The only student of Maglor on record on this side of the Sea by Himring
Fanwork Notes
- Fanwork Information
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Summary:
Drabbles from the life of Emlinn, Maglor's Sindarin student from Brithombar, who is the narrator of my story "The West Wind Quartet".
Insta-drabbles written on the SWG Discord back in December 2020 (which apparently I did not cross-post here?), with another one written in June 2025.
Warnings for some canon-typical violence and angst, and a bit of internalized body dysphoria and bias.
Major Characters: Original Female Character(s)
Major Relationships:
Genre: Fixed-Length Ficlet
Challenges:
Rating: Teens
Warnings: Check Notes for Warnings
This fanwork belongs to the series
Chapters: 4 Word Count: 410 Posted on Updated on This fanwork is complete.
Early Second Age, Lindon
Read Early Second Age, Lindon
When Emlinn sits and tries out her adaptations of Maglor’s music, sometimes music and memory take hold and transport her back to that wintry chamber in Himring. Across from her sits the tall figure of her lost teacher, his sense of humour unimpaired, and almost she can hear him comment: ‘Doing it Sindarin style is all very well, Emlinn, but this bit? That is rather lazy, surely. Daeron would have rapped your knuckles, if he heard it!’
Emlinn sighs wistfully, looks instinctively over her shoulder, as if anyone else could have spotted the hated Feanorion, and fixes the criticized passage.
Chapter End Notes
Prompts: tall, wistful, humor, music.
Second Age, Eregion
Read Second Age, Eregion
She had no courage left, but the skills taught her long-ago in Himring continued to serve her. When in desperation she used her dagger, the orc who had tracked her went down and stayed down. By the time she somehow stumbled into Elrond’s campsite, she was exhausted beyond speech and it was with horror that she realized he had no better source of information about Ost-in Edhil than herself—all the constraint of knowing herself a bit player on a stage too large for her.
Through it all, she never let go of the pack containing the manuscript, Maglor’s quartet.
Chapter End Notes
Prompts: courage, manuscript, constraint, campsite.
Late Third Age, Blue Mountains
Read Late Third Age, Blue Mountains
It was astonishing, thought Emlinn, how early hurts could linger. She had been called Stumpy and Dwarf by unkind age-mates in Brithombar, but Brithombar had sunk downward to the ocean floor even before the rest of Beleriand crumbled after it. The memory of that insult should have been long obliterated by all losses that followed.
But now she watched Dis at work as newly molten metal spilled into the mould and realized what an honour it was to be compared to someone so magnificent as Dis. Time to discard the notion that Dwarves were less beautiful together with the pain!
Chapter End Notes
Prompts: new-spilled, stumpy, downward, discarded.
Late Third Age, Blue Mountains (ii)
Read Late Third Age, Blue Mountains (ii)
It felt quite different from singing in Sindarin, a different sensation in the mouth and the lungs, yet precisely because of that Emlinn thought she might now be starting to get them right, those harsh sweet sounds. She reached the end of what seemed to be the second stanza and paused, waiting hopefully. Her chest ached faintly.
‘Not bad,’ said Dis, judiciously. ‘Let’s try that last phrase again.’
‘But aren’t you supposed not to teach me to speak Khuzdul?’ Emlinn asked startled, belatedly.
‘I’m not teaching you to speak it. Singing in Khuzdul doesn’t count,’ said Dis and smiled warmly.
Chapter End Notes
Prompt: my lungs / ached, huge with breath and the harsh / sweetness of strange words (Joan Larkin, Mozart Songbook)
