New and Updated Writing

Beleg comforts Gwindor in Taur-nu-Fuin, and is rewarded. 

Bad dreams?” I ask, and Elrond nods. When I brush against his mind it laps like the tide against some desolate shore, and he stands alone in the washed out landscape. Young eyes rove over a heartless sea where the horizon is empty of all but tossing waves. White cliffs are at his back, reeds peek over sandy dunes southward along the shore, and Elrond’s heart fills with the hollow echo: no longer my home, no longer my home.

There is a new star in the sky and and old fears surface. Maedhros supports through Elrond and Elros through their ensuing emotional turmoil as he battles his own.

Written for the SWG October Challenge 2025: The Only Thing to Fear using the prompt: fear of being alone.

For this month’s ‘The Only Thing To Fear’-challenge, I tried something a little different- which was to write short ficlets for as many prompts as possible. (Admittedly, I wanted them to be drabbles at first, but I just couldn’t manage).

Some of these turned more into PTSD-stories than phobias, but I think it still fits the challenge.

Galadriel is curious about one facet of Mithrandir's plan for dealing with the dragon.

Sheer terror helps an orc escape Morgoth, but their troubles are not over. AU.

Maedhros has been captured by Morgoth's forces after the Dagor-nuin-Giliath. Left to rot on his own in a dark cell who knows where, he almost starts believing this will be the end to his story. He was wrong. They were coming for him, as well.

The day Melkor was almost overcome by the only creature more vile than himself.

Cirdan has never felt so old.

Those who survive do so by cutting parts of themselves off; their innocence, sacrificed to the altar of devouring hunger. Their faith, drowned alongside their children. Their fingers, toes, limbs, coin the Ice demands in exchange for passage.

Those who survive do so in despite; they do not know yet that this will be true for centuries to come.

---

The House of Nolofinwë, and their time on the Ice. A deed of great renown and endurance, told in an assortment of loosely connected drabbles.

After a breakup, Maglor pays a visit to Himring. It would be more relaxing if his brother's boyfriend wasn't visiting too.

A Fingon/Maglor romcom.

A glimpse of Luthien and Beren in Tol Galen. (Luthien's POV)

Pengolodh tries to write about the kinslaying at Sirion. He fails.

Elwing flies across the ocean but she is tired and doesn't know how much farther she can go

For November 2025 instadrabbling

Terentaulë, the wife of Curufin, follows her husband and his family into banishment to Formenos. She leaves everything she loves behind to endure a cold and ever-maddening life making a political point she isn't sure she fully believes in. A Gothic story for Samhain, told in four triple drabbles.

Finarfin wishes for a simple end

A stranger and a stranger stranger talk and dream about their fears.

Arwen's stomach hurts and she ponders mortality; Éowyn provides medicine and a sympathetic ear.

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.