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the-elusive-soleil · 5 months

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love from before still strong

For @tolkienfamilyweek Day 1 - Parent-child relationship

Maglor is shaking as he makes his way through the shadows. His hand is still in searing pain, even though the Silmaril is now at the bottom of the sea. He can see the horrified, startled face of the guard he killed, and the horrible blank emptiness on Maedhros’ face just before he pitched forward and--

He shudders, tries to put it out of his mind.

He needs to get to Elrond. There is no room for a plan or for thoughts of consequences, only for that singular goal.

There’s nothing else left, is the thing. Morgoth is defeated (no thanks to him), all his brothers are dead, the Silmarils are gone and it is probably for the best, and Elros is already gone with the Men from the Host, departed for their new Isle of Gift while Maglor was huddled in the woods trying to come to terms with still being alive.

There is, distantly, the lurking possibility in the back of his mind that that could change. He is trying very hard to not entertain that possibility. There is no good reason for him to be alive when all his brothers are dead, but the situation only becomes more senseless if he throws away the life that only he has been allowed to keep.

So here he is, slipping through the camp of the Host of the West that he fled from, sword dripping blood, only days ago.

Fortunately, he does have some idea where to go in search of Elrond, from when he was here before--not from anything he saw, but rather from where in the camp Gil-Galad was most eager to prevent him and Maedhros from passing. More than that, he knows his son, and it is no stretch of the imagination to suspect that he ought to check the healers’ tents first.

Sure enough, as he approaches the tent at the end of the row, he hears a familiar voice saying, “Is there anything else you need from me tonight, Annehtë?”

It’s Elrond, which is good, but he’s not alone, which could cause problems. Maglor draws close to the side of the tent, the better to listen for an opportunity, and to stay out of sight of anyone passing.

“No, you’ve done all you ought to and more,” says an elf-woman who is presumably Annehtë. Peering through a gap between tent panels, Maglor spots her, a blonde Vanyarin who is probably not that much younger than himself, but whose face bears less stress than any elf of Beleriand’s anymore and makes her look unwontedly young.

Elrond, in plain and serviceable healer’s robes, looking weary but otherwise no worse for wear, is moving towards the tent entrance. “Then I will bid you farewell till morning, for this day has me unusually weary.”

Before he can leave, though, Annehtë calls out, “If you will stay a moment, there is a matter I would speak with you on.”

Maglor stifles a curse, and Elrond looks no less irritated as he turns around--he’s hiding it well enough for dealing with a relative stranger, but Maglor recognizes that set of his shoulders from every time he was made to eat greens he did not want. “What is it?”

“Why don’t we sit down?” Annehtë says, not really making it a suggestion. Elrond complies, mouth pressed into a thin line. “I’ve been meaning to check in on you ever since...well, since the incident a few days ago.”

So that’s what this is about.

Elrond’s face remains a polite mask. “I don’t see how there’s anything to discuss. Unless you suspect me of aiding and abetting them, which King Gil-Galad and King Finarfin have already determined was not the case.”

“Oh, no, of course not.” Annehtë sounds shocked at the very thought. “It’s only that, well, they put you through so much before. You were only just starting to recover, and then to have them come so close again, so violently--you must have been afraid they would come after you and your brother, to take you again.”

“Why would they do that,” Elrond asks quietly and evenly, “when they were the ones who sent us here?”

“I can only guess at how such twisted minds may work,” Annehtë ventures, “but people like that don’t ever really let their victims go, you know. It’s part of the game they play, catch and release.”

“And what exactly would you know about it?” Elrond’s voice is terribly calm and cool. “Having lived all your life in Aman, where supposedly everything is perfect.”

“I have had opportunity to learn from my Sindarin colleagues since arriving here,” Annehtë retorts primly. She reaches out and takes Elrond’s hands in hers. “I understand that you must have felt such a need to be defensive of the Fëanorians when you first came here. You’d never known anything else, so of course you would want to cling to it. But they’re gone now, and it’s safe to let yourself admit that they were cruel to you. They destroyed your home and took you captive, and allowed you to know nothing but their own ways and their rules. They hurt you, and now you don’t have to pretend otherwise anymore just to get by.”

