Nelyafinwë with his retinue meets Bór the faithful and his eldest son Borlad upon a moorland field of battle.  

(click for just an extraordinarily better quality) 

‘Lets try a hyper-muscular style’ + ‘I wonder how tall Maedhros would be compared to the fellowship’ = HOLY MOTHER OF GOD.

‘-the deeds that we shall do shall be the matter of song until the last days of Arda.’

Hello there! This is an independent, selective RP blog for MAEDHROS from Tolkien’s Legendarium. I am book and HC based. I will not be doing crossovers or modern AU’s, my muse for Maedhros is... SPOTTY so I may be in and out with roleplaying him.

I go by ERRAN and they/them pronouns. I am 26 and I live in the UK so GMT time. Feel free to IM me, send me asks and whatever else if we’re mutuals! Plotting always welcome. Other blogs are BOROMIR II and THEODRED SON OF THEODEN and my CUIVIENEN ELF OC.

Imagine if I gave in to my bad urges and tried to write on this blog again.

edhelquendi‌:

“How dare you doubt me?”

Fists clench tight at his sides, and now his cheeks have gone entirely crimson; the flush spreads to his ears and neck. Perhaps he has lied. But to use that as a reason to doubt his loyalty to their cause, to his brother, is too insulting an insinuation for Caranthir to let it pass without response.

“My reluctance to tell you details of my private life does not give you the right to question my loyalty to you,” he hisses. “I have been nothing but dutiful. And I do it out of love and loyalty to you, Maitimo! What are you accusing me of?”

And anger mixes with hurt, pain, and Caranthir too steps back. Hand darts over his chest, and beneath it in the inner pocket is the ring he has stowed away to hide. Something like guilt rears its ugly head. Though he repeats himself, his voice has grown soft, pained.

“Don’t you dare doubt my loyalty to you. Not when I have stood by you through everything.”

Moryo’s anger was indeed a terrible and daunting sight to behold. The redness scorched across his face and made the furious light to his eyes gleam even hotter, even more dangerously. And if Nelyafinwe had been anyone else he might not have deemed it wise to respond. But his wildfire brother was too familiar to him for this passion of his to bend him and his ears picked out each word and each meaning with cold and surgical ferocity. 

The word ‘details’ flared to the fore, creating the first real visible reaction upon his arched and chiselled face, a flash of his own well controlled flame passing over his gaze. A detail only. Just a detail. Just a small little detail that Maedhros was picking over, the hen-pecking elder brother that he was. Only a detail. The irony of Moryo’s statement is also registered. Loyalty? How could he doubt such a thing, bound together as they were. No, it is not loyalty he has lost in his brother. 

“I said trust.” His tone seems harder, deeper, with a foundation of stone to it, even when the words spoken next might have been almost tender. “Trust... such as I felt when Atarince gave me Tyelperinquar to hold for the first time.” He let that sit a moment, his unblinking eyes holding Carnistir’s. Perhaps even he was starting to feel the loss now. The familial bonds that he’d thought unbreakable bending under the strain of such secrets. But that was feeling he couldn’t afford and he pressed on. “Again, I will not beg you to share your joys with me.” Too proud for that, “but do not pretend that keeping such secrets does not make your feelings clear.”

laethir‌:

          A soft huff escapes Telvo’s lips, a hand coming up to swat in vain. Being the youngest of seven certainly had it’s perks— there was so much more mischief that he was allowed to get away with, brothers, parents and grandparents alike seemingly turning a blind eye to his more harmless antics. On the other hand, being the youngest also had it’s drawbacks, such as even eldest brothers playfully bullying him.

         Expression pouty, Telvo cranes his neck to look at Maitimo properly. His eldest brother’s height was simply unfair. When he was small, it was fun. How tall and lofty he felt as he was placed on Maitimo’s shoulders and paraded around. Now, however, his brother’s height makes him feel so small in comparison, especially in times like this.

         “I know my record is terrible, but I assure you, I have held things for more than a week. I did sculpting for nearly two months,” he protests as soon as he’s able. Of course, he’d only done so for his mother’s sake, and in the end, that was as long as it could keep his interest.

        Gaze lowering, he bites his lip. “It does. I haven’t the… the passion that everyone else seems to have. I fear I won’t ever have it, and will be condemned to be a silly flirt for the rest of forever. I fear breaking mother’s heart and father’s disappointment, and what everyone might say.” His fingers curl into his russet locks, and he tugs on them gently. “I fear I’m broken.”

