New and Updated Fiction

Robert Oppenheimer finds himself back in the Jornado del Muerto desert with Fionn and Saunders in this epilogue to Trinity, inspired by Anérea's illustration that accompanies Grundy's interview with me for Mereth Aderthad 2025.

Vingilot was a magnet for bugs, and Eärendil feared coming back to land because of it. 

Once, on one of Findekáno’s visits to Nargothrond during which Celebrimbor had had more wine than advisable, he had leaned into Findekáno’s side. Had ignored his father’s sharp eyes, and asked if he believed that there was yet any hope left for them.

It is clear that that had not been Curufin’s plan, but that Finrod’s tardiness must have got the better of him. He is dressed only in a burgundy robe of silk that leaves little to the imagination, where it hugs him close, a stark contrast against his pale skin. Wears, far more notably, the Nauglamir around his pale throat, a blatant taunt made all the more offensive by the fact that he is not even awake to throw it into Finrod’s face with scathing words.

Finrod closes the door behind himself carefully, then lingers by the doorway. Outrage is mingling with arousal at the sight—the long lines of Curufin’s body, the way the silk clings to him, hides him elsewhere. The way his hair has come loose from its braids, like ink spilt around him.

The colours of Finrod’s house sitting snug around his throat, put there by Curufin himself, no matter the impudence of it.

Finrod is not fool enough to have missed the way Curufin, too, at times looks at him. Is not fool enough to make himself believe that his own attraction is some new thing, something only pushing to the surface now that they are trapped together like this, the undeniable way Curufin had saved Finrod from a worse fate, tonight.

Not that Finrod will ever thank him for it; he cannot. But he knows Curufin’s sharp-tongued, bristling demeanour for what it is, and it does not change that the two of them, whatever lies between them, are a cataclysm waiting to happen. Does not change that, in truth, Finrod should be careful to turn his back, lest he find a knife in it.

And yet.

---

Curufin and Finrod get snowed in. It goes about as well as can be expected.

In the corner of his eye, Finrod’s form morphs and twists, dark spots against the flickering light like gore and blood on sun-kissed skin.

Is this what he did to you? Curufin had asked once, one of the first times—drunk, not-grieving, his mind a war zone. Finrod had smiled at him then, almost tenderly. It revealed the gorge within his well-loved cheek, and Curufin would have flinched if not for the memory of pressing his fingers there, a coward’s imitation of intimacy.

“Worse,” Finrod’s ghost had said, and then had vanished, leaving Curufin to the rolling nausea of sour wine on an empty stomach.

---

On the eve of the battle for Doriath, Finrod pays a visit—or rather, whatever is left of him does.

Various instances there are, of the two of them crashing into each other as if it were a contest. In truth, it is unclear who is winning, what they are playing for. Whether there is a prize to be had in the end, or merely mild to severe destruction—of sanity, reputation, hearts; no matter.

It would be wise to stop while he is ahead, Findaráto knows—alas for the ambition and hubris of Finwë’s line.

---

Curufin and Finrod, a summer lake, and the folly of youth before the world taught them better.

Maedhros, unlike most, watches closely—has not known how to do anything but, ever since Fingon brought him back. Does more than that, too, and few Elves care to guard their mind so closely that someone who wishes to would be hindered from catching surface thoughts.

Back in Aman, there was no need; it was a matter of courtesy not to go rummaging around in other people’s heads, and for all of Tirion’s political scheming, not even his father would have ever considered breaching such trust.

This is not Aman, and Maedhros is not his father. And Fingolfin’s mind, for one, is very loud.

---

Fingolfin struggles beneath the weight of the crown. Maedhros does what he must to help.

“It is called having friends, Fëanáro; you should try it sometime,” Nolofinwë spits, and it comes out sharper than he means it to, but he is—

Lord, he is tired; of Fëanáro’s vitriol, of how easily he himself still unravels at the slightest push. How effortlessly Fëanáro slides beneath his skin, and Nolofinwë wants to dig his finger into the unmarked flesh, wants to hurt, wants—

He wants; that is perhaps the most terrible part about it all.

---

Ever has the House of Finwë been renowned for its sense of competition. This, though, Nolofinwë knows, must put even the worst of it to shame.

Or: Fingolfin and Fëanor will turn even brother-fucking into a contest. Who could have guessed.

He wants—oh, Fingon wants so many things. To flee the bathhouse, first and foremost. To meet Maedhros halfway, forget about the ruin they have made of each other—slowly, meticulously, over centuries—and kiss him until their lips are bruised and their lungs empty of breath. Wants to laugh at the absurdity of it all, and perhaps wrap his hands around Maedhros’ throat, ask if he still prefer that Fingon kill him, bloody his own hands once more in ways that can never come off, if only it will bring Maedhros his much-sought salvation.

Fingon wants; ever has it been his greatest vice, that hunger that gnaws through him, makes him reckless, selfish, rapacious.

---

Fingon merely needed a bath. Maedhros, as ever, complicates things.

Once, in gold-cast days of careless bliss, the three of you used to be—something. A triangular shape, always revolving around each other. Warm hands, late nights, a tangle of limbs in opulent beds. A reprieve, a stolen treasure, and you all thought, then, that it could always be like that; that one day, the world would bend to your folly, and all would be well.

What fools you had been.

---

Fingon, Finrod, the Ice, and the gaping space between them.