Maglor’s heart pounds in his chest. Not because he believes what the Vanyarin woman is saying in her falsely sweet voice--he knows he and Maedhros parented the twins to the best of their ability, knows that they gave them every scrap of love they had to offer, and is fairly confident that Elrond and Elros held some affection for them in return. But this is exactly what he had feared would happen when they sent their sons away: that the Sindar and Amanyar would teach them to hate the people who had raised them, and would in time so convince the twins that they had been abused that he and Maedhros would never be able to reunite with them again.

He supposes it is only surprising that it took this long for anyone to try.

That does not make it tear at thim any less when Elrond bows his head and admits, “I cannot deny that there is some truth in what you say.”

Maglor cannot stand to listen any further. He came too late and lost his chance, and now his son is slipping away from him. Intervention is impossible, so he does the only thing left to him and flees.

***

Elrond had already had more than enough of Annehtë before she tried to lure him into some kind of soul-baring exercise. The fact that she was delaying him when he could swear he felt the presence of one of his fathers just outside only compounded the irritation. He tried polite evasion, and when that seemed to be waxing ineffective, attempted to feign at least partial agreement in the hopes that she would let him alone.

Instead, his trouble only increased: no sooner had he forced out the words than he felt Maglor’s presence abruptly recede, as if in flight. No, no, this couldn’t happen, he couldn’t have the chance to finally keep hold of someone just slip through his fingers like that.

He itches to leap up and chase after Maglor right then and there, but Annehtë is still there, looking at him expectantly after his most recent statement. Right. He has to deal with this nonsense.

“It is true,” he continues, “that Maedhros and Maglor invaded and destroyed our home when we were children. But that is the only true thing you have said. They were kind to us from the beginning, although it would have been expedient to kill or abandon us. They loved us as their own sons; they only sent us away because they were sending everyone away that they could.”

Annehtë is spluttering. “But--but they were, are kinslayers! They cannot have had kindness in them, or how could they have done all that they did?”

“I do not know,” Elrond says, a little proud of how steady his voice is despite his rage. “I have wrestled with that myself. But there is no doubt in my mind that they loved us, that they gave us all the goodness they could scrape together in themselves, which was no small amount. So you will not say such things to me again--not only because they are false, but because my relationship with my fathers is none of your business.”

Then, finally, he has the opportunity to storm out in the wake of her stunned silence, and the moment he is out of the tent, he breaks into a sprint in the direction he felt Maglor’s presence receding towards.

Fortunately, his foster father does not have much of a head start, and it only takes a few minutes for Elrond to detect that flare of fëa and follow it into the woods. He quickly spots a figure curled in the shadows at the base of a large tree. A couple of paces closer, and he realizes that Maglor is weeping silently.

That does it. He flies across the short remaining distance, dropping to his knees and reaching out. “Atya? Atya! It’s all right, I’m here, I’m sorry...”

Maglor looks up at him, wide-eyed. “Elrond. Is it really you? I thought--”

“If you had stayed only a moment longer, you would have heard me go on to verbally eviscerate her,” Elrond declares. “I felt you outside the tent, I was trying anything I could to get away quickly, but it only led to me having to chase you down. What has happened to you? Where is Atar? Why did you not come to me, or to Elros or both of us, before?”

Maglor shivers. “Maedhros is dead,” he says hoarsely.

Elrond freezes. “What? He cannot be--they told us they had let you both go unharmed, they swore to me--”

“He cast himself into a chasm of fire,” Maglor continues, glorious voice flat and dull. “We took the Silmarils, and they burned us as they burn creatures of evil, and--he could not bear it. They physical wound, yes, but not--and so he ended.”

He looks up at Elrond, meeting his eyes for the first time. “He was gone, and Elros had already left for wherever his Isle of Gift will be, and there was no one else, so I thought to go to you. And then I heard--”

“--possibly the least important part of all that I had to say,” Elrond assures. He cradles Maglor’s hands in his, noting with an inward hiss of dismay the ugly burn upon the right palm. “I did not want to leave you and Atar before; I am certainly not going to let you slip away now.”

“You should,” Maglor says, making a brief abortive movement as if he would pull away but cannot bear to. “I have slain kin again, I am a thief and a murderer and kidnapper, my heels are dogged by a curse--”

“I care for none of that,” Elrond says quietly. “That is, I am not glad that you have killed again, but I don’t think you will do so any more, and I do not think there is any punishment anyone could inflict on you that would be worse than the rejection of the Silmarils and the loss of Atar.”