Ah. Difficult indeed.

There was always a moment in the lives of Maedhros’ younger brothers when, suddenly, mindless reassurances just no longer worked. And it always crept up on him. Suddenly his soothing tone and vague declarations that ‘everything would be well’ and ‘there is nothing that you must fear or worry about’ were not only useless, they were resented. Suddenly their worlds were complex and they needed truths, even the hard ones. But... it seemed an even crueller task when it was their gentlest Telvo, their kindest, who had to hear them.

Nelyafinwe gave a heaving stormy sigh and rounded the table to loom over his brother without barrier. There was a pause, one that his family was accustomed too, knowing their Maitimo to always choose words wisely and with the mind of an orator. But he did speak eventually and his voice thrummed from somewhere deep, “I will tell you three true things. You must let me finish all of them because they are all irrefutable. And you should accept them, for they will all give you some peace, I believe.”

His head tossed, the mane of red tumbling back over his shoulder and his eyes were unblinking and assured, seeming to lack even a hint of insecurity when he began. “The first; Our Father’s disappointment toward six out of the seven of us is inevitable. If avoiding it is too precious to you, you are likely to chase that tail to Arda’s end and beyond.” A truth Maedhros had learned long ago. It was not that Feanaro was a bad father or that he loved any of them less, of course. Indeed, he was protective and loving as any father should be. But parenthood had simply not been to his expectation, his children too driven and un-malleable unless the path he chose was too their liking. Lucky Atarince.

But he plowed on, letting Telvo linger for only a moment. “The second; You are in no way passionless, the opposite in fact. Your passions are just not what we would give value too. Undefinable, unseeable and without clear product. Difficult, therefore, for our mother to understand.” Once again, as both he and Telvo would vehemently attest, one could not ask for a more loving mother. And Nerdanel had been more prepared for all that children might bring. Still, she was driven, she had expectations, she worried and she viewed the world through her hands.

“And the third is that you are made exactly as you should have been.” Is his final truism, one that he emphasised by taking Telvo’s upper arms in wide hands, looking over him with a gaze that almost edged severity in it’s intensity. “If someone musters the gall to claim otherwise, they will find me not so much the reasonable and tame Feanorion I am known as.”

I’ve said this before and again I must be clear that I only ship russingon casually at best and it’s utterly self indulgent but can you IMAGINE the buck wild bonkers yonkers dynamic that would be created if Fingon were trans and Maedhros was Gil Galad’s father like can you even imagine. 

This is very cliche of me but Maedhros’ relationship to pain is just completely different from the norm after he returns from Angband. It’s not really correct to say that he has excellent pain tolerance, because that would be assuming that he has to endure pain, that it effects him in the same way it effects others. Honestly speaking, Maedhros doesn’t experience pain anymore in a way we would recognise, he registers sensations but their impact is complex and more akin to the sensation of watching a very sad film. It’s sad and sometimes difficult to watch, but you’re still watching it because that feeling is compelling to have. 

This was one of the few things he did not already have coping mechanisms for by the time he left Angband, since he had no experience on how it might effect him on the outside. Hence there’s a period of learning where he must understand how he experiences pain now and, particularly in battle, make sure to recognise it now that it has no instinctual urgency to it. 

edhelquendi‌:

Being touched made him bristle, especially because the grip was not particularly gentle. His fingers curled instinctively into fists at his sides, for he was ever ready for a fight–but he took a long breath, closed his eyes briefly, and gathered his bearings.

“Let go, Nelyo,” he said, and he struggled audibly to keep his tone calm and even. Added to his constant agitation, the situation was nightmarish–and though it would be a gift to wake up now and find it was only a nightmare, it felt excruciatingly real. Of all the times that Maedhros could have chosen to come, of course he had picked today, when Caranthir knew at any time the labor would begin and he would meet his firstborn. A firstborn he had hoped to keep hidden, as well as his mother. Though in his heart he knew it was too late, he tried again, a meager attempt at denial, though this time he could not escape his brother’s gaze.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. You know I trust you.”

The familiar flush of fury that began creeping over Caranthir’s cheeks is observed with, still, an apparently neutral gaze. As is his growing panic, though Maedhros forcibly stops himself from examining it further. (He doesn’t want you to know.) But his heart feels a cold touch to it. For no sight could be more familiar to him than this, no person so predictable. And yet where once his hand would be a calming comfort, now it felt cruel, the cause. Perhaps he had just changed too much.

