, they simply have conflicting needs in this. But she can reach out more comfortably after that.

Maedhros benefits from her having to come to grips with Maglor first. It doesn’t hurt that he’s really contrite about it. Doesn’t hurt that reborn, he seems like a completely different person from the grizzled uncle she once knew. Doesn’t hurt that her namesake is paying attention to her for the first time in her life.

After all that, Amrod should theoretically be the easiest, but it’s complicated by two things. 1) Amras and he are reborn together, and 2) Amrod’s death has overshadowed her entire life.

She doesn’t know how to reconcile the martyred brother her father was always mourning with a real person, and he comes with Amras, who she finds a lot harder to forgive for Sirion than she did Maglor and Maedhros. He was her father, he was supposed to protect her, not...

And he chose Amrod’s dead soul over her alive body.

Russanis knows how the Oath worked, better than nearly anyone else, she knew what the tugging did to them, knew about her father’s terrors that Amrod’s (and Fëanor’s) soul would be trapped in everlasting darkness, in the void, in torment until the end of time. She knows fear and pain were driving them, a need to save their dead, a need to make it /worth it/.

And she knows it would be hard to fight, to ignore, but if nothing else was worth it, why wasn’t she worth it?

Russanis likely spends a few months ignoring that her father has been reborn, besides what gossip comes from her cousins and Nerdanel, and what her mother says of the one encounter she had with Amras. (It wasn’t pretty, Nolyawen and him had fallen out prior to Sirion, specifically brought on by the refusal to ask after Russanis, but it was the combination of a lot of marriage problems before hand. She has not reconciled with him, and is unlikely to for a very, very long time)

Then Amrod comes to her first. Maramo nearly hits him with a shovel before realizing this is the uncle, not the father. Amrod just wants to meet her.

They have a nice chat, and Russanis feels like a little girl again, eager for attention and approval, which she hates but has to deal with. In the end she has to ask why he’s here, why he came alone, why her father has (forsaken) ignored her?

Amrod is puzzled by this, they assumed the same decorum applied to Amras as the other family members, that she was to reach out first, on her terms.

Russanis realizes several things at once. 1) Her father’s an imbecile and a coward. 2) Amrod is very young. Younger even than her daughters, and he has no idea what it means to be a parent. This is the ghost she’d spent her whole life being jealous of? 3) She will not be reaching out to Amras.

He has to come to her first, preferably on his hands and knees.

She very politely tells Amrod this and asks him to leave.

What happens next is up to Amras, and I can’t speculate on the details of that without completely devolving into dialogue. Suffice to say, it’s not pretty at first. Russanis has a lot of unresolved issues with her father, going back to when she was young and he was a functional but grief stricken mess, and she didn’t realize how fucked up her family (all of them, the whole cursed line of Feanor) was until she went to Gondolin.

There’s a lot to unpack, and it will take time. Thank goodness they have eternity, right? I’m sure they’ll figure it out eventually, because Russanis does want her father, has always wanted Amras’s full love and attention, and she’s not going to turn her nose up at it now if he comes to her first offering.

But she’s also moved past needing it, you know? She has a fine life, one she built for herself. Russanis will be fine no matter what.