Maglor is silent, only bowing his head.

“I will not be staying with the Host for much longer,” Elrond forges on determinedly. “Finarfin has been trying to talk me into returning with the Amnyar, but I do not plan to. As soon as I can make that clear without burning any bridges, I will be leaving here--I want to travel, and study the different peoples of Middle-earth, and collect their knowledge. So much has been lost during the wars, but nowperhaps I can seek to preserve.”

A brief hesitation, and then, “If you will only wait here where I can find you until then, you are welcome to join me--no, more than welcome, I would earnestly desire it. We can travel together. First to Elros, I think--he will be glad to see you are alive, and will want to mourn Atar with us.”

There is a terribly long silence before Maglor lifts his head again. “I should not agree. I do not deserve it,” he says. “But I fear I am too weak now to fight against what I want so badly.”

Elrond lets out the breath he didn’t realize he was holding. “Good,” he says, a little unsteadily. He can work with that. Slowly, he drops the rest of the way to the ground and pulls Maglor into a tight, fierce embrace. “That’s good. That’ll be all right.”

#tolkienfamilyweek #silmarillion #maglor #elrond #kidnap fam #post war of wrath #maybe this belonged under the found family day?#but kidnap fam was my silm gateway drug and it's what I think of first when I see “tolkien” and “parents”#archaeologist-anthropologist elrond makes another appearance #so does my favorite genre of “outsider sees kidnap fam and assumes the worst”#soleil writes things #refracted (fanfiction)

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lemurious · 2 years

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Tolkien Reverse Summer Bang 2022

Art by @polutrope

Fic by @lemurious

What Will They Sing of Us?

Read here on AO3

It was the tenth year since the end of the War of Wrath. The tenth year of civil war that had followed it. O Elbereth! Sing now the rage of the sons of Fëanor, Dark and murderous, that cost the Noldor Incalculable pain, pitched countless souls Of heroes into the dark halls of Mandos And left their bodies turn to ashes and bones Cursed and forsaken, as Manwë’s will was done. Beginning with the clash between the Dark Vala – Melkor, the Black Foe – and Fëanor the fire-spirit.

A story of Maglor and Daeron, of a siege and of the plague, of Celebrimbor’s lonely forge and Círdan’s iron will, of music, and perhaps, of redemption.

(Inspired by Homer and by the Peloponnesian War, and above all, by the wonderful art and support of @polutrope).

#daeron #maglor #celebrimbor #cirdan #havens #post war of wrath #cw war #cw plague #cw respiratory illness #trsb2022 #tolkien reverse summer bang #lemur writes #my fic

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jynjackets · 10 months

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Come, then, loose me from cruelties. Give my tethered heart its full desire.

— Sappho

Fragment 1 The Ode to Aphrodite translation by Guy Davenport

insp.

#velcinta #lesbians #sappho quotes #vel sartha #cinta kaz #swladies #wlwdaily #dailyvelcinta #swedit #swcreations #star wars colors #lets go colorblind lesbians lets go #posting this for the last day of pride #up next... WRATH

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swanmaids · 1 year

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Did Ancalagon’s corpse sink with Beleriand after Eärendil cast him down? I’m imagining Ancalagon as the ultimate fantasy whalefall, scavenged by sharks and fish and prawns and lobsters, with mussels and clams flocking to the bones. Seaweed growing through the ribcage.

Eärendil watching from above, as life flourishes among the carcass. Elves sailing to the Blessed Realm, gazing down into the water at the bones.

#my post #my hcs #earendil #ancalagon #war of wrath

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ettelenethelien · 4 days

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When Finrod is reembodied at the beginning of the War of Wrath he holds the record for "Shortest time spent in Mandos for an Exile" (81 years of time as it passes outside)

He holds it, perhaps, until one Noldorin woman slain in the Last Alliance is reembodied after 70 years. It is much debated whether this counts or not, given that she died after the Doom was lifted.

Neither of the parties concerned will comment on the matter.