His huge chest expanded and fell in a sigh that was reminiscent to the bending of ancient forests in a high wind, and his fingers loosened and slipped from their grasp, slowly pulling away. “On the contrary,” he rumbled in his tiger-purr, “I have suspected your faith to be lost to me for a long time. But I know it now.” What had it been, he wondered... Abdication? Had he returned from Angband too much a stranger? Or had it been the very beginning of it all, and he just had not noticed..?

He takes one step back, slow and settled, and his head tilts minutely, eyes still unblinking. “I will not beg or scrape for your confidences. Nor demand them. But you know as well as I that I cannot let you be, just as you cannot help but follow me.”

laethir‌:

        Usually perky and upbeat, there is no hint of the playful smile that can oft be found on his lips. At the moment, it’s replaced by a frown, one that ever deepens the more he paces and frets. Now that he’s here, he wonders if it’s proper to bother his eldest brother with his current predicament, realizing how silly it must seem compared to all the things that must cross his brother’s desk.

         With a sigh, he relents at last, sulking over to Maitimo’s desk and plopping down onto the edge of it. A brief moment passes before he gathers himself enough to look at his brother. “Do you think I bring shame to father? There’s not one good thing that I’ve accomplished, unlike the rest of you.”

        If anything, Telvo had quite the record around Tirion as being loose according to their society’s standards. Truly, he was like a little hummingbird, flitting from one flower to the next, free with his flirtation and affections, be it with shopkeepers, servants or lords. Rumors swirled around the youngest of Fëanáro’s children; done with schooling though had not tried to set up an apprenticeship anywhere, lazing about instead.

       “I have no path. There’s nothing I’ve found yet that interests me enough to pursue it. Everyone says I’m flighty. Surely you’ve heard them talk. How can you not?”

Oh he’d heard. And seen. And disapproved of in his own right. To be honest, he had no moral objection one way or the other when it came to Telvo’s promiscuity, he only wished his youngest brother would learn some stealth about the matter. He certainly had, if his impeccable reputation (despite his private life) was anything to go by. 

But even then his fluttering nature was only a casual frustration at best. Truly, if any elf of Aman had the freedom to be a truly decadent wastrel, it was the youngest of Fëanáro’s sons and Maitimo supposed if he was happy then that was that. 

And yet here he was, taking up Maitimo’s afternoon with his fretting. So, obviously, it was bothering him. Which wasn’t to be born. 

He leaned over his desk, linking his long fingers together as he beheld his brother with a moment of silent contemplation, humming a low tiger-like rumble of consideration. Still, in the end, he reached up and tugged at Telvo’s ear with an air of playful bullying, “If it weighs on your mind so heavily perhaps you should choose a pursuit at random and try holding it for longer than a week.” He intoned with a sardonic teasing air, though he let go of Telvo’s ear and continued before he could protest, rising from his seat as well to tower over his brother.

“No, I know, you cannot. Does this-” he gestures at him vaguely, “Lack of stable employment distress you? Besides what you might believe of our father’s opinion.”

elerondo‌:

     Elrond squirms indeed, right on cue, giggling to himself at how right Maedhros was. ❝Fine! Tell me the good ones.❞ those with good stories and history. Elrond pushes himself up to look at the Feanorion properly, interests gleaming in his eyes.

Perhaps the little elf might have graced Maedhros’ company long enough to recognise the slight gentling of his storming eyes and the softening of his lips as a smile. For good or ill, he was becoming fond of the pair and Elrond’s sharp and cunning mischief was now more an amusement than an annoyance. All against his better judgement, as he reminded his brother often. 

He looked at Elrond and his gaze both reflected the constellations above and was alight with his own inner flashes of lightning behind his stare. A powerful and regal sight, but the gentle motion of hiking Elrond higher against him so that his view was undisturbed was practiced and easy.

He pointed a long finger up, outlining the shape of a man in the brightest stars above them. “Menelmacar. The great swordsman of the heavens. Set as ward and warning for the final battle to come. A promise too, that our enemy will not persist into eternity, that his days are far more numbered than our own...” A pause, and then, “my grandfather loved him best.” Elrond could feel the deep vibrations of Maedhros’ sonorous tone though his chest.

To add onto this and be serious this time, I think the Oath actually weakens the more the world alters. So with Beleriand’s destruction and the irrevocable changing of the world, the context that the oath was born into begins to break down. So, happily and surprisingly to everyone, it doesn’t eat at him as much as time goes by. And when Numenor sinks and the worlds are seperated, it’s barely noticeable whatsoever. So it’s the Third Age when Maedhros can finally properly come out of hiding and help people without spelling their doom or destruction just with his presence. 

