#the maglor/earendil 90% sane courtly romance of my heart

[tanoraqui]

replying to @aragornsrockcollection’s tags on this post separately because I need to scream back: 

#SCREAMING #CRYING #omg im fascinated by how you made Maedhros realize they now have the power to get them ALL killed #and how he immediately has to put up barriers of fear to make sure that doesn’t happen #and hey you know who else was suicidally defiant? #Turgon #and Fingolfin #so really they’re getting it from both sides #and being raised by feanorians is about to add some nurture to that nature #maedhros is like YOU GONNA STAY YOU GONNA WORK #and soon these two are going to be the only thing that keeps their crops alive #and maedhros is going to regret this because being reliant on them is MUCH more vulnerable than what he is thinking will happen here #trying to cow them with fear is actually going to backfire when powerful cocky teenagers come into that defiant legacy #if maedhros were more morally depraved he’d try to mother gothel them at this point #them caring for the feanorians is the only thing that’s going to stop them trying to break free of their influence #and destroying both parties #but since that doesnt happen they must realize as they grow that maedhros is desperately trying to keep everyone alive despite everything #elros and elrond learning early that no one is wholely evil #and you can choose to understand even if you cannot condone #is like 90% of tolkien’s philosophy and why these characters are such a force for good #if maedhros and maglor had tried happy families instead of being honest about their deeds and character #they would not have developed that and love would not have grown between them #which is why i can’t quite get on board with ‘feanorians right or wrong’ elrond #it kills what i like about this relationship #they have to organically realize maedhros’s threat is empty #(and it is they hold no silmaril and maedhros proved at doriath he desperately did not want to harm children) #in order to see the suffering that make the feanorian’s sympathetic

Because YES, YES, BOLDING MINE BECAUSE YES, YOU GET ME. First of, YES, Elros and Elrond get “willing and able to spit in the face of literal gods” from literally every part of their lineage (was, like, Nimloth normal about this? possibly, but almost certainly not.) ​The premise of their lives has is that the nightmares of their childhood (”eat your vegetables or the Fëanorians will get you”) came true, with blood and wrath, and then...took them in, and were consistently kind and caring, or at least, as kind and caring as their worn-down bright spirits could be, and became familiar and loved. By the time they’re teenagers, Elrond and Elros fear neither brood of Morgoth nor bright Vala, Elda or Maia or Aftercomer, and when they arrive in Gil-galad’s moving camp like a third of the way into the War of Wrath, everything authority figure who interacts with them gets the distinct sense that these twins, while consistently respectful and obedient to whatever military hierarchy they slide into, are only doing so probationarily. And somehow, being too disparaging about the Fëanorians is a black mark on that probationary judgement.

Because YES, they UNDERSTAND the Sons of Fëanor. They CHOSE to understand (no one so young should be experienced enough in the horrors of the world to be making such choices, but the incontrovertible fact is that Elrond and Elros did not have time for a “childhood.”) I don’t think it’s necessarily that Maedhros didn’t have the moral blackness to try gaslighting these kids so much as he didn’t have the emotional capacity for it - he’s attacked innocent cities and slaughtered refugees of his own people, he’s gotten friend after friend killed, loyal follower after loyal follower, cousin after brother after brother. What’s a little emotional manipulation? If it was the only way to keep everyone left alive, he’d...try.

But the only act he can consistently maintain is that he’s several safe feet from the cliff of complete mental/emotional/physical collapse, rather than walking along the edge. (It isn’t a very good act, if you know him.) And Maglor, who has a little more emotional capacity left, and who has always been a skilled actor, also has a little more moral reluctance - and anyway it’s not necessary, because from the start they’re brutally honest about what’s going on here (emphasis on brutally). All children appreciate honesty from adults. And so love grows between them in truth.

The Fëanorians are monsters, Elros and Elrond will admit that freely. They don’t flinch from any sort of slaughter - they’ve seen Maedhros kill an elf for stealing a cake of lembas with as much ease as he killed a deer for meat or an orc in battle. The first thing Maglor ever said to them as a lie, a soothing, beguiling Song to lure them out of their hiding spot and into his arms. They have done nearly every terrible thing there is to do in the world and they will do more if they must, for the Oath drives them and they take strength from it.

But the first thing Maedhros said to them was a lie, too, they eventually realized: “If your mother does not give us the Silmaril, you will be killed.” And there have been no lies since, save the half-truths adults use to shield children from the horrors of the world (and few of those. Who has time, when the horrors are all on their doorstep no matter what anyone says?) The Oath drives them and they take strength from its ceaseless fire, but only because they have so little strength to draw from anywhere, anything else. And they can still decide where to be driven - that is why Elrond and Elros are here now, with the Host of the West. “Two Silarmils are better than one,” Maedhros had finally said, after days of debate. “Morgoth cannot stand against all the Valar against him, this we know - and nor can we stand idly by while they fight our war. But there is no way Gil-galad, Arafinwë, or Eonwë himself will believe we mean alliance truly unless we give up our hostages. So you two will bear the message yourselves, and stay.”

