Maedhros | Elwing by Dawn Felagund  

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Fanwork Notes

This poem was written for Mereth Aderthad 2025, to accompany the presentation "Exile, Ruin and Resistance: Beleriand as Postcolonial Palimpsest" by Dr. Zara AK.

Fanwork Information

Summary:

The third kinslaying and its aftermath, from the perspective of Maedhros and Elwing: a shape poem.

Major Characters: Maedhros, Elwing

Major Relationships:

Genre: Poetry

Challenges:

Rating: General

Warnings: Suicide
Chapters: 1 Word Count: 0
Posted on Updated on

This fanwork is complete.

Maedhros | Elwing

Read Maedhros | Elwing Title Maedhros | Elwing. In the first block the words are arranged so that Maedhros's lines grow progressively shorter and Elwing's progressively longer. Section Maedhros Falls—I wonder: Does no one but me pity the Light bludgeoning itself against silima? Fireflies in jars: guts, glass, the desperate reek of captive Light? My father's fëa snared; its freedom worth the fall? Section elwing ascends—step step sky! sea!!! my lungs gulp at water where air should be like when blood leaps from a wound to scab upon the air transmogrified like woman to bird - village to sea - a man made star. In the second block the words from both Maedhros and Elwing are broken up and scattered across the page. Section the breaking. Maedhros's side: Long ago, I was wounded irreparably. Slowly crazed by lies until just a veneer—a beautiful veneer crafted of conviction, of silvered rhetoric, of oaths—but just a veneer held the pieces of me together but I was already broken. Elwing's side: the sea shattered me they knit my arms back together as wings bandages unravelling my feathers! i cried feathers! pummelling at the sky but i was already broken. In the final block, both Maedhros and Elwing's sections are formatted identically as three-and-a-half lines of justified text. Section Mandos—I leaped, so I did not see when the land sighed and failed beneath the flood. I did not see when the fire that transformed me to ash was mollified to stone. Section eärendil—i did not see when that scrap of night - there!! - failed and out bled Light but when my eyes unsealed - there - just a puncture - small - weeping silmë THERE IT IS

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