Having talked about the Oath I’m now kinda tempted to say that Maedhros’ survival verse is just because… he gently dropped the Silmaril into the roiling lava… rather than ‘casting it afar’ no no he just dropped it… checkmate god… I’m gonna wander the world and every now and then take pot shots at the sky to pretend like I’m trying so you’ll bloody well leave me alone.

Having talked about the Oath I’m now kinda tempted to say that Maedhros’ survival verse is just because... he gently dropped the Silmaril into the roiling lava... rather than ‘casting it afar’ no no he just dropped it... checkmate god... I’m gonna wander the world and every now and then take pot shots at the sky to pretend like I’m trying so you’ll bloody well leave me alone.

YOU KNOW WHAT. Why dont we try getting Maedhros to kiss people on this sinday, throw a thing in my askbox if you want a kiss! From a war criminal! Free for all! 

This has reminded me to talk more about the oath. 

Be he foe or friend, be he foul or clean Brood of Morgoth or bright Vala, Elda or Maia or Aftercomer, Man yet unborn upon Middle-earth, Neither law, nor love, nor league of swords, Dread nor danger, not Doom itself Shall defend him from Fëanáro, and Fëanáro’s kin, Whoso hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh, Finding keepeth or afar casteth A Silmaril. This swear we all… Death we will deal him ere Day’s ending, Woe unto world’s end! Our word hear thou, Eru Allfather! To the everlasting Darkness doom us if our deed faileth… On the holy mountain hear in witness and our vow remember, Manwë and Varda!

It strikes me that the oath was never anything to do with reclaiming the Silmarils. There was no stricture that demanded the sons of feanor had to retain a silmaril once it was wrested from a hoarder’s hands. The emphasis was only ever upon ensuring no one coveted them. No one had a right upon them or kept them away from others. It’s a very interesting oath in light of Feanor’s own hoarding of them and in fact the oath probably would have been satisfied if the Silmarils were constantly changing hands, taken from place to place and presenting in public spaces to be seen but never possessed. 

Which I think was Maedhros’ plan. The goal he had in mind was to find the silmarils, destroy Morgoth and then set up a system in which the Silmarils were owned by no one and never stayed anywhere, ever shifting their home to bathe a new city or place in their glow. That was his aim, that was the light at the end of the tunnel he saw for not just himself and his family, but for elvendom as a whole. They were to be protected and given freely about middle earth. 

But that hope was ended when Earendil took the Silmaril over the sea. Maedhros realised the Valar had gotten what they wanted and now there would be no way for him to cease this endless cycle. But just killing himself wouldn’t do, that would be a failure and would still bring down this dark doom that was far too unknowable to be safe. Happily, the oath also amusingly demands Maedhros’ own death, since he did indeed cast it afar and so had to deal his own judgement upon himself. He hopes this mitigates any terrible unknown that may have been coming otherwise. 

Would Maedhros have eliminated the sons of Elwing, if Maglor had not took pity on them?

Ask me HC questions: Always accepting!

This, at least, I can say definitively. No absolutely not. 

This is not necessarily out of any particular warmth or mercy Maedhros felt for others at this time, but he was in fact still putting quite a lot of thought into his engagements and how to satisfy the oath. Namely, he endeavoured to never do anything other than what was necessary to the tennants of the oath. 

Whoso hideth or hoardeth, or in hand taketh,Finding keepeth or afar castethA Silmaril. This swear we all…Death we will deal him ere Day’s ending. 

So. As the oath directs, Maedhros’ mode of operation was very clear. Establish if someone was intending on keeping a silmaril from them (asking for the Silmaril) and then killing them if they were. Any action taken outside of these strictures had the risk of further increasing the harm Maedhros would be forced to do further down the road. So, since Elrond and Elros never handled the silmaril in a way that would transgress on the oath, they had nothing to do with him and should have been allowed to continue as such. 

This was the major reason why he did not wish for Maglor to keep the twins. By including them in their lives there was every possibility that either twin would somehow be caught up in the oath and at this point Maedhros’ caution and keen focus on the kind of butterfly effect web he was caught in was very high. Indeed, he fears that the deaths of Elured and Elurin might have been the catalyst that made Elwing refuse his request for the silmaril herself. 

So no! He would never have harmed Elrond and Elros, no matter what Maglor had done.

*crushes my emotions with my bare hands* as I was saying,