Oneshots - LOTR, Silm, Tolkien in General

Noldolantë

For Tales of Arda Marred contest.

Word count: 624

I'll just leave this here.

***

The waves rose in high, cold towers, shivering the delicate swan-prowed vessels like so much kindling split and tossed aside; so mighty they had seemed at anchor in the bay, but frail now under the immense deluge that opened a thousand mouths beneath their path.

The sea was angered, and Maglor knew why.

Voices seemed to call under the seething waves, many voices or perhaps one voice echoing many times over, wordless and filled with a grief nigh to fury. He heard it and trembled, bowing his head as he clutched the railing of the ship that slewed and pitched under his feet, A shattered board flew past his face in the tearing wind.

The water had been so quiet when Fëanor Curufinwë made his demands of Olwë. Maglor felt hot, unaccustomed anger burn low in his chest as he remembered the Teler's insolent, high-handed refusal and cutting words – even daring to compare the swan-ships to the loss of the Silmarils. After all that, in their need, had they not been justified in taking mastery of the ships, as their father commanded?

Yet he had not commanded the killing. It had begun of itself, it seemed – the Teleri had begun it in a sense, rushing up like an angry tide and flinging Noldor off the appropriated ships, and suddenly a blade had been flashing in the stars, blade after blade, and Káno had joined them with less anger than simply grim resolve and purpose. What else was there to do? The need for the ships had been so great.

He reeled under a sudden heave of the deck and stumbled to his knees, regaining his balance with effort. Silver-haired, dead faces burned within him. His kind. His kin.

He stared at his hands. They were clean, soaked and soaked again by the violence of the ocean. Yet they had robbed the living, breathing fëar from Eldar like himself. Had life been so fragile all this time? Had they known what they were doing when they forged those swords years ago?

My grandfather was taken, too. If they would stand in our way to avenge his death, then perhaps they too deserved to die.

No! Something in him cried out against the enormity of the suggestion. Another part reached out and sucked it in, and so he warred in himself, while the blood-marred garments and mangled bodies and staring eyes flashed ghastly through his thoughts.

They stood not only against our revenge, but against the oath.

That he could not fight against. He forgot to cringe from the turmoil about him, forgot to shield his eyes and bow his head, only stared unseeing into the lashing dark and saw a greater dark than ever. He did not know all it held, and yet when it told him that he had had to kill the Teleri he could not say it nay. He knew he would never be able to say it nay.

Words came to him in the depth of his grief and torment, as they ever had in gladder times, begging to be expressed, and he began to murmur under his breath, half-formed phrases, rough and imperfected still.

"A darkened sky, a host the gate before;

"No light of Laurelin cast gold upon the shore,

"Nor yet Telperion's soft silver gleam

"But stars alone to see and judge the Firstborn's dream..."

"...And through the haven cries resounded in the dark,

"From pier to city gate-posts ran the blood,

"And Quendi hröar kin lay trodden in the mud..."

Tears washed down Maglor's face with the sea, thinning the bitterness and resolve in his face. His hand tightened upon his naked blade, and the gold-cleaver fell silent.

***

I was feeling quite honestly daunted and dry of inspiration this whole extension week. Thinking about the Sil and the idea of trying to do it justice when I didn't even know what to write about made me so alarmed that I ignored the contest completely.

If I had looked at the other entries before I started this, and seen that someone else also wrote about Maglor, I might have chosen a different character/setting. But I didn't look, and I opened the Sil this morning looking for inspiration and my eye lit straight on the paragraph of the sea rising in wrath against the Noldor. It closed with a mention of Maglor's lament that he wrote (presumably long afterwards). And there it was. My story.

Tbh I don't know how I feel about it right now. I know I didn't do it justice. But I have the audacity to hope it has touched you, in some small way.

Also I know I switched between Maglor and Kano once I don't know how it happened and it's entirely illogical but it felt right so I ended up leaving it XD XD