They are terrible and fey. Maglor’s mood swings violently and his tongue is always sharp even when his smile is bright (but he usually avoided them when he felt a truly black mood coming on. Sometimes they had to seek him out to tug him gently from the depressive ones). Maedhros woke screaming in the Black Speech some nights, curses that made the very stones shiver in fear. Sometimes he woke pleading in the same fell speech, pleading for or to an every-changing variety of names in Quenya. Growing half-elves, growing at Mannish speed, because there’s time for nothing else, sleep like Men rather than Elves; each night that there wasn’t an active emergency, and some that there was, Maglor sang to them - not particularly enchantingly, just lullabies recognizably full of love. The few times he was unavailable - away on necessary hunting forays, or too injured to sing - Maedhros came and sang instead, and held them gently through the anxious fear. If his motions and melodies seemed more reflexive than truly affectionate, still they had to wonder at a monster for whom gentle care was as reflexive as the cutting of throats.

Some of their followers were the worse sort of Men or Elf, the kind eager to follow any campaign with slaughter and prizes at the end. Some had been loyal since Tirion, faltering and fraying and staying true along with their lords. Some were just throwing their lots in with the only fortress left standing against Morgoth for hundreds of miles. All were welcome so long as they stood staunchly side by side against the enemy, and Elrond and Elros did consider going back, or never leaving in the first place, no matter what their guardians decided, because they know that sometimes (often), the Fëanorians, lords and people alike, hold to them for strength, and what will become of them all without us to look after them?

(They are no strangers to that weight; they never were. Often the people of Sirion looked at them the same way. Sometimes even their mother did, though she tried to hide it.)

(A millennia or so later, Elrond is going to come back from a visit to Numenor shaking his head and admit to Celebrian, who is visiting Lindon for a few years, “[Newly crowned Great-etc Nephew] is so certain that he has to heal every hurt and mend every fault in the world... I cannot but think that it is because of how much weight his father put on his shoulders, in his grief after [Great-etc Nephew’s mother] died. I had hoped he might grow out of it, but he only seems to have grown more determined in it.” And Celebrian, young but wise, will smile and say fondly, “You hypocrite,” and Elrond will think on it for many years.)

“Guardians” they do call them, and nothing else, however they might feel in their hearts, because this was another thing Elrond and Elros discussed and decided between them: their father is missing, until he’s suddenly the one sailing a star through the sky. Either way, they have no other. Understanding and even love may both be true, but matters of principle can still stand.

The Fëanorians don’t fight alongside the Host of the West, for the most part. Nobody really wanted to cooperate that much, and why risk things started well turning to evil ends? Sometimes they arrive at battles to fill gaps in the line, then disappear again into the soon-to-be-flooded woods. Other times, the only word of them is when a scout hears distant bursts of Maglor’s terrible war-songs, or comes across fields of slain orcs. Once or twice, Elrond and Elros are called into the command tend to verify a letter. “Yes, that’s Maglor’s writing and sealing charm,” Elrond says with relief, scanning the hasty scrawl: Don’t cross the Gelion you idiots, it’s a trap. If you’re so worried about the Laquendi there, we’ll go make sure they’re alright. 

“But is it truthful?” Arafinwë asks with no small concern. “No offense, but it’s not as though Fëanor’s sons have cared for civilians before. If it’s even a trap at all - obviously they have experience in this, but we know the Enemy’s forces are divided...” 

Elros looks at him like he was an idiot. “Those were Caranthir’s lands. And if Maedhros says the Enemy is laying a trap, then the Enemy is laying a trap.”

The last time Elrond and Elros speak together with the Sons of Fëanor, there are also no lies. Technically. Maglor and Maedhros both just by unspoken agreement give them the strong impression that they are very likely to accept Eonwë’s offer of sailing and pleading their case, when in reality they’ve barely discussed it yet themselves. This is, the Sons of Fëanor both think, perfectly in line with the half-truths one tells children to shield them a little longer from the horrors of the world.

(Two hundred years later, Elros will say thoughtfully to his brother, while they watch Elros’s grandchildren play on one of Numenor’s many beaches, “I think I understand now, you know... It’s so terribly easy to disappoint your children.” It will take Elrond longer to agree - he’d believed more, walking away through the camp at the end of the War of Wrath, that their stubborn faith was going to be justified; and he doesn’t have Elros’s deadline to sort out his affairs. But six millennia later, he’ll decide that forgiveness, love, and two Ages of the world can outweigh some principles, and anyway, however he got this way, he’s too much of a healer to leave anyone so wounded behind. So he’ll give Galadriel and Mithrandir warning, though not ask for permission, and ride down the shore until he finds his foster-father, and bring him home at last.)

(And if it takes a soothing, beguiling Song to lure Fëanor’s last son, skittish with isolation and more than half lost in memory, onto a ship, or at least to a campfire to discuss getting onto a ship....well, it’s not the only reprise in the Noldolante. And it is a healer’s prerogative, sometimes, to help even those patients who resist the aid.)