#now to be precise: 80 years is quick enough even not for a Noldo #these things take time usually #there *were* a few Vanyarin soldiers who got clean deaths in battle during the war of wrath and returned after some 10 years #but those were very much outliers #my post #Tolkien #Silmarillion #silmarillion headcanon #finrod #halls of mandos #silm #silm hc

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kitcat22 · 5 months

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Logically i know that Elrond is the descendant of a whole bunch of famously really tall people and is more elven than he is edain however…. 5’7 Elrond and 6’5 Celebrían also has an appeal to it.

#the silmarillion #silmarillion #elrond peredhel #celebrian #elrond #war of wrath beleriand era childhood malnutrition i guess?#my posts

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thevalleyisjolly · 1 year

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As an archivist, thinking about the right to be forgotten in a specifically archival context, and the idea that not everyone wants their stories or their records to be made available to anyone/for everyone; that often, what a community judges to be the best preservation for their own histories and culture is not what is beneficial to outsiders, especially outside academics.

More specifically, thinking about this in the context of Lord of the Rings/The Hobbit/The Silmarillion/other Legendarium books as “historical” texts. Thinking about maybe the “authors” not writing everything down because they understand the power of stories and how the telling of a thing grants a certain power over it, over how it is known and spread, and positions the teller as a figure of authority over what (and who) is depicted.

We already know that Bilbo is an unreliable narrator, that he changes things and leaves things out. There were a few posts and fics years ago, when the Hobbit movies came out, about Bilbo befriending a young Estel in Rivendell and deliberately leaving that out of his stories at Gandalf/Elrond’s request. What other things might he have left out, perhaps, out of respect for his friends in the Company and their desire to keep their culture and language private and closed?

Pengolodh compiling the Annals of Beleriand from which came the greater part of The Silmarillion - but he was in Gondolin for much of the First Age, and would have had to rely on other sources to give an account of the rest of Beleriand. Who did he talk to? What might they have said and not said, and what might they have requested he include or keep out?

Anyways, the Legendarium as an archive, something actively created and shaped by the different people in and around it, who both added things and left things out unintentionally or by design or on request.

#lotr #silmarillion #ironically this would make the archivists of middle-earth more respectful and conscious of this than many irl archivists #i jest; there are many excellent archivists who are putting the time and the effort in to do the work right and to spearhead change #not that there aren't still a great many traditionally trained archivists who are being absurdly obstinate about this #but there is progress; however slow; being made in the archival field about recognizing people's rights to their own records #writing this instead of my personal archives paper asdfghjkl;#this isn't the main point of this post but i also like to headcanon post war of wrath burgeoning loremaster elrond #travelling around and meeting different communities and hearing their stories #and sometimes they ask him to share those stories with others and many other times they ask him not to spread them #he meets a kindi tribe in the east who have no desire to be involved in any of the bullshit happening over in the west #they are fine with him as a friend but explicitly ask that he not let anyone else know about their existence #he befriends dwarves living in the blue mountains who wish people to remember the glory of tumunzahar and gabilgathol #but who don't want their culture and language widely spread for outsiders to know #he reestablishes contact with the silvan elves in the greenwood who are eager to hear news of their long sundered kin #and request that he bring news of them to the survivors of ossiriand

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erynalasse · 2 years

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A really underutilized dynamic is the War of Wrath where you have

High King Gil-galad of the Noldor in Beleriand, who failed to stop the Kinslaying at Sirion

High King Finarfin of the Noldor in Aman, who repented and returned after the Kinslaying at Alqualondë

Former High Kings of the Noldor Maedhros and Maglor, who were chief perpetrators of the above Kinslayings

who all have to sit down together and coordinate the attack on Angband.

It really underscores the twin dynamics of technically you are family, but I would also like to kill you as well as the enemy of my enemy is my friend, but have I mentioned I would also like to kill you.

#my post #tolkien #silmarillion #war of wrath #maedhros #maglor #gil-galad #finarfin #also elrond and elros in the middle of this desperately trying to play referees between their massively dysfunctional family members #poor babies

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tar-maitime · 2 months

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found you, I'm not alone

Rating: T Characters: Maedhros | Maitimo, Fingon | Findekano Relationships: Maedhros/Fingon, fem!Maedhros/Fingon Additional: War of Wrath, reunions, angst, making plans for the future WC: 1.3k

Direct follow-up to "if you stay by my side"

Maedhros drifts in and out of consciousness.