And Celegorm? Well, Celegorm simply wants a fight, wants revenge, wants to see his debts repaid. He wants to tear that godforsaken forest apart piece by piece, one step further on the inescapable road to their inevitable end.

He knows of monsters, after all. Knows how to speak their tongue, how to coax them along. His brothers, by then, are hardly any different.

Celegorm wants it all to end. He cares little, now, for how they will achieve such a thing.
 

---

The Fëanorians, the Second Kinslaying, and how they all reached that point—an attempt to trace their fall from grace, from Valinor to Doriath.

“Are they fighting again?” Idril asks, wandering over to the fireplace the moment Fingolfin lets her down.

“It is what you do with siblings,” Fingolfin says, and succeeds at not laughing at the irony.

Oh, how much would be different if it were not so true. She treats him to a look full of sceptical disbelief and sets to restacking the fire.

---

An exploration of the Nolofinwëans in early Beleriand, and the effect that Maedhros' rescue and abdication would have had on the relationships between them, in the wake of the Ice and all its horrors.

"I think something is going to happen soon.”
“Something good or something bad?” Maglor asked.
“Something important,” Elros said, looking suddenly very serious and far older than his years. He and Elrond both looked at Maglor with starlit eyes under shadowy hair, Melian’s children whom the birds and the stars would both love.

Miriel returns quietly, without fanfare.

It is nice, the sunlight and the warmth of a solid body against his. It is nice to be able to think, at least for a little while, that perhaps Curufin had been speaking true when he said he was trying. Nice in a way that means Finrod will miss it terribly when it is gone again.

“You are thinking too loudly,” Curufin mumbles against his shoulder. “Go back to sleep, Ingo.”

The furs slip to Itarillë’s hips as she sits up. Laurefindil cannot help but admire the fall of her pale golden hair, the curve of her spine, how the oil lamp lights her skin as if from within. Underneath it all, there is a heart Laurefindil will do anything to protect.

After the pronouncement of the Doom of the Noldor, Idril has a question for Glorfindel.

Curufin has practiced the words in his head a thousand times, knows what needs to be said to begin to fix this. But what comes out of his mouth instead is, "I'm not sorry." Lie. "I'm not, and I'd do it all again the same way if necessary." Lie. "But I—" and he falters, still unable to push a single truth up his throat. In a way, Finrod is right, he hasn't changed at all.

Finrod is studying him with a resigned air draped about him like a cloak. "Oh, how I hate you," Finrod says softly, fingers loosely curled into fists, and this too sounds like a lie. Neither of them have ever been particularly truthful with each other.

Living in Menegroth, Maeglin is summoned home by his father's wife to visit him. Eöl has never been the same since Aredhel's death in childbirth many years ago, and his mental state may be poisoning the very forest around him.

But for the first time, Maeglin does not have to go alone.
 

“You cannot mean to go after him!” Celegorm exclaims, laughing wildly. “After what we did? You cannot truly mean to go after him.”

"If you would move, then I suppose we would find out."

“What is wrong with you? What about the oath, Curvo?" Celegorm asks, voice low and furious, eyes blazing so much like their father's. "You cannot go after him."

And Curufin — who has seen the endpoint of what that oath cost them, who has reunited with their father, who has listened to their father curse himself for what the oath brought upon them all — finds it the easiest thing in the world to bare his teeth and snarl, "Fuck that god forsaken oath.”

On a sunny day in spring, Frodo got the urge to go north and west, up into Arnor, which was still quite wild and uninhabited outside of newly-built Annúminas, and the slow trickle of work happening around the ruins of Fornost, which even the Dúnedain were still sometimes reluctant to visit. When he spoke of his plan, his dad told him to remember to pack enough food and not to forget a bit of rope, and his mother said not to forget his cloak. Most of his siblings were too young yet to be permitted to go along, but Elanor immediately asked if he wanted company.

Argon falls.

"But you will not persuade me to love the Elves, Felakgundu; not though you had all the years of the world to try."

"If you will let me try a little longer," answers Finrod, "that is all I ask.”

On the deeply unlikely friendship of Mîm, Petty-dwarf of Nulukkhizdîn, and the wandering Elf-king who set up camp on his doorstep. 

For TRSB Slide #21 by Huorinde.

"Dior shall he be called, and you shall be a comfort to each other: that though he be fatherless and motherless, and you childless, you shall not be bereft of kin."

On the lives and deaths of two kings of Doriath: Elwë of Cuiviénen, wisest and noblest of Elves, who ruled in peace ere ever the Sun rose; and Dior Eluchíl, at whose feet the realm crumbled.

Pallando the Blue Wizard arrives in Middle Earth in the Middle of the Second Age to aid the Elves of Lindon and Eregion in their war against Sauron. Almost at once, he abandons his post, leaving the war effort to Alatar his partner, and travels East. Some force compels him to go to the Red Mountains, his feet drawing him ever on towards the Gates of the Sun at Kalorme. Along the way he will go to the ruins of Belegost, encounter Daeron the Loremaster lingering on the shores of Lake Nenuial, and travel the Old Dwarf Road to Gundabad to council the Longbeards on the war in Eregion. But he is drawn thence to the Eastern shores of Rhun, where an ancient mystery from a lost realm of the Avari awaits him: the realm of Palisor. It is King Tu, last King of the Wild Elves, who from his seat in the underground lake on the Eastern Shores of Rhun, holds the key that will save the Men of the East — or put them under the Shadow forever.