Fanfic Fathered by Pity: Of Maglor and the Sons of Eärendil

[Elbereth Vala Varda]

Fate had bound us,
Foes surround us,
Death, our only cup to drink.
This oath we swore,
A burden bore,
Broken, standing on the brink.
So Eldar grieve,
While silently,
We plot our sieges still.
By final breath,
If price be death,
This oath we will fulfill.
​

Maglor stood in watchful thought away from his brothers, his eyes sweeping over white-capped waves, the glistening light over peaks and splashes, his father's Silmaril now lost to the half-elf wife of a Mariner. Blood spattered the harbor, the ships in port strewn with the corpses of those slain, and yet, all their efforts were to no avail. The Silmaril was gone. Their one hope to fulfill the oath which they made with their father so long ago, and yet, it bound their hearts, consumed their thoughts as if it were only days that had passed since that day. Gone.

His eyes closed, his breath tight as he hummed a quiet melody to himself. Nothing joyful, nothing angry, only sorrowful. It was not so unalike the melody he had once hummed years before, when he watched their father gravely wounded, succumbing eventually to ash, the fiery spirit dying like a flame that wanes and flickers before it meets the earth. It was then, too, that his heart did not hold malice or anger, though such was not true for all his brothers. For Kanafinwe, however, utter disbelief seemed the only emotion, and so again here, it was all that he could feel.

It was in these moments, he would've cursed his life, and yet, was he not already cursed? They all were. Bound by this doom, this fate, this oath that he was sure would lead every one of them to their deaths, and after so treacherous a life, how he prayed that swift would come his end.

His eyes lifted, moving away from the waves as he sensed someone behind him, one of his brothers, perhaps, turning to greet them.

"Maedhros." His voice was stoic and unmoving as his eyes darted over the fiery curls of his oldest brother.

"...it's Ambarussa... both of them."

Maglor's dark eyes closed for a moment, sorrow so deep that tears might well have washed some of the pain away, and yet he squinted in dryness, not even the solace of tears to comfort him.

"...dead?"

His brother nodded without another word.

"So, it is only us..." His voice stopped with a choke. "...we are the only sons still living."

Again, the same nod returned.

Maglor looked down, his heart feeling sick as fate seemed to twist against them at every turn. So much they had lost, and for nothing. The Silmaril was gone, their oath left unfulfilled and now they were the only sons still living. In his heart, he could not help but start to hate his life, if indeed he had not already. And as his eyes swept over the ocean, he longed to throw himself in, yearning for a death amid the waves, perhaps with his brother, that the only ones still bound to the Oath could rid the world of their cursed biddings.

"...you should know there are two we captured..."

His eyes rose at the sound of his brother's voice.

"Elros, and Elrond." Maedhros paused for a moment. "...they are brothers. Twins."

Now, it seemed that fate had mocked him. Perhaps before it had tricked him, left him stranded in his own doubt, but now, he was sure that whatever powers in the Heavens yet ruled were jeering in insolence. Amrod and Amras, lost, and yet these two twins of Earendil, survived? What fairness was there in that? None, he was convinced, but he had long lost belief in fairness or justice as pillars of truth. The Sons of Feanor were cursed, he concluded. Surely, they must have been. And if cursed they were, then what fairness could exist in such a world? Again, he thought it to be none.

"Leave them behind..." He said quickly, not thinking before the words left his lips. "...why are they our burden?"

Maedhros turned a sad glance to his brother. "...they are children, Maglor. Only six. And their parents..."

Maglor's eyes closed for a second. He had often marveled at how quickly the mind could change when emotion touched it, perhaps this was one of the reasons that music spoke so much to him. And now, in this moment, what news would once have felt like the ringing of a trumpet was the wailing of a gull. They had set out to reclaim the Silmaril, however the price it be bought with. But now, their lust after the jewel, their oath's fulfillment, it had needlessly cost the parents of these two twins.

"They will want nothing with us--"

"They will not survive without us." Maedhros countered, and Maglor could not deny it was true.

His eyes closed, breathing in the salt of the sea-bound air as the thoughts warred in his mind, begging him not to abandon the sons, and then fighting back to say that they should never have been his load to carry. In the end, however, pity overcame what he judged to be good sense, and whether by imprudence or not, his decision was silently made.

"So it shall be..." he spoke with a certain coldness. "...it is decided. I shall take them back as captives to Himring and deal with them there..."

Maedhros nodded, eyes conveying what words could not, however, as his brother, he could somehow look behind them, almost flip the pages of his mind and come to understand the many things unspoken.

Eluréd and Elurín, the children of Dior, hunted and abandoned by the host of Celegorm. Maedhros had not forgotten that, nor forgiven his brother who led them to such a poverty of safety. And now, even in this moment, though the two had many the conflicts and shared much the grief, behind the eyes, he could almost hear his brother thank him for not doing the same. Though pity it was, pity and regret alone that stayed his hand.