Or maybe they’re dreams. She’s not sure. Some of it definitely can’t be anything but a dream - the moments when she thinks she registers Fingon beside her holding her hand, or talking (or shouting) at someone. That can’t possibly be real, can’t be anything but her mind having finally cracked. He’s dead, he can’t be here. Even if he were alive, he wouldn’t want to be here with her.

She thought he was there with her on the battlefield, but she must have hallucinated it in the midst of her pain. It’s impossible that he could’ve actually been there.

When she finally comes awake fully, she’s a little surprised. She’d really thought, when she first passed out, that that was it. It wouldn’t have been such a bad way to die.

Ah well. She’ll do whatever’s in front of her. She always does.

As she catalogues her body - the usual aches and pains, dull throbbing where the spear got her, much less of a sleep deficit than usual - she becomes aware that someone is holding her hand.

It’s impossible, but she would know that warm, firm grip anywhere.

She pries her eyes open and lets her head roll to the side, and he’s there. Finno is there. He’s perched on a camp stool next to the cot she’s on, hunched over and with both his hands wrapped around hers. He’s wearing clean clothes, not what she remembers from the battlefield, but he looks like he hasn’t slept in days.

The moment she moves, his focus sharpens on her. “Russë! You’re awake, are you all right?”

“Finno.” That’s all she can manage to say at first.

“Yes.” He’s holding back tears. “It’s me. I’m here.”

“...How?” Maedhros gets out. “How? You died, you were dead--”

“I came back,” Fingon says earnestly, squeezing her hand. “I came back for you. I got out of Mandos just in time to come over the Sea with the new army. I’ve been trying so hard to find you.”

Some of this is starting to sound familiar, like maybe it came up in that encounter on the battlefield that she apparently didn’t imagine, but Maedhros is still unclear on one point. “Why?” she asks. “I...I killed so many people, Finno, I killed people who used to be yours...”

“I know. I saw. I still love you anyway.” He says it like they’ve gone over this before, but Maedhros still doesn’t quite understand.

“How...why...Finn-Fingon, you shouldn’t have to. I’m not - this isn’t like after Thangorodrim, I’m not some broken little thing you can put back together; I’m a murderer. I’m the monster the Sindar tell their children about to make them behave.” She knows this for a fact. She heard some of the stories Elrond and Elros had been told about her, even though Maglor tried to shield her.

But Fingon’s jaw has that familiar determined set to it. “We went over this after Alqualondë, Russë. We’re both killers, and it’s terrible, but we love each other anyway. Do you really think my love for you is so little that this could stop it?”

“That’s not fair to you,” Maedhros murmurs.

Fingon pauses a moment. “If it had been you who fell in the Nirnaeth,” he says finally, “and I had somehow ended up joining in with your brothers, if I had done all that you have - would you then stop loving me?”

The mere thought is enough to make her recoil. The mental image of Fingon covered in elvish blood is nightmarish, world-rattling, but even so, it is unimaginable that she could ever cease to love him.

He seems to read her thoughts on her face, and gives her a soft smile. “You see,” he says, “it is not unfair at all.”

Maedhros considers arguing, but is too tired and in too much pain to do anything but accept it.

“What’s going to happen, then?” she asks, since now that they’ve established that Fingon’s love for her makes even less sense than it ever did, that seems like the next most important topic. “What happened with the battle? Wait - where are Kano and the children?”

“Maglor should be back soon,” Fingon reassures. “He only stepped out for a few moments, under great persuasion, so I don’t doubt that he’ll return any time now. We sent the twins to get some rest; they insisted on helping the healers who worked on you, and wore themselves out pretty well. And Ereinion hasn’t been by yet today, he’s been nearly run off his feet--”

But Maedhros interrupts, barely daring to believe the unspoken implication. “Gil-galad came?” she asks. She hadn’t meant to include him in “the children”, when he wouldn’t want it.

Fingon’s smile is warm with understanding. “Yes. He’s come to see you at least once every day, more often if he can manage it. There’s been a lot going on - well, actually...” He pauses, like he’s not sure how to phrase it. “The battle we were in ended up making it all the way to Angband. And the Valar showed up. And so did Earendil, they say he fought a winged dragon. And...it’s over, Russë. The war’s over. We won. It’s over now.”

Maedhros can’t blame him for having to take a moment to find the words. She can hardly believe what she’s hearing. War, in one shape or another, has defined her life for centuries. That, and...

“What of the Silmarils?” she finds herself asking, hating herself for it. “Do you know what has, what will become of them?”

Fingon grimaces. “They were recovered from Morgoth’s crown, I will say that much. Who has them now, I will not say, because I want you to stay resting in that bed and not leaping up to go chase after the accursed things. We are working on a plan to deal with them, with the Oath. Once you are stronger, we will bring you into the conspiracy.”

For a moment, Maedhros tries to picture a world, a life without the war and the Oath. She almost can’t. She hasn’t really believed she would live long enough to outlast them both since the Union fell apart around her. The last version of her to actually live in peace died in Angband.

“That’s good,” she says anyway, because it has to be. Then, “What will be done with us, with Kano and me? Uncle Finarfin might have been lenient thus far, but I’m sure Eönwë and the Valar will want to see justice meted out for the kinslayings.”

“They may want to,” Fingon says with a slightly dangerous calm, “but I will not let them. You deserve to rest, Russë, in whatever fashion you wish. We all do.”

“What if the way I wish to rest is in chains, as would be justified, or cast into the Void?” Maedhros asks, half-meaning it, but that’s less than she would have been before.

“Then i will simply have to talk you out of it.” Fingon squeezes her hand. “You would never truly rest in captivity or bonds, love, and you know it.”

He’s frustratingly right. Maedhros sighs. “What, then?” she asks. “Are we to go larking off into the wilds, settle down in some peaceful valley and build a, a little house and live off the land and hope that the ghosts of everyone we’ve killed and failed to save stay away?”

She means it sarcastically, but Fingon nods with full seriousness and says, “If you want to, then yes. Personally, I think it might be fun to try.”

And as much as she wants to, Maedhros can’t bring herself to disagree. She can’t quite picture that warm scene, a home for the two of them and maybe Maglor and the children if they want it. It’s almost entirely impossible. But she’s alive and the war is over and her once-dead husband is sitting here holding her hand and making her believe in things again - so maybe one more impossibility wouldn’t be such a stretch after all.

#silmarillion #maedhros #fingon #maedhros x fingon #russingon #war of wrath #roots of my tree #my stories #finally getting around to posting this now that m&m week is done

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amethysttribble · 1 year

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Thranduil was already stripping off his armor before he entered their tent. It was hot, uncomfortable, and itchy with sweat and the blood that never seemed to go away and skin dried out by the distant presence of dragon fire. Iluvatar, so itchy. The second his gauntlets were off he was scratching at his skin until his forearms hurt, and then his hands strayed to his torso.

He sat, stripped off the boots, scrapped at his shins.

Only once Thranduil had throughly reddened his skin and drank some grossly hot water did he stop. He was still breathing heavily, though he hadn’t been doing anything strenuous. Just patrolling the edges of camp. He was too young for anything more dangerous, though Thranduil would argue nothing was ‘un-dangerous’ in these days. Safe wasn’t a word anyone would utter, so it need not be refuted.

Strange how they were winning the war against Bauglir for the first in Elven memory, and yet it felt like they were losing more than ever.

Thranduil had not needed to ask, when Father’s scouting party returned. It was still three hours until the end of his shift, but he was prepared to break ranks and face the consequences if-

His ‘if’ did not come to pass. Father returned hollow-eyed and steady, walking forward without acknowledging Thranduil. He’d known, as soon as they were close enough to make eye contact with and Father did not meet his gaze that this excursion had been just had fruitless as the ones before it. They’d failed to find Gold Company; they’d failed to find Collas’s company.

This was not a surprise. The forest where Gold Company where Gold Company were meant to be engaged with a routine expulsion of enemy troops was now…

Thranduil had seen Ancalagon’s mass all the way from camp. He’d smelled the piney smoke. He still felt the heat.

They had hoped, Father and Thranduil had hoped, the whole camp had hoped, because what else was there to do? But hopes were thin to begin with these days and Thranduil had no energy to be disappointed. In a miracle, he could manage surprise, but that was seeming unlikely.

His brother was dead and Thranduil had known for a week.

Still, this last and final failure to find even bodies stung. Stung his eyes, though he swallowed his tears. He just drank, it wouldn’t do to cry out his hydration now.

So Thranduil laid on his cot in the tent and did not emerge for dinner. Dulindir came up to the flap and called for him, but abandoned trying to summon his friend after the second refusal to answer. Dulindir had lost his sister years ago to this war, he understood. He understood that Thranduil must stare at the ceiling of the tent and the stains there that he and Collas tried to pretend we’re constellations once. He would explode if he did anything else.

Which was why, when Father returned, Thranduil did not rise or greet him. He continued to lay still and silent and miserable, as Father changed and laid down in his cot. The empty space between them felt as wide and cold and conspicuous as it had for eight nights before.

They laid in silence for a long time, and Thranduil was sure that Father was at least trying to sleep, but he was not. He was thinking of Doriath, and how Collas set him on his shoulders so that he could touch a gem-studded cavern ceiling once. He was thinking of Sirion, and how he, Collas, and Elwing would gather seashells together. He was thinking of Mother.

Was Collas with Mother now? We’re they at peace? Would Thranduil have to cross to the Halls of Mandos to be at peace? He was starting to think that Middle-earth would never again be-

“When will it end?” He asked the empty air, voice croaky and scratched.

Father sighed.

Thranduil heard the shifting and looked over at his father, who was sitting up. There were tear tracks on his face, deep shadows under his eyes. He looked tired, but he still looked strong. Father was the strongest person Thranduil knew, even as the war took its toll.

“We cannot say,” Father said, like he was commenting on if it would thunderstorm later. “But it will never end if we do not keep on.”

That was not true. If they did not fight, the war would end, very easily, in fact. The world Elves and Aftercomers would end with the war, but it would be over. And, well, had Thranduil not been preparing for the end of the world since Thingol died? He was not born in peacetimes; he did not know what they really looked like.

He only knew Mother’s laugh and her graphite-stained hand in his, and Elwing’s naughty smile and fingers in the sand as they tried build a castle, and Collas’s winks, his knuckles in Thranduil’s hair. Gone. There was still Father’s stern pride and his grip on his shoulder, but when would that go away?

What then would Thranduil have left? What would victory matter then?

“Is this worth it?” he asked, truly begging his father to give him a good answer. “We could flee beyond the eastern mountains like Sidhel’s people, scavenge and hide, let Aran Einior and Bauglir fight it out. It would not be bad.”

Cosmopolitan Mother would cringe at his words, but she’d died with Doriath and so did the pride of the Sindar. Collas would understand, at least a little, even if he enjoyed the wonders and magics the Ainur brought from the West. Father understood entirely.

It was why he reached out to run his hand over Thranduil’s head.

“My child,” he rumbled, eyes dark with sorrow. “It pains me to hear you talk like that, because I hear my own voice in your words. Unspoken but observed, I know where your ideas came from. But no. There are some fights where you cannot turn from, much as my heart longs to retreat beneath the leaves and seek cover and strength like yours. You would love forever quietly in the shadow of war, but I would have you know peace. I will give you that world.”

Thranduil squeezed his eyes shut, because he did not know how to tell his father that he did not want the world, he wanted his family. It sounded childish. Such a thing could not be uttered to resolute Oropher.

Even when Father- grieving Father, as hurt as Thranduil- laid down next to him on Collas’s cot and ran his finger through his hair. He sang a softly lullaby and Thranduil finally cried, quietly and weakly, like and exhausted child.

He wanted to fall asleep and wake up in the morning and have everything be well. It wouldnt be well, but he wanted that. To not have to worry that Father’s next battle, scouting trip, walk around the camp would be his last.

Thranduil did not fear death, but he did fear being alone.

He feared being alone so much that he curled up and let Father hold him, though someone past their first majority should be far to old for such things. He fell asleep crying, and woke up with dry lips and crusty cheeks, Father long gone to the next war meeting. Collas was still dead.

And he stood up and donned his armor. Left their tent to go find breakfast and Dulindir, then he would go to his next shift, looking over the gate. He have a short prayer to not see Ancalagon again.

But Thranduil did not pray for the war to end. Such horror he had seen… he did not believe that was even in Eru’s power.

#I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about War of Wrath era Thranduil #wrote this in 30 min while lying in bed towel in my hair #Thranduil #the silmarillion #the hobbit #tolkien #tribble post #fanfic

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